#french phonetic alphabet

[carcarrot]

would you all still love me if i learned french

#considering learning a language even though ive failed at spanish and italian in the past but i didnt really stick w em #ive just been trying to teach myself the alphabet n numbers by changing my phones language and using text to speech #i am learning how to say these things phonetically but i dont know how to spell em yet. however #why the FUCK didnt the french come up with original words for 70 and 90. do you know what 70 and 90 are in french. #70 is fucking 60-10. its literally the words for 60 and 10 together #and 90 is 80-10. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS #it gets fucked up even more when 80 and 81 sound almost exactly alike. WHY . #and then 180 and 181 sound alike. please just make new words that dont sound like existing words #idk if ill stick w it but maybe. however we haven't even gotten around to verbs and the horrors of conjugating them #cant humanity just evolve to matrix level learning where you just load in a program and boom you know a language. or how to fly a helicopte

[meirlinjar]

Mirabo Bjo IPA

/mi.ʁa.bo.bjo/

/un.ɛʁ.mi.ʁa.bo.bjo.ɬy.dɛʁ.sɛ.nak/

/o.jɛ.wo.ʁɛs.ɛ.ʎɛ.kɛ.ʁø.nad͡z/

/ma.jɛt.u.sjɛʁ.t͡sɛm/

/d͡zyd.at.ʎib.pʎo.jɛʁ.sʎɛʁ.tɛ/

/nad.ko.mɛʁ.ti.nad͡z.ka.ʎid.ɛʁ/

/da.kad͡z.jɔʁ.jɛt.poʁ.bʎi.wɛʁ/

/θɔn.dɛ.ix.θɔn.dɛ.poʁ.bʎi.wɛ.od͡z.an.si.ji.taɬ.an.si.ji/

/mɛ.nɛ.nɛ.dɛn.t͡soʁ/

/bjak.tiɬ.woʁ.ɛs.aʁa.mad͡z.jɔʁ/

/d͡zan.tʎɔt.ax.ɛ.wi.jit.ud͡z.ɛn.das.ka/

/nad.ko.mɛʁ.ti.nad͡z.ka.ʎi.dɛʁ/

/da.kad͡z.jɔʁ.jɛt.poʁ.bʎi.wɛʁ/

/kɔʁ.ʎix.ɛd.jɔʁ.d͡zom.da.ʁa.ɬy.dɛ.ʁɛn.d͡zan/

/kɔʁ.ʎix.ɛd.jɔʁ/

/dwoʁ.ɬiw.oʁ.ɬa.jsot/

/o.jɛ.dwoʁ.t͡sad.oʁ.woɬ.sot/

/nad.kom.ɛʁ.ti.na.d͡za.ʎi.dɛʁ/

/dak.ad͡z.jɔʁ.jɛt.poʁ.bʎi.wɛʁ/

/dak.ad͡z.jɔʁ.ojɛ.u.jas.jɔʁ/

/dwɛʁ.kɛn.jɔʁ.ɛt.tod/

/ɛɬ.ɛʁ.ɛ.ʎɛ.kɛʁ.øn.ad͡z.ko.mɛ.taɬ.ba.jɛ/

/un.ɛʁ.mi.ʁa.bo.bjo.ɬy.dɛʁ.sɛ.nak/

/nad.kom.ɛʁ.ti.na.d͡za.ʎi.dɛʁ/

/dak.ad͡z.jɔʁ.jɛt.poʁ.bʎi.wɛʁ/

#conlang #søłsiþe #poem #translation #french #le pont mirabeau #guillaume apollinaire #IPA #international phonetic alphabet

[mapsontheweb]

How many letters are in each European alphabet?

by hunmapper

Latin Alphabet Dominance: Most European languages use the Latin alphabet, which originated from the ancient Romans. This alphabet has been adapted and modified to suit the phonetic needs of various European languages. Cyrillic Alphabet: While many European languages use the Latin script, some, like Russian, Bulgarian, and Serbian, use the Cyrillic alphabet. This script was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th century by Saints Cyril and Methodius. Special Characters: Several European languages include special characters in their alphabets. For example, German has the "umlaut" (ä, ö, ü), French uses accents (é, è, ê), and Spanish has the "ñ." These characters often indicate specific phonetic nuances. Diacritical Marks: Diacritical marks, such as accents, tilde, and cedilla, are commonly used in European alphabets to modify the pronunciation of letters. For example, in Spanish, the letter "ñ" is pronounced differently than "n." Scandinavian Languages: The Scandinavian languages, including Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, use a modified version of the Latin alphabet that includes additional characters such as å, ä, and ö. Gaelic Alphabets: Irish and Scottish Gaelic have their own distinct alphabets. The Irish Gaelic alphabet, for instance, has 18 letters, and it includes accented characters and a unique order compared to the standard Latin alphabet. Greek Alphabet Influence: The Greek alphabet has had a significant impact on European alphabets. Several letters from the Greek alphabet have been incorporated into the Latin script, especially in scientific and mathematical contexts.

#maps #hunmapper #igsourced #europe #letters

[yuurei20]

Cater's Name

If you have ever wondered why Cater’s name is being pronounced “Keito” in the game, while Ace’s seiyuu Yamashita pronounced it as “Kate” when speaking in English at Anime Expo 2023, it is because Cater, Keito and Kate are all ケイト in Japanese.

Unlike the English language, which can create any of a number of different sounds with the same letters, Japanese is a phonetic language: what you see is what you get.

Much like how English has foreign loan words like “rendezvous” and “tsunami,” Japanese also has foreign loan words from languages like German, French, English, and more.

When these words are adopted into Japanese they must adapt to the katakana alphabet which is a specific writing system for foreign loan words.

This tends to impact the way that the words are pronounced, which is common in any language that adopts loan words, like how the Japanese word “karate” can be pronounced “kur-ah-tee” in the US.

Some sounds don’t exist in Japanese, like “R” and “L.” As a result, certain compromises must be made to pronunciation with the adoption of new words.

Words that end in “R” are often changed to end in an “ah” sound, such as “Silver” becoming “Sil-bah.” (The “sih” sound in “Silver” also does not really exist, which is why it is being pronounced like, “she.”)

This means that “Cater” would technically be pronounced “Keita,” but (like all languages), there are no hard rules to katakana (ex: encore, another r-ending word like Silver, is pronounced “ahn-coh-ru” rather than “en-coh-rah”).

This is because “keito” is specifically the pronunciation of the gambling term, “cater.”

While outdated, “Ace,” “Deuce,” “Trey,” “Cater,” “Cinq” and “Sice” are all actual gambling terms, used for both cards and dice.

When these terms were imported to Japan, “cater” was assigned the pronunciation keito instead of keita, possibly because it was based on the pronunciation by English speakers rather than its spelling.

Hence the Japanese-language pronunciation of Cater’s name.

But that’s not all!

Another quirk of adopting words into Japanese is that all words must end with “a,” “i,” “u,” “e,” “o” or “n.”

This is why Riddle’s and Deuce’s names sound like they end in “u,” while Jade’s and Floyd’s names sound like they end in “o."

Thanks to various celebrities, the average Japanese-language speaker is more familiar with the first name “Kate” than we are with the outdated gambling term “cater,” and “Kate” is also pronounced ケイト (Keito) in Japan.

This is all explained explicitly in official Twisted Wonderland fan book, which says, “In English, this name is usually spelled as ‘Cate’ or ‘Kate,’ but Cater’s name is different, as it is referring to the number ‘4’ in card game terminology.”

From a Japanese-speaker’s perspective Cater’s name may look like a misspelling of the name “Kate,” which is a misunderstanding that this explanation in the fan book is possibly trying to clear up.

If you were wondering why Ace’s voice actor said “Kate” during the Anime Expo 2023 panel, that is why! He pronounces Cater as “Keito” in Japanese, but he was speaking in English, and he knows that “Keito” is Japanese for the English name “Kate,” so he adapted accordingly.

(The archived livestream of the Twisted Wonderland panel at Anime Expo 2023 is on Aniplex USA's YouTube channel, and this moment can be seen here!)

So what should you use when talking about Cater?

Language is all about communication, so if the person you’re talking to speaks English, “Cater” is the way to go.

But if you ever find yourself talking to Ace's VA Yamashita Seiichiro and say “Cater,” he might not understand who you mean, and you might want to go with “Keito” or “Kate” instead.

#twstlanguage #twisted wonderland #Cater Diamond #Youtube

[uphillsky]

CONLANG COMMUNITY OF TUMBLR

I am currently trying to decipher the conlang of Dark Tongue, the language of Chaos in Warhammer Fantasy and 40k, using minimal and inconsistant references. I'd say I'm making pretty good headway for what I'm working with, having deciphered near enough half of the compound words and root meanings that I actually have as sources. That being said, I have run into several issues that I could use help with:

The phonemes of this language do not map onto english, but I do have access to the phonetic alphabet used by the language. Is there any way to set up such that I can type in that script?

Two of the phonemes don't make any sense. They have been written as (I, ee) and (E, ii), and I cannot figure out the correct pronounciation for either of them - and they do some heavy lifting as vowel sounds in this language. Please help in some way lol

I just straight up don't have enough sources. This one is a call to fans of 40k and Warhammer Fantasy: please send in some excerpts you can find that feature the Dark Tongue, used by Chaos rituals, magic, and daemons, which has a corrupted form used by the Beastmen (making it less useful but still a potential source).

I do not study languages outside of having a creative writing degree and a passing knowledge of French (I can tell people that I don't speak it). Please help in any way cause I am in over my head lol

I am more than willing to go into details to any degree, and would in fact shout into the void if I but thought the void wanted to listen. Any help as appreciated!

#me #warhammer 40k #warhammer fantasy #chaos #conlang #dark tongue #linguists of tumblr #help

[thatlittleegyptologist]

I was wondering if I could ask for some help regarding hieroglyphs and pronouncing them (I know there is no official way to pronounce them but I mean the standard that Egyptologists use). I just am getting confused about the symbols used when spelling them out in the Latin alphabet. It;s stuff like "sḏm-ꜥš m st mꜣꜥt" which makes me wonder what those are supposed to be in a phonetic sense.

Are you using a book to teach you, or are you doing this by yourself? Generally, books will have a whole section at the start when they teach you one consonant signs that will tell you how to pronounce the transliteration (which is the 'Latin Alphabet stuff') of the signs.

Any sign that doesn't have a diacritic (the symbols above or below a letter) is pronounced like the standard way you'd pronounce that letter. An s is an s, and a b is a b, and so on and so forth.

When it comes to the transliteration letters with diacritics:

ꜣ is A (if you're not using a transliteration script) and is voiced as a glottal stop. This is like voicing Kitten as Kitt'n, or bottle and 'bo''le' (boh-oll).

ꜥ is a and is voiced as ah (like when a doctor asks you to open wide and say ahhhh) (a in non translit script)

ḥ is just h, but said emphatically (H in non translit script)

ḫ is a softer h, so more like the h in loch (x in non translit)

ḫ is a harder h, so like the h on the end of German ich (X in non translit)

š is sh like ship/shingle/shout (S in non translit)

ḳ is a q/k noise made at the back of the throat. It usually comes out as a q sound (q in non translit)

ṯ is a tch noise like t in tune (T in non translit)

ḏ is dj sound like French 'mon dieu' or the j in joke (D in non translit)

So your sentence sḏm-ꜥš m st mꜣꜥt is sDm-aS m st mAa.t which is sedjem-ash em set maat (Servant in the Place of Truth)

[emildrawsthings]

I honestly believe France is a lot nerdier than he lets on. The IPA or International Phonetic Alphabet is a french institution originally made for French and English transcription, and it is now used for every language on the planet. My man is a linguistics nerd.

#aph hetalia #axis powers hetalia #hetalia #hetalia world series #hetalia world stars #hetalia world twinkle #aph france #hetalia france #hetalia headcanons

[creatrixcymraes]

I saw you post the welsh alphabet on another post and now i'm wondering:

Are there welsh words that looks like it could be prononced in a certain way but isn't (example: the infamous "eau" = "o" in French)

Welsh is an incredibly phonetic language - every word is said as it is written, there are no "silent" letters or combinations that change pronunciation like in English (at least that I can think of, I'm not an expert!)

The thing that trips up non-speakers tends to be the vowel sounds. In Welsh the vowels are A E I O U W and Y. They sound like this:

A = ah

E = eh

I = ee

O = short 'o' like in the word 'stop'

U = also ee 🤷🏻‍♀️

W = oo like in 'moo'

Y = uh

So we have words that would read as having "no vowels", making them hard for non-speakers to pronounce.

The best example I can think of thats similar to French's "eau" would be the Welsh word for egg.

One egg: ŵy (pronounced like "oi")

Plural eggs: ŵyau (pronounced "oi-eye")

#Welsh #language #Cymraeg

[yeli-renrong]

The letters and their values: A-E

<a>: Almost always a low vowel, with the exception of certain English-derived alphabets: in Saanich, <A> writes the [ɛ] allophone of /e/ <Á> that occurs adjacent to postvelars, and in the orthographic tradition initiated by the North American missionary Jotham Meeker (1804-1855), designed around the constraints of standard type for newspapers and bearing substantial influence from English (perhaps owing to Meeker's lack of formal education), <a> writes either /a/ or /e/ depending on language - consider, for example, the Shawnee form Sieiwinoweakwa /sajaːwanoːwijeːkwe/, with <a e i> /e i a/. (Vowel length was unwritten.) Meeker's alphabets are no longer used.

Some derivatives of <a> exist, most notably <æ>, an a-e ligature that came to be used in Germanic languages for /æ/, and in Ossetian for schwa, which the Swedish linguist Anders Sjögren heard as a type of e and compared to Finnish ä. This ligature developed in parallel into 'e caudata', an e with a bottom curl as a remnant of <a>, which later developed into <ę>; this usage is now extinct. A reversed <a>, <ɐ>, has common use in phonetic alphabets, presumably owing to ease of printing; in addition to IPA and the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (where rotation has systematic meaning), William Price used it in his Cornish alphabet for 'A in all, small, &c.', and the Fraser script - a descendant of Latin, but not a form of it - uses <ꓯ> for /ɛ/.

<b>: Almost always a lenis labial plosive; an exception is one of the three competing alphabets for Mapudungun, where it writes /l̪/. Occasionally a tone letter, as in the Romanized Popular Alphabet for Hmong - pob /pó/. Frequently repurposed in the Meeker orthographies: /ju/ or /joː/ in Unami (note that Deseret and Shavian, de novo orthographies for English, both define a character for English /juː/), and /θ/ in Shawnee, as in the name of Meeker's newspaper, Siwinowe Kesibwi /saːwanoːwi kiːsaʔθwa/.

<c>: In Latin, /k/, which was palatalized before front vowels in the Romance languages, producing alternations like <ca ce> /ka tʃe/. Adopted for /ts/ in most of the languages of Central and Eastern Europe, in a usage codified at least by De orthographia bohemica, a work standardizing Czech orthography, traditionally attributed to Jan Hus. /tʃ/ in Sanskrit romanization as a compromise between English <ch> and Sanskrit's four-way stop contrast, and in Malay as a compromise between English-influenced <ch> and Dutch-influenced <tj>; similarly, /ʃ/ in some North African languages, probably as a simplification of French <ch> /ʃ/. /k/ in Vietnamese (before nonfront vowels; otherwise /k/ <k>) and Saanich (in all positions, but /k/ is rare) by the influence of Portuguese and English respectively. /e/ and /ə/ in Meeker's orthography for Unami; it was left over because Meeker used <h> for /tʃ/. (This is paralleled, but certainly not inspired, by Benjamin Franklin's earlier use of derivatives of <h> for all of /ʌ ð θ ʃ/.)

Etruscan and Old Latin had three letters for the velar plosives, <c k q>, depending on the following vowel; these usages are preserved in the names of the letters, originally /ke ka ku/. In Latin, <c> displaced <k> (which came to be primarily used in, and even as an abbreviation for, the word kalendae and derivatives; English ought to spell it kalendar), but with the common use of <k> in modern non-Romance orthographies other than English (which preserves a general preference for <c> over <k> where permissible) <c> came to be seen as a repurposable 'free letter' with no particular attachment to any sound value, hence its use for /ð/ in Fijian, /|/ (a dental click) in Sandawe, Hadza, and the Nguni languages.

Sometimes <c> derives its value from its resemblance to another character, as with /ʕ/ in Somali from <ʕ>, /dʒ/ in Turkish from <ج>, and /ɔ/ in Natqgu from <ɔ>.

<ç> originated as a form of <z> - z -> ʒ -> Ꝣ -> ç - but is now treated as <;c> with a diacritic, the cedilla, which was extracted and attached to <s> to form the Turkish letter <ş>.

<d>: Generally a lenis coronal plosive; sometimes used for /θ/ or /ð/, esp. in languages without a voicing contrast in plosives. Alexandre de Rhodes used <d>, by analogy to Portuguese, for the Middle Vietnamese dental approximant /ð̞/ that developed from *t by lenition after a preinitial (e.g. dái 'scrotum' ~ Thavung ktaal3) and from Proto-Vietic *j; this sound later shifted to /z/ in the north and /j/ in the south.

<e>: Generally /e/, /ə/, or (as in many Western European languages and Malay) both. /ɣ/ in Aklanon, as in the tongue-twister /ro kaɣamaj nagakuɣuɣaput sa kaɣahaʔ/ Ro kaeamay nagakueoeaput sa kaeaha. (from p. 22 of the Peace Corps manual). /i/ in the Meeker orthographies by influence from English; Saanich, however, has <E> /ə/.

From <e> the letter <ɛ> was derived. I'm not sure what its history is; the first occurrence I'm aware of is in Isaac Pitman's English Phonotypic Alphabet, where it was used for a long vowel /iː/ as in <ɛl> 'eel', replacing an earlier barred I.

(The original phonotypic alphabet was unicameral, with six basic vowels, e a ah au o oo written I ⵎ Λ O U and a letter like a capital ꭐ without the middle dot, and an 'obscure vowel' written with a reversed ⵎ. To this was added vowel length, written with a middle line, and the three diphthong letters Ɯ (e-oo), ⚻ (ah-e), and ȣ (au-oo); CHOICE, or au-e, was written with the digraph <ƟƗ>. This scheme was quickly abandoned, and the 1847 version was bicameral and contained <ɛ>.)

This phonotypic <ɛ> is probably the source of the Deseret letter <𐐩> /ej/ - which, however, was originally written backwards: the 1854 handout presented to the Board of Regents of the Deseret University has <3𐐣> 'aim', but it was reversed a year later. (The Mormon hierarchy almost adopted Pitman's phonotype as the basis for their planned orthographic reform, but decided against it at the last minute.)

An 1879 proposal for an Albanian alphabet used <ɛ e> for /e ə/, presumably from Greek and French respectively (also <r p> /ɾ r/), and Otto Jespersen used <ɛ> for the mid front vowel [e̞] in his 1890 phonetic alphabet. It was later adopted for its current use in IPA and many African alphabets. Due to its resemblance to Arabic <ع>, it's also used in some Berber Latin alphabets for the voiced pharyngeal fricative /ʕ/.

#the letters and their values

[annikathewitch]

Let's Make A Conlang Poll #1!

The first step to making a language is deciding what sounds to include! Generally speaking, you need two types of sounds, or phonemes, to make a language: vowels and consonants. Here, we are somewhat arbitrarily starting with the vowels!

To create our vowel inventory, we will first vote on how many of the basic vowel qualities (from the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) chart found here) will be used! From there, polls can be used to select the top vowels, as well as whether or not to make further distinctions, such as length or nasalization, which would add more vowels to the inventory.

For reference, English has 7-8 basic vowel qualities, Standard Chinese has 2-6, Hindi has ~10, Spanish has 5, French has 11, and Arabic has 3. The most common number is 5. The highest number is 13, though higher numbers are theoretically possible.

If 6 or more wins, further poll(s) will be created.

This poll is to select the number of base vowel sounds for a constructed language made (as much as possible) entirely with tumblr polls! More information on this project can be found here!

Please reblog for larger sample size! Poll #2 should go up in 48 hours!

#conlang #conlanging #linguistics #vowels #tumblr polls #Let's Make A Conlang #phonology

[thydungeongal]

As much as I think that of most of the Latin alphabet users Finnish speakers have the strongest ground to stand on while making fun of the orthographies of, say, English and French, I would caution my fellow Finns against statements like "Finnish orthography is phonetic." It very much isn't. In general there is a straightforward 1:1 relationship between a single graph and a single phoneme, but Finnish orthography does not distinguish between allophones of the same phoneme (for an example, the phoneme /n/ has the allophones [n] and [ŋ] in Finnish, such as in "kenkä"), nor does it represent all phones present in spoken Finnish (for an example, the process of border gemination isn't represented in Finnish orthography: in the word "täytekakku" the /k/ phoneme between the two morphemes gets geminated in most dialects, and if the orthography of Finnish were truly phonetic it would be spelled "täytekkakku". Similarly there is a glottal stop in many words at the morpheme boundary, such as in "kilpa-auto" which isn't represented by its own graph).

But yeah keep making fun of the English and the French but let's be mindful that we use the right vocabulary for it. Finnish had shallow orthography whereas English and French have deep orthography. (Also in the defense of French, it does have a somewhat more straightforward relationship between graphs and phonemes than English, but you have to take it at the level of letter combinations. Same with Irish by the way.)

[natjennie]

I believe the captain speaks like 8 languages. and switches between them whenever convenient. like to express frustration in a language the people he's talking to won't know, or whatever. but also when he gets flustered or excited sometimes he slips into one. he's autistic so, sometimes you've just got to put on an accent or start speaking a different language. along with english and canon german, I think it's gotta be like. french. latin and/or greek. a scandinavian language idk which one, swedish maybe? russian. he knows morse code and the nato phonetic alphabet. his british sign language is out of date but he knows the old signs. anyway he mostly doesn't get a chance to use any of these skills because everyone just speaks english all the time, but one time the rest of the ghosts are all being really annoying, talking over each other stumbling for alison's attention and the captain complains under his breath about their lack of respect and the chaos of the house etc etc in like. welsh or something. and robin looks right at him and shrugs and responds in the same language like "yeah they're annoying but they're family. can't complain too much huh?" and cap just. whuh??!?!!!? because robin has been around for thousands of years and definitely knows allllll sorts of languages.

#anyway I digress #I saw a post about what other languages robin might speak #and that stuck with me #also I love language #I find linguistics genuinely fascinating #even though I do not know a lot #bbc ghosts

[allthingslinguistic]

All Things Linguistic - 2022 Highlights

2022 was a year of opening up again and laying foundations for future projects. I spent the final 3 months of it on an extended trip to Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand, which is a delightful reason to have a delay in writing this year in review post. 

Interesting new projects this year included my first piece in The Atlantic, why we have so much confusion on writing the short form of "usual" and 103 languages reading project: inspired by a paper by Evan Kidd and Rowena Garcia. 

Continuations of existing projects: 

Return of LingComm Grants

A survey for those using Because Internet for teaching

10 year Blogiversary of All Things Linguistic: highlights from the past year and highlights from the past decade

6 years of Lingthusiasm

Conferences/Talks

LSA 2022 and judging Five Minute Linguist

I was on panels about swearing in SFF and the Steerswoman books at a local literary speculative fiction con, Scintillation

I was on panels at WorldCon (ChiCon 8) in Chicago: Ask A Scientist, That's Not How That Works!, and Using SFF for Science Communication

I was a contestant for the second time in Webster's War of the Words, a virtual game show fundraiser for the Noah Webster House.

I attended the Australian Linguistics Society annual meeting in Melbourne and the New Zealand Linguistics Society annual meeting in Dunedin, where I gave a talk co-authored with Lauren Gawne called Using lingcomm to design meaningful stories about linguistics

Lingthusiasm

In our sixth year of Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics which I make with Lauren Gawne and our production team, we did a redesign of how the International Phonetic Alphabet symbols are layed out in a chart, in order to correspond more closely with the principle that the location of a symbol is a key to how it's articulated. This involved much digging into the history of IPA layouts and back-and-forths with our artist, Lucy Maddox, and we were very pleased to make our aesthetic IPA design available on a special one-time edition of lens cloths for patrons as well as our general range of posters, tote bags, notebooks, and other all-time merch. 

We also did our first Lingthusiasm audience survey and Spotify for some reason gave us end-of-year stats only in French, which I guess is on brand, but we were pleased to see notebooks, and Lingthusiasm is one of Spotify's top 50 Science podcastsF/href.li/?https:/www.redbubble.com%2Fi%2Fmouse-pad%2FAesthetic-IPA-Chart-Square-by-Lingthusiasm%2F129215087.G1FH6&t=OTkxYjYxYjNmMzA1M2VhNGViOGIxZWIxOGI0NDRjYjE2YTIzYTE2NCw2YTgzNDQyZTM3MzY0YjRkNjc3NGJkNzhhYzJhMzk3ZjA2Y2NkYzIz&ts=1684794278">other all-time merch!

Main episodes from this year

Making speech visible with spectrograms

Knowledge is power, copulas are fun.

Word order, we love 

What it means for a language to be official

Tea and skyscrapers - When words get borrowed across languages

What we can, must, and should say about modals

Language in the brain - Interview with Ev Fedorenko

Various vocal fold vibes

What If Linguistics

The linguistic map is not the linguistic territory

Who questions the questions?

Love and fury at the linguistics of emotions

Bonus Episodes

We interview each other! Seasons, word games, Unicode, and more

Emoji, Mongolian, and Multiocular O ꙮ - Dispatches from the Unicode Conference

Behind the scenes on how linguists come up with research topics

Approaching word games like a linguist - Interview with Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer of Spectacular Vernacular

What makes a swear word feel sweary? A &⩐#⦫&

There’s like, so much to like about “like”

Language inside an MRI machine - Interview with Saima Malik-Moraleda

Using a rabbit to get kids chatting for science

Behind the scenes on making an aesthetic IPA chart - Interview with Lucy Maddox

Linguistics and science communication - Interview with Liz McCullough

103 ways for kids to learn languages

Speakest Thou Ye Olde English?

Selected Tweets

Linguistics Fun

aunt and niece languages

Swedish chef captions

IPA wordle

wordle vs kiki

creative use of emoji and space

resume glottal stop

dialects in a trenchcoat

which of these starter Pokemon is bouba and which is kiki

(for no author would use, because of the known rendolence of onions, onions)

acoustic bike

An extremely charming study by Bill Labov featuring a rabbit named Vincent

Rabbit Meme

Cheering on linguistics effects (Stroup and Kiki/Bouba) in a vote on the cutest scientific effect name

Old English Hrickroll

The word you get assigned with your linguistics degree

Sanskrit two-dimensional alphabet

Cognate Objects

Linguist Meetup in Linguaglossa?

baɪ ði eɪdʒ ʌv θɚti

j- prefixing

"But clerk, I am Bill Labov" (pagliacci meme)

Usual winner

Because Internet Tumblr vernacular

Linguist "Human" Costume

Cursed kiki/bouba

dot ellipsis vs comma ellipsis

intersection of signed languages and synesthesia?

Antipodean linguistic milestone

Selected Blog Posts:

Linguistic Jobs

Online Linguistics Teacher

Impact Lead

Customer Success Manager

Hawaiian and Tahitian language Instructor, Translator & Radio Host

Language Engineer

Data Manager & Digital Archivist

Linguistics fun

xkcd: neoteny recapitulated phylogeny

Eeyore Linguistic Facts

Lingthusiasm HQ: Frown Thing!

xkcd is making a vowel hypertrapezoid

Title: Ships and Ice Picks: An Ethnographic Excavation of alt.goncharov

Missed out on previous years? Here are the summary posts from 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. If you’d like to get a much shorter monthly highlights newsletter via email, with all sorts of interesting internet linguistics news, you can sign up for that at gretchenmcc.substack.com.

#linguistics #roundup #year in review #linkfest #highlights #lingthusiasm

[strongermonster]

there's a larger commentary to be made about parents using their children as props/statements and not acknowledging their personhood, or how the actions of the parents affect the present/future of the child, however one specific issue that i personally witness that's a little heartbreaking re: Naming, is kids with the shit like 'kaleigheighegih' really struggling to know how to spell their own names, and getting discouraged.

i don't do too much with the really young kids at the library, but occasionally i help out, and there's so many in the pre-k age range who are learning the alphabet and how to write, and watching their friends have moments like "i did it! i wrote my name!!!" and it's like. kim, or ryan, or shayla, or emma, which are pretty easy, phonetically straight-forward.

then we have Shannaleigheia and Konstanteen and Hannahbeth (pronounced anna-bet), and Jaikobb, who take a bit longer to get to that proud moment of "i did it! and i can do it again without help! and i have it memorized!" milestone bc mom and dad (but mostly mom) spend too much time on insidious mommy facebook groups and think that alphabet soup thrown on the floor is a good way to decide how to spell Sharon (Charinn) or whatever. and believe me, they are keenly aware that they are the last ones who hit the ability to write their names. they don't understand why they're struggling, but it's impacting them to realize they are 'failing'.

like i'm not saying we can't have fun with names (world's 5 billionth john, chris, jessica, liam, emma, etc) but i don't think pulling a french and adding 60 extra secret vowels is any fun for anyone, least of all me who now has to remember the name Carly 9 different times for 9 the different spellings of it, lest i be screeched at by mothers

#all of this is a roundabout way of me saying i'm tried of writing Karliegh-Annah #jj stuff

[kiragecko]

Les Miserables

/le mi‧ze‧ʁabl(ə)/

lā mē‧zā‧ʀabl(ə)

One of the ways I connect with foreign media is to figure out how to pronounce the names. Been on a Les Mis kick this week, so I decided to share with y'all. Could only double check my work with half these names, so if anyone actually knows French, please correct me.

I'm using a respelling system (based off the one that the New Oxford and Random House dictionary systems) in case you don't know IPA (the international phonetic alphabet). I speak Canadian English, which makes guides that assume I speak an American or British dialect iffy. So I've tried to match the vowels to their corresponding Canadian, American, British, and Australian versions. If something seems off here, ALSO correct me.

There are two major differences between French and most varieties of English - nasal vowels and rounded front vowels. So, some info on both (as well as French 'R'):

Nasal vowels - 'Nasal' refers to things pronounced with air going through the nose, like the consonants 'n' and 'm'. In English, vowels are only nasal if they're right beside a nasal consonant. The 'o' in 'on' is pronounced slightly differently than the 'o' in 'off' is. We start breathing through the nose before we get to the 'n'.  To pronounce the French nasal vowels, start saying the vowel like there's going to be an 'n' after it, but don't actually say the 'n'. It sounds a little bit like you have a cold.

French nasal vowels that show up here are 'ɑ̃', 'ɔ̃', and 'ɛ̃'. The respelled versions look like 'ûⁿ', 'ôⁿ', and 'eⁿ' - the little 'n' reminds you to breath through your nose.

Rounded front vowels - 'Front vowels' are vowels like 'i' and 'e', where the tongue is closer to the front of the mouth. There are also 'back vowels' like 'u' and 'o' where the tongue is futher back in the mouth. When saying back vowels most languages have the lips make a small circle ("rounded"). Front vowels usually have a much wider mouth ("unrounded"). But languages like French have vowels that are both at the front of the mouth AND rounded. You say 'i' or 'e' with your lips rounded like you're saying a 'u'.

French rounded front vowels that show up here are 'y', 'ø' and 'œ'. The respelled versions look like 'ēᵘ', 'āᵘ' and 'eᵘ' - the little 'u' reminds you to round your lips. (There's also 'ɥ', which is a 'y' (IPA 'j') with rounded lips. It's respelled as 'yᵘ'.)

R - The French 'r' sound is also a lot farther back in the mouth than in most English dialects. It's most similar to how 'r' is pronounced in 'group' (in contrast to how it's pronounced in 'trap'). The IPA for this sound is 'ʁ' and the respelling is 'ʀ'.

-

Sounds and Symbols:

( ~ means the sound is between the sound in the example words.)

IPA | Respelling | Canadian | American | British (RP) | Australian

a | a | lad | tide¹ | lad | lad |

ɑ̃ | ǔⁿ | not | not | math | time³ | (nasal)

ɔ | ô | sort | law ~ sort | lot | lot |

ɔ̃ | ôⁿ | north | gnaw ~ north | not | not | (nasal)

o | ō | tow² | tow² ~ sort | law | law |

u | oo | threw | threw | threw | put |

ɛ | e | bed | bed | bed | bed ~ lad ~ day¹ |

ɛ̃ | eⁿ | bed | bend | bend | bend ~ lad ~ day¹ | (nasal)

œ | eᵘ | bed | bed | bed | bed ~ lad ~ day¹ | (with rounded lips)

ə | ə | about | about | about | about |

e | ā | day¹ | day¹ | day¹ | bed |

ej | āy | day | day | day | bed + y |

ø | āᵘ | day¹ | day¹ | day¹ | bed | (with rounded lips)

i | ē | city | city | city | bit |

y | ēᵘ | city | city | city | bit | (with rounded lips)

ʁ | ʀ | group | group | group | group | (see 'R' above)

ʒ | zh | treasure | treasure | treasure | treasure |

ʃ | sh | ship | ship | ship | ship |

j | y | yes | yes | yes |

ɥ | yᵘ | you | you | you | you |

¹English has a 'y' at the end that isn't there in French

²English has a 'w' at the end that isn't there in French

³English has a 'e' at the end that isn't there in French

-

French Spelling

IPA

Respelling

Les Amis de L'ABC (l'abaissés "the abased")

/lez a‧mi də la‧be‧se/

lāz a‧mē də la‧bā‧sā

Enjolras

/ɑ̃‧ʒol‧ʁa(s)/

ǔⁿ‧zhôl‧ʀa(s)

Combeferre

/kɔ̃‧bə‧fɛʁ/

kôⁿ‧bə‧feʀ

(de) Courfeyrac

/(də) kuʁ‧fej‧ʁak/

(də) kooʀ‧fāy‧ʀak

Grantaire | (Grande) R

/gʁɑ̃‧tɛʁ/ | /(gʁɑ̃‧d)ɛʁ/

gʀûⁿ‧teʀ | (gʀûⁿ‧d)eʀ

Éponine Thénardier | Jondrette

/e‧pɔ‧nin te‧naʁ‧dje/ | /ʒɔ̃‧dʁɛt/

ā‧pô‧nēn tā‧naʀ‧dyā | zhôⁿ‧dʀet

Gavroche

/ga‧vʁɔʃ/

gav‧ʀôsh

Azelma

/a‧zɛl‧ma/

a‧zel‧ma

Marius Pontmercy

/maʁ‧jys pɔ̃‧mɛʁ‧si/

maʀ‧yiᵘs pôⁿ‧meʀ‧sē

Cosette  | Euphrasie

/kɔ‧zɛt/ | /ø‧fʁa‧zi/

kô‧zet | āᵘ‧fʀa‧zē

Bossuet  | Lesgle  | L'Aigle ("eagle")

/bɔs‧ɥɛ/ | /lɛz‧glə/ or /lɛ‧glə/ | /lɛg‧lə/

bôs‧yᵘe | lez‧glə or le‧glə | leg‧lə

Joly

/ʒɔ‧li/

zhô‧lē

Musichetta

/my‧zi‧kɛ‧ta/

miᵘ‧zē‧ke‧ta

Feuilly

/fœ‧ji/

feᵘ‧yē

Bahorel

/ba‧ɔ‧ʁɛl/

ba‧ô‧ʀel

Jehan  | Jean Prouvaire

/ʒə‧ɑ̃/ or /ʒɑ̃/? | /ʒɑ̃ pʁu‧veʁ/

zhə.ǔⁿ or zhǔⁿ | zhǔⁿ pʀoo‧vāʀ

-

Fantine

/fɑ̃‧tin/

fǔⁿ‧tēn

Jean Valjean | Madeleine | Ultime Fauchelevent | Leblanc /lɛ‧blɑ̃/ | Urbain Fabre

/ʒɑ̃ valʒɑ̃/ | /ma‧də‧lɛn/ | /yl‧tim fo‧ʃə‧lə‧vɑ̃/ | /yʁ‧bɛ̃ fabʁ(ə)/

zhûⁿ val‧zhûⁿ | ma‧də‧len | iᵘl‧tēm fo‧shə‧lə‧vûⁿ | iᵘʀ‧beⁿ fabʀ(ə)

Javert

/ʒa‧vɛʁ/

zha‧veʀ

Jean Maximilien Lamarque

/ʒɑ̃ mak‧si‧mil‧jɛ̃ la‧maʁk/

zhǔⁿ mak‧sē‧mēl‧yeⁿ la‧maʀk

Mabeuf

/ma‧bœf/

ma‧beᵘf

Bishop Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel

/ʃaʁl‧fʁɑ̃‧swa‧bjɛ̃‧və‧ny miʁ‧jəl/

shaʀl‧fʀǔⁿ‧swa‧byeⁿ‧və‧niᵘ miʀ‧yəl

Baptistine Myriel

/bap‧tis‧tin miʁ‧jəl/

bap‧tēs‧tēn mēʀ‧yəl

Gillenormand (Marius' grandpa)

/ʒi‧jə‧nɔʁ‧mɑ̃/

zhē‧yə‧nôʀ‧mǔⁿ

Fauchelevent

/fo‧ʃə‧lə‧vɑ̃/

fō‧shə‧lə‧vǔⁿ

Toussaint (Cosette's servant)

/tu‧sɛ̃/

too‧seⁿ

Champmathieu (mistaken for Jean Valjean)

/ʃɑ̃‧mat‧jœ/

shǔⁿ‧mat‧yeᵘ

-

Patron-Minette (group of 4 criminals)

/pa‧tʁɔ̃‧mi‧nɛt/

pa‧tʀôⁿ‧mē‧net

Montparnasse

/mɔ̃‧paʁ‧nas/

môⁿ‧paʀ‧nas

Babet

/ba‧bɛ/

ba‧be

Claquesous  | Le Cabuc

/kla‧kə‧zu(s)/ | /lə ka‧byk/

kla‧kə‧zoo(s) | lə ka‧biᵘk

Gueulemer  | Brujon (Brujon minor criminal in book, replaces Gueulemer in musical)

/gœ‧lə‧me/ | /bʁy.ʒɔ̃/

geᵘ‧lə‧me | briᵘ‧zhôⁿ

#les mis #les miserables #linguistics

[anonymous-dentist]

Don't give up on your Portuguese AD, I believe in you!

Have you heard about the international phonetic alphabet? Maybe it could help with your pronunciation, just knowing how a sound is categorized may help you learn it.

I used it very superficially to differentiate the pronunciation of words like bad vs bed when my English listening wasn't as good. Don't know how useful it would actually be, but thought to mention. I've seen people do breakdowns on how the sounds are produced.

Oh, I know about that alphabet

I had to learn about it back when I took a conlang class a couple years ago. It came in handy for those languages because, guess what? Conlangs don’t actually exist! They’re constructed languages made specifically for tv and film and books and stuff, so they don’t always go with English pronunciations!

So when I had to do a tiny little 20 page paper on a conlang of my choice, I chose Penny Dreadful’s Verbis Diabolo specifically because it’s an impossible language. It can’t be translated because every word was constructed individually to not make sense, and so trying to pronounce this shit for my presentation was HARD. The phonetics alphabet helped a bunch, even if the professor did subtweet about me on his twitter account after my presentation lol

But I figure, well. Portuguese can’t be that hard to pronounce, can it? Speaking French means you sound like you’re coughing up a literal lung every five seconds, all Portuguese has is a lot of round words

I’m just. Better at coughing lol

#asks! #anon! #about a.d. #don’t worry I’m not giving up #I’m just better at reading it sometimes