1415: Loanwords with Different Meanings Oct 26, 2018
Just because something is a loan word does not mean that it has the same meaning or at least connotations. This happens for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is because the original meaning is not relevant as a loanword, as is the case with 'kamikaze' (read more at the link). The Japanese meaning had nothing to do with war necessarily, but in English it got adopted to describe a military practice that had previously no single word to describe it. In other cases, words can gain or lose emotional meaning without being totally mistranslated. For instance, 'mensh' ('מענטש') in English refers to a good, commendable person, where as in Yiddish it only means 'person', with no innate quality implied, but often these loanwords are either misunderstood, or bilingual speakers use them for emotive effects and misinterpreted.
1414: V and W in Foreign Proper Nouns Oct 25, 2018
There are lots of Indonesian words with the letter V, but many of these are foreign loan words. Those that aren't, like the place-names 'Java' or 'Sri Vijaya' are natively pronounced with the V as the sound [w]. The name Java especially however gets mispronounced by English speakers due to the spelling, but the opposite is also true of words from, for instance, Polish and German wherein English speakers often pronounce W as a [v] even in proper nouns, like Warsaw, which is natively pronounced [varʂava].
1413: Rhoticity's Relationship with Vocality Oct 24, 2018
Rhoticity is defined as the quality of r "pronounced before a consonant...and at the ends of words" but this slightly problematic. The idea that in non-rhotic dialects r is not pronounced is only true in that an r is not articulated, but it is not completely deleted either. For instance, Standard British English is more vocalic than Standard American because rather than inserting a consonantal r, speakers of British English would simply lengthen the amount of time that the vowel is produced. This has the effect that the ratio of time spent producing vowels is higher in British English than American in general, so the perceived r is certainly noticeable, and does has an effect on pronunciation that would not otherwise be present.
1412: Why Languages Have More Consonants Oct 23, 2018
There is no innate rule or biological limitation, but languages will have more consonants than vowels. Even in extreme cases as with Andoke—a Columbian language—there are 10 consonants and 9 vowel qualities, which is still the majority. The reason for this, in part, can be seen in the fact that there are very few fronted rounded vowels (try moving your tongue in position saying 'tea' but round your lips as you would to say 'too'). This vowel, and others like it, do exist in other languages, but are sometimes difficult to distinguish, both by the listener, but also the speaker. Some languages have as few as 2 vowel qualities.
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1411: Indonesian Loanwords Oct 22, 2018
An estimated 42% of Indonesian loanwords are from Dutch, but some 21% come from English. The Dutch controlled Indonesia for 123 years so the first statistic makes sense, but no English speaking group has had that same ability. While it is true that it is often difficult to decipher whether loanwords are originally Dutch or English as these are both so similar, these English loanwords came almost exclusively from foreign media and a global emphasis on trade which is English-based. It is so useful that not only is it used for trade but vocabulary has also seeped its way into everyday speech.
1410: brute and guru Oct 21, 2018
It is not uncommon that certain pairs of sounds will replace each other over time in some etymologies. This tends to happen for instance between [b] and [p], but with enough time it is possible to have some shared etymology that hinges on [b] and [g]. For instance 'brute' is related through a Proto-Indo-European root to 'guru'. 'Guru' is from Sanskrit but cognates in other languages like the Ancient Greek βαρύς (barús) help to show some of the transitions over time. The relation between [t] and [ɾ] makes enough sense given that this happens in English (e.g. 'butt' with [t] but 'butter' with [ɾ] in American English). The [b]-[g] relationship is less typical but over enough time and across languages this is not so unsurprising to have big differences somewhere. It is really only a coincidence that in English 'guru' denotes a sort of expert but a 'brute' conveys insensibility or idiocy.
1409: brute and brutus Oct 20, 2018
1408: Development of Affirmation in Romance Languages
Latin doesn't really have a word for 'yes', and yet modern Romance language that descended from Latin do. In Spanish the word 'sí' and in Italian the very similar 'sì' also means 'yes', but the former comes from the Latin 'si' meaning 'if' and the latter derives from the Latin 'sīc (est)' meaning 'thus (it is)', so are therefore unrelated. Moreover, in French, 'oui' comes from 'hoc' meaning 'that', and moreover Occitan uses the word 'òc'; likewise the Portuguese 'isso' also comes from a Latin word for 'that', but a different one. In this way, Spanish and Italian's words for 'yes' sound the closest but are really not at all related. The etymology of the Romanian 'da' is debated, with some saying it is from a Slavic origin while others say it comes from the Latin 'ita' which means 'therefore'. As you can see, none are really from the same origin even though they (may) all be from Latin.
1407: Why People Use Phrases Oct 18, 2018
There are lots of reasons that people might use phrases, some of which may seem contradictory. People could use it to convey an idea quicker, but other phrases take longer to say; "a stitch in time saves nine" is longer to say than just "don't procrastinate" but moreover phrases like "he's cute as a button" are not only longer in total but actually build off the initial idea (i.e. here it could just be "he's cute". The difference is that the phrase conveys an image that might stick better in the listener's mind than to just state the concept, because language is fundamentally about conveying ideas and images, and the more colorful the better.
1406: Affirmation in Latin: Where is it? Oct 17, 2018
Many people who study Latin may not know the word for 'yes', but while Latin is not usually taught conversationally, that is not the reason why. Unlike in many languages now, Latin didn't have a distinctive exclamation or interjection for affirmation. Instead, people would reiterate the main verb to express agreement, or for an even greater effect would say 'etiam' meaning 'same'. This is why many Romance languages have very different words for 'yes', which will be explored tomorrow.
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1405: Pretzel and Bretzel Oct 16, 2018
Certain unaspirated sounds can often sound the same; there is no reason why why write 'stop' as such and not 'sdop', but they are are always remarkably similar. This is true of [t] and [d], [k] and [g], and [b] and [p], but all of these (though less [k] and [g]) therefore get confused over time. For instance, the word 'pretzel' is 'Bretzel' in Swiss-German, as it was in all german dialects before it was bastardized, as will inevitably happen to words over time. Originally this comes from the Latin 'bracchiātus' ("having branches or arms"). Notably, 'brachial' and 'brachiosaurus' also share this root, but all of these words have a [b].
1404: The Birds and the Bees Oct 15, 2018
Just because a phrase like "the birds and the bees"—as it relates to sex—does not have one definite origin does not mean the information we do have is useless. There are a plethora of theories as to where this expression comes from, but while the written sources date from the 17th to the 20th century, none of them use the phrase as it is said today, and instead may include ideas of birds or bees separately, or very vaguely; this is the nature of euphemism after all. But this is still useful because it is likely that this phrase, and many others, did not come from thin air, but would have developed gradually over time anyway.
1403: Standard Yiddish Oct 14, 2018
When the question of a standardized form of a language comes up, it is usually about nationalization. After all this is the reason most languages have a standard form, if they have one at all: most don't. However, there has never been a state run by Yiddish-speakers, and yet there is a "Standard Yiddish". Like with Standard British English or Standard American English, the majority of Yiddish speakers today do not speak the standard or "neutral" variety, and so this is somewhat controversial since this is what is taught when taught as a second-language usually, but unlike with the Englishes above, Standard Yiddish was created more as as amalgamation of features from a few major dialects. Even so, what is considered standard is based off of what was used for the majority of literature, as writing usually is a larger basis for what makes up a language's standard form than just speech.
1402: Difficulty with Phrases Oct 13, 2018
It is much harder to find the etymology from phrases as compared to individual words. In part this is because informal phrases don't show up as often in writing, but writing is the best—and historically only—way to record language. Moreover, because phrases are usually not as necessary as individual words, they often emerge suddenly out of only one language and can disappear easily, and unless the phrase comes from something like a book or a play, there won't be enough data to make a conclusion on origin. This does sometimes happen, but in the case of a phrase like "mind one's p's and q's" there may list several possibilities.
1401: Exceptions to Word Order: Mongolian
In discussions of word order, it might seem that there must be consistency for languages to be able to be categorized, but this is not always the case. Disregarding the fact that some languages don't have subjects (see more here), exceptions to word order still exist in many languages. These appear in English in some contexts, usually due to pronouns, and other Indoeuropean languages have small exceptions here and there, but in Middle Mongolian this was very different. In this language, the order consistently depended upon whether the subject was a noun or a pronoun; in the former case, the order was subject–object–predicate, but when the subject was a pronoun, the order was object–predicate–subject. This may be similar in concept to an ergative-absolutive language, but not quite the same.
1400: Other Voices: Mongolian Oct 11, 2018
Yesterday, it was discussed how there are other voices outside of just the active and passive for verbs. To understand these better, you can watch this video. However, Classical Mongolian has some extras in addition to one's discussed before. The reciprocal voice shows a relationship between two nouns that are both the agent and the patient (not quite the object) such as would be indicated by 'each other's' in "Adam and Billy cook each other's dinners". The other of these two is the cooperative voice which shows cooperation between two nouns, but this is very similar to the reciprocal voice or even just a plural verb in everything except the fact that there is a distinct suffix.
1399: Other Voices: Hebrew Oct 10, 2018
In the video published yesterday, the idea of the middle voice was discussed. However, while the passival this is the only way that the active and passive voices are subverted in English, many languages have other options. For instance, Hebrew and Ancient Mongolian both have 5 voices but not all of these are the same; they both have active, passive, and causative (i.e. the verb indicates causation) but Hebrew has what are called the intensive and reflexive voices to indicate intensive force on an object and indicate when a subject is an object as well (like in "he shaved") respectively. Ancient Mongolian has two others as well, but these will be discussed tomorrow.
1398: Mergers and Splits Oct 9, 2018
To describe differences in vowels among accents, people often will describe mergers and splits. A merger is when two sounds that began as distinct in certain context begin to sound the same. For instance, the so called PIN-PEN merger present in Southern American English means that the pronunciation of those two words that are distinct in Standard American English sound the same before a nasal sound. A split has the same effect, but the opposite chronology. The FOOT-STRUT split is now more common than the opposite, wherein the vowel in those two words sounds different, but originally these would have been the same.
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1397: Hypocorisms Oct 8, 2018
On this blog, there's been a great deal of discussion about diminutives, but these are usually historical, from other languages, only able to be applied to certain words, or all of the above. However, hypocorisms as they are called can be far more flexible. The term includes diminutive affixes like '-ling' in 'duckling' but also other alternate forms of words such as nicknames. For instance '-ie' or '-y' to the given name 'Rose' to make it 'Rosie' isn't exactly diminutive, and this is especially the case when names are reduced first, such as 'Jonathan' to 'John' to 'Jonny'. However, while these aren't proper diminutive suffixes, they are far more productive—i.e. they can be added to more words—than is the case for any other diminutive suffix in English at the moment.
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