Zompist Bboard Again

humans, dolphins, elephants and some bird species are all arguably sapient, and dolphins may be more intelligent than we are since they can mimic our languages but we can't mimic theirs. We got lucky in that we evolved both high intelligence and a body type suitable for handling tools. It may well ...

The people who successfully use 12 am and 12 pm to mean 12 midnight and 12 noon respectively would kindly disagree. I think the logic behind this is that 12:00 AM starts at midnight - it is the first minute after midnight - while 12:00 PM starts at noon - it is the first minute after noon. Indeed.

Had a dream that people had made a virtual space for everyone, but the closest thing to an avatar people had there were differently colored and decorated keyboards. There were two "people" I knew and disliked online who each also disliked each other. Apparently in this virtual realm, you c...

Probably need something like /ʔ/ /ɬ, ç, x, χ, ħ, h/(with voiced ingressive and voiceless eggressive variants; eggressives might also contrast aspiration; the velar and uvulars might contrast fricatives versus affricates) /ʀ̥, ʜ, a/ (voicing contrast as above; probably all ~vocoids can take breathin...

... Apparently, per wiki, felines are divided between those that can meow (or was it purr?) and roar. Not sure how that fits in at all. "Small" cats are capable of purring but not roaring, while "large" cats can roar but don't purr. Some of the latter do something called chuffin...

For what its worth, I have the following for my own (still a work in progress) cat language: m ŋ ɴ <m ng nq> ʔ <’> bʷ gʷ ɢʷ <b g q> (?? no labialization – Cw clusters instead ??) ᵐbʷ ᵑgʷ ᶰɢʷ <mb ngg nqq> (?? no labialization – Cw clusters instead ??) x χ <h x> ɣ ʁ <gh qh> ɹ j w <r y w> r ʀ <rr?/d? ...

I don't have a very talkative cat. Hopefully there's someone with a talkative breed here. I got the bored, hungry or indignant meow, which I'd say is a sort of [ãõ] with rising pitch. That sound they make when they see birds. Sort of a [ʔə̃ʔə̃ʔə̃] Not sure what to make of a purr. If I had to pick a...

This is for a conlang so I figured I'd put this here. But since it is a somewhat silly question, feel free to move it if it seems more appropriate elsewhere. I'm making a language for creatures based on cats, so I might as well ask others what kinds of sounds they've heard from cats? And what would ...

Very true. At the beginning of the lockdown here I was in a very small apartment and it was hell. I've since moved to a medium-sized house and it is amazing what having south-facing windows and more than two rooms can do for your mental health!! What is particularly nice about south -facing windows...

I wish where I live would shut down again for a bit. We still have a few new cases everyday, but people act like nothing is going on. At least people tend to wear masks, but not all do.

Kinda weird that Utah is just like "Here is your free mail in ballot but if you want to go to the polls on the day, you have a good portion of the day to do so, even if you're working that day." But then Utah has historically been very homogeneous, both racially and religiously.

Also, I'm not a doctor, but I used to get dizzy spells very easily due to my blood pressure being naturally low and my body not adjusting quickly enough when I changed positions. See if you can get some sports drinks, either the normal bottles or the powder you mix yourself. I'd suggest the powder a...

Even though I am an American, those look familiar to me; if I had to classify it, I would classify it as a doughnut. Do you consider cinnamon rolls and stick buns "doughnuts"? (For me, a "doughnut" has to be fried, so Apfelschnecken [roughly like our apple fritters] are the only...

Thank you both. This does help since I know where I'm working from. The part about sentence final particles is maybe a bit tangent to this but definitely related. I think most of what my pdf has listed as "stative verbs" are ALSO listed as adjectives, and a number of these are also listed ...

I'm using Introduction to Literary Chinese: Part One and Two by R. Eno to acquaint myself with Classical Chinese and its grammar for a project I'm working on. It's possible the text didn't go over if there is a strategy in writing/grammar to distinguish the use of a verb with both "active"...

For example, I saw β ð ɣ → f θ k / _{p,t,k,s}; which means these voiced fricatives become unvoiced before unvoiced plosives+/s/, but /ɣ/ then also becomes a stop. Which isn't too weird, but still maybe not what would be expected. In a grouping like this, is it just more likely for ɣ to do this than...

I'm not always the best with sound changes so I've been looking through things like index diachronica to get a handle on the types of sound changes are likely to happen, ranging from one offs with one sound changed in a specific context to a set of phonemes sharing some trait in a set of similar con...

mae wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:46 am *p > *h > ŋ happened in some bantu language. but what if it happened in an indo-european language?

*peh3-ti > *ho:-ts > ŋuəs
*penkwe > *heŋk > ŋeŋk > nəŋg (dissimilation)
*h1epi > *eh > eŋ

This could also be useful to me for my catlang based on Japanese.

I didn't know that (never cooked with fresh pepper), but apparently it releases some components similar to those found in manure and horse sweat. Apparently it's white pepper that smells like (pig) manure. White and black pepper are from the same kind of peppercorn, but harvested at different times...

Proto-Nyango
Human maiden/young woman: ^wɔtəm^jɛ
female kaibyou under 100 years: ɳ^jɔmautsʉ

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tea, or a beverage brewed similarly to tea