Search found 1321 matches
- Sun May 19, 2024 11:37 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Prehistoric migrations from the Near East to North Africa?
- Replies: 9
- Views: 258
Re: Prehistoric migrations from the Near East to North Africa?
Thank you, that looks useful!
- Sun May 19, 2024 8:46 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Prehistoric migrations from the Near East to North Africa?
- Replies: 9
- Views: 258
Prehistoric migrations from the Near East to North Africa?
I seem to remember reading somewhere that there is archaeogenetic evidence of two prehistoric migrations from the Near East back to North Africa, one near the end of the last Ice Age, and one in the Neolithic, but I can't find any reference. Can anybody around here help me find it? Of course I tried...
- Sat May 18, 2024 7:15 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
- Replies: 4692
- Views: 2064611
Re: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
Where does Swedish-Norwegian-Danish -en definite article come from? ON inn, which IIRC further back was originally a demonstrative, which is also reflected by South Jutish æ even though that comes before the noun under WGmc influence (I have heard that Jutland was originally WGmc rather than NGmc-s...
- Wed May 15, 2024 9:59 am
- Forum: Conlangery
- Topic: Romanization Challenge Thread v2.0
- Replies: 987
- Views: 478665
- Tue May 14, 2024 10:47 am
- Forum: Ephemera
- Topic: British Politics Guide
- Replies: 1936
- Views: 1019809
Re: British Politics Guide
London? Westminster? WTF? Historically, this conurbation should rather be known as Ossulstone
- Mon May 13, 2024 10:15 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
- Replies: 4692
- Views: 2064611
Re: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
To me as a non-native English speaker, math are sounds wrong, but maths is is odd, too. Maths sounds like a plural to me, but math is definitely singular. To me, maths is is the only acceptable form. ‘Maths’ behaves like a mass noun, and ‘math’ does not exist as a word. Yes. Maths is not as definit...
- Mon May 13, 2024 4:55 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
- Replies: 4692
- Views: 2064611
Re: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
I'm no expert, but I do have a Larousse, which says the word was singular or plural till the 18th century; while Etymonline says the English word became plural in the 17th century. I don't think it's random: it's "math" in the US and "maths" in the UK. While 'math' might always ...
- Sun May 12, 2024 2:59 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel
- Replies: 909
- Views: 1084243
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel
You must not forget that PIE was no pristine isolated language, but was in contact with other languages around it, and thus probably contained loanwords that were borrowed into the language at a late stage when /a/ and /b/ had become phonemic. Such loanwords need not comply with the reconstructed wo...
- Thu May 09, 2024 4:48 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel
- Replies: 909
- Views: 1084243
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel
As for PIE lacking post-velar consonants other than the laryngeals, Proto-Semitic is reconstructed in a similar way (though some Semitic languages at least have shifted /k'/ to /q/), and this is indeed the reason why Indo-Europeanists call them "laryngeals". Thing is, the *k *kʷ *q hypoth...
- Thu May 09, 2024 3:09 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel
- Replies: 909
- Views: 1084243
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel
As for PIE lacking post-velar consonants other than the laryngeals, Proto-Semitic is reconstructed in a similar way (though some Semitic languages at least have shifted /k'/ to /q/), and this is indeed the reason why Indo-Europeanists call them "laryngeals".
- Wed May 08, 2024 12:55 pm
- Forum: Ephemera
- Topic: AIs gunning for our precious freelancers
- Replies: 734
- Views: 137878
Re: AIs gunning for our precious freelancers
That's a dangerous and twisted logic, Torco. Just because the present world (dis)order is bad (I do not like the term "neoliberalism" because it 1) is ill-defined and 2) denotes something illiberal), doesn't mean that a Trump presidency wasn't any better. In fact, it would be much worse - ...
- Tue May 07, 2024 9:35 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel
- Replies: 909
- Views: 1084243
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel
Might the paper in question be Fenwick (2016) ? That's an interesting paper, thank you! Indeed that's it! Regarding the Kartvelian form, it's discussed in another paper by the same author . My thanks to Ketsuban and Zju as well. It's funny that Fenwick's ideas are partially close to what Taskubilos...
- Tue May 07, 2024 3:28 am
- Forum: Ephemera
- Topic: Venting thread
- Replies: 1940
- Views: 15029314
Re: Venting thread
Get better soon. My best wishes.
- Mon May 06, 2024 8:10 am
- Forum: Conlangery
- Topic: AI in conlanging - present and future
- Replies: 24
- Views: 596
Re: AI in conlanging - present and future
For me, the fun in conlanging lies in figuring out what I want, personally, and investigating the richness of language myself. Why would I get a computer to do the fun bits for me? (And, if I want to describe languages created by someone else, actual linguistic fieldwork would give me far more inte...
- Sun May 05, 2024 2:42 pm
- Forum: Conlangery
- Topic: Conlang Random Thread
- Replies: 3024
- Views: 2852888
Re: Conlang Random Thread
I spot a Nineteen-Eighty-Four reference in the words listed.
- Sun May 05, 2024 7:15 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
- Replies: 4692
- Views: 2064611
Re: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
I have long been entertaining the notion that the impression that languages change faster in times of social upheaval than in times of social stability may be a mirage resulting from the conservatism of written norms which are only broken up and realigned with the spoken vernacular in times of soci...
- Sun May 05, 2024 4:41 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
- Replies: 4692
- Views: 2064611
Re: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
Wikipedia is not an authoritative source here. :P David Crystal in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language : "The year 1066 marks the beginning of a new social and linguistic era in Britain, but it does not acutally identify the boundary between Old and Middle English. It was a long...
- Sun May 05, 2024 4:37 am
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel
- Replies: 909
- Views: 1084243
Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread's Sequel
Might the paper in question be Fenwick (2016) ? That's an interesting paper, thank you! Indeed that's it! Regarding the Kartvelian form, it's discussed in another paper by the same author . Also interesting. The similarities between IE and Kartvelian may be due to Kartvelian also having been influe...
- Sun May 05, 2024 4:31 am
- Forum: Almea
- Topic: "Experiencer"
- Replies: 40
- Views: 4745
Re: "Experiencer"
I fully concur with zompist here.
- Sat May 04, 2024 12:55 pm
- Forum: Languages
- Topic: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
- Replies: 4692
- Views: 2064611
Re: Linguistic Miscellany Thread
Right, begining of the Old English period , not language. It's not like the ol' Angles went to bed one night speaking Proto-Germanic and woke up the next morning speaking Old English. "English", "Old English" and "Proto-Germanic" are all labels we arbitrarily tack on a...