Zompist Bboard Again

No need to apologize! In fact, I'm sorry for not welcoming you here earlier.

To be fair, there are a lot of Malayalees in Malaysia, and some of my own relatives were there at various times as well (my understanding is that my maternal grandfather visited several times, and his oldest daughter lived there for a few years in the 70s or something). It's also possible that Malayalam and Malaysia share a common etymology (malai means 'mountain' in Tamil; 'mountain' in Malayalam is mala).

This actually relates to your point about why Malayalees don't seek opportunities closer to home; well, we do more often than we don't! Not only are there Malayalees in Malaysia and Singapore (and in various parts of India), but also the most popular source of overseas job opportunities for Malayalees has long been the Middle East, particularly the Persian Gulf. There are tons of Malayalees in the Middle East; I get the (possibly mistaken) impression that there are even more Malayalees than there are Arabs in some parts.

I've never heard of Tamil-speakers viewing Arabic as superior to Tamil, but Arabic is a lot more widespread than Tamil is, so maybe that could be where that viewpoint comes from. Tamils are affected by English in much the same way Malayalees are, but they have a much stronger regional self-identity overall and considerably more positive attitudes about their language. There are even movie songs that praise Tamil in great detail whereas there is no mention of Malayalam as a language in any song of any kind that I can think of at all.

I understand that you're not trying to pretend to be an expert; if you were trying to do that, you wouldn't be asking questions in the first place. I'm not sure it's really possible to steer clear of middle-class Indians since they are probably the majority of Indian immigrants in the US, for one thing (I could be wrong about this, too), but my bigger point is simply that a lot of people who have invaluable information to share don't speak English, so learning their language and trying to talk to them is essential though not easy.

As for the bit about linguistic fieldwork, that has been my personal experience trying to (re)learn Malayalam. My dad has played many roles in my life, and one of them is as my primary consultant when it comes to Malayalam because he's just such a good, helpful informant who takes a lot more interest in his native language than the vast majority of Malayalees do.

EDIT: Oops, I don't know why I forgot to say this (maybe my brain is just sleepy ), but if you're interested in learning Malayalam, I'd be happy to try to teach you whatever I can and/or help you learn as much as I can. In the interests of not cluttering this thread up too much, though, it might be a good idea if we made a separate thread for this sort of thing (I think this is also true if you'd like to ask me more about the sociolinguistic situation and/or culture on this forum).

I'd certainly be interested in a study, or some field work, on whether Malaysian and Malayalam are related to each other, very interesting.

I'm surprised to hear about Malayalees actually seeking opportunities like that, just from how it seemed, I'd expected Malayalees to only seek out one place (it hadn't seemed likely that they'd go elsewhere for opportunities, I mean). Are Malayalees likely to simply move to a new country? Or just stay and work for some months, and then return to Kerala? I imagine it might be something like how it used to be in the US (workers from Mexico were allowed into the US for a short period of time to do seasonal work, and the requirements were lax), but I wouldn't have a clue of what it's like otherwise.

Perhaps the odd Malayalee or two that I spoke with just have a particular affection for Arabic, if it's the case that it's not viewed with a lot of prestige.

I wouldn't say that you're wrong about most Indian immigrants being the "boring as hell" ones. At least from what I can tell, and with the scant few I've spoken to, they really do seem that boring. More like moving to the US was their step up, and that they're still very Indian, and it shows in that they never adapt to the culture, or care about it in any way. Their English is good, and that's about it. Which is a shame, really, that closing off must be somewhat lonely, and it also closes off me from learning more about them and their culture (I suppose that's rather selfish of me to feel that way, but I am a selfish person).

Yes, that aspect of being forced to learn through exposure and simply not having any other, better resource fascinates me. I feel as though one could really thrive in that sort of an environment (providing that you have the strength of will, of course). I'm currently (unsuccessfully) learning Navajo and Thai, and I feel as though I may have to simply abandon Thai, which I've found odd. There aren't a great deal of resources on Navajo, however, I find that because of that I'm forced to make due and better study the materials I have. However, in the case of Thai, despite the many resources, there are virtually no native speakers who are willing to speak with me (plenty who are willing to speak with other Americans, however. I feel as though I'm the odd one out). I, of course, will never find myself in a situation where I'll require Navajo, and so the limit of no natives around me isn't a problem. However, the limit of no natives for Thai certainly proposes a problem, namely that the only reason I want to learn Thai is so that I can speak it. I'll probably just end up switching Thai for Malayalam, both unfortunately and fortunately. Hopefully I'll find some natives.

I'm glad you and your father are able to connect on language, that's a wonderful thing, I feel. Great to have a consistent source, and someone who's family, to boot. Definitely a wonderful thing. Thanks again for responding, Vijay.

I've just decided to edit this post, before someone else might point out my folly. I just realized that I had thrown Ojibwe under the bus earlier, despite the fact that I myself am learning Navajo. For that I can only apologize, I don't know why I'd been particularly rude to it. I was just looking for a little-known language to make a point with, I suppose.

Hekmatyar wrote: ↑Mon Oct 22, 2018 1:44 amI'd certainly be interested in a study, or some field work, on whether Malaysian and Malayalam are related to each other, very interesting.

Malay, the official and national language of Malaysia, is not related to Malayalam, but it has borrowed quite a few words from Sanskrit and, from what I understand, some from Tamil as well. The majority of ethnic Indians in both Malay and Singapore are Tamil, and Tamil is very closely related to Malayalam.

Are Malayalees likely to simply move to a new country?

Yes. I've been told that every family has at least one member who lives and works abroad.

Or just stay and work for some months, and then return to Kerala?

This happens, too.

I imagine it might be something like how it used to be in the US (workers from Mexico were allowed into the US for a short period of time to do seasonal work, and the requirements were lax), but I wouldn't have a clue of what it's like otherwise.

Malayalees in the Middle East are in a situation very similar to Mexicans in the US. They do most of the work in some parts of the Middle East but without getting much for it in return (but of course, whatever they do get is a pretty big deal back home). They have no political representation whatsoever since most of the countries where they work are monarchies. Some people are treated well, others are treated terribly, and still others are somewhere in the middle.

Perhaps the odd Malayalee or two that I spoke with just have a particular affection for Arabic, if it's the case that it's not viewed with a lot of prestige.

Malayalees may certainly see Arabic as more prestigious than Malayalam. It seems that Malayalees who work in the Middle East and then go back to Kerala speak (I guess Gulf) Arabic to each other when they meet, and sometimes accidentally slip into Arabic even when talking to their own families (where no one else speaks it). I don't know what Tamil attitudes towards Arabic are like, though.

I wouldn't say that you're wrong about most Indian immigrants being the "boring as hell" ones. At least from what I can tell, and with the scant few I've spoken to, they really do seem that boring. More like moving to the US was their step up, and that they're still very Indian, and it shows in that they never adapt to the culture, or care about it in any way. Their English is good, and that's about it. Which is a shame, really, that closing off must be somewhat lonely, and it also closes off me from learning more about them and their culture (I suppose that's rather selfish of me to feel that way, but I am a selfish person).

Most Indian immigrants I know here in Austin seem to have no sense of creativity, especially if they're men, and if they haven't seen any good movies lately, the stock market is down, nothing particularly interesting is happening at work, etc., men literally have no idea what to talk about with each other (unless somebody opens a bottle of wine; then they suddenly become talkative). Their wives are usually a little better about this (at least they have saris to show off to each other or gossip about all the women who were intentionally not invited to a party) but not by much. This is what happens when employers value things like programming skills over actual knowledge, and when you go through an education system for many years but don't really learn all that much.

Yes, that aspect of being forced to learn through exposure and simply not having any other, better resource fascinates me. I feel as though one could really thrive in that sort of an environment (providing that you have the strength of will, of course).

I've studied all kinds of languages in my life, but so far, I've never had to spend nearly as much effort learning any other language than I have had to learning my own. For me at least, it's a lot easier if everything is written down. Otherwise, getting the information you need takes forever.

I'm currently (unsuccessfully) learning Navajo and Thai, and I feel as though I may have to simply abandon Thai, which I've found odd. There aren't a great deal of resources on Navajo, however, I find that because of that I'm forced to make due and better study the materials I have. However, in the case of Thai, despite the many resources, there are virtually no native speakers who are willing to speak with me (plenty who are willing to speak with other Americans, however. I feel as though I'm the odd one out). I, of course, will never find myself in a situation where I'll require Navajo, and so the limit of no natives around me isn't a problem. However, the limit of no natives for Thai certainly proposes a problem, namely that the only reason I want to learn Thai is so that I can speak it. I'll probably just end up switching Thai for Malayalam, both unfortunately and fortunately. Hopefully I'll find some natives.

I happen to know a little bit of Thai, at least, but barely any Navajo, so maybe we can study all three languages together! (Or at least, we can study Thai and Navajo together, and I can help you learn Malayalam).

I'm glad you and your father are able to connect on language, that's a wonderful thing, I feel. Great to have a consistent source, and someone who's family, to boot. Definitely a wonderful thing.

It really is! My relationship with him was strained for a few years, and coming to realize that we can bond over our language and especially over literature written in it has been a huge relief for me.

Thanks again for responding, Vijay.

Thank you again, too!

I've just decided to edit this post, before someone else might point out my folly. I just realized that I had thrown Ojibwe under the bus earlier, despite the fact that I myself am learning Navajo. For that I can only apologize, I don't know why I'd been particularly rude to it. I was just looking for a little-known language to make a point with, I suppose.

Don't worry. (I happen to be (very, very slowly) learning (or trying to learn) a couple of Algonquian languages, actually, in case you're interested. I've been studying Micmac (I hate how ridiculous that name sounds in English lol) and Michif, through which I've basically been learning Cree).

Can anyone digest this limerick?

A visiting lady from Appisurgh,
Said "How they talk here would amappiz'urgh:
Typhoo, it is written
Put the T into Britain,
So who took the P out of Happisburgh?

Happisburgh is pronounced "haisborough" (/hezbərə/), i get that, but that doesnt help me parse the other two rhymes, and i suspect theyre looking for a final /o/ pronunciation. is "A's Row" a place? "amaze row" doesnt make sense either. Thanks you.
also, what's "typhoo"? Anyone know?(apparently Typhoo is meant literally... it's a brand of tea, hence a pun)

http://shephanim.blogspot.com/2014/02/p ... names.html source

I'm guessing "A visiting lady from Asia / Said "How they talk here would amaze ya".

That makes good sense of the limerick, but implies that Happisburgh has or had a different pronunciation (Hazia?)

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Oct 22, 2018 11:16 pm I'm guessing "A visiting lady from Asia / Said "How they talk here would amaze ya".

Thank you
Once again, the answer is simpler than I thought
I think they're treating the /r/ of /-bərə/ as unexplained, which is fair, since it's not in the position the spelling indicates it should be. Therefore the other two -urgh's represent just a simple schwa. Since this is British English, I don't think they're expecting an intrusive R, though that would work about equally well.

Most of the Indians in my school (central NJ) are middle class and definitely don't lack creativity or are any more boring than the white middle class students.

I think that the Gulf states are very hypocritical on the Israel-apartheid angle when they only consider Arabs, minorities in their own region, to be citizens. In my eyes, the UAE and Qatar are very much practicing apartheid against Indians and Nepalis.

Like I said, I'm a middle-class Indian myself. I should perhaps clarify that when I say "immigrants," I mean people who literally immigrated (in this case to the US) from India. I do not mean their children born outside of India (such as myself); those of us who were born and raised here are a different story entirely from our parents. To be fair, people who immigrated as children have more in common IME with people like me than they do with people like my parents.

I'm not trying to say that all middle-class Indians are just so boring that none of us are worth your time. I'm trying to say that the people who work for us in India - our house servants, our drivers, and so on - are nowhere near being given a fair shake in Indian society. They have a lot of interesting things to say for themselves, but they're not allowed to by default; by contrast, we have all the freedom in the world to say whatever we want in an Indian context, but I can't say we really have anything comparably interesting to share.

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Thu Oct 11, 2018 12:59 pm

masako wrote: ↑Thu Oct 11, 2018 12:46 pm

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Thu Oct 11, 2018 12:27 pmOh, trippy, the Turks write it Kaşıkçı.

Yes, exactly. WTF is with the Westerners?

Is it Westerners, though? I don't know what relationship Jamal is to Adnan, but I assume it's due to the latter that media outlets are using the transcription they are. And Adnan studied in the West, so presumably he had some say in how his surname was transcribed. Non-native speakers of English have been known to come up with more idiosyncratic transcriptions than the average mothertongue speaker would.

So, I've been continuing to follow this story, and I must say that the BBC, France24, and ZDF have been consistently saying /kəˈʃoʊɡʒi/ whereas most of US news outlets are still saying /kəˈʃoʊɡi/. What I learned very shortly after my last comment in this thread was that Khashoggi's family originally came from Turkey by way of his grandfather Muhammad who lived in Kayseri prior to becoming King Abdulaziz Al Saud's personal doctor. The family's name was originally Kaşıkçı.

Is the name Shoghi Effendi well known enough to form an association with this one? I don't have TV, so I never heard Khashoggi pronounced, but i mentally rhymed it with Shoghi.

You must have a different ear to mine, cause I hear it consistently as /kəˈʃɒ(d)d͡ʒi/ on the BBC (tbf I am listening to the radio for my news, though I'm not sure if that should even matter).

NPR hosts have consistently been pronouncing it with /g(d)ʒi/, as far as I've noticed; the other day I noticed a host pronounce it with /g/, then quickly correct themselves to /gd͡ʒ/. (although some of the reporters have been using /g/)

If not for this thread, I would have assumed it was /g/ as well!

I don't think MSA has geminated /ɡ/ (in loanwords)

alynnidalar wrote: ↑Tue Oct 30, 2018 8:09 am NPR hosts have consistently been pronouncing it with /g(d)ʒi/, as far as I've noticed; the other day I noticed a host pronounce it with /g/, then quickly correct themselves to /gd͡ʒ/. (although some of the reporters have been using /g/

The first few days of coverage it was nothing but /gi/. I say that as an avid NPR listener.

Interesting! I only started paying attention after reading this thread, so I didn't notice the shift. Could also differ by host/show, of course.

Is /ç/ [ɕ] typical of some German dialects? I was listening to some of the "voice mails" left by backers in the game Thimbleweed Park, and quite a few of them were in German--but many had [ɕ] for /ç/. (At first I wondered if I just couldn't distinguish the two sounds, but then some of them did have the expected /ç/ [ç].)

Zaarin wrote: ↑Fri Nov 02, 2018 5:50 pm Is /ç/ [ɕ] typical of some German dialects? I was listening to some of the "voice mails" left by backers in the game Thimbleweed Park, and quite a few of them were in German--but many had [ɕ] for /ç/. (At first I wondered if I just couldn't distinguish the two sounds, but then some of them did have the expected /ç/ [ç].)

My understanding is that sibilant realizations of the sound that is /ç/ in "textbook" German are not too uncommon, although they aren't considered standard. I think there are supposed to be regions where it has merged with /ʃ/ (apparently, some speakers may have hypercorrections with [ç] for normative /ʃ/ when they are trying to speak in a standard German accent).

On sci.lang back in the day someone claimed to have had a Rhenish colleague who once pronounced elektrische Zwischenschicht as "elektriche Zwichenchischt".

Estav wrote: ↑Fri Nov 02, 2018 6:19 pm

Zaarin wrote: ↑Fri Nov 02, 2018 5:50 pm Is /ç/ [ɕ] typical of some German dialects? I was listening to some of the "voice mails" left by backers in the game Thimbleweed Park, and quite a few of them were in German--but many had [ɕ] for /ç/. (At first I wondered if I just couldn't distinguish the two sounds, but then some of them did have the expected /ç/ [ç].)

My understanding is that sibilant realizations of the sound that is /ç/ in "textbook" German are not too uncommon, although they aren't considered standard. I think there are supposed to be regions where it has merged with /ʃ/ (apparently, some speakers may have hypercorrections with [ç] for normative /ʃ/ when they are trying to speak in a standard German accent).

Could be, but the speakers I heard definitely still distinguished /ʃ/ and /ç/, even the ones who had a sibilant pronunciation for the latter (hence my transcription as [ɕ]).

Does anyone know of a natural language where the grammatical marking of a certain type of oblique object is suppletive based on the number, definiteness, or topicality of the subject of the clause? For example, a language that regularly uses one adposition to mark a certain type of oblique object when the subject is singular, and a different adposition to mark the same type of oblique object when the subject is plural?

To illustrate what I mean, let's imagine a hypothetical version of English where the following grammaticality judgements apply:

I give the book to you. (subject is singular, therefore recipient is marked with to)
*I give the book for you. (ungrammatical or at least very unusual)

*We give the book to you. (ungrammatical or at least very unusual because subject is plural)
We give the book for you. (subject is plural, therefore recipient is marked with for)

Is a pattern like this attested? It doesn't need to be about recipients though; any other common oblique role also counts (causer, instrument, source, goal, location...) And if yes, do you have any information about how it evolved?