The CBB

To me, that all just seems like normal symbolism (the symbol represents the thing and is treated with the respect due to the thing itself). I would compare these superstitions with the fact that, as every schoolchild knows, paying for a sweet with a coin placed upside down on the counter is high tre...

Yes, /u/ is fronted in most English dialects, including but not limited to SSBE, Australian, New Zealander, South African, and Western American. It's probably fronted to SOME extent in pretty much all dialects. It's also regularly derounded. [for me it's derounded phonetically, but I retain phonemic...

Firstly, you're right. Really, He shouldn't need a Name at all. Some of these Names in theory (such as Allah) seem to reflect that - they're more descriptive than given. But because some religions name G-d (either the people doing so, or G-d Him), He has a Name now, so now you need to explain that....

Not trying to go full philosophical here, but couldn't you say that a singular entity contrast with other potential but non-existent entities if the same kind? I was thinking of stuff like "There is only one god and his name is X", which implies that any claim that something with name Y i...

Okay, are you asking "why does a singular entity need a name, beyond simply a word saying what type of entity it is?" ... or are you asking "why do humans give a name(s) to a singular entity, beyond simply a word saying what type of entity it is?" Again, I'm not sure what the fi...

(I posted this here instead of C&C Quick Questions because I’m asking about RL monotheisms.) In a monotheistic religion, where it’s believed only one god exists at all (rather that only one is served or worshipped, as in monolatry or henotheism), why does such a god need a name? (Especially in ...

(I posted this here instead of C&C Quick Questions because I’m asking about RL monotheisms.) In a monotheistic religion, where it’s believed only one god exists at all (rather that only one is served or worshipped, as in monolatry or henotheism), why does such a god need a name? (Especially in ...

I'd also like to add: it's possible to have non-naturalistic diachronics as well. Tolkien's languages, for instance, strictly speaking have non-naturalistic diachronics, despite the end result being largely naturalistic. This is because his elves have considerably more conscious control over their l...

I agree with everything Dormouse and Sangi said. Within the naturalistic school of conlanging (conlanging that aims at producing conlangs that look like real human languages), I think diachronics (evolution of the language through stages) serves at least five purposes: - it's an easy way to produce ...

In what kind of vowel inventories does /ʉ/ (close central rounded vowel) appear? Wikipedia has a very short list. I'm not sure what sort of answer you're looking for. What does "what kind of" mean? What are the options? In terms of individual languages, the obvious example is (many/most d...

I'm not sure why a language spoken primarily by people with no gender would both distinguishing four animate genders. That seems... counterintuitive. And not just distinguish, but distinguish in the 1st person! Even the vast majority of human languages don't do that! Why are these people so obsessed...

Obviously not. Famously, E=mc^2. Plug 8.4 metric tons into that and you get about 180,000 megatons, which is more than 10. ---------- However, the energy production mechanism clearly has nothing to do with radioactive materials for nuclear fission purposes. The standard amount of energy produced fro...

A thing that's often helpful, if you're interested in an unusual word, is looking it up in a dictionary. There's a free one online at witktionary.org, although others are available also. This would tell you that in theory the -ron words are found (archaically) in the USA and in Scotland, and probabl...

Faux-Phrygian, the conlang I’ve been working on lately, has a definite article, with some restrictions. It marks referents that have already been mentioned in the discourse or which are physically present. Other possible definite categories, like shared cultural concepts, take no article on first r...

Just concerning the "obstruent influence tone without bearing it"-question. Depressor consonant is a good key word. Onset obstruents can synchronically and phonetically influence tone because they require a certain state of the glottis for their voicing value which restricts the possible ...

FWIW, the second season of "Reacher" is much, much better than the second. The first is carried by charismatic performances, but is almost laughably bad in its writing at times (it's basically a neoconservative's literal wet dream with most of the sex taken out - it makes 24 and Jack Bauer...

I have never ever seen it used to mean "national language" or "native language". And I think eldin has a typo because presumably he's missing a "not" from his definition of "natural". Nor have I ever seen it used to mean "Nativity language", "Na...

And the question is?

[you also haven't given much information, have you? Try writing out the tones for all three "kana" words, with and without the suffix - rather than insisting that we just guess!]

The trouble is, I really like -g, especially how weird and cludgy it is after stops or consonant clusters. So I'm thinking of reintroducing it in these environments via analogy. Which option sounds best? 1. Have it be reintroduced by analogy, regardless of the new consonant cluster rules. 2. Have i...

Are these really example of certain forms being exempt from phonotactic rules, or are they just examples of new clusters being formed through sound change after others were lost? In English at least, the problematic suffixes - -ed, -es - are formed by elision of schwa, subsequent to whatever process...