#language

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[useless-catalanfacts]

The University of Grenoble (France) wants is planning to remove Catalan classes from its curriculum next year. The students are organising this campaign to ask the university to keep it. Help them by signing this petition!

[kippeo]

Cute bunny loaf notebook available on Amazon

࣪˖ ִֶָ🐇་༘࿐

오늘의 어훠 (Words for today):

토끼 - a rabbit

장미 - rose

빵 - bread

꽃 - a flower

잎 - a leaf

[yvanspijk]

Duke, -duce, Herzog & ziehen

Duke comes from the Latin word dux (leader). It's related to the verb dūcere (to lead; pull), whence English -duce, for example in to seduce (whose original Latin meaning was 'to lead astray').

The second part of German Herzog (duke) is cognate to dux. This part, -zog, is related to the German verb ziehen (to pull), cognate of dūcere.

Old English had cognates of both words. Its counterpart of Herzog was heretoga (army leader). In Middle English it became heretowe, which would've become modern *hartow. The Old English cognate of ziehen was tēon. This verb would've become *to tee if it had continued to exist. See the infographic for information about its past tense and past participle.

[ancientorigins]

From the sacred Dunhuang Manuscripts discovered deep in a Chinese cave to the legal decrees of Hammurabi’s Code of Laws, this list of ten incredible ancient texts provides profound insight into the history of ancient civilizations.

Among these remarkable texts lies the Timbuktu Manuscripts, testament to Africa's rich intellectual heritage, challenging prevailing notions of African culture. Bundled in camel skin and adorned with intricate calligraphy, these manuscripts offer a window into the vibrant intellectual exchange of historical African societies.

Meanwhile, the enigmatic Emerald Tablet is rumored to hold the secrets of the universe, while the intricate medical manuscripts of Bian Que illuminate ancient healing practices with unparalleled detail, offering insights into the medical knowledge and techniques of ancient China.

[dedalvs]

Hello David, love your work and i hope you are well! If you are still taking High Valyrian questions, I have one about the words for colors (or should I say color groups in this case...?). Was there a particular inspiration or reasoning behind which colors got grouped together under which word?

Thank you and have a nice day!

We know a lot about how color terms evolve over the years. There are some common patterns regarding when new color terms emerge. In conlanging, the goal is to figure out where on that trajectory your conlang's speakers lie (assuming they're humans and the evolution is more or less natural). The landmark study was done by Berlin and Kay in 1969. The snapshot version of it is this:

STAGE 1: white vs. black

STAGE 2: white, black, red

STAGE 3: white, black, red, green, yellow

STAGE 4: white, black, red, green, yellow, blue

STAGE 5: white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown

STAGE 6: everything

High Valyrian is at stage 3. Now, it's very important to remember that we're talking about the development of color terms, not color perception. Individual variation aside, human eyes are the same and perceive things just as well now as they used to. That is, just because a language has fewer color terms doesn't mean those speakers can't distinguish between the two colors. Consider that we can have varying shades of what we would call sky blue and just because we'd call them all "blue" or even call them all "sky blue" doesn't mean we can't pick out a pattern going from dark to light and repeating quite easily. Basically, as differentiating color becomes more commercially important, more terms emerge.

So, long story short, I decided it would be good for High Valyrian to be at stage 3, because then it would be more interesting for the daughter languages. That is, if there's no distinction between blue and green (both kasta), maybe northern daughter languages have kasta as "blue" and take some other word for "green" based on "leaf", or something, while the southwestern languages use kasta for "green", and maybe add iēdar "water" on the front of kasta for "blue", or something like that. Thus the daughter languages can be grouped by the new color terms that developed as their speakers left the Valyrian Peninsula and settled in their new home. If High Valyrian was already stage 6 the result would be far less interesting.

That's the story behind it. :)

[neptunefairytales]

You know in episode 3 in the park, Crowley gets angry and shoots "For the record, great pustulent mangled bollocks to the Great Blasted Plan" Which is… already something.

BUT in the french version he shoots: "Que des putains d'énormes purulences poussent sur le cul de ce Putain de Plan de mes couilles" Which can literally be translated as: "May fucking huge purulences grows on the arse of this Fucking Plan of my balls"

Whao, like, ok Crowley. French is beautiful, I love my language XD

[iwriteaboutfeminism]

Shame is not a motivator.

[don-dake]

hey 🇭🇰Cantonese🇲🇴 learners!

I got recommended this keyboard App called TypeDuck🦆by anwar @ Insta that you may like to check out! (If you haven't heard of, or aren't already using, that is!)

Even though I have yet to try it (long story involving my phone being wonky so I can't install this for myself, for now), cantonese4parents @ Insta already has, and it's available on Playstore, so I'd expect it has been vetted safe enough!

Apparently if you use this keyboard to type out in 粵拼 Jyutping (Cantonese Romanisation, equivalent to Mandarin's Pinyin system), it will show you not only the Jyutping spelling but also the English meaning alongside the 漢字 Chinese characters! ↓

Besides English, it apparently supports some less common language translations like “Hindi, Nepali and Urdu” (quoting from their website) too.

Very useful I think, for anyone who's not good at recognising/mapping the 漢字 to the 粵拼 yet! 😺

Trivia: If you're wondering why this App is called “TypeDuck” 🦆, it's because it's a play on 打得 in Cantonese (Jyutping: daa² dak¹), which means “able to type”! Great pun! Yes? 😸

[commissarabel]

This is my workspace. I am joining the local studyblr community :)

[expiationist]

[victusinveritas]

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[stingrayextraordinaire]

Another year, another group of my delightful ninth graders trying to spell the word "tragedy" for their Romeo and Juliet assignment.

Last year's collection

[yeehawpim]

when your grammar accidentally transfers

[dndspellgifs]

look, I know I've talked about this essay (?) before but like,

If you ever needed a good demonstration of the quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", have I got an exercise for you.

Somebody made a small article explaining the basics of atomic theory but it's written in Anglish. Anglish is basically a made-up version of English where they remove any elements (words, prefixes, etc) that were originally borrowed from romance languages like french and latin, as well as greek and other foreign loanwords, keeping only those of germanic origin.

What happens is an english which is for the most part intelligible, but since a lot everyday english, and especially the scientific vocabulary, has has heavy latin and greek influence, they have to make up new words from the existing germanic-english vocabulary. For me it kind of reads super viking-ey.

Anyway when you read this article on atomic theory, in Anglish called Uncleftish Beholding, you get this text which kind of reads like a fantasy novel. Like in my mind it feels like it recontextualizes advanced scientific concepts to explain it to a viking audience from ancient times.

Even though you're familiar with the scientific ideas, because it bypasses the normal language we use for these concepts, you get a chance to examine these ideas as if you were a visitor from another civilization - and guess what, it does feel like it's about magic. It has a mythical quality to it, like it feels like a book about magic written during viking times. For me this has the same vibe as reading deep magic lore from a Robert Jordan book.