Even the word hopeless isn’t without hope

they/them language and culture blog • Respect marginalized peoples & educate yourself always. Languages: English (L1), Japanese, Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig), (Swiss) German, Welsh (Cymraeg)

[lexiconofhope]

lexiconofhope: a language, culture, and study blog.

languages: English (1st) • Japanese / 日本語 • Welsh / Cymraeg • Scottish Gaelic / Gàidhlig • Swiss German / Schweizerdeutsch • Spanish / Español

related sideblogs: personal blog, polytheism blog, neopronoun edu/support blog

I like to also reblog resources & posts for languages I’m not learning, educational resources, topics on marginalized peoples in academics, literature, marginalized & indigenous languages, etc.! This is often more to support the people in those groups than anything else.

My focus language is currently Welsh, with ASL on the side. I started learning Welsh in early 2020 because some of my mom’s family is from a highly Welsh-speaking area of (North) Wales. At uni I’m learning Spanish.

I was learning Japanese for 5+ years and I studied beginner’s Scottish Gaelic in 2018/2019, but paused to pursue Welsh as a higher priority. I plan on continuing it, and learning other Celtic languages, in the future.

I’ve done beginner studies of French, German, and Spanish, and intend to continue my studies of them eventually. Swiss German is for my great-grandpa, who spoke it as a native language and whose family was all from Sankt Gallen. I always welcome hearing about Swiss German & Celtic language learning resources!

[gingersnaptaff]

To my Welsh mutuals: SENEDD ELECTIONS ON THE SEVENTH OF MAY, GET OUT AND VOTE, OR I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL FIND A WAY TO BRING OWAIN GLYNDŴR BACK FROM THE DEAD, AND GET HIM TO HIT YOU ON THE BACK OF THE HEAD WITH A SWORD.

(Also, vote tactically. And say no to Reform.)

[celticstudies]

save me, my 8 dictionaries that i have pinned open in my browser at all times

[haruwuchiyoo]

Fantasy authors stop using Irish/Gaeilge, Scots Gaelic/Gàidhlig and Welsh/Cymraeg in your books if you're going to miserably mispronounce them and then say "well this is just MY pronunciation of it!" when you're called out. That's not how that works. Gaeilge, Scots Gaelic and Welsh are three languages that were dangerously teetering on becoming "dead languages" because English occupation intentionally crippled them to suppress the chances of rebellion in three countries they colonized. Native languages that were banned and beaten out of people. I hate this trend, it's tacky. If you're going to use our languages to sound whimsical, learn how to pronounce them correctly, it's the absolute bare minimum. The Celtic languages aren't some little fun trendy devices to bolster and make your books more interesting.

Our languages do sound great in fantasy novels. They're beautiful and frankly magical when spoken fluently, and it's incredibly sad that although they are recovering, they still have an incredibly long way to go.

[orioncorium]

Welsh English Linguistics Survey

Some of you know I'm studying English Linguistics, and I'm doing my Master's thesis right now on Welsh English. The survey for this thesis has been struggling to gain traction online, so I'm putting it here in a post!

Quickly put, you have to be over 15 y/o, Welsh and live in Wales to take the survey. There are two ways to respond: an interview and a written questionnaire! The questionnaire will take around 10 minutes to complete and can be found at the QR code below. The interviews can take anywhere between 30 minutes and 1 hour and will be recorded. If you wish to take part in the interview, please reach out at this e-mail adress: [email protected]

Any data which will be collected from this study will only be used for academic purposes. By participating in the study, you consent to this usage of the data. Both the questionnaire and interview are entirely anonymous and will not contain information that could allow for your answers to be linked back to your identity.

Thank you all for helping me share this to as many people as possible!

[our-queer-experience]

source from mpr

[nimashkawizii]

Tecumseh was motivated to learn Ojibwe and earn the World Language Certificate by his family and his people. 

“I’m honored to be the first person to do it,” he said. “It is very, very awe inspiring.” 

“A lot of people don’t really know Ojibwe,” Tecumseh said. “it’s been oppressed throughout history … I’m the first person in my family, my direct family, to not be at risk of being put in a boarding school. … I think that by taking someone’s language away you’re taking a part of themselves and their identity. By learning that, I wanted to let people learn my language, our language, and spread it across the world.”

Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Tribal Nations Education Committee Member Raina Killspotted presented Tecumseh an eagle feather as a language warrior. Williams presented him with a blanket as he accepted his certificate[…]

“My advice to younger people or other people who are trying to learn Ojibwe is there are people out there who would be very happy and grateful if you want to learn that language,” he said. “And I think if more people can take it upon themselves to learn Ojibwe then it would very much help their chances because Ojibwe is endangered.” [source]

[parkchanwoohoo]

Heard this stupid dad joke that killed me: Which Chinese word takes the longest to write? "Friend" (朋友) because it takes two months just to write half of it

[parkchanwoohoo]

Which character is faster, hot (热) or cold (冷)? Obviously hot, which has 4 legs to cold's 1

[parkchanwoohoo]

Why do Chinese vampires hate spicy food? They only drink 不辣的

[claire-witch-project]

[official-linguistics-post]

official orthographic comedy post

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

*taps microphone* Hi hello yes here is a linguistic PSA

Let's say you are on the internet, such as right now. You see a post someone has written about a word, phrase, concept, or custom from their culture. You find it interesting, or charming; you read the whole thing, to learn more.

The person writing the post uses the correct name of this phrase/concept/custom, in their language. You do not speak this language. As part of their explanation, they give a translation. However, they do not use this translation otherwise; throughout the post, the comments, etc, they exclusively use the native language name for the thing.

It is rude as fuck and colonialist to boot for you to then refer to the thing by that English translation, because you can't be bothered to learn the proper name in a language that's foreign to you. That is not its name. Have some fucking respect.

Sincerely, a Welsh woman who is going to start having murders if she has to read "Grey Mare" instead of "Mari Lwyd" one more time

[official-linguistics-post]

by the way. being educated/trained in linguistics does not automatically free you from having reactionary thoughts about the validity of different ways of languaging. it does give you the tools to recognize and counter those thoughts as being false. you still have to be an active participant in shaping your own linguistic worldview.

[official-linguistics-post]

can also be phrased as:

you're still gonna think stupid shit sometimes about how other people do language. tell your brain to shut the fuck up and get over it, because you know better.

[lexiconofhope]

[segamascott]

[accessible-tumbling]

ID: A screenshot of a conversation between two people. The messages read:

"Me: What does ya tu sabes mean

Reanne: You already know

Me: No I don't"

End ID.

[skiddo-xy]

As my fall term is coming to an end one of my biggest takeaways from German class (other than my knowledge of German itself) is that the more languages you learn, the easier it is to learn another one.

Once you've exposed yourself to more languages it become easier to accept that grammar structures in one language are different from your native language's grammar structure simply because that's the way it is.

Once you've learned more languages you start to better understand how you learn languages best.

It's these little things which really speed up the process of language learning when it's not your first experience learning a new language and in my experience it's really encouraging.

[can-asta]

[ayeforscotland]

Gaidhlig and Scots become official languages in Scotland today with the Scottish Languages Act coming into force after it was voted on back in June.

Key parts of the legislation includes the right for parents to request Gaelic schools for their local area, and will help with standardisation of language teaching across the board.

Good signs for the future. In the future would be very interested to see parents (and everyone else) getting access to the same learning materials so they can learn alongside their kids.

[ashi-sewehitsanethe]

The whole "Arctic means 'land of bears' and Antarctica means 'land without bears'" thing annoys me, but I can't say why it annoys me when I hear someone say it because to do so would make me sound like an overly pedantic jerk.

('Arctic' comes from Greek 'arktikós', meaning 'of the bear', i.e. the Great Bear constellation, Ursa Major, which was used euphemistically to refer to 'northern lands'. It has nothing to do with actual, literal polar bears. 'Antarctica' has the prefix anti-, which doesn't mean 'without', it means 'opposite to'. So Antarctica is not 'the land without bears', it's 'the land on the opposite side of the planet from the Arctic'.)

[bucephaly]

😭😭

[bucephaly]

There are only around 1,500 native Cherokee speakers left, and most of them are elders

Little Cherokee Seeds is a program where mothers and babies spend all day with first language Cherokee speakers, speaking nothing but Cherokee, so that the babies become a new generation of native speakers. They're also teaching traditional skills and mothering practices to the mothers to pass on.

This is so so important for the survival of the language. These babies are on track to being fluent first language speakers, and they will be able to keep the language going for another lifetime.

I recommend checking out the little cherokee seeds facebook page!!

[eingedeutscht]

Hallo! Asks are open so I hope it's okay to ask

In DEUTSCH are there any options for people who prefer gender-neutral pronouns? How would you talk about someone who's gender is unknown?

Short answer: Jein

Long answer: The personal pronouns most used in german are er/sie/es (he/she/it) - "er" & "sie" being seen as mostly binary pronouns and "es" being generally rude to refer to any person unless they specifically ask for it.

However, germans have been getting creative over the years and we have a whole database of potential gender-neutral pronouns to choose from.

The ones I've seen most commonly used are:

binary pronouns in a nonbinary way (an nb transmasc might settle for "he" as their preferred pronoun in german while using "they" in english)

sier/sien (which I'm not the biggest fan of personally since it feels like sie + er slapped together)

the english they/them slapped into a german sentence denglisch style (example: "They went to the grocery store and got their favourite fun drink" -> "They ist einkaufen gegangen und hat their Lieblingsspaßgetränk gekauft")

dey/dem (pronounced and used like "they", just with a d)

neopronouns

no pronouns

Entgendern nach Phettberg

The best course of action probably is to just ask the person you're talking about. If you're not referring to anyone in particular, you can get creative by saying "a person who...", using passive speech or other Sprachbasteleien. The more cis people you confuse, the better 👍

[zhenya-grey]

@boyslit some German stuff you might be interested in