Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

[Herr Dunkel]

Well, that wouldn't be wrong in of itself, as those two options essentially cover all of history and prehistory.

[clawgrip]

but if it's the 19th century then my whole support is screwed

[Qwynegold]

Not exactly quackery, but dafuq does this mean?:

Although Cantonese shares much vocabulary with Mandarin Chinese, the two languages are not mutually intelligible because of pronunciation and grammatical differences. Sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two languages. The use of vocabulary in Cantonese also tends to have more historic roots. The most notable difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is how the spoken word is written; with Mandarin the spoken word is written as such, whereas with Cantonese there may not be a direct written word matching what was said.[3][4] This results in the situation in which a Mandarin and Cantonese text almost look the same, but both are pronounced differently.

I mean, everything but the first two sentences here.

[Drydic]

My guess is Mandarin-specific characters may have undergone some reforms while those of Cantonese have not. Which might make sense?

But yeah, that's really badly written.

[clawgrip]

I guess it has something to do with Cantonese words that don't exist in Mandarin Chinese. There are numerous characters that were created somewhat ad hoc, and didn't exist in computer encoding in the past (most of them seem to now though). Naturally, there are also Mandarin words that don't exist in Cantonese. So:

The use of vocabulary in Cantonese also tends to have more historic roots.
either nonsense, or it means that Cantonese does not used simplified characters, as Drydic Guy said, or it means that certain morphemes in Cantonese can be written two ways depending on if it is literary or colloquial pronunciation

The most notable difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is how the spoken word is written;
Mandarin and Cantonese have some differences in their writing conventions

with Mandarin the spoken word is written as such,
Standard written Chinese is based on Mandarin

whereas with Cantonese there may not be a direct written word matching what was said.
Certain words in Cantonese that do not have Mandarin equivalents lack(ed) standard written characters with which they could be written.

This results in the situation in which a Mandarin and Cantonese text almost look the same, but both are pronounced differently.
Mandarin and Cantonese are related languages, but they are not the same language, and this is reflected in the writing and pronunciation. Some characters used to represent Mandarin words that do not have cognates in Cantonese (or were not recognized as having cognates) have been adopted for use as unrelated Cantonese words that serve similar functions.

[Herr Dunkel]

You deserve a prize

[Drydic]

brilliance

I award you an Internet, sir.

[Qwynegold]

Lol, I agree with Mr. Dim and Drydic Guy.

[masako]

just, wow...rly

You can time travel and talk to cavemen and they'll understand you. No, really, give it a try.

[Atalant]

...wait and they explained the cross-linguistic similarity of onomatopoeia by saying that the words just couldn't be improved on over time? Not that they were independently generated? C'mon, seriously?

[Astraios]

Twenty three proto-words sound similar. OMG squee look i did a science research and all you other linguists are disagreeable bitches.

Also, "humans cooperate and other animals don't". Wat.

[WeepingElf]

just, wow...rly

You can time travel and talk to cavemen and they'll understand you. No, really, give it a try.

Underwhelming. This is old news.

[Miekko]

I recently acquired Mark Newbrook's Strange Linguistics: a skeptical linguist looks at non-mainstream ideas about language.

It contains the following chapters:

• Preface
• Glossary
• Introduction

1. Language origins and language chance
2. 'Concocted' languages and very short words
3. The origins of human language as a phenomenon
4. Mysterious writing systems, inscriptions and other texts
5. Language (itself sometimes mysterious) from mysterious sources
6. Reversals and other alleged mysterious features
7. Allegedly mysterious scripts, texts, etc. (non-historical issues)
8. Alleged animal 'languages' and language-learning abilities
9. Non-mainstream theories of language and the mind
10. Non-mainstream general theories of language
11. Language reform and language invention
12. Skepticism about mainstream linguistics

• Coda

I will post a review here once I have finished reading it and writing said review. It's pretty good!

[Herr Dunkel]

A clever article that is clever. This is clever article, it is clever.

This language has seven cases and Polish grammar has more exception than rules. German for example has four cases all of which are logical. Polish cases however seem to need more time and effort to learn the logical pattern (if any) or rules; you might have to learn the entire language. Polish has seven cases and Polish grammar has more exception than rules. German for example has four cases all which are logical, Polish cases seem to have no pattern or rules; you have to learn the entire language. Furthermore Polish people rarely hear foreigners speak their language, so with no accent or regional variation, pronunciation must be exact or they will have no idea what you are talking about.

[hwhatting]

you have to learn the entire language

That's so unfair. You have to learn the entire language!
Honestly, that article really is a load of bullshit. Congrats on finding this nugget of stupidity.

[gach]

A clever article that is clever. This is clever article, it is clever.

I like this a lot:

Nearly everything that a language must do is done differently by Navajo than by English. For example in English, we only mark one person on the verb--third person singular, present tense (I read --> he reads) with a suffix. Navajo marks all of the persons with a prefix on the verb.

Those damn Athabaskans with their insane grammars.

[Hallow XIII]

Oh Lord, he's back with reinforcements.

[Bristel]

Oh Lord, he's back with reinforcements.

Is this a version of that Nostratic guy who was on the board causing shitstorms every so often?

[clawgrip]

On the morning show I half watch in the mornings, there is a segment that often presents fun/interesting facts about fashion, generational differences, everyday items, people's habits, and the like, through the use of surveys, tests, asking companies, and so on (for instance they once set up a line of people (queue, if you want) outside their building to see how many people would line up without knowing what they were lining up for; another time they visited the homes of younger and older people to see if they had a box of tangerines or whatever you want to call them in their apartment (older people very often did; young people very rarely)). Today they did a thing on the "correct" words for things, which had a pretty shaky example.

They went out on the street and surveyed at random a number of young women about what word they use to refer to opaque, skin-tight women's clothing worn on the legs. Most of them answered レギンス reginsu (i.e. "leggings"). When asking older women, they generally got the answer スパッツ supattsu (i.e. "spats") instead. Based on some of the answers from the younger women to their follow-up question on what they thought the difference between reginsu and supattsu was, they made up a second test with two different lengths, one ankle-length and one knee-length. The results of the second survey showed that young women almost unanimously call ankle-length ones reginsu, and knee-length ones supattsu, revealing an interesting distinction in the usage of younger people not found in older people.

Things when south when the show then asked an "expert" for the "real" answer. This expert went on to say that reginsu is the correct word, and supattsu is a common but incorrect word that "is used only in Japan," and that actually refers to cloth coverings for leather shoes (which is what it means in English). So the TV show completely disregarded the clear distinction its investigation had just revealed, it failed to recognize that Japanese is its own language and it doesn't matter if the term is "only used in Japan," and it failed to recognize semantic drift. Oh well. What can you expect from a morning show.

[Herr Dunkel]

Oh Lord, he's back with reinforcements.

He lost me with the Pelasgians

[Drydic]

Really, he lost me with

Many years ago I noticed strange similarities between Irish and Serbian mythology, language, toponymes and hydronymes

[Soap]

The way different languages sound may depend on the geography of the landscape on which they're spoken, new research suggests. A study of more than 550 languages around the world found that tongues spoken in high-altitude regions contain more sounds called ejective consonants, made with a burst of air, than languages closer to sea level. Ejectives may be more common in these regions because the sounds are easier to produce there, or possibly because they minimize water loss from the mouth in dry, high-altitude environments, said study author Caleb Everett, an anthropological linguist at the University of Miami.

[bulbaquil]

Really, he lost me with

Many years ago I noticed strange similarities between Irish and Serbian mythology, language, toponymes and hydronymes

What the heck is a "hydronym" even supposed to be? A word named after a body of water?

[Aurora Rossa]

I think it means a name for a body of water, like the names given to rivers.

[Herr Dunkel]

The way different languages sound may depend on the geography of the landscape on which they're spoken, new research suggests. A study of more than 550 languages around the world found that tongues spoken in high-altitude regions contain more sounds called ejective consonants, made with a burst of air, than languages closer to sea level. Ejectives may be more common in these regions because the sounds are easier to produce there, or possibly because they minimize water loss from the mouth in dry, high-altitude environments, said study author Caleb Everett, an anthropological linguist at the University of Miami.

If it's due to water loss, why don't all of the mountainous languages have implosives?

Also:

A handful of small studies have suggested that languages in warm climates use more vowels than languages in cold climates, but the findings are controversial.

So, Sweden is a tropical wonderland and Arabia is frigid

Good find.