Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[MacAnDàil]

Onomatopoeia. Cf. English ugh, yech, yuck, etc. which all have their origins in a similar sound.

This seems unlikely to me because, having looked at etymology in Réunionese Creole, many words purported to be of onomatopoeic origin turned out to be of Malagasy origin e.g. tèktèk, a bird species

Let me clarify: It seems unlikely to you that German and Celtic could independently develop an onomatopoeia because some words in Réunionese Creole have Malagasy etymologies?

Welsh ach! and Irish ach! can't even share a Common Celtic reconstruction because there is no CC sequence which would regularly yield /x/ in both languages. Moreover, the Welsh form has the variants ych! and och! whereas Irish has the variants och! and ách. Find me any other cognate between the two languages which shows this kind of range of contemporary vowel developments.

Sometimes an ach! is just an ach!

Another possibility would be a loanword between the two Celtic subgroups. I tried to give an example of how onomatopeic etymologies seem overused.

[Moose-tache]

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch: noun, onomatopoeic origin

[Linguoboy]

Another possibility would be a loanword between the two Celtic subgroups.

Sure, okay, let's see the evidence. The diachronics of lexical loans between Irish and Welsh has been extensively studied; show us a plausible etymology which explains the existing attestations and history of variation in both languages.

I tried to give an example of how onomatopeic etymologies seem overused.

You gave one concrete example from one language pair on the literal other side of the world. Forgive me if I need a little more convincing than that.

[bradrn]

Note also the presence of ag /aχ/ in Afrikaans (and South African English).

[Raphael]

Note also the presence of ag /aχ/ in Afrikaans (and South African English).

That might have gotten there from German.

[Linguoboy]

I get that onomatopoeias might be overused as an etymological explanation in some languages, but [əχː] is literally a sound I make spontaneously to express disgust and I don't think I'm the only human who does this.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I imagine spontaneous vocalisations to express emotions were probably a part of how human language originated.

I also don't think "overused" is a good way to describe how something works in a natural language.

[Richard W]

A simple and maybe dumb question: Do languages with a retroflex series of consonants (such as /ʈ ɖ ɳ ʂ ʐ ɽ ɭ/) always also have a palatal series (such as /c ɟ ɲ ɕ ʑ ʎ/)?

Unless you count affricates as palatals, no, e.g. Pali which has/had /ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʰ ɳ ɭ/ but only /ɲ/ as a palatal stop. The evidence seems to be that <c ch j jh>were affricates.

[WeepingElf]

Fair. So I am not doing anything wrong if I build a language with a retroflex and no palatal series Thank you so far.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

If that's the sort of language you want, I shouldn't think so. If they can occur before high front vowels, I might expect they would have palatal allophones in that environment, but I don't think they would strictly have to.

[bradrn]

An interesting article about Xitsonga language policy: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinion ... banknotes/. The writer appears infuriated that the word ‘bank’ on South African banknotes is now being translated as banginkulu, rather than as the ‘correct’ bangikulu. I believe the difference is that the latter is in an animate noun class whereas the former is not. It appears that the Pan South African Language Board has released a new set of conventions for Xitsonga without any consultation with any Xitsonga speakers, something certainly not unprecedented when it comes to language policy (Académie Française, anyone?). On the other hand, the author appears upset at the idea of applying standard linguistic ideas to Xitsonga, instead preferring to discuss ‘African cosmology’ to justify why the word for ‘bank’ should be animate. Alas, it’s hard for me to form any personal opinion on this, given that I don’t speak Xitsonga and consequently can’t read or assess PanSALB’s guidelines.

[Travis B.]

An interesting article about Xitsonga language policy: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinion ... banknotes/. The writer appears infuriated that the word ‘bank’ on South African banknotes is now being translated as banginkulu, rather than as the ‘correct’ bangikulu. I believe the difference is that the latter is in an animate noun class whereas the former is not. It appears that the Pan South African Language Board has released a new set of conventions for Xitsonga without any consultation with any Xitsonga speakers, something certainly not unprecedented when it comes to language policy (Académie Française, anyone?). On the other hand, the author appears upset at the idea of applying standard linguistic ideas to Xitsonga, instead preferring to discuss ‘African cosmology’ to justify why the word for ‘bank’ should be animate. Alas, it’s hard for me to form any personal opinion on this, given that I don’t speak Xitsonga and consequently can’t read or assess PanSALB’s guidelines.

The author seems to me to be outraged for the sake of being outraged here. "Linguistic violence"? LOL.

[bradrn]

An interesting article about Xitsonga language policy: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinion ... banknotes/. The writer appears infuriated that the word ‘bank’ on South African banknotes is now being translated as banginkulu, rather than as the ‘correct’ bangikulu. I believe the difference is that the latter is in an animate noun class whereas the former is not. It appears that the Pan South African Language Board has released a new set of conventions for Xitsonga without any consultation with any Xitsonga speakers, something certainly not unprecedented when it comes to language policy (Académie Française, anyone?). On the other hand, the author appears upset at the idea of applying standard linguistic ideas to Xitsonga, instead preferring to discuss ‘African cosmology’ to justify why the word for ‘bank’ should be animate. Alas, it’s hard for me to form any personal opinion on this, given that I don’t speak Xitsonga and consequently can’t read or assess PanSALB’s guidelines.

The author seems to me to be outraged for the sake of being outraged here. "Linguistic violence"? LOL.

Yes, the terminology in parts is laughable, but I think the outrage is real. Xitsonga is a minority language in South Africa, and I can easily imagine how putting a typo on a banknote visible to everyone — and then defending that typo as real — could be very insulting. Besides, don’t forget that the history of South Africa is one to which terms like ‘cultural violence’ are very readily applicable.

[keenir]

Not sure if this would go in this thread, or another thread.

In the June 2023 issue of Scientific American magazine, there are two very interesting articles:

* Both the Cherokee numerals and the Inupiat(sp) numerals {"base 20 with a subbase of 5") are being given their own part of the upcoming Unicode 15.0 (the latter numeral system are also getting a Google font)

* There is a lot of information being given on PGA {Present-Day Great Adamanese - a mix of Jero, Sare, Bo, Khora} , both collectively and with some of the individual languages within the family. The article's author points out that PGA languages use body parts in their grammar more than any other language {the magazine's table of contents words that to make it sound like this is unquestionably how early humans spoke}

...that may or may not be because the article gives the impression that, after being settled 10,000 years ago, the Andaman islands were never visited or influenced until the British arrived in the 1800s and wrote two books on two of the languages of the North Andaman Islands. (to be fair, it was a single short paragraph that mentioned the islands' precolonial history very much in passing)

There are only two classes of word:
1. Free. 'pertain to nature and can exist without markers.
and
2. Bound. 'nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs that always occur with markers for zones of the human body.' (with the example given that, if you're bleeding, your "i am bleeding" statement has to include if the blood is coming from your finger, your lip, or elsewhere)

'To say, for instance, "I will visit you tomorrow," one would use ngamikhir, for "your tomorrow." But in the sentence "I will finish this tomorrow," the word would be thambikhir, "my tomorrow."'

I found the article very interesting and informative. Thus I thought to mention it here.

[bradrn]

1. Free. 'pertain to nature and can exist without markers.
and
2. Bound. 'nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs that always occur with markers for zones of the human body.' (with the example given that, if you're bleeding, your "i am bleeding" statement has to include if the blood is coming from your finger, your lip, or elsewhere)

This sounds far too reductionistic to be actually true. And obligatorily possessed nouns and locative classifiers are definitely things, though I haven’t heard of body parts being used with either. I’d be interested in reading a source if they cite any.

[keenir]

1. Free. 'pertain to nature and can exist without markers.
and
2. Bound. 'nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs that always occur with markers for zones of the human body.' (with the example given that, if you're bleeding, your "i am bleeding" statement has to include if the blood is coming from your finger, your lip, or elsewhere)

This sounds far too reductionistic to be actually true. And obligatorily possessed nouns and locative classifiers are definitely things, though I haven’t heard of body parts being used with either. I’d be interested in reading a source if they cite any.

been so long since I've read anything on their website that I forgot Scientific American has online articles: https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... uman-body/

sorry

[bradrn]

1. Free. 'pertain to nature and can exist without markers.
and
2. Bound. 'nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs that always occur with markers for zones of the human body.' (with the example given that, if you're bleeding, your "i am bleeding" statement has to include if the blood is coming from your finger, your lip, or elsewhere)

This sounds far too reductionistic to be actually true. And obligatorily possessed nouns and locative classifiers are definitely things, though I haven’t heard of body parts being used with either. I’d be interested in reading a source if they cite any.

been so long since I've read anything on their website that I forgot Scientific American has online articles: https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... uman-body/

Ah, OK, so this is from the same person who wrote the Great Andamanese grammar I found a while ago. That’s from 2013, though, so I’m not sure why it’s appeared in Scientific American only now.

[zompist]

been so long since I've read anything on their website that I forgot Scientific American has online articles: https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... uman-body/

Very interesting article, thanks!

[Raphael]

Ah, OK, so this is from the same person who wrote the Great Andamanese grammar I found a while ago. That’s from 2013, though, so I’m not sure why it’s appeared in Scientific American only now.

The contribution approval process takes really long?

[zompist]

The body-part-oriented grammar stuff is pretty neat (I imagine that cropping up in a slew of conlangs now...).

I'd take the author's musings about early human grammar with a barrel of salt, though. No language is preserved in amber, and we are so far from the origins of language that we really know almost nothing about it.