Search found 25 matches

by awer
Sun Jun 17, 2018 10:10 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Japanese N
Replies: 1
Views: 3649

Japanese N

Since I read Old Japanese only had open syllables, what does the Modern syllabic /N/ derive from? Any examples?
by awer
Sat Jun 02, 2018 8:07 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Is German/Japanese sentence structure natural?
Replies: 10
Views: 31600

Is German/Japanese sentence structure natural?

I mean, say, a sentence like "I saw two women arguing about which of them was fatter" in Japanese would be somethig like the reverse of English, i.e. "them of fatter was which arguing two women I saw", right? So I find it weird that they start the sentence with the smallest, trivial almost, details ...
by awer
Sat Jun 02, 2018 8:07 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Is German/Japanese sentence structure natural?
Replies: 0
Views: 1615

Is German/Japanese sentence structure natural?

I mean, say, a sentence like "I saw two women arguing about which of them was fatter" in Japanese would be somethig like the reverse of English, i.e. "them of fatter was which arguing two women I saw", right? So I find it weird that they start the sentence with the smallest, trivial almost, details ...
by awer
Tue Nov 28, 2017 2:30 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: How to make a spelling without diacritics?
Replies: 24
Views: 6340

Re: How to make a spelling without diacritics?

e.g. "x" in maybe the most popular alternative orthography for Esperanto. I never understood how an auxlang could have so many diacritics AND leave out latin that could be used instead. "ĉ" could be spelt as "q", "ĝ" as j, "j" as "y", "ĥ" - does anyone even hear the difference between ĥ and h? Are ...
by awer
Sat Nov 25, 2017 6:51 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: How to make a spelling without diacritics?
Replies: 24
Views: 6340

How to make a spelling without diacritics?

My native Polish has a lot of them and I find them annoying, difficult to type using the AltGr key and slowing down my typing speed. I even tried to make my own keyboard. I would use non-Polish letters like q, x, v for ó, ś, ć respectively (as the "-ść" combination is pretty common in Polish (derivi...
by awer
Fri Apr 15, 2016 5:45 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Lexicon Building
Replies: 4308
Views: 783882

Re: Lexicon Building

"vivace"

suto:
(su)mula
literally: "(sound-)much-life"
mula = lively

Next word: justice
by awer
Thu Oct 01, 2015 8:22 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: "this one" for "i"?
Replies: 9
Views: 3542

"this one" for "i"?

Some Khajiit in the game "Skyrim" used "this one" instead of "i" (eg. this). I was wondering if it's a feature of some natural language I don't know?
by awer
Thu Jul 30, 2015 8:23 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Is gutturality a trait of primitive languages?
Replies: 21
Views: 5781

Is gutturality a trait of primitive languages?

I've always had this idea in the back of my head. I've just heard what the epiglottal trill is pronounced like and I thought there's something primitive about it. I imagine early hominids as grunting. Also the languages in the areas of the first cultures, like Hebrew and Arabic, have many guttural s...
by awer
Thu Jul 23, 2015 1:36 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
Replies: 3108
Views: 639921

What are the actual pronunciations of culture,love and woman

what i hear is /kɔɫtʃə/, /lœv/ and wɔmən/ but i'm not a native speaker and most non-natives will pronounce love as /lɒv/ or something. is it the 'l' sound that causes the confusion. i'm pretty sure the /ɔ/ in woman is just to make the vowel more distinct from the 'w'.enlighten me guys
by awer
Sat Jul 04, 2015 9:51 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Questions about German Thread
Replies: 115
Views: 33599

Re: Questions about German Thread

I was just surprised once again reading: "Harry, den Lord Voldemort bereits mehrmals zu töten versucht hat, ..." instead of "...merhmals versucht hat zu töten"? is this how it always works in subordinate clauses? or is it because the object of "töten" (Harry) is extracted from the clause? thanks in ...
by awer
Thu May 14, 2015 1:04 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Questions about German Thread
Replies: 115
Views: 33599

Re: Questions about German Thread

A question: Why the weird verb order in this sentence?: "Und glaubst du wirklich, dass ich hier sitzen und mit dir sprechen würde, wenn ich ihm keine befriedigenden Antworten hätte geben können ?" It was translated from: "And do you really think that, had I not been able to give satisfactory answer...
by awer
Thu May 14, 2015 12:17 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: the mechanics of serial verbs vs prepositions?
Replies: 9
Views: 2889

the mechanics of serial verbs vs prepositions?

i was amazed by serial verbs when i first discovered them in chinese but i find them unusable in my conlang. there are sentences that would end up ambiguous especially that i'd like to have a head initial language. so a sentence like "i throw pen leave room" may be understood as "i threw the pen and...
by awer
Thu May 14, 2015 11:07 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Questions about German Thread
Replies: 115
Views: 33599

Re: Questions about German Thread

A question: Why the weird verb order in this sentence?: "Und glaubst du wirklich, dass ich hier sitzen und mit dir sprechen würde, wenn ich ihm keine befriedigenden Antworten hätte geben können ?" It was translated from: "And do you really think that, had I not been able to give satisfactory answer...
by awer
Mon May 11, 2015 12:55 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Chinese thread
Replies: 108
Views: 23477

Re: Chinese thread

How does Chinese render 'I don't know what to choose'? It must sound weird considering its word order and an infinitive involved...
by awer
Fri May 01, 2015 8:17 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: Help your conlang fluency (2)
Replies: 6633
Views: 726152

Re: Help your conlang fluency

masako wrote:na ke nahokala moyame omo
I'm thinking of rewriting Kala grammar.

kola yoteue ka
Does anyone want to help?
I've read a bit of your blog but how do you render e.g. subordinate clauses, "there is/are", and do you use compounding? where can I see the complete grammar?
by awer
Fri Apr 24, 2015 6:48 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: What part of speech is "quote ... unquote"?
Replies: 13
Views: 3637

What part of speech is "quote ... unquote"?

As when you quote someone and you actually say you're quoting them. It seems like it coordinates part of a sentence as do prepositions and conjuctions, except it hasn't grammaticalized yet.
by awer
Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:06 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Chinese thread
Replies: 108
Views: 23477

Re: Chinese thread

How do you distinguish between "i see an interesting book" and "i'm reading an interesting book" in chinese?
by awer
Sat Feb 14, 2015 9:53 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: How do you render quotes, titles, proper names etc.?
Replies: 2
Views: 1570

How do you render quotes, titles, proper names etc.?

i was wondering how specific my language can/should be. ever since i came across the need to render a movie title within a sentence, i knew i couldn't leave it unmarked. i don't know the name for those items but they tend to be left outside normal human language use. paradoxically, written language,...
by awer
Tue Oct 28, 2014 1:06 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Is the 'auxiliary be' an auxiliary?
Replies: 9
Views: 2470

Is the 'auxiliary be' an auxiliary?

I read in a wiki article: "if Homer were living and an Englishman". In the phrase 'were living' 'were' is an auxiliary and then it's reinterpreted as a main verb in 'were an Englishman'? I understand the action in the first phrase is living but it's more like from the semantic point of view, not the...
by awer
Tue Sep 09, 2014 4:18 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Do some italians pronounce 'z' as /θ/?
Replies: 6
Views: 2274

Do some italians pronounce 'z' as /θ/?

or is he acutally Spanish? 5:55 "anziano", "vacanze" 4:30 - "iniziare" 12:16 - "promozione" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85mWTpmbjNE i'm not an expert but his e's seem too tense and his pronunciation of foreign words ending in a consonant like 'Spudd' (7:16) lack the characteristic final epenthet...
by awer
Sat Sep 06, 2014 2:54 pm
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: vowels make preceding consonants more audible?
Replies: 4
Views: 2324

vowels make preceding consonants more audible?

Hi, I was wondering about the basic phonotactics for my conlang. I was considering several options: 1. CV only, because I like the simplicity and wanted each such a pair to be one word/morpheme, taking in all the speech sounds I'm able to pronounce myself :P I was fascinated by the East Asian langua...
by awer
Tue Sep 10, 2013 6:57 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: An Attempt to Fix English Spelling (AKA Mission: Impossible)
Replies: 72
Views: 14511

Re: An Attempt to Fix English Spelling (AKA Mission: Impossi

Because a) it's nothing to do with lazyness and b) this is not how it works. well, apart from the gvs, most pronunciation changes are based on the "because it's easier to pronounce" rule. think t-flapping, cluster reductions (kn-, ps-), taught-taut,vowel reduction etc. *you're* making all the mess :)
by awer
Mon Sep 09, 2013 10:15 am
Forum: Conlangery & Conworlds
Topic: An Attempt to Fix English Spelling (AKA Mission: Impossible)
Replies: 72
Views: 14511

Re: An Attempt to Fix English Spelling (AKA Mission: Impossi

why don't people just learn not to be lazy and pronounce words as they're written instead? :) you'd prolly sound like you're from the middle ages.
by awer
Sun Jul 28, 2013 2:22 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: non-rootword morphemes origin resources?
Replies: 1
Views: 1148

non-rootword morphemes origin resources?

it's bugging me to know how all the seemingly arbitrary, both grammatical and word-formation, particles came to be. eg marking for case, tense (i know some past tense endings come from auxiliary verbs merged into the main verb), prepositions (i heard claims they come from relation nouns), ect; also ...
by awer
Wed Jun 19, 2013 8:36 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Conjugating conjunctions?
Replies: 13
Views: 3815

Re: Conjugating conjunctions?

Polish has them too: Chcę żeby-ś tam poszedł. "I want you to go there." want:1sg PURP-2sg there went *Chcę żeby tam poszedł-eś. want:1sg PURP there went-2sg Personally I'd analyse it as: Chcę że -byś tam poszedł. *Chcę że tam poszedł -byś . (I want that you would go there.) "Żeby" is now one word b...