Search found 141 matches

by pittmirg
22 Mar 2018 11:01
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Will Indo-Aryan no longer be an accepted term in Linguistics?
Replies: 15
Views: 10708

Re: Will Indo-Aryan no longer be an accepted term in Linguistics?

The Indo-Aryan-speaking people of Europe were subject to Nazi genocide because of their ethnicity. Why would you deny them the right to refer to themselves with the name their ancestors used? If anything, it can be used to combat warped Nazi-influenced redefinitions of the word. Anyway, my view is t...
by pittmirg
17 Mar 2018 19:28
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Will Indo-Aryan no longer be an accepted term in Linguistics?
Replies: 15
Views: 10708

Re: Will Indo-Aryan no longer be an accepted term in Linguistics?

Surely, replacing 'Indo-Iranian' with 'Aryan' or replacing 'Indo-Aryan' with 'Indic' would make the nomenclature more consistent. What political situation?
by pittmirg
12 Sep 2017 20:14
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Hypothetical Slavic passive
Replies: 11
Views: 4567

Re: Hypothetical Slavic passive

The Proto-Slavic dialectal 3rd person ending -tъ might continue the PIE middle -to, depending on what you believe the Slavic outcome of PIE o# should be. Your reconstruction *beretrь looks as good as could be. Not *beretьr, though? Proto-Slavic had things like *tьr, 2-3sg aorist of *terti, from *tr-...
by pittmirg
31 Jul 2017 11:47
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317729

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Don't know if you mean that, but in Australia there was a "secret language" (de facto a cipher) among the Dyurbal people that was only taught a few men. Nah, I'm pretty sure it was in Asia, not in Australia. The speakers were supposedly nomadic shepherds or sth like that. Could be somethi...
by pittmirg
24 Jul 2017 18:42
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317729

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

I vaguely remember there was some obscure language in SW Asia (Iran or thereabouts) that was supposedly spoken only by men. Or at least there was some striking gender division in its usage. What was that?
by pittmirg
29 Jan 2017 11:42
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island
Replies: 13
Views: 4535

Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

Well interestingly, I found a source that suggests that Bornholm is Buyan http://denmark-travel.com/cities/island-bornholm "The island of Bornholm is located in the Baltic Sea, just between Sweden and Poland. In ancient legends Bornholm supposedly was called for the island Buyan." Most ot...
by pittmirg
27 Jan 2017 14:31
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island
Replies: 13
Views: 4535

Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

Also pleophony? Does that fit? /rj/ would always be treated as a syllable onset and thus be immune to pleophony or metathesis, cf. *morjǫ 'I cause the death (of), I famish' → Russian морю, Polish morzę, not **морою, **mroję. Something like, say, [ɹɣ] could presumably sound a bit like /j/ to a Slavi...
by pittmirg
25 Jan 2017 23:28
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island
Replies: 13
Views: 4535

Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

Wikipedia mentions several old names: Borgundarholm in Old Norse, Borghand~Borghund in 'ancient Danish', Burgendaland, Burgundehulm, Borghandæholm (in I dunno what) and finally the Old English Burgenda land . But with a plosive [g] (if that's how they were pronounced) they seem too distant phonetic...
by pittmirg
22 Jan 2017 21:06
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island
Replies: 13
Views: 4535

Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

It appears this board has quite a few North Germanic-speaking members so I'll give this a shot. I'm currently researching some East Slavic ethnographic stuff and I'd find very helpful if I could figure out the etymology of certain mysterious names that show up in folk songs, tales and spells. Among ...
by pittmirg
21 Dec 2016 11:17
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317729

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Another question for Slavicists: Why is the name "Nicholas" taken in with an <m> in many Slavic languages? E.g. Mykola in Ukrainian. The form with an initial M is also said to exist in rural Russian. Uspenskiy: 1) can't be explained in terms of historical phonetics 2) the n → m change is ...
by pittmirg
17 Dec 2016 00:28
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317729

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Ælfwine wrote:Did East Slavic pleophony affect yat? (ѣ?)

So like sequences ѣR > ѣRѣ?
No, because ěR. wasn't even an allowed sequence to begin with. Only the short vowels e, o, ь, ъ could combine with a r/l coda.
by pittmirg
12 Aug 2016 11:02
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: English Orthography Reform
Replies: 402
Views: 197113

Re: English Orthography Reform

Here's the thing, that's partially wrong. Let's look at the old English and Middle English cognates love < love/lufe < lufu [tick] wonder < wonder/wunder < wundor [tick] mother <moder < mōdor [cross] month < month/moneth < monaþ [cross] other < other < ōþer [cross] brother < brother < brōþor [cross...
by pittmirg
15 Jun 2016 11:08
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317729

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

CSl. č, šč, žǯ → Russian alveopalatals [t͡ɕ ɕː ʑː]* , CSl. š, ž → Russian retroflexes/depalatalized postalveolars. This can be compared to Polish, where all of them became depalatalized postalveolars. Also in Russian CSl. tj, dj** merged with CSl. č, ž, respectively. *in case of the long fricatives,...
by pittmirg
28 May 2016 12:11
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Otchestvo in Gothic language
Replies: 4
Views: 2123

Re: Otchestvo in Gothic language

I'd be surprised if it were much different from the patronymics used in other Germanic langs (i.e. name.GEN + -son/-daughter, Guðmundsson, Guðmundsdóttir). But let people who actually know something about Gothic speak.
by pittmirg
16 May 2016 17:21
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317729

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Thanks to all for the examples! In any language, is there a phoneme that only occurs in one grammatical morpheme? I may be misunderstanding what you intended "grammatical morpheme" to mean, and I'm no expert on the language in question, but I believe I've read at least a few times that /ɫ/...
by pittmirg
14 May 2016 00:33
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317729

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

In any language, is there a phoneme that only occurs in one grammatical morpheme?
by pittmirg
11 May 2016 17:45
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2019]
Replies: 7086
Views: 1317729

Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

I'm sort of getting this. /*o/ is short, right? Right. The main issue is that the notation of Proto-Slavic is heavily influenced by Old Church Slavonic orthography and can thus be misleading. Something like "*storna" (Ru. сторона) is anachronistic because at the stage when liquid codas st...
by pittmirg
06 May 2016 22:20
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Hangulisation of Polish
Replies: 22
Views: 4363

Re: Hangulisation of Polish

You lost me here. I would never interpret [lɛ͂k] as /lɛk/ - I would interpret it as someone affecting a French accent or something. (For all you non-Poles on the thread, the typical pronunciation of <lęk> is [lɛŋk].) Well, to me [lɛ͂k] with a pure nasal vowel just sounds like "lek" said b...
by pittmirg
04 May 2016 16:49
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Hangulisation of Polish
Replies: 22
Views: 4363

Re: Hangulisation of Polish

Interesting. Would clusters like /ɕ.j/ be possible across morpheme boundaries, such as in compound words? Or does this situation never occur? I found a couple of compound words on Wikipedia where the first element was ćwierć, but none of them had a second element that started with j. As opposed to ...
by pittmirg
04 May 2016 00:05
Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
Topic: Hangulisation of Polish
Replies: 22
Views: 4363

Re: Hangulisation of Polish

ć, ź, ś, sounds though differently than ci, zi, si I assure you they don't. They are as different as French ç and s or German tt and dt. Exceptions are few: a handful of borrowings like sinus where "si" is [si] and certain prefixed verbs like ziścić where "zi" can be [zi] (it ca...