Zompist Bboard Again

Karu im top laim kankula diyangka. Im teikim rarraj dat karuma nyanuny ngarlakangka an warlaku kanyjurrangka. Dat diyangku i bin jak im na karu an warlaku kanyjurrak, klifnginyma. Tubala baldan kujarrapparni karu an warlaku ngawangkirri jirrpu. Is this language spoken in a desert? Do this language'...

The most recent xkcd:

اَرَبصقَاَ پِثمُ صقلالاثَ نَ اَصنُوَ نَبَسَىصقَهَ پِثمَ (٤صط. دَ ن.اَ. - ١ صط.), ىَقٌاَ وضِحٌدىِسى دَ صطَرَژِطنَاَرَمَىصقَهَ. قِرٌنَق پِثمَ صپرَوَ نَلاوَ. ضنَچ‎نَىَ قٌلقَصسى لِطَر مَىَ ٤ نَپ‎ِصَنِّ و ضَلَژنَصسِ اِد پَضِسِاِ و صلٌوَ, نَقَطٌرِىَ پَرِ لِطَر صطوَرَىٌسى نَ پِثمَ لِهَطٌرِ. Alright, you m...

Mundurukú? Yes, that's it! Congratulations! Mundurukú is one of the more widely spoken languages in the Tupian family, with about 7500 native speakers (probably around 4th or 5th place actually, but the margin downward is much greater than the margin upward, so I answered that specific question wit...

Does the passage contain creaky vowels? Probably, but I don't know, because they're not marked in the orthography. Are creaky vowels marked with an apostrophe? No. Does the language contrast all of the following rhymes: V[-nasal] V[+nasal] V[-nasal]N V[+nasal]N Yes. It’s been 24 hours since my last...

How about nasal vowels...? Yes to all of these. Are you kidding me? The lack of nasal vowels is what's had me scratching my head all last night! Who designed this orthography, a blind wizard? This is more or less the usual orthography, which does in fact underspecify vowel suprasegmentals to some e...

Is one vowel orthographically represented by a digraph? No. Anyway, let me use up my first guess… Wariʼ? No. Yes. Does English use any reduplication? (Just calibrating!) According to WALS , no it doesn’t use reduplication productively. This is an extremely distinctive feature of it and other Europe...

And since we're on the next page already, here's the sample again: As it happens, your post was one post before the end of the page. That's weird... Maybe there are user-specific settings somewhere about the number of posts that are displayed on one page? But thanks for copying the text again. And ...

Very good questions! Anyway, the phonological inventory is pretty limited, with lots of palatals and stops, and no fricatives… South American, then? Yes. (Although the language does have fricatives, even in the sample.) Is it spoken in an area with rainforest? Yes. Does the nominal plural suffix hav...

And here's the next language (to be identified before Dec 21):

Ngebuje ibukaypacap ibararak osodop taperadup pe ibibodo. Oibuꞌun ip jebibododon. Wararaꞌacat muyꞌun am ip oibuꞌun. Jebukaypacaptup oꞌtupmuꞌawero ip tupmupik am soatup. Oꞌtupmupik ip soat etabutpe. Teibong cincan osodop tuptei.

OK. Here's a test run for the new version of the game: Name That Language! v2.0 The new rules are as follows: In each round, one person presents a paragraph of text in a natural language. The source text should be used as-is whenever possible (i.e. no re-transcriptions for the sake of obfuscation); ...

Anyway, after thinking about what everyone else has said, here’s the rules I’m now leaning towards: People are given 4 guesses, to be spent on either phylogenetic affiliation or language. (Other guesses are unrestricted. Not sure what we should do with questions like ‘spoken in Polynesia?’, which a...

I think it should be stated that I see the primary aim of this game to be about having fun. In particular, I think this should be achieved by tryING to make the game go as quickly as possible, so we can prevent rounds from dragging on forever and let everyone have a turn at both guessing and presen...

I'll have a guess. Ulta? Yes ! Uilta/Ulta, also known as Orok, is a Tungusic language spoken on Sakhalin island. The Tungusic languages are pretty hard to distinguish from Uralic unless you know what to look for, but there are differences. Some clues that it isn't another Tungusic language include ...

I'll have a guess. Ulta?

*rīks < PCelt *rīgs is admittedly a challenge to fit into this picture... It has also been suggested that Gmc. *rīkja in its territorial sense might instead be formed from a native root *rik-, *raik- 'stretch, expand' (cf. English reach ) < PIE *rēǵ- , with the political sense a secondary developme...

"Linguists": https://xkcd.com/2390/

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Nov 10, 2020 1:41 am

Richard W wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 5:22 pm Your post would be on-topic in the game's thread.

Yes, I agree. Could we get this discussion moved to that thread please? (I don’t regularly visit this thread so only just saw this discussion now…)

Done.

If we have PGmc *urhaz > OE orh ... Maybe the -tḱ- cluster remained a stop in this position, and we might have found the true etymology for orc ... :mrgreen: (That word is usually connected to Latin orcus "hell", but deriving it from a native word for "bear" seems equally plausi...

According to this: https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1324085761449304067 , there's not much risk. The mutations may make the virus more contagious for minks , but not for humans. Given the number of cases in humans, if a simple mutation could make the virus more contagious to humans, it wo...