#languages are fascinating

[emozionidinchiostro]

Anyway when one of my posts goes into the tumblr wilderness, outside the realm of my mutuals, I realize that people on here take things soooo literally and I am amazed because language to me is first and foremost a metaphor, for no language can translate the thoughts inside my head

There’s people who don’t experience the uncommunicability of existence

#i am amazed #tumblr #i remember when I translated Greek it made so much sense to me that a word could mean a thing and its exact opposite #but I guess English and in particular American English it’s on the other end of the spectrum of that #words are not as nuanced in their meaning #and so people who speak American English as their first language have a very different way of thinking about what is said #I am not including uk English in that because shakespeare could imply things ™️ with his wording #languages are fascinating #tumblr stuff #hellsite [beloved] #humans being humans

[swannsways]

🤸 Dominic Sessa as Angus Tully 🤸 – The Holdovers (2023)

#the holdovers #dominic sessa #angus tully #films watched #filmgifs #dailyflicks #moviegifs #my gifs #need to make a specific post about how natural and fascinating the way he moves and uses his body language #imagine landing your first acting role and serving this much #SO ICONIC #the cartwheel alone deserves an oscar nom are you kidding me #and to know that it was just him improvising and payne said why tf not

[goosterbold]

did you know in japanese, instead of saying 'little buddy', arven amends -chan to anything from pokemon names to concepts

goggy

#arven #mabosstiff #pokemon #pokemon sv #he also refers to himself as pepaa-oniisan #and uses pretty rude language otherwise #fascinating guy #note my japanese reading level is '1st grader'. please be nice to me.

[canisalbus]

I'm curious to know what you meant by not having an internal monologue-- like, do you not address yourself sometimes, in your own head? For example-- "I probably shouldn't do that", or, "I guess I look okay today", or, "I wonder what they think of me?" ? (Some people address themselves in second person, ie. "oh you shouldn't have done that", or, "you're gonna be fine".)

Not really? My brain doesn't give me words, let alone sentences. It's mostly just images and concepts.

I can formulate speech in my mind if I put a significant amount of focus on that, it never happens passively. I have a lot of social anxiety (and I'm autistic, for what it's worth) so I often rehearse potential future conversations in my head, but it's a distinct activity that takes up a lot of mental space. I can be sort of slow at writing because it takes a moment for me to convert my thoughts into a verbal form, I keep pausing to try to find the most accurate and effective way to communicate what I'm trying to say.

#answered #cibokilley #it sounds like some of you have really verbose inner voices and that's fascinating to me but also HOW #how did early hominids think when complex languages hadn't been invented yet? #do dogs think in images? do dogs think in SMELLS?

[13ag21k]

I'm just really curious to know who created the ship names we all use for each Otp.

#and then we all just decided to use them #this makes me think of language in general #like how did we all agree to associate a word to an object event or place is fascinating #i should probably sleep #it is 4am #merthur #obikin #destiel #drarry #symbrock #villaneve #johnlock #batjokes #spideypool #thorki #ineffable husbands #murder husbands #dinluke #stormpilot #newtmas #geraskier #sterek #00q #hualian #wangxian #casmund #trikey #storm pilot #rexwalker #kylux

[courtingwonder]

How English Changed Over The Last 1000 Years

#linguistics #english #etymology #language #languages #world culture #history #world history #old english #middle english #educational #fascinating

[shrimp-milf]

yeah i can feel shrimp emotions. thats why im on mood stabilizers

#as shrimple as that #shrimpblr #shrimp #shrimp posting #aquablr #marine biology memes #also the biological and physical mechanisms through which mantis shrimps actually *see* shrimp colors are fascinating #scientists are studying it in the context of using the same polarization mechanisms to find cancer cells #their existing body language is enhanced and made different by parts on their body that show up as shiny to them alone #and those dynamics are not fully understood at all #they're too cunty for us to comprehend

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

don't mind me, i'm just thinking about the studio brussel interview photos yet again 🫠

#i know we talk about the way they look at each other all the time #but THE WAY THEY LOOK AT EACH OTHER 😭😭 #the way you can just *see* the pure adoration #and not just that but like #that kind of bone-deep unending fascination you feel towards someone you love #that sense that they are endlessly interesting #the things they say and the way they say them #the quirks of their expression and the subtle lilts of body language #just #everything #that feeling of being in a perpetual state of awe and delight at their very existence #ughhhhh #i'm feeling emotional over them this evening #can anyone tell 😅 #milex #tlsp #the last shadow puppets #alex turner #miles kane #lulu posts

[thebeautifuldaughter]

fascinating to watch how hozier speaking Irish in his new music is making some people: 1. fetishise him further and/or 2. make 'fun' jokes about gaeilge/gaelic/'''garlic'''' bc like. babes. i can guarantee you neither of those actions are separable from the lingering impacts of colonialism.

#not understanding some of the nuances around a 'dying' (killed) language is not shocking #but treating it like some weird little romantic bog man character trait is annoying #i'm being a wet blanket but if i creamed my pants over irish OR mocked the language here i'd get bottled #and it's been said ten ways to tuesday but stop fetishising what you believe irish culture is like #he is a normal man trying to speak a language that occupies an incredibly complex space in contemporary Ireland #how majority-white cultures victim to colonisation are worshipped/fetishised in a still-bad way but different compared to POC cultures... #i want an essay #the way people are drooling over it while showing that they didn't care about it until their fave white boy sang it... #additionally in a way they have never cared about POC native languages........... #none of this is hozier's fault it's just fascinating culturally #gaeilge #wasteland baby #colonialism #irish language #unreal unearth #hozier

[lemonadeandlanguages]

Language mistakes that reveal how someone's native language works are really cute but it's even cuter when it's a mistake that's mirrored in both languages tbh

#i grew up hearing spanish speakers say 'people is' instead of 'people are' and #i was absolutely delighted to discover that english speakers will say 'la gente son' in spanish instead of 'la gente es' #because people is plural in english #it hadnt occured to me before that english speakers would make that mistake but it makes so much sense?? #btw not making fun of people that make this mistake i think its fascinating how our native languages shine thru when speaking another one #lnl #languages

[ifindus]

norway what was the bloodiest and most brutal battle you've ever been part of?

The battle of Lund in 1676.

The bloodiest battle Norway has been a part of is the Battle of Lund in 1676, fought between Denmark-Norway and the Netherlands against Sweden, where Sweden won. The Danish King had 12 300 soldiers to command and the Swedish King had only had 8 000. Both sides ended up loosing about 50% of their army. It is said to be the bloodiest battle ever fought in Scandinavia, and it was a coincidence that the Swedes won just due to the chaotic nature of the battle.

The battle was a result of Danish forces invading the southern part of today’s Sweden, an area that had previously belonged to Denmark. The Swedes were led by a reckless and young king who had already put them through harsh conditions and bad camp locations that had cause a great percentage of the soldiers to die from illness already before the battle had begun. The Danes had followed the Swedish army and were in much better position, both location-wise and with a steady supply line.

The Danes became impatient and gave up good placement to attack the Swedes as they neared the city of Lund just outside Malmö. As mentioned, the battle was disorienting and chaotic, with a lot of breaks in formation, a missing Swedish King who came back after several hours to break through Danish lines who had his forces surrounded. Not to mention over-eager Swedes absolutely slaughtering sailors who wanted to surrender, with the words “Sailors have paid to fight at sea, but not at land. You therefore deserve no mercy!”. The massacre was stopped by a Swedish officer.

#hetalia #historical hetalia #cw blood #aph norway #aph denmark #aph sweden #hws norway #hws sweden #hws denmark #thank you for the ask!! 🥰🥰 #finally historical asks don't feel like homework anymore and I had so much fun looking this up! #also fascinating how the wikipedia page for this battle differs so much between languages #the Danish page is basically empty #the Swedish page is the most extensive and thorough #the Norwegian page is almost as extensive as the Swedish - but includes Norwegians #the Swedish page just lumps both Danes and Norwegians under “Danish” #the Norwegian page was also the only one who had included that Swedish quote from the massacre #it's so interesting how the different countries portrays these events!!

[quatregats]

Also I realize that the answer is probably just reading enough period sources but as a linguist I really do need to pick Patrick O'Brian's brain about where in the world he got his different speech patterns from

#mostly just fascinated because they are mostly not based on modern speech patterns #and maximum respect to him for that period pieces should be in period language and that includes different sociolects/dialects #but i'm just really really interested what he took them from. like i want to read the source material #also as someone who knows virtually nothing about irish english i didn't notice most of stephen's irish speech patterns #until after reading the golden ocean which makes them much more obvious #but i'm curious if (1) they're recognizably modern and/or period irish and (2) what the irish people here think of them #generally inclined to trust him on it because it's unexpected enough that i feel like it's probably at least slightly based on sources #i just have no frame of reference for it #anyways when i say that i need to talk to patrick o'brian you have to understand that this would be minimum 50% of the conversation #the other 50% would be asking him about the catalan references because i am nothing if not predictable #perce rambles #aubreyad

[couchtaro]

Theseus

Theseus, scarecrow oath of the watchers paladin and shepherd of souls, belongs to @eaudecrow

Flowers

Asphodel (Asphodelus): the land of spirits. In Greek mythology, a field of asphodels in the underworld was the dwelling place of neutral souls.

Dame Violet (Hesperis matronalis): watchfulness

Black bindweed (Dioscorea communis): support

Boxwood (Buxus): Constancy in friendship. Labyrinthine hedge mazes are traditionally made of boxwood shrubs.

Rattlesnake root ( Prenanthes purpurea): protection, shield, guarded steps. This plant was thought to grant protection from being caught up in a group of supposed to “friends” who are in actuality threatening and dangerous.

Heath (Epacris impressa): solitude

Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana): a spell is on me.

Straw: constancy. Broken straw: broken contract, trouble.

Corn poppy (Papaver rhoeas): good and evil, light and darkness, life and death, fun-loving, avoidance of problems, oblivion. The ancient Greeks believed that corn would not grow without poppies growing nearby. In Greek and Roman myths, poppies were used as offerings to the dead and in modern times are often a motif found on tombstones. Poppies are some of the first flowers to fill holes in disturbed ground, so old battlefields often fill with poppy.

Giant milkweed (Calotropis procera): purposelessness, a monstrosity

Check out the rest of the Pringles Party!

Yancy | Izen | Phaela | “Red”

#planar Pringles #floriography #dnd character #dnd pc #dnd character portrait #dungeons and dragons #language of flowers #warforged #paladin #You know what I love? Flowers! Symbolic character portraits! D&D!! Furiously committing to ambitious passion projects! #and thus here we are #if I do not post this now I will forget Again #Hay Boy 10 hour version plays (it’s me hitting play every minute) #MOST beloved and important scarecrow OF all time and history. fascinates me #my art #Pringles #Theseus #Theseus Pringles #the tumblrinas get the sparknotes and not the full essay interpretation. unless they ask really niceys and Crow says it’s okay

[goodbyelogik]

Vorführeffekt - the phenomenon that something which was previously working correctly, suddenly does not work correctly when one tries to demonstrate the operation to others;

#just posting some words that i find fascinating #german language #also it's the name of one of the chapters in trtd #but it's used like more metaphorically #more of a 'it's so simple it has like 0% chance of failing but it still does' feeling #trtd #the road to dresden

[kradeelav]

there is honest to goodness nothing like the quiet pleasure of drawing a really theatrical old man

wip

#gunter fire emblem #doin' a bunch of possessed gunter sketches to really hone in on what his body language's like. copypasting the tags from elsewhere: #there is a malignant entity that is part of him and it's fascinating to think through how that'd affect everything down to a gesture. #sweeping gestures w/the arrogance of anankos. a royal. (combined with gunter's hatred of being so penned in for so long)

[feedthefandomfest]

I have a question because I want to comment but I feel nervous. It is very foolish but it is seriously something that prevents me from commenting-

So English is not my first language and I suffer from a disease known as 'fuck you all English leaves your brain when you tap on the comment box'. Like I'm fluent enough to write a fic but the comments break me and I can only do basic 'subject verb complement' and forget half my vocabulary because I'm so nervous, so it often ends up being broken English.

I back out of posting comments except 'i love this this is amazing thank you for writing I love it' because I'm too scared the author will take it badly ? Like, what if they find it annoying ? What if they believe I think they write bad English and I'm mocking them and they don't want me to ever read their works ever again ?

Anyways, my question is : Does it actually bother anyone to receive broken English comments? Do people find it annoying ?

I would never be annoyed by such a thing and I'm positive that's true of others as well. On the contrary, it kinda blows my mind whenever I stop to think about how members of fandom for whom English is not their first language are so often working in translation. Like the trickiest barrier I have to contend with when writing anything is sleep deprivation and your average writer's block 😅 so to imagine also rendering those words in a different language?? 🫠

To varying degrees, the tragic disease of "empty comment box = empty brain" can strike anyone, regardless of language. On the plus side, some of the tricks to break through the blankness are also broadly applicable, such as

drawing from a list of sentence starters like the ones offered here or here (the beginner bingo card also has similar tasks!!)

installing this handy script that generates a positive comment on demand, which you can modify or expand on as needed

using the floating comment box to track moments or quotes you want to compliment specifically, even with just a string of emojis 💕💕💕

I can recall a couple comments I've gotten where the person apologized or gave a sort of disclaimer that English wasn't their first language, and honestly it just made me even more appreciative of the comment? Because there are so many reasons that a reader doesn't comment, and a language barrier is the most understandable!! And yet here they are, making me smile with their words. I always want to reassure them in my reply that an apology/disclaimer isn't necessary, but I don't always know how. (And there's nothing wrong with acknowledging something you're self-conscious about, after all.)

The concept of "broken English" has also got me thinking, though... And since it turned into a bit of an essay I'll leave it under the cut. 💛

Because the term "broken English" has a lot to unpack, seeing as it's always unfairly positioned those who speak English as a second language imperfectly as lesser (broken = defective). And that strikes me as a bit ironic, considering the degree to which English is a Frankenstein's monster of a language—this conglomeration of every language it encounters and subsumes. In that sense, English itself is a broken language? Or rather the shards of numerous languages held together with duct tape and gum and a whiff of imperialism. Its usage is always in flux, always evolving as speakers adapt it to new circumstances, and those adaptations become dialects in and of themselves. There is no one English language.

I teach high schoolers, and I'm consistently struck by the growing chasm between the kinds of English I can speak and the kinds of English they can speak. And technically my job is to train them in how to use American Standard English and read literature written in American Standard English, but really I find that pretty limiting.

Take the tone of this response, for instance! The more I've leaned toward trying to articulate these complicated issues of language, the more formal my speech has become. Contrast that with the first paragraph, where I'm trying to get across this awkward earnest admiration for the extra effort required of some fans just to engage in fandom, and so I ended up using more casual phrasing and emojis in a way that (hopefully) conveys a certain warmth and self-deprecating humor and whatnot.

If I were to leave a comment on a fic that blew me away, left me in a state of awe or delight or anguish—just a puddle on the floor—I'd find American Standard English quite lacking. Downright restrictive. The unique jumbled babble of fandom-speak functions on breaking the standard rules in order to evoke an intensity of emotion that meets the demands of the moment.

Another thing about commenters who really commit to throwing the rules out the window in favor of vibes is that I get such a strong sense of personality beaming through. A distinct voice that's generated, an intense impression of there being an individual on the other side with a particular shape. And there's something delightful about that.

...I suppose this is all a very roundabout way of saying that if there's anywhere to just unleash, vocab and mechanics be damned, where it's more than okay to string together whatever words you can in service of how you're feeling, it's the AO3 comment box. 💛

#sorry this turned into a book!! #language is fascinating #i really appreciate the ask and hope this helped #just know that even an “i love this this is amazing thank you for writing I love it” is a JOY to receive #the only comments that have ever annoyed me are the few and far between that complain about the story #and even then it took a couple repeats from the same commenter to really irk me #ao3 comments #thank you for feeding the ask box