#language talk

[szilverer]

y'know... for a setting that places so much importance in Language and does so many ice cool things playing with it (Correspondence/Discordance, Parabola & Irem, etc) i think there's a bit of a missed opportunity when it comes to the terms and words people use in their day to day life... like for example:

do you think radical revolutionaries would avoid words like "enlightening" in their vocabulary and flip them for LON-appropriate counterparts to signal their beliefs?

like substituting the word "light" with "blight". lol

similarly, pet names relating to light like "sunshine" kinda have a whole extra flavour tied to them, leaning into nostalgia, melancholy and/or danger depending on the people using it. irony, even

"honey" as a pet name also has extra connotations now and might actually bother some people instead due to the association with the drug...

do you think SMEN, taboo as it is, and seeking being a recognizable phenomenon even to the common londoner, would spawn swear words and insults? (imagine the weight of telling someone to Go Seek or Fall Down a Well)

the word "well" itself. well as an adverb, interjection, adjective. just. think about it. think about what it represents. idk something is happening to this word for sure

[demnianthro]

webfishing brought out my inner poet

[atthebell]

Random language thing: I was watching a cellbit vod and noticed afterwards that I was thinking a lot more in german than I usually do. I realised that Portugese (at least the way cellbit speaks) is really similar inflection-wise to my native Viennese dialect, which probably caused that phenomenon .

Given yiddish has a lot in common with (southern) german, is this something you've also noticed? I feel like portugese has a lot more phonemes in common with german than english, which surprised me!

oh that's super interesting! i would say ive never heard (knowingly) southern german dialects, so i wouldn't be able to say for certain, but yiddish actually comes from very very old high german (around 10th-12th centuries primarily) that developed in the rhineland, so what ive been told by most german speakers is that it sounds like medieval peasant german more than anything else-- akin to what medieval english would sound like to modern english speakers. so i can understand a fair bit of german (and other germanic languages) but i wouldn't say they're super similar in sound, at least to my ears.

for me i think that kind of thing, of getting into a certain language mode when interacting with a different language, is just very common, and you're right that it tends to happen when there's similar elements across languages. i used to speak spanish in yiddish class all the time because there's a few things in common (and spanish was my first second language, so it's always my default and my comparison for all others), and the same in hebrew class because the phonetic-ness of hebrew reminds me a lot of spanish (and obviously yiddish and hebrew have a ton of crossover, so that gave me a definite leg up there).

portuguese has VERY different inflections to yiddish imo– yiddish tends to be much flatter on the vowels and is musical but in a very different way. portuguese to my ears is very unique in terms of inflection and rhythm, even compared to spanish.

back to that language mode point, though, i do think there's a lot to be said for that part of your brain lighting up and then reaching for a different language than you're actually hearing– i think that's very much the multilingual experience.

[lyninabin]

the number of arabic speaking countries are so much (according to wiki, it’s 22) otherwise approximately 13,132,327 square kilometers (5,070,420 square miles) and with more then 380 MILLION speakers, both native and not

and yet, you’d rarely find much sites, games, and such that support arabic

on the other hand, a pathetic excuse of a chance of a country that holds using fucking military and us hold, approximately 20,770 km2 (8,019 sq mi) with mere 10mil speakers, half of with don’t even live there, oh and have i mentioned that it was a DEAD language for like 2 THOUSAND years?

and yet when i look around i’ll always find them supporting that language, even undercover sites that don’t get much traction or known by many

[redshift-starfire]

For maximum worldwide usability, Spanish, French, and Chinese. I already somewhat know Swedish so I don't need to use one on that. Beyond that I'll probably go for Cherokee and Northern Sámi for fun. Plus it would make Finnish a lot easier to learn

If you could instantly be granted fluency in 5 languages—not taking away your existing language proficiency in any way, solely a gain—what 5 would you choose?

[teaboot]

Once when I was a kid my dad told me to “stop being a you-know-what”. And we’d done the whole song and dance enough times that I knew he meant “bitch”, so I told him: That’s cheating. You know what you mean, and I know what you mean- you’re just stepping around it so you can pretend you’re on the high ground. So if you’re going to call me a bitch, at least have the balls to actually say it.

And it’s been about fifteen years since then but I’m just now figuring out that that’s the same feeling I get hearing shit like “grape” and “unalive”.

If your audience knows what you mean, you might as well actually say it. Otherwise you’re just fucking hiding

[hooveringthemotherland]

One of the biggest issues of moving to England as a person who is Ukrainian AND neurodivergent is not knowing how to answer the small talk question of "how are you", but today I was reminded that Ukrainian blessed me with the phrase that roughly translates as "living is hard but dying would be a pity" and can we please naturalise it so I can use it all day every day

[ruhua-langblr]

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

Transparent Language: (Languages: THE MOST! Also the one that has the widest variety of African languages! Perhaps the most diverse in ESL and learning a foreign language not in English)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

[mithalan-mithrarin]

Never heard of being blown to weezer before...

"to smithereens" is one of the worst things to be blown to. right up there with weezer

[anyknotrants]

Tim: hey Dick, which do you thing Kon would like more?

Tim: *holds up 2 pairs of earrings, one sapphire, on diamond*

Dick: I don't know probaby, the sapphire

Tim: *nods and puts the diamond away*

Dick: what's the special occasion, anyway?

Tim: hm?

Dick: why are you buying Kon the earrings, is it your anniversary or something?

Tim: oh no, I just like buying stuff for him

Dick: *starts laughing*

Tim: what?

Dick: oh god, you're his sugar daddy!

Tim, blushing: I'm not- you buy expensive shit for Wally all the time! You're his sugar daddy!

Dick: I prefer the term; 'rich boyfriend',

Tim: ...

Tim and Dick: *turns to look at Jason*

Jason, checking out arrow-shaped ruby necklace: *looks up*

Jason: ... I plead the fifth

[keferon]

Lemme introduce you to my super niche dynamic. Primus and The first Prime.

I am mixing continuities again and using Prima’s characterisation and origin from Aligned universe and the design from Tf1. Because the tf1 design is incredibly pretty~

ALSO the “every spark is connected to the Matrix” is based on the mtmte#21 where it reveals that Matrix has sparkcodes in it and you can basically use it to reassign a new spark code to other mech as if Matrix is just a freaking exel document that can be edited haha

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[atthebell]

this is sick as hell her brazilian accent in yiddish is so cool to hear

[stars-obsession-pit]

“Mom, why do you think ghosts are intrinsically evil?”

“It’s what the science says, of course!”

“No, I mean like, what were the studies? What did they actually observe”

“Ohh, I get what you mean, Danny! Well across all reputable reports of encounters with the ghosts strong enough to matter, they’ve always attacked first and never responded to attempts at communication! There’s no reason for them to do that if they’re not evil!”

“Huh…”

…

Danny, learning about Ghost Speak and how humans can’t understand it: hmm.

Danny, learning that ghosts greet each other and bond by fighting: hmmm.

[lelouch]

disclaimer yo no hice el meme namás lo saqué del feisbu

[littlemizzlinguistics]

Studying linguistics is actually so wonderful because when you explain youth slang to older professors, instead of complaining about how "your generation can't speak right/ you're butchering the language" they light up and go “really? That’s so wonderful! What an innovative construction! Isn't language wonderful?"