#languageposting

[werewolfetone]

Something very annoying to me is the number of posts on this site where (presumably?) monolingual anglophone users take a word from a language that does not identically share english pronunciation, such as french or irish, and make fun of the way it's pronounced because it doesn't identically share english pronunciation

[tragedykery]

"linguolabial" gotta be one of my favourite linguistics terms. like linguo...labial you say? 😳😳 is it– is it really? 😳😳😳

[leroibobo]

some others/alternate names (+ some nearby countries) i know of (i'm not too knowledgeable here, please correct me if you know navajo at all):

austria - Akał Bitłʼaajįʼééʼí Bikéyah (land of those who wear leather pants; reference to nazi uniform like germany's name i'm assuming)

armenia - Dziłkʼi Dah Názʼéelii Dineʼé Bikéyah (land of the people (as in nation, also the case for "dine'é" in the rest of these) [around?] the tall mountain)

azerbaijan - Daakǫʼ Dineʼé Bikéyah (land of the people of many fires; technically a calque)

bulgaria - Ditsʼozí Da'alzhishii Bikéyah (land of the long-haired dancers)

estonia - Hakázítah Dineʼé Bikéyah (land of the people in the forest)

geogia - Dził Daantsaaítah Bilagáana Bikéyah (land of the big caucasian mountains. the word used for the caucuses, "bilagáana", is the navajo term for white people and a loan from spanish "americano".)

greece - Dahojiyáanii Bikéyah (land of the poor/impoverished ones?)

hungary - Azeedíchʼííʼ Dineʼé Bikéyah (land of the people of chili peppers)

kazakhstan - Bilį́į́ʼ Ńdeiltihii Dineʼé Bikéyah (land of the people who stretch/extend out (?))

lithuania - Tséjééʼ Dineʼé Bikéyah (land of the amber people; coincidentally, both diné and lithuanians are renown for making amber jewelry)

malta - Táłkááʼ Bineʼ Naʼadziʼnii Bikéyah (land of [something, probably capital city/city-state] on the surface of the water)

poland - Haltso Hóteelnii Bikéyah (land of wide grasses; also technically a calque)

romania - Tséhonoojí Dineʼé Bikéyah (land of the people of the fortress (?))

scotland - Ałnánoodǫ́ǫ́z Dineʼé Bikéyah (land of the people of the striped cross? maybe referring to the flag like wales?)

turkey - Bichʼah Łichíiʼii Bikéyah (land of those who wear red hats)

ukraine - Dzítso Hatsohnii Bikéyah (land of the great/big yellow plains, most likely a reference to ukraine's famous wheat fields)

wales - Naʼashǫ́ʼiitsoh Łichííʼí Bikéyah (land of the red dragon)

some additions:

another name for spain is Naakáí Łibáʼí Bikéyah (gray land of the travelers; "travelers" is used to refer to spaniards, probably originally referring to spanish explorers)

though “montenegro” literally means “black mountain” and the “alb” in albania means “mountain”, the color black is coincidentally associated with the north in navajo culture, while the color white is associated with the east. this is probably why "white" was added to albania's name. even more coincidentally, the four sacred colors are also associated with mountains.

navajo uses neologisms to refer to peoples most of the time. "horned-hat wearer", literally "they wear horned hats", did originate with code talkers, but is probably meant to be "nordics" generally speaking. if that's the case, sweden would be "land of the nordics", and denmark is also called Chʼah Bideeʼí Dineʼé Bikéyah Yázhí, "small land of the nordics".

that said, the name for norway probably translates to "land of the plunderers (literally house/camp killers) in the west (yellow = west in this case)"; i'm assuming the plundering part is either to do with the german occupation of norway during wwii (so it not being referred to as nordic would make sense) or to vikings.

not europe, but interestingly, the navajo name for india is Tó Wónaanídę́ę́ʼ Bitsįʼ Yishtłizhii Bikéyah, "land of the indians (as in native americans) on the other side of the ocean".

European country names in Navajo: “iron-hat-people land” and other WWII Code Talker neologisms.

[left-the-room]

found a massive guide + resources for learning Japanese. Feels like finding a mountain of present boxes and getting amazed at each one

[faggvert]

irregular verbs made me violent in spanish. they make me violent in french also. what a gay ass language <- (actually having a lot of fun)

[violetreminder]

British people: You claim to hate the French, yet you refuse to free yourself from all their superfluous vowels and silent consonants, curious.

[xxxswaglord420xxx]

maybe i should just learn a russian language at least it wouldn't have german's problem of having Too Many Fucking Articles and also i could learn things to say other than privyet tovarich

[leroibobo]

an approximate map of pre-european contact (though the last one seems to be post-contact) language families in continental north america, showing the spread and migration of different groups throughout the continent. some notes:

these maps include 42 independent language families, 37 isolates, and over 20 linguistic areas altogether.

the oto-manguean (180), uto-aztecan (69), algic (46), and na-dené (45) families have the most languages within them.

the north american family with the most widely-spoken languages is the uto-aztecan family. the most widely-spoken indigenous language in north america today is nahuatl, an uto-aztecan language which is spoken in central mexico and diaspora in the united states by over 1.7 million people.

other widely-spoken indigenous languages in north america today are the various mayan languages spoken throughout guatemala, belize, and mexico such as q'echi', k'iche', mam, tzeltal, and tzotzil.

in general, mexico, guatemala, and belize are home to most of the most commonly spoken indigenous north american languages. other large north american countries such as the united states and canada house comparatively few speakers. (the most common in the former is navajo (na-dené, 170,000), and in the latter, cree (algic, 96,000).) differences in colonization methods and population density/climate/environment before the fact account for the lower numbers.

the linguistic diversity/number of language families in a given area is mostly due to climate and environment. drier and flatter regions are lower in linguistic diversity as the space facilitates the movement of the population within them. (the same thing happened with the turkic and uralic families.) more mountainous and lush environments discourage this. (this happened in what's today papua new guinea.)

the relation between north american and siberian indigenous languages has been hypothesized, but no definite conclusion has been accepted. the most famous theoretical grouping is the hypothetical dené–yeniseian family, which links the na-dené family with the yeniseian languages of central siberia. a family which definitely stretches out to siberia is the inuit–yupik–unangan family (referred to here a eskimo-aleut).

due to colonization, including forced displacement and assimilation, there are many native languages which are either unattested to or were wiped out altogether. these maps only consist of what we know about.

[werewolfetone]

Can't believe that if I want to learn a language I have to actually learn it & put effort into memorisation and continued use of the vocabulary rather than just waking up one day suddenly completely and permanently fluent. just unfair

[tragedykery]

I’m prone to surfing the internet esp on language-related topics so sometimes I end up on quora pages not bc I’m curious about the answer to the question itself (bc I know it) but bc I’m curious how people have given it. this time it was the question “is the dutch language similar to french?” which I, as native dutch speaker & a two-year-old kid level french speaker, obviously know the answer to (not very!). however, some time ago they implemented automatic answers powered by, you guessed it, chatgpt. which is stupid and despicable in itself but the reason I’m writing this post is the answer it gave to the aforementioned question, namely:

[ID: a screenshot of the automatic answer by chatGPT. it’s cut off by a “continue reading” button, but the beginning of the first sentence reads, “Dutch and French are both Romance languages,” /end ID]

[the-history-chap]

Yes, your city is a mess, but is it so bad that its name becomes synonymous with unorganized operations in completely different language?

[osakacafes]

id spend HOURS on this. my autistic brain would be scratched just right i need this.

Videogames I wish were real #27

You know that trope of a character getting isekai'd to another world? Well, in this game that happens to you. You get teleported into another world but you have no idea why you are there because...

YOU. DON'T. SPEAK. THE. LANGUAGE.

The characters speak an entirely made up language. At the start of the game you select what language you (the player) speak, and the modes in which you want to play. The game has several modes both for languages and for story: Easy, Normal, Hard, Extreme and Realistic (the difficulties of both modes are independent, you can pick easy language mode but hard story mode and such)

Language modes:

Easy mode: the language spoken by the characters has a very similar grammar and rules to your native language (the equivalent of a Spanish speaker trying to learn Italian). Characters don't mind repeating stuff several times. An npc points at a tree, says a word and you get several options and need to choose what you think the word they said meant. In this mode, once you learn a word, the translation will be featured under it in any in-game texts.

Normal mode: the grammar and rules of the language spoken by the characters are noticeably different from your native language (the equivalent of an French speaker trying to learn German). Characters will only repeat stuff two times. Instead of choosing what a word means from several options, you need to type your guess. You will still get the translation of a word under it once you learn it, but instead of always being visible, you need to activate the subtitles by pressing a button.

Hard mode: the grammar and rules of the the language spoken by the characters are very different to your native language. Characters don't repeat stuff. No subtitles with translations or menus that ask you to guess what a world means. If you want to remember what something means, you will need to rely entirely on your memory or take notes.

Extreme mode: extremely different grammar and rules, and, on top of that, a different alphabet (the equivalent of an English speaker trying to learn Japanese). Characters don't repeat things. No subtitles with translations or menus that ask you to guess what a world means. You will need to take notes, a lot of notes.

Realistic mode: why is it called realistic? Well, because a world were people only speak one language would be unrealistic, right? So... in this mode, the people speak different languages, and as you travel through the world, you might need to learn more than one language to get by.

Story modes:

Easy mode: you get taken in by a family of farmers in a small village. The family you live with provide you with food and shelter in exchange for a small part of the wages you earn by helping them around the farm or doing errands for the townspeople. Everyone in the village is kind and eager to help you learn their language. As your language skills progress, so does the story.

Normal mode: an innkeeper in a medium sized village offers you work in their inn. Half your wages go to cover your food and room. As the days progress, so does the story, regardless of your progress in learning the language.

Hard mode: you appear in a city and need to fend for yourself since day one, doing whatever is necessary to get by. You will need to pay for your own food and shelter, but finding a job in a foreign world where you don't speak the language won't be easy, so at first you might need to resort to trickery or thievery to survive.

Extreme mode: you will appear in a war torn area and be forced to pick a side in the conflict, but you won't know which one is the good one, if there is any. You can choose to stay there or gather resources to earn enough money to travel to other areas untouched by the war.

Realistic mode: you will appear in a random location, it might be the middle of a forest, a quiet little village, the middle of a battlefield, a pirate ship... In previous story modes your actions and decisions could change the story. The same will happen here, however, the story won't wait for you, and you will be able to reject the call. You might be the prophesied hero destined to stop an evil wizard, but you might find out too late to stop them from conquering half the continent, or you might not feel like risking your life and opt for a quiet existence in a farm.

While the game is supposed to be about the player being transported to a different world where they speak languages different from our own, if you want to, you can select a real language to learn it through the game.

[onetimemacaroni]

six in latin is spelled and pronounced sex btw

[ravenwolfie97]

hm. okay. i have a language complaint about genshin again

so like. english uses a lot of french words because there's a lot of french influence in the language, and i've said before that there's been a bit of a bias in the french terms used with and towards fontaine's characters in genshin

my complaint is that the french words we have in english aren't pronounced exactly like they would be in french - they're anglicized, pronounced slightly differently to match our accent

and seeing as fontaine is based pretty squarely on france, and many of the characters have names derived from french, it would be a little difficult to pronounce some of the phonemes used in the french language in english. though french is a lot more pedestrian to an english speaker than, say, chinese

so the real root of my complaint comes from a few certain examples, chief among them being the pronunciation of Monsieur Neuvillette. it's a name that pops up rather frequently, and is one of if not the most french names of any of the characters. and people really try their best to pronounce it right, and i know the directors try to help with that, but the tip they use is flawed, and i know just what it is

in french, the "eu" in something like Neuvillette's name isn't just an "oo" sound; a similar thing can be found in german words with the letter "ü". the tip that most language guides provide is to purse your lips like you're making an "oo" sound but place your tongue like you would when saying an "r" sound. that is at least a close approximation to how that phoneme is pronounced

However. where a lot of people slip up. Especially in genshin. is that they just say it with an "r" sound. like his name is "Nurvillette". which it is not. it is still a vowel. it's just not a straight "oo" sound like a mono-english speaker would expect it to be

i had heard this same thing happen again with the npc "Jurieu", where another character says his name like "Jurier". which, again, is incorrect. and it just really, really bothers me

main thing i dislike is that the many voice actors in fontaine either go too hard on pronouncing the french words 100% correctly in french accent and all OR butcher it completely by taking the shortcuts too literally. it doesn't have to be that hard. anglicize the word so that it sounds natural in english but still retains the sound as it would in french. i dunno. i'm way too distracted by this

[divorcetual]

i love your languageposting sm... my fav silly meower linguist language SpIn autism

MEOWWW SHOUTOUT TO SPEAKING. GOTTA B ONE OF MY FAV THINGS

[de-sterren-nacht]

one of my favourite language facts is that the names mary and mario are entirely unrelated

mario comes from latin marius, the masculine form of the gens (roman clan) maria, possibly deriving from mars, the god of war, "mas-" meaning male (as in "masculine") or "mare" (ocean), which had the plural form of "maria" albeit pronounced differently, /'marɪ.a/ for the gens and uhh. /ˈmär.i.ə/ for the ocean i think?

mary comes from miriam (מִרְיָם‎), a hebrew name (possibly deriving from egyptian mr, meaning love), via its aramaic form mariam (ܡܪܝܡ), the name of the virgin mary, which was written by the early apostles in koine greek as Μαριάμ