#nativlang

[conlangprompts]

For those of you who speak only English, it can be helpful to be aware that the way English does things is not only simply one way among many, but also somewhat unusual when compared to other languages.

[wordcubed]

Me watching this video despite disliking French and thinking the language sounds ugly:

[allthingslinguistic]

What if writing didn’t exist? 

An animated history of writing in 12 short videos by NativLang (via Mutual Intelligibility)

[alpine-langblr]

I’m a bit mad at the NativLang video for saying Tibetan is the most difficult script in the world and that it’s harder than Japanese. It is definitely easier than Japanese. Tibetan has archaic spelling but there are just 34 letters, while Japanese has 46 unique Hiragana, 46 unique Katakana, and then 2000 Kanji to learn.

(and Tibetan’s archaic spelling is comparable to French, so if you can handle French spelling you can handle Tibetan spelling)

[luna3141]

My Favorite Educational Youtube Channels--

Biographics: exactly what it says on the tin, biographies of infamous people throughout history including the odd fictional or mythological character

NativLang: linguistics channel that tries (and succeeds) to not focus solely on romance languages

Joe Scott: almost has the feel of an upgraded list channel; focuses on everything under the sun (i.e. history, astronomy, philosophy, biology, etc); videos are 10-20min long and packed with information, but it feels more like having a conversation with a friend than sitting in class

SciShow: I MEAN... IT’S SCISHOW! Founded by Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers, it’s a channel dedicated to answering pressing scientific questions, correcting misinformation, and educating the public on problems like climate change that we should all know more about

SciShow Psych: it’s SciShow but with a particular focus on psychology

SciShow Space: take a wild guess

CrashCourse: COVERS LITERALLY EVERYTHING YOU COULD EVER WANT TO LEARN ABOUT from classic literature to A.I. to Engineering to Mythology, etc, etc; produced by an ever-growing team of awesome, highly educated people who just want to make education free and easy

PBS Eons: an awesome (albeit, more traditional feeling) channel dedicated to “the history of life on earth;” great place to learn about prehistoric life

Mental Floss: yeah, a lot of this is going to be from the Vlogbrothers, but it’s their fault for making such great educational content; a list show which takes prompts/questions from the audience and turns it into 10min of info you never knew you never knew (still waiting for that Pork Chop Party, btw)

History With Hilbert: take a wild guess; but seriously, if there’s any part of history you aren’t 100% sure on you can probably find a video about it on here that will answer any and all questions and make you think “why didn’t I know that?”

Rare Earth: I’m not even sure how to describe this one other than at first glance it may seem like the videos cover random topics, but when you come up for air three hours later you’ll be not only educated on something you would’ve never picked for yourself, but also deeply moved

CGP Grey: initially introduced to me as a physics channel which has since expanded out to cover a multitude of topics without sugarcoating anything (if that makes sense)

TED-Ed: brought to you by the same people who made TEDTalks comes it’s eager little brother; TED-Ed is quite like CrashCourse in that it covers literally everything, but the videos are on average only a few minutes long, beautifully animated, and narrated by the same three or four lovely voices (warning: this channel can be very relaxing. watch at your own discretion.)

TREY the Explainer: (let’s end this list on a high note!) TREY the Explainer is a channel run by (seemingly) one very educated person, focusing predominantly on anthropology, paleontology, and prehistory as a whole, while also occasionally diverting off their usual path to answer questions like “What IS Bill Cipher?” “What Type of Dinosaur is Godzilla?” and “What are SU Gems?” CANNOT RECOMMEND ENOUGH.

[Please, please feel free to add your own! Let’s make education as accessible as possible. <3]

[zenosanalytic]

Spreading the Word

Greetings, Dear Readers:

If, by chance, You, like me, enjoy:

Etymology

corny 1990s US public television production values

Rick Stevesesque Voices

Then, perhaps, you may also enjoy Alliterative, on youtube, as I have ouo

Also-Also they have A Tumblr, though I haven’t checked it out yet.

Also-Also-Also you might enjoy NativLang, which is more about linguistics generally, and which I found Alliterative through ouo ouo

[kephas-rolling]

A nice and informative overview of what Etruscan sounded and looked like.

[supremeoverlordofdarkness]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC0wsuowbRA)