happi-speech

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Is this that thang that gradeschool teachers teach in their writers workshops to students to get them beyond 'basic words' like 'sad' and 'said' and create 'vivid imagery'?

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"One of Yonga's personal favourites in the Frame project is Sona or Tusona, an ancient, sophisticated and now rarely used writing system.

It comes from the Chokwe, Luchazi and Luvale people, who live in the borderlands of Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Yonga's own north-western region of Zambia.

Geometric patterns were made in the sand, on cloth and on people's bodies. Or carved into furniture, wooden masks used in the Makishi ancestral masquerade - and a wooden box used to store tools when people were out hunting.

The patterns and symbols carry mathematical principles, references to the cosmos, messages about nature and the environment - as well as instructions on community life.

The original custodians and teachers of Sona were women - and there are still community elders alive who remember how it works.

They are a huge source of knowledge for Yonga's ongoing corroboration of research done on Sona by scholars like Marcus Matthe and Paulus Gerdes.

"Sona's been one of the most popular social media posts - with people expressing surprise and huge excitement, exclaiming: 'Like, what, what? How is this possible?'"

The Queens in Code: Symbols of Women's Power post includes a photograph of a woman from the Tonga community in southern Zambia.

She has her hands on a mealie grinder, a stone used to grind grain.

Researchers from the Women's History Museum of Zambia discovered during a field trip that the grinding stone was more than just a kitchen tool.

It belonged only to the woman who used it - it was not passed down to her daughters. Instead, it was placed on her grave as a tombstone out of respect for the contribution the woman had made to the community's food security.

"What might look like just a grinding stone is in fact a symbol of women's power," Yonga says."

[happi-speech]

Im curious now as I try to understand this concept more: Are topic/comment languages basically called that because they treat a word marked/designated as the 'topic' as a seperate element from the subject and predicate?

Also are languages that dont really have or make use of copulas in normal expressions more likely to be topic/comment languages?

[happi-speech]

Are the words 'of' and 'off' minimal pairs?

Yesterday after work at a retail store, I was thinking of how much of a mistake it would be to describe a product as '80% of retail price' compared to '80% off' retail price. Those are two very different prices lol.

Say an item is $100. 80% off that price is $20. 80% of that price is $80. A different phoneme costed a $60 difference in price that wpuld certainly anger a customer if they heard or read two different words.

But im not the most confident at identifying minimal pairs just yet since its a new concept for me linguistically (though not in general. Ive always noticed this phenomena without the jargon to articiulate it. The mistakes in minimal pairs are so funny esp within language learning. Its the different between going to the beach and going to the bitch, etc).

So are the words 'off' and 'of' minimal pairs?

[happi-speech]

鬼 (oni) “Demon”

Sometimes translated as “demon”, “devil” or “ogre”, an oni is a traditional Japanese monster typically depicted as wearing a tiger pelt and carrying an iron club. They usually have red or blue skin and horns. They are popular characters in Japanese fairy tales and legends.

In early February the annual bean-throwing festival is practiced to drive out oni and to welcome in spring. People throw beans at someone dressed as an oni, and shout “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" (「鬼は外！福は内！」, "Oni out! Good luck in!")

Below is a photo of a shrine in Osaka which looks like an oni. I did a double-take when I first saw it.

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[happi-speech]

20 fun Chinese figurative language expressions

A collection of fun figurative expressions I've learned/come across.

【1】 劈腿 pǐtuǐ Literal: to do the splits Figurative: two-timing (in romantic relationships)

【2】 穿小鞋 chuānxiǎoxié Literal: wear tight shoes Figurative: to make life difficult for sbdy

【3】 鸡肋（雞肋）jīlèi Literal: chicken ribs Figurative: smth of little value that one is reluctant to give up

【4】 绊脚石（絆腳石）bànjiǎoshí Literal: stone that trips one's foot Figurative: stumbling block / obstacle / smth that gets in your way

【5】 摸鱼（摸魚）mōyú Literal: to catch fish Figurative: to loaf on the job / slack off

【6】 踢皮球 tīpíqiú Literal: to kick a ball around Figurative: to mutually shirk responsibility / to pass the buck

【7】 乌鸦嘴（烏鴉嘴）wūyāzuǐ Literal: crow's beak Figurative: person who makes an inauspicious remark (jinxes it)

【8】 露馅（露餡）lòuxiàn Literal: spill filling Figurative: to expose (a secret) / to spill the beans / to let the cat out of the bag

【9】 缩头乌龟（縮頭烏龜）suōtóuwūguī Literal: a turtle that pulls its head in Figurative: coward

【10】 掉链子（掉鏈子）diàoliànzi Literal: to have one's bicycle chain come off Figurative: to let sb down; to drop the ball; to screw up

【11】 放鸽子（放鴿子）fànggēzi Literal: release doves Figurative: to stand sb up / to bail on sb

【12】 唱反调（唱反調）chàngfǎndiào Literal: sing in the opposite key Figurative: to express a different view / to take a different position

【13】 尘��落定（塵埃落定）chén'āiluòdìng Literal: the dust has settled Figurative: to get sorted out / to be finalized

【14】 抱大腿 bàodàtuǐ Literal: hug the thigh Figurative: to cling to sb influential or famous

【15】 出轨（出軌）chūguǐ Literal: to be derailed; to go off the rails Figurative: to overstep the bounds / to have an extramarital affair

【16】 塌房 tāfáng Literal: house collapse Figurative: to have one's reputation tank due to a scandal

【17】 同温层（同溫層）tóngwēncéng Literal: stratosphere Figurative: echo chamber, bubble

【18】 敲门砖（敲門磚）qiāoménzhuān Literal: a brick picked up to knock on the door and then discarded Figurative: stepping-stone to success

【19】 眼中钉（眼中釘）yǎnzhōngdīng Literal: a nail in one's eye Figurative: smth or sbdy you detest / a thorn in one's side

【20】 小辫子（小辮子）xiǎobiànzi Literal: pigtail Figurative: a shortcoming or wrongdoing that can be seized upon by others

[happi-speech]

Place to sulk

[happi-speech]

Does anyone know Tagalog and want to learn it w me or help me learn it? 🥺🙏🏽

[happi-speech]

A lot of people are saying that the Chinese name of REDnote, 小红书 Xiǎohóngshū, is "Little Red Book" in Chinese.

While technically the individual characters do mean that, Mao's Little Red Book is called 毛主席语录 Máo Zhǔxí Yǔlù "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung" in Chinese, and the international nickname "Little Red Book" came about because while the name is pretty short in Chinese, it's a mouthful in English.

The book was also called 红宝书 Hóngbǎoshū "Red Treasure Book" during the Cultural Revolution (it's not called that much these days). You may notice that this has "Red" and "Book" in common with "Little Red Book". But please note that:

Red is China's favorite color. Not just country-associated things like with the US's red/white/blue. It's everything - traditional culture, good luck, etc.

Book/Journal is pretty common branding for social media. Have you heard of Facebook? Livejournal?

Anyway. All this is to say that the association between REDnote and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung is not immediately obvious to a Chinese person, and the Chinese name is not the same at all.

BBC here is simply wrong, as is that Tumblr thread floating around.

By "not immediately obvious", I mean that any Chinese person that has not heard of the English short-name for the Little Red Book is not going to think about it all when seeing the Chinese name for REDnote.

Whether the similarity was intentional is not a question I have the answer to. But here is a Chinese person saying it probably isn't. The founder says the red is for Stanford (where he graduated) and Bain & Company (where he worked).

[happi-speech]

The two kung fu queens of Chinese Douyin (Tik Tok) Han Liang and Ling Yun in deadly battle 😉🔥🥰

[happi-speech]

foreign accents are beautiful, many people will love the sound of your voice for it. and it shows you've put hard work into learning a language other than the one you were raised speaking. there's nothing to be ashamed of. <- me when i hear other people embarassed of their accent while speaking english

...i'm sorry, i should be put down like a diseased animal. <- me when i speak a foreign language

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one of my favourite linguistic phenomena/in-jokes is spanish potato chips being “ham-flavored, probably”

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I love English

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this is so amazing

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How the numbers we use today came to be -

The Hindu-Arabic numeral system was invented in India between the 1st and 4th centuries. It was introduced to Europe in the 12th century through the writings of Middle Eastern mathematicians.

The origins of the Hindu-Arabic numerals can be traced back to the third century B.C.E., when Brahmi numerals were in use. The dot was used for the zero symbol for at least 100 years after the numerals were invented, and was transmitted to Arabia and Southeast Asia. The dot is still used for the zero symbol in the Sharada script of Kashmir.

[happi-speech]