Linguistics

[JoB]

This website!
It lists every single one of the world's languages and where they're spoken and whether they're going extinct or just coming into existence and it has data and information and it's all very beautiful 

I guess that's why Minna specifically named it as her main source for the data she worked into the famous language tree ...

[Valerre]

Ooo! Ooo! *jumps up and down*

This website!

It lists every single one of the world's languages and where they're spoken and whether they're going extinct or just coming into existence and it has data and information and it's all very beautiful 

Yessss! I've been working through that linguistics course and they love to use this site.

Speaking of which, this week's video lessons include a 30-minute video interview with Noam Chomsky!

[Meellaa]

Hi!
This is a really great thread! I love linguistics; fell in love with it by accident last year through an introductory course in my English studies. I'm studying more English now and Second Language acquisition and everything suddenly makes sense! A bit more particularly I'm interested in how children learn new languages because so many move with their parents and have to learn a new language while going to school. I only recently learned that this isn't actually a good way to do it because for a 7 year old coming to a new language, it takes between 5 and 8 years to get up to speed, so to speak - to be at the same level as their peers. That is a lot of time spent in school not being able to understand the teaching language properly.
Other than that, I'm also interested in different writing systems. I love how written language technically is really arbitrary and we understand it only because we have created meaning for kinda strange symbols.

To add to the pool of linguistic information:
Tom Scott on Youtube has made some really good videos about various topics, but he doesn't do it regularly and hasn't posted such videos for a while so a bit of digging is necessary. They're worth it though!
NativLang on Youtube is also good and animations have been getting better, but they don't post a lot. Their video on the hardest language to spell was really good and shows some of that arbitrariness of written language that I so like.
Ted-ed sometimes has language videos.

On the topic of language history: What are your thoughts on Basque? Basque doesn't fit into any major or minor language group in Europe. It's just there... Between Spain and France. I think it's pretty cool and I wonder how it is different from French and Spanish particualrly because it must have been influenced by two major languages, and how it is different from the rest of Europe's languages that makes it a language isolate.

[Talimee]

Hiya all!

A friend of mine, a student of Linguistics, needs help for an linguistic assignment.
For that she needs Swedish nativespeakers who had previously contact with German (whether in school or self-study or anything else). You do not need to be awesome in it - just able to read a few (very few) german sentences and record them somehow.

If you want to take part, just drop me a message. I will get in contact as soon as I have more intel. *huggles all*

[Talimee]

Hello again!

My friend, who studies Linguistics, needs some Swedish native speakers to read some German sentences for her. She needs those for an experiment in one of her classes and a subsequent analysis (so I can't spoil you about what exactly she is looking for - be assured though that it is nothing bad).

Below you find the text and a few questions she needs you to answer. Also provided is a Swedish Translation of the text, so that you know what you are reading. =)
Please record here and send the link from your recording (or the downloaded mp3) to this E-Mail: knickel@uni-potsdam.de

As a thank you I offer you a sketch or a short scene/ficlet, if you want. Thank you again for your support!

****

Study for the University Potsdam, Institut für Germanistik - Phonetik/Phonologie

Speakers of Swedisch (mother tongue)
Please answer the following questions.
Age
Gender
Where/why did you learn German? (e.g. School, University Home/hobby)
For how long did you learn German?

Please read the following German text as naturally as possible.

Der Nordwind und die Sonne.

Einst stritten sich Nordwind und Sonne, wer von ihnen beiden wohl der Stärkere wäre, als ein Wanderer, der in einen warmen Mantel gehüllt war, des Weges daherkam. Sie wurden einig, dass derjenige für den Stärkeren gelten sollte, der den Wanderer zwingen würde, seinen Mantel auszuziehen. Der Nordwind blies mit aller Macht, aber je mehr er blies, desto fester hüllte sich der Wanderer in seinen Mantel ein. Endlich gab der Nordwind den Kampf auf. Da erwärmte die Sonne die Luft mit ihren freundlichen Strahlen, und schon nach wenigen Augenblicken zog der Wanderer seinen Mantel aus. Da musste der Nordwind zugeben, dass die Sonne von ihnen beiden der Stärkere war.


Nordanvinden och solen

Nordanvinden och solen tvistade en gång om vem av dom som var starkast. Just då kom en vandrare vägen fram, insvept i en varm kappa. Dom kom då överens om, att den som först kunde få vandraren att ta av sig kappan, han skulle anses vara starkare än den andra. Då blåste nordanvinden så hårt han nånsin kunde, men ju hårdare han blåste desto tätare svepte vandraren kappan om sig, och till sist gav nordanvinden upp försöket. Då lät solen sina strålar skina helt varmt och genast tog vandraren av sig kappan, och så var nordanvinden tvungen att erkänna att solen var den starkaste av dom två.

[Cancvas]

Finnish is relatively well behaved, but statement "written as spoken" is slightly misleading. Especially "nk" and "ng" in middle of word (and only place native finnish word does have a "g" in it). For example "kanki" and "kangen" (base and genetive) its not kan - ki (so not a "can - ki" for close english approximation)  but a ka(nk) -ki  where nk is sort of english end of word "sink" and similarly kan - gen is not right, but ka(ng)-gen where ng sound like end of "sing". Also often when next word begins with vovel, consonant from pervious word slightly carries over "sinun äänesi" is "sinun (n)äänesi, but "carry over"  is very weak.

 

[JoB]

Q: Reynir cooking? Lalli cooking? Sigrun cooking?
A. (2:28:32): [...] Sigrun, obviously she’s a warrior and the daughter of the chief of her town, she would never have to cook, there is a chef who cooks the meals of the warriors [...]

I don't think that that's an approach she would've been able to stick to during military deployments before rising to the rank of captain ...

Q: Do you think any of the prologue characters ever lived long enough to see their great-grandkids?
A. (04:18:08): [...] in the sense that she was in the stomach as a baby about to be born in the prologue [...]

[wavewright62]

Yeah well, do you really come up with a term like 'womb' in conversation in your third language?  Big ups to those of you who can.

[Windfighter]

In Swedish you say stomach, at least in normal casual conversations, so I didn't even realize something was wrong, no idea what they say in Finnish... Gotta try to remember "womb" so people don't laugh at me if I ever decide to write a pregnant character xD

[Sc0ut]

In Swedish you say stomach, at least in normal casual conversations, so I didn't even realize something was wrong, no idea what they say in Finnish... Gotta try to remember "womb" so people don't laugh at me if I ever decide to write a pregnant character xD

Yeah, not just in Swedish, I think in a lot of languages it's common to say that babies are in their mother's "belly" (especially if you're trying to be super family friendly) - and English seems to use stomach and belly pretty interchangeably. I've seen people say "stomach" even when they definitely meant gut, and such. Not really something to get hung up on either way imo.

[wavewright62]

'Womb' is my new earworm.  Egads, it is such a weird word when isolated.
Don't mind me, I'll just sit here intoning the word 'womb,' watching the syllable curl into the air like purple smoke.

[Mebediel]

This most recent conversation made me really curious about the origins of the word "womb," so I looked up the etymology really quickly. JoB: is "womb" commonly used in German? Because the English word came from Proto-Germanic, although the source I use also says that there was an Old Norse word for "womb," which this thread indicates didn't really make its way to modern conversational language.

Also, come to think of it, I don't think anyone would bat an eye if you used "belly" instead of "womb" in regular conversation in English.

[Róisín]

Hence the MiddleEnglish and northern English dialect word 'wame', I suppose?

[Mebediel]

Hence the MiddleEnglish and northern English dialect word 'wame', I suppose?

Yeah! Good catch!

[Elleth]

This most recent conversation made me really curious about the origins of the word "womb," so I looked up the etymology really quickly. JoB: is "womb" commonly used in German? Because the English word came from Proto-Germanic, although the source I use also says that there was an Old Norse word for "womb," which this thread indicates didn't really make its way to modern conversational language.

Also, come to think of it, I don't think anyone would bat an eye if you used "belly" instead of "womb" in regular conversation in English.

There's Wampe/Wumpe/Wamme/Wumme, all colloquialisms for a (usually fat) belly or by extension an overweight person in German, but it must have shed the pregnancy-related connotations at some point along the way.