Linguistics prolly

Ling 'N Thing(s)

[gothhabiba]

I love downloading pdfs. it’s like ok this is mine now

[rylandgraces]

harvard? you mean from legally blonde? you know thats not a real school right?

[specgram]

Autodescriptive Linguistic Terms

clusser redushion, gemmination, ʰpre-aspiration, mpre-nasalization, reduduplication, voizing, weagening

[fakehistory]

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand being announced circa 1914

[hanna-writes]

So I’m reading the Inheritance Cycle in English for the first time, but I read the series in Swedish like five times as a teenager, and I loved it. There’s one line that I remembered with particular clarity, that really just stuck with me, despite not being all that remarkable in itself: ‘It would be an abomination.’ I remembered it so clearly, and I just reached it, and it was worded exactly as I recalled it.

Except I remembered it in English. I’ve never read these books in English before. And I cannot for the life of me remember what word was used for ‘abomination’ in the Swedish translation, which is the only version of these books that I’ve ever read.

Brains are fucking weird, man.

[glumshoe]

When I studied abroad, I thought my host family just had difficulty pronouncing my name. They didn’t try very hard before deciding that they’d just call me Brahim and be done with it.

This kept happening no matter where I went in Morocco. Even fluent English speakers decided to give me alternative names, and I just shrugged it off as the consequence of one of the syllables being very unusual in Arabic.

That is, until one day I was talking to a shopkeeper in the souk and he asked me my name. I gave him my English one, and explained that I also answer to Brahim (and Daud, and… more than I can remember). He laughed hysterically and looked shocked, calling his friend over from the back of the shop.

“Tell him your name,” he said excitedly. I did so.

The other man’s face cycled through several expressions very quickly—surprise, anger, suspicion, and then exasperation when he realized his friend had set me up.

They very kindly explained to me that my name spoken with a Moroccan accent sounds very much like an Arabic profanity, and that I should definitely introduce myself as Brahim or give an alternative English name when meeting new people, because shaking hands with strangers and saying “Hello, I’m Fuck Your Mother’s Religion” is not a greeting that will win me many friends.

So. Brahim it was.

[glumshoe]

Another fun story: when I forgot the word for “egg” during dinner and attempted to compliment my host mother’s soft-boiled “Ibn Al-Dajaj”.

Son of the chicken.

[b00k-freak]

When I was working at a Thai restaurant one summer I heard the guys in the kitchen talk/yelling (it’s a kitchen, so… loud) and I thought I heard my name so I stuck my head through the door and asked if they’d called me, and they all stopped and stared for a really long moment and then started laughing like crazy. Turns out my name sounds exactly like the Thai word for garbage.

[glumshoe]

Language barriers: a source of unlimited hilarity since the evolution of vocal cords.

[990000]

simongerman600

[lingthusiasm]

Transcript Episode 28: How languages influence each other - Interview with Hannah Gibson on Swahili, Rangi, and Bantu languages

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 28: How languages influence each other - Interview with Hannah Gibson on Swahili, Rangi, and Bantu languages. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 28 show notes page.

Lauren: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Lauren Gawne, and today I’m talking to Hannah Gibson about Swahili, Bantu languages, and nouns!

[Music]

Lauren: Hannah, welcome to Lingthusiasm! We’re very happy to have another fellow enthusiastic linguist on the show today. I was wondering if you could introduce yourself and what your current role is.

Hannah: Yeah, my name’s Hannah Gibson. And I’m currently a lecturer at the University of Essex in the UK.

Lauren: Excellent. How did you get into linguistics?

Hannah: Ah. Reluctantly, perhaps. I’ve always loved languages, loved learning languages. I had friends who spoke different languages at school, and I loved learning the odd word here or there, or phrases and things. At school I learned a bit of German and a bit of Spanish. Then I went to university. I went to SOAS, School of Oriental and African Studies, in London. I got there, and I was supposed to be studying law.

Lauren: Okay.

Hannah: I got there, and I found out that you could study – I think the list was, like, 43 different languages from around the world.

Lauren: Yeah.

Hannah: I was amazed. And I thought, “I can’t be here and not study one of these languages.” So I changed my studies a little bit to study Swahili and law. I had this list of languages and thought, “Oh, which language do I want to study?” And so I studied Swahili and law really thinking, “Oh, I’m interested in languages, learning languages, but I’m not interested in linguistics,” because I didn’t really know, perhaps, what linguistics was.

Lauren: It is one of the biggest problems that people don’t actually know what linguistics is.

Hannah: I thought, “Oh, I like learning languages and I like talking to people, but this linguistics thing, not so sure about that.” Anyway, the more I studied Swahili in that case and the more I learnt about languages, I did an Introduction to Linguistics course, and I thought, “Oh, okay, this is absolutely fantastic.” Then I moved to linguistics –

Lauren: Yay!

Hannah: – and I’ve never looked back.

Keep reading

[bubonickitten]

do you think we as a society can finally acknowledge that “this thing didn’t have a name until recently” doesn’t necessarily mean “this thing did not exist until recently” or (worse) “this thing doesn’t exist at all”

[lyricwritesprose]

Let’s also agree that “this thing did not have an English name until recently,” does not necessarily mean it was nameless.

[screenshotsofdespair]

[eternally-nerdy]

The duolingo owl, cocking a gun in the distance because i havent practiced french in a few months

[linguist-breakaribecca]

I am impressed and excited by the fact that Minneapolis Public Schools are including Spanish, Somali, and Hmong on their closure notices!

[mapsontheweb]

Pronunciation of the name of the letter O in European languages.

[golfgalaxy]

puttting macking cheese in the michael wave

[paper-mario-wiki]

heres one of those Aesthetic “Japanese Convenience Store At Night” pics

i bet if u wanted to, u could find like 5 other pics that look EXACTLY like this one

[paper-mario-wiki]

[random-cluster-missile---moved]

This is somehow more frightening than if he were in the distance

[linguilo]

don’t know if this makes sense but I’m definitely a big dick

[allthingslinguistic]

“I made this for my phonetics class, and my students insisted I share it online. So, here it is.“ -Rory Turnbull on twitter

[brainstatic]

Everyone’s like “those Germans have a word for everything” but English has a word for tricking someone into watching the music video for Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up.

[queenrinacat]

English has a lot more words created for very specific phenomena! It’s not just rick-rolling. Language is always evolving and it’s super interesting! Here’s a list of hyper-specific/untranslatable words in English.

[the-star-holder]

My expectations weren’t met, they were exceeded.