No.237
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_TurkishVery interesting monstrosity, mix of Turkish language with Arabic and Persian. Not only majority of vocabulary was adopted from them, but also some grammatical structures. This is especially cool because all these three languages belong to different families.
No.464
Duolingo having Navajo and Hawaiian but no Armenian or Georgian is pure Western-centrism.
No.467
>>464Even Anglo-centrism. There are Irish, Welsh and Scottish Gaelic but no Baltic languages.
No.2214 KONTRA
>>2202>>2211>>2213Thank you for exposing the Finno-Ugrics for what they truly are - petty swamp dwellers full of hatred. I am shocked and appalled, but ultimately not surprised.
No.2243 KONTRA
>>2214This forbidden knowledge is of too much importance, I had to disclose it, otherwise my conscience would torment me.
>>2213I think so. "Altaic" languages don't allow liquid initials, hence the additional o.
Chinese word for Russia is the same because it's loaned from Mongolian.
No.2365
Why Englishmen call these metal things nails? Because you can hit your nail when you nail a nail?
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nail No.2366
>>2365What's the point here? Making fun of the English?
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Nagel No.2382
>>2366No, I just wonder if it's a coincidence that two closely related things are called the same way.
No.2383
>>2382>coincidence that two closely related thingsGiddings me?
No.2387 KONTRA
>>2383Are you legit autistic or something?
No.2388
>>2387Ooh, using a mental illness as insult.
No.2390 KONTRA
>>2388No, I am asking you if you are a diagnosed autist, because the only other explanation for your behavior is that you're a douche. You know, the kind of person who always has to make perfectly clear they know about $THING and won't stop until everyone has acknowledged it, especially the teacher. Then again, you're getting suspiciously defensive about a simple inquiry.
But if I actually wanted to insult you, I would say: You're a bit of a douche, aren't you?
No.2391 KONTRA
>>2390https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yKbyPvyGj08t. an Ernst that never participated in this thread before
No.3217
https://www.tiktok.com/@magni.fy/video/7227805467945471278might fit this thread.
I think it is also a little demonstration of media materialism (Friedrich Kittler). So that the mindless matter determines the mindstuff
Kittler was speaking about the "Austreibung des Geistes aus den Geisteswissenschaften", literally the "exorcise the mind from the mind sciences (literal translation of the german word for humanities) and that we should look at matter in the humanities. In this case how matter determines graphemes.
No.3225
>>3224Original egyptian (coptic) is very different from hebrew/arabic.
No.3227
>>3225Coptic is late Egyptian, right before assimilating into Arabic world. The thing which I posted is probably older. I see, Egyptian expert is online, he'll clarify things for us.
No.3228
>>3224Hieroglyphs are actually also read in "blocks" where some parts are determinants/radicals and some are vocal components that are there for the pronunciation.
It's similar to Chinese, though eventually the Egyptian hieroglyphic script got simplified into the demotic script which is a lot less elaborate and more squigly. Can't for the life of me recall to what degree this meant that it did away with logographs but I assume it was to a large degree.
The hieroglyphs then enjoyed a boom in use for ritual purposes where you could make up new ones for magical use.
Sort of like what Daoists were doing in China.
I don't remember Egyptian being closely related to the Semitic languages of the time though. They are in a single language family though.
No.4650
Different scripts have different traditions of punctuation. Are they all similar in principle (question ? , exclamation ! , start of enumeration : , etc) or are there other syntactic signs, unknown to Europeans?
Also interesting how no one invented emojis before internet. Probably because written language was used for serious matters, not for emotionally charged everyday communication.
No.4710
>>4650>interesting how no one invented emojis before internet.I can imagine what Mozart would have texted to his cousin:
💞 Cousin 🐇👯♀️🐇
before I text you, I have go to the 🚽. 😅 Now I feel better, now I can eat again! But my ass feels like 🔥🔥🔥🔥 Some have a 👛 some have 💰🤑💰 but how do you hold it? With your ✋ right? 😗 my ass, coppersmith!
Sleep well, stretch your 👅 to your ass and 💩 in the 🛌 to make it💥💣💥
that's exactly the kind of bullshit he wrote to her. Google Bäsle-Briefe. It's a bunch of manic coprophilic ramblings. So much for serious matters. No.4716
>>4650If you look at linguistic constructs employed by some of them isolated tribes and shit, emojis no longer look all that remarkable.
I think our perception of what language can be like is limited by our particular historic circumstance.
As in, there's a bunch of language families, the users of which had successful civilizations, which also interacted with each other on the world stage, and the sjm hotal of those languages is our idea of language itself.
But there's languages out there that never really were historically relevant, that have some fucked up constructs like separate pronouns for different categories of shape n shit, that make emojis look tame by comparison.
Maybe Wittgenstein was right. Our understanding of reality itself is contingent on the tules of our "language game".
No.4723 KONTRA
>>4716Btw just got limited by my language:
I can express language as a property of a civilization (a civilization's language), but I couldn't find a non awkward way to express a civilization as a property of language (a language's civilizations?), even though the idea that civilizations are downstream from language is a perfectly valid idea to express.
You get me?
No.5749
>>4710After Telegram added emoji-reactions I got used to emojis and started to use them in messages as well. Not only me but many people around.
We'll see where it goes...
>>4716Emojis are very specific linguistic construct because they belong exclusively to written text and differ it from spoken language where you can't use them. Another examples of that are caps-lock, bold, italic, etc. Theoretically you could use different font and color to express more information. Or instead of writing "if ... then ... else ..." draw block-schemes. Seems like during most of the history humans were limited by material conditions and because of that used simple writing systems (one predefined sign per sound or per syllable or per word).
About language defining our consciousness. That's true, even between popular languages there are enough such differences. My personal pain is that English doesn't have a complex morphology and you are limited in demagoguery since you can't add subtle meanings to words with different suffixes. But we're same species living in the same physical universe, so it can't be THAT different.
No.5750
Is it over for natural languages after neurointerfaces are invented?
No.5757
>>5750No, because natural languages are still the most efficient way the brain has for communication of rational thoughts, either with itself or the outside world. So any interface would either also transmit natural language or at least use that to interface with the brain.
No.5758
>>5757Even now more than 50% of people don't have inner monologue
fucking npcs.
No.5759
>>5758I googled it and the results claim these people are not even dumb. I refuse to believe that.
No.5785
>>5759Wow, you _googled_ it! I guess that's what a smart person does who can tell that others are dumb?
No.5786 KONTRA
>>5785If you had an inner monologue it would tell you not to write such post.
No.5789
>>5787You have to make a conscious effort to put your child-like, primitive thought process devoid of any abstractions into words. Without language, all your thinking is stuck in the concrete realm. Do you even have object permanence? Maybe in a limited sense, as you can conjure a mental image of an invisible object.
It is like you are a literal animal that does not know language. I do not only think that you are dumb, I think you are not fully human. Even responding to you is pathetic and ridiculous. It feels like responding to a dog or monkey, at best.
>>5785>Wow, you _googled_ it! I guess that's what a smart person does who can tell that others are dumb?Unironically yes. Dumb people do not get results from search engines because they cannot formulate searches.
They instead show their problems to people around them, and when no one in the immediate vicinity can help, they decide there is no solution.
No.5792
>>5789>You have to make a conscious [etc]the q.e.d refered to autistic bickering like in the banner. It was a shitpost supporting a roast, redditor.
No.5793
>>5792> redditor.Bickering is ok, but please refrain from 4chongs lingo.
No.5798
>>5750>>5758The medium is the message.
There's no "true" thought behind the linguistic form.
Language is a form of thinking in itself, along with non linguistic forms of thought.
It's like asking if pictures will replace text.
Also, personal opinion, having to verbalize thought is the equivalent of counting on your fingers: only retards rely on it
t. thinks in generalized abatract relations
No.5799
Animal linguistics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._LillyThe guy took ketamine while floating in sensory deprivation chamber and tried to talk with dolphins:
> In the 1980s, Lilly led a project in which he tried to teach computer-synthesized language to dolphins. Later, Dr. Lilly created a project for a future "communication lab", which would be a floating living room where humans and dolphins could communicate as equals and where they would find a common language. John foresaw that there would come a time when the killing of whales and dolphins would stop, “not because of the law that will be passed, but because of every person who understands from birth that they are ancient, intelligent inhabitants of the earth; with great knowledge and great power of life. Not those who need to be killed, but those from whom something needs to be learned.” No.5815 KONTRA
>>5799Sounds like an idea that would impress enviro-hippies, but somehow, it does not strike me as an argument that would convince a whale hunter.
No.5821
>>5798Are you able to verbalize every thought?
If not, those people apparently have something over you.
Hot take: The more extroverted a person is, the less inner monologue they have, and that is the reason for the extroversion in the first place.
No.5823
>>5821>Are you able to verbalize every thought?Trick question, some thoughts/experiences are inherently unverbalizable.
You can describe them in language, but you can't convey.
No.5829
>>5799I like how these kinds of people always act like animals would act by human logic. This is just a bad case of anthropomorphizing.
It's also the reason why it's so hard to write alien and fantasy races that aren't just "humans with unusual appendages and/or skin".
No.6400
Lysenko of linguisticshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Marr (English article is very incomplete)
> Language has a class nature, being a "superstructure" over the basis - socio-economic relations; it is possible to single out the stages of language associated with the stages of development of economic relations: the primitive communal system, the slave-owning system, feudalism, capitalism, and, consequently, a new language of communist society must arise. It will be "a new and unified language, where the highest beauty will merge with the highest development of the mind." Isolating languages are considered the most primitive stage, inflectional languages are considered the highest, in the process of transition from stage to stage, parts of speech and grammatical categories are formed.
> The language originated from “labor shouts” as a result of the “sound revolution” and is associated with the beginning of human labor activity. It was preceded by kinetic (sign) speech. All words of all languages have a common origin (monogenesis), namely from the "four elements" - the original labor shouts SAL, BER, YON and ROSH (originally "having no meaning" and used for magical purposes); so-called "linguistic paleontology" can trace any word to one (or more) of the four elements. This statement was combined with the theory of the original plurality of languages - despite the general nature of the four elements, different social groups attached different meanings to them. The methods for deriving words from the “four elements” were not of any strict nature; in practice, arbitrary substitutions and rearrangements of sounds typical of amateur exercises in etymology, discarding parts of words were allowed (words Rus-sians, Et-rus-cans, [fr] rouge, [de] roth, [ru] к-рас-ый, рыжий and many other were attributed and elevated to the element ROSH). No.9920
There is such a thing as "Linguistic Olympiads". For example,
https://ioling.org/Currently reading compilation of problems from such competitions. Not even trying to solve them myself, immediately reading writeups. But the main point is that each problem has a short article about corresponding phenomenon (dissimilation of sounds, for instance) and that's like 80% of book text, so it can be read as linguistic textbook.
A funny task is about Belarusian spelling:
https://22century.ru/popular-science-publications/belarusian-spellingLanguage is very close to Russian but its language standard (first was made in 1918) obliges to write words same as it's heard, so Belarusian texts look like a child writing on Russian. In 1933 authorities made special amendment that "revolutionary" words should still be written according to Russian norms: manarchi, but revolution (not revalushn).
No.9926 KONTRA
>>9923Anyway, Belarusian was doomed because of globalization.
No.9927 KONTRA
>>9926It's don't.
Poles had the same thing with Soviets trying to reform P*lish language to be more close to Russian, but psheks revolted.
No.9928
> spellingThis Ernst seriously never understood the reasoning behind most spelling rules. Is there any point in having spelling rules? Why not simply adapt the international phonetic alphabet and just write down as spoken?
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_AlphabetThere might be some cases where spelling can be useful. For example for artistic purposes or while coding. But usually it should be a lot better to just write as spoken, no? Afaik korean is the closest to having a scripture that is a phonetic representation of the actual spoken language.
Spelling in a language without any phonetic definition/aspect to the language might also be useful.
I am seriously asking:
What is the point of spelling from the point of view from a linguist?
e.g. the attached little mp4:
I was genuinely wondering "why doesn't the doctor understand him?" until the doctor said the word and I went like "What? You are supposed to pronounce it like that? How the fuck is a foreigner supposed to know
that?"
And, yes, I pronounce sooo many english words wrong, because I always ever engaged with them in written form.
No.9929
>>9928>What is the point of spelling from the point of view from a linguist?That would be difficult to accomplish.
What would you do with homophone? Does German language has such?
No.9930 KONTRA
Also the same word could sound differently in different sentences. That's true a lot of times for french.
How would you even teach that?
>6 — sis
>6 ans — siz:an
No.9931
>>9930I'm certain in proclaiming:
every kid learns to phonetically understand that before learning to write it down.
> How would you even teach that?It already has been taught once you teach someone to write.
It's a different story if you just or first teach how to write and afterwards how to speak.
For numerical values I, personally, would kind of agree to using numerical symbols instead of phonetic ones. Numerical values are an edge case. If I remember correctly we are supposed to "write the numerical value out up to ... twelve(?)" and everything afterwards/bigger as numerical symbols, if you wanna write "correct" german.
>>9929> homophoneIn spoken language you know because of the context.
Why would written language be different? But, yes, that is a valid problem with language, not with spelling. (Or did I make a mistake here?)
No.9934 KONTRA
>>9931>I'm certain in proclaiming:Welp that's silly. Any other dialect and shit is fucked up.
No.9938
>>9934yeah, I thought about that problem as well.
My solution would pretty much be how it is currently handled:
you have a "standard" for the whole language
/country.
this standard gets taught in addition to the local dialect, see switzerland as an example. I, for example, also speak in a heavy dialect, if I speak "normal". I can still speak pretty good high-german, if I need or want to. Additionally, in german it is quite common for some to just write "as spoken", if they want to give something a local dialectical twist. It usually is still understandable even for german speakers who are not too familiar with that dialect.
Writing "normal" high-german is a little straining, because I do
not speak like that. Having the symbols to write at least be logically bound to how to speak the language, would help lessen this strain a little. But I think english and french is a lot worse in terms of "this is how it is spelled" and "this is how it is actually pronounced". Dutch seems more similar to german than to english in terms of this aspect, but, like always with that language, somewhere in between. I don't know how problematic other languages are.
> and shit is fucked upYes, that is correct.
But would it be more fucked up as our current rules regarding spelling?
No.9939
>>9938>But would it be more fucked up as our current rules regarding spelling?Imagine almost every Arab could learn German grammar and spelling in several months because it's so easy. Why would anyone hire you then?
No.9940
>>9939> Imagine almost every Arab could learn German grammar and spelling in several months because it's so easy. Why would anyone hire you then?I don't quite see the problem here.
> imagine grammar and spelling was logically consistent> imagine there is less work to be done> imagine you could use your time to work on other problems, since this one has been pretty much solved....
> Why would anyone hire you then?To learn slang, idioms, fillers and habits. It's very rare in pretty much any language, that native speakers are speaking "correct". Either this "correct" is very local, because the standard is based on that local area, or your "correct" stands out among the local "wrong".
No.10019
>>9940Every arab speak perfect German anyway. Albany farmers from villages talk funny, though. Their congenital retardation prevents them from learning decent German.
No.10514 KONTRA
>>10487in the example, it sounds like disziplinlos is connotated with being disrespectful while undiszipliniert connotes laziness or not being well organized in my book
No.13249
>>13248There's also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiao%27erjingTibetans muslims in Baltistan also write Tibetan in Arabic.
No.13250 KONTRA
0.jpg (26.96 KB, 994x340)
Semi-related:
No.13251
>>13249Almost all Muslim peoples used Arabic script at some point. What surprised me is "why Belarusian wtf". I've never heard of Lipka Tatars and also I was confused because I've never heard of Tatars in Russia writing Russian language in Arabic script. They definitely used it for their own language though. But it's not unique if you think of it - Yiddish is a dialect of German written with Hebrew script, except it's not specially adapted, so we can't say that there is a designated "German Hebrew Alphabet".
>>13250Wow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Arabic_mathematical_notation No.13991
I heard that Celtic languages are studied in school in Ireland and Wales. Seems like pissing against the wind to me because it's more convenient and natural for people there to speak English. Probably with very strong and unliberal government intervention it's possible to resurrect Celtic languages and then maintain it naturally because they're very different from English instead of being its dialect (like Scots), which would inevitably merge back into English. That would be interesting, another alive Indo-European branch.
They sound nice. For a while I thought that Tolkien used them as inspiration for Elvish language (turns out, it's Finnish).
Pairwise comparisons Irish & Gaelic & Welsh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u86rM01KPCUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZF2gKBcgE4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q02dYEEHZ24What do you think?
No.17920
>>17913>>17914>>17917>>17918Most G*rmans neither can hear nor speak the difference between a voiced and voiceless ending of a wordt.
No.19528
>>19510Interested in doglords, dipwaffles and poopclowns, for various reasons.
No.19531
>>19528Only a trumpnozzle would be interested in that
No.20754
So that's why tranners use they/them as pronouns:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_theyAnd in French they combine "he" and "she" into one word to create neuter pronoun.
In Russian there is a neuter singular pronoun "ono" but tranners still use plural "oni", probably because they adopted it from English without thinking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language - examples in different languages
No.21023
>>20756>In Polish "they" is also gendered (oni/one)So how do they refer to a mixed-sex group or a person who's sex they're not sure of?
No.21024
>>21023Probably the same as french
No.21025
>>21024Yes, same as French, mixed = multiple males.