A certain user on reddit corrected me on a comment I made about a similar word in Polish and Lithuanian being possibly a loanword. After quickly looking it up on Wikitionary, it suggested an etymology for the word from Proto-Balto-Slavic. The user suggested Balto-Slavic languages are not a meaningful way to divide Indo-European languages. Are they right?

I've noticed that I can recall words in my second language, Cebuano, pretty quickly when speaking, even though I barely use it in everyday life. Meanwhile, I sometimes struggle to speak smoothly in other languages I've been studying for years because I can't immediately remember the words I want to say.

What's strange is that I actually use those other languages more often than Cebuano, but I can still remember Cebuano words quite easily, even after months of not speaking it.

Is this normal when it comes to learning a third language? Could there be a specific part of the brain that helps with this, or is there another reason why I can recall Cebuano words more easily than words in languages I've spent years studying?

For some background, I lived in a Cebuano-speaking province when I was six and learned Cebuano for about a year. After moving back to a Tagalog-speaking province, I eventually lost the ability to speak it for years, although I could still understand people when they spoke it. I've recently started speaking Cebuano again, but I'm not as fluent as I used to be.

Why does one uses prefixed pronouns and the other suffixes?

Can this be traced back to proto-semitic?

Why do most of the clitic pronouns not correspond to each other (only 1st plural is consistent)?

What is the origin of the waw plural marker?

Hundreds of thousands of words, distinct grammatical rules for every different language—it is as if each language were formed by chance, yet all of them strictly adhere to their own internal grammatical structures; how does this happen?

I believe to have read in inflection charts that Proto-Italic only had present and perfect. Also, most Latin verbs have these two stems. Also, Italo-Celtic is considered to be closely related to Germanic, which famously also only has two synthetic tenses. (And only one in the passive, as in Gothic.) Some forms could even be explained as former periphrastic construction, I think. There are also only two basic infinitive "tenses".

Is that a common assumption or do I misremember something?

I have no idea how to tag this so please don’t take this down for tagging around, but I found myself cussing, a certain phrase and saying it with some sort of country hue to my voice, my only connection to the country is my family from a small town in New Mexico, I’m half Mexican and grew up in Los Angeles area so this one makes sense, but I find myself often speaking in the Chicano voice, especially when talking to other Chicanos or people into the street crime and try to relate sometimes cause I grew up with those types of people but I’m not from the city of Los Angeles from the suburbs. I’m not from East LA and yeah, there were a lot of Mexican Asians where I grew up but still, also the final one is that I watched a lot of Italian mafia movies, and I find myself accidentally speaking like an Italian from New York or New Jersey despite like I said being from California in the LA suburbs, I have no idea why this happens and most of the time my voice is normal, but what’s up with that?

I know as little about phones and computers as I do cars, but I’m perfectly capable of following a step-by-step.

For example Y can make at least 3 sounds, as in yes, funny, sky. O can make at least 4 sounds as in one, lone, gone, done. Ough is famously versatile.

Hello, I’m currently in university studying linguistics. I am looking to be on the track for continuing in academia with postgraduate education. I would like to specialize in language documentation and endangered language revitalization. My question is what careers are there in this field? Are there any beyond academia and research? And should I have a side gig or perhaps another career and this as the side gig? I have heard whispers that this is an unstable career and would like some direction.
thank you.

Hey everyone!

I'm a non-native English speaker and an English learner who's really interested in phonetics and different English accents. I've been wondering about how native speakers pronounce words like mountain, button and important, particularly when it comes to the /t/ sound.

I've always associated the glottal stop [ʔ] with British English, especially because of the whole "bo'le of wa'er" stereotype that people often use to imitate British accents.

But I've noticed that a lot of Americans seem to pronounce words like mountain and button with either a glottal stop or some form of nasal release, rather than a clearly released [t].

I actually had a discussion with someone who insisted that the only correct way to pronounce mountain was something like "moun'n", without a clearly pronounced T. That didn't sound quite right to me, because I assumed there would be plenty of variation depending on the accent.

I've spent some time living in Australia, and from what I've heard, Australians seem to use T-flapping quite a lot, although I'm not sure how that applies to these particular words.

So I've got a few questions:

Is this pronunciation of mountain and button mainly an American English feature? How common is it in British and Australian English? Do speakers of those accents also regularly use glottal stops in these words?

Who actually pronounces the /t/ in mountain and button as a clearly articulated [t]? Are there particular accents or regions where that's more common? Or is it something that pretty much everyone does in careful speech?

Does speaking speed make a difference? For example, would a British speaker pronounce mountain with a clear [t] when speaking slowly, but use a glottal stop in faster, more casual speech? Or would someone who normally uses a glottal stop continue to use it even when speaking slowly?

What happens when someone deliberately emphasises a word? Say someone normally pronounces mountain with a glottal stop. If they really wanted to stress the word or say it very clearly, would they switch to a fully articulated [t]? Or would they still use the glottal stop because that's simply how they naturally pronounce the word?

What about words like important? I've noticed that Americans often seem to use a glottal stop or nasal release here too. My impression is that Australians frequently use a flap [ɾ] in words with intervocalic /t/, but I'm not sure whether that applies to important specifically. Would an Australian speaker who normally uses a flap switch to a clear [t] when speaking slowly or emphasising the word?

And what's the actual phonetic distinction between a glottal stop and nasal release in these words? I've seen both terms used to describe American pronunciations of mountain and button, and I'm not entirely sure whether people are describing the same phenomenon or two different ways of producing the sound.

I'm particularly interested in whether these differences are mainly determined by someone's accent, or whether things like speaking speed, formality and emphasis can change how the /t/ is realised.

I'd love to hear from native speakers of American, British and Australian English, as well as anyone with a background in phonetics or phonology.

Thanks in advance!

I am speaking about Classical Latin and/or the Latin of the Church, where the traditional grammar and rules of accentuation (at least for the primary accent) were followed.

In words that are long enough to have it, where is the secondary stress placed in Latin? That is, what rules do we follow to determine on which syllable the secondary accent is placed?

There are surprisingly few resources online which talk about this. Weirdly, every single one which I've found is meant to help one find it in English words/names derived from Latin, using the Traditional English Pronunciation of Latin. However, many of them claim that the system they use is exactly the same as that used in Classical/standard Latin.

Wikipedia's article about the TEP of Latin says that secondary stress in Latin works exactly like primary stress, as if the primarily stressed syllable and everything following were "cut off" from the rest of the word. So dēliculōrum becomes dēlicu-, which gets stress on the antepenult; thus, dēliculōrum=/ˌdeː.li.cu.ˈlō.ɾum/.

Sometimes, as in the example above, I find this pronunciation unnatural, and would rather say /deː.ˌli.cuˈlō.ɾum/. The same is the deal with others, like castificantem. At other times, I want to accent the antepenultimate before the primary stress, as in Alexandrīa, although this is probably due to the English name.

One source has the secondary (and tertiary, etc.) accent always placed on the penult before the stronger stress, and another lists both rules (always penult, or sometimes antepenult, sometimes penult), and gives an example which indeed sounds very off if pronounced on the antepenult: 'Carthaginiensis', which also has, according to this source, a tertiary stress on 'Car-'. Admittedly, both of these last two sources seemed less concerned with anything other than English speech, at least to me.

So, does anyone have any answer? Perhaps there's stress-based poetry which could shed some light on this question. Thank you.

Hello! I just thought of this question. It might be negated by poetry in other languages being governed by different "rules" or formations, but I was thinking that English, despite it's strict word order, can play it pretty fast and loose to create poetry that functions well in spite of rhymes or strict syllable schemes, and is it the same or more difficult in languages that use extensive noun cases and/or verb agreement? Is it a case in which noun cases can be dropped for creative freedom like how English poetry can sometimes negate the grammatical rules of fiction for specific rhythm or rhyme?

Or maybe it's actually way easier. Russian has free word order and extensive noun cases to compensate, so maybe you can configure lines any way you want to get the rhyme you want. I don't know. I'm deeply curious about this. :)

For example, "or" is spelled differently in or, o'er, amour, floor, aura, tawny, roar, talk, and no doubt more.

I think I need help grasping the foundation and research agenda of Cognitive Linguistics. Is it because I haven’t read enough or the Cognitive Linguistics of the kind of Lakoff is quite sloppy when referring to forms? I come from a functional-typological background, but when we discuss semantics (or function if you will), the discussion is still usually situated with the expression of these things by their forms. But all of these concept of metaphors, metonymy, and semantic structures in Cognitive Linguistics sound like they are functions floating on the air, without any concrete delineation in terms of linguistic forms. Sure their examples re concrete English sentences, but the issues of how the forms of metaphors can be detected or how their structuring of conceptual space is motivated seems to be rarely clearly vocalized, at least not in a way that I’m familiar with (like those used by typologists in, e.g. WALS).

Can anyone who is more experienced help me navigate their ideas?

My understanding is that evidential languages basically require you to have a source for how you know things in order to be grammatically correct. You can't just say "the boy played with the ball", you have to say "the boy played with the ball and i know this because i saw him" or "the boy played with the ball, i assume". There are also languages that require you to state when and where something happened when describing it, as well as how accurate you judge a statement to be and whether or not you fully understand the topic being discussed. This built-in fact-checking characteristic is fascinating to me, but it's not like other languages can't state how you know something, and it's also possible to simply lie. But I imagine that constantly thinking about how you know what you're about to say may lead to better (or simply different) critical thinking skills. Is there any evidence to support this?

日本・中国等之漢字文化圏使用所謂｢漢字｣。如諸君既知之、漢字乃一種之表意文字也。

In Japan, China, and other parts of the Sinosphere, people use what are known as Sinographs (漢字) or Chinese characters. As you may already know, Sinographs are a type of ideographic writing.

組合漢字而表現複雑文意事、所謂｢漢文｣也。

The practice of combining sinographs to express complex meanings is what we call Sinography (漢文).

表意文字貫通言語之壁故、於東洋、異言語話者間之用漢文意志疎通自古代至現代盛也。所謂｢筆談｣也。

Because ideographic writing can transcend linguistic barriers, people in East Asia have used Sinography to communicate across language boundaries from ancient times to the present day. This practice is known as brush talk (筆談).

所謂｢古典漢文｣乃漢字文化圏之伝統的共通文語也。於日本中国韓国、学生皆之於学校。

What is commonly called Classical Chinese has traditionally served as a shared written language across the Sinosphere. Students in Japan, China, and South Korea all study it at school.

又近年所謂｢偽中国語｣大流行而、特於網上為国際交流多用。偽中国語専用社交網｢対多｣於appli之人気序列記録一位而為話題、又日本国河野外相訪中時以偽中国語発信而集注目等、各国媒体屡報道之。於reddit亦 r/fakechinese 、r/Sinography 等複数偽中国語板存在。

In recent years, so-called Fake Chinese has also become hugely popular, particularly as a means of international communication online. The dedicated Fake Chinese social networking app Tsuita (対多) made headlines after reaching the top of the app popularity rankings. Japan's Foreign Minister, Taro Kono, also attracted attention by posting in Fake Chinese during a visit to China. Such developments have repeatedly been covered by media outlets in various countries. Reddit, too, hosts several communities devoted to Fake Chinese, including r/fakechinese and r/Sinography.

妾日々与海外之友人等楽筆談。相手之出自乃和人、漢人、朝鮮人、越南人、蒙古人、満州人、独乙人、仏国人等々、多種多様也。妾以和語所作漢文、彼等以彼等之母語読之、彼等以彼等之母語所作之漢文、妾以和語読之。

I enjoy engaging in brush talk with friends overseas every day. They come from a remarkably diverse range of backgrounds: Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Manchu, German, French, and more. I compose Sinographic texts based on Japanese, which they read in their respective native languages. Conversely, they compose Sinographic texts based on their own native languages, which I read in Japanese.

如諸賢既知之、日本語与中国語与英語乃語族且違全然異言語也。｢Blue bird tweets｣乃日本語之場合｢Aoi toriga saezuru｣而中国語之場合｢Qing niao zhuan｣也、但以漢文書之則日本語中国語英語全｢青鳥囀｣而、不得区別其外形也。

As you may already know, Japanese, Chinese, and English are entirely different languages belonging to different language families. For example, the English phrase “Blue bird tweets” would be rendered as aoi tori ga saezuru in Japanese and qīng niǎo zhuàn in Chinese. Yet, when written in Sinography, all three can be represented by the same characters: 青鳥囀. Their written forms alone do not reveal which language is being expressed.

実面白事哉。漢文為日本語且中国語且英語乃明白也。

Isn't that fascinating? It seems to demonstrate that Sinography can be Japanese, Chinese, and even English.

於漢文、言語学之所見如何哉？　拠妾乏言語学之知識、相互理解可能性之有無乃独立言語之判定基準之一也。

But how should we understand Sinography from a linguistic perspective? Based on my limited knowledge of linguistics, one criterion for determining whether two varieties constitute separate languages is whether their speakers can understand one another.

然則以筆談相互理解可能則日本語与中国語与英語得見做同一言語乎？　

If mutual understanding through brush talk is possible, does that mean Japanese, Chinese, and English could be regarded as the same language?

待望言語学者諸君之意見！

I eagerly look forward to hearing the opinions of linguists and other interested scholars!

The Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages have a consonant series called "palatal", but transcriptions often use IPA postalveolar symbols except for [ɲ] and [j].

Are they postalveolar/palato-alveolar [ʃ ʧ], alveolo-palatal [ɕ ʨ], or true palatals [ç c]?

How pervasive is the use of words to describe both the taste of sugary things as well as pleasant, endearing behaviour? This connection exists in all languages I know (which are exclusively romance and Germanic ones), so I was wondering whether it's a universal analogy across cultures.

Having recently listened to some Billy Joel and George Thorogood, both refer to drinkers as "getting high" or "getting stoned". So when did this shift from referring to drinking, or intoxication in general, to referring primarily to other drugs? Thinking mainly of American English, but other dialects would certainly be welcome.

By base colors I mean colors that are not considered a shade of other colors, for example "lilac" is a color in English but it's considered a shade of purple while pink is not considered a shade of red (in other languages it is). I recently fell down the rabbit hole of color term hierarchy and I'm wondering where latin was.

Note: I am aware that Latin, like any other language, has evolved over time, so if you have any knowledge about how it changed over time that would be even better.

I’m new to linguistics, and this question came to my thinking lately: when things that never existed before, such as technology and artificial intelligence, are invented, how do we come up with words for them? I don't mean these words, I just couldn't think of any other 🙃😂.

I have university degrees in both cognitive neuroscience and linguistics, so I feel like I should absolutely know this. But somehow, I only have an average person's sense of it. Blame my professors I guess.

I was taught that the way the vocal tract is organized at birth is not well adapted for speech, and later development is required to enable the full range of possible phonemes. But obviously, newborn babies can vocalize, and have at least some range of tongue movement. So imagine a Mushoku Tensei-esque scenario; an adult mind is put into a newborn, and they really want to say something. What types of phonemes does the structure of their vocal tract, combined with the motor functionalities of their brain, allow them to produce at that age?

We all know that the /a/~/æ/ spectrum is one of them, certainly /ə/ also, and vowels in general are probably the most likely candidates. Given our hypothetical subject's foreknowledge and intentionality, could we add a few consonants to their repertoire as well? Labials would be my first guess, as they're often the first consonants to develop in L1 learners, and lips aren't a part of the apparatus that really needs any postnatal development. Alveolars might not be far behind? But I'm just guessing. I'm sure there is some hard data out there relevant to this question, some study analyzing neonatal vocalizations for phonemic diversity, but I'm not familiar with any of it. I'd really like to read a paper like that.

Can you recommend any papers to read about how tonal and non-tonal languages affect emotions?