stud-y-ing lin-guis-tics !!

20, she/her. third-year psychology/linguistics student, who learns random languages on the side ☞ #linguisticperspective

[linguisticperspective]

warms my heart a bit everytime friends send me duolingo content, just because they know i use it frequently :’)

[lucydacusgirl]

I think <3 is the most important word in human language. Where would we be without it

[language-gremlin]

so weird how in english some words are really just used in expressions and not otherwise… like has anyone said “havoc” when not using it in the phrase “wreaking havoc”? same goes for “wreaking” actually…

reply with more, i’m fascinated

[linguisticperspective]

fun fact about old english! 

the reason the ‘&’ symbol & the number 7 are attached to the same key MIGHT JUST be because back in the 1300s, scribes would often use ‘7′ as a shorthand way of writing ‘and’. see here:

[kosmogrl]

I can’t read or do anything while listening to music because trust me all I’m gonna do is focus on the song and nothing else

[linguisticperspective]

see but here’s the funny thing! i can’t listen to MY OWN music & study, but if someone else plays anything, i tune it out like it’s nothing

[watermelonmountaindew]

i need to know every language immediately

[linguisticperspective]

this is a genuine (& perhaps slightly dumb) question: what is not considered a pop-science book? i’ve been reading quite a few psychology books lately (mostly aimed at laymen instead of experts) & virtually every single one of these books has one review bound to be citing it as “blegh pop-psychology”. i want to ask these people like??? what is your definition of a good psychology book in that case? a textbook??

[gwendolynlerman]

Writing systems of the world

This is a list of all the writing systems that are currently in active use.

Arabic (الْأَبْجَدِيَّة الْعَرَبِيَّة‎)

Armenian (Հայոց այբուբեն)

Bengali–Assamese/Eastern Nagari (বাংলা লিপি)

Burmese (မြန်မာအက္ခရာ)

Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics (ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ)

Cherokee (ᏣᎳᎩ)

Chinese (汉字 [Simplified]/漢字 [Traditional])

Cyrillic (Кириллица)

Devanagari (देवनागरी)

Fraser (LI-SU)

Ge'ez/Ethiopic (ግዕዝ)

Georgian (მხედრული)

Greek (Ελληνικό αλφάβητο)

Gujarati (ગુજરાતી લિપિ)

Gurmukhi (ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ)

Hebrew (אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי)

Japanese (日本語)

Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ ಲಿಪಿ)

Khmer (អក្សរខ្មែរ)

Korean (한글 [South Korea]/조선글 [North Korea])

Lao (ອັກສອນລາວ)

Latin

Malayalam (മലയാളലിപി)

Mongolian (ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯ ᠪᠢᠴᠢᠭ᠌)

N’Ko (ߒߞߏ)

Odia/Kalinga (କଳିଙ୍ଗ ଲିପି)

Sinhala (සිංහල අක්ෂර මාලාව)

Tai Le/Dehong Dai (ᥖᥭᥰᥘᥫᥴ)

Tamil (தமிழ் அரிச்சுவடி)

Telugu (తెలుగు లిపి)

Thaana (ތާނަ)

Thai (อักษรไทย)

Tibetan (བོད་སྐད)

Tifinagh (ⵜⵉⴼⵉⵏⴰⵖ)

Yi (ꆈꌠꁱꂷ)

[livia-1291]

I am so sick of people saying that a language is useless. Oh so an entire language and culture is useless because it won’t make you money? It’s worthless because you can’t exploit it? Colonialism has successfully made it so that an entire language is trivialized and devalued because it isn’t “valuable” when it comes to the global market and trade.

“Oh we should teach the children in school” that’s not enough. It’s never enough. Teaching children a language in school is not enough to cultivate fluency - how many people do you know who “took French/German/Spanish in high school” and don’t remember a thing? This also leads to creating an environment of infantilism around a language. People learn a language (and dance, and crafts) as children, and then they are thrust into high school, and then the “real” world, where they have to get “real” jobs to make money. All of that cultural stuff? That’s for children. (Never mind the fact that there is no funding from the government for languages that are “useless.”)

There is so much psychological trauma in these communities. These people were literally tortured for speaking their languages. And now you want to tell them their language, which was forcefully taken from them, is useless.

[griefphemerate]

She lorem on my ipsum til I dolor

[jacknosabeleer]

The best thing is when you learn words in your native language while studying your target language. Like HELLO I had no idea that word EXISTED.

[srsfunny]

I am speed

[parksanddeserts]

In my linguistics class we had a Chinese girl who had adopted a European name. We all didn't speak Cantonese and understood her wish to not have her name butchered all the time, except for one of us, a guy who thought he knew to differentiate between tones perfectly because he was learning Vietnamese. He saw himself as super woke and he thought it was wrong for her to adopt a European name when we should just try harder to pronounce her Chinese name (which honestly is just really difficult if you don't speak the language at all, even for linguists). So he would constantly call her by her Chinese name which she initially didn't even want to share, but he kept asking her for it, and from the look on her face I could tell that he did not get it right, and that she didn't like it at all. The first time he did it she even told him it wasn't correct, but he kept going, so sure he knew how to pronounce it. So like I 100% agree that we should put in effort to pronounce names from foreign languages and not give up on the first try if we get it wrong, but we should also respect people's wishes when they know we can't do it/they know it takes too much effort for them to teach us how to pronounce it. In that case, we should just use the name we're being told to use. It's that simple.

[linguisten]

Fellow linguists, don't be that guy™

[academicssay]

[catradoraism]

[softlypause]

Haha looks like that relationship didn’t work out… didn’t work out et al.

[demonbloodsausagedog]

ibid. him adieu

[gwendolynlerman]

Probability that two randomly-chosen people have different mother tongues

In Africa, multilingualism is almost taken for granted. In particular, indigenous languages are most commonly used there. Swahili is the lingua franca in Eastern Africa and Hausa, in West Africa. African linguistic diversity was also influenced by colonial languages; English and French, for example, are official languages and languages of instruction in many countries.

However, the most linguistically diverse country is Papua New Guinea, with 820 languages. This means that there is a 99% chance that two randomly-selected people have different mother tongues. On the other hand, Haiti, North Korea, San Marino, and Vatican City have the least linguistic diversity in the world, as in the former two languages are spoken and in the rest only one is spoken.

[thoodleoo]

the worst part about studying languages is knowing that you will never be nearly as good at it as a literal baby

[what-even-is-thiss]

The only reason babies are better at language learning is because it’s their full time job and they don’t get embarrassed

[what-even-is-thiss]

If you, a teenaged or adult human, wasn’t embarrassed and could study language full time you would learn way faster than a baby.

[sandersstudies]

In my defense, babies receive more positive reinforcement than I do as well. Babies will say ha ba bah dah ba hah and all the adults around them will be like 🤯 really? Wow 😱 that is so interesting 😁 great job! 🤗 and then what happened? 🤔

[computationalcalculator]

also people who are like “I’ve been studying for a year and I only have an eight-year-old’s grasp of the language”:

how long do you think it took the eight-year-old

[reimenaashelyee]

A comic about my complicated feelings for Bahasa Malaysia, my country’s national language. Happy Merdeka to all my fellow Malaysians.

[andunetir]

I’m very late, but to those asking for a translation: I got you.

This post hit hard, and a large part of that is thanks to the bilingualism and code-switching. The disparity between the way the artist speaks in English vs BM is stark and nuanced in a way that translation just doesn’t do justice. Then there’s the cultural aspect to consider: years of memories embodied by the shattered kopitiam cup, the school exercise book, the hands bent in dance.

I’m glad people who aren’t Malaysian (or who are, in one way or another, estranged from the country) have found something beautiful and poignant in this comic. That speaks to how powerful it is as a piece of art. I can’t give you all the context that makes it extra special to me, but I hope this translation helps to fill in some of the gaps.

Translator’s comments in italics. If you’re on desktop, I recommend pulling up the comic in a separate window/tab so you can read it side by side.

@persephonification​

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