The Simple Linguist

Cool and interesting linguisticky things from the interwebs.

[allthingslinguistic]

Dogspotting may even be the birthplace of DoggoLingo’s titular term “doggo.” Though created in 2008, Dogspotting really took off in the summer of 2014, particularly in Australia. This is significant because, as internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch points out, adding “-o” to words is very Australian. For example, where we’d say def to abbreviate the word definitely, Australians would say deffo. So were Australians posting in Dogspotting saying “doggo,” which English-speakers around the world picked up on and turned into a viral Internet word? “That makes a shocking amount of sense,” says John Savoia, who founded Dogspotting and runs the page with Reid Paskiewicz and Jeff Wallen. “I bet you anything [doggo] was used before Dogspotting and we just made it part of the lexicon,” Paskiewicz says. James Moffatt, a performance artist who grew up in Adelaide and is not a member of Dogspotting, says he remembers doggo being used “as an affectionate diminutive to refer to dogs throughout my childhood.”

I’m quoted in this NPR article Dogs Are Doggos: An Internet Language Built Around Love For The Puppers (which you should definitely read in its entirety)

[coffeeouducafe]

what they don’t tell you about linguistics

[chatwiththeclouds]

Honestly I’m sure y’all already know this, but I exclusively use http://ipa.typeit.org/full/ and it is a life savor. Never cry over symbols again. Also, I like to make little codes, and the go through and replace all. Like for the palatal lateral ʎ, I do something like l*h and then I just replace all l*h to ʎ. Don’t struggle fam.

[coffeeouducafe]

BLESS UP

[chatwiththeclouds]

glad i could help googling the ipa is the worst, i’ve been there

[frislander-deactivated20220305]

Just to repeat this because the site is super-useful, it’s what I use.

[linguist-breakaribecca]

My goodness, this is going to save so much time in my life from here on!

[drlinguo]

Series: Dirty Syntax

Miss Teen USA 2007 - Miss South Carolina’s syntax is difficult to analyse (see her speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WALIARHHLII), but not impossible!

Well… w.r.t the semantics… well…. this is another thing…

[thesimplelinguist]

Wow.

[linguisticsnerd]

When a syntax article throws shade at your life choices

[ahdictionary]

Gruntled, Kempt, and Whelmed

A few weeks ago on this blog, we discussed the origins of the word disheveled and why you can’t properly be heveled. But disheveled is not the only English word with a mysterious root affixed to a common prefix. Dishabille, like disheveled, came into English from French. The French word déshabillé is from the past participle of déshabiller, “to undress.” In the case of dishabille, the word entered English whole, and its French root habiller, “to clothe,” did not make the language jump.

While some roots don’t cross over from their language of origin, others fall out of use. In Modern English you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but being whelmed is out of style. Whelm is entered in the American Heritage Dictionary with an Archaic label, meaning this sense is no longer in current use in English. It means to cover with water or to submerge, and it comes from the Middle English whelmen, “to overturn,” which is derived from Old English hwelfan, “to cover over.”

Disgruntle is another example of a common prefix affixed to a root that is not in use. Gruntle is from the Middle English gruntelen, which is a form of the verb grunten, “to grunt.” Given this origin, one might guess that disgruntled would mean “not grunting” and by extension, not upset (as grunts are typically noises of discontent). However, the dis- here is used as an intensive, yielding disgruntle’s common meaning today, “to make discontented.”

In some cases with well-known prefixes appearing before unfamiliar roots, the root develops a life of its own through a process known as back-formation. Back-formation is when a new word is created by the removal of an affix (or sometimes, by the removal of something mistakenly thought to be an affix) from an existing word. Couth from uncouth and kempt from unkempt are two examples of this. Couth (spelled cūth) was an Old English word while kempt (spelled kembed) was a Middle English word. Both fell into disuse, only to reemerge in Modern English through back-formation.

Thank you for visiting the American Heritage Dictionary at ahdictionary.com!

[superlinguo]

Linguistics and Language Podcasts

If you need more language or linguistics podcasts between episodes of Lingthusiasm, here’s a list (in no particular order). I’ve made note of where transcripts are available, if audio is not your thing.

Talk the Talk

A weekly show about linguistics, broadcast on RTR FM in Western Australia, and then made available online for us all to enjoy. Every week Daniel, Ben, and Kylie cover the news in linguistics and tackle a particular topic.

History of English

Kevin Stroud has created hours of meticulously researched, professionally produced and engaging content on the history of English, and we’re only just getting into Middle English. He’s even gone part time on his day job to keep up with the episodes. Transcripts of earlier episodes available for a small fee. I have already reviewed it three times (episodes 1-4, episodes 5-79, bonus episodes). 

Lexicon Valley

I was thrilled when John McWhorter became the regular host of Lexicon Valley a few months ago. John is a great entertainer, without ever dumbing down complex linguistic ideas. There’s lots on English, it’s history and current use, and of course an impressive backlog of old LV content there for you as well.

The Allusionist

Stories about language and the people who use it. Helen Zaltzman puts together a lovely and thoughtful show each episode. There are also transcripts available (hurrah!). (my review)

The World in Words

From PRI, The World in Words has been delivering wonderful interview-drive stories about language and life since 2008.

A Way With Worlds

It’s not AWWW’s fault that I’m not a fan of talkback radio. But then, maybe we need more talkback on the history of English words, cryptic crosswords and slang. Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett are research ninjas, drawing on dictionaries and databases to help answer people’s questions about language.

That’s What They Say

Every week linguist Anne Curzan joins Rebecca Kruth on Michigan public radio for a five minute piece on a quirk of English language. You can listen to these chats on iTunes. They’re always interesting.

Words for Granted

In each episode Ray Belli explores the history of a common English word in around fifteen minutes. Though specific words you also get the chance to learn about historical language chance process more generally.

Animology

Colleen Patrick Goudreau explores animal-related etymologies. If you’re the kind of person who gets a buzz discovering how aviation and inauguration share a birdy past, this show is full of great word stories.

Conlangery

While this show is made particularly for those with an interest in constructed languages, they also have episodes that focus on specific natural languages, or linguistic phenomena. Pop culture fans may even find the inside word on their favourite language from Game of Thrones or Defiance. 

Speculative Grammarian Podcast

It’s like SpecGram for those of us too lazy to read. Like it’s written counterpart, you’ll probably find this more enjoyable if you have at least an undergrad degree in linguistics under your belt, and a healthy love-hate approach to academia.

Grammar Girl

Episodes are rarely longer than 15 minutes, but they’re full of tips about English grammar and style for professional writing. But if copy editing isn’t your jam, there’s discussion of poetry styles, idioms, language memes and etymology. Transcripts for all episodes also available!

Given Names

This is a four part radio series from a few years ago, all about names. I still love it. (my review)

Odds and Ends

There are also a number of podcasts that have only a few episodes, are no longer being made, or are very academic in their focus.

Language Creation Society Podcast (8 episodes, 2009-2011)

Linguistics Podcast (on YouTube, around 20 episodes in 2013 introducing basic linguistic concepts)

The Endless Knot is not strictly a language podcast, but they often include word histories, fans of the Lingthusiasm colour episode may find their colour series particularly interesting

Silly Linguistics (ad hoc episode posting, but episode 7 is an interview with Kevin Stroud for History of English fans)

Very Bad Words (3 sweary episodes from 2013)

WACC Podcast (guest lectures at Warwick Applied Linguistics)

Sage Language and Linguistics

And of course, there’s new Lingthusiasm episodes every month!

Gretchen also has a list of linguistics podcasts. If there are any I’m missing please let me know!

Updates:

Below are some recommendations from other language/linguistics podcast fans:

Word of Mouth (BBC 4) is also available as a podcast. A series “exploring the world of words and the ways in which we use them”. There’s even an episode with Lynne Murphy on UK and US English! (via @GORN61 on Twitter)

My list sadly neglects translation and interpretation folk, but Alexander Drechsel recommends Speaking of Translation and his own Troublesome Terps

[allthingslinguistic]

A linguist friend sent in these two covers of the 1972 and 1973 proceedings of the Chicago Linguistics Society. Two questions: 

1) Why aren’t we still using pun-filled names like this?  2) Can we go back to calling conferences “festivals”? 

[eunych-born-eunych]

me: I NEED A NATIVE SPEAKER person: of what me: ENGLISH person: aren’t you a native speaker of English me: NOT ANYMORE

linguist problems (via alifepresalted)

[malkiewicz]

Synonyms are weird because if you invite someone to your cottage in the forest that just sounds nice and cozy, but if I invite you to my cabin in the woods you’re going to die.

[istudypirates]

My favourite is explaining the difference between a butt dial and a booty call

[allthingslinguistic]

The experience of becoming conscious of previously unconscious phenomena is one of the principal joys of linguistic work.

Wallace Chafe (via)

[supercunninglinguist]

Is American English innovating a new “cuteness” marker? I keep thinking of examples like “snek” and “doge”, indicating that the entity in question is “cute” by shifting the vowel forward. But I can’t think of any other examples right now. Something is definitely up. I’M ON TO Y'ALL OUT THERE ON THE INTERNET!

[linguist-breakaribecca]

Supercunninglinguist’s Law: Fronted vowels make anything smol.

Scholars are still debating the evolution of bird > birb > borb, as this seems to entail a backing then centering of the vowel as the bird gets smoler and puff-puff.

(Pictured: An example of the cat > kit umlaut under SCL’s Law.)

[frislander-deactivated20220305]

I’ve heard that in Korean the symbolism is the other way round, which is exceedingly rare. I think it was in the Grammatische Raritätenkabinet.

[respectfulmemes]

[galpalaven]

reminder from your friendly neighborhood linguistics major: there is no such thing as ‘proper english’ there is only standard english and dialects that vary from it. african american vernacular english is correct. southern dialects are correct. literally any possible variation is 100% correct, as long as the people around them are able to understand and grasp what they are trying to say.

basically stop picking on people just because the way they speak doesn’t meet the guidelines set by standard english, which isn’t even a good representation of the english language anyway

language is constantly changing and evolving and we can’t stick to one version of our language forever

[fortheloveoflanguistics]

Learning Languages vs. Studying Languages

So my little brother was being especially snarky little brother-y the other night while we were cleaning the kitchen, as I was telling him how I was really interested in learning Lithuanian. His immediate response to this comment was “Why don’t you master the other 80 languages you study before you start learning Lithuanian?” I responded to him in a way that surprised even me, for a second: “I don’t study every language that I do because I want to achieve fluency. Sometimes I just do it because I appreciate the beauty of the language.” 

And I realized, as I said it, that it’s true. I’ve been learning Spanish for four years, and I am absolutely in love with the language. I want to continue furthering my working knowledge of the language for the rest of my life, and I wish to pass the language onto my children in the future. But that’s not the case with every language that I study/have studied. For example, I love Chinese, but my love for it comes more from a grammatical standpoint than from a communicative one. 

To me, every language is uniquely beautiful. I love Finnish vowel harmony. I adore the mutations in the Celtic languages. I am inspired by the intricacy of Chinese’s measure word system. But just because I study a language, does not mean I have to learn it. I’m a language learner, it’s true, but I think at heart I am more of a linguist. I appreciate languages because they demonstrate to me what the human mind, vocal tract, and hands can achieve, and that is why I will continue to study multiple languages, perhaps dozens, at a time. But I will only attempt to learn the languages that I really connect with.

tl;dr - I’ve decided to differentiate between learning a language (that is to pursue it to a communicative end) and studying a language (simply learning about the language and acquiring a knowledge of its phonology, morphology, and syntax).

Also (I guess this goes without saying but I’ll go ahead and add it): These are just my thoughts and opinions, and you are more than welcome to disagree with me! If you have something to add, please feel free to reply to this or message me :)

[badgerdactyl]

This is why Linguistics is the study of language. It’s why linguists study  languages but do not necessarily speak many of them.

[linguisticsnerd]

When I carry around my Cantonese grammar for syntax homework purposes:

Friend: Ooh! Are you learning Cantonese? Was there even a Cantonese class at our school? Me: Um no on both accounts. I’m analyzing Cantonese grammar but I don’t speak it at all. Friend: ? Me: Welcome to linguistics.

[frislander-deactivated20220305]

This is a very important distinction to make: I enjoy reading about the grammar and phonology of, say Yimas, but I don’t want to be able to speak it.

[thesimplelinguist]

This is so incredibly hard to communicate to people!

[linguisticmaps]

What actually is a case in a language bcz I just don't understand

A case is a morphological marking, like a suffix, on a word (noun, adjective or pronoun) that marks the syntactic function of the word in the sentence. For example, an imaginary word ‘abcd’ may take, imagine, the suffix -u when it’s the subject of the sentence - abcdu, and -o when it’s the direct object - abcdo.There are many types of cases depending on the language. It takes, roughly, the place of prepositions in some languages. Take Turkish for example:Ev (house) + de (in) = evde (in the house) - this is the locative case (location)

[thesimplelinguist]

It actually took me years of linguistic study to fully understand cases. English did not prepare me well at all.

[linguisticmaps]

Number of personal pronouns’ cases

Examples:  English: nominative (I), oblique (me), reflexive (myself), genitive (mine) French: nominative (je), accusative (me), dative (me), prepositional (moi), genitive (mien) Spanish and Portuguese: nominative (yo/eu), accusative (me), dative (me), oblique (mi/mim), comitative (conmigo/comigo), genitive (mio/meu)

I included the reflexive case for English since it’s different for all persons. In the romance languages it’s just a subtype of accusative. 

If you know the languages in white, please help me fill them!

[tereozil]

Laugh From Around The World In Messages.

From fb.