Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[Darren]

I was looking up the Latin -que and -ve suffixes today – the ones which mean 'and' and 'or' because I'm basically stealing it for a conlang. I'm not all that familiar with Romance languages though and I was wondering if these actually persisted into any modern languages?

As far as I know, no, they didn't. (NB: in Latin, they sometimes became fixed parts of conjunctions or adverbs like denique "finally, at last"; namque "for"; it's possible that they survived in descendants of such adverbs or conjunctions, although I can't remember any such cases right now.)

There's DE + ŪSQUE > French jusque, Occitan duscas, although it wasn't transparent in Latin (there's no *ŪS). Wikipedia says that QUISQUE gives Old Sard kis, although the -QUE is lost there anyway. Suffice to say, -que was not a feature of proto-Romance or Vulgar Latin.

[hwhatting]

Thanks for that! I didn't know about jusque; in any case, I guess it also must have gone through a phase where it was remade as ending in something like *-qua:s like the Occitan word, otherwise the final -e shouldn't have survived.

[MacAnDàil]

Thank you for your answer, though it is a shame that there is little for Scottish Gaelic and I can't seem to access the link you sent.

You're welcome. I re-checked the link and it's working fine for me; maybe this alternative version works?
https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbnhbz:5-11426

I didn't manage to connect to either page, oddly, but this one, I did: https://vdoc.pub/download/der-grundwort ... bnbil1rst0.

[Raphael]

Got an automated email from Netflix that features the First Name/Sie combination today. Outside of German translations of English texts, that combination is rare enough for me to find it noteworthy.

[hwhatting]

Outside of German translations of English texts

Which this probably is as well?

[Raphael]

Outside of German translations of English texts

Which this probably is as well?

Yes, probably.

[Raphael]

I just saw a Mastodon post by a media outlet from Boston that spelt "you know" as "yanno".

[Travis B.]

I just saw a Mastodon post by a media outlet from Boston that spelt "you know" as "yanno".

There is nothing odd about that aside from that it's not part of de-facto "standard" informal writing; the "standard" way of writing it would be "y'know". And this is not specific to New England at all, just for the record.

[Raphael]

I just saw a Mastodon post by a media outlet from Boston that spelt "you know" as "yanno".

There is nothing odd about that aside from that it's not part of de-facto "standard" informal writing; the "standard" way of writing it would be "y'know". And this is not specific to New England at all, just for the record.

Ah, thank you!

[Linguoboy]

I just saw a Mastodon post by a media outlet from Boston that spelt "you know" as "yanno".

There is nothing odd about that aside from that it's not part of de-facto "standard" informal writing; the "standard" way of writing it would be "y'know". And this is not specific to New England at all, just for the record.

Cf. 'ya" for "you" in a wide variety of informal contexts (e.g. "see ya", "ya gotta", "ya basic").

[Travis B.]

I just saw a Mastodon post by a media outlet from Boston that spelt "you know" as "yanno".

There is nothing odd about that aside from that it's not part of de-facto "standard" informal writing; the "standard" way of writing it would be "y'know". And this is not specific to New England at all, just for the record.

Cf. 'ya" for "you" in a wide variety of informal contexts (e.g. "see ya", "ya gotta", "ya basic").

Well, of course, but I am talking specifically about /jəˈnoʊ/ - to me "ya know" is perfectly kosher, but "yanno" seems wrong (and implies that the stress is on the first syllable) ─ even though from doing some quick googling it apparently is in the wild (e.g. there is an entry in Wiktionary for it).

[Starbeam]

Kinda wish we could make an English miscellany thread, for discussions on the language being used right now that aren't centered on questions about it:

I notice there's no English diaphoneme for /ɛː/ the way there is for /ɔː/. I have to imagine that relative-unevenness triggers at least some dialectal sound shifts.

[Travis B.]

I notice there's no English diaphoneme for /ɛː/ the way there is for /ɔː/. I have to imagine that relative-unevenness triggers at least some dialectal sound shifts.

I personally do not see any reason why phoneme inventories need be "balanced" in this kind of way; rather, such things are probably just accidents of phonological history.

[bradrn]

This is quite something: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Stan ... ble_source

[Kuchigakatai]

This is quite something: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Stan ... ble_source

Merely a tip of the iceberg though.

https://miidashgeget.wordpress.com/2022 ... dia-sucks/

And mind you I am someone who edits Wikipedia and Wiktionary now and then myself.

I sure have some stories myself. Best one I've got is how the article on the Ge'ez language claimed it had texts going back to the 5th century BC, citing some random guy's terrible personal website. Likely part of the broader practice of people making personal blogs and websites and proceeding to cite themselves. Ge'ez is actually first attested in the 4th century AD. The false bit of information was added in early 2006, and it wasn't removed until I happened to notice it in late 2022.

[bradrn]

This is quite something: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Stan ... ble_source

Merely a tip of the iceberg though.

Oh, I know. I’ve long argued with people here in an attempt to steer them away from Wikipedia’s linguistics articles (which seem particularly bad). This one is just a particularly egregious example.

[Raphael]

I'd say how useful or useless Wikipedia is depends to a large extent on how much of an "instinct" someone has developed for what kind of information you can trust how much there. Generally, I'll usually trust them for information that is easily quantifiable rather than subject to judgment calls, and for which they provide a decent source. Other stuff, less so. So, if I want to know who was US Secretary of the Treasury in 1882, I'll usually check Wikipedia. Controversial linguistics information? Less so.

[Raphael]

Serious question: Do people in Mainland China these days produce calligraphy in simplified characters?

[willm]

Serious question: Do people in Mainland China these days produce calligraphy in simplified characters?

It exists, but generally calligraphy is always in traditional characters. If I remember correctly, Mao himself produced some works after the introduction of simplified characters.

[Raphael]

Serious question: Do people in Mainland China these days produce calligraphy in simplified characters?

It exists, but generally calligraphy is always in traditional characters. If I remember correctly, Mao himself produced some works after the introduction of simplified characters.

Thank you!