#linguistic stuff

[anghraine]

I looked at some of the "Yank" poll notes and appreciate that the US Americans are (unusually lol) in pretty strong consensus that, within the USA, it's a term for people in the Northeast (which was not really an option in the poll).

Also unsurprising that most non-US Americans don't bother with internal regional distinctions, though the idea of calling Southerners "Yanks" is extremely funny to me (sorry to all concerned!).

Also, the ~7% who think it means all North Americans are ... lmao, I grew up on the Canadian border and am trying to imagine any scenario in which calling a Canadian a Yank goes well.

#anghraine babbles #us american blogging #linguistic stuff #poll nonsense

[charlesoberonn]

Husband = בעל/Ba'al, with a ע

Onion = בצל/Batzal, with a צ

#hebrew stuff #linguistics #10k #20k

[reasonsforhope]

Interior Department Announces New Guidance to Honor and Elevate Hawaiian Language

"In commemoration of Mahina ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, or Hawaiian Language Month, and in recognition of its unique relationship with the Native Hawaiian Community, the Department of the Interior today announced new guidance on the use of the Hawaiian language.  

A comprehensive new Departmental Manual chapter underscores the Department’s commitment to further integrating Indigenous Knowledge and cultural practices into conservation stewardship.  

“Prioritizing the preservation of the Hawaiian language and culture and elevating Indigenous Knowledge is central to the Biden-Harris administration's work to meet the unique needs of the Native Hawaiian Community,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “As we deploy historic resources to Hawaiʻi from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, the Interior Department is committed to ensuring our internal policies and communications use accurate language and data."  

Department bureaus and offices that engage in communication with the Native Hawaiian Community or produce documentation addressing places, resources, actions or interests in Hawaiʻi will use the new guidance on ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language) for various identifications and references, including flora and fauna, cultural sites, geographic place names, and government units within the state.  The guidance recognizes the evolving nature of ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi and acknowledges the absence of a single authoritative source. While the Hawaiian Dictionary (Pukui & Elbert 2003) is designated as the baseline standard for non-geographic words and place names, Department bureaus and offices are encouraged to consult other standard works, as well as the Board on Geographic Names database.  

Developed collaboratively and informed by ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi practitioners, instructors and advocates, the new guidance emerged from virtual consultation sessions and public comment in 2023 with the Native Hawaiian Community. 

The new guidance aligns with the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to strengthening relationships with the Native Hawaiian Community through efforts such as the Kapapahuliau Climate Resilience Program and Hawaiian Forest Bird Keystone Initiative. During her trip to Hawaiʻi in June, Secretary Haaland emphasized recognizing and including Indigenous Knowledge, promoting co-stewardship, protecting sacred sites, and recommitting to meaningful and robust consultation with the Native Hawaiian Community."

-via US Department of the Interior press release, February 1, 2024

--

Note: I'm an editor so I have no idea whether this comes off like as big a deal as it potentially is. But it is potentially going to establish and massively accelerate the adoption of correctly written Native Hawaiian language, as determined by Native Hawaiians.

Basically US government communications, documentations, and "style guides" (sets of rules to follow about how to write/format/publish something, etc.) can be incredibly influential, especially for topics where there isn't much other official guidance. This rule means that all government documents that mention Hawai'i, places in Hawai'i, Hawaiian plants and animals, etc. will have to be written the way Native Hawaiians say it should be written, and the correct way of writing Hawaiian conveys a lot more information about how the words are pronounced, too, which could spread correct pronunciations more widely.

It also means that, as far as the US government is concerned, this is The Correct Way to Write the Hawaiian Language. Which, as an editor who just read the guidance document, is super important. That's because you need the 'okina (' in words) and kahakō in order to tell apart sizeable sets of different words, because Hawaiian uses so many fewer consonants, they need more of other types of different sounds.

And the US government official policy on how to write Hawaiian is exactly what editors, publishers, newspapers, and magazines are going to look at, sooner or later, because it's what style guides are looking at. Style guides are the official various sets of rules that books/publications follow; they're also incredibly detailed - the one used for almost all book publishing, for example, the Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS), is over a thousand pages long.

One of the things that CMoS does is tell you the basic rules of and what specialist further sources they think you should use for writing different languages. They have a whole chapter dedicated to this. It's not that impressive on non-European languages yet, but we're due for a new edition (the 18th) of CMoS in the next oh two to four years, probably? Actually numbering wise they'd be due for one this year, except presumably they would've announced it by now if that was the case.

I'm expecting one of the biggest revisions to the 18th edition to add much more comprehensive guidance on non-Western languages. Considering how far we've come since 2017, when the last one was released, I'll be judging the shit out of them if they do otherwise. (And CMoS actually keep with the times decently enough.)

Which means, as long as there's at least a year or two for these new rules/spellings/orthographies to establish themselves before the next edition comes out, it's likely that just about every (legit) publisher will start using the new rules/spellings/orthographies.

And of course, it would expand much further from there.

#don't ask me about the magazine and newspaper half of this #bc I do Not know AP style #except the differences I'm annoyed at lol #ap doesn't respect the oxford comma #hawaii #hawaiʻi #language #orthography #linguistics #language stuff #hawaiian #native hawaiian #united states #publishing #book publishing #indigenous #indigineous people #indigenous languages #language revitalization #language resources #editorial

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

#polls #incognito polls #anonymous #tumblr polls #tumblr users #questions #polls about language #submitted nov 28 #formal speech #language #linguistics #language stuff

[hometoursandotherstuff]

#toads #words #other stuff #linguistics

[heavenlyraindrops]

japanese is such a kind language. like you forget a character it will hold ur hand and tell u that everything will be ok and you can just write it in hirigana and everyone will understand :)

and then chinese is like oh im sorry you forgot a character? youre illiterate. you mispronounce a word? your mother is now a horse

#japanese #kanji #hirigana #chinese #language #langblr #language memes #funny shit #funny #shitposting #memes #tweet #linguistics #cunning linguist #linguistness #linguistique #linguine #language study #language stuff

[gemsofgreece]

Green horses

More Greek etymological madness!

There is a saying in modern Greek, πράσινα άλογα (prásina álogha), which literally means “green horses”. It is usually added to the end of a sentence to show that something is crazy, unbelievable, foolish and to express disbelief for a statement.

i.e «Είπε ότι θα είναι πάντα στην ώρα του από δω και στο εξής και πράσινα άλογα»

(“He said he will always be on time from now on and green horses”)

The sentence indicates that the person has not stopped being late or that there is disbelief expressed that this person has the ability to even start trying being on time.

Why green horses though? How did this come to be?

Interestingly, no, it was not formed as a concept due to the inherent improbability of a horse being green. It originally had nothing to do with horses, let alone green ones.

The phrase originates from the ancient «πράσσειν άλογα» (prásin álogha) which means “acting thoughtlessly”.

The sound similarity between πράσσειν (prásin, acting) and πράσινα (prásina, green) is entirely incidental. The άλογα (álogha, thoughtlessly / horses) is on the contrary the same word! You see, the “official” Greek word for horse is ίππος (hippos or ippos). However, all animals were often called in ancient and especially medieval times as άλογα, from the negative α- and the noun λόγος which means logic, reason. Therefore animals were called álogha, beings without logic. The more the language evolved the word started describing horses more specific until in modern Greek it became the standard word for horse, overcoming ίππος by a long shot.

The phrase was surviving throughout in some way or another, however now the meaning of άλογα was getting enriched (it still also means “thoughtlessly”). Simultaneously, the infinitive «πράσσειν» was slowly fading, especially because its other lexical variant «πράττειν» (prátin, also means acting) was more popular and its verb is still used in its -t- variant nowadays.

So as πράσσειν was gradually becoming rarer and άλογα was getting a double meaning, people either out of humour or out of poor vocabulary morphed the phrase into πράσινα άλογα, green horses!

Interestingly it still expresses judgement against someone’s perceived stupidity, unreliability or madness (acting thoughtlessly)!

#greece #Greek #languages #language stuff #linguistics #langblr #Greek language #modern Greek #Ancient Greek #medieval Greek #Greek culture

[nattousan]

i just think it's really funny that our word for running face first into something is called getting clotheslined, a noun referring to something completely unrelated to anything having to do with like, accidents or injuries, but by the frequency at which people would run smack into it.

That's like if people called getting up only to to get snagged on something getting "headphoned"

i'm very charmed by this idea, do we have any other examples of this in english or other languages?

#linguistics #language stuff #english #language

[lingthusiasm]

Not sure which episode to listen to first? Want to get a friend started on Lingthusiasm? Or do you just want to know yourself on a deeper level? Let our perfectly calibrated, Very Serious 'Which Lingthusiasm episode are you?' quiz guide you!

#linguistics #personality quiz #uquiz #quizzes #languages #langblr #language stuff #language learning #lingthusiasm #podcast

[skirting-board-iix]

10 Wonderful (and Unorganised) DIY Irish Words/Phrases!!!

Irish - Literal Meaning - English

Feoilséantóir - Meat Denier - Vegetarian

Conriocht - Dog Form - Werewolf

Smugairle Róin - Seal Spit - Jellyfish

Muireann i mBríste - Muireann (girl's name) in Trousers - Tomboy

Snag Breac - Speckled Hiccuper - Magpie

Tírghrá - Country Love - Patriotism

Uisce Faoi Thalamh - Water Under Ground - Conspiracy

Snáthaid an Diabhail - The Devil's Needle - Daddy-Long-Legs

Bréigéide - False Clothing - Fancy Dress

Eiteán - Little Wing - Shuttlecock

#gaeilge #irish #linguistics #language stuff #etymology #ireland #vegetarian #vegetarianism #werewolf #werewolves #jellyfish #magpie #daddy long legs #tomboy #vocab list #vocabulary

[anghraine]

I've criticized the whole idea that "Latin- or French-origin words in English constitute a different, more pretentious and less natural and everyday register of speech." There's a (moderate!) trend towards that, but it's a drastic over-simplification and exaggeration that ignores the development of the language over hundreds of years.

Lots of very common English words come from French or Latin—from what I can tell, you have to restrict your sample set to extremely basic vocabulary before Germanic words form the majority of an English lexicon. Even if you restrict the lexicon to reasonably everyday words, more of them will come from French than any other language. It's quite difficult to speak or write in English without using French- or Latin-origin words; even people actively trying to use (or invent) Old English-derived words can't naturally avoid Latinate ones because they're so thoroughly integrated into common speech.

However. I also think the whole "true English words are good enough for me" thing (as if words like family and people are not English) is vaguely distasteful. It's not like English is unique in having those kinds of words integrated into common vocabulary. Hostility or suspicion towards the idea of words derived from other languages and attempts to avoid them in favor of "true English" is weird and insular IMO.

#anghraine rants #linguistic stuff #english #anghraine babbles #anglish hate blog

[canisalbus]

I just recently started following you so i don't have the full lore of your murderous gay religiously traumatized doggos, BUT, from my understanding, they are Italian and i don't know what part of Italy they are from, yet i can't help headcanoning Vasco as Tuscan, while Machete is probably from some part of Veneto. And as an Italian who has heard Tuscans and Veneto dialet, well it's an hilarious mental image.

Vasco is indeed Tuscan, Florentine to be specific. He comes from a wealthy and influential noble family that has lived in Florence for centuries. He's proud of his roots, and it's usually easy for strangers to tell where he's from. He's a resonably successful politician and has worked as an ambassador and representative of Florence on numerous occasions.

Machete is originally Sicilian (ironically about as far from Veneto as possible), although he was taken to mainland at young age and has lived in several places since then, before ending up in Rome. The way I see it, he exhibits very little local color, his demeanor and (even though Italian hadn't become a standardized language yet) way of speaking are formal, neutral and scarcely give away any hints about his personal history, at least in the 16th century canon.

#I tend to take the easy way out with the various Italian dialects/languages and temper their effect on how the dog world works #even though to my understanding in reality they differ drastically from each other even today and they aren't always mutually intelligible #especially when you compare northern and southern ones #I know at least Sicilian is so different from modern day Italian it's considered a separate language entirely #it isn't the only one but I'm not a linguist and not even Italian so I'm not really qualified to be explaining any of this to you #main point is that my dogs are well traveled educated and adaptable so I'd like to believe that they manage #otherwise making this whole scenario work would become very complicated #language barriers aplenty #Machete is a fast learner with a natural knack for languages so he absorbs/decodes new ones easily #and I can see him acting as an interpreter if necessary #which is a valuable trait for someone working as the secretary of state I'd imagine #a lot of people he ends up dealing with speak at least passable Latin so at a pinch they might perhaps try switching to that? #Vasco might have a Tuscan flavor but Machete is more of a blank slate (at least in public and at work) #answered #fallenoftheromaempire #feel free to correct me if I've gotten something wrong I'm not an expert and this stuff is complicated for an outsider

[mjbythebay]

Because there's an eclipse, in latin class my teacher had us translate all these old Roman dudes thoughts and shit on eclipses and incase you didn't know they filled a basin with oil or tar so they could see the reflection of the eclipse and study it, or just watch it like normal because they were also obsessed like we are

#latin #language #eclipse #school stuff #high schoolers #teenagers #school #high school #rome #philosophy #oil and tar #its cause they wouldnt ripple #learning #learnsomethingneweveryday #linguistics #facts #fun facts #roman dudes #it was called like “questions about nature” #translation #we kinda failed at that part of class tho #solar eclipse

[coquelicoq]

as a huge unreliable narrator enjoyer i love the fact that the raven tower is narrated by someone who cannot lie. so the narration is not unreliable, and any kind of uncertainty is always couched in "here is a story i have heard" or "i imagine", but it scratches the same itch as unreliable narration because the evidentiality of the narration is still so central, just in the opposite way. stories that don't care about where the narrator is getting their information or what biases are present in the way that information is shared with us are on one end of a spectrum, and stories that do care about those things are on the other end, and the raven tower is firmly situated alongside the unreliably narrated stories even though the whole point is that the narrator is as motivated as it is possible to be to never say something that is untrue. and it's fascinating to see how ann leckie manages to build suspense and subvert expectations without really at any point deliberately misleading the reader. every time i reread one of her books, the bouncing of the dvd screensaver in my brain gets a little more frenetic. how does she do what she does. ann leckie what is your secret.

#this post is spoiler-free btw. the narrator is very upfront about the fact that it can't lie and says this very early in the story #i'm only like 40% through my reread and i don't remember any details of what happens but i'm already losing it #and the fact that it's first-person second-person narration...completely undivorceable from the conceit of the book #might write a different post about that but probably only after i finish rereading #i finally got my sister to agree to read it and she's like 'i read the first fifteen pages! i like the style' #and i'm barely restraining myself from being like girl please read another fifty pages and get back to me #if you are not frothing at the mouth by page 100 then your money back. guaranteed. #my sister loves semantics like the linguistic subfield of semantics so i've been begging her to read this for so many years... #like i KNOW she will love it when that stuff starts becoming apparent. which is remarkably early in the book #hrrrrhughghrhrrgh i want to talk about it so bad #the raven tower #ann leckie #my posts #unreliable narrators #or not!!! actually!!! #storytelling #semantics

[tessabennet]

German tumblr, ich brauch mal eure Meinung:

#german stuff #linguistics #sort of

[sonicskullsalt]

I love their videos

This is indeed a great selection of German sayings

find their meanings under the cut

Touch me on the feet. (Fass mich an die Füße.) - a less graphic way of saying Kiss my ass

Life is not a pony courtyard. (Das Leben ist kein Ponyhof. [I would have said Life is not a pony farm]) - You don't always get what you want. Life isn't perfect.

You're going on my cookie. (Du gehst mir auf den Keks.) - You're annoying.

That is me sausage. (Das ist mir Wurst.) - I don't care.

Now, don't be such an offended liver sausage. (Jetzt sei nicht so eine beleidigte Leberwurst.) - Now, don't be such a sorehead. Don't get butthurt.

Now it goes about the sausage. (Jetzt geht's um die Wurst.) - This is the decisive moment.

Anyway, long talk, short sense. (Wie auch immer, lange Rede, kurzer Sinn.) - tldr; to put it briefly

Lies have short legs. (Lügen haben kurze Beine) - Lies don't pay off. Lies aren't worthwhile.

You're a lucky mushroom. (Du bist ein Glückspilz.) - You're a lucky fellow.

I think my pig is whistling. (Ich glaube mein Schwein pfeift.) - You can't be serious. On no account.

Latch closed, monkey dead. (Klappe zu, Affe tot.) - End of story. The matter is closed.

I have muscle cat. (Ich hab Muskelkater.) - My muscles are sore.

I only understand train station. (Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof.) - I don't get it. I don't understand.

Everything has an end, but the sausage has two. (Alles hat eine Ende, nur die Wurst hat zwei.) - Everything must end at some point. Nothing lasts forever.

Brake your neck and legs. (Hals- und Beinbruch.) - Brake a leg. Good luck. Just like in English, this is a traditional way of saying good luck in the theatre.

#german #germany #deutsches zeug #german stuff #langblr #linguistics #my post