Search found 1290 matches

by Kuchigakatai
Fri Jan 06, 2023 3:39 pm
Forum: Conlangery
Topic: Conlang Random Thread
Replies: 3257
Views: 2992689

Re: Conlang Random Thread

Latin had both noun - cardinal and cardinal - noun as allowed word orders; maybe other old IE languages did too. It could simply be a conservative feature of your European IE conlang.
by Kuchigakatai
Thu Jan 05, 2023 1:17 am
Forum: Languages
Topic: Scottish Gaelic and Berber???
Replies: 18
Views: 2424

Re: Scottish Gaelic and Berber???

Looking at Sally Caves' list as quoted by Jörg Rhiemeier, does anyone know what Semitic languages #5, #7, #11, #12, #13, #16 can be found in? I don't recognize them from what I know of Classical Arabic and what little I know of Akkadian, Ge'ez or Biblical Hebrew. I wonder if Sally Caves was more fam...
by Kuchigakatai
Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:18 am
Forum: Languages
Topic: Innovative Usage Thread
Replies: 574
Views: 683730

Re: Innovative Usage Thread

I'm not sure if this is truly innovative or just a regional difference I was previously unaware of, but: "Because of this flexibility it was slightly unusual from other tower blocks of a similar vintage." Speaking against this being a regionalism, the other examples I found online don't s...
by Kuchigakatai
Wed Dec 14, 2022 9:43 pm
Forum: Languages
Topic: Loan words with more specific meanings after than before the borrowing
Replies: 147
Views: 116430

Re: Loan words with more specific meanings after than before the borrowing

Hell, even for words coming from Latin, their etymologies are largely useless. Don't you love, too, all those words that just say "De orig. inc.", when Coromines & Pascual may even simply entertain two etyma from Latin ? Anoher Spanish etymologist was Vicente García de Diego (1878-197...
by Kuchigakatai
Mon Dec 05, 2022 1:20 am
Forum: Languages
Topic: If natlangs were conlangs
Replies: 584
Views: 519522

Re: If natlangs were conlangs

Zju wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 4:04 pmDoes that paper happen to have description of the phonology? I'm curious to see what the phonetic realisations of /kîɛɛɛr/ and /dɛ̂aaal/ are.
Here is the paper. The author simply says Nuer has three degrees of vowel length, and gives a minimal triplet.
by Kuchigakatai
Sat Dec 03, 2022 12:55 am
Forum: Conlangery
Topic: Correlatives
Replies: 8
Views: 1675

Re: Correlatives

is this a "real" concept in linguistics? idgi I'd also like to mention that it's a very uncommon concept in linguistics outside of the world of Latin / Ancient Greek and Esperanto / Ido. No, not at all. To take just one example, Bhat’s Pronouns (the same source as in my last post) has a w...
by Kuchigakatai
Fri Dec 02, 2022 11:19 pm
Forum: Conlangery
Topic: Correlatives
Replies: 8
Views: 1675

Re: Correlatives

Emily wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 1:50 pmis this a "real" concept in linguistics? idgi
I'd also like to mention that it's a very uncommon concept in linguistics outside of the world of Latin / Ancient Greek and Esperanto / Ido.
by Kuchigakatai
Fri Dec 02, 2022 10:57 pm
Forum: Conlangery
Topic: Correlatives
Replies: 8
Views: 1675

Re: Correlatives

am i correct in understanding that the concept of "correlatives" as people use it, and the tables they make of them for this or that language, was invented by zamenhof?? is this a "real" concept in linguistics? idgi Zamenhof didn't invent it. Back in the old forum I pointed out ...
by Kuchigakatai
Wed Nov 30, 2022 2:17 pm
Forum: Languages
Topic: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
Replies: 4948
Views: 2350936

Re: Linguistic Miscellany Thread

In Ge'ez, Amharic and Tigrinya, human nouns are gendered (masculine or feminine), so adjectives, determiners and verbs agree in gender with them, but most inanimate nouns don't have a fixed gender, being able to be either masculine or feminine at the speaker's whim. (I don't know what animal nouns d...
by Kuchigakatai
Tue Nov 29, 2022 1:53 am
Forum: Languages
Topic: <it> vs <this>
Replies: 7
Views: 1268

Re: <it> vs <this>

In reply to "Who hit the ball ?", one could answer : (a) John did. (b) That guy did. (pointing at John) (c) He did. (pointing at John) And in reply to "What did John hit the ball with ?", one could answer : (c) The bat. (d) That. (pointing at the bat) but one could not say: (e) ...
by Kuchigakatai
Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:20 am
Forum: Languages
Topic: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
Replies: 4948
Views: 2350936

Re: Linguistic Miscellany Thread

And the passive stems.

(I don't think forms IX and XI have an available passive, maybe along with the later uncommon forms...)
by Kuchigakatai
Mon Nov 28, 2022 9:54 am
Forum: Languages
Topic: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
Replies: 4948
Views: 2350936

Re: Linguistic Miscellany Thread

I'm sorry but I'm still not sure I get it, even after looking at the relevant Wiktionary pages. So form II is derived from form I by doubling the middle consonant of the root, I get that. But how would I know that the form II present tenses are yu-qattil-u, tu-qattil-u... from the fact that the for...
by Kuchigakatai
Sun Nov 27, 2022 10:45 pm
Forum: Languages
Topic: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
Replies: 4948
Views: 2350936

Re: Linguistic Miscellany Thread

Can someone explain how inflection of derived Arabic verbs works? Wikipedia only gives inflectional charts for Form I verbs, and I'm struggling to see how the inflection patterns could be generalized to other verb forms. They work in the same way. Okay, sometimes there's a different vowel in the pr...
by Kuchigakatai
Tue Nov 22, 2022 2:48 pm
Forum: Languages
Topic: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread
Replies: 1858
Views: 4990409

Re: The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

"juvenilia" I just had to spell this for the first time I can remember and kept getting it wrong. I've always had /eː/ for the stressed vowel and was surprised to find out that the normative form is with /iː/. That supposedly normative pronunciation you mention (from Wiktionary?) seems ve...
by Kuchigakatai
Tue Nov 22, 2022 11:20 am
Forum: Languages
Topic: The grammar of weather
Replies: 8
Views: 1261

Re: The grammar of weather

French: Il pleut. ("it rains") Il neige. ("it snows") Il fait beau. ("it makes beautiful", in a rather similar way to Mandarin, 'it's sunny') Il fait soleil. ("it makes sun") Il fait du soleil. ("it makes some sun", with a "partitive" artic...
by Kuchigakatai
Tue Nov 22, 2022 11:20 am
Forum: Languages
Topic: The grammar of weather
Replies: 8
Views: 1261

The grammar of weather

Something I find funny about English and Spanish is how different weather conditions are handled differently grammatically. Rainy weather is handled in both languages with an impersonal verb. And "It's rainy (today)" in English, with an adjective, would simply refer to a statement from a w...
by Kuchigakatai
Tue Nov 22, 2022 6:57 am
Forum: Languages
Topic: The "most X" language of family X
Replies: 11
Views: 1986

Re: The "most X" language of family X

I vote for Portuguese as "most Romance" of the Romance languages. The phonetic differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese even come up as useful in terms of forming an "average".
by Kuchigakatai
Wed Nov 09, 2022 10:30 am
Forum: Languages
Topic: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
Replies: 4948
Views: 2350936

Re: Linguistic Miscellany Thread

Someone shared a screenshot of a multilingual "I voted" sticker, and it said 我已票投 (Wǒ yǐ piàotóu). I was a bit surprised to see no 了, and indeed Google Translate supplies 我投票了 (Wǒ tóupiào le) instead. On the other hand, Google does recognize 我已票投 but translates "I have voted." S...
by Kuchigakatai
Wed Nov 09, 2022 6:51 am
Forum: Languages
Topic: The OBJECTS ARE ANIMALS metaphor
Replies: 15
Views: 1958

Re: The OBJECTS ARE ANIMALS metaphor

A lot of languages do this for genitalia. English "pussy" and French "chatte", Spanish "pájaro" and arguably Mandarin 雞雞 jījī if it isn't sound symbolism (bird, for the penis), Spanish "paloma" (dove, penis), Spanish "bicho" (bug, vulva in Nicaragua,...
by Kuchigakatai
Tue Nov 01, 2022 12:59 pm
Forum: Conlangery
Topic: Anyone up for a good old-fashioned translation relay? RESULTS POSTED
Replies: 136
Views: 65530

Re: Anyone up for a good old-fashioned translation relay? STARTING 1 APRIL

Moose-tache wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 12:43 am They don't called it "cursed" for nothing.

Get better, Pedant!
I thought it was only the first reconstruction relay (or was it the second?) that was called The Cursed Relay due to many people losing their work as their computers failed / stopped working.