la vida es dulce

Hannah | 25 | US Languages: English (native) / Spanish (intermediate) / French (beginner)

[spanishskulduggery]

hi I have some very Argentinian colleagues… I live in Spain and I’m not used to their flavour of Spanish! could you explain “vos sos” 😅

To be clear, Argentina's voseo is extremely unique so bear with me as I explain way too much about all of it

Apologies if I explain this like you're 5, it's just that there's so much historical and regional linguistics to this

And again this is generalizations and language is constantly changing so I might be a bit off on some of this but this is what I know

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You're probably familiar with vosotros in Spain

The root here is vos - historical vos was polite "you" for a singular person, so there are some countries that see vos as fancy since that was how you spoke to someone you didn't know or someone with a title so you were giving them proper respect. Eventually the term of address was Vuestra Merced "your lordship/ladyship" or "your grace" something equivalent and that became usted

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The general rules for Spanish pronouns today are:

yo -> I tú -> you (informal) usted -> you (formal) él -> he ella -> she elle -> they [non binary singular] ellos / ellas / elles -> they [plural; masculine or mixed, feminine plural, and NB plural] nosotros/nosotras -> we ustedes -> you (all) [plural; for most countries it's the only plural option, for Spain it's specifically formal] vosotros/vosotras -> you (all) [plural and informal; primarily Spain]

The use of vos is called el voseo and will depend on the country

In Spain, vos has that historical fancy ring to it like Shakespearean or Medieval

General Latin America uses vos with tú conjugations - it's usually a more familiar version of tú

...

The big differences are in rioplatense Spanish; which is primarily South America in the Cono Sur - the general term for the Rio de la Plata

Argentina (and Uruguay, Paraguay, parts of Bolivia etc) tend to use vos one way

And Chile uses it a different way

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Argentina's use of vos is like if you took Spain's version of it, but you omitted the I, and put emphasis on the last syllable (or the only syllable)

For example, vosotros sois for Spain -> vos sos for Argentina, just omitting the I in that conjugation, and since it's monosyllabic it's just that one syllable to emphasize

Then you have vosotros habláis -> vos hablás; that last syllable gets emphasized and it's almost like tú hablas but not exactly the same pronunciation [since normal rules say it's hablas]

IMPORTANT NOTE: Argentina uses vos for EVERYONE - there's a tú and usted that's taught and you understand it for reading etc - but in Argentina, vos is used as the default "you" singular. Plural is ustedes like you'd expect from Latin America, but vos is the default in Argentina

I would say Argentina is the most similar to how English "you" works now

Originally we had "thou" and "you", and thou was informal [looking like tú in Spanish, or du in German], and "you" was formal - much more of a big thing in Medieval times when the entire English-speaking world would have been under a monarchical feudal system

Over time in English, "you" came to be used as the only option

We tend to use "thou" to sound more Medieval in high fantasy even though it's technically informal but we perceive it as fancy

...

But anyway, Argentina's default 2nd person singular pronoun is vos

I'm not sure if Paraguay and Uruguay follow how Argentina does it, but at least with Argentina you're never guessing about formality

...

Chile is the exception with voseo

To be clear, Chile's use of vos has a weirder conjugation that's somewhere between the Argentinean way of conjugation for vos and a mix of tú in there.

While Spain says vosotros sois [which is plural], and Argentina says vos sos [which is singular], Chile would probably say something like vos eri/so instead of plain eres; not sure if that's like a swallowing of the S sound or just how it works out when you eliminate the S

While Argentina removes the I from Spain's vosotros, Chile tends to remove the S instead... so you might see vos hablái

A lot of Chilean voseo ends in an I

The other main distinction is that - to the best of my knowledge - Chile's voseo is considered low class and at times, rude

Using vos in Chile is a bit like saying "bruh" or "dude", not something you'd use with the older generation or in polite contexts

That's very different from Argentina even though they're right next to each other

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The general (non Chilean) conjugation of vos is easier to find on WordReference but it usually looks like tú with the exception of present tense and commands

[spanishskulduggery]

Placeholder Names in Spanish

In Spanish, the word Fulano/a is used in situations where you're like "what's-his-name" or "whoever" or "so-and-so", a situation where you either can't remember or choose not to remember someone's name

Along with Fulano/a you may also see Mengano/a and Zutano/a

The original and most common is fulano/a which comes from Arabic; where Fulano al Fulani is kind of like saying "John Smith" or "John Doe", just used like "this person whose name we don't know"

You'll also see Fulano de Tal and Fulana de Tal as being "what's-their-name from Wherever/Such-and-Such"

The other term is also understood but it's a little more pejorative, as Don/Doña Nadie which is like "Mr/Mrs Nobody", calling somebody a nobody or someone of little importance

...

I should also mention that there are a handful of ways to say "John Doe", when referring to an unknown person, usually a victim or a perpetrator of a crime

The most common ones that I've seen (aside from Fulano/a) are Juan Pérez and Doña María for women... literally "Juan Pérez" being extremely common first name and extremely common last name, and Doña María as "Mrs. Maria" again the most popular female name

[to be clear though, no one would actually name their kids Fulano/a, Mengano/a or Zutano/a because it would lead to so much legal hassle, plus most Spanish-speaking countries have or have had more strict guidelines regarding names....... however, Juan and María are absolutely commonplace]

Other than that, you might see NN used in some countries

"NN" is a holdover from Latin, nomen nescio literally like "unknown name". In some Spanish countries (primarily Argentina) this is sometimes called Natalia Natalia

Natalia Natalia or NN has nothing to do with female names, and a man can be a Natalia Natalia... it's just that in Argentina's police codes, letters are given as names or common words, like M is María and Z is Zapato. But N is Natalia... so using the Latin idea of NN gets you "Natalia Natalia" in police jargon. The closest equivalent I can think of is like military jargon like Alpha, Bravo, Charlie for ABC etc

But if you happen to see NN for someone's name/file, it means they don't know the name so it's like John/Jane Doe

Let me know if I missed any, but these are my personal experiences from things I've read/seen/heard

[sunriseverse]

i have no idea how to structure this post but i wanted to let any language learners following me to know about pronunciator! it's a programme i just found out our local library gives us access to, but i think that you can also register for it on your own. it has a massive number of courses for over 160 languages—even kurdish, which is really hard to find courses on! some other languages they have that i saw just from a quick glance at their languages page are armenian, mexican sign language, hmong, and amharic. i don't have a catchy tagline here, i just think you should consider looking into if you can use it.

[hil-arrr-y]

Two job-hunting resources that changed my life:

This cover letter post on askamanger.com. A job interview guide written by Alison Green, who runs askamanager.

[the-real-numbers-deactivated202]

Shout-out to @ms-demeanor for putting these on my dash again, I’d like to add this exceptional interview question “answer guide” that explains traps and “the best” way to answer over 64 common questions. I don’t know who to attribute it to, but here it is: PDF from tri valley one-stop career center.

[the-real-numbers-deactivated202]

Hey some of these answer templates helped J get an offer letter from her dream job; strongly recommend you read them if you’re job hunting

[allthingslinguistic]

A classic table of accidental lexical gaps in English, from Language Log.

[ejacutastic]

there are serious biosecurity measures you need to be aware of and follow if you want to grow your own food and keep chickens and the Iike and I'm begging you to be aware of how to protect yourself from literal zoonotic abberant brain parasites like raccoon roundworm. (CDC link)

also of note are the less deadly but still gross zoonotic parasites dogs and cats can carry (roundworms and hookworms are the big ones), some fluke species found on vegetation, and things like salmonella and other bacteria in everything from chicken feces/on eggs and the soil/on foods.

like this isn't said to scare people, but homesteading efforts are so popular right now and it is VITAL that people learn basic biosecurity measures to protect themselves and their families.

[ejacutastic]

you also need to know when it's safe to eat animal products after administering medications as well. I know a lot of meds are easy to find otc with any farm animal stuff but be aware there is often a period where you should not consume animal byproducts after medication administration.

[ejacutastic]

I'll also be honest Baylisascaris procyonis (raccoon roundworm) infections aren't particularly common but like....you also probably don't wanna be the unlucky person either no matter how common and it's a good example of how scary of shit there really is when you don't know safety precautions.

[fillianore-moved]

so metropolitan museum of art has a register of books they’ve published that are out of print and that you can download for free! they’re mostly books on art, archeology, architecture, fashion and history and i just think that’s super useful and interesting so i wanted to share! you can find all of the books available here!

[olderthannetfic]

Ooooooooh

[inziladun]

[straysnail]

[ID: screenshot of a website page on the book titled “Ancient Egyptian Representations of Turtles” by Henry G. Fischer (1968). Under author’s name it says that “This title is out of print”, and there’s two buttons labeled retrospectively “Read online” and “Download PDF”. /END ID]

[artemisiasea]

The Sicilian Language

People often ask: is Sicilian a language or a dialect? It's an interesting question and one that we will attempt to answer in the article...

…Perhaps the most interesting feature of Sicilian is that it lacks a future tense. Instead, the future is expressed by appending a future time expression (eg: tomorrow, next week, next year) to the present.

In this respect, Sicilian shares something with Arabic. In Arabic, (it is said), only God can know the future and so to express the future, they append the term “inshallah” – “if God wills” to the beginning or end of the phrase. So they will say something like “If God wills, on Sunday, I go to the market” (ie not, “I will go…”).

And in Sicilian, it is much the same: Si Diu voli e campàmu dumàni nni vidèmu If God wills and we are still alive, we see each other tomorrow.

This article is sooooo fascinating I’m going crazy over this part too

[moosearesocool]

from now on we’re calling all the stem folk ‘students of the unhallowed arts’, just like mary shelley wanted us to do

[formlines]

Argillite Orca or Killer Whale with Haida Woman 

Andrew Williams 

from the website:  This Argillite Orca or Killer Whale with Haida Woman sculpture is an interpretation of the Haida Story, where Nanasimgit saves his wife from the Undersea World, to which an Orca or Killer Whale had taken her. Andrew Williams from the Haida Nation carved this piece and incorporated 31 inlays of mastodon ivory, abalone and catlinite or pipestone.

[welcometothewarren]

if anyone needs me i'll be frothing at the mouth thinking about the origin of language and interspecies communication. happy wednesday.

[welcometothewarren]

how did we learn this? who taught us this? is it coincidental? is it observational? is it that something in the source of these sixteen languages stems from the same animal instinct that causes each of these species to call out to their own kind? I Am Going To Lose It.

[tenorgender]

sometimes I look at a fruit or vegetable and see how optimized it is and I'm just filled with love. ppl have the idea that edible plants are "organic" or have just sprung from the earth in their form but that's not true!! they were selectively bred for thousands of years by generations upon generations of people. that is love. that is faith. when you bite into a fruit you are eating the generations of labor instilled in it to make it just right for you

[tenorgender]

this is how much our ancestors loved us. this is all their struggles and all their hopes. this is how much our ancestors loved being alive

[questbedhead]

My new, totally uneducated guess for why humans tell stories is to keep them from getting bored and cranky while following a gazelle for four hours. No deeper mystery or meaning. Some folk needed a distraction while they tried to catch dinner so they just made some shit up. The end.

[technicallyoneofakind]

The equivalent of listening and singing to songs on your way home so you don't fall asleep at the wheel.

[questbedhead]

For millennia upon millenia, humans have had to yell creatively to keep on task 

[awaytoday]

theres a theory that the reason there are so many characters in folk tales who weave/spin is because weavers/spinners were bored while they were doing the repetitve work that doesnt require much brian power for experienced workers. e.g. the greek fates, rumpelstiltskin, sleeping beauty pricking her finger on a spindle.

so the weavers/spinners were telling stories to pass the time and then they were like 'yo but what if WE were in it.'

also interesting that making up a story as you tell it is called 'spinning a tale'

[nicolauda]

in Australian Aboriginal English, telling a story is also called "yarning."

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

going back to the singing bit, there’s a LONG history of work songs--both singing and whistling--being used by agricultural societies, hunters, sailors, etc. These songs could be used as a form of communication and time-keeping, but often also resulted in longer narrative songs involving folk tales & motifs. 

Most surviving work songs are only a few centuries old (such as Yankee Doodle, believe it or not, which probably started out as a 15th cent Dutch harvest song), but the practice itself is probably much, much older. As in, earliest-agrarian-societies old. As in, hunters-and-gatherers old.

Interestingly, singing predates language (and may have contributed to the development of language), and probably predates Homo Sapiens--our hominid ancestors may have been singing and whistling for millions of years before our species even existed! But as language developed, you better believe we hit upon the kickass combo of song-as-a-form-of-storytelling, and have been using it ever since to keep ourselves entertained during work and leisure hours.

[indigenoustiktok]

[llamanonymous]

This is good to know

[turnpikeghosts]

on all levels but physical i am these banana cats

[kropotkindersurprise]

January 26 1988 - Burnum Burnum plants the Aboriginal flag at the cliffs of Dover, claiming England for the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, exactly 200 years after Arthur Phillip claimed Australia for the British. [video] The full Burnum Burnum Declaration:

I, Burnum Burnum, being a nobleman of ancient Australia, do hereby take possession of England on behalf of the Aboriginal people. In claiming this colonial outpost, we wish no harm to you natives, but assure you that we are here to bring you good manners, refinement and an opportunity to make a Koompartoo - ‘a fresh start’. Henceforth, an Aboriginal face shall appear on your coins and stamps to signify our sovereignty over this domain. For the more advanced, we bring the complex language of the Pitjantjajara; we will teach you how to have a spiritual relationship with the Earth and show you how to get bush tucker.

We do not intend to souvenir, pickle and preserve the heads of 2000 of your people, nor to publicly display the skeletal remains of your Royal Highness, as was done to our Queen Truganinni for 80 years. Neither do we intend to poison your water holes, lace your flour with strychnine or introduce you to highly toxic drugs. Based on our 50,000 year heritage, we acknowledge the need to preserve the Caucasian race as of interest to antiquity, although we may be inclined to conduct experiments by measuring the size of your skulls for levels of intelligence. We pledge not to sterilize your women, nor to separate your children from their families. We give an absolute undertaking that you shall not be placed onto the mentality of government handouts for the next five generations but you will enjoy the full benefits of Aboriginal equality. At the end of two hundred years, we will make a treaty to validate occupation by peaceful means and not by conquest.

Finally, we solemnly promise not to make a quarry of England and export your valuable minerals back to the old country Australia, and we vow never to destroy three-quarters of your trees, but to encourage Earth Repair Action to unite people, communities, religions and nations in a common, productive, peaceful purpose.

Burnum Burnum

[the-dust-jacket]

A friend of mine with a passion for folklore and small presses recently introduced me to Inhabit Media, and I’m so glad to have had a chance to peruse these books. 

Inhabit Media is an Inuit-owned publishing company based in Iqaluit, Nunavut (i.e. very very very North). They are dedicated to preserving and promoting the stories, knowledge, culture, and language of the Inuit and of Northern Canada, and they publish a range of books for children and adults that include contemporary and historical fiction, folklore and legends retold and beautifully illustrated, and non-fiction on history, science, and arctic life. 

If you enjoy folklore, oral history, wintertime storytelling, or really superbly creepy mermaids, definitely check them out. 

[muffinlance]

Signal boost, these look awesome!