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Cranky

@transfaabulous / transfaabulous.tumblr.com

Myron (he/him). I draw sometimes (lie). Cantakerous forest hermit (displaced). Adult, been one for a while. Header by @keymintt, icon by @aceneutrality!
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thoodleoo

no punctuation we read like romans

NOPUNCTUATIONORLOWERCASEORSPACESWEREADLIKEROMANS

INTER·PVNCTVATION·WE·INSCRIBE·LIKE·ROMANS

words doesn’t classical matter order in greek;

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tanoraqui

we, in a manner akin to that of a man who once was, in Rome, an orator of significant skill, who was then for his elegance of speech renowned and now for his elaborate structure of sentences cursed by generations of scholars of Latin, the language which he spoke and we now study, Cicero, write, rather than by any efficiency, functionality, or ease of legibility have our words, our honors, the breaths of our hearts, be besmirched.

The fact that this has yet to devolve into boustrophedon is a miracle… or a challenge. I’m looking at you @terpsikeraunos @macdicilla @labellamordens

I’m up to it

Not many jnſtances of Punctuation - but for many Daſhes – et words Capitaliz’d for emphavſis, but not logicaly - ſpeeling and word Endings varied Gratelie - and the long S - ſ - vſed in at the ſtart and Centre of wordes - & the short “s” vſed only at the end - as with the U and V, and the I and J - but v and j only at the ſtart of wordes (we diſtinguishe not between Vouels and Conſonants, only decoratiue Letteres). Ye letter “y” being in lookes cloſe to an Olde letter “þ” which is vſed as “th” - Y may be vſed in the place of TH - but only ſparingly - and ſtill Pronounc’d the ſame as TH. Long and rambling ſentences - ſeeminglie without end - a paragraph can conſiſt of One whole ſentence, and ſhort ſentences are rare – we ſcribe like hiſtorical Modern English – and other european Languages.

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krabbydon

And furthermore, Carthage is to be destroyed.

official linguistics post

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i was going to say ‘i have no idea what to do with this information’ but then i realized its a handy guide to generate fake words that sound english

Every English word already looks fake to me

javeny

That could be a town in Pennsylvania or a Middle English adjective for someone who tends to be inordinately preoccupied with the minutiae of personal accounting

Source: twitter.com
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This is SUPER interesting. Basically about how American Jews speak English differently due to the influence of Yiddish, Hebrew, and Aramaic and not just Orthodox Jews either. She's a professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies, and Linguistics.

Huh. Any articles along these same lines I could look over? 👀

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elt

turquoise is green and it’s a hill i’m willing to die on. get your own results at https://ismy.blue

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blowery

FIGHT

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cyle

my hue was bluer than 69% of the population, so i win

also kinda bullshit test because of how skewed different displays are on blue light

Cyle is right but also. I am realizing things about myself.

All else equal (including the skewed displays), it seems that, at least for me, the difference lies in how broad one's conceptions of either color is. For me, green has fewer varieties that it can be while still being Green, while blue is the opposite.

If you click the "submit your results" button then you'll notice it asks you if you're colorblind, but also what your first language is, because the people behind the site are trying to discern any correlations there (since Cyle is right, though, alongside the other issues with conducting this sort of study online anonymously, I don't think their results will be particularly useful. However:).

My first language was French. I've already come across posts on here that have discussed the differences in color language between French and English, and also have dabbled a bit in learning about neurolinguistics myself for fun.* So, I would be highly inclined to believe that my perceptions of green and blue were influenced by my first language, even though I wouldn't be inclined to trust the results of this particular study.

* < NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERD (plaintext: Nerd)

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So one of my players looks at me. Like. Second session I ever played with them. Just narrows his lil eyes and stares me down and ejaculates, "Why do you talk like that?"

For context: I generally speak with actual words from my mouth exactly the way I type words to make posts on tumblr. If we've known each other for any length of time, you may already understand a bit of why he asked me this. Evidently, I speak in a way that is easily understood, most of the time, but approaches sentence structure the way English countrysides approach roads- in a winding and roundabout fashion.

I didn't say anything witty, but I did say, "Because words are beautiful and I love them. Why don't you [talk like this]?"

Anyway, he had a crush on me. And I think the point of the story is to talk like you're in the process of making deep, sensual, tantric love to the language in which you're communicating. 😎

Having had at least one dick in my mouth that I'd really like to hurry up and get out of my mouth, I feel like this is an applicable and very visceral addition to this post. Thank you. Food for thought, for sure.

I hope you spat.

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Anonymous asked:

YOU COULD SPELL "FISH" AS "GHOTI" AND IT WOULD BE PRONOUNCED THE SAME

THIS IS NOT TRUE.

FOR THOSE UNAWARE OF THIS, UH, “FACT,” THE IDEA IS THAT “GHOTI” COULD BE PRONOUNCED “FISH” IF YOU PRONOUNCE THE GH- AS IN “LAUGH,” THE -O- AS IN “WOMEN,” AND THE “TI” AS IN “AMBITION.”

HOWEVER, THIS FAILS TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THAT THE PRONUNCIATION OF LETTERS IS DEPENDENT ON THEIR POSITION WITHIN THE WORD.

AT THE END OF A WORD OR SYLLABLE, “GH” CAN BE PRONOUNCED LIKE THE LETTER F. THIS IS WHY IT’S PRONOUNCED THAT WAY IN “LAUGH” AND “LAUGHTER” AND “ENOUGH” AND, DEPENDING ON WHO YOU ASK, “VAN GOGH.” AT THE BEGINNING OF A WORD OR SYLLABLE, “GH” IS PRONOUNCED AS AN EXTRA-HARD G-SOUND, AS IN “GHOST” AND “GHOUL” AND “GHASTLY.”

LIKEWISE, “TI” IS NOT PRONOUNCED AS “SH” AT THE END OF A WORD. IN “AMBITION,” IT IS ONLY BECAUSE “TI” IS FOLLOWED BY “O” THAT THERE IS AN “SH” SOUND IN THE WORD AT ALL. THIS IS WHY “RATIO” IS PRONOUNCED WITH AN “SH” SOUND, WHILE “MANTIS” IS PRONOUNCED WITH A “T” SOUND. 

IT’S ALSO IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT, IN WORDS LIKE “AMBITION” AND “NATION,” IT’S NOT THAT THE “TI” IS PRONOUNCED LIKE “SH.” “TION” IS A COMPLETE SYLLABLE, PRONOUNCED “SHUN” OR “SHEN.” IF YOU REMOVE ANY OF THE LETTERS, THE PRONUNCIATION WOULD CHANGE.

“ION” DOESN’T HAVE AN SH- SOUND IN IT. “TIN” DOESN’T HAVE AN SH- SOUND IN IT. “TI” DOESN’T HAVE AN SH- SOUND IN IT. “TON” DOESN’T HAVE AN SH- SOUND IN IT. “TIO” ONLY HAS AN SH- SOUND IN IT IF IT’S PRECEDED BY A VOWEL, AS IN “RATIO,” AND EVEN THEN, IT’S PRONOUNCED “SHYO” OR “SHI-O,” DEPENDING ON YOUR ACCENT. 

“O” IS RARELY PRONOUNCED AS IN “WOMEN,” EXCEPT WHEN IT’S IN THE MIDDLE OF A SYLLABLE. 

THAT’S THE THING. “-GH” IS ONLY PRONOUNCED “F” AT THE END OF A SYLLABLE. “O” IS ONLY PRONOUNCED AS IN “WOMEN” IN THE MIDDLE OF A SYLLABLE. “TI-” IS ONLY PRONOUNCED “SH” AT THE BEGINNING OF A CERTAIN SYLLABLES, AND NEVER BY ITSELF.

WHEN ASSEMBLED IN THAT ORDER, NONE OF THOSE PRONUNCIATIONS WOULD APPLY. IF THEY HAD SPELLED IT “GHOTION,” IT WOULD BE PRONOUNCED “GOSHEN.” IF THEY HAD IT “LAUGHOTI,” IT WOULD BE PRONOUNCED “LAFF-OH-TEE.” 

HOWEVER, SPELLED “GHOTI,” THERE’S NO WAY TO PRONOUNCE IT “FISH” UNLESS YOU PRONOUNCE EVERY LETTER INCORRECTLY, IN WHICH CASE YOU’RE NOT PRONOUNCING “GHOTI” AT ALL, YOU’RE PRONOUNCING “FISH.” “GHOTI” IS PRONOUNCED “GOATY.”

NOW, THE ORIGINAL IDEA BEHIND “GHOTI” WAS MAKING FUN OF THE LACK OF RULES GOVERNING ENGLISH SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. THIS IS STUPID AS HELL, BECAUSE THEY HAD TO IGNORE A BUNCH OF THE RULES GOVERNING ENGLISH SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION IN ORDER TO MAKE FUN OF THEIR NON-EXISTENCE.

THEY LITERALLY PRETENDED THE ESTABLISHED PRONUNCIATION CONVENTIONS DIDN’T EXIST JUST SO THEY COULD MAKE FUN OF ENGLISH FOR NOT HAVING ESTABLISHED PRONUNCIATION CONVENTIONS, WHICH IS ESPECIALLY AGGRAVATING BECAUSE THIS COULD EASILY BE ACCOMPLISHED WITH THE EXISTING WORD “COLONEL.” 

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jewishdragon

WHY IS IT SPELLED THAT WAY WHEN CORN KERNEL IS SPELLED LIKE IT FUCKING SOUNDS

SORRY FOR THE SLIGHT DELAY IN RESPONDING TO THIS COMMENT, I WAS AT WORK

THE ITALIAN WORD “COLONEL” WAS DERIVED FROM TWO SOURCES: ITALIAN AND FRENCH. WHEN IT WAS IMPORTED INTO ENGLISH IN THE 16TH CENTURY, THE FRENCH VERSION WAS SPELLED CORONEL AND THE ITALIAN VERSION WAS SPELLED COLONNELA. THE SPELLING IN BOTH ENGLISH AND FRENCH WAS LATER UPDATED AND STANDARDIZED TO MATCH THE ITALIAN SPELLING, BUT THE OLDER FRENCH-STYLE PRONUNCIATION WON OUT AMONG ENGLISH SPEAKERS, LEAVING US WITH A WORD THAT IS SPELLED ONE WAY AND PRONOUNCED ANOTHER

I’m crying, 10 years later. I’m still here. I see the response.

Thank you

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“Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn’t a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.”

— (via be-killed)

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xshiromorix

But, but, but!

But, no, because there are reasons for all of those seemingly weird English bits.

Like “eggplant” is called “eggplant” because the white-skinned variety (to which the name originally applied) looks very egg-like.

The “hamburger” is named after the city of Hamburg.

The name “pineapple” originally (in Middle English) applied to pine cones (ie. the fruit of pines - the word “apple” at the time often being used more generically than it is now), and because the tropical pineapple bears a strong resemblance to pine cones, the name transferred.

The “English” muffin was not invented in England, no, but it was invented by an Englishman, Samuel Bath Thomas, in New York in 1894. The name differentiates the “English-style” savoury muffin from “American” muffins which are commonly sweet.

“French fries” are not named for their country of origin (also the United States), but for their preparation. They are French-cut fried potatoes - ie. French fries.

“Sweetmeats” originally referred to candied fruits or nuts, and given that we still use the term “nutmeat” to describe the edible part of a nut and “flesh” to describe the edible part of a fruit, that makes sense.

“Sweetbread” has nothing whatsoever to do with bread, but comes from the Middle English “brede”, meaning “roasted meat”. “Sweet” refers not to being sugary, but to being rich in flavour.

Similarly, “quicksand” means not “fast sand”, but “living sand” (from the Old English “cwicu” - “alive”).

The term boxing “ring” is a holdover from the time when the “ring” would have been just that - a circle marked on the ground. The first square boxing ring did not appear until 1838. In the rules of the sport itself, there is also a ring - real or imagined - drawn within the now square arena in which the boxers meet at the beginning of each round.

The etymology of “guinea pig” is disputed, but one suggestion has been that the sounds the animals makes are similar to the grunting of a pig. Also, as with the “apple” that caused confusion in “pineapple”, “Guinea” used to be the catch-all name for any unspecified far away place. Another suggestion is that the animal was named after the sailors - the “Guinea-men” - who first brought it to England from its native South America.

As for the discrepancies between verb and noun forms, between plurals, and conjugations, these are always the result of differing word derivation.

Writers write because the meaning of the word “writer” is “one who writes”, but fingers never fing because “finger” is not a noun derived from a verb. Hammers don’t ham because the noun “hammer”, derived from the Old Norse “hamarr”, meaning “stone” and/or “tool with a stone head”, is how we derive the verb “to hammer” - ie. to use such a tool. But grocers, in a certain sense, DO “groce”, given that the word “grocer” means “one who buys and sells in gross” (from the Latin “grossarius”, meaning “wholesaler”).

“Tooth” and “teeth” is the legacy of the Old English “toð” and “teð”, whereas “booth” comes from the Old Danish “boþ”. “Goose” and “geese”, from the Old English “gōs” and “gēs”, follow the same pattern, but “moose” is an Algonquian word (Abenaki: “moz”, Ojibwe: “mooz”, Delaware: “mo:s”). “Index” is a Latin loanword, and forms its plural quite predictably by the Latin model (ex: matrix -> matrices, vertex -> vertices, helix -> helices).

One can “make amends” - which is to say, to amend what needs amending - and, case by case, can “amend” or “make an amendment”. No conflict there.

“Odds and ends” is not word, but a phrase. It is, necessarily, by its very meaning, plural, given that it refers to a collection of miscellany. A single object can’t be described in the same terms as a group.

“Teach” and “taught” go back to Old English “tæcan” and “tæhte”, but “preach” comes from Latin “predician” (“præ” + “dicare” - “to proclaim”).

“Vegetarian” comes of “vegetable” and “agrarian” - put into common use in 1847 by the Vegetarian Society in Britain.

“Humanitarian”, on the other hand, is a portmanteau of “humanity” and “Unitarian”, coined in 1794 to described a Christian philosophical position - “One who affirms the humanity of Christ but denies his pre-existence and divinity”. It didn’t take on its current meaning of “ethical benevolence” until 1838. The meaning of “philanthropist” or “one who advocates or practices human action to solve social problems” didn’t come into use until 1842.

We recite a play because the word comes from the Latin “recitare” - “to read aloud, to repeat from memory”. “Recital” is “the act of reciting”. Even this usage makes sense if you consider that the Latin “cite” comes from the Greek “cieo” - “to move, to stir, to rouse , to excite, to call upon, to summon”. Music “rouses” an emotional response. One plays at a recital for an audience one has “called upon” to listen.

The verb “to ship” is obviously a holdover from when the primary means of moving goods was by ship, but “cargo” comes from the Spanish “cargar”, meaning “to load, to burden, to impose taxes”, via the Latin “carricare” - “to load on a cart”.

“Run” (moving fast) and “run” (flowing) are homonyms with different roots in Old English: “ærnan” - “to ride, to reach, to run to, to gain by running”, and “rinnan” - “to flow, to run together”. Noses flow in the second sense, while feet run in the first. Simillarly, “to smell” has both the meaning “to emit” or “to perceive” odor. Feet, naturally, may do the former, but not the latter.

“Fat chance” is an intentionally sarcastic expression of the sentiment “slim chance” in the same way that “Yeah, right” expresses doubt - by saying the opposite.

“Wise guy” vs. “wise man” is a result of two different uses of the word “wise”. Originally, from Old English “wis”, it meant “to know, to see”. It is closely related to Old English “wit” - “knowledge, understanding, intelligence, mind”. From German, we get “Witz”, meaning “joke, witticism”. So, a wise man knows, sees, and understands. A wise guy cracks jokes.

The seemingly contradictory “burn up” and “burn down” aren’t really contradictory at all, but relative. A thing which burns up is consumed by fire. A house burns down because, as it burns, it collapses.

“Fill in” and “fill out” are phrasal verbs with a difference of meaning so slight as to be largely interchangeable, but there is a difference of meaning. To use the example in the post, you fill OUT a form by filling it IN, not the other way around. That is because “fill in” means “to supply what is missing” - in the example, that would be information, but by the same token, one can “fill in” an outline to make a solid shape, and one can “fill in” for a missing person by taking his/her place. “Fill out”, on the other hand, means “to complete by supplying what is missing”, so that form we mentioned will not be filled OUT into we fill IN all the missing information.

An alarm may “go off” and it may be turned on (ie. armed), but it does not “go on”. That is because the verb “to go off” means “to become active suddenly, to trigger” (which is why bombs and guns also go off, but do not go on).

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ceebee-eebee

I have never been so turned on in my entire life.

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I randomly found a 500 page French book on OpenLibrary about the etymology of animal names so here are 10 (ish) fun facts:

  1. the French word for poodle, “caniche” looks like it definitely comes from Latin “canis” (dog) but no! It comes from cane / canard (duck) because it was a waterfowl-hunting dog—and its name in English, Swedish, German, Dutch (poodle, pudel, puedel) also reflects this dog’s affinity with water (from pudeln = to splash about). It’s like otters, whose name come from the same root as water…
  2. the canary on the other hand is named after canis / dog, since it comes from the Canary Islands which, according to Pliny the Elder, were named after the huge dogs that lived there at some point. Some historians think these mysterious big dogs were actually seals or big lizards. Then a bird ended up with the name ‘from the dog place’ though it’s unclear if dogs were ever truly involved. (Meanwhile Spain / Hispania comes from the Phoenician i-shepan-im, the place with rabbits.) I like the idea of ancient humans seeing seals or lizards and going “weird dogs”. Like how ancient Greeks saw hyenas and named them “pigs, I guess?”
  3. the fox has a great diversity of names in Europe: fox / Fuchs, zorro, räv, volpe, raposa, lisu, róka, renard… In French it used to be called ‘goupil’, from the same Latin root as the Italian ‘volpe’, but then the mediaeval cycle of poems known as Le Roman de Renart, about an unprincipled fox named Renart, became so popular that renard became the word for fox and goupil disappeared. It’s like if 500 years from now bears in English were called baloos. (The English and German words for fox come from the indo-european root puk- which means tail, like Hungarian ‘farkas’ (wolf) which means tail-having, or squirrel, from the Greek words for shade + tail, there are actually lots of animals that are just “that one with a tail”…)
  4. French has a word for baby rabbit (lapereau) derived from Latin leporellus (little hare) and we used to have a word for adult rabbit (conin) from Latin cuniculus (rabbit)—related to the German Kaninchen, Italian coniglio, Spanish conejo, etc. But ‘conin’ in Old French also meant pussy (there were mediaeval puns about this in the Roman de Renart) and at some point I guess people were like okay, it was funny at first but we’ve run this joke into the ground, and a new and politically correct word appeared for adult rabbit (lapin) based on the pre-existing word for baby rabbit (lapereau).
  5. The english bear is thought to come from the proto-IE root bher-, for brown—I love how Finnish has so many nicknames and euphemisms for “bear” ranging from “honey palm” to “apple of the forest” and English is like… dude’s brown. Same amount of effort with the Swedish and Danish words for fox, räv / ræv, from a root that means reddish-brown. (And the Hungarian word for lion, oroszlán, along with the Turkish ‘aslan’, comes from proto-Turkic arislan / arsilan which comes from arsil which means brown…) And since brown was already taken, ‘beaver’ (+ German, Dutch, Swedish…: Biber, bever, bäver) has been speculated to come from bhe-bhrus-, a doubling of the original root so… brownbrown.
  6. English foal / German Fohlen / French poulain / Italian puledro all come from the proto-IE root pu- which means small (e.g. Latin puer and Greek pais = child)—then the French ‘poulain’ became ‘poulenet’ with the diminutive -et (so, a smallsmall animal) and poulenet became powny in Scots then pony in English, which was then re-imported by French as ‘poney’. Also the Spanish word for donkey, burro, comes from Latin burricus = small horse, and in French Eeyore is named Bourriquet with the -et diminutive ending, so we just keep taking small horses and turning them into smallsmall horses…
  7. The boa (bo(v)a) shares the same etymology as bovine / bœuf / beef, due to a widespread belief that some snakes suckled milk from cows. Pliny the Elder stated this as fact and (not to bully him but) modern research tells us “there is no empirical basis for saying snakes like mammal milk; experiments, indeed, have shown that captive snakes systematically refuse to drink milk”
  8. I was disappointed to learn that antelope comes from Greek anthólops which referred to a mythical creature, because I grew up convinced the origin of the word (antilope in French) was anti-lupus, as in, the gazelle is the generic prey so as a concept it’s the opposite of the wolf, the generic predator. Wolf and anti-wolf. Though it raised the question of why we don’t have antilions (zebra), anticats (mice) and antibears (salmons)
  9. Many European languages have named kites after some sort of flying animal: in English it comes from the word for owl, in Portuguese from the word for parrot, in Italian from eagle, and in French it’s cerf-volant aka flying-deer. There’s an interesting hypothesis for this! Kites came to Europe from China, where they were often shaped like dragons or snakes, and snake is serpent in French and serpe in Old French, so it’s possible that kites were serpe-volants aka flying-snakes. But the ‘p’ and ‘v’ next to one another were a hassle to pronounce so the p got dropped and it became ser-volant, then ‘ser’ which isn’t a word started being mistaken for ‘cerf’ which is pronounced ‘ser’ but means deer… (We did it again with chauve-souris (bald-mouse = bat), which comes from the Gaulish cawa-sorix aka owl-mouse—which makes more sense as a name for bats! similar to the German Fledermaus, flying-mouse, and Spanish murciélago, blind-mouse. But Gaulish ‘cawa’ was mixed up with Latin ‘calva’ = chauve = bald, so now a French bat is a bald-mouse)

I love etymology, it’s all flying deer and dogs named splash and snakes named cow and ponies named smallsmall and five animals named brown and three named tail—words acquire a veneer of linguistic respectability over the centuries and we forget that fundamentally everyone just says whatever

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For the love of god if your native language is different from the majority language of the country you’re living in don’t raise your baby speaking the local language. Either have each parent speak to them in a different language or only speak your native language at home. The kid will be okay. Get your native language in their head. You may think you’re helping them in the long term giving them the local language but no. When they’re an adult they’ll wonder why you never taught them your language. They can and will learn the local language in school. They’ll be okay. Produce more bilingual children. They are good for society.

And also, being bilingual helps with executive function. Not all kids have to reach the same language development at the same time as everyone else, it’s okay to have your kid speaking in more complex sentences a month or so later than the “normal” kids.

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breserker

I've studied the science linguistically but I'd like to put that aside. PLEASE teach your kid the native language. It can go so much deeper than "wondering why", it can create a schism-like pain when you know there's a heritage you have but all access has been cut off. Yes, ALL. If you're fortunate enough to visit the country of your native language but dont teach your kid, they will be miserable, quiet, and alone, and go through difficult phases of hating that heritage because the ladders were cut for them.

And in the United States, this starts young. I've seen teachers tell a Kazakhstani parent that she should tell her kid to speak English INSTEAD. The kid was 2 and a half. A friend's five year old told him "Dad this is America we dont speak Chinese". If you don't teach your kid your native language this country will wrest all pride and heritage from them by force. An occasional visit or two to the home country will not stop the bleeding.

The pain of not speaking the language of my heritage is something I don't wish on anyone. And that language is one of the most spoken in the world, imagine if your native language is rarer. What happens? What happens?

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i love the french, i love the way they pronounce Rs like they're disgusted with them

the english meanwhile seem to have developed some sort of phobia about them

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ralkana

When we were discussing the surgery I'd need for my sleep apnea, the surgeon told me I'd never be able to speak French properly because the French R is a uvular sound and I'd no longer have a uvula.

... that's okay? I'm not French? I don't speak French? I've always thought it was the weirdest thing for him to say!

Huh. Didn't know you could have French surgically removed.

sorry i just cannot get this out of my head. Like, "oh you speak french? i hear there's an operation for that"

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I am never going to complain about Greek Duolingo again

I mean, I am. But still.

So, as some of you know, my family has been coming to this tiny Greek seaside village for several years. Just over a week ago I came out here with my mum, under the impression that early September, after the height of the summer heat, would be a good time to have a holiday. ANYWAY Storm Daniel had other ideas about that. Locally things are improving (I'm actually really pissed off about the disaster-porn tone of most English-language media coverage, but that's another post). The power is back on, there's running water most of the time, and though the latter is not drinkable, a truck from the government came and handled out free bottled water yesterday. But we are currently kind of stuck. Can't do tourist things. Can't go home. There aren't any local flights out until Saturday and the road to Thessaloniki is still closed.

So this evening, feeling kind of aimless and depressed, I go down to the nearest beach with a couple of binbags and start cleaning up in an effort to at least do something positive. I always try to do this at least once out here and obviously, after the storm, there's a lot more plastic and rubbish than usual.

At some point I find this large, round bit of metal - some kind of machinery part, I think -- that's too big for the bag, so I take it to the bins on its own, leaving the rubbish bag on the beach. And when I come back for it, something among the stones beside it moves.

Specifically, it pulls its head sharply inside its shell

So, meanwhile I've been trying to learn some Greek with the help of Duolingo.

I currently have a 33-day streak and... I have questions. Shouldn't I be able to use the past or future tenses by now? Shouldn't I be able to say "x is like y"? I can't do those things. But one thing I absolutely can say all day long is έχω μια χελώνα : I have a turtle.

This is far from the limit of Duolingo Greek's turtle-related content. "An obsession with turtles" is my mother's characterisation. I can inform you that the turtle is not a bird, and, improbably, that the turtle is drinking milk. I can introduce you to a turtle in company with a horse and an elephant. As far as Duolingo is concerned, it really is turtles all the way down.

Now this, you may be able to see, is not a turtle. It has claws rather than flippers. It is a tortoise. I know there are wild tortoises in Greece: my aunt once rescued a pair of them shagging in the middle of the road -- but that was up in the mountains. I've even seen one myself, but it was also on a road and very dead.

I am 95% certain they don't belong on beaches. There's nothing for it to eat, except, unfortunately, a lot of plastic. Even if it gets off the beach it will immediately find itself on a road where it could get hit by a car. I'm pretty sure it must have been washed down by the floodwater and has been just sitting there, dazed, ever since.

Now obviously the first thing I want to do on encountering this unusual animal is to go and tell my mummy, so I do. The tortoise immediately brightens her day. She agrees that the tortoise is not happy on the beach and needs to be taken somewhere safe. it gets surprisingly wriggly when picked up so we put it in a carrier bag with some grapes and cucumber and go looking for somewhere to rehome it.

We find a path leading up between the houses towards a likely-looking field, but before we get very far a dog in a yard goes berserk and a man's head pops over a fence and demands to know what we're doing. He does this in English, as evidently we're just that obviously tourists.

"I found a tortoise on the beach!" I explain. "We want to find somewhere to put it."

"A what," he asks.

"It's like a, you know," I begin and then to my astonishment I find myself saying... "μια χελώνα"

"Oh! A turtle!" he says.

"But from the land. δεν είναι χελώνα", [it is not a turtle,] I say, as I am worried he will tell me to put it back near the sea where I found it. As it turns out it actually IS a χελώνα, Greek does not distinguish between turtles and tortoises, but I don't know that; I can't even name the days of the week or identify any colours other than pink yet, give me a break.

The man's entire demeanour changes and thaws. He does not worry about my turtle-that-is-not-a-turtle conundrum. He knows where οι χελώνες come from and where η χελώνα μας belongs. He leads us through a gate into a courtyard area.

"[somethingsomething] μια χελώνα," he explains to the assembled onlookers, of whom there are, suddenly, a surprising number.

"ΜΙΑ ΧΕΛΩΝΑ!!!" crows the throng of delighted small children, who are, suddenly, everywhere.

"μια χελώνα!" I agree, accepting that at least for current purposes, that is what it is.

"Μπορούμε να δούμε τη χελώνα σας; [can we see your turtle?]" asks an adorable little girl, shyly, and I understand??

The children fucking love looking at the χελώνα and showing it to them is kind of magical?

I finally put the tortoise down on the grass of this wild area off to the side of the courtyard, and marvel aloud that it is weird that I barely know any Greek except how to say μια χελώνα.

"I think she will soon run off," a kind lady called Aspasia assures me, seeing I remain slightly anxious about its fate. "I don't know why I'm saying 'she'. I suppose because χελώνα is feminine in Greek."

"Yes! I know that!" I exclaim, thrilled.

"Well done!" she says. And also she asks if we are OK for drinking water after the storm and if we need any help with anything and is just generally incredibly lovely and now we know more of the neighbours!

So "μια χελώνα" has just become, by a long way, my most-used and most understood and all-around most conversationally successful phrase in Greek. So I guess I have to admit I was wrong to doubt Duolingo's wisdom: it is correct to be obsessed with turtles. And I concede that prior to learning how to count to ten or to distinguish right from left, the simple ability to yell the word TURTLE over and over again is, it turns out, a crucial element of the responsible traveller's social skills.

(I am pretty fluent in Italian and turtles haven't come up in conversation even once?)

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