Emmett Stone 2/1/22 Emmett Stone 2/1/22

2605: Penguins are not Business Geese Feb 1, 2022

There is a rumor that goes around that the Chinese word for 'penguin' translates as 'business goose', but this is false. The idea is not so far often however, since the second character of this Mandarin word 企鹅 (qǐ'é) would in fact mean 'goose' (鹅). The initial character 企 is found in the word for business, that being 企业 (qǐyè), but that is a sort of compound itself. The first element of the word 企 has more of a meaning of 'upright'. In this way, if the word 企鹅 (qǐ'é) means anything (besides 'penguin' of course) it would be 'upright goose' or even 'tip-toe goose'.

Emmett Stone 10/19/21 Emmett Stone 10/19/21

2503: satin Oct 19, 2021

China was famous historically for being the starting point of the Silk Road, but along with carrying satin it was a major means of language transfer. Satin is named for the Chinese city of 泉州 (Quanzhou) which literally means “spring prefecture”, but in Arabic this is زَيْتُون‎ (zaytūn) meaning "olive tree", itself a translation of "Tung Tree City", for the many trees planted by its 10th century prince. The Arabic term was taken into French first before its adoption into English.

Emmett Stone 6/30/21 Emmett Stone 6/30/21

2386: Chinese Morphology Jun 30, 2021

To say that Chinese is morphologically simple is an understatement. There is no verb tense, no voice (e.g. active; passive), and has no form of pluralization. All of these functions which in other languages are typically carried out through morphology are instead reliant on particles which indicates things like aspect and mood. This concept is not so foreign to English, which itself has no future tense, and relies on particles too.

Emmett Stone 3/25/21 Emmett Stone 3/25/21

2291: Stress in Tonal Languages Mar 25, 2021

It would be reasonable to assume that tonal languages, which already rely on changes in pitch to distinguish between words don't have stress or meter since those functions also involve volume, length, and even pitch. This assumption would be incorrect however. While it is true that these features are less relevant than in certain non-tonal languages, stressed syllables have been found in Mandarin for example by utilizing change in the fundamental frequency of the pitch (i.e. the swing in pitch of one individual tone) greater than that of the unstressed syllable, which would therefore have a more narrow change in pitch by itself.