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Day: May 15, 2017
Would a universal language be symbolic?
There have been a few proposals for symbolic universal language, most of them taking their inspiration from Chinese ideographic systems. Pasigraphy was at the start of the universal language movement: they were akin to universal thesauruses in symbolic form. Rather naive in retrospect. Blissymbols was probably the most thorough recent effort, and it has found […]
What is the last letter in the Coptic alphabet?
On seeing this question, I thought, “Huh? Why is this not a question for Wikipedia?” And then I looked at Wikipedia—English and German and French; and I realised that it’s not as trivial a question as you might think. The last three letters of the Coptic alphabet listed on Wikipedia (all three languages) are Ϭ, […]
Was Homer being transcribed when written vowels were invented for the Greek alphabet?
Nestor’s Cup is one of the earliest inscriptions in Greek, and it’s got a metrical inscription that may allude to the Iliad: So it’s feasible that Homer started being transcribed as soon as vowels were introduced—which pretty much was as soon as the alphabet was adopted in Greek. (We have no evidence of Greek using […]
If you already have an undergrad degree (not in linguistics), what is the best way to pursue a linguistics degree/graduate degree?
The way I did it, which may not work everywhere, is: Take as many breadth subjects in linguistics as you can, while doing your degree in another faculty. Demonstrate through charm and wit and intellect that you would be an asset to the linguistics department. If at all possible, do a cross disciplinary postgraduate degree […]