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 (偽中国語) 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？　

But how should we understand Sinography from a linguistic perspective?

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!

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妾以上記求西洋言語学者友人之意見。

I sought the opinions of a Western linguist friend on the above.

答之西洋言語学者友人応答曰：

In response, my Western linguist friend replied: Generally, in linguistics, spoken language is the main subject of study, and what we're most concerned with. Written language is seen as a technology or a cultural artifact. How you write a language has little impact on the characteristics and properties of the spoken language.

妾曰：

I asked: Is Western linguistics, then, unfamiliar with the study of written ideographic systems, such as Sinography, that are not directly tied to any one spoken language?

西洋言語学者友人応答曰：

My Western linguist friend replied: No. People who study languages that use hansi(Sinograph) are familiar with hansi. That's not the point I made. The point I made is that, in linguistics, the main object of study is spoken language. We do not classify, or build phylogenetic trees of languages based on their alphabet/writing system, but on characteristics of the spoken languages.

I know many people would even argue that the study of writing system doesn't even belong to linguistics as a field. Though I'm not sure that this is an universally accepted view.

Classical Chinese is not Japanese, and writing systems are not languages.

Classical Chinese was a spoken language at some point in time, which got codified using a specific writing system. That writing system has been used to capture other, unrelated languages.

Writing systems are in fact outside the area of expertise of most (though not all) linguists, since they are not particularly relevant to most (though not all) linguistic questions.

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諸君如何以為乎？　待望諸君考察！

What do you all think? I eagerly await your reflections!

I'm originally from Mariupol, Ukraine, we have a huge community of ethnic Greeks in there, and that song was so popular when I was a child. Unfortunately I can't find text of this song anywhere, I would really appreciate if someone can help me with transcription.

b d ʒ g bʰ dʰ ʒʰ gʰ p t k ʃ pʰ tʰ kʰ ʃʰ s sʰ ʂ ɕ ʂʰ ɕʰ z zʰ ʐ ʑ ʐʰ ʑʰ ꭧ ʨ ꭦ ʥ ꭧʰ ʨʰ ꭦʰ ʥʰ x ɣ h m n ŋ l xʰ ɣʰ hː m̥ n̥ ŋ̊ l̥ a ø o u ɘ i ɑ aː øː oː uː ɘː iː ɑː ˥ ˦ ˧

https://www.reddit.com/r/telugucrosswords/s/1vWFSXi6LH

The Iberian dialects are technically Italian dialects in the same sense that the Latinic dialects are technically Italic dialects because they have the "made in Italy" origin.

A few months ago, I saw a post here from someone looking for a Hangul learning song that adults could actually enjoy listening to, rather than something that felt too childish. That idea stuck with me, so I decided to try making one.

I’m developing a music-based Korean learning series for complete beginners, and this is the first track.

The idea is to help learners become familiar with the characteristic sounds of Korean consonants before moving on to vowels and combining them into syllables.

I’d really appreciate feedback from Korean learners, especially beginners. Does the repetition help? Is anything confusing or difficult to follow?

🎧 YouTube:

https://youtu.be/EpgFnlrn-ig?si=DZMN_PwFsg5U3VBY

It’s also available on Spotify if anyone prefers listening there:

https://open.spotify.com/track/1i3xOMJhPIntivT7mkhR48?si=xZ8z-zqDReGnz2rBrxQwhQ&utm_source=copy-link

The job market. Have you ever been turned down for a job due to language requirements? Sometimes, employers demand proficiency in two or more languages—a requirement that is excessive and unreasonable.

This might be the wrong subreddit, but...

I'm plotting out a story in my head (whether it ever gets written down is another matter entirely), and one of the plot points is that a young Japanese woman comes to America for college and ends up having a child. She dies when the child is 5~ish and the kid goes to live with their father.

The fact that she is Japanese and the kid is half-Japanese is kind of important. I wanted the kid to speak a mixture of Japanese and English. However, I've been seeing a lot of comments that the parents of 1st generation immigrants want their children to speak English to better "blend in".

In this context, would the kid be speaking both languages or just English predominantly?

Thank you

I guess we say "sweet dreams" but I feel like there's got to be better.

This dialect has lost genders, and it has a strong Livonian (Finnic language) accent.

Can anyone help me decifer this please? I can pick out the following:

Nr. 539
Dresden, am 15. Februar 1919

Polizei~

In Dresden

Pastor Johannes Winding

32 Jahr alt, evangellisch Luther~~ Religion
~~ in Wien
geboren in Seem in Dänemark, lodig

~~ Winding
~~Herslev
in Dänemark

Der Stendesbeamte,

Dresden, am 8 Mai 1919
Der Stendesbeamte.

So I’m a 30 year old adult who was just watching some TikToks. I saw one of a girl on a beautiful hillside and she’s posing like she’s laying down getting a picture/video taken. A group of (white) boys walk by saying “performative ahh sleeping” and then another says something about “larping”.

Many of the comments were agreeing with the boys and others were making fun of them for specifically using “ahh” and “larping” outside of text.

Now, the thing I’m interested in is the way people made fun of the boys choice of words. I’m totally aware of the awkwardness of saying internet slang in real life convos, but “ahh” and “larping” predate texting and social media.

Much of American English slang comes from the black community and “ahh” (AFAIK) is phonemic spelling for AAV “ass”. So, why would it be corny to speak in AAV? Unless of course, it’s a subtle conscious awareness that white people using AAV sounds weird. In or out of texting. Because if it’s not weird in text, why not say it out loud too like many people have been doing for a very long time? Does that make sense?

It’s like so much socialization is happening online or via text that using the words you use constantly is weird if you use your actual voice to say them? And the words you use absolutely reflect who you are, so it’s just interesting to think about people being different personas depending on their mode of communication. But I could be way off.

And then larping? Why would it be corny or cringe to say that out loud? It’s not an internet term, it’s just gathered more popularity in recent years, but I don’t believe has changed meaning. So why that word too? Is it just weird to speak at all?

All of this came from doom scrolling so I’m not saying I know anything lol I just wanted to see other people’s thoughts