#i fucking love linguistics

[baldnt]

!!! Brilliant, Beautiful, Explains Everything I Never Knew That I Needed To Know

From the US but i spell grey with an e because e just feels like a much greyer letter than a

[saphig-iawn]

the feminine urge to skulk through the rain slicked streets of an african mega city in the wake of an invasion to solve a mystery that could turn the tide of a war unlike mankind has ever seen

[uncanny-tranny]

If you need help practicing pronouns, try using the pronouns you struggle with on your pets!

Animals have very little understanding of pronouns and human gender. They won't care if you use he, it, she, xie, bun, literally whatever - they only care about you and their food. They'll be fine! However, your loved ones will appreciate your effort in using pronouns, and using them properly. It's a win-win situation!

[sapphoismymuse]

"linguistics is my passion!! i love languages!!"

what do you mean there are multiple different runic systems. what do you mean the runes in The Hobbit are completely different from the runes in Lotr. what do you mean i have to learn a completely different runic system now.

[exercise-of-trust]

seemingly cool fiber arts person i followed a little bit ago just put radfem shit on the dash, anyway the blanket statement that the only contributions of men to textile production are capitalist/exploitative and the only contributions of women are household-centric/victimized is patently untrue. while less of a documented presence, women in medieval europe [1] absolutely participated in weaver's guilds and commercial cloth production [2], and men have been participating in household knitting in all parts of europe for as long as knitting has been a thing there [3]. like i'm not trying to say women haven't been deeply excluded from economic opportunities in the textile trade for centuries but you cannot be making sweeping statements like that about everyone in every part of the world through all of history and expect them to be true. do, like, a basic level of research and have a basic understanding of nuance, i beg of you [4]

footnotes/sources/etc under the cut, sources are a bit basic because i just grabbed whatever was nearest to hand but they should suffice to prove my point:

[1] i'm only referring to western europe here because that's the only region i feel comfortable talking about in any detail without embarrassing myself. systems of medieval cloth production in european guilds are not gonna look anything like the systems of hundreds of servants employed to do textile production for a household in china. don't make categorical statements about everyone everywhere all at once, you will end up with egg on your face.

[2] quotes from "when did weaving become a male profession," ingvild øye, danish journal of archaeology, p.45 in particular.

england: "in norwich, a certain elizabeth baret was enrolled as freeman of the city in 1445/6 because she was a worsted weaver, and in 1511, a riot occurred when the weavers here complained that women were taking over their work" + "another ordinance from bristol [in 1461] forbade master weavers to engage wives, daughters, and maids who wove on their own looms as weavers but made an exception for wives already active before this act" germany: "in bremen, several professional male weavers are recorded in the early fourteenth century, but evidently alongside female weavers, who are documented even later, in 1440" -> the whole "even later" thing is because the original article is disputing the idea that men as weavers/clothiers in medieval europe entirely replaced women over time. also: "in 1432-36, a female weaver, mette weuersk, is referred to as a member of the gertrud's guild in flensburg, presently germany" scandanavia: "the guild of weavers that was established in copenhagen in 1500 also accepted female weavers as independent members and the rules were recorded in the guild's statutes"

[3] quotes from folk socks: the history and techniques of handknitted footwear by nancy bush, interweave press, 2011, don't roast me it was literally within arm's reach and i didn't feel like looking up more stuff

uk/yorkshire dales: "...handknitting had been a daily employment for three centuries [leading up to 1900]. practiced by women, children, and men, the craft added much to the economy of the dales people." (p.21) uk/wales: re the knitting night (noson weu/noswaith weu) as a social custom practiced in the 18th/19th c.: "all the ladies would work on their knitting; some of the men would knit garters" (p.22) uk/channel islands: "by the early seventeenth century, so many of the islands' men, women, and children had taken up the trade of knitting that laws were necessary to keep them from knitting during harvest" (p.24) -> this one is deeply funny to me, in addition to proving my point uk/aberdeen: "the knitters, known as shankers, were usually women, but sometimes included old men and boys" (p.26) denmark: "with iron and brass needles, they made stockings called stunthoser, stomper, or stockings without feet, as well as stockings with feet. the men knit the legs and the women and girls made the heels" (p.32) iceland & faroe islands: "people of all ages and both sexes knit at home not only for their own use but for exportation of their goods as well" (p.35)

[4] actually? no. i'm not begging for shit from radfems. fuck all'a'y'all.

[newvegascowboy]

Ok so i personally believe that interstate trade in the wasteland is alive and well, especially along the coasts, but there HAS to be some like. Linguistic weirdness happening in the wasteland. With radio communication, I'm sure there's a "standard english" that prevents a lot of people from getting tooooo granular of a dialect, but it doesn't take that long for languages to change, really. Where are the pidgin languages? The new expressions? The funny sayings? The things that no vault dweller would understand because they come from an entirely different culture?

You'd probably have a lot of languages that are related, like the romance languages, or even Esperanto, where someone can parse the meaning even if they aren't a native speaker. Lots of English/Spanish variants of course, but can you imagine giving the Appalachian dialect 200 years to marinate? Cajun? Minnesotan?? The people in the Commonwealth should be speaking like theyre from another planet. The sole survivor is talking like a Jane Austen novel, unable to comprehend the words a Bostonian mind has had 200 years to come up with.

[leveragedlibrarians]

AMAZING NEWS BESTIES

[hellbentrapture]

Never forget, it's literally in the devnotes...

All the voice acting in Baldur's Gate is very good, don't get me wrong, but Neil Newbon really put 150% of his pussy into his lines as Astarion.

[lia404]

It doesn't happen a lot, but for once I'll be venting on main. Let's talk about fandoms and languages, in a very frustrated way.

Many time, I have found myself upset at and exhausted by the entitlement of native English speakers when everyone else is already making the effort to speak their language.

Try (and I'm not being a Yoda here, I don't even say to do it, just to even try) to speak my language, and then we'll talk about the terminology I use and the grammar mistakes I make. Don't you dare dogpile on me for using the wrong word when I'm clearly not native. No, I was not trying to insult anyone. Yes, what I said was wrong, but you can point it out in a didactic way without being aggressive, and you can acknowledge that we are not all equal in languages or in our abilities in learning English, the One Language To Rule Them All (with all the dark implications of the title.)

Heaven's sake. I know I'm sometimes missing nuances. I am painfully aware that I'l never speak or write like a native speaker, and I'll never grasp the full underlying meaning of some words. Especially when they are words that have evolved, that have become something else in the context of modern Internet, in a corner of the web that I don't visit, because most of my English interactions are in the context of fandoms.

I don't understand your memes. I don't understand your jokes. I likely never will, and I've given up on asking for explanations, because they usually come with even more ununderstandable jokes, sometimes borderline mockery.

And don't you dare tell me "but your English is so good! Don't worry!" because guess what? I know. I've been studying that language for 25 years. It's my fucking job. I am rather confident in the fact that I know English grammar better than most native English speakers. It doesn't mean I don't make stupid mistakes, and it doesn't make me a native speaker. No matter how hard I try, I will never, ever be a native speaker.

Day after day after day, I'm putting in the effort of thinking in a language that isn't mine, looking for hidden meanings and weighing every sentence because even after 25 years, they'll never come naturally. Day after day, interaction after interaction, I wonder if I'll accidentally insult someone because of an awkward, gauche phrasing.

And I write this while being fully conscious that I have the priviledge of being a native speaker of one of the colonising languages. There are tons of resources in my language.

"If you're not happy, then just don't go to English fandoms."

See, that's the thing. Fandom activity exists in my language, but not in the fandoms I'm in. But you know, maybe I will. Maybe I'll snap and populate a full niche fandom with stories that native English speakers can't understand in a glance, have to put in an effort to interact with. Maybe I'll make memes in my language that none of my mutuals can get. But in the end, it will just be like shouting in the void.

Because here's a reality: most English speakers never put in the effort. They see a foreign language, and move away. And if, by some sort of miracle, they actually want to try, then they are lucky to be able to count on automated translation. Machine translation tools are always trained on English first. Any language > English usually is the pair that has the most reliable results. The same cannot exactly be said about English > any language. And again, I acknowledge that I'm priviledged in such a case, because I'm native of a language that is well-covered.

But it will never be enough for international fandom interactions. Another uncomfortable reality: the globalisation of fandoms has led to erasure of most other languages in fan spaces. This one's going to be hard to reclaim.

So I adapt and I speak English and I write in English. Sometimes I read fanfics and I cry, because I stumbled upon a sentence that I know, even with the best efforts in the world, I would have never managed to come up with. Sometimes I realise that between my job and my fandom activities, English has become such a huge part of my life that I'm losing my own mother tongue, that my phrasing is becoming awkward in it too. I'm not confident anymore using it. I look at the sentence I wrote on the blank page and I cry some more.

And I'm so, so tired of seeing "well-meaning" entitled native English speakers (and, no offense, but most happen to be from the USA, so there might be something cultural at hand here, but while I feel legitimate to observe languages, I don't think I have the legitimacy to observe societies) trying to hold everyone in the world up to their self-centred standards.

I speak English because you speak English. Speak my language flawlessly, and then we'll talk about my flaws when speaking yours.

[baldyeosang]

I'm always like 'the boston accent/nh accent isn't that strong'. But then I just heard people outside of new hampshire say the capital Concord. What the FUCK is Con Chord. That's concad baby!!!

[muffinrag]

yeah because one of you has to bottom

[mybraindumpsterfire]

I am fascinated by linguistics and I want Phil to make a video about it so badly. Like a video where he has Dan put recognizable people’s voices (like lines from Buffy Phil would know or something) through filters so it’s unrecognizable but you can still pick up on the formants and such. Then Phil uses his linguistic skills to figure out who it is. Or he like matches a person’s normal voice clip to another messed up voice clip of theirs I don’t know.

I just love linguistics and Phil and I want him to talk about it because it genuinely is interesting damn it!

[solradguy]

Do you think one could attain decent-ish ability to read Japanese just by studying kanji? Specifically asking because the kanji learnin' service "wanikani" is the single Japanese resource that works best with my brain, but then there are separate resources for grammar and vocab and and and.....

You will get REAAAALLLLLYYY far knowing only the kanji but you're going to have to know hiragana and katakana at some point too. Tofugu, the company that did Wanikani, has two mnemonics-based guides for the kana that are basically Wanikani Lite. They're how I learned the kana and I swear by them.

Here's hiragana: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/

And katakana: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/

Hiragana are especially vital to learning kanji; you won't be able to use 99% of Japanese-English dictionaries without them. BUT they're pretty easy and the rules for using them are consistent. You won't have to remember any irregular exceptions for any of them.

I haven't tried it yet, but I've heard really good things about the Crystal Hunters manga series as a fun/low stress way to learning Japanese vocab and grammar. It eases the reader into new concepts and then repeats them throughout the chapter so you remember them. There are free vocab and study guides/lists for each chapter too. Might be worth checking out once you get some kanji and the kana under your belt? The first book is also free.

Official site: https://crystalhuntersmanga.com/

Good luck!!

[majorshatterandhare]

Okay, accent/pronunciation post.

In Hereward the Wake, Tim pronounces “duty” with a /j/ (yod) which creates a pronunciation something like /ˈdjuː.ti/ in the IPA or “dyoo-tee” in English phonetic spelling. From what I can tell, this is one of two common pronunciations in English accents, the other being /ˈdʒuː.ti/ in the IPA or “djoo-tee” in English phonetic spelling. This second pronunciation features coalescence of the d and yod to create a dj sound. This can be contrasted by Rachel’s pronunciation of “duty” in Alice, which features yod dropping, and can be written as /ˈduː.ti/ in the IPA or “doo-tee” in English phonetic spelling. Although Tim is doing a very odd accent in Hereward, it doesn’t really matter in this case. In Riddle of the Sphinx he pronounces “introduced” with a coalescence of the d and yod (/ˌɪn. trə ˈdʒuːst/ or “in-truh-djoost”) and regardless of whether it is coalesced or not, as long as it’s not *dropped* it works for our purposes.

Okay, now we get into why this is funny to me. The yod-close back rounded vowel pair (/ju/ or “yoo”) comes to English from French. The French close front rounded vowel sound (/y/, I have no idea how I’d write this in English phonetic spelling, but make the inside of your mouth like you’re gonna say “ee” and your lips like your gonna say “oo” and that’s how you make it) came into English and was separated into /i/ and /u/ (or “ee” and “oo”) but then the /i/ was replaced with yod. This was not only applied to words that came from French, but also some pre-existing English words as well (and is now applied to foreign words once they’ve been in English long enough, like “Cuba”).

Now, when did the yod-close back rounded vowel pair enter English? Well, when was English heavily influenced by French? That’s right, when the Normans took over. And who fought the Normans? Hereward!

This lead me to the idea of an Anglish translation of Hereward the Wake. Has anyone done that yet?

[Note: information on the yod-close back rounded vowel pair came from this video by Dr. Geoff Lindsey; IPA representations were taken from the online Cambridge Dictionary and Wikictionary and adjusted where necessary (such as making “introduce” into “introduced”). Also I’m not actually positive that Tim doesn’t coalesce the d and yod in “duty”, it sounds kinda like both to me, but either way it comes from the French which is the important part for this post.]

[kassandras-one-braincell]

Oathsworn brainrot: Soma

This doesn't even scratch the surface, and there's 2000 odd words under the cut. This entire AU was built around Soma. I am unwell. As a big supporter of women's wrongs, the fact that in the game's canon, she allegedly managed to piss off the entirety of Mercia within a couple of years of being in England appeals to me greatly. That's a nefarious feat. Her hands are bloody.

The whole Oathsworn premise post is linked here.

The King isn’t a tactful man, and managed to piss off a very powerful nation overseas just a year after his coronation. They’re cunning merchants, and equally as cunning on the battlefield. The Danes are governed by a war council, led by Guthrum Jarl, with formidable politicians and warriors seated beside him.

Guthrum does not like the acting King. But neither side would profit from an all-out war. Your kingdom has money and connections from trade that the Danes (creatively named) didn’t want to compromise. And in terms of prowess in battle, your army didn’t stand a chance. Tensions were high, with neither side willing to escalate things past sanctions, a few shot messengers, minor sieges of neutral territory, and a lot of threats.

Three years ago, the King – bored of current circumstances – acted against the advice of the court and ordered a disproportionately sized infantry unit to attack a very small encampment flying a Dane banner on neutral ground, breaching the peace. He smiled while the council were left to develop one hell of a contingency plan. Thirty men sent to kill three or four Danes, according to the scout.

One soldier returned, his right leg dragging limply behind him, utterly harrowed. He trembled, wide-eyed and halfway retching as he recounted how the one Dane who survived the ambush sprinted into the swamp with thirty men on her tail. With a single axe, murky water and the darkness of the night, she cut down the infantry. She sliced the sole survivor’s heel and forced him to watch her butchery of the twenty-ninth soldier. Then she escorted him back to her camp. Cleaned and dressed his wound, purely so he’d live to tell the tale.

The court froze with dread as he gave a description of the woman. Specifically at the scar, ragged and deep, cutting through her face from her ear to her nose. That woman was Soma: one of Guthrum’s most trusted councillors, and something of a nightmare to your kingdom’s soldiers.

Your court anticipated full retaliation. However, they were met with diplomacy. Despite the breach of unspoken contract, Guthrum had no intention of returning the gesture, still believing that the price of a war wouldn’t be worth its rewards. He arranged to visit the kingdom with his war council after sending a draft of a new peace treaty, full of mutually beneficial trade outlines, but pending one unfinalised condition.

Soma, looking like Soma does, caught your immediate attention upon the Danes’ arrival. She immediately recognised you as the crown princess without introduction, despite the King’s children also being present. She knew something, and that was unsettling, but she was courteous nonetheless. Her smile was warm, her eyes betraying her calculation. You weren’t completely in the dark yourself, though – the scar was unmistakable. This woman could likely take on all the Kingsguard in the room without the help of her colleagues. Whatever their game was, she was an integral player.

Guthrum said he was content to forgive the King for his misdeeds, and while the phrasing angered his Majesty, the animosity was silenced by the treaty’s very generous terms. The Danes saw profit in an alliance, but needed a reason to believe the King would honour it. After this, Guthrum nodded to you and bowed politely; word of your stride towards free public education had reached their shores, and he found it an admirable goal indeed. No wonder your kingdom spoke fondly of their heir, he remarked.

His caveat to the treaty was simple. Your court, by now, was familiar with the capabilities of Soma. Guthrum had heard of the Oathsworn tradition. Soma was prepared to abandon her port and her seat at his council in favour of swearing the Oath. This way, if the King was to lash out again, she would be within striking distance to take the life of the kingdom’s crown jewel – and your death wouldn’t be painless. The oath would be sworn with him and a noble of your choice present as witnesses, and it would be sworn.

Very few people in the court were aware of the King’s intention to eventually dethrone you, and he was in no position to refuse the treaty. The Danes did not come without reinforcements. He agreed to the terms, signed the papers, and you asked your queen mother to bear witness. She was sickened by the thought of the Oath being sworn under these circumstances, suspecting her husband’s intentions regarding his succession, knowing your life was doubly at risk here. But she agreed, because it wasn't up for negotiation.

That same evening, yourself, Soma, a priest and the two agreed-upon witnesses took to the chapel. She recited the sacred vow, never breaking your gaze. Her tone was steeled, but there was no mistaking her contentment to abandon the tenet, should it be asked of her.

The first attempt on your life occurred a mere month after the Oath ceremony. The assassin concealed the family crest of one of your kingdom’s nobles on a cufflink. He struck when you were checking in with the headmaster of a school you recently built, dealt with swiftly by Soma, who shadowed your public appearances. She was professional – positioning herself between you and the attacker in a suit of armour she had yet to adjust to, incapacitating him. The visit was cut short as she wrapped you in her cloak to mask your identity, leaving the other guards to formally arrest the assassin.

She had an authoritative, no-bullshit attitude about her as she used her newfound influence over the royal guard – a perk of the position given the politics – to organise an inquiry, presenting to the King the engraved cufflink found on the assassin. No doubt, she took pleasure in getting information out of him, but how she handled the inquiry made it clear that your life was paramount, and you took peculiar solace in this. The conspiring noblewoman who sent him was soon tried and punished accordingly. Soma insisted upon standing in as her executioner.

You cursed yourself as your defensive, wary demeanour around her cracked over time. There were other attempts on your life, and she took her role as your Oathsworn seriously, seemingly more so with every new perpetrator. Beyond duty, though, she showed you kindness. And as you learned about one another in your close proximity, you grew fond of each other. A profound respect was building, and it was mutual.

At one point, you both had problematic revelations. You had never felt safer around the woman tasked with taking your life, should the causal circumstance arise. And Soma realised she had no desire to act on that kill order. You made a promise to her: when you were queen, you would grant her deeds to the kingdom’s port, because she had once confessed to you how she mourned that part of her old life, and the gods knew she could bloody run it. She pondered the promise being empty, but dismissed the thought. You listened to her in a moment of vulnerability. This changed things.

A dalliance was inevitable, but this was neither fleeting nor inconsequential. Your affection for one another, your devotion in all its intensity, was a secret well-kept from all eyes, ears and quills.

And it was intense. Fast. Hasty, even. The threat of a sudden awful change loomed over you both, leaving no time for courtship. Butterflies were reserved for the newfound gesture in Soma’s hand on your back as she escorted you through crowds. Her solitary company was filled with dizzying kisses, passionate rendezvous under the moonlight and unbridled laughter.

At first, your mutual desire for physical intimacy was overwhelmed by a sudden anxiety in your closeness. There was the persistent fear that the kill order had been given, and that Soma was waiting for you to be at your most vulnerable before she ended your life. It choked you, frustrated you, but you were honest with her. The first time it happened, Soma assured you that she would sooner cut off her hand than lay a harmful finger on you. She thanked you for your candour, bidding you goodnight with a comforting smile and a chaste kiss to your knuckles. She would not lay with you until you felt safe enough to trust her with your body, and she wanted you to realise this safety on your own. With time, that safety came about. You made love, and confessed that love shortly after.

Your relationship introduced a new variable to the political equation. Until the present, you tried your best not to question any loyalties. Foolish as it were, you were content in the illusion of security.

With his reign coming to an end, though, the King is under pressure to secure the line of succession for himself and his children before he’ll be forced to abdicate. Never having had a penchant for patience, this urgency is beginning to seep into his actions in court. None of the assassination attempts were successful. His co-conspirators are dwindling in their numbers; those who haven’t been convicted of treason are succumbing to fear.

Truthfully, he never anticipated Soma would honour her vow, nevermind with such ferocity. He had hoped one of his carefully organised, bloody fates would befall upon you, and her subsequent execution would bury the evidence of his crime. But she complicated things terribly, and in his frustration, he begins to suggest processions that would put the treaty at risk. Gambling merchandise due to be exported form your kingdom to Guthrum. Proposing a mandatory armistice for all Danes in the kingdom. Inquisitions, the likes. All fortunately talked down by the court, but not without rapidly building concern.

You and Soma begin to see through the cracks. The King isn’t intelligent, but he also isn’t naive enough to accidentally compromise the kingdom’s safety. As your step-siblings begin to look at you through a different gaze, you're forced to navigate court with a pit in your stomach. Conversations with Soma following the string of conspiracies only reinforced the idea that foul play is at work.

Soma caught word some weeks ago that Guthrum’s war council had undergone a few changes of seats, and not all of the new councillors share his ambitions. They seek conquest. She suspects they’re in contact with your King, most likely manipulating him into pushing for political moves that would spiral the kingdom into a war you would certainly lose.

Her fears reside in whether Guthrum could have a change of heart, or if he would be willing to isolate you from the actions of the King with your coronation inbound. There is every possibility that the King could overrule the democracy of the court regarding one of his rash decisions, and the kill order would be given. There would be war, and if she refused to take your life, she’d be an enemy of her people – her family – as well as your own.

Yet when she confides in you, distressed, it’s abundantly clear that Soma doesn’t see a dilemma in all of this. She paces about your quarters and thinks aloud, knowing you’ll always lend your ear and comfort to her. If all negotiations failed, she would rather live as a pariah than betray you. The idea of taking your life is unfathomable.

Amidst a sea of uncertainties, you’re unable to avoid doubt. Those panicky feelings from the early days of your relationship are resurfacing, as much as you want them to stop. Your heart yearns to trust Soma. You hear the truth in her words, the humanity in her voice, but you can’t shake the fear that it’s an elaborate act. Your apprehension hurts her. It wounds you both.

A bitter few days pass by. You’re sick with worry, unable to sleep. Questions of if she’d do it bleed into how she’d do it. Your mind lingers on poison, to the extent where you employ somebody to taste your food and before you so much as touch the plate.

Soma knocks on your bedchamber door one night with a goblet in hand. She lets out a pained breath when you flinch away from it. It’s a sleeping aid, she tells you gently. It’s agonising to watch your health deteriorate under paranoia. You are her heart, after all. As difficult as it is to acknowledge your wavering trust in her, her love for you has not lessened.

You’re exhausted. And scared – not just for your life, but for the future of your kingdom. Apologies flood from your lips as you crumble before her. Soma can’t stop herself from holding you. Tears of her own escape as you sob at the sensation of her embrace, trembling in her arms as your sleep-deprived, anxiety-riddled mind tries desperately to refute that immediate feeling of safety.

It dawns that neither of you have the luxury of certainty in anything but each other.

Tenderly, after a small eternity in each other's arms, Soma asks if she can renew her vow, right here. She wants you to hear her Oath anew, her tenet solemn, devoted, and devoid of political motivation. Fuck the chapel, the priest, the gods. Witness be damned. The only blessing that matters is yours.

You give it to her.

[baeshijima]

lord give me strength to finish this haitham piece...

pls.... ugly cries....