Tagged language

Yes, I know that the word "chai" literally just means "tea" in Hindi (and other languages) and that the term "chai tea" is therefore technically redundant. I don't care. I will still occasionally say "chai tea" and I don't feel like I'm committing some kind of linguistic sin by doing so.

The English translation of "chai" is, of course, "tea" and it refers to a very generic category of usually hot and often caffeinated beverages made from steeping various kinds of leaves. On the other hand, the word "chai" in English usually refers to a very specific kind of spiced tea, often taken with milk, that Westerners typically associate with the culinary tradition of South Asia. One would not normally use the word "chai" in English to refer to the bog standard Orange Pekoe that one might drink for a caffeine fix in the morning before work.

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TIL I learned that the word "senate" is derived from the Latin word "senex" meaning "old man".

I know this sounds patronizing but the Spanish word for small (pequeño/a) is super cute.

I've been doing Spanish on Duolingo since December of last year, and I STILL have trouble mentally translating "Yo tengo" as "I have" as opposed to "You tango?"

I find the Spanish tendency to drop the subject of a sentence when it's implied by the format of the verb to be both jarring and admirably efficient

I've of the things I have to deal with in Spanish: 'sombrero' means 'hat', and I sort of already knew this, but I always associated it with a very specific kind of hat, not hats in general.

First practical duolingo result: I now understand that the chihuahua was saying "I want Taco Bell"

TIL that the chinese word for penguin literally translates as "business goose".

My my, that duolingo owl is aggressive, isn't it.

Okay, so duolingo is kind of fun.

TIL I learned that "boat", "bait", "bite", "bolt", and "bitter" are all cognates, from a PIE word meaning to strike or split (the connection with boat appears to be that one used to make them by hollowing out split tree trunks).

TIL that the "-ly" suffix commonly added to words in English to denote an adverb comes from the word "like" (still existing in the word "ladylike", for example). So "slowly" came from "slow-like" and "carefully" came from "careful-like" (possibly explaining the double "l").

TIL that "marshmallow" is actually a very old word, derived from the Old English word "mersc-mealwe" describing a "kind of mallow plant (Althea officinalis) which grows near salt marshes."

TIL from @englishhistpod that Wales and Welsh both come from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning "foreigner", which is ironic given that the Welsh were the native Britons and the Anglo-Saxons were the invaders.  Also: the wall in Cornwall and the wal in walnut mean "foreign" as well!

I think I was listening to "Episode 11: Germanic Ancestors"  but I'm not sure how much of it will make sense if you haven't listened to the previous episodes (unless you have a background in this stuff?)

Well, as the title suggests, if you are interested in the history of English and other Indo-European languages, including Farsi, then yes :)

There would be a dramatic bit where some Indo-European suddenly decides to say an "F" instead of a "P" and is henceforth know as "Proto-Germanic-Man".  Or some random sheep herder develops a speech impediment and starts saying "S" instead of "K" and they are henceforth "Satem-man".

It's like, you know how superheroes have catchphrases, and a superhero origin movie will always have a bit where the hero gets to say the catch phrase and that's how you know they're for real now?  We need a movie like that for the origin of German or Sanskrit.

"And here we have the origin of the Germans! Over here we have the very first ancestors of the Celts and the Romans!". I feel like each branch needs a character sheet with all their different powers.

Learning about Indo-European migration on  @englishhistpod and it sometimes feels like I'm listening to DnD prep or superhero origin stories

Visiting Greece presented some interesting linguistic challenges.

I live in Montreal, which means I have at least some knowledge of the French language. I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, fluent in said language. Frankly, I'm not even very good. My French, basically, is terrible.

But while my French may be terrible, it is at least there. I'm generally able to ask for directions, order a meal from a menu, read the road signs, and even to some extent carry on a conversation, if I keep my words short and avoid slang. When someone says a word in French, I'll stand a chance of being able to match it up with a series of letters on paper, even if the word is unfamiliar.

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I just finished a book called The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher. It's pretty awesome if you're interested in a) how grammar evolves over time and b) how the very notion of grammar (verb tenses, prepositions, etc.) emerges in the first place.

The author describes, for example, the Latin case system, where nouns can have different endings depending on what role the noun is playing in the sentence. You say "cactus", for example, if it's used as a subject, but you use "cactum" if it's used as an object.

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English spelling is notoriously...arbitrary. Any and all attempts to pin down a spelling rule will be met with at least six different exceptions - and you can be sure that the exceptions will be words that you will actually want to use. A study in English spelling is basically a study in evolutionary history. It's a study of various French invasions and vowel shifts. And, most of all, it's an exercise in brute memorization.

Contrast this with mathematics. Useful mathematical results are derived from previous mathematical results, using nothing but pure logic. A mathematical result is what it is because it had to be that way. A mathematical result simply couldn't be anything else and still make sense. Note that this is, more or less, the exact opposite of what one can say about English spelling conventions.

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