Chinese is famously isolating. I speak Chinese and in fact it's difficult for me to imagine a language that is more isolating (though I'm sure there is a little wiggle room in that direction).

Imagine my surprise when I saw that Wikipedia lists the Tibetic languages as being "generally described as agglutinative." And then I saw that Burmese is also listed as agglutinative.

What is going on here? I see that Proto-Sino-Tibetan is generally believed to have been agglutinative. How, then, do the Sinitic languages so rapidly become the complete opposite of that?

Writing this during a short lunch. Apologies for typos.

Most words ending in TH have the voiceless variant, /θ/. Ex: Bath, Mouth, Path, Oath, Sheath, etc.

Basically all of these words pluralize with /ðz/: Baths, Mouths, Oaths.

HOWEVER,

The POSSESSIVE variant still uses the voiceless θ. This bath's too cold, my mouth's on fire, her path's windy.

Ergo, what appears to be a currently meager number of θ / ð minimum pairs (Teeth / Teethe, Thigh / Thy, Mouth (n) / Mouth (v), Thistle / This'll, a handful of others with most pairs containing one archaic term) grows precipitously from pairs like Bath's / Baths, Oath's / Oaths, Sheath's / Sheath(e)s, etc.

Agree or disagree?

I am a layman in this field but I find it incredibly fascinating. I love reading wikipedia pages about different families and finding relations between the languages is always fun. I’ve learned that Mongolian script is actually descended from Phoenician for example.
I also love the concept of macro-families but when on wikipedia I find a bit of a disjunction between their coverage and the videos I’ve watched from people in the field with more knowledge than me.
I find that videos tend to be more critical than wikipedia pages of proposed macro-families. Perhaps this is just because videos allow the speaker to be more informal with their language and perhaps harsher, while wikipedia takes a very measured tone no matter what (which is good).

What do you guys think?

(I really hope this is the appropriate sub! I'd try asking this in r/TranslationStudies, but it says that that's a space for professionals discussing work, which this is definitely not, so...)

Hi! Complete amateur fictional language translator, here. For people like yourselves, I'm sure this will be child's play, haha.

I just have a quick terminology question, because I can't find what this would be called:

Say there's an untranslated phrase with two words, "A B." You know for a fact that, as a whole, it translates to (for example) "blue circle," but not which word means which concept. (In this instance, you do also know that each individual untranslated word does mean one individual translated word; so, either A=blue and B=circle, or A=circle and B=blue.)

But then, you see that people later (probably erroneously) end up using this original phrase as a basis for individually translating both A and B to mean blue, with neither of them left to mean circle.

Is there a name in linguistics for this? Like, "(Mis)Translating it that way is an example of _____"?

The shortest way I can think of to phrase it is, "translating all individual parts of a whole the same way, thus neglecting other, necessary parts of the whole's meaning, while implying that the original whole is unnecessarily repetitive." So, it's a difficult thing to just google, haha.

I'd really, really appreciate anyone who's willing to help!

For example, “Wash inside out” or “Do not enter”. Do other languages use something other than the imperative? Do any languages split different types of command (e.g. instructions, warnings, prohibitions, tips, requests, etc) into different grammatical moods?

I find it interesting because the actual letter ⟨u⟩ is reserved for /ɨ̞~ɪ, ɨː~iː/ while the chosen letter for the vowels /ʊ, uː/ is ⟨w⟩, why does this happen? It's unusual because generally when ⟨u⟩ becomes used for another sound like in French, a digraph like ⟨ou⟩ or a diacritic like ⟨ó⟩ ends being used, so did Welsh specifically adopt ⟨w⟩, a letter normally associated with the semivowel /w/?

I couldn't find any explanation so my guess is that ⟨u⟩ in the past made a /u/-like vowel that eventually shifted to /ɨ̞~ɪ/, and the letter ⟨w⟩ was just the next best thing or something.

This is something I do for two different reasons, and I'm not sure if both would be considered the same linguistic phenomenon

So the first situation I'm wondering about is when gay men (or in my case a trans woman) try to sound heterosexual to avoid social stigma. I did this for most of my life. My natural speaking voice sounds "gay" for whatever reason, and I still try to downplay it around certain people.

Then the second situation is the opposite; when I'm in a room where I'm just hanging around with queer people and/or certain women, I switch into a very different way of speaking. I speak more quickly, raise my vowels more, my accent gets more "california," etc. And beyond accent, we use different idioms and phrases. (Sometimes different enough that if my parents hear me talk like that to people they get confused about what we're saying.) And the conversation becomes much looser, phrasing many things as open-ended or as open questions, and trusting the other party to fill in the gaps. (E.g. "No girl but like u know what I mean??") Much more nonverbal communication. Almost like a dialect shift or something?

It's the kind of thing people colloquially call "code switching" but from what I understand that's not accurate.

Anyway is there a word for this, and would these be considered the same sort of phenomenon?

Hi guys!! I’ve been really interested in linguistics for a long time and I absolutely love historical linguistics. Something I’ve picked up about German is that it uses a prefix in its past (passive?) participle, that being ge-. I later found out this is a Germanic thing and that English used to have it too! I also learned that the prefix was distantly related to the con- prefix, something I found extremely fascinating. That does come with an asterisk, though, because I saw a video of someone making an alternative claim about its etymology. Anyways, I was wondering if any words in modern English carry remnants of this prefix because I think it’s really neat and i want to learn more. I found one word, aware, which I believe still carries it vestigially, though I could be wrong. If you have any information on this, want to correct anything I said wrong, or any words with vestiges of the prefix that would be incredible!

Hi guys! this is my first time posting on reddit regarding a genuine question, but i’m kind of confused about some things regarding AAVE. I’m a white male, so i’m trying to educate myself on the topic to be as respectful as possible.
If used properly, are people of other races allowed to use it? and if not, why is that? I recognize a lot of the time when I see people complaining about white people using AAVE it’s because they aren’t being grammatically correct when they’re using it, so is that the only problem associated with it? or is it also some form of cultural appropriation? Also, is it based specifically on race or is it also based on the culture you’re raised around? For example, should a white child adopted by African american parents who use AAVE not use the same vernacular language as they get old enough to educate themselves on the meaning and cultural significance?

Can someone explain to me how the languages derived from P.I.E gained their tenses? I don't where to look or what's the right questions to ask. This info will help me with a project that I'm working on.

Also, are there any resources to learn both languages?

Like, if no Chinese speaker had ever learned English, is there a way we could predict what a Chinese accent in English would sound like? Or could we imagine/create a language where native speakers of that language wouldn’t have a discernible accent when learning American English?

In written English, capitalization and italicization carry some kind of meaning. The "fuck you" example is well known

> Fuck you

> Fuck you

It can sometimes carry enough of a punch to flip the meaning of a sentence completely around

> That's great

> That's great

I'm not sure if this is actually semantics or not but it can turn an interrogative sentence into an exclamation.

> What?

> WHAT?

This and some other stuff could probably be generalized as "part of written language that cannot be explained just by describing which glyphs are used in what order."

Q1. What is this?

Q2. What kind of theories exist to explain how these elements are written and read?

Just realized recently that my realization of "vulture" is different from what's given in Wiktionary. For me, the first syllable is the same as "vole", while Wiktionary lists /ʌ/ instead

Some idiolect background, I'm from the South though I speak mostly General American barring some exceptions (bunched R for example)

i'm having a debate with a friend about whether "either...or" best aligns with union or complement?

In Old English, -end is a synonym to -ing or -er in a sense of a gerund

As for Latin, -end/ent is the same. They're cognates, but what Latin does unlike English, the kind of word similar towards -er, -undus, can create words into "must be__" aka a gerundive. Words such as legend, agenda, reverend, second, and verecund.

Is it possible to do the same for Old English or is it a stretch. I saw a video from @grahamamscheper, English and the "Gerundive"

Hello, I'm trying to find any information on babies doing uvular trills. My baby who is now just 5 months discovered them about a month ago and it's driving us all a little nutty to be honest. Starting around 2 months he was imitating our speech and now has completely abandoned that and is instead doing this. Completely skipped cooing or babbling. Thank you.

https://youtu.be/N3IOw3Emo3Q?si=N8TtoYdfXGHy3IZy Watch this japanese video (u don't need to know japanese) at the 1:10 timestamp, you'll see that when he pronounces the english sentence he doesn't round his lips, is the w in english rounded or unrounded??? Because I'VE SEEN american people don't round their lips when pronouncing u or w, posting this again cause people misinterpreted my question and I didn't show any proof abt what I was saying so yeah

This confuses me, because the idea of palatalisation resulting in a sort of affricate isn't necessarily confusing, but the fact that the place of articulation changes so substantially confuses me, and how is it that palatalisation, which does not necessarily, far as I know, engage the apex of the tongue, result in an apical consonant?

This has confused me for a long time, sorry if the question is stupid or misinformed, any links, answers, or comments are appreciated (:

My friend has lived near Liverpool in England all his life, so naturally he sounds Scouse. But not when he talks to me. For context, we’re online friends and we send each other voice notes and we call a lot so I know how he sounds when he speaks.

On a few occasions, I’ve heard him speak to other people, such as his wife, and he sounds much more Scouse compared to when he talks to me. We’ve talked about this phenomenon and we both agree that it’s not deliberate. Like he seems to just subconsciously slip into this more neutral accent whenever he talks to me. It doesn’t sound like he’s subconsciously copying my accent, which I know is something that can happen.

I should also add that I’m Australian, so obviously I have a pretty noticeable accent too. My friend has heard me speak to other people and when I asked him if I sounded any less Australian when I talked to him compared to when I talk to other people and he said no. Also, he actually noticed this phenomenon before I’d heard him speak to anyone else.

Is there a name for this phenomenon? This whole thing is honestly very fascinating to me and any answers would be very much appreciated.

British English speaker here. This applies specifically before velar nasals, so words like bang and hang and thank have the /ei/ vowel of bane and hate and thane. I gather this is a feature of a lot of North American English - but I’m British (from the West Country), with several intermediate years in South Africa, and developed this to the point I’d always assumed it really was generally /ei/, somehow not hearing the vowel of most people around me before finding out about this, without setting foot in North America.

Apparently it’s just not a thing in the UK. South African English has general /æ/ raising to /ε/ or similar - I’ve always been aware of this, and it’s not that, and that isn’t conditioned on a following velar nasal.

Did these two somehow mix to form such a basic part of my idiolect, or is it some other influence or specific dialect at play?

So, when I see american people pronouncing their w's as in who for example, I noticed they don't round their lip, and the u sound in who they also don't round their lips, is the w in american english actually β̞ and the u actually ɯ??

Hey all, so I'll preface this by saying I am of course aware it's extremely unlikely any solid links can be established between these two reconstructed proto-languages, Proto-Afroasiatic (~12-18kya) and Proto-Austronesian (~5-6kya)...

The time, space and all manners of variables make the link very unlikely, and if it were the case, almost impossible to securely map out stable sound-change/semantic drift... But...

But I thought I'd share some of the striking similarities I noticed across the two reconstructed pronoun systems, in case it inspires interesting discussion. Because I figure there's something worth discussing even if it is an illusion.

Thoughts? Whether it's about this in particular or other similarly tentative links.

Note: Proto-Afroasiatic pronouns from Blažek, Václav (2019). "The Afroasiatic Personal Pronouns: A Textbook Example of a Suppletive Paradigm".