Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[bradrn]

La Wik says Wutung has about 900 speakers. I wonder if a 10x or 100x greater population would lose/simplify some of these patterns.

Well… on the other hand, Wutung has only about 50 verbs or so (as I recall; can’t access the grammar just right now). So it’s manageable. Also, the extensive consonant mutation makes it all look more complicated than it actually is.

EDIT: Turns out the grammar is freely available online. There are 32 monomorphemic verbs, only two of which are double-marking, and around 200 complex ones.

Incidentally: let me note one of the more bizarre things about the simple verbs, which is that they are not a closed class. At least one of them is a borrowing (wo ‘work’, from Tok Pisin).

[Darren]

Weird verbs are a characteristic feature of Skou languages; although I don't know the exact details, I believe that irregular and/or marginal object marking is relatively common. iirc object agreement is only consistently (through the family) marked on the verb "hit".

[bradrn]

Weird verbs are a characteristic feature of Skou languages; although I don't know the exact details, I believe that irregular and/or marginal object marking is relatively common. iirc object agreement is only consistently (through the family) marked on the verb "hit".

Honestly, weird everything seems to be characteristic of Skou languages… (though it’s true that the verbs take the cake).

[jal]

La Wik says Wutung has about 900 speakers. I wonder if a 10x or 100x greater population would lose/simplify some of these patterns.

Very unlikely. There's plenty of "weird" languages with more speakers. And in general, simplification doesn't occur because of number of speakers, but of outside influence or sound changes.


JAL

[vlad]

[Travis B.]

In a restricted way the first seems true of many present-day English-speakers, e.g. I for one have [c] for /k/ and [ɟ] for /g/ in many cases before /iː/ and /j/. And apparently there are Anglic varieties where the more general case of these described here are present, e.g. in Jamaican English.

[Richard W]

In a restricted way the first seems true of many present-day English-speakers, e.g. I for one have [c] for /k/ and [ɟ] for /g/ in many cases before /iː/ and /j/. And apparently there are Anglic varieties where the more general case of these described here are present, e.g. in Jamaican English.

An allophonic place distinctions for the velars is standard and widespread across English, and indeed can with a full vowel still has the front articulation. but not, at least in my pronunciation, in the reduced vowel form /kən/. I seem to have free variation before the NURSE vowel.

[jal]

And apparently there are Anglic varieties where the more general case of these described here are present, e.g. in Jamaican English.

In Jamaican patois (and hence Jamaican English), even before "a" "k" became palatized, like "kyari" for "carry" and "kyan" for "can" (though I'm not sure how that came about historically, might've been a breaking of /æ/ or /a/ to something like /ɪa/ triggering the palatization).


JAL

[Travis B.]

And apparently there are Anglic varieties where the more general case of these described here are present, e.g. in Jamaican English.

In Jamaican patois (and hence Jamaican English), even before "a" "k" became palatized, like "kyari" for "carry" and "kyan" for "can" (though I'm not sure how that came about historically, might've been a breaking of /æ/ or /a/ to something like /ɪa/ triggering the palatization).

It has been mentioned on here that at least at one time this was more widespread than just being in Jamaican patois and Jamaican English, even though today palatalization in can is most strongly associated with Jamaican patois and Jamaican English.

[Richard W]

And apparently there are Anglic varieties where the more general case of these described here are present, e.g. in Jamaican English.

In Jamaican patois (and hence Jamaican English), even before "a" "k" became palatized, like "kyari" for "carry" and "kyan" for "can" (though I'm not sure how that came about historically, might've been a breaking of /æ/ or /a/ to something like /ɪa/ triggering the palatization).

It has been mentioned on here that at least at one time this was more widespread than just being in Jamaican patois and Jamaican English, even though today palatalization in can is most strongly associated with Jamaican patois and Jamaican English.

I think we may be in danger of confusing [c], [k̟] and [kʲ].

[Man in Space]

zompist wrote about w-insertion between labials and /o/ in Mandarin (“Ningbo” being pronounced like “Ningbuo”) in the CCK.

[malloc]

While reading an article on wikipedia, I came across this curious passage:

Austroasiatic languages have a penchant for encoding semantically complex ideas into unanalyzable, monomorphemic lexemes e.g. Semai thãʔ 'to make fun of elders sexually'.[20] Such lexical specificity makes for a proliferation of lexicon.

[Moose-tache]

Semai is spoken by 2000 people. I'm guessing the "opaqueness" of the etymology is a product of limited diachronic investigation.

[xxx]

whatever their etymology, with this aspect we would have reached a utopia,
that of a language with a (short) word for everything...

which would result, as is commented, in a lexical proliferation
(but of what size...
as always, as for piraha on other characters,
I doubt the reality behind the comment
(but I applaud as an utopist conlinguist)...)

[jal]

etymology, on the contrary to its etymology

EDIT: removed rant


JAL

[zompist]

jal, there's no need to be so rude. Ignoring nonsense is always an option.

But xxx, yes, this thread isn't the place to tout your conlang.

[jal]

jal, there's no need to be so rude. Ignoring nonsense is always an option.

Sorry, you're right, I'll edit the post. It's just they were already derailing one thread, and now seemingly doing the same here. Nevertheless no excuse for my outburst.


JAL

[xxx]

But xxx, yes, this thread isn't the place to tout your conlang.

that wasn't my point...
I've fixed the form of my post...

(hi jal, you see me again...)

[jal]

Not sure whether this is the right thread, but anyway. I recently encountered a website (https://youglish.com/) that, in its pronunciation description, uses bith "traditional IPA" and something called "modern IPA". I've never heard of the latter, and it looks decidedly odd. So does anyone know whether this is an actual thing, or just something that website invented? Examples:

furrow:
Modern IPA: fə́rəw
Traditional IPA: ˈfʌrəʊ

gear:
Modern IPA: gɪ́ː
Traditional IPA: gɪə


JAL

[Travis B.]

Not sure whether this is the right thread, but anyway. I recently encountered a website (https://youglish.com/) that, in its pronunciation description, uses bith "traditional IPA" and something called "modern IPA". I've never heard of the latter, and it looks decidedly odd. So does anyone know whether this is an actual thing, or just something that website invented? Examples:

furrow:
Modern IPA: fə́rəw
Traditional IPA: ˈfʌrəʊ

gear:
Modern IPA: gɪ́ː
Traditional IPA: gɪə


JAL

I don't get where this site is getting this idea from that there is a "traditional IPA" and a "modern IPA" myself. And certainly acute diacritics aren't used that way in IPA - they specifically mean high tone, not primary stress, in IPA