Tigridia

Another langblr which probably will die very time soon. Sometimes I'll post some aesthetic, poor quality photos. Languages: Polish 🇵🇱 native, English 🇬🇧 B2.2, Spanish 🇪🇸 B1/2, Italian 🇮🇹 A2/B1, Latin 🏛 A1, Portuguese 🇵🇹 A2

[tigridiaflor]

Langblr introduction

Hello everyone!

I think it's time to introduce myself:

As you can see, this is new langblr blog

I created it, because I am not learning languages as much as I'd like to (my daily revisions became too easy and I didn't really study)

I hope Tumblr will become one of the options to actually USE my target languages!

So I'm going to reblog useful posts and, hopefully, write my own!

My target languages are Spanish and Italian - I am not fluent in neither of these languages, so if I made a mistake, don't hesitate to correct me! Mi ayuta molto :)

Some facts about me:

I use she/her pronouns

Native Polish

English: B2.2 (learning since kindergarten, but using the Internet - YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr - was the thing that really helped me learning this language)

Spanish - B2 (I study Spanish Filology)

Portuguese - A1/A2

Italian - A1 (started 4 years ago, still love it even though I haven't been using it for a long time now)

I am also learning Latin (though it's hard for me to describe my progress, since learning Latin is WAY different from learning other languages)

I'm learning Turkish, but this language is very difficult for me; I like its grammar, it's usually logical and doesn't have that much exceptions, but I have a hard time learning vocabulary, so I create those infographics in Canva to reorganize everything I know

I've been learning German, but these were 6 pointless years, I remember only a few words and pronunciation

Hobbies: drawing, painting, writing, reading and playing board games

Thank you for reading!

Have a nice day!

[k0sher]

Well, in light of all the dumb decisions duolingo is making right now, here's a few free/accessible resources for learning Yiddish:

Ultimate Yiddish Resources Masterpost

Yiddish/Ladino Queer Vocab Glossary

And some free PDFs:

Basic Yiddish: A Grammar and Workbook, by Rebecca Margolis

A Manual and Grammar of the Yiddish Language, by J. Mazin

Colloquial Yiddish: The Complete Course for Beginners, by Lily Kahn

Idisch y Latinoamerica, by Eliahu Toker

English-Yiddish Dictionary, by Alexander Harkevy

Cursive Alef Beys Writing Practice, YIVO standard, from YBC

Digital Yiddish Library, over 12k titles for free, from YBC

[nocked-deactivated20181125]

which country has the most birds

[nocked-deactivated20181125]

portugeese

[nocked-deactivated20181125]

wait

[skypestripper]

thats a language

[luvgrease99-blog]

portugull

[noej]

nice recovery

[dayof-storyandsong]

don’t you mean nice redovery

[biological-warfare]

turkey, how did we miss turkey

[official-graveyard-posts]

Official graveyard post. +Bonus

[old-posts-archive]

June 11th, 2013

[ihatecispeople]

i love it actually when nonnative speakers make mistakes that reveal how their native languages work.

lots of koreans online say they "eat" drinks which would assume they only have one word which covers the concept of consumption.

arabic immigrants in sweden (my mother included) have a hard time differentiating between "i think/i believe/my opinion is" which suggests that in arabic these different modalities of speaker agency is treated as one or at least interchangeable.

swedish speakers in english will use should/shall/have to/must with much higher nuance precision than native english speakers, to the point where they sound well awkward, because the distinction between these commands in swedish is much clearer than in english. i make mistakes between is/am/are and has/have constantly because swedish only has one pronoun covering all grammatical persons.

i've heard speakers of languages without gendered pronouns (finnish, the chinese dialects, and a tonne more) make he/she mistakes because it's hard(!!) to learn two or more gendered pronouns and when to use them correctly.

how neat is that?! it add a charm to international english usage in particular and make our appreciation of both our native languages and our learnt ones stronger...!!

[aandriskobold]

i love this! one thing i notice with a lot of people (native speakers of polish, romanian, french and others) is no differentiation between present simple (i go) and present continuous (I am going), because those languages only have one present tense to cover both. it's so lovely every time i hear it

i always think one of the most fun things about learning languages is that it teaches you how weird your own is! especially english phrasal verbs (the very different meanings of stand up, stand down, stand off, stand up to), or trying to explain the difference between being up to something and being up for something to my french friend. I love it!

[ihatecispeople]

another tag reminded me of how spanish speakers often mix up /v/ and /b/ because in panish they pronounced identically!

I wish more people had the ability to become bilingual because you're right, it makes you understand your own language at a more intimate and analytical level!!

[katakulio]

People whose native language is heavily gendered often apply gendered pronouns to English words that don't have them. For example, my Brazilian sports coach referred to my knee as "she" instead of "it". It's even more interesting when you realise that Old English did have gendered nouns, much like German, and we've essentially lost that entire element of our language.

[lesbianshepard]

fun fact about languages: a linguist who was studying aboriginal languages of Australia finally managed to track down a native speaker of the Mbabaram language in the 60s for his research. they talked a bit and he started by asking for the Mbabaram word for basic nouns. They went back and forth before he asked for the word for “dog” The man replied “dog” They had a bit of a “who’s on first” moment before realizing that, by complete coincidence,  Mbabaram and English both have the exact same word for dog.

[lesbianshepard]

on a similar note, a traditional Ojibwe greeting is “Nanaboozhoo” so when the French first landed in southern Canada they thought that they were saying “Bonjour!” Which is fucking wild to think about. Imagine crossing the ocean and the first people you meet in months somehow speak French. 

[yu-gi-oh-slavia]

[tuulikki]

Given that we famously don’t know the origin of the English word “dog”, I have decided to adopt an utterly batshit folk etymology conspiracy theory. As a treat.

[ribzinc]

For a while I just assumed that the English “potluck”, was derived from Chinook Jargon “potlatch”. Both describe comparable practices of guests contributing resources to a larger community-wide feast. But a little digging quickly reveals no etymological relation; instead of one, I got TWO! interesting linguistic insights into distinct cultures.

[jewishpangolin]

Fantastic False Cognates - Starkey Comics

False cognates are pairs of words that seem related, but aren’t. Here are some of these amazing linguistic coincidences. What are False Cong

Here’s some more!

[ceescedasticity]

‘Ciao’ is from what now.

Per Wiktionary—

Borrowed from Venetian s-ciao, sciavo (“slave”) (in particular the expression s-ciao vostro (literally “(I am) your slave”), in essence meaning “I am at your service”, or “your humble servant”), from Medieval Latin sclavus (“slave”) (whence also standard Italian schiavo); in the Venetian language originally pronounced /stʃaʊ/. Development and use is similar to the Southern German and Central European greeting of servus.

Okay then!

[kelpforestdwellers]

re: ‘nanaboozhoo’, it’s also frequently shortened to ‘boozhoo’, increasing the likelihood of it sounding like ‘bonjour.’ also those double ‘o’s are a long ‘o’ sound, not an English ‘oo’ sound like ‘boot’. and the ‘zh’ sounds just like the ‘j’ in ‘bonjour,’ and the French notoriously do not explicitly pronounce the ‘n’ or the ‘r’. so ‘boozhoo’ really sounds a lot like ‘bonjour.’

[official-linguistics-post]

official linguistics post

[thydungeongal]

Also shout-out to the Swedes for just borrowing the French "adieu" into their vocabulary and just spelling it "adjö"

[legov7]

German has borrowed the italian "Ciau", spelling it "Tschau" and only using it as a goodby instead of also a greeting.

[thydungeongal]

I had completely forgotten about this, this is fantastic.

[erlann]

If you enjoyed "ciao" becoming "tschau", you'll definitely want to hear where "tschüss" (German, also meaning "goodbye") comes from!

[thydungeongal]

Borrowed from German Low German tschüß from earlier adjüs, from Dutch adjuus, back-formation from adjuusjes, from French adieu.

We can't let the French keep getting away with this

[ospreyonthemoon]

I mean the french very much aren't getting away with it. Everyone else is taking their language and running off with it cackling with glee. We're all getting away with fucking up french words on purpose

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

#English loves french so much it steals the same fucking word a few centuries apart so it gets two words that have the same meaning#But different spellings -#Like guarantee/warranty#(aside: There was a w/g shift so you can see if the word showed up with the normans or got nicked later#Which is why for e.g. the english call it wales and the french call it pays de galls)#Catch/chase#Gender/genre

[official-linguistics-post]

official linguistics post

[helpfulhellhounds]

The other day my French stepdad said "toute à l'heure" for goodbye/see you later, and the way it sounded like "toodle-oo!" hit me like a brick

[frougpepe]

*looks at sherlock* it’s very smoll

[frougpepe]

oh my god it was me

[thealogie]

this is the very first ever documented use of smoll. you’re all a witness to language history here.

[official-linguistics-post]

official linguistics post

[thydungeongal]

I think it's funny that in French the word for "unicorn" is "licorne" because:

The word "unicorne" was first reanalyzed as "une icorne"

The definite article was then added, making it "l'icorne"

The new definite form was reanalyzed once again, resulting in "une licorne"

[thydungeongal]

Before any anglophones get on the French people's case on this, consider for a second what y'all did when you reanalyzed the Spanish "el lagarto" ("the lizard") as "alligator."

Reanalysis is fun.

[jkcorellia]

Oh yeah, everybody does this*. Another English example is "apron", which was once "napron" until we reanalyzed the initial N as part of the indefinite article (a napron -> an apron).

A fun one in Arabic is the city of Alexandria in Egypt. Quite understandably, Arabic speakers heard the initial "Al" and thought "ah yes, the ubiquitous definite article" and Alexandria became al-’Iskandariyya.

In the opposite direction, Spanish adopted hundreds of Arabic words during the Middle Ages due to Andalusian/Islamic influence, and there are very few Spanish words that start with al- that aren't of Arabic origin (and in fact, many words that start with A without being followed by an L, as in about half of cases in Arabic the L in "al-" is elided).

Reanalysis occurs in many other places besides article-noun combos, of course, but it's an extremely common case.

*citation needed, but reanalysis is extremely common

[thydungeongal]

Oh, this actually explains something I'd just attributed to a quirk of sequence constraints or something; why Alexander is realized as Iskander/Iskandar in Arabic! It makes sense to analyze it as al-Iskander in Arabic!

[grungeygoddess]

Same thing happened with the word alchemy! Started out as the Arab term "al-kimiya", and when it was transported to Europe, it became "alchemy". This is actually really interesting, because as the term evolved more, it became "chemistry", effectively un-reanalyzing the word!

[thydungeongal]

Oh actually there's another layer of fun there: the Arabic "al-kimiya" is actually a loan of the Ancient Greek χῠμείᾱ (khumeíā), which was used to refer to the art of alloying metals. Arabic borrowed a lot of Greek terminology owing to Arabic translations of Greek classics (many of which were actually lost in Europe until they were retranslated from Arabic). So, yeah, the Greek khumeíā made a round trip through Arabic, then into medieval Latin as "alchemia," and from there we eventually do get chemistry!

[valtharr]

Not quite the same thing, but this reminded me of one of the funniest phenomena in the German language.

So, you may or may not know that x-rays were discovered by a guy called Röntgen (or Roentgen, though the ö is the proper spelling). Because of that, they're called "Röntgen rays" in German. Now, the thing is that in the German, the infinitive of a verb is always formed with an -en at the, so, for example, "to run" is "rennen" or "to sleep" is "schlafen." And because of that, it just so happened that the verb for performing x-rays became... "röntgen."

ich röntge, du röntgst, er/sie/es röntgt, wir röntgen, ihr röntgt, sie röntgen

[thydungeongal]

In the X-rayed lab, straight röntgin it

[dozdz]

Um hello Polish internet I sincerely apologize for comparing your language to uwu speak...

[szeretemacheddart]

[stromuprisahat]

Následky třiceti let dabování Slováků...

[dramatic-dolphin]

hehe here you go

[in Slovak] "good day."

[in Czech] "sorry, I don't understand Slovak"

[in Czech now] good day. [literally one letter of difference]

"oh, good day! how are you?"

[hypokeimena]

#the real punchline is that I understood this fine despite having zero exposure to Slovak or Czech #I am however studying Bulgarian (via @ducktoothcollection)

[en-theos]

anyone care to explain why my local supermarket has self checkout in latin

[ancient-rome-au]

*squinting* is the “flag” corresponding to Latin a laurel wreath + SPQR? Usually in these situations UI designers use the Vatican City flag, but this is a fantastic commitment to the bit.

> codicem linearum

How to make “bar code” sound like ancient magic (literal translatio : “codex of lines”)

[covington-shenanigans]

@renegade-bisexual-dog-stealer

[thisisnotharmless]

Speaking of linguistics, there’s one particular linguistic tick that I think clearly separates Baby Boomers from Millennials: how we reply when someone says “thank you.”

You almost never hear a Millennial say “you’re welcome.” At least not when someone thanks them. It just isn’t done. Not because Millenials are ingrates lacking all manners, but because the polite response is “No problem.” Millennials only use “you’re welcome” sarcastically when they haven’t been thanked or when something has been taken from/done to them without their consent. It’s a phrase that’s used to point out someone else’s rudeness. A Millenial would typically be fairly uncomfortable saying “you’re welcome” as an acknowledgement of genuine thanks because the phrase is only ever used disengenuously.

Baby Boomers, however, get really miffed if someone says “no problem” in response to being thanked. From their perspective, saying “no problem” means that whatever they’re thanking someone for was in fact a problem, but the other person did it anyway as a personal favor. To them “You’re welcome” is the standard polite response.

“You’re welcome” means to Millennials what “no problem” means to Baby Boomers, and vice versa.The two phrases have converse meanings to the different age sets. I’m not sure exactly where this line gets drawn, but it’s somewhere in the middle of Gen X. This is a real pain in the ass if you work in customer service because everyone thinks that everyone else is being rude when they’re really being polite in their own language.

[hinallie]

Something interesting to note is also the more literal meaning behind these two phrases and how they themselves differ and oppose each other

‘No problem’, coming from a millenials mouth, within the context of helping someone – whether it be holding a door open/picking up something someone may have dropped/ect. – and, naturally, being thanked for it, implies that the kind gesture was indeed, not a problem, that it was just the thing to do, that they were happy to help and that no thanks was really necessary.

While a Baby Boomer’s ‘You’re welcome’ in contrast, says something miles different, it actually highlights the fact that the person went out of their way to help someone; almost brings attention to it in a way, saying 'Yeah, I helped you, I did you this favor I accept your thanks.’ which, malicious intent or not, is strikingly different than the millennial downplay of their act of kindness for the sake of helping someone.

[official-linguistics-post]

official linguistics post

[kirkspocks]

odin is like “when thor was born the sun shone bright upon his beautiful face. i found loki on the sidewalk outside a taco bell”

[chromalogue]

Oðinn spake:

Bright the sun shone | at the time of Þor’s birth, And bathed his count'nance fair. Loki, wolf-father, | the trickster, the liar, I found on the cold pavement While returning in glory | from a grand hunt For a 3 AM quesadilla.

[baegishjalmur]

@damn-fuck-i-burnt-myself-again

[systlin]

I need this framed on my wall it’s so beautiful. 

[retro-minty]

@theshitpostcalligrapher

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

ay @systlin hmu

[bold-sartorial-statement]

@systlin

My husband complained that this was more Shakespeare than Eddas, and I challenged him to do better.

Solen sken, skönt gyllene

Dagen Tor föddes

På trottoaren, vid Taco Bell

Där låg Loke

—KJN

My translation:

The sun shone, sweet golden

The day of Tor’s birth

On the tarmac, by Taco Bell

There lay Loki

(For poetry reasons, Thor needs the Swedish spelling.)

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

@bold-sartorial-statement

ay yo show ur husband 

[andersonsallpurpose]

@bold-sartorial-statement no but hang on this should be in runes: 

(oops spot the typos)

[svampurinn]

i wanna translate this into icelandic so imma do it 

Sólin skein, björt og gullin við fæðingu Þórs á stígnum við Taco Bell Þar lá Loki

[books-and-candy-ples]

The amount of quality going into these shitposts is amazing

[rembrandtswife]

This is not shitposting, this is transformative work!

[deeranger]

And in Danish because why not:

Solen skinnede, skøn og gylden

På dagen for Tors fødsel

På asfalten ved Taco Bell

Dér lå Loke

“LEV MERE (LIVE MAS)”

*Snorts*

[marvel-lous-things]

When Thor born

He hair shine brite

A very very

Magical site

But then I see

A bab from hell

I pik up loki

From taco bell

[scarlet-silverweaver]

the rosetta stone of shitposting

[roguehoneybadger]

@incorrectnorse-quotes

[incorrectnorse-quotes]

Now THIS is the best post on this hellsite

[apathy-tied-in-knots]

[kirkspocks]

odin is like “when thor was born the sun shone bright upon his beautiful face. i found loki on the sidewalk outside a taco bell”

[chromalogue]

Oðinn spake:

Bright the sun shone | at the time of Þor’s birth, And bathed his count'nance fair. Loki, wolf-father, | the trickster, the liar, I found on the cold pavement While returning in glory | from a grand hunt For a 3 AM quesadilla.

[baegishjalmur]

@damn-fuck-i-burnt-myself-again

[systlin]

I need this framed on my wall it’s so beautiful. 

[retro-minty]

@theshitpostcalligrapher

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

ay @systlin hmu

[bold-sartorial-statement]

@systlin

My husband complained that this was more Shakespeare than Eddas, and I challenged him to do better.

Solen sken, skönt gyllene

Dagen Tor föddes

På trottoaren, vid Taco Bell

Där låg Loke

—KJN

My translation:

The sun shone, sweet golden

The day of Tor’s birth

On the tarmac, by Taco Bell

There lay Loki

(For poetry reasons, Thor needs the Swedish spelling.)

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

@bold-sartorial-statement

ay yo show ur husband 

[andersonsallpurpose]

@bold-sartorial-statement no but hang on this should be in runes: 

(oops spot the typos)

[svampurinn]

i wanna translate this into icelandic so imma do it 

Sólin skein, björt og gullin við fæðingu Þórs á stígnum við Taco Bell Þar lá Loki

[books-and-candy-ples]

The amount of quality going into these shitposts is amazing

[rembrandtswife]

This is not shitposting, this is transformative work!

[deeranger]

And in Danish because why not:

Solen skinnede, skøn og gylden

På dagen for Tors fødsel

På asfalten ved Taco Bell

Dér lå Loke

“LEV MERE (LIVE MAS)”

*Snorts*

[marvel-lous-things]

When Thor born

He hair shine brite

A very very

Magical site

But then I see

A bab from hell

I pik up loki

From taco bell

[scarlet-silverweaver]

the rosetta stone of shitposting

[roguehoneybadger]

@incorrectnorse-quotes

[incorrectnorse-quotes]

Now THIS is the best post on this hellsite

[apathy-tied-in-knots]

[beatrice-of-the-stars]

Wait are we called mammals after mammary glands? Are mammals named after tits???

ARE WE THE BOOBS CLASS?

[fastfouriertransfem]

OH

[foone]

We are. And we also named our galaxy after boob juice. Twice.

"milky way" is obviously milk, but the hidden part is that "galaxy" comes from the Greek γάλα (gála), meaning "milk".

It's the tit-goo path tit-goo-thing. We are very, very breast focused as a species.

[elodieunderglass]

Eukaryote (good-kernels) as opposed to prokaryotes(before-kernels). We are the Domain of Fortunate Cellular Nuclei.

Animalia (of the anima.) we are in the Kingdom of the Breathing, or the Air-Souled.

Of the Phylum (tribe or clan) Chordata (having a string). We are the Clan of the String, referencing the spinal cord.

Class Mammalia, of course. the division of the titties.

Order Primate, which is a bit stuck-up, but I suppose the people doing the naming get to pick. Primate is of course primary, or First/Highest. Interestingly, this is in the sense of it being a job; a primate is a bishop of Christianity. This is reflected in the medieval Scala Naturae, where “primate” is an office held by the “natural” or divinely appointed top being in each tier of existence. Seraphim are the primate angels; humans are the primate people; lions are the primate animals; oak trees are the primate plants; and diamonds are the primate minerals. Translating the intent here, we are the Order of Ordained Authority, which we share with other natural bosses such as lemurs.

Depending how you want to do this, we are also suborder Haplorhini, the dry-nosed. This is separated from wet-nosed apes.

After this we land in the repetition of Homina-homina-homina-homina where there are several classes that drill down ever further, all of them rooted in “hominid.” Everyone knows homo is “man, human” but the root of why it’s “man” is because it is first “earth”. Human means “earthling”, and is rooted in “not-divine.” We are the family, subfamily, tribe and genus of earthlings.

By the time you get to species we are very lonely indeed, with only one species in our genus. This is actually a terrifically lonely place, and in this we are “sapiens.” This doesn’t mean just “wise” but “being wise,” which is more of a duty than a descriptor.

When you put it in context: Domain of Fortunate Nuclei, Kingdom of the Air-Souled, Clan of the String, Class of Milky Boobs, Order of the Bosses, Family of Earthlings, Tribe of Earthlings, People of Earth, Earthlings, Thinking Earthlings.

The point of taxonomy does seem to be making oneself a box that excludes all others in order to feel properly lonely and alone in it; one’s place in the world defined until one is alone. however, zooming out a bit, it does make for some stirring company.

[anthro-apology]

Anne Carson (2009)

Arthur S. Way (1898)

George Theodoridis (2010)

Ian C. Johnston (2010)

E.P. Coleridge (1910)

Theodore Alois Buckley (1892)

John Peck, Frank Nisetich (1995)

R. Potter (1906)

M. L. West (1987)

William Arrowsmith (1958)

Philip Vellacott (1972)

Michael Wodhull (1782)

Kenneth McLeish (1997)

David Kovacs (2002)

Andrew Wilson (1993)

Euripides - Original (408 BCE)

[diasdelfuego]

language is literally so beautiful like in english "i miss you" comes from being unable to locate someone in the field after battle, it's "i look for you but i can't find you" but the french "tu me manques" is also about absence but it's not something i do, it's something that happens to me, as in "you are something essential lacking inside me", in portuguese it's either "sinto a tua falta" as in "i feel your absence" or, from solitude you get "saudade de você" as in "i am lonely [of] you", and in spanish the word comes from stranger and it's something one does, "te extraño" as in "i am making a stranger out of you", and, and, and