The New ZBB Quote Thread

[Man in Space]

I gather you haven't read Baxter-Sagart.

Indeed, not everybody has read Baxter-Sagart.

*sad Baxter-Sagart noises*

[Raphael]

*sad Baxter-Sagart noises*

Concept album?

[Man in Space]

*sad Baxter-Sagart noises*

Concept album?

It’d work with my band…I have ideas now.

[Travis B.]

Concept album?

It’d work with my band…I have ideas now.

Will you have lyrics with liberal amounts of pharyngealization?

[Raphael]

I think this entire exchange should go here:

Does anyone else here want to hunt down and inflict severe pain upon whoever decided to put "n" and "m" together on the keynoard?

keynoard

LOL.

keynoard

LOL.

Of course, I meant keymoard. See what I mean?

[bradrn]

For the new Index Diachronica:

Would be great to see Proto Korean to Modern Korean.

I know professional Koreanists who feel the same way.

[Raphael]

(My parents still tell the story of how, when I was younger, I woke them up in the middle of the night saying, ‘someone’s saying my name!’. It turned out to be the grinding noise of the refrigerator, sounding like: ‘Braaaaaaaaad… Braaaaaaaaaaaaaad… Braaaaaaaaaaaaaad…’.)

[bradrn]

city planning idea: giving the same street multiple thematic name: north to south, a street could be called shave road, a couple of kilometers down change to haircut avenue and the last bit two piece drive.

[bradrn]

Travis has some issues with my language:

Nani mbilisŋumŋun?
[naˈni mbi.lis.ŋumˈŋun]
na-nii mbi-lis·ŋum·ŋun

Too... many... nasals...

[WeepingElf]

Jan Morris (ed.), The Oxford Book of Oxford (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979)

Doesn't get more Oxford than that, I guess.

The Oxford Book of Oxford, written by and for Oxonians exclusively in the City of Oxford, and even printed exclusively there too, with every word guaranteed 100% Oxonian?

[bradrn]

And yes, I agree, free food motivates all sorts of things. I’ve done my fair share of singing for my supper. On a choir tour in France once, we were invited to a barbecue after a concert, and I overheard someone remarking on my seventh or eighth sausage “Robin est un vrai gourmand, non?” which I was able to correct “Non... Hédoniste!”

(Translations: ‘Robin is a true gourmand, no?’ / ‘No… a hedonist!’)

[Man in Space]

Someone actually made a Forth-inspired language named Firth but I for the life of me can't really tell how this isn't really just a Forth, especially since actual languages that are called Forths vary from standard ANS Forth more than this language does.

(No disrespect intended—there's just something about all the "forth"s that slays me.)

[Raphael]

I agree, to import just about any Chinese historical linguistics material into your model would require taking the time to understand its own models first, which is legitimately a huge investment of time and effort. Inasmuch as it sounds like other kinds of historical linguistics, but is kind of a weird inbred cousin who acts normal around decent people most of the time but is ancient and crazy.

[Zju]

My understanding is that Nort uses telepathy to suck the answers out of our minds.

[Raphael]

Ozzy Osbourne is English, not Australian - he specifically has a Birmingham accent.

Okay, I don't know how I got it in my head that he was Australian - lol. Maybe the "Ozzy" part.

[Travis B.]

Next: (Nort if you get this within two guesses I will cut off and eat one of my legs)

Then it's Idi.

Good thing you're not Nort
(i.e. I will not have to eat my leg)
(i.e. yes, Idi)

[Qwynegold]

When the conlang is more important than its backstory.

Tangaeauan is the easternmost Polynesian language, spoken by around 1,000 people on the recently-discovered island of Tangaeau off the west coast of Ecuador. This island was previously unknown to science since in the 1970s an amateur Ecuadorian film crew had unofficially made a series of bootleg Smurf films there, during the production of which they painted the entire island, and all of its inhabitants blue, rendering it camouflaged perfectly against the sea in satellite imagery. It was only following unseasonably heavy rains in June 2024 that the paint finally washed off and Tangaeau appeared on Google Maps for the first time.

[Travis B.]

I was planning a walk on the Pennine Way, which was now on the east side of Nottingham, and going through pretty lowland woods by the river Trent rather than bothering with the Pennines. I was remembering going on a walk in that area with my dad when I was a kid, and passing a sign for a place called Eddington, though I wasn’t sure whether I had remembered that right. When I was checking out the route on Google maps I found that one could now view the entire world in a sort of hybrid satellite vs street view mode that had an oblique angled close up view about 45°, and I managed to find the sign that said Eddington on it and felt jubilantly vindicated. However, suddenly on the walk itself, and approaching an abandoned sewage works which was just near the footbridge that led to the wood that had the Eddington sign in it, I found that an obnoxious tribe of climbers had set up an artificial, erm, climbing obstacle course in the form of a pseudo-city with pseudo-skyscrapers kind of cannibalising a nice bit of rock, and there were dozens or hundreds of people lined up ready to climb this monstrosity, and a guy on a megaphone was spouting poisonous pro-climbing propaganda and fat-shaming the nervous, untrained climbers into beginning their dangerous ascents and abseils. It was so loud it was hurting my ears and I felt sad for the climbers and the woods and turned away, hoping that the serenity of Eddington-by-the-abandoned-sewage-works had not been entirely spoiled by this horrific business endeavour

[bradrn]

Our newest member, explaining how they learnt my sound change applier:

I’m very happy to see that you like it enough to have spent this effort understanding its intricacies. Something which you’ve done impressively well, in my estimation.

Thank you, but I think I should add the reason I can spend effort on the intricacies is that most things are really intuitive. That and long, boring bus rides

(I think this must be our quickest ever joining-to-quotation time in this forum.)

[Raphael]

I've read the only paper there is on Keuw like 20 times like 2 years ago. It's an extremely interesting language, but sadly also extremely underdescribed.