#language description

[linguisten]

No one complains of the rules of Grammar as fettering Language; because it is understood that correct use is not founded on Grammar, but Grammar on correct use. A just system of Logic or of Rhetoric is analogous, in this respect, to Grammar.

Richard Whately in: Elements of Rhetoric (1828), p. 17 and in: Encyclopædia metropolitana; or, System of universal knowledge, Encyclopaedia, 1849

[linguisten]

Ill-fitting grammar are like ill-fitting shoes. You can get used to it for a bit, but then one day your toes fall off and you can't walk to the bathroom.

Jasper Fforde in: One of our Thursdays is Missing: Thursday Next, Book 6, Hachette UK, 22 February 2011, p. 23.

[asktheleagueofnerds]

Open Your Ears (And Write It All Down)

A rough-and-tumble guide to documenting a language.

This is the second article in the Language Nerd’s series on linguistics in Ethiopia. Intro here, part one here. So you’re a linguist, and you’ve decided to document a language. Maybe it’s a big language, with millions of speakers; maybe you’ve been invited to a tiny community where the speakers number in the dozens. Maybe you trekked five hours out to the field; maybe you took the subway. Either…

View On WordPress

[linguisten]

Linguist documents dying languages still spoken in Toronto | Toronto Star

Turns out, this diverse city is a hotbed for endangered languages — some preserved better here than in their homeland.

[opssmisscherie]

Killer paper: Just a Memory

If you're asking me how was the exam paper just now - I really do not know how to comment. Overall, it was not that difficult. Yet some questions inside the question paper were tough. No doubt about that. All I can do now is to pray to God that I won't failed the paper. I can't bear the truth if I fail the paper! *Cross hand*

p/s: Well, there's nothing much I can say. Language Description=Killer paper.

What are you waiting for? Throw away all the notes! *Just kidding!*