Languages - Blog Posts

hello! do u have any linguistic podcasts/lectures/articles to recommend ? if yes will send a mental daisy bouquet as a thank u 👩‍🚀👩‍🚀

yes i do<3!! here are some articles/books/short stories ive enjoyed in recent memory :’)

Fruits We'll Never Taste, Languages We'll Never Hear: The Need for Needless Complexity -- a favorite essay of mine <3

Pink Trombone -- this is an interactive mouth sounds simulator; you can click and drag to adjust different parts of the supralaryngeal vocal tract as well as pitch and hear how it affects the sound :+) 

The Imitation of Consciousness: On the Present and Future of Natural Language Processing -- REALLY good 

Alberto Bruzos (2021): ‘Language hackers’: YouTube polyglots as representative figures of language learning in late capitalism, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2021.1955498 

To Speak of the Sea in Irish

The Library of Babel -- short story by borges, really fucking good 

Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red & Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictée -- these last two books are maybe the least directly related to linguistics but they engage with language in ways that. Are . <33333 

Open Access Resources on Language and Linguistics

Poems by Richard Kenney (if you are interested in “language origins, the cognitive basis of poetic forms, magical reasoning, and the Darwinian lives of subliterary species such as jokes, riddles, proverbs, charms, spells, nursery rhymes and weather-saws”)

&& @ everyone do add on if you have any u want to share !!  

Western Zodiac Signs in MANDARIN CHINESE:

Aries:  白羊座 (báiyángzuò)

Taurus:  金牛座 (jīnniúzuò)

Gemini:  雙子座 (shuāngzǐzuò)

Cancer:  巨蟹座 (jùxièzuò)

Leo:  獅子座 (shīzǐzuò)

Virgo:  室女座 (shìnǚzuò)

Libra:  天秤座  (tiānchèngzuò)

Scorpio:  天蝎座 (tiānxiēzuò)

Sagittarius:  射手座 (shèshǒuzuò)

Capricorn:  摩羯座 (mójiézuò)

Aquarius:  水瓶座 (shuǐpíngzuò)

Pisces:  雙魚座 (shuāngyúzuò)

Sources: x  x

Language Learning Stats

*Different resources give slightly different answers, but in general, these are the results:

Elementary: 1,000 words

Intermediate: 3,000 words

Advanced: 6,000- 8,000 words

Highly educated native fluency: 25,000 words

CEFR Levels:

A1: 550 words

A2: 1100 words

B1: 2200 words

B2: 4400 words

C1: 8800 words

C2: 17600 words

1000 words

1000 words allow you to understand about 80% of the language which surrounds you, as long as it is not too specialized.

In theory, it sounds great. JUST 1000 words and you understand that much! Unfortunately, the remaining 20% is what really matters.

Just look at this sentence:

“I went to the … to buy …. but they told me that they can’t … .’

Sure, you understand a lot of words. But does it really help?

3000 words

3000 words allow you to understand about 95% of most ordinary texts (Hazenberg and Hulstijn, 1996).

It seems like a lot. Sure, on this level, you will be able to hold a decent conversation. You will also be able to get the general ideas and concepts of most of the articles.

BUT…general comprehension is not the same as full comprehension, as it involves some guessing.

Still, there is no shortage of enthusiasts who claim that such level is high enough to start picking up new words from context. However, researchers tend to disagree and say that the “magical” number of words which allows learning from the context is….(drum roll)

5000 words

5000 words allow you to understand about 98% of most ordinary texts (Nation (1990) and Laufer (1997)).  Such a vocabulary size warrants also accurate contextual guessing  (Coady et al., 1993; Hirsh & Nation, 1992; Laufer, 1997).

It means that you can function surrounded by this language without bigger problems. Sure, you will struggle if you want to formulate your thoughts really precisely, or when you encounter specialized vocabulary.

But other than that, you will be fine.

10,000 words

10,000 words allow you to understand about 99% of most texts (Nation (1990) and Laufer (1997)).

This is the pinnacle of language learning. A counterpart of having the vocabulary of a college graduate.

With that many words, you can express yourself with amazing precision and pass for a native speaker if your accent is good enough.

Wondering what are the most common words to start learning? Here's some help:

(total is about 600 words. add in some grammar and you're off to a great start!)

EXPRESSIONS OF POLITENESS (about 50 expressions)

‘Yes’ and 'no’: yes, no, absolutely, no way, exactly.

Question words: when? where? how? how much? how many? why? what? who? which? whose?

Apologizing: excuse me, sorry to interrupt, well now, I’m afraid so, I’m afraid not.

Meeting and parting: good morning, good afternoon, good evening, hello, goodbye, cheers, see you later, pleased to meet you, nice to have met.

Interjections: please, thank you, don’t mention it, sorry, it’ll be done, I agree, congratulations, thank heavens, nonsense.

NOUNS (about 120 words)

Time: morning, afternoon, evening, night; Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; spring, summer, autumn, winter; time, occasion, minute, half-hour, hour, day, week, month, year.

People: family, relative, mother, father, son, daughter, sister, brother, husband, wife; colleague, friend, boyfriend, girlfriend; people, person, human being, man, woman, lady, gentleman, boy, girl, child.

Objects: address, bag, book, car, clothes, key, letter (=to post), light (=lamp), money, name, newspaper, pen, pencil, picture, suitcase, thing, ticket.

Places: place, world, country, town, street, road, school, shop, house, apartment, room, ground; Britain, name of the foreign country, British town-names, foreign town-names.

Abstract: accident, beginning, change, color, damage, fun, half, help, joke, journey, language, English, name of the foreign language, letter (of alphabet), life, love, mistake, news, page, pain, part, question, reason, sort, surprise, way (=method), weather, work.

Other: hand, foot, head, eye, mouth, voice; the left, the right; the top, the bottom, the side; air, water, sun, bread, food, paper, noise.

PREPOSITIONS (about 40 words)

General: of, to, at, for, from, in, on.

Logical: about, according-to, except, like, against, with, without, by, despite, instead of.

Space: into, out of, outside, towards, away from, behind, in front of, beside, next to, between, above, on top of, below, under, underneath, near to, a long way from, through.

Time: after, ago, before, during, since, until.

DETERMINERS (about 80 words)

Articles and numbers: a, the; nos. 0–20; nos. 30–100; nos. 200–1000; last, next, 1st–12th.

Demonstrative: this, that.

Possessive: my, your, his, her, its, our, their.

Quantifiers: all, some, no, any, many, much, more, less, a few, several, whole, a little, a lot of.

Comparators: both, neither, each, every, other, another, same, different, such.

ADJECTIVES (about 80 words)

Color: black, blue, green, red, white, yellow.

Evaluative: bad, good, terrible; important, urgent, necessary; possible, impossible; right, wrong, true.

General: big, little, small, heavy; high, low; hot, cold, warm; easy, difficult; cheap, expensive; clean, dirty; beautiful, funny (=comical), funny (=odd), usual, common (=shared), nice, pretty, wonderful; boring, interesting, dangerous, safe; short, tall, long; new, old; calm, clear, dry; fast, slow; finished, free, full, light (=not dark), open, quiet, ready, strong.

Personal: afraid, alone, angry, certain, cheerful, dead, famous, glad, happy, ill, kind, married, pleased, sorry, stupid, surprised, tired, well, worried, young.

VERBS (about 100 words)

arrive, ask, be, be able to, become, begin, believe, borrow, bring, buy, can, change, check, collect, come, continue, cry, do, drop, eat, fall, feel, find, finish, forget, give, going to, have, have to, hear, help, hold, hope, hurt (oneself), hurt (someone else), keep, know, laugh, learn, leave, lend, let (=allow), lie down, like, listen, live (=be alive), live (=reside), look (at), look for, lose, love, make, may (=permission), may (=possibility), mean, meet, must, need, obtain, open, ought to, pay, play, put, read, remember, say, see, sell, send, should, show, shut, sing, sleep, speak, stand, stay, stop, suggest, take, talk, teach, think, travel, try, understand, use, used to, wait for, walk, want, watch, will, work (=operate), work (=toil), worry, would, write.

PRONOUNS (about 40 words)

Personal: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, one; myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.

Possessive: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs.

Demonstrative: this, that.

Universal: everyone, everybody, everything, each, both, all, one, another.

Indefinite: someone, somebody, something, some, a few, a little, more, less; anyone, anybody, anything, any, either, much, many.

Negative: no-one, nobody, nothing, none, neither.

ADVERBS (about 60 words)

Place: here, there, above, over, below, in front, behind, nearby, a long way away, inside, outside, to the right, to the left, somewhere, anywhere, everywhere, nowhere, home, upstairs, downstairs.

Time: now, soon, immediately, quickly, finally, again, once, for a long time, today, generally, sometimes, always, often, before, after, early, late, never, not yet, still, already, then (=at that time), then (=next), yesterday, tomorrow, tonight.

Quantifiers: a little, about (=approximately), almost, at least, completely, very, enough, exactly, just, not, too much, more, less.

Manner: also, especially, gradually, of course, only, otherwise, perhaps, probably, quite, so, then (=therefore), too (=also), unfortunately, very much, well.

CONJUNCTIONS (about 30 words)

Coordinating: and, but, or; as, than, like.

Time & Place: when, while, before, after, since (=time), until; where.

Manner & Logic: how, why, because, since (=because), although, if; what, who, whom, whose, which, that.

Quick Tips for Learning Languages on Your Own

Here are some mindsets and techniques that helped me study Italian on my own after classes ended. Hope this helps :)

Also, I’m trying out a new format for shorter posts–let me know what you think!

Text format below.

Keep reading

This is one of the reasons why I love beeing brazilian

I hate it when people are like, “well how do you know what they’re saying, you don’t speak Korean?” I don’t speak Spanish either, and I listen to Bad Bunny, I don’t speak Portuguese and I listen to Manu Gavassi! It doesn’t matter!!

Professor Bathsheda Babbling

Professor Bathsheda Babbling was a witch and professor of Study of Ancient Runes at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Professor Babbling is the only language teacher in Hogwarts.

Anciet Runes is more than only a language in the Wizardry World given its magical properties, but still...

"I mistranslated ehwaz... It means partnership, not defence; I mixed it up with eihwaz."

—Hermione Granger after her Ancient Runes O.W.L.

The Study of Ancient Runes (commonly shortened to Ancient Runes) is an elective course at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and presumably Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, that can be taken by students third year and above.

It was taught by Professor Bathsheda Babbling during the 1990s at least and it is the study of runic scriptures, or Runology. Ancient Runes is a mostly theoretical subject that studies the ancient runic scripts of magic.

Linguist in the Harry Potter Universe

Ok, so, when reconstructing natural proto-languages, those protolanguages are almost never attested. Historical Linguists are basically making educated guesses and throwing darts against a wall when making the Proto-Indo-European hypothesis, it was just that the evidence was so compelling that linguists (and, most humans) believe it. For all intents and purposes, it's a really good guess.

The issue with my conworld? Classical Zispoel and Proto-Ytosi-Itaush are still fully attested languages with exactly 2 and 1 native speakers each, all still technically living.

To make matters worse, Lozerief is kind-of a scientific genius, and Pagjom is the literal Hero of Language. Together, they could reconstruct Proto-Zispoel and see what a god-awful, horrifying shit-show it was.

The idea that my characters could derive my god-awful, good-for-nothing protolanguage is, somehow, deeply disturbing to me. I think they would realize they were in a simulation if they did that.

I’ve never read this book, I only watched the series on YouTube. I must read it at some point. David J. Peterson’s content on linguistics is immaculate.

I FOUND A BOOK

Look what we got from the library!!! Look at it! Look!

Now that we have The Book, there's no stopping us. You will all be drowning in words and grammar and scripts >:D

But seriously. If I had a flappy hands emoji, I'd be using it right now.

Day 13 (16 in base 7) of writing my novel again.

Today, in addition to adding about 700 words to Part Two, I also made a bunch of translations into Modern Ipol. I probably translated about two hundred words of English into Ipol, and I will post one snippit of it here:

Pijteshijv sispeen pijte sis Nistemiks sis Nurrif sis Leerf pifijz. Pijteshijv losr shise tismostijv sispeenes pijte sis leerfine sis koleerf pite, Ir Nusnijv, spuw's sis spine, por sisla's pijte sju sis koleerf ejr sotenaks sis Nistemiks piste.

Ipol is the language of the Hero of Life's Confederacy of Zeneste. It started as the dialect of the capital, Ir Nouzonif, where it diffused, becoming a standard language for Zeneste. It replaced Classical Zispoel as the language of government and official business one-hundred and fifty years ago.

A couple notes:

ij and uw are symbols for long i and long u respectively.

j before a vowel is the palatal glide /j/.

Nistemiks literally means "the states" but it's also the most natural translation for 'Zeneste.'

Maybe at a later date, I'll do a post that breaks down this translation, but that's all for now!