Author: Nick Nicholas

Website:
http://www.opoudjis.net
About this author:
Data analyst, Greek linguist

What is the etymology of the surname Soros?

By: | Post date: 2016-11-19 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages

https://www.quora.com/topic/George-Soros As in George Soros? Likely Esperanto. “He will soar”. Possibly Hungarian: “Next in line”. His father was called Tivadar Schwartz, and was an important figure in Esperanto culture (Teodoro Ŝvarc): not so much for stuff he wrote (including under the pseudonym Teo Melas—yes, the guy knew his Ancient Greek: Melas = Schwartz = Black), […]

What is your opinion on the inclusion of emojis in Unicode?

By: | Post date: 2016-11-18 | Comments: 1 Comment
Posted in categories: General Language, Writing Systems

Ah, Philip my old friend. I know why you’re asking, and you know where this is going. What does Nick Nicholas’ Quora Bio on emoji say? Emoji: Blot on the purity of Unicode What does Nick Nicholas think about the inclusion of emojis in Unicode? CLEANSE THEM WITH FIRE! ⛐⛏⛔⛑✘☹☠ Why does Nick Nicholas think […]

What is your favorite phrase or line from a poem not in English?

By: | Post date: 2016-11-18 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Artificial Languages, Literature

Jane Marr! Why no A2A from you! I’ve long been looking for an excuse to speak here of my favourite poem of all time. It’s an odd choice. It’s an extremely formalist choice. It needs some setup. Esperanto poetry is very formalist, for cultural reasons you can easily guess. At least, it was up through […]

What are the most probable changes in grammar and vocabulary of English in the 21th century?

By: | Post date: 2016-11-18 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: English, Linguistics

OK, here’s one. ’ve after modals has already been reanalysed to of; not just as a written form, but in spoken English: would of, could of, should of. Prediction: this gets expanded further by analogy, to link other modals and auxiliaries, now that the of is no longer analysed as a verb. can of, had […]

Is the English “cuz” (because) becoming a clitic?

By: | Post date: 2016-11-18 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: English, Linguistics

Not yet in my speech, but you’re pointing out something interesting. If you pronounce them as a single word, cuzall, cuzawesome, yeah, that’s a proclitic, and that’s grammaticalisation. I don’t. I do pronounce ’cause as a single syllable often, many do. That’s a reduction, but I think it’s still independently stressed for me, and it’s […]

How often did scribes have to copy an ancient text before the invention of printing in order for that text to survive throughout the centuries?

By: | Post date: 2016-11-18 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Literature, Mediaeval Greek, Other Languages

At an absolute minimum in Europe, four times. Each time there was a technological advance in book production, the superseded tech books were copied and discarded. Tech advances included: The introduction of papyrus The introduction of the codex The introduction of parchment The introduction of lowercase Answered 2016-11-18 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/How-often-did-scribes-have-to-copy-an-ancient-text-before-the-invention-of-printing-in-order-for-that-text-to-survive-throughout-the-centuries/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

Do creole languages have one “base language” or two “parent languages”?

By: | Post date: 2016-11-18 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

It’s a very good question. Normally, creoles and pidgins are put in the too hard basket of linguistic family trees for precisely that reason. It’s very hard to argue for a single parent language, as pidgins, and the creoles that arise from them, really are mixed languages, with grammar from the one, vocabulary from the […]

Will we one day communicate with pictures instead of words?

By: | Post date: 2016-11-17 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Writing Systems

If i ever met someone from the Unicode technical committee again, I’m showing them this question, and yelling THIS! YOU MADE THIS HAPPEN! Rebuses do not make an international language. This is not the first attempt at an international symbolic language. Not by a very long shot. For a look at this kind of thing […]

Can linguists differentiate between all the sounds of the IPA?

By: | Post date: 2016-11-17 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Writing Systems

Thanks, Khateeb! When I was in second year phonetics in university, our exam was to do just that. Our lecturer would say some sounds, we had to write them down in IPA. With some provisos. Most diacritics would count, but some of them, such as the forward/backward, raised/lowered diacritics for vowels, would not: too subtle. […]

Is there any function of swearing?

By: | Post date: 2016-11-16 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

Terry Casalou has the answer here I like the most. (Vote #1: Terry Casalou’s answer to Is there any function of swearing?) Swearing is a form of communication that includes our passion level. I’d like to dig a little deeper. Why does swearing do that? Breaking taboos is one mechanism of indicating passion. Not the […]

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