Search found 887 matches
- 20 Dec 2020 18:36
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: False cognates
- Replies: 902
- Views: 325418
Re: False cognates
:eng: verbiage :eng: verb "Verb" of course comes from Latin verbum . "Verbiage" was derived from the Middle French verb verbier/verboier "to trill, warble", itself a derivation of Picard dialect werbler "to sing expressively, trill", which is the origin of En...
- 20 Dec 2020 16:07
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 1110
- Views: 282570
Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
The discussion on Japanese pitch accent seems to have evolved beyond a "quick" question, so it's been split into its own thread.
- 02 Dec 2020 15:59
- Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
- Topic: Pangaea (NSFW description)
- Replies: 18
- Views: 4704
Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)
Update: It's a really tough decision to lock a thread on someone's conworld, but here, it seems like the original poster had already stopped participating in the discussion and it had been rekindled (after no posts at all for several days) by other people for the primary purpose of arguing about re...
- 28 Nov 2020 10:17
- Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
- Topic: Pangaea (NSFW description)
- Replies: 18
- Views: 4704
Re: Pangaea (NSFW description)
Okay, this thread seemed fairly civil initially, but it seems to be going downhill, and now there are reports. So, locked pending further review by the administration.
- 14 Nov 2020 17:31
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: Nifty Random Features
- Replies: 92
- Views: 24390
Re: Nifty Random Features
* I'm assuming the etymon of "to necro" is "to necromance"? And even if it isn't, at any rate a back-formation and abbreviation from the noun "necromancer". Oh wow, internet terminology is now old enough that people are making assumptions about its etymologies. [:|] Bu...
- 24 Oct 2020 17:44
- Forum: Everything Else
- Topic: The Sixth Conversation Thread
- Replies: 762
- Views: 193918
Re: The Sixth Conversation Thread
Happy twenty-third, Shimobaatar! As the fortune cookie goes: "May you live in interesting times". Isn't that a bad thing? "Interesting times" refers to things like rebellions, famines, general upheaval. It's "uninteresting times" that's the good one, isn't it? That's h...
- 11 Oct 2020 00:27
- Forum: Conworlds & Concultures
- Topic: How would space travel change directionals?
- Replies: 15
- Views: 8658
Re: How would space travel change directionals?
I'm not certain how speakers of such languages change their speech when they move away from the landmark their language is geared to. This actually came up in a discussion with a bunch of my friends recently; there appear to be at least some anecdotes about speakers of such languages just using the...
- 01 Oct 2020 02:51
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: False cognates
- Replies: 902
- Views: 325418
Re: False cognates
Finnish sitten Swedish sedan both meaning 'then, subsequently' Also 'ago'... Which, come to think of it, makes the set of meanings kind of suspiciously specific. This is one of those cases where I'm quite sure that one of the words has influenced the other (ie. Swedish has influenced Finnish, most ...
- 13 Aug 2020 02:26
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 1110
- Views: 282570
Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
But that person is talking about linguistics. There can be all sorts of immutable laws in linguistics, since linguists seem to be happy to prioritise linguistic rules over naive interpretations of languages. A linguist can just ignore a language that has a counterexample, or redefine it - a naive s...
- 09 Aug 2020 03:12
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 1110
- Views: 282570
Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Wikipedia actually claims that Nenets has a phonemic contrast between /n nʲ ŋ ŋʲ/, but AFAICT there aren't any words with <ӈ/ң> before a vowel that induces palatalisation or followed by a soft sign at least on Glosbe or this Nenets dictionary, so I'm a bit sceptical about that. Incidentally, someth...
- 08 Aug 2020 18:25
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 1110
- Views: 282570
Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Is it true that no language distinguishes /ɲ/ and /ŋʲ/, or even /nʲ/ and /ŋʲ/? If so, what's the implication for languages that eg. palatalise all consonants before /i/ and have a phonemic /ŋ/? Does it merge with /n/ before /i/? Does it depend on the language? The reason I'm asking is that while [ɲ...
- 06 Aug 2020 02:16
- Forum: Everything Else
- Topic: Forum News discussion/feedback thread
- Replies: 898
- Views: 431897
Re: Forum News discussion/feedback thread
A thought: Does the CBB House Rules post need a mention of bringing drama from other conlanging communities like the ZBB or the Conlang WorkShop over here? From what I recall, there used to be a part of the "Be Civil" rule that read, "Don't go posting that some random dude you met in...
- 28 Jul 2020 13:27
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: False friends and other unfortunate coincidences
- Replies: 881
- Views: 275238
Re: False friends and other unfortunate coincidences
If initialisms count..... I'd say that's moving quite far from the original purpose of this thread, so at the very least, I'd recommend starting a new thread for them. Personally, I'm also inclined to think that of course any two- or three-letter abbreviation is going to have multiple uses, even w...
- 21 Jul 2020 16:41
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: Atlantean Language by the Creator of the Klingon Language: Grammars, Dictionaries, New Translations, and Conlangs by Me
- Replies: 17
- Views: 4029
Re: Atlantean Language by the Creator of the Klingon Language: Grammars, Dictionaries, New Translations, and Conlangs by
Please do not bring personal vendettas from elsewhere on the internet onto this board. Also, a reminder on the House Rules here: no personal attacks. Civil criticism and advice on how to improve certain things are fine - and indeed, the main reason why a lot of people bother posting their work at al...
- 20 Jul 2020 14:21
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: What have you been reading lately? (linguistic ed.)
- Replies: 56
- Views: 82429
Re: What have you been reading lately? (linguistic ed.)
A Grammar of the Hittite Language https://www.academia.edu/13160223/A_GRAMMAR_OF_THE_HITTITE_LANGUAGE_Part_1_Reference_Grammar?email_work_card=view-paper Neat, thanks for linking this! Not that I expect to have the time to actually read it anytime soon, but hey, Hittite's been waiting for millennia...
- 21 Jun 2020 22:15
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: How would you romanize Kazakh?
- Replies: 37
- Views: 14279
Re: How would you romanize Kazakh?
/m n ŋ/ <m n n ŋ> /p b t d k ɡ q/ <p b t d k q> /(t͡ɕ)/ <ç> /f v s z ʃ ʒ (x) ʁ h/ <g v s z ş j h ğ h> /l j w/ <l ı w> /r/ <р> /ɘ~ɪ ʉ ə ʊ/ <i ü y u> /əj~ɘj ʊw~əw~ʉw~ɘw <ı w> /i̯ɘ y̯ʉ~ø~œ u̯o/ <е ö о> /æ ɑ/ <ä а> That usage of <y> and <ı> seems kind of... exactly backward from what I'd expect, both b...
- 09 Jun 2020 00:12
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 1110
- Views: 282570
Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Then again, if we exclude recent(-ish) loanwords, Hungarian doesn't really have word-initial clusters at all, AFAIU. This does in fact seem to be the case too. It's particularly noticeable in the word Görög (Greek). There's also words like iskola 'school' - or indeed the aforementioned István – whi...
- 08 Jun 2020 18:01
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 1110
- Views: 282570
Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/35134811.pdf says Hungarian does have some word-initial three-consonant clusters. I'm quite sure most European languages have those by now... Kind of inevitable when people are highly literate, orthographies are mostly phonemic and new scientific and technological co...
- 05 Jun 2020 13:02
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: False cognates
- Replies: 902
- Views: 325418
Re: False cognates
:hun: föld "earth, soil, field" :eng: field I would have guessed this was a borrowing from some variety of German but evidently not For what it's worth, Hungarian Wiktionary does suggest that it's "maybe" a borrowing from German Feld . There's also the possibility in cases like ...
- 05 Jun 2020 12:53
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: False friends and other unfortunate coincidences
- Replies: 881
- Views: 275238
Re: False friends and other unfortunate coincidences
Portuguese(/Iberian and Neapolitan) o ' DEF.ART.MASC ' and Romanian o ' INDF.ART.FEM ' have been causing me some annoyance recently... I see a sequence like Rom. o casă 'a house' and I immediately want to parse it as definite. By extension I guess Portuguese a ' DEF.ART.FEM ' also adds to this, bec...