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Month: November 2016
What is the life expectancy of the English language?
Yes, it is impossible to tell, for reasons my learnèd colleagues have touched on. Allow me to expand one angle. As I was saying to Martin Silvertant just before (wat de neuk?), I predicted the death of Dutch in 200 years as a postgrad, when I found out that university courses were being lectured in […]
What character can we use as an irony mark?
Irony punctuation – Wikipedia There have been various proposals over the years, though none have taken off. In internet discourse, where irony marks are pretty necessary, the smiley has prevailed; it’s more about “I’m only joking! I’m only joking!” than about actual amusement. Some Ethiopian languages use a special temherte slaqî or temherte slaq punctuation […]
How many Greek words begin with a?
It’s kind of a meaningless question, because vocabulary is productive; but to Vasiliki Baskos’ answer I will add these figures from non-Modern lexica: 19699 from the Liddell Scott lexicon, 2045 from the LSJ supplement; but LSJ does not separate out derived words very well 28405 for the DGE Diccionario Griego-Español, which includes proper names 23487 […]
When did the 1453 Fall of Constantinople become inevitable?
Matthew Sutton no longer posts on Quora, for reasons I entirely empathise with. Matthew has however left a ginormous comment on this question at https://www.quora.com/When-did-t… With his permission, I am citing his comment here. FWIW, I agree entirely with his answer; I’d researched the period as the setting of the Byzantine poem I’ve coauthored a […]
What is that one picture that best describes your city / country / state?
A2A Pegah. I was going to post something smart-alecky about my country, Australia. But I see that it has already been covered: Shayne Bradbury’s answer to What is that one picture that best describes your city / country / state? User-10398731632804616022’s answer to What is that one picture that best describes your city / country […]
What happened to the Greek population of South Italy?
I refer you to Nick Nicholas’ answer to Why does Grecani language not exist in Sicily (Magna Grecia)? From what I’ve read, the Greek-speaking population of Southern Italy gradually shrank geographically. It was quite a broad area in the 1600s; it was a much smaller area in the 1800s; and it’s pretty tiny now. In […]
Why do people use “Nope” even though “No” is easier to say and shorter to spell?
A2A by Z-Kat. Marc Ettlinger’s is the definitive answer: Marc Ettlinger’s answer to Why do people use “Nope” even though “No” is easier to say and shorter to spell? —but I was a research assistant for a guy who worked on labiovelars, and I’ve mentioned it here. (No doubt Z-Kat saw the comment.) So supplemental […]
Who are some people you know who became fluent in a foreign language as an adult?
Here’s one. Chie Hama. She was doing an MA in my linguistics department, under A/Prof Janet Fletcher. I’ve googled Chie; she’s now tutoring down the road at RMIT, but RMIT doesn’t give its casual tutors much of a web presence. Chie Hama came to Australia from Japan. Chie swore to us blind that she did […]
What’s the best translation of the intensifier “the fuck” in other languages?
Modern Greek. “What” (τι) questions will have σκατά “shit” inserted after it: τι κοιτάζεις “what are you looking at” > τι σκατά κοιτάζεις “what shit are you looking at”. The more generic intensifiers are στο διάολο “to the devil”, for interrogative sentences, or ρε γαμώτο “for fuck’s sake; literally hey, I fuck it”, for other […]
If the Confederacy had become independent, would their English eventually be considered a different language?
OP, but the question comes from Jason Blau, at https://www.quora.com/Why-Arabic… Fascinating question! Reposting his full question: If the Confederacy had become independent, would their english eventually be considered a different language? (Very similar of course, like the relationship between Dutch and Afrikaans). One could assume the prestige dialect would be as distinct as possible from […]