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Day: September 23, 2016
Why does no one put a period after the P in R.I.P.?
Clearly not noone; but there is a global movement in English away from using periods in abbreviations and acronyms—hence RIP rather than R.I.P. The intermediate form R.I.P looks odd for a reason—why keep some periods in an acronym and not others? But the motivation for it is that abbreviations have been dropping their final period […]
What are the meanings of lyrics to the Greek song “To Prosfigaki”?
Το προσφυγάκι – Μέλκον Μάρκος – Στίχοι, Video – kithara.to Translating from the site: Year of composition: 1950 Singing and Oud by Marko Melkon. The recording was made in the USA around 1950. The song melody follows the Hicazkâr Makam scale, which corresponds to the byzantine Plagal Second Mode. Besides the oud, there is a […]
What are some unexpected or unknown benefits from learning Esperanto?
If you immerse yourself in early Esperanto literature (before World War II), you end up learning a lot about Mitteleuropa high culture—and indirectly, a fair bit of German. There’s a lot of Heine, and a lot of emulating of Heine. Esperanto poetry is also a whole lot more formalist than English-language poetry (another Mitteleuropa thing), […]
Does Old English have enough vocabulary for writing a diary?
Yes, but you will need some word coining for modern references to actually come across as Old English. (If you’re going to be dropping in unassimilated modern words all the time, you might as well be writing modern English. You won’t have the look and feel of Old English.) Strongly recommend you look at the […]
Do languages evolve from conversations, scripts or a combination of scripts and spoken words?
If by scripts you mean “written texts” (and if you do, it’s a misleading way of saying it), languages evolve mostly through the spoken word. However, peculiarities of written registers can influence how people speak—for example, the reemergence of /t/ in often, or the influence of Classical Arabic on the spoken Arabic variants. Written language […]