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Day: April 6, 2017
trice
A doctor has suggested me Combiflam trice a day for five days for a liquid problem discharge in my breast. Is it fine? What are some amazing pictures one has to see trice to understand? If the value of each letter in the alphabet series is made trice of its serial number then L-H+O=? … […]
In your country, what are high-prestige and low-prestige languages for L2 speakers?
Thirty years ago, the most popular languages to learn at school in Australia were those that have inherited prestige from Britain: French, with German a somewhat distant second. They are being overtaken now by Spanish and Chinese and Japanese, but they remain entrenched, particularly in elite schools. The French lecturers I use to hang out […]
How does the linguistic concept of “time depth” compare to the intuition of “language age”?
Not very well. Linguists have an understanding of some languages being more conservative in certain aspects than others. Informed by history, they also have a notion of how far back two languages branched apart. Linguists are quite reluctant to make the further claim that one language is overall more archaic than another, compared to their […]
Do words have intrinsic meaning? Does it make sense to argue over the definition of a word?
Do words have intrinsic meaning? No. The meaning of words is negotiated constantly (and mostly unconsciously) within a community. That’s why meanings change. Meaning inheres not in the word but in the community, because language as a code inheres in the community. Where by code, I mean a mapping of forms to meanings, which enables […]