just language things

A cunning linguist in her natural habitat. Currently learning Latvian and Korean, trying not to forget my Swedish, French, Spanish, German, Japanese and Estonian. Among other things.

[mapsontheweb]

Meaning of the word “Concha” in Latin America Spiral shell.

by u/G8g8g8

[the-sapphic-raven]

You (derogatory)

[thepleasuregoblin]

Japanese language be like

[hownottolearnalanguage]

[ladyshinga]

[unicornlordart-deactivated20190]

[nostrem]

I’m posting this here because I’m honestly so sick and tired of this kind of thing. Especially in regards to endangered languages

[nostrem]

But yeah. so funny

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

For those who don’t know, Scots language is not the same as Scottish Gaelic. They are unique from each other. Some people know Scots language better as being referred to as a dialect, so if you’ve heard about the Scots dialect before online, they’re probably referring to Scots language. 

UNESCO recognizes it as a vulnerable language (Gaelic is considered more severely as “endangered”).

The Scots Wikipedia is exactly what it sounds like, an alternate wikipedia where the articles are all written in Scots. There are other wikipedias that provide content for other languages the same way. It helps preserve and give access to a threatened and underrepresented language, which is invaluable.

About 16 hours ago, it was discovered that an American teenager has been editing and writing articles not in Scots, but in an American’s disrespectful phonetic take on what he thinks Scots sounds like. 

“The problem is that this person cannot speak Scots. I don’t mean this in a mean spirited or gatekeeping way where they’re trying their best but are making a few mistakes, I mean they don’t seem to have any knowledge of the language at all. “

This problem isn’t unique to this incident. Frequently on tumblr I see Americans making jokes about Scottish actors making what they’ve called “garbled Scottish sounds” and attempting (and failing) to type in Scots. Scottish languages have been decimated over the centuries, and Scots Wikipedia should be an amazing language resource.

The worst part? He’s apparently been at this for YEARS. He’s potentially (more info to come) edited or penned nearly 1/3 of Scots Wikipedia. Apparently when Scots speakers have corrected him in the past, he’s had a “haughty attitude,” claiming that other Scots speakers (who were never present, unsurprisingly) approved of his failed attempts at writing in Scots.

The damage is heart wrenching:

“Potentially tens of millions of people now think that Scots is a horribly mangled rendering of English rather than being a language or dialect of its own, all because they were exposed to a mangled rendering of English being called Scots by this person and by this person alone.

They wrote such a massive volume of this pretend Scots that anyone writing in genuine Scots would have their work drowned out by rubbish. Or, even worse, edited to be more in line with said rubbish.

Wikipedia could have been an invaluable resource for the struggling language. Instead, it’s just become another source of ammunition for people wanting to disparage and mock it, all because of this one person and their bizarre fixation on Scots, which unfortunately never extended so far as wanting to properly learn it.”

Even worse, many people are praising this kid as the all-time most dedicate “troll,” as funny, etc. It’s inexcusable.

They’re hoping Scots speakers will volunteer to help fix all of the nonsense articles he’s put up.

[feministakari]

This is awful first of all, but how can you completely write that many Wikipedia page translations in a bastardized language without getting caught sooner? I know Wikipedia is open to edit many pages, but there’s got to be some checks right? The fact that nobody caught this seems like a bigger problem. Even if that one kid didn’t do this, it could have been done to many other vulnerable languages by anyone else.

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

Apparently, at some point he was somehow granted moderator power, but there’s so far no detail as to how. Scots Wikipedia isn’t exactly a bustling business. There aren’t many moderators, and unless they were combing through tens of thousands of articles continually, these ones could be missed among the rest.

Apparently, the kid was using online Scots dictionaries (not a reliable way to translate a language) so that at a glance or to a non-speaker, enough words…..looked like they were being used in the APPROXIMATELY correct place. That combined with a small number of moderators and tens of thousands of articles to look after let this non-speaker edit and moderate pages despite being caught a few times and questioned by speakers.

That’s all I know.

It’s a mess. And you’re right. Hopefully nothing like this happens (or is already happening) to other vulnerable languages.

[random-things-i-care-about]

[languagessi-deactivated20210423]

“Forest” in some Finnic languages: mets (Estonian), metsä (Finnish), mettsä (Ingrian), meččä (Karelian), mõtsā (Livonian), meččy (Livvi), mečč (Ludian), mec (Veps), mettsä (Votic), mõts (Võro)

[oktaste]

Finno-Ugric Peoples 

 Almost 25 million people belong to the Uralic language family, who represent about 24 different peoples whose political fates and status vary greatly. Despite the fact that they are the indigenous inhabitants of the territories where they live, most of them have never had their own nation-state. Only the speakers of Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian have their own independent states.

17 out of 24 different Finno-Ugric peoples live in Russia and 3 peoples live both in and outside the territory of Russia. The largest Finno-Ugric peoples have their own so-called republics (Karelians, Mordvins, Maris and Udmurts) or autonomous regions (Khanty, Mansis, and Nenets), in all of which they are minorities. 

The number of people actually speaking Finno-Ugric languages in Russia has decreased to less than two million, and this number is declining constantly. Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia have had very limited opportunities, if at all, to preserve their languages and cultures, though the situation, of course, differs from region to region.

The VIII World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples takes place in 2021 in Tartu. Source: eng.fennougria.ee

[thewitchersdaily]

Who wants to know what those herbs are really good for?

[cacen]

fantasy writers have a thing for using Welsh as inspiration for their world’s languages but usually they at least vaguely change the words a bit or at least mix them with other languages, but the author of the Witcher just straight up took rhwydwaith carthion, thought ‘fuck it, that sounds vaguely like something you’d find in a potion’, chucked it into the series and just left it there for unsuspecting Welsh speakers to suddenly listen to Yennefer talk about how the best acid trip of her life came from eating a sewage system

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Oh my god THANK YOU, use of Welsh in the Witcher has absolutely blindsided me

[janeymac-ie]

Oh, then you’ll sympathise with my utter bemusement at a man named Listen Tired. Because that’s what Éist Tuirseach means, folks!

[shadows-and-starlight]

listen, he was tired

[frislander-deactivated20220305]

Gee it’s almost like people want that Celtic aesthetic without properly understanding what comes with that.

[allthingslinguistic]

toss a coin to your translator

[kiwisgalaxy]

In holland when someone doesn’t close the door behind their backs we say ‘Ben je in de kerk geboren?’ which literally translates to ‘Have you been born in church?’ @useless-netherlandsfacts

[langue-etrangere-deactivated201]

In the United States we say, “Were you raised in a barn?” It’s supposed to imply that the person was raised without any manners. But as people who frequently use barns have told me, you would never leave the barn door open because then the animals could get out.

[langsandlit]

In Italy when someone walks in a room and doesn’t close the door we say “abiti al Colosseo?” (and other variants), which translates to “do you live at the Colosseum?” because the Colosseum hasn’t got doors

[useless--australiafacts]

in Australia we say ‘Were you born in a tent?’ which so far has no official etymology but probably has something to do with swagmen and bush culture…

[useless-linguisticsfacts-blog]

In German we say: “Hast du keine Türen zu Hause?”, which translates to: “Don’t you have doors at home?”

[useless-czechrepfacts]

In Czech we have two versions of this. First, more polite one is “Máte doma otroky?” (Do you have slaves at home?) and then quite rude one, which is “Máš v prdeli oje?” (Do you have poles/drawbars in you ass?)

[useless-hungaryfacts]

In Hungary we say “Te barlangban élsz?” Which means “Are you living in a cave?”

[lunalove-blr]

In Denmark we say ‘Er du født i et s-tog?’, which means ‘Were you born on a (S-) train’, or ‘Er du født i et telt?’, which means ‘Were you born in a tent?’

[spockshair]

In Poland we say “Co ty w tramwaju mieszkasz?” which means “Do you live in a tram?” because doors on trams open on its own obviously

[wolfi-sama]

addition to the German thing: We also say “Haste Säcke vor der Tür?” which translates to “do you put bags in front of the door?” as in ‘do you use bags instead of a door?’

[petimetrek]

In Spain we say “¡cierra la puta puerta!” which means “close the fucking door!” because we are very polite.

[akok94]

In Greece we say Σε βαρκα γεννηθηκες; which means were you born on a boat? Obs no door on a boat 

[linguistikforum]

The German version I know is: “Bist du im Rohbau geboren…?” - ‘were you born in a shell (unfinished house)?’ i.e. a house that doesn’t yet have doors.

[ladyofthesilent-deactivated2025]

I come from a German family with a tendency to leave doors open… and I have never heard any of the German expressions quoted above ;-)

[linguisticsnerd]

In Korean it is 꼬리가 길다, which means “your tail is very long”, implying that you must somehow have grown a long tail if it takes you so long to get out of the doorway and shut the door.

[ripvaccinated2017-2021-deactiva]

polish and finnish the most fucked up languages

i dont think yall are speaking a real language with meaning i think you just fucking with us

[anamericaninestonia]

[unofficial-estonia]

A very good video for those of you who are interested to know how close Finnish and Estonian are after all. As a native Estonian speaker, I did learn a bit. Definitely check it out! 

[ainaraoftime-deactivated2025020]

one of my favourite linguistic phenomena/in-jokes is spanish potato chips being “ham-flavored, probably”

[ainaraoftime-deactivated2025020]

y’see because spain and portugal are so close, labels in stuff like food, shampoo, etc often come in portuguese as well as spanish

this brand of chips, Lay’s, displays the flavor in spanish and portuguese, resulting in ham-flavored chips looking like this:

with “jamón” being spanish and “presunto” being portuguese

however, “presunto” is also a spanish adjective, meaning “presumed” (or suspected)

so you have this in-joke going where spanish chips taste like ham, presumably

[notquiteapolyglot]

To people who use "þ" as an aesthetic "p"

þink again.

[tharook]

getting thorny in the linguistics fandom

[tk-tako]

þorny*

[solarine]

That also goes for using ß as an aesthetic B. 

On my old server, there was a character named ßillyßadass.

This never failed to make me laugh, because that letter is not pronounced like B. It is a sharp S. 

That guy named himself SsillySsadass. 

[liquidstar]

Also to people who you Σ as an aesthetic E

that’s an S too, Σo maybe check next time

[slowspinningredemption]

oh boy

Д as an aesthetic A? Дon’t be a дumbass.

И as an aesthetic N? don’t be sillи.

П as another aesthetic N? stoп it.

У as an aesthetic Y? ty bad.

Ш or Щ as an aesthetic W? nope. it’s “sh” and “shch”!

Я as an aesthetic R? surprise! it’s “ya”.

ah yes, that classic horror film SNYEYAPOVUL DIAYAIES

[silvysartfulness]

This is pronounced Stargoat.

[dovewithscales]

Reblogging for Stargoat.

[justabrowncoatedwench]

STARGOAT

[niuniente]

I saw in Japan a bag of marshmallows named SCANDINAVIAN MÅRSHMÅLLOW and I still have not recovered from that. It reads as SCANDINAVIAN MORSHMOLLOW 

[adventuresinlearningfinnish]

Today in class the teacher corrected someone who said that 175 degrees in an oven (for baking a cake) was

sataseitsemänkymmentäviisi asteessa

No, He says, and writes it out

sadassaseitsemässäkymmenessäviidessä asteessa

SHOOT ME NOW

[karhunvattu]

So literally every number has to be in the inessive case? I both love and resent Finnish :D