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Category: Linguistics
Who are some people you know who became fluent in a foreign language as an adult?
Here’s one. Chie Hama. She was doing an MA in my linguistics department, under A/Prof Janet Fletcher. I’ve googled Chie; she’s now tutoring down the road at RMIT, but RMIT doesn’t give its casual tutors much of a web presence. Chie Hama came to Australia from Japan. Chie swore to us blind that she did […]
Why do people use “Nope” even though “No” is easier to say and shorter to spell?
A2A by Z-Kat. Marc Ettlinger’s is the definitive answer: Marc Ettlinger’s answer to Why do people use “Nope” even though “No” is easier to say and shorter to spell? —but I was a research assistant for a guy who worked on labiovelars, and I’ve mentioned it here. (No doubt Z-Kat saw the comment.) So supplemental […]
If the Confederacy had become independent, would their English eventually be considered a different language?
OP, but the question comes from Jason Blau, at https://www.quora.com/Why-Arabic… Fascinating question! Reposting his full question: If the Confederacy had become independent, would their english eventually be considered a different language? (Very similar of course, like the relationship between Dutch and Afrikaans). One could assume the prestige dialect would be as distinct as possible from […]
In linguistics is there a term parallel to “nominal” referring to a category used to group together verbs and adjectives based on shared properties?
I don’t know of one; in fact what I’ve seen is linguists call adjectives in Asian languages verbs, to deal with the commonalities. Stative verbs, if you make it more precise. In fact, whether adjectives are real as a cross-linguistic category is a legit question. Answered 2016-11-04 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/In-linguistics-is-there-a-term-parallel-to-nominal-referring-to-a-category-used-to-group-together-verbs-and-adjectives-based-on-shared-properties/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
Why does language grow in a democratic way?
I’m going to limit this to lexicon, and not get into other areas of language change. Think about it. You just spoke of scientific terms being planned out meticulously and promoted by universally acknowledged authorities. Scientific terms are part of language. That includes smaller languages’ authorities, which come up with canonical translations of other languages’ […]
Who are some notable linguists in the field of historical pragmatics?
Andreas Jucker seems to be the guy that single handedly conjured this field into being, including the journal and the collection of essays in the late 90s. (I think I reviewed it way back then.) Namechecked at Historical pragmatics – Wikipedia UZH – English Department Ah, bugger. He’s the Dean of Arts at Zurich U. […]
Will the Norn language see a successful revival in Orkney and Shetland?
http://nornlanguage.x10.mx/index.php?intro Ah, a lot of doom and gloom here from other respondents. I’ll admit that all I know about Shetland is that they have ponies, and all I know about Orkney is “huh, isn’t that halfway to Norway already?” But I knew Norn existed. I’ve had a quick look at Wikipedia (and pasted links in […]
What is cod-Greek?
I’ve seen other such expressions, such as cod-Latin, and cod-Spanish. Cod-Latin is a synonym of Dog Latin, a fake Latin used playfully to imitate real Latin. The Wikipedia example is Stormum surgebat et boatum oversetebatThe storm rose up and overturned the boat Illegitimis non carborundum is another such instance. (“Don’t let the bastards get you […]
In what languages does “everything is in order” stand for “everything is alright” (and sounds natural)?
Add Modern Greek, as a calque from German into Ancient Greek (Katharevousa): όλα εν τάξει. Now spelled as a single word εντάξει, because that’s a fricking dative, and we don’t have datives any more. Answered 2016-11-01 [Originally posted on http://quora.com/In-what-languages-does-everything-is-in-order-stand-for-everything-is-alright-and-sounds-natural/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]
If the Byzantine Empire hadn’t fallen, and instead became the first colonisers of the New World, what would their colonies have been called?
I am not herewith contradicting Dimitris Almyrantis’ answer. For Dimitris Almyrantis is awesome and stuff. I think I’m saying the same as him. I don’t think much would have been different, except that there’d be Greek names instead of English and Spanish; the naming principles, I suspect, would have been the same. Byzantine town-naming procedure […]