#Multilingual Dictionary

[thinkview-1234]

[teecupangel]

Hi, I’m a new reader who found your ao3 a few days ago and has ravenously been devouring all the fics. I love your stuff!! <333

Sending this as an anon ask because I also wanted to ask, are you open to receiving corrections on historical details? I know some stuff is hard to change, which is why many authors don’t like it, so it’s totally fine if not <3

Thank you! I'm glad you love my works <333

I am open to any historical or grammatical corrections you want to give me. I'm doing this as a hobby but I am not a master of either history or the English language so I know it's bound to happen XD. Any historical reference in my work either comes from whatever AC lore gives us (AC wiki) or what I can research using the internet.

Oh, but I would appreciate it if you guys will be okay if I would sometimes reply with something along the lines of "I know it can't happen but I'd like to do it anyway" to a few of them because sometimes:

(1) Some historical inaccuracies are created by mistake but I can't find a way to rectify it without destroying the plot or scene (ex: the potato scene in White Aster)

or

(2) Some historical inaccuracies were created because of the plot (ex: the inclusion of Ratonhnhaké:ton's tribe in Eagle of Alamut because I refuse to believe Hytham would not keep contact with Eivor when she goes to Vinland)

I do try to correct any inaccuracies I make when it's pointed out but, sometimes, there are just inaccuracies that stay and I hope you guys would be understanding when that happens.

Grammatical mistakes/inaccuracies though, if they stay, that means they were deliberate either because that's how that character talks or because the narration is set to someone who would use that kind of grammar or slang.

[procrastinatingsoicanreadfanfics]

being trilingual and currently becoming fluent in another language is fucjing awesome but i also opened my german literature exam like this today: Das gegebene Gedicht was written by Joseph von Eichendorff, un écrivain important por the era de Romantik. La poema se llama- and you get the point

[hummingbird24220]

Can I request Robin and Reader bonding over speaking the same language and the rest of the strawhats are very curious about what they are saying. maybe they are flirting or talking about crushes idk. I also wanna see Sanji being like “I can also speak other language, let me in!” He’s so jealous all the time, the poor pathetic man /affectionate

(Loved the Neko reader updates today <3)

Yes!! This was really fun to write , thank you for the request! I google translated a lot of it so sorry if its gibberish lol ;P

Enjoy!

Lost in Translation

One piece x reader - Fluff

The afternoon sun glinted off the waves, casting golden sparkles across the Thousand Sunny’s deck. You were perched under the shadow of the mast, flipping through an old book with tattered edges and an even older language scrawled inside. Robin sat nearby, her own book in hand, legs elegantly crossed, one finger resting thoughtfully against her lips.

You glanced up, and as if on cue, her eyes met yours. A silent, knowing look passed between you.

“Mundus vetus loquitur, sed pauci intellegunt,” Robin said casually, eyes back on her book.

You smirked. “Et nos inter illos paucos sumus,” you replied.

Robin chuckled softly. “Quid aliud latet in te, amica?” (“What else hides in you, my friend?”)

You leaned in just slightly, the corners of your lips tilting up. “Forte, secretum aut duo... vel tres.” (“Perhaps a secret or two... or three.”)

Across the deck, Luffy was attempting to balance Chopper on his head while Zoro and Franky were arguing about weights in the training area. Nami lounged nearby, half-dozing, but Sanji—oh, Sanji was watching. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Oi, oi... What’s with the secret code?” Sanji called out, walking over and dramatically tossing a kitchen towel over his shoulder. “Are you two gossiping about the rest of us? Or... dare I dream... flirting?”

Robin arched an amused brow. “Forsitan utrumque,” she murmured. (“Perhaps both.”)

You gave Sanji an innocent smile. “We’re just... discussing history.”

“Historia et cordis arcana,” Robin added. (“History and the heart’s secrets.”)

Sanji’s eyes widened. “Hey! Don’t think I’m left out just ‘cause I don’t speak... whatever that is! I’m a man of culture, okay?! I can speak... uhh... love! In every language!”

You and Robin exchanged another glance. You couldn’t resist.

“Ecce, gallus in arena,” you said with a straight face. (“Behold, a rooster in the arena.”)

Robin snorted delicately. “Clamat sed nemo respondet.” (“He crows, but no one answers.”)

Sanji gasped. “Hey! That was about me, wasn’t it?! I know it! Say it to my face in a language I understand!”

“I did,” you replied sweetly. “You just didn’t hear it right.”

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew was beginning to notice the hushed giggles and cryptic smiles being exchanged between you and Robin.

“Are they making fun of us?” Usopp asked, peeking over Nami’s shoulder.

Nami opened one eye and lazily answered, “Probably. But it’s Robin, so it sounds classy.”

“Mihi videtur pulchram tuam amicam subridere cum intentione,” Robin whispered in your ear, voice low and teasing. (“It seems to me your lovely friend is smiling at you with intent.”)

You flushed lightly. “Quae? Ego? Numquam.” (“What? Me? Never.”)

“Mentiris tam dulciter.” (“You lie so sweetly.”)

Sanji was now furiously flipping through a random dictionary he had retrieved from somewhere. “Give me five minutes and I’ll be multilingual too, dammit!”

Luffy, now wearing Chopper like a hat, popped up beside him. “Are we gonna learn a secret language?! Cool! Does it involve meat?”

“Fortasse,” you and Robin said at the same time.

(“Perhaps.”)

And oh, the mystery deepened.

---

It started innocently.

A small folded note left on the edge of the breakfast table, right beside Robin’s coffee cup.

“Pulchrior es quam aurora ipsa.” (You are more beautiful than the dawn itself.)

Robin’s brow lifted as she read it, a soft laugh escaping her lips. She didn't even need to glance your way—she knew exactly who it was from. Instead, she dipped her pen in ink and scribbled a reply on the back.

“Et tu clarior stella matutina.” (And you, brighter than the morning star.)

You found it tucked inside your book that afternoon, and from that moment on, the notes didn’t stop. They’d show up in the fruit bowl, wedged between your favorite daggers, tucked into folded laundry, even hidden inside a loaf of bread once (courtesy of Robin’s devilish sense of humor).

But it didn’t stop at flattery. No, you both had opinions. And you weren’t afraid to share them, no matter who was in earshot.

“Ille, cum triceps, Zoro… oculi eius sicut gladii sunt,” you said quietly as you leaned beside Robin at the rail, eyes fixed on the swordsman below. (That one, the grumpy one—Zoro... his eyes are like blades.)

Robin gave you a sly look, her fan fluttering open. “Et frons eius sicut perpetuum nubilum,” she replied with mock drama. (And his brow is like an eternal storm cloud.)

Zoro glanced up from his training with the distinct expression of someone who knew he was being talked about but had no proof. “What the hell are you two whispering about now?”

You grinned. “Just admiring your... weathered aesthetic.”

“Tempestas sed formosa,” Robin added with a wink. (A storm, but a beautiful one.)

Zoro’s scowl deepened. “What the hell does that mean?!”

Later that day, Sanji caught you leaving another folded note in Robin’s book.

He squinted at it. “Oi, what’s that? Is it about me?”

Robin calmly flipped the page without acknowledging him. “Just a scholarly observation.”

You smirked and whispered, loud enough for him to hear, “Ille habet oculos ceruleos sicut mare post imbrem... et mores feles mendicae.” (He has blue eyes like the sea after rain… and the manners of a begging cat.)

Robin snorted into her teacup.

Sanji leaned over the table, horrified. “Was that a compliment or an insult?!”

“Yes,” you and Robin said at the same time.

Even Franky wasn’t spared.

“Vidisti eum hodie? Tota machina, sed cor tam tenerum.” Robin murmured as Franky sang to himself in the workshop. (Did you see him today? All machine, but a heart so soft.)

You added, “Super et tener, sicut ursus amatorius.” (Loud and soft, like a teddy bear.)

Usopp’s eye twitched. “They’re definitely talking about us.”

Chopper nodded. “I think I heard them say bear!”

“Hey! HEY! Say it in NORMAL words!” Luffy cried, mouth full of meat.

You turned and gave him a dazzling smile. “Praeses carissime, nos te semper intellegimus.” (Dearest captain, we always understand you.)

Robin chimed in, “Etiam cum nemo alius potest.” (Even when no one else can.)

Luffy beamed. “Awww, thanks! I don’t know what you said but it sounded awesome!”

That night, another note appeared on your pillow. This one wasn’t just poetic.

“Aliquando, mihi videtur nos duas esse sicut duo scelestos, linguā latente corda legentes.” (Sometimes, I think we’re like two scoundrels, reading hearts in a hidden tongue.)

You wrote back without hesitation.

“Et si sic est... nonne gloriosum est?” (And if we are… isn’t it glorious?)

The war of whispers had just begun.

And the rest of the Straw Hats?

Totally unprepared.

It started at breakfast.

You and Robin were passing a note back and forth under the table, giggling like schoolgirls. Luffy was obliviously munching on toast, Chopper was mixing jam and peanut butter like it was a medical experiment, and Zoro was already rubbing his temples.

“Pulchrum est videre quomodo vultus eius rubescit cum loquimur de eo,” Robin murmured. (It’s lovely to see how his face turns red when we talk about him.)

You shot a glance toward Sanji—who, at that moment, was setting down a plate of pancakes with an unbothered smile.

“Tenerior quam butyrum in sole,” you whispered. (Softer than butter in the sun.)

Sanji paused, tilted his head… then leaned in slowly.

“Tu veux jouer à ce jeu, ma chérie? Très bien.” (You want to play this game, my darling? Very well.)

The two of you blinked.

Robin’s brow arched in intrigue. “Oh?”

“Je peux être aussi mystérieux que vous deux, et encore plus séduisant, non?” (I can be just as mysterious as you two, and even more charming, no?)

You choked on your tea. “Did he just—”

“French,” Robin said, dabbing her lips with a napkin, visibly amused. “He’s retaliating.”

Sanji twirled around dramatically and poured a cup of coffee for Robin. “Pour la plus belle femme sur ce navire... et l’autre sirène à la langue aiguisée.” (For the most beautiful woman on this ship… and the other siren with the sharp tongue.)

You gasped, pretending to be offended. “Sharp tongue?!”

Robin giggled. “Well, he’s not wrong.”

By lunch, it had escalated.

Sanji refused to speak to you or Robin in anything but French. Every sentence, every compliment, every argument—French. And worse, he was clearly good at it.

“Je ne peux pas supporter d'être exclu, alors j'ai décidé de surpasser vos petits secrets.” (I can’t stand being excluded, so I’ve decided to outdo your little secrets.)

You leaned into Robin. “He’s dramatic.”

Robin sipped her wine. “Dangerously so. I like it.”

Luffy whined, “Now Sanji is broken too! What’s happening?!”

Usopp was pacing in circles. “We’ve got Latin whispers on one side, romantic French threats on the other��this ship is turning into a drama play!”

Zoro groaned. “They’re not even fighting. They’re just… aggressively talking fancy.”

Franky posed dramatically beside Sanji. “I don’t know what you’re saying, bro, but it sounds SUUUPER seductive!”

“Naturellement.” Sanji winked.

Later that evening, you found another note tucked under your pillow.

“Sanji in linguam Gallicam confugit, sed scitne quid dicamus vere?” (Sanji fled to the French language, but does he know what we’re really saying?)

You smirked and penned your reply, slipping it into Robin’s novel.

“Scit tantum quod permittimus.” (He knows only what we allow.)

The language war had taken a turn.

Robin and you? Elusive, secretive, and cheeky in Latin.

Sanji? All French flirt and fire, sashaying through his own private rebellion.

The crew?

Losing. Their. Minds.

---

It was Nami who called the meeting.

“Alright. I’ve had it,” she said, slamming her map scroll on the table. “Robin and [Name] are whispering in Latin. Sanji is speaking French like he's seducing a bakery. Zoro’s scowling louder than he talks. We need to fight back.”

Luffy, sitting cross-legged on the table, raised a hand. “Can my language be meat?”

“…what?”

“Like, I’ll say meat when I’m happy, meat meat when I’m mad, and MEAT when I’m serious.”

Chopper nodded like this was science. “I will only communicate using high-level medical terminology. It’ll be educational.”

“I’m in,” Usopp said, adjusting his goggles. “My language will be exaggerated battle cry metaphors. Y’know, stuff like ‘the hammer of justice shall rain from the sky!’”

Zoro grunted. “I’ll just say sword. That’s all I need.”

“Of course,” Nami said dryly. “Of course you will.”

Franky revved up his sunglasses. “Beep boop. Wrench. Socket. Bolt-action patriotism.”

Brook raised a hand gently. “May I speak exclusively in music lyrics and skeleton puns?”

“Yes,” said Nami immediately.

Robin, reading silently from the corner, calmly turned a page and said, “Mundus insanit.” (The world has gone mad.)

You leaned over and whispered, “Et nos cum eo.” (And we with it.)

Sanji appeared at your side with a flourish, placing down a fruit tart with a rose on top.

“Je vous ai préparé quelque chose de doux, mes étoiles.” (I prepared something sweet for you, my stars.)

Luffy stood up suddenly and shouted, “MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT!”

Sanji blinked. “Is… is that anger?”

Chopper adjusted his hat. “I believe he just declared war.”

The next morning.

Robin and you were once again deep in quiet conversation. She had passed you a note tucked inside a book of ancient inscriptions. The note simply read:

“Quis eorum cedit primus?” (Which of them will give up first?)

You smiled as Zoro stomped past, arms crossed, muttering “Sword. Sword sword. Sword.”

“Not him,” you whispered.

From the other side of the ship:

“BEHOLD! THE STORM OF WRATH COMETH ON THE BACK OF A FLYING FISH!” (Usopp, holding a spoon.)

“MEAT!” (Luffy, holding Usopp.)

“I require a stethoscope, a centrifuge, and three cc’s of patience,” Chopper said with incredible authority, as he attempted to brush his teeth.

Nami sighed from the helm. “Where’s the mute button for this ship?”

Franky popped up beside her. “Beep boop. Drill press. Leveler. Wacky torque!”

“STOP THAT.”

At lunch, the chaos reached a glorious peak.

Sanji laid out a feast with flair, announcing each dish in French. “Et pour vous, mon capitaine, un steak saignant, comme demandé.”

Luffy screamed, “MEAT!!!” and dove for the plate.

Brook stood beside him, strumming his guitar. “🎵 I ain’t got no tongue, but I sure got soul! 🎵 Yohohohooo—skull joke!”

Meanwhile, Zoro dropped his fork and simply said, “Sword.” Then glared at the fork like it betrayed him.

Nami facepalmed. “I feel like I’m living in a fever dream.”

You and Robin, sipping tea and speaking softly in Latin, were unfazed.

“Certamen est ridiculum,” Robin said. (The battle is ridiculous.)

“Et tamen… amo illud,” you replied. (And yet… I love it.)

Robin chuckled. “Id est familia nostra.” (It is our family.)

And with the entire ship lost in its own tangled web of invented languages, miscommunication, and overly dramatic monologues…

You decided not to translate a single thing.

-

Dinner on the Thousand Sunny was always a lively affair.

Tonight? It was a warzone of nonsense.

Robin sat calmly beside you, stirring her soup with practiced elegance. You were trying to keep a straight face, but it was getting really hard.

Across the table, Luffy stood dramatically on his chair, waving a fork in the air like it was a pirate flag.

“MEAT. MEAT meat MEAAAT!!” he declared, eyes shining with joy.

Chopper gasped in awe. “He says the octopus tried to punch him but tripped over a sea cucumber.”

“Are you sure?” Nami said, deadpan.

“Yes! It was clearly a three-meat sentence structure.”

Meanwhile, Zoro reached across the table, grunted, and pointed vaguely toward the salt shaker. “...Sword.”

You blinked. “What?”

“Sword,” he repeated, more serious this time.

Nami raised a brow. “What kind of sword is he asking for?!”

You watched Zoro squint, then mime shaking something. “...Sword… sword sword.”

Robin leaned toward you and whispered, “He means salt.”

“...Oh.”

Franky slammed a wrench-shaped spoon on the table. “Ratchet! Beep! Clamp! Torque wrench!” He was visibly sweating, his glasses slipping down his nose. “Socket… bolt… table saw.”

Brook tapped his plate with a spoon and hummed, “🎵 Macaroni melody in C minor, and I still have no skin—yohohoho! 🎵”

Sanji glided in with a tray, speaking full French with dangerous elegance. “Et voilà, pour vous tous, le dîner du chaos. Bon appétit, les fous.”

Usopp was scribbling something on a napkin in Battle Cry Glyphics. “My potato’s name is VENGEANCE,” he muttered under his breath. “He will avenge the ketchup that fell before him.”

Your face was red from holding in your laughter.

Nami, stabbing her salad, muttered, “I will pay someone to make this stop.”

Luffy interrupted her with, “MEAT! Meat meat meat MEAT meat meat,” slamming his hand on the table and looking like he was explaining a near-death experience.

You wheezed. “Did he just—?”

Robin translated, lips twitching, “He said he ‘almost meat-ed’ with death… but then the meat saved him.”

Franky looked desperate. “Caulking gun! Allen key! Please I just want to know if anyone liked the soup,” he choked, tearing up.

You couldn’t take it anymore.

You burst into laughter.

It started as a giggle, then doubled over into full-blown, stomach-clutching wheezing. Everyone paused.

“I—I can’t—Oh my god—Zoro tried to salt with sword. Franky is malfunctioning. Luffy’s speaking meatese. Chopper’s speaking Latin for doctors. I’m done. I’m DONE!”

The crew stared for a second.

Then they all broke too.

Usopp smacked the table. Even Zoro cracked a grin. Chopper was giggling. Sanji sighed, dramatically defeated. Franky fell backward, arms spread, crying happy robot tears.

Nami was staring at a wall with dead eyes, looking haunted.

Luffy pointed at you triumphantly. “I win!”

“No you don’t!” you said, snorting. “There was no game!”

Robin just smiled at you, utterly serene. “Lingua est potestas… sed risus vincit omnia.” (Language is power… but laughter conquers all.)

You grinned. “Truer words have never been spoken.”

That night, as the stars glowed above the Sunny, peace returned.

Words were spoken normally. Well, mostly.

Zoro still said “sword” once when he meant “pass the pepper.”

But hey. That’s just how he is.

[thistlerock]

The Bad Kids Are all multilingual because hey dnd characters always are. Fun to think about. Update from later Fabian kinda hijacked this post at the end my bad. All I can think about is the character ™️

Fabian and Adaine speak a different dialect of Elvish than Fig but like it's still the same language. I'm not sure what Kristen and Riz would have learned — maybe Kristen the wood-elven dialect and Riz the high one? Cause people who would have maybe influenced church camp vs what Riz might have gotten in some elective at school or learned by himself via dictionary like the nerd he is. But maybe not that relevant, I don't think it makes too much of difference.

Gorgug writes most of his notes in Gnomish. And while all of the Bad Kids kind of do it because, well, multilingual moment, I think Gorgug does the thing the most where you're talking and you're like what the fuck is this word in English. Uhm. Uhm. Scheibenwischer. And he speaks the one language that none of his friends speak so they're all just idk man you're on your own. Also personal hc Gorgug starts learning Orc (Orcish?? Dnd languages so straight forward and yet so confusing to me.) after meeting his bio parents. Riz also knows Orc and I'm gonna assume Ragh would so um green bonding time. Also also personal hc Goblin and Orc are similar in the way German and Dutch are (I can only go off of languages I know so this is gonna be my only example. Lmao.) because yeah.

Anyway Fabian is I think the one who mixes them up the most on purpose. You know how teenagers in non English speaking countries will inject random English into every sentence because internet. And it's just a thing now. Fabian does this over in Kei Lumenera with the other elves and common (common being English just for clarification). He's fluent in elvish it just doesn't feel right man. BUT. SPEAKING OF HIM BEING FLUENT IN ELVISH. His accent in it is very distinctively Solesian and you can only hear a little bit of Fallinel in certain words. Which isn't that big of a deal but it's notable. Because Hallariel doesn't sound like that and she's the one who taught him. Let me word. Eugh.

She was obviously very. Negligent. But I think that up until Fabian was like, idk, three or four? He did spend a lot of time with her. Like she wasn't taking care of him or doing anything with him but he'd be in the room with her as long as he wasn't being "bothersome" (normal kid "annoying". crying, loud, needs help with everything. etc.) because then Cathilda had to come and get him. But she would talk to herself a lot and/or rant about things little baby Fabian really had no chance at understanding lol, and it's not like she wanted him to respond. But this would be in elvish because it's her native tongue, and because kids are sponges he learned elvish. They didn't raise him multilingual on purpose it just happens. Side note i think she talked to him in the womb a lot I do. There is something to me about her focusing a lot on this child until he was born / until he started becoming a proper person. (It was so easy to love him when he was just a part of her and wasn't a separate entity that she needs to actively try to pay attention to what who said that that's. Crazy.)

So yeah Fabian is fluent as a kid, but then as he gets older he really doesn't have an opportunity to converse in Elvish for years, so he. Forgets a little bit? And he'll still read stuff in the language but he doesn't speak it with anyone until the Bad Kids start to use it for secrecy reasons (which I actually think is really funny and inefficient because I'd assume this is one of the more common second languages in solace. But I digress.) And at that point he's conversational but gods he's rusty, but between Gorgug not understanding it all, Kristen's being super broken, and Riz clearly only knowing it through reading/writing and having trouble with pronunciation because this isn't a language he's used to speaking it's not that noticeable? Idk. Adaine probably clocked it but didn't think much of it.

It comes back to him pretty quickly, (and by Sophmore year he has no trouble in Fallinel + probably started speaking more elvish at home again now that his mother is kind of talking to him and Gilear is there) it's just that now his accent shifted. (And it's still the language he feels the least "at home in" or comfortable speaking. It's common -> halfling -> elvish for him. I think.) (Yes I know that his wiki says he also knows tornado. I think he understands it but can't speak it. I don't think he can make the required sounds I'll be real.)

[hotvintagepoll]

Charlotte Greenwood (Oklahoma, The Gang's All Here)—gotta submit Queen of the Dancing Scrungle charlotte greenwood! she was a lovely very tall lady, but when she gets dancing you know there's gonna be some scrungle on the floor 2nite

James Cagney (Yankee Doodle Dandy, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Public Enemy, White Heat, The Strawberry Blonde)—Whaddya mean I've gotta SUBMIT Cagney? You look up scrungly in the dictionary and there's a picture of him RIGHT THERE. He IS the scrungle. -SHORT KING 5'4 3/4 (1.65m) I could put him in my pocket -When he rolls down his car window (in Mayor of Hell) sticks his head out and makes some snarky comment (which I didn't hear because I was way too distracted) it's like struck by lightning, let me tell you -His hair is so wavy and sometimes it falls over his forehead and then I die a little -He plays The Public Enemy number one, everyone thinks of this as "the one with the grapefruit scene" but it is SO SO much more than that, it's also the one where he wears little striped pajamas -Multilingual (Yes, I'm the same person who submitted EGR and listed this earlier. Yes, this is a big thing for me.) He spoke Yiddish, guys and you can hear him speak it in a movie (Taxi) AND when the Warner Bros. tried to discuss him without him knowing they used Yiddish not realizing he'd understand everything -He talks so fast. Like. Staccatto. It's so fascinating -Loved animals & owned CHOW CHOWS (that's a very scrungly dog, c'mon) -Plays Bottom in Midsummer Night's Dream, that's the guy who gets turned into a DONKEY, nobody else could've played it like he did -Messed with Warner Bros. all the time, threatened to quit, told them he was going to go be a doctor instead -He does this little nose scrunch thing oh my god -Boy Meets Girl is a supremely underrated screw ball comedy and he has lots of silly little outfits in it and acts ridiculous the entire time -Was fascinated by farming and just puttered around on his tractor, like he's just a little guy! -There's a movie where he has a silly little mustache (I haven't seen it yet though) -They've dressed him up as bellhops, sailorsn cowboys and itty bitty gangsters [in movies] and frankly that should be enough -His first show biz job was a female dancer on the chorus line

This is round 1 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you're confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Charlotte Greenwood:

James Cagney:

James Cagney is such a scrungler. He could dance, he could sing, he embodied the gangster role, he was a short king, he had curly hair, what more could you possibly want?? Something about his face just feels so Looney Toons to me. He's like a little bug and I'm observing him through my magnifying glass. I'm obsessed with his hair and his scrunging demeanor!!! He's the most guy to me of all time. I tried to draw him once and completely failed. You could crumple him up like a tissue and watch him float away in the breeze.

Fanvid

A second fanvid

A third fanvid

He is the SCRUNGLIEST of gangsters, it’s the role that made him famous, and by god that’s for good reason. He also plays a peculiar little guy in musicals and occasionally westerns, all with a particular flavor of scruffy city rat energy that you can’t help but adore!  

[indilaras]

multilingual puns

If you've seen the first joke before, yeah that was also me

ID: a four-panel Genshin Impact comic. The first panel shows Cyno with one hand on his chin, saying, "An Inazuman cat is lazing about. You could say it's doing...." The second panel shows him smiling like a cat, fist curled like a paw. He says, "Nya-thing!" The third panel shows Alhaitham shrugging with a smug look, saying, "An Inazuman dog would give that joke a wan out of ten. But I think it's alright." The final panel shows Lumine, snickering; Nahida, smiling and saying, "ahh, I see" as she reads an Inazuman dictionary; and the Wanderer, exasperated. Off-screen, Cyno says, "Really? Based on your expression, I assume you found it wan-derful." Alhaitham, also off-screen, replies "Heh - maybe ask the Inazuman Wanderer what he thinks." Wanderer says, "Leave me out of this" in all caps. End ID.

Notes: nya as in the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound a cat makes; wan as in the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound a dog makes. The book in Nahida's hands has jisho (dictionary) written in Inazuman script on it.

[lexithewulf]

Language control

Language control has been a historical tool of oppression, deeply tied to racism, colonialism, imperialism, and orientalism. English does not have a single “correct” form—rather, it evolves continuously, shaped by its diverse speakers. New words and concepts are a natural and necessary part of this growth, and there is no inherent need to resist linguistic change.

Throughout history, dominant powers have suppressed languages to control marginalized groups. In the U.S., Black Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian communities have all faced linguistic discrimination. Policies such as Native American boarding schools, where children were punished for speaking their own languages, and English-only workplace laws have enforced assimilation by restricting linguistic freedom.

Dictionaries do not serve as static rulebooks for language but instead document how words change over time. Many words have shifted in meaning, some being stigmatized while others are reclaimed by the communities they once harmed.

Requiring English proficiency for acceptance is not a neutral expectation—it reflects a long history of linguistic imperialism, where non-English languages were suppressed to enforce cultural dominance. Instead of demanding others assimilate, genuine cultural exchange means valuing multilingualism and recognizing linguistic diversity as a strength rather than a deficiency.

[scalpel-mom-mori]

Quick (spoiler free!) homicipher review because this game bangs

It is a horror visual novel so there is blood/gore and some jumpscares

I've been playing with a friend, which i think has really sped up the process of deciphering the language, especially because between the two of us we have proficiency in three languages, which helps overcome some semantic and grammatical barriers (original language is JP).

We reached about fourteen (?) Endings in four hours, so it's a pretty quick game to get through, especially once you've gotten some basic words down that help move the story along. Dictionaries save per profile, and you can replay any part of the story from the menu under the chapters option, so each playthrough is a little more streamlined than the last, especially as you refine your understanding of the language

We played through three routes and a handful of neutral/non route endings and i will not lie i was charmed ! Some of the endings were pretty sweet, some were much more gruesome. Big fan of the ones i've already seen. I will say there's not much in the way of fanservice, and it's pretty plot heavy (which tbh i prefer) so if you're looking for more romance this isnt really what you're looking for.

All around a really fun play for an excellent price (< $1 USD per ending). Well-written, though our multilingual background did help a lot with speeding up the process. Definitely worth the buy

Get your copy here or on DLsite

[haru-dipthong]

A prime example of words being only translatable within a given context is the word 国語. It's the word for the literary studies subject in Japanese schools, similar to the subject called "English" in english speaking schools. The question is - when you translate it, which part is more important? The fact that 国語 means "literary studies" or the fact that it means "japanese studies"?

Similarly, with the word 英語 (which literally means "the english language" and is the name of the english language subject at Japanese schools), you could choose to preserve its literal meaning as "english studies" or its meaning from a Japanese student's perspective as "foreign language studies".

Imagine the following exchange, where character A is being characterised as liking foreign language learning.

A: 次の授業なんだっけ？ B: 国語だよ。 A: えー　まじ？英語かと思った、国語は最悪。

Translation where 国語＝ "japanese studies", 英語＝"english studies"

A: What's our next class? B: Japanese. A: Seriously? I thought it was English, I hate Japanese.

Translation where 国語＝"literary studies", 英語＝"foreign language studies"

A: What's our next class? B: English. A: Seriously? I thought it was Spanish, I hate English.

It is impossible to choose which of the above translations is better without context. Even worse, without context, one of those translations will be objectively correct and one will be incorrect!!

Let's say the above line is from an anime set in a Japanese high school, and we're translating for subtitles. In that case, doing the literal translation of 国語 -> Japanese/英語 -> English is the only option - the characters are clearly Japanese, in a Japanese school, and literally speaking Japanese. This makes sense.

But on the other hand, let's say the above line is from an anime set in a US high school, and we're translating for dubs. In that case, translating 国語 -> English/英語 -> Spanish makes sense: these words don't represent the literal ideas of "Japanese" and "English", they represent the US equivalents of "literary studies" and "foreign language studies". Plus, since it's for dubs, the characters are speaking English - here 英語 means "foreign language" so it wouldn't make sense for it to be translated as "english".

This creates a weird situation in which a word can have two equally valid translations that are the complete opposite of each other, and which one is correct is entirely dependent on context.

The above two scenarios are quite unambiguous as to which translation should be used. But what are you supposed to do when it's less clear? What if the anime set in Japan was being dubbed instead? The characters and setting look Japanese, but they're literally speaking English. Does it make more sense to translate 国語 as "English" or "Japanese"? What if the setting isn't on earth? What if the characters aren't even human?

This word is an extreme example, but I wanted to use this to show how no word can be translated properly when taken out of context. Words ALWAYS appear in some sort of context, and you need to know this context to understand what the word means. Something to keep in mind when using multilingual dictionaries - in a dictionary every word is out of context, so tread carefully and make sure to check example sentences.

[mosylufanfic]

Linen and Kisses

For Fluffbruary! The prompts for today were table | blush | laundry. Thanks to @toooldforthisbutstill for sharing the snippet of a marriage contract that inspired this.

Linen and Kisses

The music had switched from Wagner to Nine Inch Nails, so Cassian knew his girlfriend was taking a break for at least a few songs. She couldn't listen to anything with words when she was working, she said because languages got tangled up in her head, so she had massive playlists of classical and instrumental music to blast as she was head-down in some manuscript or other. 

He went out to the kitchen and found her filling the kettle. The ravages of her morning's work spilled out over the table, multiple dictionaries and her battered old computer and printouts with penciled notes and highlighted words. 

"What language today?" he asked.

"Japanese," she said. 

Before meeting her, Cassian had considered himself reasonably multilingual. Spanish, English, and about halfway to fluent in French. It was two-and-a-half times more languages than most people spoke in this country. 

But Jyn was fluent in all those and more. She worked as a freelance translator, and since moving in together, he'd gotten used to having half the bookcase filled with dictionaries and having to guess which language she was using to talk on the phone and why. 

French, Japanese, Arabic, Russian? Some connection of hers on another continent.

Spanish, with a lot of laughing? Probably his sister. 

Danish? Her father, and there would be cursing afterwards.

"Are you done?" he asked. "Or just taking a break?"

"Done for now."

"Good, I was going to start lunch. Any requests?"

"Edible," she said, starting to clear up her mess. "Thanks." She hooked her arm around his waist and leaned up to kiss his cheek. She got taciturn when fighting with a particular translation - well, more taciturn. 

By the time she'd cleaned the table off, he'd gotten some of his homemade tomato soup in the microwave and assembled a couple of cheese sandwiches for grilling. She leaned against the counter as he cooked. 

He rarely liked having someone in his kitchen, but Jyn was the exception. 

"What's wrong?" she asked, breaking a corner off the cheese block and tossing it in her mouth.

"Nothing," he answered, a hair too fast. "Why do you ask?"

She eyed him. "I dunno, you just seem a little tense."

"Because you're eating all the good cheese."

"Oh no," she said, cutting off another corner. "Whatever will happen if we run out of cheese? We might have to go down to the store. How awful."

He waggled his spatula at her. "That's the good stuff. You don't get that at a fucking Walmart."

"Snob," she said, and took another corner. "And anyway, we don't get anything at fucking Walmart because you're banned for talking to the cashiers about unionizing."

"Only because I wouldn't let you vandalize the store manager's car."

"Is slashing tires really vandalism?"

"I think you'll find, yes."

She shrugged. "They never would have caught me."

The microwave beeped, and she pulled out the bowls, just in time for him to plate the sandwiches. With the addition of cutlery and tea in heavy mugs, lunch was served. 

He wasn't fool enough to think she'd been distracted or deceived, and if he had been, the canny look she shot him would have disabused him of that notion. The woman knew him far too well. 

"So," she said. "What've you been up to this morning?" She dipped the corner of her sandwich in the soup. 

It was as good an opening as he could have hoped for.

"Messing around online," he said, digging in his back pocket. "Actually, I found something and did some practice translating, but I'm not too sure if I got it right."

"French? Your French is coming along."

"It's not as good as yours," he said, and she nodded in agreement. "Can you read it over for me? This is the original here. Something from a marriage contract in the middle ages."

 She narrowed her eyes at him. "You trying to get me to work for free?"

"Good point. What's your price?"

She leaned across the table and kissed him firmly on the lips. "There." She took the paper from his hand and unfolded it. "Mmm. Hmm. Awwwww."

"There's a part I didn't quite get," he said. "About the laundry?"

"Linen," she murmured. She'd majored in European history, and it still emerged from time to time. "Underthings. What you wore next to your skin underneath all the - " She flapped a hand. "Velvet and brocade, if you were rich, or wool if you were poor."

"Ye Olde Fruit of the Looms," he said.

"Mmm. But it was still expensive because everything was spun and dyed and woven and sewn by hand. Cheap clothing is a really modern concept." She looked at the contract again. "This is a legally binding promise that she'll have the things she needs, always."

"Practical," he said. 

"And kisses," she added. "It's a really sweet turn of phrase. Linen and kisses." She smiled over it for a moment, then looked up. "What was your translation?"

He dug in his pocket and passed it over. He tried to eat a little soup as she read it through, comparing it with the original, but had to put the spoon back in the bowl and hold his mug tightly.

She read it aloud. “I swear to protect you from poverty, to cover your back with linen and kisses, to watch over your sleep and bring you all the delights of this world as long as I walk it with you.”

Her eyes paused on the last line, spaced a little below the rest of his translation. She lifted her eyes. "This wasn't in the original."

He knew what it said without her having to read it aloud. "No," he said. "But it fits."

She looked at it again.

Jyn, will you marry me?

"I know we've only talked about it a few times," he said. "And I don't have a ring or anything. I thought you'd probably want to pick something out yourself. But I - " He gestured. "I read that. And it felt like a sign."

He didn't normally go in for signs. Neither did she. But reading that had felt like - oh, this. This is what I want. And she's who I want it with. 

She set the translation on the table and he looked at it, wondering if he'd been too hasty. If she was about to let him down gently, or not very gently, or - 

She got up, came around the table, and settled herself in his lap. His arms came around her instinctively, pulling her close.

"Oui," she said, smoothing her thumbs along the edge of his beard. "Need that translated?"

He let out all his breath in a rush and rested his forehead on hers. "Listillo," he muttered, and she laughed until his mouth covered hers. 

The soup and the sandwiches were stone cold by the time they got back to eating them, but he found he didn't mind. She smiled at him over her soup, clearly not minding it either. 

"So you'll cover my back with linen, will you," she said. 

"And kisses," he said, stretching over the table to press one to her lips. "Don't forget the kisses."

FINIS

[rapha-reads]

IWTV rewatch

Season 1 episode 2 [... After the Phantoms of Your Former Self] - part 2/3

- [Daniel] "White master, Black student, but equal in the quiet dark" - *spits out the water I just drunk* DANIEL MOLLOY THE QUEEN THAT YOU ARE. And Louis immediately answering the provocation with a slam down of his own. I am so here for the Louis/Daniel bromance, the way they can just spend hours snarking at each other. Saltmates, if you will.

Louis is such a Bitch, the way he decides to eat that fox in front of Daniel to remind him that "vampires are killers", and the way he lets the blood drip, when canonically vampires never waste any blood (at least in the book, that's one of the thing Lestat repeats often, a vampire's feeding is clean, no trace of blood left anywhere, but in a visual media about vampires, of course it looks better to have the blood dripping on the chin after, sometimes you gotta privilege aesthetic over function).

[Louis] "Vampires are killers, apex predators whose all-seeing eyes were meant to give them detachment, the ability to see a human life in its entirety, not with any mawkish sorrow, but with the thrilling satisfaction of being the end of that life and having a hand in the divine plan."

Yeaaah, like Daniel says, "don't expect every reader to swallow that one". Because for one thing, you don't even fully believe it, Louis, you who's about to spend several years starving yourself feeding only on rats and cats, you who just had a fox for supper instead of going hunting, you who hates feeding on humans and doesn't let even your fellow vampires witness you feeding (book canon), you who also goes during the 20th century from crisis of faith to fully atheist and uncaring about religion... Pretty words. Empty words. I'm not buying it.

"Mawkish": lacking flavor or having an unpleasant taste / exaggeratedly or childishly emotional (Merriam-Webster). Well I didn't know that word. Collins Dictionary tells me that the best translation to French would be "mièvre", and now I am loving this even more. "Mièvre" is not a very used word in French, which is a shame because it's a very pretty and very evocative word, and "mawkish" definitely gives me the same impression. Yey, I learned something new today! New word to incorporate to my vocabulary.

- I swear I'm not trying to comment every single minute of this episode, but every single minute brings something interesting. I have to stop on Louis and Lestat's conversation about languages and killing being its own language, as a multilingual person myself (I could spend hours talking linguistics, sorry not sorry):

[Lestat] "'When I first started learning English, I abhorred it. Every word felt like a doorknob falling out of my mouth. Chapeau is a hat, étoile was a star...' [Louis] 'Killin' folks ain't a second language!' [Lestat] 'But when I started dreaming in English, that's when I embraced it. And now, I have English consonants to thank for this astonishing jawline.' [Louis] 'These are nightmares I'm having, Lestat, not dreams.'"

Firstly, yeah, Lestat's right, "hat" is weird. It's chapeau in French, cappello in Italian, kapela in Greek, even quba'a in Arabic, and Arabic is not even an Indo-European language... The heck does hat come from? *resists the urge to go linguistic deep dive* Secondly, yeah, he's right, he does have an amazing jawline - taking this opportunity to bring attention to the scar on the corner of his mouth, book readers know what's up. Where was I? Ah, yeah. No, Lestat's right about a foreign language sounding weird in your mouth until you start to understand its spirit instead of only its letter - words falling out of your mind versus dreaming in that language. Been talking English for long enough that I do dream in English, and been multilingual all my life so I adapt to languages fast enough, but it's still a struggle. I'm fluent in Spanish now, but I don't dream in Spanish yet, and I sometimes feel like the word sounds wrong when it actually sounds like it should.

What it means in regard to Louis is that he's a slow learner. Gotta sound the kill one by one, taking your time, before you get to be a consummate killer. Can't learn a language in a night. Can't learn a language if you don't practice. Can't get used to killing if you don't kill, and can't survive if you don't kill, and vicious circle, doesn't kill>doesn't survive>doesn't practice>doesn't learn>doesn't survive>doesn't kill... Extremely interesting to see that Lestat IS actually teaching Louis about vampire ways, but Louis is not ready to listen yet, or, to continue the metaphor, they're not speaking the same language and they haven't learned to understand each other's language (not talking about accents obviously, but once again taking the opportunity to praise both Sam and Jacob's vocal work, between Sam's French accented drawling English and Jacob's Creole slang in NOLA and flat "standard" English in Dubai, it's a feast for the ears).

Okay, while Lestat's teaching Louis how to read minds (the Mind Gift, that book!Louis actually doesn't get in the books until very, very late on, and isn't good at, and doesn't show), wanna just say: look how giddy they are! Look how soft they are with each other! Look how fondly Louis speaks to Lestat, how fondly Lestat looks at Louis! We forget, and Louis too, but in between the misunderstandings and the drama and the anguish, they DID love each other, they DID have good times, they DID build a life with each other. It wasn't complete (and no I'm not talking about darling Claudia, I'm talking about speaking the same language), but it was good enough for quite a few years.

Oh man, Louis reading his family's minds, I coulda told him that's a bad idea *points to every literature with a man reader*, but also that passage in Narnia (Dawn Trader) when Lucy spies on her school friends and hear things she didn't want to read and didn't have to know. Don't have time to go search for that passage now, but Aslan tells her something like "some things really do not need be done", or sum' like that.

- Oh, hey, look. More social commentary. That white guy's gonna get eaten if he keeps patronising Louis like that. "You truly are an exceptional Negro" - hey Lou baby, can I kill him please? Lemme kill him for you. "I had let them talk to me like that so long, I had stopped hearing it" - oh, and Louis' accent is slipping here, can you hear it. Really, REALLY love how that change from book canon adds so many layers to Louis' character. Hey, have I said lately that Louis' my favourite? 'Cause Louis is my favourite. "Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Subject, verb, agreement, sir. Smile, nod, yes sir." - AWARDS FOR JACOB, all the awards for Jacob please, and my gods how much do I adore Louis, that sassy, snarky, bitchy queen. I want to have a book club with him.

"But I wasn't a man anymore. I was something else. I had powers now, and decades of rage to process, and it was both random and unfortunate, the man picked that night to dabble in fuckery." - so first, Jacob keeps on flexing his vocal skills by letting Louis slip more and more back to his original accent, and then, YES KING, get his ass, DRAIN HIM. And in a more meta way, all hails liberation movements and the process of reclaiming one's identity. Maybe not through murder, we all ain't lucky enough to be vampires, but yeah, rage is a good tool actually. Rage can lead to enormous movements that change the fabric of society for the better. Never underestimate the power of repressed rage finally expressing itself when it's yielded by clever, resourceful, empathic beings. Sorry, that was the "segregated Southern States social commentary as a mirror for 21st century's current liberation movements social commentary" minute, back to the vampires.

[Lestat] "You are a library of confusion" - first of all, Sam's delivery, with the hand gestures and the head shake, MAGNIFICENT, but also, it's Lestat starting to realize that maaaaaaybe he bit more than he can chew. Maaaaaybe.

[Louis] "'There's some things you don't get about America, Lestat.' [Lestat] 'Yes, let's have this conversation again.' [Louis] 'Colored; white. Creole; French. Queer; half-queer, mostly queer, what is it?' [Lestat] 'Non-discriminating.' [Louis] 'Complicated situation we got here is what I'm saying.'"

ICONIC. And also, maaaaan do I love that that's the road RJ and Cie decided to go with, one of the only changes I've been having issues is the time skip (from 1797 to 1910, cf. episode 1 part 1 rewatch). But this little conversation here actually warms me to it! The layers, man, the layers. Also, love that Lestat self-identifies as non-discriminating, that's so totally him about basically everything: skin color and ethnicity, sexuality and gender, species, age... Drama Queen really said "everything goes, eeeeeeverything".

- "How can I say no to you?" - awwww, Lestat is so whipped for Louis.

[Louis] "From 1912 to 1917" - oooh thanks for the time stamps. So it's been two years since he's turned, and it's on for 5 years of stability. The famous "honeymoon era".

[Louis] "I made a mountain of money, enough to retire and be buried like a pharaoh" - uuuuuh *side-eyes cautiously Queen of the Damned* let's not talk about Egyptian monarchy yet, yeah, that'll come to burn us soon enough.

Oops, the baby scene. And Louis realising he can't hold on to his family, that they're about to slip between his fingers like sand... Ow. [Grace] "I'm sure Mama would love to see you" *rapid glance* *giggles* That's siblings for "yeaaaah no, lol, Mama would definitely NOT love to see me, you crazy".

[Louis] "I no longer kill. My last victim was in the year 2000." BUT DID YOU EAT THE BABY, LOUIS. "I sit here a master of my instincts." But did you eat the baby, Louis. Slight aside, but how is this dinner still on going?? WAIT, go back a second: [Daniel] "And you know this how, you guys have a thread on 8chan?" - BENJI MENTION? I sooo want to see Benji's radio. Though if we still follow book events but on show timeline, Armand hasn't met Benji and Sybelle yet, because they're turned a decade after Daniel. Repeating myself, but RJ did say he'd adapt Prince Lestat, and Benji's one of the main players of this book, so I'm sure we'll see him, but it's going to be a while, I think.

- Wait, I need to relisten to that conversation:

[Daniel] "'And what about the others out there? Have they mastered theirs?' [Louis] 'Just the opposite. Most of them are slaves to the blood, exhausted from decades, centuries of hiding, giddy to increase their numbers.' [...] [Daniel] 'Is the pandemic the opening they've been waiting for?' [Louis] 'Pandemic, the unravelling of geopolitical foundations. [...] One of them, a brute in Madagascar, called it 'the great conversion'.'"

Oh, lots to say here. Lots that will spoil the books too. Because hey, y'all know what happens in Queen of the Damned, after Lestat's concert? Yepppp. Pretty sure Rolin Jones just planted the seeds of seasons 3 and 4. And served on a silver platter with delicious 21st century social commentary. I'm having the time of my life.

[Daniel] "'Well most people I know like to play a little ball in the afternoon, or maybe go down to the beach, catching a few rays.' [Louis] 'Yes. What on earth would a meth-addicted son of a coal miner in West Virginia want with eternal life?' [Daniel] 'Did you eat the baby?' [Louis] 'Or the Arab youth whose whole family were wiped from existence...' [Daniel] 'Did you eat the baby?' [Louis] '... by a Western drone? No, I'm sure you're right.'"

SHOTS FIRED. And another Benji mention! And a personal attack. And Louis being his glorious catty self. And Daniel being his glorious one-minded self. We're heading for another "outburst", lmao.

The Damek scene is just so fucking weird, I'm wheezing. Nothing to say here, just: this show is a freaking comedy. Between Louis perfecting the Little Drink but his taste of the night just passing out, and Daniel going "you might have a drinking problem" and then going back to his idea of the night, "the goddamn baby, Louis, did you fucking eat the bloody baby", this is peak humor.

Aaaaaand we need a third part, still 15 minutes to go.

episode 1 | part 1 | part 3 | episode 3 | episode 4 | episode 5 | episode 6 | episode 7

[best-non-english-word-torunament]

What's the average language like?

This will be a giant of a post, because this is a subject that I really like. So much of what we think about language just isn't true when you look at the majority of them and I'm not even going into how the languages themselves are constructed, only the people speaking them, if that makes sense. It will make sense in a moment, I promise

First, let's discuss assumptions. When you think of the abstract idea of a language, what do you imagine?

How many speakers?

Where is it spoken geographically?

Do speakers of the language only speak that language or do they speak at least one other language? How many more languages?

Is the language tied to a state/country?

Is the language thriving or endangered?

In what domains is the language used? (home, school, higher education, administration and politics, in the workplace, in popular media...)

Is the language well documented and supported? Are there resources like dictionaries to look up words in, does google translate work for it, does Word/google docs work etc?

Is the language spoken or signed?

Is the language written down? Is it written down in a standardised way?

Do you see where I'm going with this? My perspective on what a language is has completely shifted after studying some linguistics, and this only covers language usage and spread, not how words and grammar work in different languages. Anyways, let's talk facts. (if no other sources are given the source is my uni lectures)

How many speakers does the average language have?

The median language has 7 600 native speakers.

7 600 people is the median number of speakers. Half the world's languages have more, half have less.

Most languages in this tournament have millions of speakers. But maybe that's relatively common? After all, half of the world's languages have more than 7 600 speakers. No.

94% of all languages have less than a million speakers.

Just so you know, big languages are far from the norm. There are 6700-6800 living languages in the world (according to ethnologue and glottolog, the two big language databases. I've taken the numbers for languages having a non-zero number of speakers and not being classed as extinct respectively. Both list more languages).

6% of 6700-6800 languages would be around 400 languages with more than a million speakers. Still a lot, but only a (loud) minority. It's enough to skew the average number of speakers per language upwards though. Counting 8 billion people and 6800 languages, that's almost 1.2 million people per language on average. The minority is Very loud.

Where are most languages spoken?

First of all, I'll present you with these graphs (data stolen from my professor's powerpoint) which I first showed in this post:

49% of all languages are spoken in Africa and Oceania, a disproportionately large amount compared to their population. On the other hand, Europe and Asia have disproportionally few languages, though Asia still has the largest amount of languages. Curious, considering Europe is often thought of as a place with many languages.

Sub-Saharan Africa is a very linguistically interesting place, but we need to talk about New Guinea. One island with 6.4 million people. Somehow over 800 languages. If you count the surrounding islands that's 7.1 million people and 1050 languages. Keep in mind that there are 6700-6800 languages in the world, so those 1050 make up more than a seventh of all languages. The average New Guinean language has less than 3000 speakers. Some are larger, but still less than 250 000 speakers. Remember, this is a seventh of all languages. It's a lot more common than the millions of speakers situation!

So yeah, many languages both in and outside New Guinea are spoken by few people in one or a few villages. Which is to say a small territory. But 7600 speakers spread over a big territory will have a hard time keeping their contact and language alive, so it's not surprising.

Moving on, lets talk about...

Bilingualism! Or multilingualism!

Is it common to speak two or more languages? Yes, it is. This is the situation in most of the world and has been the case historically. Fun fact: monolingual areas are uncommon historically and states which have become monolingual became so relatively recently.

One common thing is to learn a lingua franca in addition to your native language, a language that most people in the area know at least some of so you can use it to communicate with people speaking other languages than you.

As an example, I'm writing this in English which isn't my native language and some of you reading this won't have English as your native language either. Other examples are Swahili in large parts of eastern Africa and Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea (the autonomous state, not the entire island).

Speakers of minority languages often have to learn the majority language in the country too. It's difficult to live somewhere where most daily life takes place in one language without speaking at least some of it. This is the case for native people in colonised countries, immigrants and smaller ethnic groups just to mention a few situations. All countries don't have majority languages, but some are larger, more influential and used for things like administration, business and higher education. It's common for schooling to transition from local languages to a larger language or lingua franca in countries with many languages.

Another approach than the lingua franca is learning the language of villages or towns surrounding you, which is very common in New Guinea and certainly other parts of the world too. It's not unusual to know multiple languages, in some places in sub-saharan Africa people speak five or six languages on a village level. Monolingualism is a weird outlier.

Speaking of monolingualism, let's move on to...

Languages and countries

This is a big talking point, mostly because it affected my view of language before I started thinking about it. First of all, I'm going to talk about the nation state and how it impacts languages within it and the way people view language (mostly because it's a source of misconceptions which fall apart as soon as you start to think about them, but if you don't the misconceptions will stay). Then I'll move on to countries with lots of languages and what happens there instead.

So, the nation state

The idea is that the people of a nation state share a common culture, history, values and other such things, the most important here being language. We can all agree that this type of nationalism has done lots of harm to various minorities and migrants all over the world, but it's still an idea that has had and still has a big impact on especially the western world. The section on nation states will focus on the West, because that's the area I know enough about to feel comfortable writing about in this regard.

How do you see this in common conceptions of language? It's in statements and thoughts like this: In France people speak French (but what about Breton? Basque? Corsican? Various Arabics? Some of the other 15 indigenous and 18 non-indigenous languages established in France? What about people speaking French outside of France?), in the US people speak English (but what about the 197 living indigenous languages? Or the 34 established non-indigenous languages? And the many extinct indigenous languages forcibly killed by the promotion of English?).

In X country people speak X, except for the people who don't, but let's ignore them and pretend everyone speaks X. Which most might actually do if it's the single national language that's used everywhere, it's common to learn a second language after all.

This is of course a simplified (and eurocentric) picture, as many countries either have multiple national languages or recognise at least some minority languages and give them legal protection and rights to access certain services in their languages (like government agency information). Bi-/multilingual signage is common and getting more common, either on a regional or a national level. Maybe because we're finally getting ready to move on from one language, one people, one state and give indigenous languages the minimum of availability they need to survive.

I wrote a long section about how nation states affect language, but I realised that veered way off topic and should be its own post. The short version is that a language might become more standardised simply by being tied to a country and more mobility among the population leading to less prominent dialects. There's also been (and still is) lots of opression and attempts to wipe out minority (often indigenous) languages in the name of national unity. Lots of atrocities have been comitted. Sometimes the same processes of language loss happen without force, just by economic pressure and misconceptions about bilingualism.

What does this have to do with the average language?

I simply want to challenge two assumptions:

That all languages are these big national languages tied to a country

That it's common that only one language is spoken within a country. If you look closer there will be smaller languages, often indigenous and often endangered. There are also countries in the West where multiple languages hold equal or similar status (just look at Switzerland and its four official languages)

Starting with the second point, let's take a look at how Europe is weird about language again

Majority languges aren't universal

I'm going to present you with a list of the 10 countries with the most living languages, not counting immigrant languages (list taken from wikipedia, which has Ethnologue as the source):

Papua New Guinea, 840 languages

Indonesia, 707 languages

Nigeria, 517 languages

India, 447 languages

China, 302 languages

Mexico, 287 languages

Cameroon, 274 languages

Australia, 226 languages

United states, 219 languages

Brazil, 217 languages

DR Congo, 212 languages

Philippines, 183 languages

Malaysia, 133 languages

Chad, 130 languages

Tanzania, 125 languages

This further challenges the idea of one country one language. Usually there's a lingua franca, but it's not always a native language and it's not always the case that most are monolingual in it (like the US or Australia, both of which have non-indigenous languages as widespread lingua francas). Europe is the outlier here. People might use multiple languages in their day to day lives, which are spoken by a varying number of people.

In some cases the indigenous or smaller local languages are extremely disadvantaged compared to one official language (think the US, Australia and China), while in other places like Nigeria, several larger languages are widely used in their respective areas alongside local languages, with English as the official language even though it's spoken by few people.

It's actually pretty common in decolonised countries to use the colonial language as an official language to avoid favoring one ethnic group and their language over others. Others simply don't have an official language, while South Africa's strategy is having 12 official languages (there are 20 living indigenous languages and 11 non-indigenous languages in total, and one of the official ones is English, so not all languages are official with this strategy either). Indonesia handled decolonisation by picking a smaller language (a dialect of Malay spoken by around 10% at the time, avoiding favouring the Javanese aka the dominating ethnic group by picking their language), modifying it, and started using it as the new national language Indonesian. It's doing very well, but at the cost of many smaller languages.

Going back to the list, it's also interesting to compare the mean speaker number (if every language in a country was spoken by the same amount of people) and the median speaker number (half have more speakers, half have less). The median is always lower than the mean, often by a lot. This means that the languages in a country don't have similar speaker numbers, so one or a few languages with lots of speakers drive the average upwards while the majority of languages are small. Just like for the entire world.

The US and Australia stand out with 12 and 10 median speakers, respectively. About 110 languages in the US have 12 or fewer native speakers. The corresponding number for Australia is 113 languages with 10 or fewer speakers. There are some stable languages with few speakers documented, but they have/had between 40 and 60 speakers, so those numbers point towards a lot of indigenous languages dying very soon unless revitalisation efforts succeed quickly. This brings us to the topic of...

Endangered languages

This is an interesting tool called glottoscope made by Glottolog which you can play around with and view data on endangered languages and description status (which is the next heading).

I'll pull out some numbers for you:

Remember those 6700 languages in Glottolog? That's living languages. How many extinct languages are listed?

936 extinct languages. That's ~12,5% of the languages we know of. (Glottolog doesn't include reconstructed languages like Proto-Indo-European, only languages where we either have enough remaining texts to conclude it was a separate language or reliable account(s) that conclude the same. We can only assume that there are thousands of undocumented languages hiding in history that we'll never know of)

How many more are on the way to become extinct?

Well, only 36% (2800 languages) aren't threatened, which means that the other 64% are either extinct or facing different levels of threat

What makes a language threatened? The short answer is people not speaking the language, especially when it's not passed down to younger generations. The long answer of why that happens comes later.

306 languages are listed as nearly extinct and 412 more as moribound. That means that only the grandparent generation and older speak it and the chain of transmission to younger generations has broken. These two categories include 9,26% of all known languages.

The rest of all languages either fall into the threatened or shifting category. The threatened category means that the language is used by all generations but is losing speakers. The shifting category refers to languages where the parental generation speaks the language but their children don't. In both of these cases it's easier to revive the language, since parents can speak to the children at home instead of having to rely on external structures (for example classes in the heritage language taught like foreign language classes in schools).

Where are languages threatened?

This map is also from glottoscope and can be found here. I recommend playing around with it, you can zoom in and hover over every dot to see which language it represents. The colours signify threat level: green for not threatened, light green for threatened, orange for shifting, red for moribound and nearly extinct, and black for extinct. I'll come back to the shapes later.

As you can see, language death is more common in certain areas, like Australia, Siberia, North America and the Amazon, but it's still spread over the entire world.

Why are languages going extinct?

There are two important dimensions to the vigorousness of a language: The first is the number of speakers who claim the language as their own and speak it with each other. No speakers means no language. If all speakers move to different places or assimilate by shifting to a dominant language in the area (sometimes for work opportunities or for their childrens' future work opportunities. Sometimes because of which language(s) schools are taught in or disinterest from the children in the language and culture. Sometimes migration of an ethnic group for various reasons leads to language shifts. There are many complex reasons to why the link of transmission can break)

The other dimension, which ties into the first one, is the number of situations in which a language is used. There are many domains a language can be used in, like at home, in school, in the workplace, in politics and administration, in higher education, for international communication, in religious activities, in popular media like movies and music etc. When a language is no longer or never used in a particular domain, it might lose the associated vocabulary. When it becomes confined to a singular domain like the home, the usage goes down. The home is usually the last place an endangered language is spoken.

Usage in a domain is a reason to speak or hear the language. It's a reason to keep it alive. People also forget or get worse at languages they don't use. That's why a common revitalisation tactic is producing movies, radio programmes, news reporting, books and other media in a dying language. It gives people both reason and opportunity to use their language skills. Which language is used in schools is also important, as it keeps basic vocabulary for sciences and explaining the world alive. Another revitalisation tactic is making up new words to talk about modern concepts, some examples are the Kaqchikel word rub'eyna'oj from this tournament or creating advanced math vocabulary in Māori.

What does endangered languages have to do with the average language?

Trying to get this post back on track, these are some key points:

64% of all documented languages are either extinct or facing some level of threat. That's the majority of all language

Even excluding the extinct languages, the majority of languages are threatened or worse

This means that the average language is facing a loss of speakers, some more disastrous than others. Being a minority language in an increasingly globalized world is dangerous

Describing a language

Are you able to look up words from your native language in a thesaurus or a dictionary? What about figuring out how a certain piece of grammar works if you're unsure? Maybe you don't need that for your native language, but what about a second language you're learning?

If your native language is English, there are lots of resources, like online and book dictionaries/thesauruses or an extensive grammar (a book about how English grammar works). There's also a plethora of websites and courses to learn English, and large collections of written text or transcribed speech. If a linguist wants to know something about the English language there's an abundance of material. If someone wants to learn English it's easy and courses are offered in most parts of the world.

For other languages, the only published thing might be a list of 20 words and their translation into English or another lingua franca.

Let's take a look at the same map as earlier, but toggled to show documentation status in colour and endangerment status with shapes:

Here, the green signifies a long grammar and the light green a grammar. Both are extensive descriptions of the grammar in a language, but they differ in length. A long grammar has to contain over 300 pages and a grammar over 150. Orange is another type of grammar, namely a grammar sketch. Those are brief overviews of the main grammatical features or features that may be of interest for linguists, typically between 20 and 50 pages. The purpose isn't to be a complete grammar, only a starting point.

The red dots can signify a lot of things, but what they have in common is that there's no extensive description of the grammar. In those cases, the best description of the language might be a list of which sounds it contains, a paper about a specific feature, a collection of texts or recordings, a dictionary, a wordlist (much shorter than dictionaries) or just a mention that it exists.

Why are grammars and descriptions even important?

The better described a language is, the easier it is to learn it and study it. For a community facing language loss, it might be helpful to have a pedagogical grammar or a dictionary to help teach the language to new generation. If the language becomes extinct people might still be able to learn and revive it from the documentation (like current efforts with Manx). It also makes sure unique words or grammatical features as well as knowledge encoded in the language isn't lost even if the language is. It's a way of preserving language, both for research and later learning.

What's an average amount of descripion then?

36,2% of all documented languages have either a grammar or a long grammar. That's pretty good actually

38,2% of all documented languages would be marked by a red dot on this map, meaning that more languages than that don't have any kind of grammar at all, maybe only as little as a short list of words

The remaining 25,6% have a grammar sketch

So as you see, the well documented languages are in minority. On the brighter side, linguists are working hard at describing languages and if they keep going at the same rate as they have since the 1950s, they'll reach the maximum level of description by 2084. Progress!

Tying into both description of languages and domains where language is used...

What about technology and language?

There are many digital tools for language. Translation services, spelling and grammar checks in word processors, unicode characters for different scripts and more. I'm going to focus on the first two:

Did you know that there are only 133 languages on google translate? 103 more are in the process of being added, but that's still a tiny percentage of all languages. As in 2% right now and 3,5% once these other languages are added going with the 6700 language estimation.

Of course, this is for the most part a limination with translation technology. You need translated texts containing millions of words to train the algorithms on and the majority of languages don't have that much written text, let alone translated into English. The low number still surprised me.

There are 106 official language packs for Windows 10 and I counted 260 writing standards you can use for spelling checks in Word. Most were separate languages, but lots were different ways to write the same language, like US or British English. That's a vanishingly small amount. But then again:

Do all languages have a written standard?

No. That much is clear. But how many do? I'll just quote Ethnologue on this:

"The exact number of unwritten languages is hard to determine. Ethnologue (25th edition) has data to indicate that of the currently listed 7,168 living languages, 4,178 have a developed writing system. We don't always know, however, if the existing writing systems are widely used. That is, while an alphabet may exist there may not be very many people who are literate and actually using the alphabet. The remaining 2,990 are likely unwritten."

(note that Ethnologue classes 334 languages without speakers as living, since their definition of living language is having a function for a contemporary language community. I think that's a bad definition and that means it differs from figures earlier in the post)

Spoken vs signed

My last point about average languages is about signed languages, because they're just as much of a language as spoken ones. One common misconception is that signed languages reflect or mimic the spoken language in the area, but they don't. Grammar works differently and some similarities in metaphor might be the only thing the signed language has in common with spoken language in the area.

Another common misconception is that there's only one sign language and that all signers understand each other. That's false, signed languages are just as different from each other as spoken languages, except for some tendencies regarding similarity between certain signs which often mimic an action (signs for eating are similar in many unrelated sign languages for example).

Glottolog lists 141 Deaf sign languages and 76 Rural sign languages, which are the two types of signed language that become entire languages. The difference is in reach.

Rural signs originate in villages with a critical amount of deaf people (around 6) that make up a fully fledged language with complete grammar to communicate. Often large parts of the village learn tha language as well. There are probably more than 76, that's just the ones the linguist community knows of.

What's called Deaf sign languages became a thing in the 1750s when a French guy named Charles-Michel de l'Épóe systematised and built onto a rural sign from Paris to create a national sign language which was then taught in deaf schools for all deaf children in France. Other countries took after the deaf school model and now there's 141 deaf sign languages, each connected to a different country. Much easier to count than spoken languages.

Many were made from scratch (probably building on some rural sign), but some countries recruited teachers from other countries that already had a natinonal sign language and learnt that instead. Of course they changed over time and with influence from children's local signs or home signs (rudimentary signs to communicate with hearing family, not complete languages), so now there's sign language families! The largest one unsurprisingly comes from LSF (Langue des Signes Française, the French one) and has 63 members, among them ASL.

What does this have to do with average languages? Well, languages don't have to be spoken, they can be signed instead. Even if they make up a small share of languages, we shouldn't forget them.

Now for some final words

Thank you for reading this far! I hope you found this interesting and have learned something new! Languages are exciting and this doesn't even go inte the nitty gritty of how different languages can be in their grammar, sounds and vocabulary. Lots of this seem self evident if you think about it, but I remember how someone pointing out facts like this truly shifted my perspective on what the language situation in the world truly looks like. The average language is a lot smaller and diffrerent from the common idea of a language I had before.

Please reblog this post if you liked it. I spent lots of time writing it because I'm passionate about this subject, but I'd love if it spread past my followers

[river-gale]

Hi!!! For the fic writer ask game: 🍓, 🛼, 🏜️, and 🪲?

hello!!!

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction? 

previously answered!!!

🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

you also get original fiction bc i do not have a fanfic wip :'(

🐟🤖🪐💥🛜

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

i love any and all!!! my faves are "i'm rereading this" or the ones that quote my writing back to me to tell me parts they liked!

however, my favorite commentor in recent memory is the person who left a comment on one of my mars house fics saying that I GOT THEM INTO NATASHA PULLEY NOVELS BECAUSE THEY LIKED MY ORIGINAL FICTION??? i'm still riding that high because WHAT. HUH??? i'm winning

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

His body hadn’t been in the part of the ship that had been lost. If it had been, his mind could have lived on in the ship’s computer, but only for a few days, hemorrhaging memories and slowly losing function.

He pushed himself up, overbalancing in the sudden weightlessness. His body was in a white T-shirt and the trousers of his uniform. No time to find his jacket. The other ship was reloading. Cannons needed time to cool between shots, or they would melt in their own heat. The only question was how long.

believe it or not this isn't military sci-fi, it's about the mc's rocky and unhinged journey from veteran to civil servant to rogue alien househusband to civil servant again but this time a diplomat and for a different government. it's about multilingual dictionaries, the ability to psychically possess machinery through the power of fancy brain technology, being in love with your commanding officer who is also kind of a famous socialite, selkies, and the fact that radio signals don't travel well underwater

[jin-arcana-oc]

Asra is gonna have to learn korean very fast bc i think Jin forgets english words.

Pulling out the multilingual dictionary translator to communicate with ur bae.

Oh my fuck. Cedar then would have forgotten all the korean. Fuck dude. Fuck!!!!!!!!! HE FORGOR !!! AUG!!!!

[omvi-death]

Poe is multilingual and he uses that to his advantage.

I don’t know what languages he would speak but let’s say he at least speaks Japanese, English, French and Spanish.(he would probably know more tbh)

Anyways he would use this to his advantage to call Ranpo names like darling or my sunshine. Like just couple names. They are not dating tho.

So like an example would be that Ranpo helps with Poes latest book and Poe would say "thanks, ma parole(my darling)"

Or like “<<starlight>> help me out over here”(<<>> means it’s in English)

And so on.(pls if you have more ideas tell me)

But continuing this idea the agency(who knows at least English) would catch on quickly but really just not say anything. Ranpo would try to ask them what Poe had just said but they would all just make up excuses or say they didn’t know.

Also the reason it would be hard for Ranpo to know what Poe is saying is that Poe constantly switches names and languages.(he has a hidden list of nicknames)

This would get to a point where Ranpo would get a dictionary of every language that Poe knew and when poe hits him with the ma parole and man starts flipping.

But also Poe(when their alone) would use this to confess to Ranpo. Or like go into great detail about Ranpos eyes. Of course Ranpo would get annoyed at Poe just talking to him in a different language for like 10 minutes that he did his best to learn at least the basics of some of the languages.

Which leads us to a scene where Poe is (kinda) confessing and Ranpo instead of shoving him off like he always does or questioning Poe just turns to him and in English “<<yes i accept.>>”

Poe is obviously stunned that Ranpo just replied in English and that he just excepted he confession. And Ranpo ,who is impatient, then kisses him and so on.

I am not done I have a little more for this.

Poe would entirely write about Ranpo but would always do it in another language so Ranpo couldn’t sneak around and read it.

Also Atsushi would entirely ask Poe for nicknames and pet names just to annoy Akutagawa.(this would actually be adorable and Atsushi would entirely use it because he knows that Akutagawa knows what he’s saying)