THE SHAPE OF WATER (2017) dir. Guillermo del Toro

These are the best tags @puddle–wonderful

Good catch! Shape of the Water doesnt use modern day American sign language, but this was intentional. There were two ASL coaches who taught Sally Hawkins (the main actress) how to sign using period appropriate ASL to match the time period depicted in the film.

^^^ ALL of this!

“Lmao Irish names are spelt nothing like they sound” YES THEY ARE. They are spelt like they sound in Irish! Newsflash to people who think English is the only language that exists, but there are actually different ways of pronouncing different letters 🤯 - amazing, right?!

quick thoughts about meal-time names in Irish

bricfeasta — this is from the english word breakfast, although we used to say céadphroinn (lit. first meal) more often than we do now

lón — translated as lunch, but etymologically it originally meant ‘food’ in general; this sense is preserved in the word lónroinn (commissariat).

proinn — ‘meal’; borrowed into old irish from the latin prandium. i say this for ‘dinner’ (being from munster) but ‘dinnéar’, from the english, is more standard

suipéar — i refuse to believe that anyone really says this, except maybe for an suipéar deireanach, the last supper. i’d say tae (tea), as in hiberno-english

béile — the general word for ‘meal’, which we borrowed from the middle english mel. cognate with all of the germanic languages’ variations on mal, meaning measure / size / time / occasion / meal, e.g. danish mål

One time this man approached me in a bar talking in Spanish. So I assumed he was Spanish and we started speaking, we had a whole ass conversation and at some point he was like. So what part of Spain are you from? And I said well I’m Italian actually. What part of Spain are you from? And he was like. I’m Greek.

One time I was in Argentina and I was so tired of trying to speak Spanish because I’m not very good at it lmao so I broke into exasperated English and the retail seller girl quickly understood me and engaged me in conversation. We talked for a while, she introduced me to a makeup brand, and then I decided to buy it. While she was packaging the purchase, she asked me if I were from the US or perhaps the UK and I just said “oh no I’m Brazilian hahah” and she looked me straight in the eyes and said, in clear Portuguese, “I’m Brazilian too”

When my dad went to China on a work trip, his Mandarin speaking wasn’t great but his listening was fine (his first language is Cantonese) and he encountered a German guy who had moved to China to work. My dad knew how to speak German because he studied it in university (but wasn’t great when it came to listening to new vocab he hadn’t studied before), and the German guy knew Mandarin because he lived and worked in China, so they had a conversation where my dad spoke to the German guy in German and the guy responded in Mandarin. I’m sure it confused a lot of their coworkers who just saw the Asian guy speaking German and the white guy speaking Mandarin.

Some years ago, I worked for a manufacturing company that had a service depot in China.  One of the engineers from the main office here in the US spent most of his time at the depot.  The problem was that he didn’t speak *any* of the various Chinese languages, and no one at the depot spoke any English. They all, however, spoke Spanish.

Sometimes I get annoyed because the name Sullivan literally means ‘one eye. ’ It’s from Irish, ‘súil amháin.’ Literally. One eye.

So when they were making Monster’s Inc, somoene looked at this

  and guess which one they decided to call Sullivan????????

ฬĦĪĊĦ??????

Lmao i feel like they didnt read too much into the names

There is another defintion tho for Ó’Súileabháin, which is “hawk eyed”. It’s kind of a topic of debate like it’s a weid spelling and neither one quite matches but Peter Berrrsford Ellis gives “hawk-eyed” as his definition for his telling of Ceallacháin of Cashel

— Arika Okrent (via linguisten)

Creid é nó ná creid, pornbots ag caint as gaeilge

Gaelic singer has joined forces with a Scottish charity to encourage Gaelic conversation, reading and creative writing via Zoom

Kathleen MacInnes, traditional singer and champion of the Gaelic language, is joining poets, academics and a bookshop owner in using online communications to nurture one of Europe’s oldest languages.

Lockdown is feared to have had a damaging effect on the language as speakers, who are widely dispersed in many areas, have been less able to meet and talk.

Some of Gaelic’s remaining strongholds in Highland and island communities that have experienced other severe pressures during the pandemic due to their fragile economies.

Open Book, a Scottish charity that runs more than 70 English language and a Scots groups for shared reading and creative writing, is now aiming to amplify Gaelic voices and allow them to be heard.

Supported by £4,000 from Bòrd na Gàidhlig it is offering one monthly creative writing and four regular shared reading groups for anyone with an interest in Gaelic, from beginners to native speakers.

Ms MacInnes who was raised in South Uist and is the Gaelic officer at Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre on North Uist, is supporting a newly launched Zoom-based Gaelic shared reading group.

The next online Gaelic session will be held on April 21.

She said: “I was lucky, it was the language of the playground and my home when I was growing up and I was surrounded by Gaelic culture. I love the language very much, whether it’s speaking, reading or singing. It’s a beautiful language and it takes me into another world.

“The feedback I’ve had about the idea has been very enthusiastic. I think people who have the same passion that I have will really enjoy the sessions.

“And it doesn’t matter whether they are beginners or fluent, they will be warmly welcome. And the wonderful thing about doing it online is that it doesn’t matter where in the world they are.”

Andrew Wilson, the proprietor of Wigtown’s Beltie Books, will be the lead reader for another shared reading group, and hopes it will be a digital link for far-flung Gaelic speakers.

He said: “There aren’t many Gaelic speakers in Dumfries and Galloway, they are quite isolated from one another, and it’s been very difficult to meet and speak Gaelic over the past year. When I heard about this it seemed blindingly obvious that it was a brilliant idea – you can have someone in Langholm chatting with someone in Stranraer and they don’t have to leave their homes and drive for hours to meet.”

Mr Wilson is a former council Gaelic development worker who learned the language over the last 25 years, wishing now he had studied it at University– nevertheless has fallen in love as much with the culture as the tongue.

He values the fact that Gaelic is Scotland’s oldest indigenous language and is linked to a rich tradition of music, song, literature and stories – and what he believes are a set of cultural values that put community, sharing, nature and the environment above individualism and materialism.

Heather Clyne, a Gaelic academic based near Inverness, has already successfully piloted Gaelic sessions for Open Book. She said: “To me it seems like a win-win – there are huge benefits in being bilingual, and knowing Gaelic helps you understand more about the country you live in.

“It’s a wonderful language – when I speak Gaelic, it does something to me, it is like when I am playing music with someone else. It’s like coming home. It’s like being in tune.”

Open Book was originally based round physical groups that met in libraries, care homes, community centres and a multitude of other settings. Covid–19 forced activities online, something it has now embraced.

When restrictions allow, it hopes that places like Uist, at the Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre, and Dumfries and Galloway may be able to have groups that meet in person as well as in the virtual world.

Open Book was co-founded by Claire Urquhart and the poet Marjorie Lotfi as a gentle, fun and informal way to bring people together around reading and writing.

Unlike book clubs there is no homework or set reading. Reading groups meet up, share a text such as a short story, and use it as a way to spark conversation. The creative writing groups come together to talk about prose and poetry and to create their own work in response, in groups or individually.

Claire Urquhart, Open Book director and co-founder, said: “Our shared reading and creative writing models are ideally suited to support and promote Gaelic usage. They are a great way to share a love of the language, drawing out less confident participants and giving beginners more exposure to the language by providing an opportunity to read Gaelic texts aloud and discuss them in Gaelic.”

Three specific aims are to promote intergenerational transmission of Gaelic in the community, promote Gaelic in the home and support opportunities for adults to use and learn Gaelic.

Shona MacLennan, chief executive officer at Bòrd na Gàidhlig, said: “Bòrd na Gàidhlig are delighted to support this project which aims to strengthen Gaelic communities across the country and allow their voices to be heard. We look forward to seeing this project have a positive impact on communities, specifically in promoting the intergenerational transmission of the language.

“The projects also contributes significantly to the National Gaelic Language Plan’s main aim of increasing the use of Gaelic, by more people, in more situations, and also supports the learning of Gaelic in adults and in the home.

We wish Open Book every success with the project and look forward to seeing the growth of Gaelic speakers across the country.”

same with sista, brotha, motha, etc etc

I love this!

A mesh of  science_boy_’s meme and mine 

For anyone who’s curious, this is the process of debuccalization, where a sound gradually moves back to the glottis, becoming /h/ or /ʔ/, after which it can disappear completely.

I went to the Korean consulate with my mom and brother today and my stupid ass was so used to speaking Korean to hide what I'm saying that I was like "What if we stole that computer in the hallway" in Korean to my family in a government building filled with Koreans

That’s really interesting.

Not as funny as astronauts dropping things when they forget about gravity, but it’s up there.

cool irish (gaeilge) words because why not

“Steph Norman and Aaron Willoughby were told by Cornwall Council their ceremony must be in English and Cornish.

The council said “declaratory and contracting words” can only be said in English or Welsh for a legally binding marriage.

Ms Norman said “I feel if everyone understands the language, it should be up to them what language they speak”.

The couple contacted the council as part of their search for a registrar who speaks Cornish, when they were told their plans for the ceremony were not legal.

Ms Norman, 32, from St Anne near St Day, then researched the Marriage Act 1949 and found an exception only applied to Welsh speakers.”