Search found 106 matches

by Declan
Tue Apr 01, 2014 5:38 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: "Fore" as a nonstandard form of "before"
Replies: 14
Views: 3089

Re: "Fore" as a nonstandard form of "before"

linguoboy wrote:Yeah, I'm sure I say it occasionally, but not in the conscious way I say 'cause and 'till.
Till is probably slightly different as it is a word in its own right; it's only relatively recently that it has been reinterpreted as an abbreviation of until when it was actually the original word.
by Declan
Thu Jan 02, 2014 9:07 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: It's Irish, Jim, but not as we know it!
Replies: 17
Views: 4478

Re: It's Irish, Jim, but not as we know it!

linguoboy wrote:
marconatrix wrote:Wonder what was the source for this folly. muid rather than sinn (for 'we') marks it out as a Northern Irish dialect, I think.
I thought muid was the norm everywhere but Munster. Ó Siadhail gives muid for Cois Fhairrge.
Bar the Caighdeán, that's my experience.
by Declan
Thu Dec 12, 2013 12:56 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: It's Irish, Jim, but not as we know it!
Replies: 17
Views: 4478

Re: It's Irish, Jim, but not as we know it!

Edit: Wait, cearta could be ceárta "forge ( n .)", in which case this would read, "We need iron to forge weapons for the war." (Correct: Tá gá againn le hiarann chun airm a ghaibhniú mar gheall ar an chogadh. ) That had me totally stumped; well done! I've heard my fair share of bad Irish but that h...
by Declan
Mon Dec 09, 2013 5:43 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Bilingual puns!
Replies: 11
Views: 3860

Re: Bilingual puns!

Bad one in Irish
Pronounced similarly to "Please" (Más é do thoil é).

The infamous school French joke of the French and English cats called, "Un deux trois" and "One two three" respectively who have a swimming race. The English cat wins, because Un Deux Trois Cat Sank.
by Declan
Wed Dec 04, 2013 5:57 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Unintelligible dialects of your language - post examples ITT
Replies: 39
Views: 9225

Re: Unintelligible dialects of your language - post examples

Also: there's a place in Northern Ireland called Tyrone? wat It's that odd? It would seem like one of the more normal (as in, English-like) Irish placenames to me! How alive is Cajun French? Are there still substantial numbers of people who speak it natively going back generations? Wiki tells me 26...
by Declan
Sun Dec 01, 2013 4:18 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Unintelligible dialects of your language - post examples ITT
Replies: 39
Views: 9225

Re: Unintelligible dialects of your language - post examples

Most English accents are accessible to me including most Scottish accents if the diction and speaker is clear; however Northern Irish and Scottish accents can get me, most recently a young guy from Tyrone who happened to speak rather fast, I had to ask him to repeat things quite a lot.
by Declan
Fri Aug 16, 2013 7:36 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Con-Programming Languages
Replies: 25
Views: 7977

Re: Con-Programming Languages

I have thought about this since I have been planning making a conworld with advanced technology. I have always wondered what a programming language made by speakers of a polysynthetic language would look like. I really like that idea, though I find it hard to see how it influence: I suppose it coul...
by Declan
Fri Aug 16, 2013 7:22 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Narrow vs Thin
Replies: 18
Views: 4927

Re: Narrow vs Thin

Negative spaces? To me (same as Zompist with different wording I think), thin is a measure of thickness or the depth of an object, while narrow is a measure of the width of an object (I originally thought the spatial extent in general, but a tall book is distinctly different to a narrow book). Verti...
by Declan
Thu Jun 14, 2012 6:12 pm
Forum: None of the above
Topic: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path
Replies: 1058
Views: 221552

Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Avo wrote:Adelheid. I've always had the same problem.
Funny, that doesn't look right. I even looked it up beforehand in Google and found that, but didn't believe myself. Must be that then!
by Declan
Thu Jun 14, 2012 9:47 am
Forum: None of the above
Topic: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path
Replies: 1058
Views: 221552

Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

I had this same problem with the movie "Lesbian Vampire Killers". And believe me, that movie would have been 100 times better if it were lesbians who killed vampires rather than men who killed lesbian vampires. I have that problem with a German TV series whose precise German name I can't think of b...
by Declan
Fri Jun 08, 2012 6:46 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: On the Inflection of Numbers
Replies: 17
Views: 3727

Re: On the Inflection of Numbers

Both me and Dewrad have explained this before elsewhere with examples, but I'll give you a brief explanation: allophonic sound change across word boundaries. Sometimes this was caused by a cluster (/t/ + /k/ > /x/): ni chenaist 'you did not sing' comes from older nit cenaist or something older. Som...
by Declan
Fri Jun 08, 2012 1:01 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: On the Inflection of Numbers
Replies: 17
Views: 3727

Re: On the Inflection of Numbers

(See also aon fhear > aonar "alone".) I'd heard the cúig fhear -> cúigear but never thought of aonar as being derived from aon fhear even though it's considerably more obvious! By the way, when did those two branches (Brythonic and Goidelic?) split, or is this a sort of contested issue? Also, is th...
by Declan
Fri Jun 08, 2012 8:54 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: On the Inflection of Numbers
Replies: 17
Views: 3727

Re: On the Inflection of Numbers

In Irish, certain types of words always are in singular when being counted (aon bhád amháin, dhá bhád, trí bhád, ...), others have a historical dual form (aon mhuc amháin, dhá mhuic, trí mhuc), others have a special form that's used with more than three (so aon bhliain amháin, dhá bhliain, trí blian...
by Declan
Thu May 03, 2012 3:05 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Not Speaking Native Language/Dialect?
Replies: 44
Views: 7971

Re: Not Speaking Native Language/Dialect?

Hey, Declan, might you have any living relative *that you know* that still has some knowledge of Irish? Not as a native language. As I say, my mother and aunt speak Irish fluently (in my mother's case, she's very rusty, mixes up French and Irish these days), but it's learned, and in my older aunt's...
by Declan
Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:55 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Not Speaking Native Language/Dialect?
Replies: 44
Views: 7971

Re: Not Speaking Native Language/Dialect?

I don't actually know when my ancestors lost Irish as a native language, or how exactly that transition occurred. Certainly my grandparents were English monolinguals and spoke no Irish (well, obviously their English was more influenced by Irish than mine would be, but they couldn't speak Irish as a ...
by Declan
Mon Apr 16, 2012 1:42 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Learning curve: (dis)similar languages
Replies: 28
Views: 5320

Re: Learning curve: (dis)similar languages

2) It's easier to learn a language that isn't (very) similar to what you already know. (I.e. Spanish / English, German / French) I never really understood the "too similar" argument. Even in the initial stages of language learning, I never had any trouble from interference. Other than that, I think...
by Declan
Sun Apr 01, 2012 9:09 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: What writing systems do you know
Replies: 102
Views: 15205

Re: What writing systems do you know

It's just the way you hold the pen and paper. I have the paper at 270°, and hold the pen in such a way that my entire hand is always "below" the line I'm writing on, and I can write in both directions without smudging or blocking what I've just written. Agreed. The issue is poor teaching (or lack o...
by Declan
Sun Dec 25, 2011 7:46 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: French T/V Confusion
Replies: 21
Views: 3276

Re: French T/V Confusion

The only German-speaking environment I've worked in, everyone used "du", but that was artificial and in Ireland so it's not exactly relevant. The lecturer issue is interesting. I've always used "Doctor .../Prof. ..." unless I was specifically told not to, just as I still refer to my school teachers ...
by Declan
Mon Dec 19, 2011 7:27 pm
Forum: None of the above
Topic: Language of histories
Replies: 1
Views: 1774

Language of histories

I've just heard a fascinating talk on Irish and the different information available in English media and in Irish media (the programme from the 16th of Glór Anoir ). One thing that has always infuriated me, that he also mentions, is that it's almost impossible to find a history of Irish people and t...
by Declan
Tue Nov 15, 2011 8:57 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues
Replies: 144
Views: 20125

Re: Terrible attempts by English speakers at foreign tongues

It's his co-native language, so I would certainly hope it was more than "okay". Really? He definitely sounded like he had at least some experience with the language, but it certainly did not sound native Well his parents were German, but he grew up in Ireland in Kerry. Though from the reactions I'v...
by Declan
Fri Nov 04, 2011 12:55 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Judgment Tests
Replies: 32
Views: 5363

Re: Judgment Tests

" That's the kind of thing [that] people would find weird if they saw you doing. " As with the others I'd use a resumptive pronoun. An alternative is "That's the sort of thing that if people saw you doing it, they'd find it weird." I'd find that version more awkward that the version with the pronou...
by Declan
Mon Oct 31, 2011 11:33 am
Forum: None of the above
Topic: What are you listening to? -- Non-English Edition
Replies: 1735
Views: 352076

Re: What are you listening to? -- Non-English Edition

Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin:
Amhrán an Ghaeilgeora Mhóir: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dOFOcKK0Lo
Tá Mamaí sa Chistin and Preab san Ól.

Mo Hat, mo Gheansaí:
Ní tú mo ghrá: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U0qInRO ... re=related
by Declan
Mon Oct 31, 2011 11:05 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Sometimes-Crossed Letters
Replies: 89
Views: 13344

Re: Sometimes-Crossed Letters

Might as well try my scanner! For German, Irish and French they're a quotations from songs I like, my nu and upsilon didn't really come out properly. I normally use the first r, I occasionally (and more in the past), used the other r. T and F have a few variations. The heights of my letters seemed t...
by Declan
Sun Oct 30, 2011 3:33 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Sometimes-Crossed Letters
Replies: 89
Views: 13344

Re: Sometimes-Crossed Letters

Greek reminds me of some mathematical symbols, I've been having some problems when partial derivatives, and vector rhos in my handwriting recently, and having lots of unit vectors, I've lots of things with ^ above them and ~ below them. I think I've it pretty much sorted now, drawing the delta for p...
by Declan
Sun Oct 30, 2011 8:03 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Sometimes-Crossed Letters
Replies: 89
Views: 13344

Re: Sometimes-Crossed Letters

I cross z when it looks like z or Z, if it looks like a 2 with a tail then I don't ( e.g. ). 7 always gets a cross from me, 1 is always a vertical line (though there's a Brazilian I know that draws it like L, because he's supposed to be drawing a serif at the top and a horizontal line at the bottom,...