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There was some interdental consonant transcribed as h̪͆ (or was it x̪͆?) in some now extinct (?) language, but I can't remember which. Does anyone recollect this? There's the voiceless bi dental consonant /h̪͆/, which is transcribed /x̪͆/ in the context of the only language it is known to exist in:...

Malayalam has both /ɕ/ AND /ʃ/ (definitely NOT */ʂ/). How common is that? At least some dialects of Swedish have both. Really? Because the Wikipedia article on Swedish phonology seems to say that the varieties in southern Sweden have /x/ and /ɕ/, the varieties in northern Sweden have /ʂ/ and /ɕ/, a...

I just witnessed the cringiest thing this morning. I was watching the morning news show, and they had this cooking segment on it. One of the two hosts said that they were going to have something really yummy-sounding: [ˈɡojs]. The two hosts were talking about this word, and then they asked the chef ...

Vijay wrote:Malayalam has both /ɕ/ AND /ʃ/ (definitely NOT */ʂ/). How common is that?

At least some dialects of Swedish have both.

There was some interdental consonant transcribed as h̪͆ (or was it x̪͆?) in some now extinct (?) language, but I can't remember which. Does anyone recollect this?

My impression was that this phoneme gets a dedicated IPA symbol more because there is no consensus on the correct phonetic description Yes, that's correct. than because it is thought to represent a particular phone that occurs uniquely in Swedish. No, it is pretty unique to Swedish. I've once heard...

I only have a vocabulary list and grammar notes for Kaguya-hime, which is probably way too little to be useful to you.

I've only heard za in Dream Daddy.

In what way is Finnish fusional?

jal wrote:Kurwa!
(Expletive withheld)


JAL

スラブ人が笑う。ストックホルムにはKungens Kurva（王様の曲線）という場所があるから。
Surabu-jin ga warau. Sutokkuhorumu ni wa Kungens Kurva (Ōsama no kyokusen) to iu basho ga aru kara.
The slavs laugh because there's a place called Kungens Kurva (The king's curve) in Stockholm.

Hatuwasiliani vizuri sana. Hatupatani. 笑　目を細めればフィンランド語の「ぼうしの水の謄本、左手、言葉。私のぼうしシチュー」という意味みたいだよ。 w Me wo hosomereba Finrando-go no "Bōshi no mizu no tōhon, hidarite, kotoba. Watashi no bōshi-shichū" to iu imi mitai da yo. lol If you squint your eyes, it looks like it says "hat-water-liana lefty word. M...

Mine is the name of my first conlang.

なんて立派そうだ。
Nante rippa-sō da.
How opulent it sounds.

They do this thing in traditional Japanese singing, where they pronounce each mora as a separate syllable. In contemporary music they either sing "normally", or have some lines in the traditional style and some in the "normal" style. Here's an example with the word kissaten (café): Normally it's pro...

I think, to a limited extent, there is also some calquing of proper names in Japanese. They seem to like monosyllabic words based on Chinese names, such that in their word for English, the "England" part is just 英, pronounced /ei/, which means "flower petal". And for the USA, there exists the word ...

Who's been to Asia here? は～い！＊手を上げる＊日本、タイ、マレーシアとトルコだよ。 Haai! *te wo ageru* Nihon, Tai, Mareeshia to Toruko da yo. Mee! *raises hand* Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and Turkey. I spent six weeks in Taiwan. Most of the time I was in an indigenous village in the mountains in the center bit, but the village...

If it's between unremarkably good and unremarkably bad, I would say 'fine,' 'okay', or 'alright.' In fact, all of these words now suggest mediocrity. If I want to say that something is truly good, I have to say at least 'great.' Nowadays, people will even ask, "Just okay?" そうだなあ。それに、フィンレイさんが言った通りにト...

他の「まあまあ」という意味がある言葉がある？あるいは英語話者はこんな概念があまりいらない？外国人はもっと灰色の色合いが見えるんだか。 Hokano "maa-maa" to iu imi ga aru kotoba ga aru? Arui wa Eigo-washa wa konna gainen ga amari iranai? Gaikokujin wa motto haiiro no iroai ga mierun da ka. Are there other words with the meaning of "so-so"? Or do English speakers not h...

From the thread about what language people use in multicultural companies.

Salmoneus wrote:But it's so sweet that Viktor thinks that not being able to communicate anything meaningful would actually noticeably impede the "work" of non-executive directors...

jal wrote:Genau. "Oorsmeer" bedeutet auch "Ohrenschmalz".
Indeed. "Oorsmeer" also means "ear grease".

よかった！「smeer」ってのはバターという意味だと思ったんだ。＊ぞっと＊
Yokatta! "Smeer"tte no wa bataa to iu imi da to omottan da. *zotto*
Thank goodness! I thought "smeer" meant butter. *shudders*

From what I can tell, some Swedish companies have English as their work language for the whole company.

Thanks for the replies everyone! I decided to decline the job offer. :/ It turned out that it would take me at least three months to translate the whole book, and the pay I was offered was not reasonable in the least. :( I hope this guy gets his business running so he can hire me for real sometime i...

Is the game still on?

Thanks everyone! I've made adjustments now. There are other slang expressions for TV, like "the tube" or "the idiot box", which would be a pretty obvious translation. Huh, I thought tube meant the internet. But Urban Dictionary has TV as their first definition. Whew, at this rate it'll take you a wh...

From my thread where I asked for some translation help: [*]Telly is so stereotypically British it wears a bobby (UK slang for police) uniform and a monocle while sipping tea. [*] I turn on the telly and lay underneath the warm and moist duvet. I thought telly was only used in BrE, but according to W...

[*] I turn on the telly and lay underneath the warm and moist duvet. I thought telly was only used in BrE, but according to Wiktionary it can be either or. Is this true? *screams* AAAAHHH! No! No! No! Oh, sorry, that wasn't about the telly. That was the shiver of automatic disgust at someone laying...