MetaFilter posts tagged with linguistics

Goodbye, "Leih Hou Ma," Hello "Ni Hao Ma!"

zarq — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:57:09 -0800

"Chinatown" communities across the United States (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco) are undergoing a shift in linguistic identity, as recent immigrants are more likely to natively speak Mandarin (the official spoken language of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan,) instead of Cantonese. Also see these anecdotal reports about similar changes in Vancouver and Oakland, CA. Good news for the tri-literate: signs like this may soon become commonplace. :) The Language Atlas of China The PopUp Chinese Podcast and Arch Chinese site provide basic Mandarin lessons. Also see: Mango, ZhongWen and LiveMocha

With a little persistence... and Verner's Law!... you can tackle most any problem.

languagehat — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:12:43 -0800

Verner's Law. Ari Hoptman (his website) explains early Germanic sound laws to his young friend Frankie, who has tossed aside his copy of Braune’s Gothic grammar in disgust. If you want to know what makes historical linguists tick, this is a great way to find out. Warning: links to seven-minute YouTube with two sequels; disclaimer: I myself have a copy of Braune’s Gotische Grammatik within arm’s reach and I have spent time reading the Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung, so I may be especially susceptible to jokes about William Jones, the Brothers Grimm, and Danish linguists. (Via Wordorigins.org, and I will quote Dave Wilton's warning about the third segment: "This last video gets pretty dry, so unless you are really interested in the mechanisms of consonant shifts in early Germanic languages, you may want to skip ahead to the last two minutes.")

Keeping Celtic languages alive on TV and the Web

joeclark — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:21:14 -0800

Since 1980, the Celtic Media Festival has brought together people who broadcast, and now Webcast, in Celtic languages. Videoblog Gwagenn.TV provides a report (with autoplaying video) from the 2009 festival whose clips and interviews are spoken and subtitled variously in Breton, French, English, Welsh, Scots Gaelic and Irish, Catalan, and Basque, not all of which are actually Celtic. Special feature: Man-on-man kiss during Catalan soap opera. (Poke around at Gwagenn.TV and you’ll find such amusements as a rocket launch carried out entirely in Breton with Beastie Boys soundtrack, an interview with an Occitan-language reggae band subtitled in Breton [Flickr snippet], and a report from a Manx-language workshop.)

Keeping it real

fcummins — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:38:19 -0800

Linguists and Missionaries often find themselves in similar situations. The Jesus Film Project. Sample video The sample video has voice over in Kilega. If you want any recordings or texts in Kilega, they are more than likely from missionaries. Is this a pernicious effect of religion on language, or should we see it as a simple fact, that languages spread through religious channels?

500 constructed languages.

escabeche — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:03:14 -0800

Amabil amico, Con grand satisfaction mi ha lect tei letter de le mundolingue. Arika Okrent, author of the new book In The Land of Invented Languages, lists 500 constructed languages, from the well-known (Esperanto, Volapuk, Loglan) to the utterly obscure (Neulatein, Rosentalographia, Mundolingue.) MetaFilter's own languagehat reviews the book. Okrent writes about Klingonophones in Slate. Alternatively, you might choose to learn not to speak Esperanto. Previously on MetaFilter, all you wanted to know about Loglan/Lojban but were too syntactically ambiguous to ask.

Entropic Evidence for Linguistic Structure in the Indus Script

homunculus — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:05:24 -0800

Scholars at odds over mysterious Indus script. The Indus script is the collection of symbols found on artifacts from the Harappan civilization, which flourished in what is now eastern Pakistan and western India between 2,600 and 1,900 B.C. A new analysis using pattern-analyzing software suggests that the script may constitute a genuine written language. [Via]

On language and locations.

sarabeth — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:23:20 -0800

The Dictionary of American Regional English is nearing completion.

The linguistics of color-blind racism

lunit — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:16:20 -0800

As the Jim Crow overt style of maintaining white supremacy was replaced with “now you see it, now you don’t” practices that were subtle, apparently non-racial, and institutionalized, an ideology fitting to this era emerged... -The Linguistics of Color-Blind Racism.

Death of the dirty word

weapons-grade pandemonium — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:43:14 -0800

Why would an evolutionary biologist study words? It turns out there is an astonishing parallel between the evolution of words in a lexicon and the evolution of genes in an organism. The word two, for example, has been around much longer than most, and will likely be with us for millennia, whereas the comparatively rare and recent word dirty has undergone many mutations, and will probably be extinct in a few hundred years. Professor Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading, UK, tells us why on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's program As It Happens. Pull slider to 16:00 to start the seven minute interview.

Michael Jackson, Manu Dibango, Rihanna in copyright infringement?

joeclark — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:08:24 -0800

“Mamase mamasa mamamakusa” or “Mamaku mamasa makumakusa”? Michael Jackson is sued for copyright infringement – again – by Cameroonian singer Manu Dibango (Flash homepage with autoplaying audio). Dibango’s Duala-language original phrase mutated into something else (Swahili?) in “Wanna Be Starting Somethin’.” They settled out of court – but then Jackson licensed that phrase to Rihanna, a right that Dibango claims Jackson never had. PRI’s The World podcast (and sibling The World in Words) cover the topic, quizzing a copyright lawyer and playing snippets from all three songs.

The Gawain Project

Effigy2000 — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:18:46 -0800

The Gawain Project is an ongoing translation of the late 14th century anonymous poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (originally written in Middle English) into Modern English, for the amusement of Arthurians and anyone who likes a good story. [via mefi projects]

Digital Research Tools PayDiRT

Rykey — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:45:01 -0800

Digital Research Tools (DiRT) is a wiki created by Lisa Spiro, director of Rice University's Digital Media Center. Tons of "snapshot reviews of software that can help researchers" are categorized by what you're trying to accomplish ("Analyze Statistics," "Network With Other Researchers," "Search Visually"), as well as by general topic ("Authoring," "Linguistic Tools," "Text Analysis"). Via

Fridge magnets in seven scripts

joeclark — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 13:47:26 -0800

Fridge magnets in seven scripts – Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic, Korean, Arabic, Devanagari. “Memo: Pick up bread at store”

Everything you wanted to know about pre-Columbian Central America but were afraid to ask lest your heart get ripped out and offered to Quetzalcoatl

Kattullus — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 12:49:00 -0800

The Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies is your one-stop shop for pre-Columbian Central America awesomeness. There are so, so many wondrous things on that site, I don't quite know where to begin. I suppose John Pohl's scholarly introduction is a natural place to start. But maybe you just don't have time to read anything and just want to dive into pretty, pretty pictures. Perhaps the most user-friendly databases are Justin Kerr's photographs Maya Vases (e.g. 1, 2, 3) and Pre-Columbian Portfolio (e.g. 1, 2a, 2b, 3). From there you can delve into the collection of Linda Schele's photographs (e.g. 1, 2) and drawings (e.g. 1, 2, 3). There are more image databases but let me direct you to the collection of old Maya, Aztec and Mixtec books which are simply stunning (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4 [last link pdf]). You can read more about Mayan and Mixtec codices and download high resolution versions of the entire books. There are also Maya dictionaries, glyph guides, linguistic maps and a who's who. There is also classic Mayan and Aztec poetry in translation. I'm telling you, that's not even half of what this amazing site has to offer.

John Lee Hooker and the fine art of translation

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:11:11 -0800

You know, I want you to pick up on this. You know, these lyrics are something else. Just dig this. Yeah, whoever put those subtitles on that clip was... um, shall we say, not listening? Let's take a look at that one more time: "Now, I want you to pick up on this" = "Now I want you to pick upon this." "You know, these lyrics are something else." = "Your delirious is something else." "Just dig this." = "This did this."... Knuckleheads. Fortunately, some were listening a little more closely: the same introduction gets rather more accurate subtitles (albeit translated into French) in this clip. Well, whatever. Mainly it's just a great performance from a great bluesman. Here's more from the John Lee Hooker of the 1960s: The awesome, quiet power of Hobo Blues, plus Maudie and Tupelo. And a real treat: Hooker backed by the Muddy Waters band (!) at the Newport Jazz Festival of 1960. Just for reference (and a kick ass performance) here's the band with their usual leader at the same 1960 event in Newport, RI: Muddy Waters at Newport Festival 1960, Hoochie Koochie Man and Rollin' Stone.

A three-thousand-year-old ruin with its own web site

XMLicious — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:05:07 -0800

Archaeologists find a pottery fragment with the oldest known example of written Hebrew at the Elah Fortress_(YT) in Israel - or maybe not Phot os of the shard, video concerning the find specifically, other photos from the site, and if you speak Hebrew a 5-minute interview with one of the archaeologists Already sparking nasty words about Israeli-Palestinian land rights. At least the archaeologists haven't unearthed an unspeakable ancient horror too... yet! Follow the action and / or buy a t-shirt at http://www.elahfortress.com/.

metaphors be with you

nickyskye — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:18:07 -0800

Link found between physical and emotional warmth l Metaphors of the Mind: Why Loneliness Feels Cold and Sins Feel Dirty. "Our mental processes are not separate and detached from the body". Sensory metaphors l The Metaphor Observatory, top 10 metaphors of 2007.

“The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell.” –Ben Okri

iamkimiam — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:08:55 -0800

"Political content aside, the discussion provided a lovely example of how a term from literary theory has established itself in American political discourse." via Language Log

"We may expect the following. Language will be carefully crafted. Advertisements will focus on personal narratives. The campaign will employ “attack” advertisements that emotionally sway voters. Policy will be sketchy with vague descriptions that emotionally satisfy Americans while offering scant details. The emphasis will be on creating narratives that resonate with the values, beliefs, and identities of prospective voters."
– Literary Gulag, on Lakoff, Nunberg, Westen, and the narrative of the 2008 presidential election. "Party operatives have complained, again and again, about the absence of a compelling narrative. Stanley Greenberg, Democratic pollster, has credited Republicans with a “narrative that motivated their voters.” Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, has called for a “new narrative.” Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?, has acknowledged that Republicans have “captured the narrative of social class.” Robert Reich has stated that Republican success in “the art of political narrative” has “exiled Democrats from politics itself.” Or as James Carville, lead strategist for the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign has noted, “They produce a narrative, we produce a litany” (14), For more than thirty years, Nunberg contends, Republicans have diverted class resentments rooted in economic inequalities to debating “values,” thereby ensuring that moral issues become part of the “core vocabulary of American political discourse” (15-16)." And of course, what post would be complete without a Wikipedia link about this new word for the old story.

John Curran posts Great Diagrams in Anthropology, Linguistics, and Social Theory

puckish — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:39:57 -0800

Who said structuralism was dead? John Curran posts Great Diagrams in Anthropology, Linguistics, and Social Theory - an illustrated assortment of sociology's greatest hits, arranged neatly for your viewing pleasure.

What's nu?

Asparagirl — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:21:42 -0800

A linguist and a sociologist at Hebrew Union College have teamed up to track the inroads made into American English by words and idioms from traditionally Jewish languages, including Yiddish, Judeo-Arabic, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), and Hebrew. They've created an online survey and are looking for people from all religious and ethnic backgrounds to answer a few questions about their word choices, phrasing, and pronunciation. They're also trying to determine whether certain linguistic quirks usually attributed to Yiddish's influence are actually carried over from Jewish ancestors' speech patterns and accents, or whether they're merely an artifact from growing up in or near New York City. [via]

Ancient, Medieval and Classic Works

Kattullus — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:19:35 -0800

In Parentheses is a collection of many ancient, medieval and classic texts from all over the world, many of whom are hard to find anywhere, let alone on the internet. There are translations from Greek, Old Norse, Medieval Irish, Japanese, Incan, Old French, Medieval Latin and many more! As well as all that they have papers in medieval studies and vaguely decadent and orientalism series. Adding to that there's a linguistics section with wordlists and language flash cards in languages such as Icelandic, Quechua, Basque, Classical Armenian and a whole bunch more. [flashcard links go to pdf files]

Word Nerds

sluglicker — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:07:13 -0800

Silence! It's the opposite of speech. But that doesn't mean it communicates nothing. A show about the English language, And Sometimes Y was broadcast on CBC Radio One through December of 2007. Live internet broadcast for: Radio One (news and features) | Radio 2 (music)

Errin' USA

Rhaomi — Wed, 21 May 2008 21:54:20 -0800

Immediately, Herson spotted an offense—a second-floor awning outside a tarot shop that advertised "Energy Stone's." They climbed the stairs to the second floor and approached a middle-age women with a quizzical expression. "We happened to notice the sign for energy stones," Deck said, "and there happens to be an extra apostrophe. 'Stone's' doesn't need the apostrophe."

"And?" she asked, her voice flat with annoyance.

"And we wanted to bring it to your attention," Deck said.

A look inside the daring lives of Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson, vanguards of the Typo Eradication Advancement League.

Gab Zamgrh?

xthlc — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:32:08 -0800

Harmanz ha haz b bargan ahn za MMARBG Ahban Bahb [brahbazazzah ] ar zambahz. Zambahz haz AAGHZ g!bz gab azzar zambahz: a, b, g, h, m, n, r, z. Zambahz maz hab gab, za Zambahz zgrabbarh Zamgrh, a gab grh a gab bag, a grammah, n zhranzazzaz. Habganna barbaga zaarz grh za bra!nz?

it tore me up every time I heard her drawl

plexi — Fri, 02 May 2008 08:14:19 -0800

100% is pure Dixie. Someone has taken the Harvard Computer Society Dialect Survey to task in a vital area.