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Category: Linguistics
Do linguistics departments normally include mostly women, gay men, vegans, and leftists?
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2013/07/teenage-hyperpolyglot-0 Hahahahaha. Well, let’s see. Linguistics in the West appears to have broken down the barriers against women getting academic promotion relatively early, and the majority of enrolments at undergraduate level in my department were women. I remember a male linguist (Newmeyer? Pullum?) citing approvingly a hotelier’s guide to the convention partying styles of various […]
Is “how much am I owing you” grammatically correct?
The only correct answer here is from Andrew McKenzie; however he has left it a bit brief, and I’m happy to elaborate a bit more. English divides verbs between dynamic and stative. See Stative verb – Wikipedia. Dynamic verbs are verbs that can be put in the progressive (be doing); stative verbs normally cannot. So […]
What is a fetish for being bitten called?
I draw attention to Nick Nicholas’ answer to What is it called when you get aroused by watching people die? as my credentials for answering this. Especially my line: Is not knowing shit about Classical languages a prerequisite for sexologists?! It is, and I’m not finding the bite fetish in Aggrawal’s exorbitantly misspelled listing of […]
Why is standard Albanian language based on the Tosk dialect and not the Gheg dialect?
My answer is not ultimately different to User-13249930999434776143’s. (Vote #1: User-13249930999434776143’s answer to Why is standard Albanian language based on the Tosk dialect and not the Gheg dialect?) But it is a bit less nuanced. Albanian is divided into Tosk dialect in the south, and Geg dialect in the north. The standard language of Albania […]
How would you translate Rilke’s line “du musst dein Leben ändern” into an appropriate Ancient Greek dialect?
http://www.sporkworld.org/guestartists/picot/rilke.html Ah, Desmond. I wade in where fools fear to tread, but better a fool than noone. The point of the line “You have to change your life” is that the sculpture is so strikingly beautiful, it forces someone to change their life. Well, let’s assemble our building blocks. δεῖ σε τὸν βίον “it is […]
I heard that old languages didn’t have future tense, and that it developed only in younger languages. Is this true? Why would that happen?
We know that the ancient Greek future tense suffix –s– is derived from an Indo-European desiderative suffix –sy-. In other words the suffix that already in Homeric Greek meant “I will” is derived from a suffix that I originally meant “I want to”, and that in fact independently survived in Ancient Greek with that meaning […]
Is it good to study modern Greek while learning Koine Greek?
I wouldn’t go so far as saying it would impede it, but you need to be careful. There will be false friends: words changed meaning from Koine to Modern. The drastic simplification of the grammar in Modern Greek will make you annoyed about having to learn more paradigms in Koine. I think, in many ways—particularly […]
What are the most prevalent Arvanite surnames in Greece?
I mean, I know of some Arvanite surnames, but rather than rack my brains, I’m going to go to this blog posts ΕΛΛΗΝΟ-ΑΡΒΑΝΙΤΙΚΑ ΕΠΩΝΥΜΑ and ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΕΠΩΝΥΜΑ ΑΡΒΑΝΙΤΙΚΗΣ ΠΡΟΕΛΕΥΣΗΣ, both drawn from the book Arvanites by Kostas Biris, and cite the surnames I’ve heard of. Not as scientific a method as you’d like, and probably […]
Which language has the most beautiful name?
Oh, what is one’s standard for aesthetics when it comes to beauty? Tolkien’s? Tolkien’s make me want to slap him. “Ooh! Welsh! Ooh! Finnish! Ooh! Cellar door! Ooh! Arabic is so nassssty, my precious!! I’ll make the orcs speak it.” Pfft. I work on a more meta level. When I was lecturing, my coverall term […]
Has a proto-language ever been accurately constructed prior to discovery of a historical text in said proto-language?
Vote #1, Daniel Ross: Daniel Ross’ answer to Has a proto-language ever been accurately constructed prior to discovery of a historical text in said proto-language? Vote #2, Brian Collins: Brian Collins’ answer to Has a proto-language ever been accurately constructed prior to discovery of a historical text in said proto-language? I’ll add that Linear B […]