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wallacepolsom
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
RMH
Claire Keane
No title available

oozey mess
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Three Goblin Art
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Cosimo Galluzzi

Andulka
tumblr dot com
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
Stranger Things

Janaina Medeiros
No title available

Discoholic 🪩
almost home

seen from Türkiye

seen from United States

seen from India
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from Japan
seen from Australia

seen from Thailand

seen from Romania
seen from India
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seen from Brazil

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@stilllang
not to be sappy on main BUT one thing that i really loved when studying linguistics was that the more important a word is, the earlier the concept of this thing was given a word. for example, the word water is similar in many similar languages (aqua, agua, água). so, the more important a word is, the more languages it’ll be similar across and the older this word will be, theoretically and generally speaking (many other things also affect this)
AND SO in my years studying linguistics, there was one word that was nearly identical across so many regionally different languages (though there are outliers of course), from europe to most of asia to subsaharan africa to indigenous languages. across nearly all languages this is the first word people learn how to say and maybe the first word humans in general officially named and defined:
mamãe - portuguese
妈妈 (māmā) - chinese
ਮੰਮੀ (mamī) - punjabi
mamah - mayan (yucatec)
мама - bulgarian, russian, ukrainian
ماں (mäm) - urdu
মা (mā) - bengali
mẹ (may) - vietnamese
ママ (mama) - japanese
అమ్మ (am'ma) - telugu
mama - quechua
મમ્મી (mam'mī) - gujarati
അമ്മ (am'ma) - malayalam
amá - navajo
엄마 (omma) - korean
māmā - native hawaiian
onam - uzbek
aana - yupik
mema - tagish
μαμά (mamá) - greek
mama - swahili
أمي (umi) - arabic
mayi - chichewa
माँ (ma) - hindi
mam - dutch
ម៉ាក់ (ma) - khmer
แม่ (mæ̀) - thai
அம்மா (am'mā) - tamil
අම්මා (ammā) - sinhala
amai - zulu
ama - basque
आमा (āmā) - nepali
အမေ (amay) - myanmar (burmese)
אמא (ima) - hebrew
mamá - spanish
mom/mum- english
this isn’t actually the first word because we teach babies this word (most likely), but because the “mama” or “ama” sounds are the easiest things for babies to say, and it’s nearly always the only thing they can say at first, and adults across all languages defined their language around that.
babies all over the world for thousands and thousands of years all started out blabbering sounds like “mama” and mothers everywhere were all like Oh Shit That’s Me! I’m Mama!
I am a(n):
⚪ Male
⚪ Female
🔘 Writer
Looking for
⚪ Boyfriend
⚪ Girlfriend
🔘 An incredibly specific word that I can't remember
*wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat*
WAIT IT’S CALLED A THROW PILLOW
here is a super helpful website for this kinda thing!
the first result isn’t always the one you’re looking for but when you press enter it’ll give you a ton of words related to your query that’ll probably have what you’re wanting, or something better
here’s some examples:
Reblog to save a writer’s sanity (the last bit that’s left)
Some environmental German vocabulary doodles!
me: *makes slight progress in target language*
At the shop
magazin - shop
Pot să vă ajut? - May I help you?
Caut un (masculine) / o (feminine)… - I’m looking for a…
Nu, mulțumesc. Doar mă uit. - No, thank you. I’m just looking around.
Ce mărime purtați? - What size do you take?
Port mărimea… - I take size…
Poftiți! - Here you are!
Aș dori… - I’d like…
Eu plătesc cu cardul. - I’ll pay with card.
Cât costă? - How much is it?
cămașă - shirt
pantaloni - trousers
pantof - shoe
pereche (de) - pair (of)
Mult succes!
Note: If you find any spelling/translation errors, please tell me so I can fix it!
the thing I love about slavic languages is that anyone can understand “dobro pivo” and “____ je debil” what more do you need honestly
Family in Turkish
family – aile mother/mom – anne father/dad – baba parents – ana baba, ebeveyn son – oğul daughter, girl – kız
younger – küçük older – büyük twin – ikiz sibling – kardeş brother – (erkek) kardeş sister – (kız) kardeş older brother – abi older sister – abla
male cousin – (erkek) kuzen female cousin – (kız) kuzen
grandmother – babaanne (paternal), anneanne (maternal), nine grandfather – büyükbaba (paternal), dede (maternal) grandchild – torun grandchildren – torunlar grandson – (erkek) torun granddaughter – (kız) torun uncle – amca (paternal), dayı (maternal) aunt – hala (paternal), teyze (maternal) nephew – (erkek) yeğen niece – (kız) yeğen
mother-in-law – kaynana father-in-law – kaynata brother-in-law – enişte (sister’s husband), bacanak (wife’s sister’s husband) sister-in-law – baldız son-in-law – damat daughter-in-law – gelin stepmother – üvey anne stepfather – üvey baba
infant – süt çocuğu baby – bebek teenager – ergen child – çocuk children – çocuklar
wife – hanım, karı, eş husband – eş, koca
single – bekar married – evli divorced – boşanmış widow – dul kadın widower – dul erkek
relative – akraba relatives – akrabalar close relative – yakın akraba distant relative – uzak akraba
orphan – yetim to adopt a child – evlatlık almak Corrections are welcome!
The word “potato” in several German dialects on a pre-1945 map.
What I love about languages is that you’re never really done learning them.
I’ve been living and breathing in Italian from the moment I could talk and even long before that, and nevertheless a word yet to be discovered in a book somebody lent me still has the power to mesmerize me. I still find myself staring at the page, sounding out the term, trying to gauge whether I’m placing the stress on the right syllable.
I started learning English so early on in my life that I don’t even remember a time when such words as “hello”, “friend”, or “age” didn’t make sense to me. Simple words, small blocks to build solid foundations with. A brick house turning into a palace turning into a lighthouse, from which to gaze at your newly expanded horizon. A whole world unfolding before you, unlocked by a set of sounds and letters slowly becoming clearer and clearer. And yet I still mix up my prepositions. The fact that I’m now able to enjoy complex novels in French doesn’t mean that someone’s rapping skills won’t leave me dumbfounded. Boludo and posta may be familiar concepts to me now; which doesn’t stop me from being completely puzzled by Spanish slang.
Some might find this frustrating, but I think the endless learning potential is what really makes languages fascinating. They’re like old friends that you’ll get to know better as the years go by, and that will never cease to surprise you anyway.
Telling Time in Turkish Part 1
Buckle up this is kind of tricky
A) You can just say Saat(hour #)(minute #), but this is usually used for train and bus schedules, and tv schedules.
B) At the hour, you can just use Saat and the hour number.
Saat beş - It’s 5 o’clock
C) At the half hour, use buçuk after the hour number
Saat beş buçuk - it is 5:30
D) for telling time before the half hour, put the number hour in the accusative case, followed by the minute number and the word geçiyor
Saat beşi on geçiyor - it is 5:10
E) for after the half hour, we have to do a little math. Put the next hour into the dative case, followed by the remaining number of minutes, then add var
Saat altıya on var - it is 5:50
F) To describe the quarter hour, use çeyrek, using the same grammar as D and E
Saat beşi çeyrek geçiyor - lt is 5:15
Saat altıya çeyrek var - it is 5:45
☕ How to say “coffee” in europe, with complete etymology☕
Armenia, what are you doing?
Being the only country cool enough to have an onomatopoeic word for coffee :) 😎✌🏼✌🏼☕️
How to learn a language and its culture together
1 Learn typical recipes (maybe try to recreate them)
2 Watch movies (not only the genres and themes you prefer, but watch their classic movies that everyone there already watched)
3 Listen to music (same as 2)
4 Watch and read the news (follow the news on social media)
5 Watch people travelling around the country
6 Follow youtubers (the vloggers who visit buildings, who talk about festivals and holidays and do stuff at the town)
7 Read books (you can read in english and then re-read in the target language, it’ll make easier)
8 Follow random people on social media (in that way you’ll can see the everyday language, photos of some city, political stuff, etc)
9 Follow meme pages - memes aren’t spaceless and timeless, they talk about some subject the people from that culture are talking about
10 Talk to natives and ask them about their daily lives
So many languages so little brain
I personally don’t live with the “ONLY learn what can be useful for your life” mindset. I don’t know, doesn’t feel like you’re exploring the world, just trying to find a way to use it for your own benefit. If I want to learn a dead language for fun, or buy that biology book even though I don’t study anything related to it, what’s the deal? I don’t see it as a waste of time, I like to explore what we have been given. I like to learn just for the sake of learning. Besides, “useless” knowledge is still knowledge. Maybe knowing lots about simbolist painters won’t get me a raise when I’m fifty, but it sure as heck makes me one happy bean. I don’t know, it’s just how I see it. Learning is something so beautiful, there’s no reason to be an elitist about it.
Blind people gesture (and why that’s kind of a big deal)
People who are blind from birth will gesture when they speak. I always like pointing out this fact when I teach classes on gesture, because it gives us an an interesting perspective on how we learn and use gestures. Until now I’ve mostly cited a 1998 paper from Jana Iverson and Susan Goldin-Meadow that analysed the gestures and speech of young blind people. Not only do blind people gesture, but the frequency and types of gestures they use does not appear to differ greatly from how sighted people gesture. If people learn gesture without ever seeing a gesture (and, most likely, never being shown), then there must be something about learning a language that means you get gestures as a bonus.
Blind people will even gesture when talking to other blind people, and sighted people will gesture when speaking on the phone - so we know that people don’t only gesture when they speak to someone who can see their gestures.
Earlier this year a new paper came out that adds to this story. Şeyda Özçalışkan, Ché Lucero and Susan Goldin-Meadow looked at the gestures of blind speakers of Turkish and English, to see if the *way* they gestured was different to sighted speakers of those languages. Some of the sighted speakers were blindfolded and others left able to see their conversation partner.
Turkish and English were chosen, because it has already been established that speakers of those languages consistently gesture differently when talking about videos of items moving. English speakers will be more likely to show the manner (e.g. ‘rolling’ or bouncing’) and trajectory (e.g. ‘left to right’, ‘downwards’) together in one gesture, and Turkish speakers will show these features as two separate gestures. This reflects the fact that English ‘roll down’ is one verbal clause, while in Turkish the equivalent would be yuvarlanarak iniyor, which translates as two verbs ‘rolling descending’.
Since we know that blind people do gesture, Özçalışkan’s team wanted to figure out if they gestured like other speakers of their language. Did the blind Turkish speakers separate the manner and trajectory of their gestures like their verbs? Did English speakers combine them? Of course, the standard methodology of showing videos wouldn’t work with blind participants, so the researchers built three dimensional models of events for people to feel before they discussed them.
The results showed that blind Turkish speakers gesture like their sighted counterparts, and the same for English speakers. All Turkish speakers gestured significantly differently from all English speakers, regardless of sightedness. This means that these particular gestural patterns are something that’s deeply linked to the grammatical properties of a language, and not something that we learn from looking at other speakers.
References
Jana M. Iverson & Susan Goldin-Meadow. 1998. Why people gesture when they speak. Nature, 396(6708), 228-228.
Şeyda Özçalışkan, Ché Lucero and Susan Goldin-Meadow. 2016. Is Seeing Gesture Necessary to Gesture Like a Native Speaker? Psychological Science 27(5) 737–747.
Asli Ozyurek & Sotaro Kita. 1999. Expressing manner and path in English and Turkish: Differences in speech, gesture, and conceptualization. In Twenty-first Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 507-512). Erlbaum.
Ok, this is just *super cool*.
And implies that gestures have grammar. I mean. Holy. Shit.
That would also imply language development early in the species could have been not just a mouth / lip / tongue thing but also a body language thing, or that body language (literally) may predate it. Just - fucking *cool*.
That makes sense, since body language is a lot older than spoken language.