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Category: Linguistics
Do some people still have old Latin names and surnames?
Translating your surname into Latin was in fashion in the 16th through 18th centuries for many Germans and Swedes; Linnaeus (von Linné), for example, or Neander (as in Neanderthal; Neumann). EDIT: Philip Newton points out Neander is Greek. True dat. OK, try Faber (surname), Latin for “Smith”. Or Schmidt. Sometimes, it has stuck around. I’m […]
What are some patterns in accenting Koine Greek when compounding?
Eg : αὐλέω to αὐλητής, actually. 🙂 For a list of suffixes and how they work in Ancient Greek, see Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges from §833 on for more detail than you’ll ever want on the mechanics. The list starts at §839. That list is for Ancient Greek; Koine is substantially […]
What does British English sound like to Australian speaker?
Scottish English? My Scottish personal trainer reports people have difficulty understanding her. I can’t fathom why, and I don’t, but maybe my ear isn’t as tin as I think it is. (FWIW, it’s rare that any Scots creeps in to her speech: cannae only once in a while.) Northern English? I think highly of it, […]
What is the etymology of etymology, and is it good etymology or bad etymology?
I think I get your question. Is the etymology of etymology subject to the Etymological fallacy? The etymological fallacy is a genetic fallacy that holds that the present-day meaning of a word or phrase should necessarily be similar to its historical meaning. This is a linguistic misconception, and is sometimes used as a basis for […]
Why does NACLO use “living” languages in some of its questions?
http://nacloweb.org This is a more general question: why would linguistic Olympiads and competitions in general use for their puzzles real, non-obscure languages, which someone among the the contestants may already know? I know nothing about NACLO in particular, and I will offer some speculation which I still think relevant. Oversight: “meh, noone will know Turkish”. […]
Irrefragable
Remember when Dennis Miller was commentating the NFL, and peppering his commentary with obscurity after obscurity, and a panoply of blogs popped up to offer exegesis to the befuddled masses? This here blog may be that for the Magister, and I don’t want the Magister to start getting all self-conscious about his recondite lexis. Don’t […]
Why don’t Asians in Australia have the Australian accent?
As other respondents have said, (a) it depends, and (b) they do. Reflecting on the Asian Australians I’ve known in the past thirty years: People who’ve come off the boat naturally aren’t going to have an Aussie accent. Duh. Although I’ve spoken of a counterexample here: Nick Nicholas’ answer to Who are some people you […]
Is there an inverse relationship between social mobility and prevalence of formality in language?
I have been invoked by Heinrich Müller, and I corroborate him. Sociolinguistics, after all, is sociology. (Vote #1: Heinrich Müller’s answer to Is there an inverse relationship between social mobility and prevalence of formality in language?) The classic study of formality and social level is Labov’s “4th floor” study, in 1966 New York. Or should […]
bewray
The Magister tripped me up this morning with the very first sentence I saw from him. Michael Masiello’s answer to How do I avoid atheists? I have this fear that atheists will ridicule me for being a theist. Andrew Weill and others have bewrayed the remarkable difficulty of your undertaking. Bewrayed? Bewrayed? Obviously no typo […]
ineluctable
Habib Fanny has just included inexorable in A few of my favorite words here, and I wondered to myself: has the Magister used one of my favourite words, which is related to inexorable but is even more emotive? Was there ever any doubt? Michael Masiello’s answer to What is importance of divine intervention in literature? […]