Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

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Vijay
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Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

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Quick and dirty summary of something that's been happening on a comment thread about Romani on r/serbia:

Troll: Gypsies don't even have their own language or script; they just speak everybody else's languages.
Serbian dude: Of course they have their own language, dumbass. They just speak different varieties of it.
Troll: Well, if they have all these varieties, then how is that a language?! Do you think Serbian, German, etc. have so many varieties?
Me: Yes. (lists a few varieties of each of the other languages he mentioned)
Troll: But those are dialects! Those don't have anything to do with languages. They have to do with the weather!

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Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

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ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!
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Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

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Oh, I know. (Well, sort of. They seem to like arguing with trolls over there until they're left tongue-tied). It's funny to me that he thinks dialects have to do with the weather, though.

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Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

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Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

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Imralu wrote:sigh
Though the articles title is nonsense, the article itself has little to do with quakery?


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Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

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Dunno ...
He discovered that some 16 languages spoken in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh have 200 words for snow alone - some of them ornately descriptive like "flakes falling on water", or "falling when the moon is up".
... that sounds like utter crap. "Flakes falling on water" is hardly a word for "snow alone" any more than "light powder" is.
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Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

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Imralu wrote:that sounds like utter crap. "Flakes falling on water" is hardly a word for "snow alone" any more than "light powder" is.
It does, but that's not his own narrative. He might very well have describe the extensive vocabulary or expressiveness of certain languages with regards to their surrounding, and the writer thought "cool, more terms for snow than eskimos have!" and ran with that.


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Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

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Imralu wrote:sigh
OMG my brother was just telling me about that article! I didn't realize it was this well-known. I was in the kitchen with him and my dad, and while my brother was telling me about it, my dad was telling him (about me), "See, he's not impressed at all." I told him about how sometimes, languages aren't endangered when there's nobody around to threaten the language, basically (and of course I immediately laughed at this 200-words-for-snow deal).

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Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

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jal wrote:
Imralu wrote:that sounds like utter crap. "Flakes falling on water" is hardly a word for "snow alone" any more than "light powder" is.
It does, but that's not his own narrative. He might very well have describe the extensive vocabulary or expressiveness of certain languages with regards to their surrounding, and the writer thought "cool, more terms for snow than eskimos have!" and ran with that.
Ah, yeah, less an example of quackery and more an example of a journalist writing a piece about something they have no idea about.
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Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

Post by Frislander »

This thing

I mean it's not really bad or anything in and of itself but man are they inconsistent with their definition of rare; their list includes everything from Welsh to Pirahã, and the have Xhosa (native speakerbase approximately 8 million) as an honourable mention! Also how they completely mince terminology like it doesn't matter.

At least it's not as bad as some of their other videos on languages.
https://frislander.tumblr.com/

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Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

Post by mèþru »

WatchMojo isn't really good at talking about anything besides movies, comics and tv.
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!
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Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

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Frislander wrote:I mean it's not really bad or anything in and of itself but man are they inconsistent with their definition of rare
It's more like linguistic ignorance...


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Re: Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

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