#language stuff

[reasonsforhope]

Interior Department Announces New Guidance to Honor and Elevate Hawaiian Language

"In commemoration of Mahina ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, or Hawaiian Language Month, and in recognition of its unique relationship with the Native Hawaiian Community, the Department of the Interior today announced new guidance on the use of the Hawaiian language.  

A comprehensive new Departmental Manual chapter underscores the Department’s commitment to further integrating Indigenous Knowledge and cultural practices into conservation stewardship.  

“Prioritizing the preservation of the Hawaiian language and culture and elevating Indigenous Knowledge is central to the Biden-Harris administration's work to meet the unique needs of the Native Hawaiian Community,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “As we deploy historic resources to Hawaiʻi from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, the Interior Department is committed to ensuring our internal policies and communications use accurate language and data."  

Department bureaus and offices that engage in communication with the Native Hawaiian Community or produce documentation addressing places, resources, actions or interests in Hawaiʻi will use the new guidance on ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language) for various identifications and references, including flora and fauna, cultural sites, geographic place names, and government units within the state.  The guidance recognizes the evolving nature of ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi and acknowledges the absence of a single authoritative source. While the Hawaiian Dictionary (Pukui & Elbert 2003) is designated as the baseline standard for non-geographic words and place names, Department bureaus and offices are encouraged to consult other standard works, as well as the Board on Geographic Names database.  

Developed collaboratively and informed by ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi practitioners, instructors and advocates, the new guidance emerged from virtual consultation sessions and public comment in 2023 with the Native Hawaiian Community. 

The new guidance aligns with the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to strengthening relationships with the Native Hawaiian Community through efforts such as the Kapapahuliau Climate Resilience Program and Hawaiian Forest Bird Keystone Initiative. During her trip to Hawaiʻi in June, Secretary Haaland emphasized recognizing and including Indigenous Knowledge, promoting co-stewardship, protecting sacred sites, and recommitting to meaningful and robust consultation with the Native Hawaiian Community."

-via US Department of the Interior press release, February 1, 2024

--

Note: I'm an editor so I have no idea whether this comes off like as big a deal as it potentially is. But it is potentially going to establish and massively accelerate the adoption of correctly written Native Hawaiian language, as determined by Native Hawaiians.

Basically US government communications, documentations, and "style guides" (sets of rules to follow about how to write/format/publish something, etc.) can be incredibly influential, especially for topics where there isn't much other official guidance. This rule means that all government documents that mention Hawai'i, places in Hawai'i, Hawaiian plants and animals, etc. will have to be written the way Native Hawaiians say it should be written, and the correct way of writing Hawaiian conveys a lot more information about how the words are pronounced, too, which could spread correct pronunciations more widely.

It also means that, as far as the US government is concerned, this is The Correct Way to Write the Hawaiian Language. Which, as an editor who just read the guidance document, is super important. That's because you need the 'okina (' in words) and kahakō in order to tell apart sizeable sets of different words, because Hawaiian uses so many fewer consonants, they need more of other types of different sounds.

And the US government official policy on how to write Hawaiian is exactly what editors, publishers, newspapers, and magazines are going to look at, sooner or later, because it's what style guides are looking at. Style guides are the official various sets of rules that books/publications follow; they're also incredibly detailed - the one used for almost all book publishing, for example, the Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS), is over a thousand pages long.

One of the things that CMoS does is tell you the basic rules of and what specialist further sources they think you should use for writing different languages. They have a whole chapter dedicated to this. It's not that impressive on non-European languages yet, but we're due for a new edition (the 18th) of CMoS in the next oh two to four years, probably? Actually numbering wise they'd be due for one this year, except presumably they would've announced it by now if that was the case.

I'm expecting one of the biggest revisions to the 18th edition to add much more comprehensive guidance on non-Western languages. Considering how far we've come since 2017, when the last one was released, I'll be judging the shit out of them if they do otherwise. (And CMoS actually keep with the times decently enough.)

Which means, as long as there's at least a year or two for these new rules/spellings/orthographies to establish themselves before the next edition comes out, it's likely that just about every (legit) publisher will start using the new rules/spellings/orthographies.

And of course, it would expand much further from there.

[incognitopolls]

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

[heavenlyraindrops]

japanese is such a kind language. like you forget a character it will hold ur hand and tell u that everything will be ok and you can just write it in hirigana and everyone will understand :)

and then chinese is like oh im sorry you forgot a character? youre illiterate. you mispronounce a word? your mother is now a horse

[gemsofgreece]

I was today years old when I realised (thankfully on my own) that the English noun moron (meaning “idiot”) comes from the Greek adjective μωρός (morós), meaning “foolish”.

The word, which is used since ancient times, has evolved to have several additional usages besides that one.

The feminine version μωρή (morí) has become a generic vocative word which expresses disrespect and is not necessarily questioning the addressed woman’s intelligence in specific.

The masculine vocative form μωρέ (moré) has become a very generic exclamative term that can add colour to a phrase regardless of meaning. For example, τι λες μωρέ; (ti les moré - what the heck/ on earth are you saying, could work in a similar way to express bafflement at hearing something strange) but also μωρέ είμαι κουρασμένος (moré íme kurazménos - well, you see, I am tired, can be used in a similar way to soften the phrase that implies avoidance, like softening the rejection of a proposal to go out). It can regulate the exclamation in a sentence in a myriad of such ways.

But an even more interesting case is the neuter form of the word, which has turned into a noun, and is now the most common everyday word for the baby [το μωρό(ν) - to moró(n)], because a baby of course does not have well developed perception yet.

In other words, we earnestly call our babies morons by default and I think that’s beautiful.

[nattousan]

i just think it's really funny that our word for running face first into something is called getting clotheslined, a noun referring to something completely unrelated to anything having to do with like, accidents or injuries, but by the frequency at which people would run smack into it.

That's like if people called getting up only to to get snagged on something getting "headphoned"

i'm very charmed by this idea, do we have any other examples of this in english or other languages?

[lingthusiasm]

Not sure which episode to listen to first? Want to get a friend started on Lingthusiasm? Or do you just want to know yourself on a deeper level? Let our perfectly calibrated, Very Serious 'Which Lingthusiasm episode are you?' quiz guide you!

[ofmdtereomaori]

I'm begging you, please stop italicising te reo Māori words in your fics.

There's a really excellent article by Khairani Barokka on why italicising non-English words in general is not a great idea. (tl;dr: it's very othering)

For te reo there's an additional reason, which is that most of us in Aotearoa stopped italicising te reo decades ago and now when we see it it looks fucking weird. It feels like you're holding the word with tongs; like you're saying "hey I found this weird foreign word and I don't really know what to do with it!"

Which is a pity, because there's some really good fics out there exploring Ed's Māori identity, and the italicising makes them look less good than they are. (I'm planning a specific recs post, but want it to be 100% positive, also there's stuff I haven't read yet.)

I don't want this to be a call out post, because I hate that shit, and I know that everyone's coming from a good place. If you've been italicising te reo words, you're probably doing what you were taught was the right thing, and I genuinely don't want you to feel bad about it. This is just a learning experience; go forth and use italics as they should be used in fan fiction:

"Oh. Oh."

PS I can't write about italicisation and te reo without mentioning the brilliant Alice Te Punga Somerville and the especially her poem Kupu rere kē.

[skirting-board-iix]

10 Wonderful (and Unorganised) DIY Irish Words/Phrases!!!

Irish - Literal Meaning - English

Feoilséantóir - Meat Denier - Vegetarian

Conriocht - Dog Form - Werewolf

Smugairle Róin - Seal Spit - Jellyfish

Muireann i mBríste - Muireann (girl's name) in Trousers - Tomboy

Snag Breac - Speckled Hiccuper - Magpie

Tírghrá - Country Love - Patriotism

Uisce Faoi Thalamh - Water Under Ground - Conspiracy

Snáthaid an Diabhail - The Devil's Needle - Daddy-Long-Legs

Bréigéide - False Clothing - Fancy Dress

Eite��n - Little Wing - Shuttlecock

[em-nikolaev]

A Few Fun Little Language Learning Tips

Hello, these are a few little tips I've found on my language learning odyssey that you may find fun or helpful

Accents! This can be a great way to 'warm up' before speaking more in depth, or a training exercise, but a fun way I've found to get myself to make French sounds (it works for any language really) is to speak English (or insert native language here) with an exaggerated accent that comes from someone speaking your target language, I find this a fun way to get the sounds of a language you're trying to speak into your head in order to make speaking easier (great for speaking exam practice)

Use addictive social media for profit! So this would be best for intermediate to advanced learners, but a way to learn more slang, grow your vocabulary, and just generally get more language input in an easy way is to create a dedicated social media account in your TL and simply lurk, do you spend hours doom scrolling short form video content? Do it guilt free by doing it in your TL, do you like cat memes? read them in your TL, it's addictive, and low energy, so you can do it even when your brain feels like a fried egg

Need a pen pal? Try Ai! So, speaking to real people in your TL can be a daunting task, for reasons ranging from the fear of saying something wrong to just plain stranger danger, so a safer (and totally free) alternative can be through ai chat bots, you can do this with dedicated language learning bots or with just plain old ChatGPT

Nostalgia Bait! One of the most beautiful things about visual art is the fact that it is a universal language in itself, certain symbols can hold significance wherever you go, so re-watching animated TV shows from your childhood or watching new TV content made for kids in your TL can be a great way to add to your vocabulary, and in call & response shows, generate responses and make them more complex if you like, to add more intrigue

When in doubt, write it out! I personally struggle a lot with conjugation, so if you do to, here's a solution I found, use Quizlet learn to help drill conjugation, and when your free rounds run out, you can manually use the flash cards to use the same effective learning strategy (or pay for Quizlet plus, but I, personally would rather eat a dusty lamp then pay for something that, in my opinion, should be free to all learners)

[glitchedgirly]

Every day on Qsmp, they get closer and closer to speaking their own type of Pidgin

[wronghands1]

[study-diaries]

15th April 2024

I've been ignoring my language course for the past 7+ months and my final exam for it is coming closer day by day T-T

Overall a productive day...

Today I :

Completed 5 lessons with grammar in Arabic

Attended my Arabic class

Finished my homework

Read 100+ pages (still counting)

Completed a novel

Total study time: 1 hour 30 mins

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

i feel bad when non-native English speakers apologise for making mistakes or getting confused like babe no you're doing great. this isn't on you. the fact that I've seen so many native English speakers mispronounce the word pronunciation and misspell the word spelling should tell you everything you need to know about this goddamn language.

[gemsofgreece]

Feels like a lot of work to ask this

but next time you refer to some etymology or word used as Ancient Greek, please kindly consider to check out whether this word is extant and used in Modern Greek. If you refer to all words as Ancient Greek, you spread the usually false impression that these words are dead, only revived thanks to English and other western scientific terminology (while they might as well be everyday words for the Greek speakers), you obstruct a chance of exposure to Modern Greek which is viewed as totally disconnected and irrelevant, and you strip it from its lingual legacy.

So, if a word has indeed fallen out of use, by all means, call it what it is, Ancient Greek. If it’s only used in Modern Greek, which is a possibility you will likely never stumble on as Modern Greek roots barely exist at all and they are just colloquial epithets (which is also why it doesn’t make much sense to emphatically distinct a root as Ancient because there’s little else it can be anyway), call it Modern Greek. (Always talking about Greek roots, this is not about loanwords or foreign roots.)

If however it exists both in Ancient and survives in Modern Greek, which is 90% of the time, just call it what it really is. Greek.

Another reason it is very unlikely for you to be referring to exclusively Ancient Greek words that are dead in Modern Greek is because the Greek words you usually refer to are words that passed from Latin and Medieval Greek to the western languages. If a Greek word survived well into Medieval Greek and / or passed to Latin, then it has 99% of the time survived into Modern Greek. Exclusively Ancient Greek words that have fallen out of use are usually Homeric and Archaic words from non-Ionic dialects that were already fading in Classical and early Hellenistic times. So the odds of you referring to such words, unless you are a linguist of archaic non-Ionic Greek, are very very slim.

And if it’s too much work to ask (how much time do you spend mentioning Greek etymology though?!), then again just call it Greek because you can’t go wrong with this and you save yourself from an extra word. It’s that easy and is the safest choice.

[olowan-waphiya]

Sign language used by Native American peoples evolved as a way of communicating across language barriers, which proved valuable for trade, story-telling, and ceremonies. This was an interesting time in history when sign language was used alongside spoken languages. This footage is from the Indian Sign Language Council of 1930 (Plains Indian Sign Language - PISL). Advice: Please note this video contains footage of deceased Indigenous people.

[lostfeb]

very very curious to ask, langblr

what is your definition of "fluency"? at what point do you say you can “speak" a language?

no right or wrong answers of course, im just curious to see what others think