lɪŋgwɪstɪks

Linguistics /liNGˈgwistiks/ The scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics.

[allthingslinguistic]

linguist idea: ouija board in the international phonetic alphabet

[learninglinguist]

GRETCHEN NO

[allthingslinguistic]

we could use it to figure out what dead languages sounded like though!!!

[vegitarianbutcher]

Education: I have made a Standard.

Linguists: you fucked up a perfectly good vernacular is what you did. look at it. it’s got elitism.

[00250]

HEY GUYS i’m doing a survey for my linguistics assignment, could you please reply/reblog and tag where you’re from/where you grew up and what you call these?

[cinary]

I don’t even know. It’s from a book about languages my friend’s been reading. (it’s creepy that I can understand it …)

[saeva-sava]

It was actually invented with that purpose: anyone who spoke any European language should be able to understand esperanto. It was meant to be a lingua franca.

[a-magpie-witchling]

STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING Y’ALL AND TELL ME IF YOU UNDERSTAND THIS

[jonajacknife-deactivated2018122]

I,understand about a half of it, I speak some dutch

[andishallemerge]

“What Happened? Did your computer catch a virus? Did you suddenly develop BSE [mad cow disease]?”

[kittyknowsthings]

Between German, English, Latin, a bit of French, Dutch, Spanish and Italian that was actually pretty readable to me.

[systlin]

I speak English and a very little spanish, and I can read it. 

[palatalfricative]

linguistics fact of the day 11/21/17

English originally had 4 words for yes and no. Yes and no were used to respond to negatively phrased questions, while yea and nay were used to respond to positively formed questions.

Will he not go? — Yes, he will.

Will he not go? — No, he will not.

Will he go? — Yea, he will.

Will he go? — Nay, he will not.

[lillyrosaura]

There’s a website where you can learn ASL on your own and it is free and the woman on there, her name is Rochelle Barlow, she runs the site and she actually is a homeschool teacher and teaches ASL. I am passing this on to you guys cause most people on here is open-minded. Well, whoever of y’all reads this will possibly ignore this but if you are a curious george like me and wants to learn ASL she’s your gal. 

Rochelle has a free program called Learn ASL in 31 days, currently I am on day 10ish or 12, (idk I’m on learning my numbers currently) but I believe this site will help people that are either curious about ASL and just wants to learn, or actually is Deaf but can’t afford to going to actual class or something, or just hard of hearing. 

I am truly in love with learning with Rochelle, she isn’t those interpreters that will talk while she signs, (and I’ve searched through Youtube how to sign but the person talking will distract me and I would get confused) and it is all in video which is a good thing. I found her through Youtube, that’s where she has all her videos. Just check out her site. You’ll like it. 

[stevviefox]

ref

[ernmark]

Just learned about garden path sentences.

They’re basically a literary prank– the sentence starts out in such a way that you think you know where it’s going, but the way it ends completely changes the meaning while still being a complete and logical sentence. Usually it deals with double meanings, or with words that can be multiple parts of speech, like nouns and verbs or nouns and adjectives.

So we get gems like

The old man the boat. (The old people are manning the boat)

The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families. (The apartment complex is home to both married and single soldiers, plus their families)

The prime number few. (People who are excellent are few in number.)

The cotton clothing is usually made of grows in Mississipi. (The cotton that clothing is made of)

The man who hunts ducks out on weekends. (As in he ducks out of his responsibilities)

We painted the wall with cracks. (The cracked wall is the one that was pained.)

[cindysuke]

truly a strange language

[punkpuppydragon]

Thanks I hate it

[allthingslinguistic]

Linguist Twitter had a lot of fun with #SpookyTalesForLinguists. Go check them all out, or read last year’s Linguistics Gothic. 

[allthingslinguistic]

This is your annual reminder that, if you come up with a linguistics-themed Halloween costume, please do post a photo/description and alert me to its existence so it can be added to the archives. 

[thequazzaclausestarringtimallen]

i am reminded that english is a flawed language every time I am forced to use “that that” in a sentence

[lostmyurl]

All the good faith that I had had had had no effect on the outcome of that sentence

[stardustdog]

i hate that that actually works fuck this

[fyeahdisneyatlantis]

Milo Meets Kida: Translated! (aka milo fails at atlantean)

Origin: Atlantean

“Who are you strangers and where did you come from?”

Origin: Atlantean

(HALTINGLY & with a bad, very american accent)

“Who…are you strangers and….where did you come from?” 

Origin: Atlantean 

“Your manner of speech is strange to me.”

Origin: Atlantean

“I….travel…friend!”

Origin: Atlantean

“…I travel friend…

(impatiently) …You are a friendly traveler?” 

(does anyone else love how she’s correcting his shitty atlantean LOL bbies ♥)

Origin: Latin (look at this frickin dweeb switching into latin)

“So, my friend, I am a traveler!”

Origin: Latin

“You speak the language of the Romans!”

Origin: French (milo plz)

“Do you speak French?”

Origin: French

“Yes, sir!”

[afallenwolf]

And for the record, Atlantean was written/created by  Marc Okrand the dude who made Klingon. 

So Kida and Milo are ACTUALLY talking to each other. Not just saying gibberish.

[brucebocchi]

[libertarirynn-deactivated202006]

No.

[ace-pervert]

yes

[itscoldinwonderland]

YES

[yourownpetard]

This is the language equivalent of King Solomon suggesting cutting the baby in half.

[askfrost]

The longer i look at it, the funnier it becomes.

[jinlinli]

auli’i cravalho’s name

for those of you having difficulty pronouncing her name, the apostrophe in her first name is not actually an apostrophe! its a bit of hawaiian punctuation called an ʻokina. because hawaiian tends to be very vowel-heavy and can have multiple consecutive vowel sounds with no consonants dividing them, the ‘okina serves an indicator of a pause between vowel sounds (a glottal stop if we’re being technical).

so auli’i would be pronounced like OW-LEE-EE rather than OW-LEE. cravalho is likely an anglicization of the portuguese surname, carvalho, which makes sense because hawaii has a pretty large portuguese population. (for example, i have a friend who’s last name, loui, is a messed up attempt at anglicizing the chinese name, liu).

usually the ‘okina is removed from hawaiian words outside of hawaii to avoid confusing people who are unfamiliar with the language’s conventions. for example, hawaii would actually be hawai’i, ohana would be ‘ohana, and luau would be lu’au (there’s actually supposed to be a straight bar above the first ‘u’ called a kahako, which lengthens and emphasizes the vowel, but im too lazy to try to format that lol).

and that concludes this linguistic primer on hawaiian punctuation, have a great day y’all.

[language-of-the-opera]

Two linguists walked into A'

[tresjoly]

i was talking to my american friend today and something occurred to me 

out of sociolinguistic interest, 1) where are you from? and 2) if someone from the same country as you started talking about ‘the war’ (without any context as to which), which war would you assume they meant?

[linguist-breakaribecca]

My syntax/semantics professor (and faculty advisor for my short-lived Linguistics Club) Nick Fleisher, bringing maximum Twitter sass from the linguistics corner.

[specgram]

“Time changes all things: there is no reason why language should escape this universal law. ”

—Ferdinand de Saussure

[beeftea78-deactivated20200113]

Throwback to the time my poor German teacher had to explain the concept of formal and informal pronouns to a class full of Australians and everyone was scandalised and loudly complained “why can’t I treat everyone the same?” “I don’t want to be a Sie!” “but being friendly is respectful!” “wouldn’t using ‘du’ just show I like them?” until one guy conceded “I suppose maybe I’d use Sie with someone like the prime minister, if he weren’t such a cunt” and my teacher ended up with her head in her hands saying “you are all banned from using du until I can trust you”

[deflare]

God help Japanese teachers in Australia.

[languageoclock]

if this isnt an accurate representation of australia idk what is

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Australia’s reverse-formality respect culture is fascinating. We don’t even really think about it until we try to communicate or learn about another culture and the rules that are pretty standard for most of the world just feel so wrong. I went to America this one time and I kept automatically thinking that strangers using ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ were sassing me. 

Australians could not be trusted with a language with ingrained tiers of formal address. The most formal forms would immediately become synonyms for ‘go fuck yourself’ and if you weren’t using the most informal version possible within three sentences of meeting someone they’d take it to mean you hated them.

[hollowedskin]

100% true.

the difference between “‘scuse me” and “excuse me” is a fistfight

[fozmeadows]

See also: the Australian habit of insulting people by way of showing affection, which other English-speakers also do, but not in a context where deescalating the spoken invective actively increases the degree of offence intended, particularly if you’ve just been affectionately-insulting with someone else.

By which I mean: if you’ve just called your best mate an absolute dickhead, you can’t then call a hated politician something that’s (technically) worse, like a total fuckwit, because that would imply either that you were really insulting your mate or that you like the politician. Instead, you have to use a milder epithet, like bastard, to convey your seething hatred for the second person. But if your opening conversational gambit is slagging someone off, then it’s acceptable to go big (”The PM’s a total cockstain!”) at the outset.

Also note that different modifiers radically change the meaning of particular insults. Case in point: calling someone a fuckin’ cunt is a deadly insult, calling someone a mad cunt is a compliment, and calling someone a fuckin’ mad cunt means you’re literally in awe of them. Because STRAYA. 

[kayloulee]

case in point: the ‘Howard DJs like a mad cunt’ meme.

I recommend this bloody good article by Mark Di Stefano of Buzzfeed Australia about the origin of John Howard’s DJ skills: We Found The Guy Behind Australia’s Greatest Ever Meme.