abolish frontex

german brazilian yelling at the clouds old man style | sometimes still posting about languages, mostly posting interesting/cool resources | kinda used to blog about university life, kinda hate it there now |

[sprachgefuehle]

I'll keep this side blog mostly for nostalgia reasons & I'll keep reblogging & posting on here but I just updated the blog title & description to better reflect whatever it is that has been going on here for some time now

keeping the banner tho so people don't confuse this blog with my main

[nathanielthecurious]

academic writing these days is always like “be/longing” “re-membering” “(under)standing”

[662607015]

STEM academic writing is like "we present the results of the ACRONYM project (A ContRived mnemOnic is NecessarY Material)"

[sivavakkiyar]

Gabriel Rockhill, Radical History and The Politics of Art

[memories-of-ancients]

Anthropeum

A daily game that challenges our understanding of human cultures. Ten objects. 5,000 years of human history. Guess where and when each artif

An interesting game where you are presented with 10 artifacts from the MET. You have to place where the artifact is from and what time period it is from. Each artifact scores up to 10,000 points, and you lose points the further away your guess is and how far off in time you are. You can only play once a day. Thanks to @baebeylik for showing this to me.

Today I scored really well. Yesterday ... not so much.

Anthropeum.com · Jun 8 2026 🟩🟦🟦🟩🟩🟩🟥🟦🟦🟩 79,001 · top 3% of players today!

[ukfrislandembassy]

Anti-Chomskyan masterpost

Sticking this up as a compilation (ever expanding) of all the material I've read and would recommend you read to get a handle on the criticisms of the linguistic ideas of Chomsky. This isn't just intended to be a criticism of Chomsky personally, but also the manner of linguistics that he engendered (basically anyone that uncritically cites Chomsky as a source on the nature of language). I have ordered these by date of publication in an effort to get across how long this has been around for.

I've tried to find publically accessible links where possible, but unfortunately not everything is so available even though it should be, so I've linked in some cases to JSTOR or similar (you might be able to get a copy if you e.g. request through researchgate but that might be it if you can't get Sci-Hub to work). Also, I've not directly linked to any PDF files, so for some of these you might have to do a little crawling through a long list of publications to find them, though that should be easier given these things are usually ordered by year, a piece of information I've given you.

I do expect to be adding to this post, so expect regular updates, as well as it being pinned on my blog.

What Did John Keep the Car That was In? (1972) - in merely six pages Dwight Bolinger Destroys Chomsky's Argument (in the New Yorker) with Facts and Logic (specifically making an early point that polar question inversion doesn't make the point Chomskyans want you to think it makes).

Cognitive versus Generative Linguistics: how commitments influence results (1990) - George Lakoff (the metaphor guy), gives his take on how the baseline assumptions of the generative model influence the results that emerge from its research.

Concerning the generative paradigm (1994) - Esa Itkonen's comprehensive criticism, including a criticism of e.g. generativism's conception of what 'Language' is, as well as the more specific points about acquisition, UG etc.

Grammaticality as evidence and as prediction in a Galilean linguistics (2009) - Nick Riemer makes a specific criticism of the notion of grammaticality in the context of Chomskyan argumentation. Follow-up after Chomskyan complaining is On not having read Itkonen: empiricism and intuitions in the generative data debate (2009), continuing the point.

The Incoherence of Chomsky's 'Biolinguistic' Ontology (2009) - Paul Postal gives his take on Chomsky's claims to being based in biology (note Postal is problematic in many ways, especially politically; I think on this one he has the right points, but I thought it worth noting).

Why Chomsky doesn’t count as a gifted linguist (2010) - a post from Dominik Lukeš that makes the point explicit, and provides alternative suggestions of actually good linguists who have had a positive impact on the field

Pullum sobre Chomsky en la UCL (2011) - Geoffrey K Pullum reports (in English, contra the title) on a talk given by Chomsky and outlines the major flaws in his rhetorical argumentation (and I mean rhetorical, there's not much in the way of actual argumentation, as you'll see)

What Chomsky doesn't get about child language (2012) - child development academic Dorothy Bishop lays out the problems with Chomsky's perspective on acquisition and how it has been superseded by pretty much all of the research by actual acquisition specialists in the decades since.

On the logical necessity of a cultural and cognitive connection for the origin of all aspects of linguistic structure (2015) - Randy LaPolla points out how odd it is to claim that Language isn't influenced by extralinguistic factors.

What exactly is UG and has anyone seen it? (2015) - Ewa Dąbrowska's title says it all with this one, arguing that part of the problem with UG as a hypothesis is that it is so vague that none of its proponents seem to actually agree on what it is, as well as debunking the key (so-called) arguments in favour.

The description-comparison approach and the audacious Chomskyan approach (or: how to frame better) (2023) - not technically anti-Chomskyan per se, but rather Haspelmath trying to frame/put a name to the overall camp that he (and many others such as myself) reside in.

[ukfrislandembassy]

The YouTuber Language Jones has made a video on this topic.

[pesti-devota-futurae]

lacuna mutata

[... ] a wonderful phrase

lacuna mutata

aint no [... ] craze

it means textual emendations

for the rest of your days

it's a source [...] free

ambiguity

lac[... ]

[benzohoarder]

[figural]

#google translate does not capture the tone switch so i have to say. first two sentences are like. normal maybe kind of feminine posting tone #& the last is like. shounen manga protagonist. action movie hero. jojo's bizarre adventure character. #the tone you would use if you were holding a gun with the safety off (– @chadlesbianjasontodd)

[minothtime]

Basically, a translation could be:

I just think it's so interesting that people end up falling in love with their friends' boyfriends! I absolutely despise every single one of them. give me my fucking homie back you goddamn bastard

[liminalweirdo]

translation tags by @minothtime because they are so so good

[dikdikpronouncedxylophone]

[kaiserin-erzsebet]

No summer travel is complete without getting screwed over by Deutsche Bahn.

[kaiserin-erzsebet]

[wtf-scientific-papers]

Wang and Lai (2014)

[gemstone-gynoid]

[twoblogger]

History degree day 1: the past is so compelling to me. I just love learning about how our ancestors lived. and it’s so interesting how many of them had a fundamentally alien yet perhaps ultimately relatable in context mindset to our own. maybe one day I can begin to understand it?

History degree day 1000: forty martyrs of england and wales ranked by how good they would’ve been at posting on twitter

[homunculus-argument]

I once chatted with a guy from Hawaii, we started talking about languages. I mentioned that while I've heard very little of it and hardly seen more of it written down, the Hawaiian language seems to have extremely similar balance of vocals and consonants as Finnish does, so it's actually pretty likely that there are some words that exist in both languages, but mean one thing in Hawaiian and a completely differen thing in Finnish - much like in Japanese.

He didn't find it plausible, so we agreed to disagree. Later on he mentioned that his name is [firstname] Kalani Kanaele, and when I told him what that translates to in Finnish, I had to spend like 20 more minutes trying to convince him that I'm actually not fucking with him.

[homunculus-argument]

Okay so in finnish, "kala" means "fish" - just any fish, fish in general, and "kana" means "chicken". "Ele" is "gesture", as in a physical movement that an animal or human does to nonverbally communicate something. The -ni suffix is a possessive referring to oneself, essentially "my". In finnish, compound words are of the "if it doesn't exist yet, I can make one up on the spot" variety, so almost all nouns can be slapped together to refer to something specific.

So, broken down like this and put back together, this dude's name translates to "the chicken-like gesture that my fish makes."

[silly-jellyghoty]

This is pure poetry

[organsizing]

there is no amount of language learning that is useless. I think it obviously scales up in wonderfulness as you learn more, but even just being at the point where you can recognize what language is being spoken or written is still a more useful thing than not knowing that. it is lovely to say hi to people in their language! any attempt to learn is important. you don't get fluent overnight. and you don't have to get fluent overnight. more knowledge is better than none. it isn't just all or nothing.

[lastvalyrian]

I feel like the pleasures of this process are always discussed very abstractly so here is my attempt at adding a few fun language learner experiences that can occur even if you are far from fluent:

knowing what written text sounds like spoken even if you don't understand what it means (bonus if there is a different writing system!)

being able to make sounds that do not occur in languages you already speak

listening to something with a translation (e.g. subtitles) and connecting parts of the meaning to certain words you were able to pick up on

listening to something and being able to visualize how it would be spelled

seeing the proper name of something (person, place, work of fiction) and realizing that you know its literal meaning

learning a new word and recognizing a cognate in the same language that you already know

learning a new word and recognizing a cognate in another language you know

I'm sure there is more that I cannot think of right now!

[castoutangelung]

and a fun one from me: when the words you learn via osmosis (ie seeing a word appear enough in the subtitles that you figure out what spoken word it connects to) start being used by your brain unconsciously (recently my brain keeps going ryokai 🫡 instead of sure thing/roger that and it makes me giggle)

My brain is all the time giving me random sound bytes like this..

[aliosne]

Being familiar with terms (say, through cooking) and having their meaning suddenly fall into place (im still lowkey mad that daikon is just. Big root. Like im not denying it Is That, but like. I guess they named that one early on. Hadn’t found a lot of good roots yet. This one’s da big one.)

Multilingual puns

Understanding why French grandmas’ mouths Look Like That

Learning swears

Honestly I really enjoy character/letter practice. It’s meditative. Wrt the former, I love learning new radicals. I spent an evening just going through a bunch of fibrecraft-related words with the 糸(thread) radical

Eavesdropping :))))))

Acquiring incredibly specific and not particularly useful in daily life vocabulary bc you become obsessed with a particular musical artist/piece of media

[creekfiend]

ohhh my god "hermeneutical injustice" thats just The Thing I Am Alwyas Thinking About But Dudnt Have Words For which is SO IRONIC

also remember when i was trying ti describe something a few weeks ago and i said "I'm sure if i knew more about philosophy i would be able to seat these thoughts somewhere legible"

(shaking fist) PHILOSOPHYYYYY

[thewayforward]

Okay, looks like I will be going down this rabbit hole tonight.

Just finished Wikipedia's epistemic injustice page (wherein/under which hermeneutical injustice is housed) and holy shit. BARS!

"The term was coined by British philosopher Miranda Fricker in 1998.[1] In her book Epistemic Injustice: Power & the Ethics of Knowing[2], Fricker explains how socially privileged groups are given an “excess of credibility”, meaning they are treated as the authority on their own experiences, but also those of others different from them. Conversely, oppressed groups experience a “credibility deficit”, where they are regarded as unqualified to describe even their own experiences. The assignment of this credibility or lack thereof is often a result of existing systemic hierarchies and normative standards, both of which are often so deeply ingrained within societies that even members of marginalized groups may become convinced of its truth."

[creekfiend]

👏👏👏👏👏

[deutsche-bahn]

Ah, ok cool, endlich kann ich die Ersparnisse meiner Eltern auf die genaue Verspätung des ICE0815 verwetten. Man, I love this timeline

[officialhamburg]

Diese timeline mag zwar schlimm sein, aber immerhin ist sie verdammt lustig

[teaboot]

Not to be rhe ten millionth person to say “USAmerican President Donald Trump Is An Incoherent Public Speaker Whose Train Of Thought Can Be Best Described As Scat Jazz” but I just remembered that when he talks at international events it is several dozen people’s job to translate what he’s saying and what he intends to say to world leaders in real time

And I desperately wish to hear how they do it

[teaboot]

If anyone reading this isn’t fluent enough in English to understand the sentences that man says, please know that he has essentially mixed a number of adjectives and topics together in a hat and is pulling them out at random like a horrible children’s game

[teaboot]

Like that waxy jaundiced bitch will straight up be like “J'étais sur internet l'autre jour – internet, la plus grande invention américaine. Et la Chine a “internet aussi. Pas un bon internet, pas comme le mien, j'ai un internet formidable. Les gens me disent : « Donald, ton internet est génial ! » On adore l'internet de Donald. Mais la Chine… Chine, Chine, Chine… Vous savez qu'ils mangent des oiseaux ? C'est terrible. J'adore les oiseaux. La Chine mange des oiseaux. Pas comme nous. Pas comme mes oiseaux. Mais vous savez, c'est comme ça, et c'est terrible. Mais voilà ce que je vais faire : je vais sauver les oiseaux. Je vais sauver internet et sauver les oiseaux. Tous ces magnifiques oiseaux. Pour l'Amérique. Et la Chine va nous détester pour ça. Ils vont nous détester parce qu'on est les meilleurs sur oiseaux”. And people will lose their minds

[angryraptor13]

International translators have had this problem for A While - if they *don't* clean up what he says to sound coherent, they look like they're doing a bad job.

Why is difficult to translate Donald Trump? Trumpslation explained.

Explore Trump translation challenges, tips for interpreters, and 2025 strategies for accurate political translation and Trumpslation success

[teaboot]

oh my god

[freckles-a-constellation]

There was a scandal in Poland because one translator decided to translate him accurately, tone, vocabulary level and word salad tangents and all. Polish conservatives who don't speak English and previously only heard smoothed out translations that sounded coherent and used big words were up in arms about how the translator was "inserting her political agenda", "mocking him", "exaggerating", "purposefully trying to make him look bad" and "incredibly unprofessional". I listened to the translation in question. It was literally just accurate.

[sprachgefuehle]

The German live interpreter for Trump's inauguration speech went viral after going "HOW LONG DO YOU WANT THIS SHIT TO GO ON???" in the middle of translating his speech.

[sprachgefuehle]

Anyone read any good non-fiction books recently? I am open to recommendations of any type, be it politics, history, science, biography or something else

[al-mayriti]

yesterday they found this beautiful mosaic in écija, sevilla (ancient astigi) !!!!

they were found under the city hall, and they are part of a wealthy house that had its own thermal complex!

astigi was refounded by augustus in the year 14 bc, but its origins lie with the indigenous turdetanii. it's important to know that it was born as a colonia romana, as in, a roman city, where its citizens were full-fledged roman citizens, which was something very rare to see outside of italy at tha time. it also was the capital of the conventus astigitanus, one of the divisions of the province of baetica, the wealthiest and most populated of the hispanic provinces (and the only one that was senatorial, as in it wasn't governed by a governor but the senate itself). as you can imagine, it was one of the most important cities in hispania, and its location was also quite important, as it lied on the via augusta, about halfway between corduba (modern córdoba), capital of baetica, and hispalis (modern sevilla), second most important city in baetica and fellow capital of a conventus.