#linguistic phenomenon

[reyitsukka]

Telugu, using “తాను/తను” (tānu/tanu), a gender-neutral pronoun in literature and music is my Vijayanagara empire !

[necronatural]

If you like Dungeon Meshi, why not try out Heterogeneous Linguistics?

It follows the student of a monster anthropologist tasked with learning about monster culture himself. In doing so he learns that every monster species has their own communication style and own way of overcoming their language barrier.

Like werewolves:

Slimes:

and Kraken!

Heterogeneous Linguistics covers all kinds of monsters, both humanoid and not.

Not only that, it explores the culture of the monster world, untouched by humans, where communities connected by the travelers between them have their own independent ways of living that he must learn as he travels deeper into the country.

An absolutely fascinating manga that I think takes Dungeon Meshi's "what if monsters were animals" and pushes it all the way to "what if monsters were people, even if they had nothing in common with humans".

All told alongside a little half-human half-werewolf girl, who, on account of being a child, perceives these differences as intuitive and can't explain a damn thing.

[scribefindegil]

As much as I adore conlangs, I really like how the Imperial Radch books handle language. The book is entirely in English but you're constantly aware that you're reading a "translation," both of the Radchaai language Breq speaks as default, and also the various other languages she encounters. We don't hear the words but we hear her fretting about terms of address (the beloathed gendering on Nilt) and concepts that do or don't translate (Awn switching out of Radchaai when she needs a language where "citizen," "civilized," and "Radchaai person" aren't all the same word) and noting people's registers and accents. The snatches of lyrics we hear don't scan or rhyme--even, and this is what sells it to me, the real-world songs with English lyrics, which get the same "literal translation" style as everything else--because we aren't hearing the actual words, we're hearing Breq's understanding of what they mean. I think it's a cool way to acknowledge linguistic complexity and some of the difficulties of multilingual/multicultural communication, which of course becomes a larger theme when we get to the plot with the Presgar Translators.

[thirrith]

i finally finally read this after bookmarking it for so many years

[tragedykery]

I think to treat -> treatable should follow the same process as to eat -> edible. follow me to see more posts brought on by my illness called “is a descriptivist and wants to actively make language worse for everyone involved”. I fear it’s intredible

[queenlua]

this morning i heard someone nonironically refer to themselves as an "anxious girlie," aloud, and i now have to go retroactively expunge the term "girlie" from all of my vocabulary whatsoever

[impzone]

sometimes i worry my interest in linguistics is waning but i heard my stepdad (native english speaker) say "Pai's telefone" in reference to my brazilian grandfather and it made me feel like this

[lightanight]

people using nen as an indefinite article nowadays is so interesting to me especially because it's being used across conventional german gender and case borders as far as i've seen

[piratewithvigor]

It's not "Fast Car by Tracy Chapman" it's "Tracy Chapman's Fast Car" and I don't know how that happened but it's correct

[slopmaster9000]

does anyone have any good etymology/linguistics information on the origin/use of "-ass" being appended to adjectives in AAVE?

[dkniade]

I’ve observed something interesting. I’m not sure why that’s the case, but each of these terms seem to have a slightly different connotation.

If you’re a Genshin Impact fan, which of the following would you rather be referred to as?

Does your enjoyment of the game/story influence your choice? Or whether you play the game or not? How about the way you perceive the English fandom? Is it the same if anyone calls you that, or is it restricted to those in the fandom, or maybe close friends?

[reyitsukka]

In Telugu, to express love and affection, my అమ్మ amma (mother) often Amma’s me back and my నాన్న nānna (father) nānna’s me back :)

In a nutshell, they use their own designated absolute honorifics in addressing their descendants.

This beautiful linguistic phenomenon that exists in Telugu, doesn’t have a specific name but it is popularly known as self-reciprocal kinship or affectionate kin terms.

[lighthouseborn]

oh you know i actually don't get to do this a lot because our experiences simply do not often line up but henry (handshake) me -> whales are just built different

[oflgtfol]

this is an incredibly low stakes pet peeve but i hate when people refer to the sun as Sol and the moon as Luna as if those are their proper names. no. they are literally called The Sun and The Moon. other languages have their own names for them, and no One language is the correct one.

like i'll admit when i was a fledgling astronomy nerd back in like middle school i was on that sol luna shit but i was looking at it heavily through the lens of science fiction and "aw how lame that they don't have real names." but like, why are we judging things based on how lame they are. our home galaxy is literally called the milky way. it doesn't get any lamer than that. just embrace the lameness.

[thirteens-earring]

that person "debunking" fourth person chat pronouns is right in concept and i would rb the post but they're just being Such an asshole about it ?? just absolutely going to war in the notes. what was the reason...

[itwoodbeprefect]

just had the experience of succesfully sounding out แว่นกันแดด in my head, recognizing those sounds ("waen kan daet") as something i'd seen in transliterated script, confidently going "zonnebril!", and then seeing it translated as sunglasses and going wait?? that was wrong?? for a whole two seconds before remembering that no, those words actually do all fit into the same mold, i was just pouring a different language into it by accident