Search found 79 matches
- Fri Aug 05, 2011 4:37 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: "tsk tsk"
- Replies: 16
- Views: 3605
"tsk tsk"
Where does this phrase come from? Does it go back to PIE? There is a cognate in South Slavic languages (c c [ts ts]).
- Fri Jul 01, 2011 7:45 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Most & Least Changed Languages
- Replies: 30
- Views: 5705
Re: Most & Least Changed Languages
Depends on what you mean by "changed." If (like in your examples) you mean languages that have the highest loanword/native word ratio, then Hungarian is probably up there. Out of those that had undergone the most drastic sound changes, French is a classic example. Out of the languages that have unde...
- Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:24 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: natural "interlanguages"
- Replies: 19
- Views: 3842
Re: natural "interlanguages"
I've always parsed Bulgarian (phonologically, at least) as a mix of Serbo-Croat and Russian, with Serbo-Croat slightly dominant. For some reason it is the hardest South Slavic language for me to understand (while I speak relatively conversational Macedonian, and understand it almost perfectly...aren...
- Sat Jun 25, 2011 7:40 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: natural "interlanguages"
- Replies: 19
- Views: 3842
Re: natural "interlanguages"
[rant]
Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are not only based on the same language, they are based on a single dialect. Yes, people from back where I'm from call one dialect four separate languages (you forgot Montenegrin). Embarrassing, I know.
[/rant]
Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are not only based on the same language, they are based on a single dialect. Yes, people from back where I'm from call one dialect four separate languages (you forgot Montenegrin). Embarrassing, I know.
[/rant]
- Sat Jun 25, 2011 5:23 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: natural "interlanguages"
- Replies: 19
- Views: 3842
Re: natural "interlanguages"
I think that it would be more difficult for Germanic speakers as your languages have diverged more, whereas the various Slavic languages are still quite similar.I'm more interested in how I could have this work out with, say, a Dutch speaker, without using English.
- Sat Jun 25, 2011 5:22 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
- Replies: 3108
- Views: 640332
Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
I pronounce them how they're meant to be pronounced -- Standard American.
- Fri Jun 24, 2011 4:52 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: natural "interlanguages"
- Replies: 19
- Views: 3842
natural "interlanguages"
I am specifically talking about the "languages" that spontaneously arise when two people who speak related, but not entirely mutually comprehensible languages try to converse. Either speaker may have some knowledge of the others' language, but not up to fluency. Are there any rules that dictate the ...
- Sat Jun 18, 2011 9:53 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: lingua franca of the hanse
- Replies: 21
- Views: 4332
Re: lingua franca of the hanse
I wish standard German had Low German phonology with its current morphology intact.
- Mon Jun 13, 2011 7:09 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: lingua franca of the hanse
- Replies: 21
- Views: 4332
lingua franca of the hanse
What was the lingua franca of the hanseatic league (I assume a variety a low german)?
- Sun Jun 05, 2011 11:31 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Tone as grammatical marker rather than phonological
- Replies: 21
- Views: 5231
Re: Tone as grammatical marker rather than phonological
I think Serbo-Croat. has this, but I'm not really sure how pitch accent works. I think <u grad> (in the city/to the city) is in a different case depending on the tone, vs. [u~grad] (not sure of the notation either) or something.
- Sat Jun 04, 2011 4:39 pm
- Forum: C&C Archive
- Topic: A planet undergoing a runaway greenhouse effect
- Replies: 17
- Views: 4302
Re: A planet undergoing a runaway greenhouse effect
What I am saying is that a planet with large bodies of liquid water permanently on its surface is less likely to lose it due to a RGE. Probably because - as you typed earlier - the planet's star wouldn't yet be strong enough to strip the Hydrogen away. Yeah, this has been the biggest obstacle in cr...
- Fri Jun 03, 2011 2:44 pm
- Forum: C&C Archive
- Topic: A planet undergoing a runaway greenhouse effect
- Replies: 17
- Views: 4302
Re: A planet undergoing a runaway greenhouse effect
Chemical weathering does not lead to a greater production of CO2. The CO2 was always there. On Earth, we have less volcanic activity and more means of using the CO2 up. Venus never had that, so it never had to make up for a lack of CO2 to begin with. What we are seeing on Venus is probably the same...
- Wed Jun 01, 2011 7:29 pm
- Forum: C&C Archive
- Topic: A planet undergoing a runaway greenhouse effect
- Replies: 17
- Views: 4302
Re: A planet undergoing a runaway greenhouse effect
But if such an event were to occur, the loss of H2O would cause more immediate effects to life than a resultant runaway greenhouse effect. They'd die of thirst long before boiling. An advanced enough civilization that can store enough water underground (and create some kind of contained breathable ...
- Wed Jun 01, 2011 10:45 am
- Forum: C&C Archive
- Topic: A planet undergoing a runaway greenhouse effect
- Replies: 17
- Views: 4302
Re: A planet undergoing a runaway greenhouse effect
We know (or at least are pretty sure) that liquid water can't exist on Venus because of its proximity to the sun. But has that always been the case? The solar luminosity of the Sun has increased over its lifetime, perhaps when L was lower H2O could exist on the surface without evaporating. AFAIK th...
- Tue May 31, 2011 5:55 pm
- Forum: C&C Archive
- Topic: A planet undergoing a runaway greenhouse effect
- Replies: 17
- Views: 4302
A planet undergoing a runaway greenhouse effect
How long did it take for the runaway greenhouse effect to strip Venus of its hydrogen as its oceans boiled? What temperature was required for the water vapor feedback to enter a "runaway" stage (I'm assuming something over 100 degrees)? Did Venus have a "cold trap" in the tropopause before the ocean...
- Sat Apr 30, 2011 3:00 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: the "u" + acc (gen?) pronoun construction
- Replies: 9
- Views: 2394
Re: the "u" + acc (gen?) pronoun construction
Is your example a possessive construction, though? Unless the South Slavic equivalent "у мојој машини, у моју машину" means something completely different.The genitive. They only appear the same for animate nouns. You'd say у моей машины, not у мою машину, for instance.
- Sat Apr 30, 2011 2:41 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: the "u" + acc (gen?) pronoun construction
- Replies: 9
- Views: 2394
the "u" + acc (gen?) pronoun construction
Whence the Slavic tendency to say "in me X" for "I have X"? afaik this phenomenon occurs in all branches, being most obvious (to me) in Russian and documented but archaic/dialectal in South Slavic.
(Also, is the genitive or accusative pronoun used? They look the same.)
(Also, is the genitive or accusative pronoun used? They look the same.)
- Sat Apr 16, 2011 4:26 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Need thesis ideas
- Replies: 29
- Views: 4829
Re: Need thesis ideas
Ah, the humanities...My major is "Global Studies" or International Relations in normal people speak, but I can make a conlang for my Honors Thesis.
- Mon Apr 11, 2011 2:31 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Germanic conditional clauses and English
- Replies: 10
- Views: 2282
Germanic conditional clauses and English
Afaik, you can only form conditional sentences in English with the word if = (O.E gif ). Was there ever a point where the word when could be used in English to have a conditional meaning in addition to the temporal meaning c.f. German wenn ? Also, does gif have any modern/past cognate in non-Anglic ...
- Fri Mar 18, 2011 11:49 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: dlya
- Replies: 4
- Views: 1951
dlya
What's the derivation of this word? As a South Slavic speaker, it sounds very strange, and since Russian already has "za" I don't see the point.
- Tue Mar 15, 2011 9:46 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Sociolinguistics?
- Replies: 2
- Views: 1520
Sociolinguistics?
What do sociolinguists actually study? Do they utilize any models to represent sociolinguistic phenomena (whatever they may be)?
- Fri Mar 04, 2011 4:24 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: modern German declension
- Replies: 10
- Views: 2217
modern German declension
So the distinctions between cases in German are made mostly by articles, right? Is there a name for this phenomenon? At what stage in the development of the language did it arise? Are there any parallels in other Germanic languages?
- Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:31 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Gallo-Italian plurals
- Replies: 17
- Views: 3920
Gallo-Italian plurals
According to this Wikipedia article, the feminine plural in Gallo-Italian is derived from the Latin accusative plural, while the masculine plural is derived from the Latin nominative plural. Are there any examples of this in other Romance languages?
- Wed Feb 09, 2011 6:20 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Schleicher's Fable
- Replies: 16
- Views: 7898
Re: Schleicher's Fable
To my Slavic ears, the Proto-Slavic sounds like Lithuanian. It's fun to pick out words I understand in a Baltic-language text, even though the branches diverged (I think?) 3,000 years ago. A couple of times I was able to decipher entire sentences in Lithuanian, armed only with my knowledge of South ...
- Tue Jan 25, 2011 1:44 pm
- Forum: Languages & Linguistics
- Topic: Slavic diminutives?
- Replies: 2
- Views: 1290
Slavic diminutives?
I've noticed that in the sort of pan-Slavic pidgin my Russian, Macedonian and Ukrainian friends and I have developed out of necessity, the word for "shorter girl" is маленкa. Which Slavic language has the diminutive suffix -enka?