Search found 567 matches

by Terra
Sat Mar 24, 2018 6:41 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Voynich manuscript
Replies: 40
Views: 19326

Re: Voynich manuscript

It's Old Turkic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6keMgLmFEk The Voynich Manuscript is a mysterious medieval manuscript written in the early 15th century. To date, scientists, historians, mathematicians and linguists have struggled to decipher the manuscript. However, the mystery has finally been pu...
by Terra
Tue Dec 01, 2015 2:32 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Do Alphabets Always = European?
Replies: 26
Views: 7760

Re: Do Alphabets Always = European?

Japanese has a very simple syllable structure: (C)V(N) . Hiragana and katakana are perfectly sufficient to write this limited syllable structure. Perhaps if Japanese had a more complicated syllable structure, they would've developed a way to unambiguously record these syllables. (Note that both hir...
by Terra
Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:14 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: European languages before Indo-European
Replies: 812
Views: 192335

Re: European languages before Indo-European

However, linguists have now shown that IE did exist: despite the lack of any clear Greek invasion of Greece, for instance, they must have come from somewhere, and they must have had a shared origin, at least linguistically, with Celts, Romans, etc. And geneticists have shown that there WAS a vast p...
by Terra
Sun Nov 29, 2015 4:11 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Do Alphabets Always = European?
Replies: 26
Views: 7760

Re: Do Alphabets Always = European?

As far as I can tell, and from my reading in Geoffrey Sampson's book "Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction", it appears that we have our first alphabet (having symbols for each individual consonant and vowel) from the ancient Greeks. The Greeks took the Phoenician script (which is an abjad, s...
by Terra
Sat Nov 28, 2015 7:55 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: European languages before Indo-European
Replies: 812
Views: 192335

Re: European languages before Indo-European

Sal, can you give a brief timeline of when (in years before present) and how long the paleolithic, mesolithic, neolithic, bronze age, and stone age eras are?
So no, there's no clear ethnonym.
Hmm. That seems strange to me... Don't most people have a name for themselves?
by Terra
Sat Nov 28, 2015 7:36 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: European languages before Indo-European
Replies: 812
Views: 192335

Re: European languages before Indo-European

I have a couple questions: (1) Where does the term "Yamna(ya)" come from? (2) Do we know what the Indo-Europeans called themselves? (Maybe *teuto ?) (3) What do the genetics of the Basques look like, relative to those of Northern Europe, Southern Europe, and the Caucasus? I suspect .that raising chi...
by Terra
Thu Jul 30, 2015 5:29 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Is gutturality a trait of primitive languages?
Replies: 21
Views: 5757

Re: Is gutturality a trait of primitive languages?

Am I prejudiced or something? Yes. There is no such thing as a "primitive" language The only thing that'd make sense to call primitive, would be a pidgin. Pidgins have certain grammatical features (and lack other certain grammatical features.), so I wouldn't be surprised if they had phonological pe...
by Terra
Mon Jul 27, 2015 4:33 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Pan-Americanisms
Replies: 38
Views: 8027

Re: Pan-Americanisms

You have to be particularly careful with Amerindian languages, because the data are often in bad shape. Lexicons always look nice in print, but they were often recorded by untrained people with English- or Spanish-trained ears. Despite the extensive and oftentimes vicious destruction of indigenous ...
by Terra
Tue Jul 21, 2015 3:27 pm
Forum: None of the above
Topic: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path
Replies: 1058
Views: 220628

Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

"Wrestling coach says she was told she can't have baby on Fargodome floor, officials cite safety concerns" -- http://www.inforum.com/sports/3801448-wrestling-coach-says-she-was-told-she-cant-have-baby-fargodome-floor-officials-cite I pondered for a moment why somebody would want to give birth in the...
by Terra
Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:38 pm
Forum: None of the above
Topic: The dream thread
Replies: 1807
Views: 310005

Re: The dream thread

I usually don't remember dreams, but I remember this one from about a month ago: I was standing in front of a vending machine that sold matching sets of bras and hats (baseball caps). (A set was made up of 1 bra and 1 hat.) It cost $2 to get a set. You could not buy just half of a set. The image on ...
by Terra
Tue Jul 14, 2015 5:27 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Revived words
Replies: 41
Views: 8201

Re: Revived words

I thought of another: drone

It's a bit like 'panzer' though. It was already in use, but uncommon, and then technology created a new thing, which got strongly attached to the name. Looking on Google Images, when I search for "drone", I don't find a single bee or ant, but only the flying machine.
by Terra
Sun Jun 21, 2015 8:12 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 446501

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Hmm, interesting. So the difference between *T and *Dh may be reduced to a consonant gradation similar to the consonant gradation systems found in various Uralic languages, and cognate to them. (AFAIK, the standard reconstruction of Proto-Uralic does not feature consonant gradation, but it may simp...
by Terra
Fri Jun 19, 2015 11:42 am
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: Teach-Learn Polarity [mostly on causatives]
Replies: 19
Views: 14289

Re: Teach-Learn Polarity

Not in my dialect. For me, "teach" and "learn" refer to the same event, but I can send a letter today and you can receive it tomorrow. "Send" has two passive uses - the 'indirect' passive you're talking about to me is not equivalent to 'receive' at all. I can have been sent something last week, but...
by Terra
Fri Jun 19, 2015 8:59 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 446501

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

The root structure constraints, however, seem to point at the *D grade having been a highly marked one in some stage. (1) How so? (2) By this, do you mean that *T and *Dh are more similar to eachother than either is to *D? The pairs *kap, *ghabh (take) and *tem, *dhem (dark, dim) come to mind, and ...
by Terra
Mon Jun 15, 2015 8:30 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Quick question about Japanese pitch accent
Replies: 7
Views: 3017

Re: Quick question about Japanese pitch accent

and it's the way all my students preferred to mark stress on English words
Your students have to write IPA representations of English words?
by Terra
Mon Jun 15, 2015 8:18 pm
Forum: L&L Museum
Topic: Teach-Learn Polarity [mostly on causatives]
Replies: 19
Views: 14289

Re: Teach-Learn Polarity

Send vs Receive Very little connexion here. Send--vs--receive and teach--vs--learn seem alike (but not completely) to me. The only thing that's different is that "learn" marks its nominative argument as an agent, but "receive" does not; "receive" is basically equivalent to the passive "be sent". be...
by Terra
Fri Jun 05, 2015 12:53 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 446501

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Thank you for your nice and helpful comments. Although I can see parallels I do not usually get tempered (because preferring to concentrate on things rather than emotions), but I admit a good degree of impatience, partly explained by the local habits: Finns are known for doing first talking later –...
by Terra
Fri Jun 05, 2015 6:45 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 446501

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Now, you haven't done any of this yet, but I've seen many threads that started off sane that quickly descended into madness (Octavanio and AshMoonFruit come to mind), so I'm just anticipating what I hope doesn't happen again. Oh god, Octaviano was awful (as was Tienzen Gong if he appeared here as w...
by Terra
Thu Jun 04, 2015 2:00 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: What do you say for X?
Replies: 6
Views: 2168

Re: What do you say for X?

All mouth and trousers All mouth and no trousers Neither. Also, Americans don't say "trousers", not that I've heard a variant with "pants" instead though. He can talk the talk but he can't walk the walk I have heard this though. I've also heard a similar phrase with the same meaning: All bark and n...
by Terra
Thu Jun 04, 2015 1:54 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 446501

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

am a Finn and in our culture this sort of extremism is not tolerated so we've taken a different approach This seems to be a recurring theme: Extremists think that they accurately represent the entirety of their culture, and use the line "But it's my culture!" as a reason/excuse as to why they shoul...
by Terra
Tue Jun 02, 2015 4:01 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 446501

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Hi, Terra, thank you for your questions, here some answers: 0. Before entering to the details in begin with noting that the answers to the questions concerning the reconstruction can be found in my dissertation, which I recommend you to read perhaps even a couple of times when you have extra hours ...
by Terra
Mon Jun 01, 2015 10:27 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 446501

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Some questions for you, Jouna:
(1) Your PIE reconstruction has only 2 series of stops. Why no the usual 3 ? How do you derive the third from just 2 ?
(2) Do you believe in a genetic affiliation of IE and Uralic? If so, how many stops would you reconstruct for it ?
by Terra
Thu Apr 02, 2015 7:16 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 446501

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Yes, except for the "unstressed /u/ becomes /o/ and unstressed /i/ becomes /e/" bit. That did not happen, otherwise we'd have i~e and u~o ablaut, which is not observed! Also, not all unstressed /a/ became /o/ - many simply disappeared (zero grade). I still haven't found out when unstressed /a/ beca...
by Terra
Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:46 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 446501

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Spoiler: it's from pre-Greek. Doesn't matter what word you're looking up, it's always from pre-greek. And there's nothing about sound changes to greek, but there is a long chapter all about pre-greek. Yes, Beekes seems quite eager to declare a word as pre-Greek. Every-other word I look up seems to ...
by Terra
Wed Mar 18, 2015 2:35 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread
Replies: 2225
Views: 446501

Re: The Great Proto-Indo-European Thread

Does s-mobile occur with verbs or is it restricted to nouns?
It can occur on either.
For example promotion ceremonies are still held in the ancient traditional way
What is the ancient traditional way?

***

Btw, speaking of Leiden, does anybody have Leiden's Greek etymological dictionary?