Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

[treskro]

Or, if we turn to South American linguistics...

An interesting aspect of Quechua is that it uses a three-vowel system, omitting "e" and "o". The grammar is mainly isolating, making it typologically similar to Chinese.

LOLWUT

What's even funnier is that it uses the LCK as its source, which explicitly states that Quechua is agglutinating..

[Miekko]

Someone tried to argue that there was a language, namely Navajo, that would contain sounds completely impossible to be pronounced except by native americans.

There may be such languages (in practice, not in theory), yes, but Navajo? Definitely not your run-of-the-mill language, but not unpronouncable.

There is no sound in Navajo which I cannot pronounce.

Sometimes I feel like being a linguist is the worst field for discussion because it seems like people get more of it wrong than any other field.

just about anyone knowledgeable about a field that people find interesting will be likely to think similarly of their field.

[linguoboy]

Sometimes I feel like being a linguist is the worst field for discussion because it seems like people get more of it wrong than any other field.

Everyone feels that way about their own field.

Although I've often claimed that linguistics is worse, since everyone thinks that speaking their native tongue makes them an expert on it, whereas no one thinks that driving a car is enough to make them an authority on internal combustion.

[finlay]

I can't access conservapedia.

[rickardspaghetti]

I can't access conservapedia.

You consider that a bad thing?

[finlay]

Sometimes you need a good laugh.

a laugh that will remind you how horrifying the world really is

[Aurora Rossa]

I can't access conservapedia.

Why?

[Mbwa]

If anyone gives a "fucsh", the real origin of the word (actually an acronym) lies with the Inquisition and later, New World persecutions of "different" people. The acronym F.U.C.K was used in records of torture and execution to mean For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. So, there ya have it.

My history teacher told me it stands for fornication under consent of the king.
Cause way back when, you had to get permission from the king to fuck...

the 'fucsh' is referencing the OP. he made a thread about the word 'fuck' but replaced some instances of it with 'fucsh'...............

[alice]

I can't access conservapedia.

Why?

I can't either. One of Alex Salmond's first actions as First-Minister-with-a-majority was to implement political censorship of the Internet so that the people of Scotland will never be exposed to dastardly propaganda which may persuade them into staying in the Union.

[finlay]

I can't access conservapedia.

Why?

They've range-blocked vast swathes of IP addresses for relatively frivolous reasons; obviously they're very vulnerable to vandalism (and rightly so), so they try and take steps around this by blocking people at the IP address level, and this then leads to them blocking half the country for being Too Liberal.

I think the folks at Rationalwiki have set up some kind of proxy to duplicate all the pages so that anyone can view them, last I heard.

[linguofreak]

Almost exactly four years ago, a guy on a mailing list I follow started making allegations that Latin is not an Indo-European lang, but rather *Semitic*. I recently stumbled upon it while searching for some other discussions on that list in the same time frame.

The fun begins here.

[TomHChappell]

.

[linguofreak]

Almost exactly four years ago, a guy on a mailing list I follow started making allegations that Latin is not an Indo-European lang, but rather *Semitic*. I recently stumbled upon it while searching for some other discussions on that list in the same time frame.

The fun begins here.

omg.

How does surprisemove continue to breathe with his head so far up his colon?

Well, his line of arguement *does* indicate possible lack of oxygen to the brain...

[dhok]

Old Latin is supposed to be `Indo-European'. There is no direct proof of that. Rather a `proto-Indo-European' was invented, artificially creating these linkages.

In etymology, Latin can not be linked to Semitic languages because this runs counter to the dogma of modern linguistics that has at its core the goal of proving that European languages are not derived from Hebrew, as was believed before 1863. This is because on an even more core level Greek and Latin were seen as the foundations of European civilization.

Greeks think that they invented writing in Europe, and are the birthplace of European civilization because there is an invisible line running through the Aegean.

Latin is `well known' to be derived from Greek now, but it is not. It has only borrowed the alphabet, and a vast amount of loan words. I am aware that this is heresy in modern linguistics.
...
The question remains where the Latins come from. According to Hebrew sources they came from what is now Jordan. This is suppressed by the academics because it inconveniently destroys theories careers were built on.

Ugh. Somebody get me a drink.

[MisterBernie]

...where do you even start with the wrong

[rickardspaghetti]

You could start by giving that man a straight jacket.

[linguofreak]

It's the old dilemma:

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you will be like him yourself.

Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes.

[sirdanilot]

Someone tried to argue that there was a language, namely Navajo, that would contain sounds completely impossible to be pronounced except by native americans.

I think you'd have to rephrase that as something like "there are languages with such fine phonemic distinctions that only native speakers ever really grasp them" before I could agree with it.

But yeah, a lot of the languages of the Pacific Northwest have crazy amounts of dorsal consonants. Look at Nuuchanulth/Nootka and its /k kʷ k' k'ʷ q qʷ q' q'ʷ x xʷ χ χʷ w w'/ and tell me a non-native speaker could manage to keep those all straight.

I was thinking more in terms of, say, Khoisan languages. I can perfectly make all those distinctions in Nootka, and I would imagine I could hear most of them; keep in mind that actual, perfect minimal pairs don't occur that often in context where you could confuse one for the other (like in English, you're not going to hear anyone saying 'Wow, that's bad!' and think he's talking about a bed), and if they do, yes, you might have a bit of confusion but nothing that can't be sorted out. At least the ejectives sound very distinct from the pulmonic stops here, and ejective uvulars in particular really stand out. Labialized fricatives are also easy to hear. The other distinctions might be slightly tricky and cause some confusion. I never really got /w'/ though, why not analyze it als /w ?/ ?
There are also langs in the Kaukasus with similar dorsal consonant inventories.

[Nortaneous]

From what I've read, the velar-uvular (actually prevelar-postvelar I think?) distinction in Salishan langs is notoriously hard for non-natives (even trained linguists) to hear. Although Nootka merged most of its uvular fricatives into pharyngeals, so that might be easier to deal with than most other Salishan langs. If you can hear pharyngeals, that is.

[Zumir]

I have a suspicion that most things in the Salishan langs are pretty hard for non-native speakers. I didn't even realize that the following was possible in a language: [xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰt͡sʼ]. But it exists, and is a Nuxalk word meaning "He used to have a bunchberry plant".

[Risla]

I am reasonably sure that everyone who has ever encountered Nuxálk and can read IPA has tried to pronounce that, and most of those people have been asked if they were okay.

[tezcatlip0ca]

I've tried and succeeded, but I made the /K/s syllabic...

[finlay]

I've tried and succeeded, but I made the /K/s syllabic...

As if there's really a difference?

[Zumir]

[xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰt͡sʼ] would be a good name for a band.

[Nesescosac]

Perhaps a group of beatboxers can adopt the name.