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Linguistics - Blog Posts
Best language learning tips & masterlists from other bloggers I’ve come across
(these posts are not my own!)
THE HOLY GRAIL of language learning (-> seriously tho, this is the BEST thing I’ve ever come across)
Tips:
Some language learning exercises and tips
20 Favorite Language Learning Tips
what should you be reading to maximize your language learning?
tips for learning a language (things i wish i knew before i started)
language learning and langblr tips
Tips on how to read in your target language for longer periods of time
Tips and inspiration from Fluent in 3 months by Benny Lewis
Tips for learning a sign language
Tips for relearning your second first language
How to:
how to self teach a new language
learning a language: how to
learning languages and how to make it fun
how to study languages
how to practice speaking in a foreign language
how to learn a language when you don’t know where to start
how to make a schedule for language learning
How to keep track of learning more than one language at the same time
Masterposts:
Language Study Master Post
Swedish Resources Masterpost
French Resouces Masterpost
Italian Resources Masterpost
Resource List for Learning German
Challenges:
Language-Sanctuary Langblr Challenge
language learning checkerboard challenge
Word lists:
2+ months of language learning prompts
list of words you need to know in your target language, in 3 levels
Other stuff:
bullet journal dedicated to language learning
over 400 language related youtube channels in 50+ languages
TED talks about language (learning)
Learning the Alien Languages of Star Trek
.
Feel free to reblog and add your own lists / masterlists!
I’m now realizing that pronouns and gendered terms hit different for me when I’m speaking different languages
ms/miss: ew no I hate it but I’ll suffer through
Mr/sir: I’m ripping my soul apart with rage
Madame: uh fck no
Monsieur: YAHHHH PLZZZZ I LOVE ❤️❤️
小姐(xiaojie): cute fun, I can deal
先生（xiansheng): such a vibe, feels chill
linguistics hcs: voseo in (fëanorian) quenya
i am currently taking a course on spanish dialects and yesterday we talked about "voseo" which in oversimplified terms is a variation in 2nd person informal pronouns and verbs, e.g. tú tienes -> vos tenís. the rules and commonality of voseo depend largely on the region, so in some places it is the default, in some places it is not used or barely used at all, and in some places it is a complicated little shit (for example, here in chile, you will sometimes hear the tú pronoun with the vos form of the verb, e.g. tú tenís, and the vos pronoun is reserved for Very familiar or informal situations).
my knowledge of quenya grammar is pre-elementary, so everything i am about to say is based exclusively on what i think would be fun, but!!!! let's go back to valinor in the years of the trees. while i'm pretty sure tolkien never made a distinction between formal/informal 2nd person in quenya, i do think the noldor would have naturally created one (they were big fans of their monarchy which would lead to quite the hierarchical society, they canonically mess around w grammatical rules for fun, and i also can't imagine they wouldn't employ a high level of formality when speaking to the ainur or at least the valar in particular).
now, i am a big fan of the hc that fëanor created the exclusive 1st person plural in quenya (as in "WE do this but YOU the listener do NOT") so he could make subtle grammatical jabs at indis and her kids. we also know the fëanorians used linguistic differences as political markers (see: shibboleth of fëanor). ALL THIS TO SAY, i think fëanor also created a quenya equivalent of voseo. it's not an exact equivalent because of historical context and reasoning for the shift in spanish, but suspend ur disbelief. here's what i think happened in quenya:
c. the noldor's arrival in valinor, they introduced a formal 2nd person form ("usted" for the sake of comparing this to spanish) (this was probably also picked up by the vanyar, if u care) (i will think about telerin languages another day, i'm already giving myself a headache)
fëanor, in an effort to distinguish his house and followers from the rest of the finwëans (specifically the nolofinwëans bc this is fëanor we're talking about), introduced a More Familiar informal 2nd person (see: chilean voseo) used only among the fëanorians
fëanorian "voseo" functions very similarly to chilean voseo overall. the pronoun itself is reserved for very informal/familiar contexts, close relationships, etc, but the VERB takes over from the standard informal form ("tú" conjugations) in the fëanorian dialect as another political marker
so for example, fëanor would "vos tenís" his kids, but "tú tenís" fingolfin's kids
i am inclined to say that this shift happens after the unchaining of melkor, when the political divide is a lot more dramatic, and therefore the whole thing is very controversial, but definitely is the standard in formenos during the exile
could also be used for dramatic effect
imagine the scenes if fëanor addressed fingolfin w the Fëanorian Super Informal Pronoun in "get thee gone and take thy due place"
imagine the scenes if fingolfin addressed fëanor w the Fëanorian Super Informal Pronoun in "thou shalt lead and i will follow"!!!!!
the fëanorians in beleriand definitely preserved this, bc of course they did
whether this phenomenon exists in other languages besides quenya i am unsure
i am too exhausted after all that to write any sort of proper conclusion. i hope it made sense. feel free to ask questions or add things on. live laugh linguistics
ive now watched the movie and it turns out that's his name
really need someone to slonk my shit rn stupid style
i hate australian people they need a dumb fucking nickname for every single word. can’t even get in a car accident without some australian asshole coming up to you and saying “oh gotcha self in a carblammy there aintcha mate” kill yourself and go to hell
I was discussing with a friend about the translation choice for The Fellowship of the Ring in French. In the first translation, the translator Francis Ledoux uses ‘communauté’ for ‘fellowship’, in the meaning of ‘a group of people united by a common goal or shared traditions’*. This is almost exactly the same definition the online Cambridge dictionary** gives for ‘fellowship’. However, ‘fellowship’ has another meaning, a little outdated, that keeps the idea of a shared goal or interest but with the added nuance of a bond of friendship formed over this goal.
And that’s where the new French translation comes in, with the title La Fraternité de l’Anneau instead of La Communauté de l’Anneau. Daniel Lauzon chose ‘fraternité’ for fellowship, meaning ‘the bond between people within a same group, working toward a same goal’*** There is an outdated and specific use for ‘fraternité’ in the context of a medieval, feudal society, to design the bond between knights who swore to protect each other in battle and always fight for the same cause. And knowing just how much Tolkien was influenced by the Middle Ages for his universe, this seemingly trivial difference of translation has me foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog. Because it means the translator, Daniel Lauzon in this case, really took the time to study and look for the exact nuance of a word to best render the idea of The Fellowship of the Ring in the translated title of the book. This is so in line with Tolkien’s love for languages and words, I am over the moon.
There is a big debate amongst French speaking Tolkien fans about old vs new translation but I am a hardcore defender of Daniel Lauzon’s translations of The Lord of the Rings because it’s the one that made me fall in love with Tolkien’s style and poetry even though it was not the original version, and that’s a feat. It’s not perfect, no translation is ever perfect, but it had this feeling of deliberate choice for each word to best render the multiple meanings of a sentence or poem. Francis Ledoux’s translation feels too dry and artificial to me, even though I love how he translated Strider by Grand-Pas, or ‘Big-Steps’
* https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/communaut%C3%A9/17551
** https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fellowship
*** https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/fraternit%C3%A9/35113
You know what? English isn't a real language I'm making up a word and assigning a meaning to it.
Braniel
Bran-ē-él
Noun
Copper eater.
You're a braniel David.
Branieling
Bran-ē-él-ing
Verb
The act of eating copper.
Seriously David why are you branieling pennies don't taste good.
There now it's a real word.
101 places to get enthusiastic about linguistics
In honour of Lingthusiasm's 100th episodiversary, we've compiled this list of 101 public-facing places where linguists and linguistics nerds hang out and learn things!
17 podcasts about linguistics
Lingthusiasm — A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics!
The Vocal Fries — Language discrimination and how to fight it
The History of English — From Proto-Indo-European to Shakespeare in 180 episodes (and still running!)
A Language I Love Is — Guests (some linguists, some not) talk about languages they love and why
En Clair — Forensic linguistics and literary detection
Because Language — New guests every episode discuss their linguistic interests
The Allusionist — Stories about language and the people who use it
Subtitle — A podcast about languages and the people who speak them
Field Notes — Five seasons on linguistic fieldwork
Tomayto Tomahto — Language meets cog sci, politics, history, law, anthropology, and more
Word of Mouth — A long-running and wide-ranging linguistics program on BBC 4.
Words Unravelled - A new and very well edited etymology podcast with popular creators RobWords and Jess Zafarris
Something Rhymes with Purple — Learn the background behind another word or phrase each episode
Lexitecture — A classic etymology podcast with a huge back catalogue
A Way with Words — A "lively and upbeat" public radio call-in show about language and culture
Språket — A radio program in Swedish answering listener questions about language. We don't speak Swedish, but this was the most-mentioned non-English content in our listener survey!
Living Voices — A podcast in Spanish about endangered languages of the Amazon
12 nonfiction books about linguistics
Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch (Amazon; Bookshop) — A linguist shows how the internet is transforming the way we communicate
How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning and Languages Live or Die (Amazon; Bookshop) by David Crystal — A journey through the different subsystems of language
That's Not What I Meant!: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships by Deborah Tannen (Amazon; Bookshop) — A pioneering researcher on conversations gives advice on how they can go wrong
Memory Speaks: On Losing and Reclaiming Language and Self by Julie Sedivy (Amazon; Bookshop) — Scientific and personal reflections on nostalgia, forgetting, and language loss
The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves to Sand Worms, the Words Behind World-Building by David J Peterson (Amazon; Bookshop) — an accessible guide to making your own conlang
Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don't Rhyme—And Other Oddities of the English Language by Arika Okrent (Amazon; Bookshop) — The history behind English's many oddities
Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell (Amazon; Bookshop) — A well-researched pushback on sexist language ideology
Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper (Amazon; Bookshop) — A lifelong lexicographer discusses the job and the things she's learned along the way
Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages by Gaston Dorren (Amazon; Bookshop) — A quick, funny tour of the quirks of 60 European languages
Bina: First Nations Languages, Old and New by Felicity Meakins, Gari Tudor-Smith, and Paul Williams (Amazon; Bookshop) — The story of Australian indigenous languages' resistance and survival
Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words by Anne Curzan (Amazon; Bookshop) — A writers' style and grammar guide focused on real usage, not made-up rules
The Language Lover's Puzzle Book: A World Tour of Languages and Alphabets in 100 Amazing Puzzles by Alex Bellos (Amazon; Bookshop) — Solve puzzles about writing, grammar, and meaning drawn from real and fictional languages
Poems from the Edge of Extinction: An Anthology of Poetry in Endangered Languages (Amazon; Bookshop) — An anthology of poems in endangered languages, with commentary
6 linguistically-inspired novels
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang (Amazon; Bookshop) — Imagine a world where linguistics was as vital — and as ethically compromised — as engineering is in ours
True Biz by Sara Nović (Amazon; Bookshop) — Love, friendship, and struggle at a residential high school for the Deaf
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by by Mark Dunn (Amazon; Bookshop) — "A progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable" full of wordplay and weirdness
Semiosis by Sue Burke (Amazon; Bookshop) — Human space colonists communicate with sentient plants
Translation State by Ann Leckie (Amazon; Bookshop) — What does life look like for a perfectly genetically engineered alien–human translator? (Spoiler: weird, that's what.)
Stories of your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (Amazon; Bookshop) — Includes the long short story that became Arrival, plus other reflections on humanity and change
13 linguistics youtube channels
Crash Course Linguistics — A whole linguistics course in 16 videos
Tom Scott's Language Files — Pithy language facts explained quickly and clearly
NativLang — Language reconstruction and the history of writing
Geoff Lindsay — Facts (and some scholarly opinions) about regional English pronunciation
The Ling Space — An educational channel all about linguistics
langfocus — A language factoid channel that digs deeper than many
K Klein — Language quirks, spelling reform, and a little conlanging
biblaridion — Teaching about conlanging and worldbuilding, with lots of linguistics along the way
RobWords — "A channel for lovers and learners of English"
Otherwords — "the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted"
LingoLizard — Widely spoken languages and their quirks, comparisons, and history
linguriosa — Spanish linguistics (in Spanish), including learning tips and linguistic history
human1011 — Quick accessible facts about linguistics (and sometimes other things)
Simon Roper — Language evolution and historical English pronunciation
10 shortform video channels about linguistics (tiktok/reels)
etymologynerd — Internet speak, etymologies and more! (reels)
linguisticdiscovery — Writing systems, language families, and more (reels)
jesszafaris — Fun facts about words, etymologies, and more (reels)
cmfvoices — An audiobook director talks about the linguistics of voice acting (eels)
mixedlinguist — A linguistics professor comments on the language of place, identity, politics, technology, and more (reels)
landontalks — Linguistic quirks of the US South (reels)
sunnmcheaux — Language and culture from Harvard's first and only professor of Gullah (reels)
dexter.mp4 — Talks about many branches of science, but loves linguistics enough to have a linguisticsy tattoo (reels)
danniesbrain — Linguistics and psychology from a researcher who studies both (reels)
wordsatwork — Quick facts on languages, families, and linguistic concepts (reels)
the_language — The Ojibwe language — plus food, dancing, and more
Oh I forgot to say.
Bug (4) is going to start school now so we’ve been doing literacy practice. One set of exercises was about “opposites” and I drew a card reading “fat”. Ok what’s the opposite of fat.
Bug thought about it and then said dreamily: “meat.”
One More List of "Beautiful" Words
to include in your next poem/story
Beneficence - the quality or state or doing or producing good.
Calefaction - the state of being warmed.
Callosity - lack of feeling or capacity for emotion.
Cicatrizant - promoting the healing of a wound or the formation of a cicatrix.
Estivo-autumnal - relating to or occurring in the summer and autumn.
Evagation - a wandering of the mind.
Hamartia - a defect of character : error, guilt, or sin especially of the tragic hero in a literary work.
Imparadise - to make supremely happy, transport with delight or joy.
Impedimenta - things that impede or hinder progress or movement.
Inhesion - the condition of being inherent in something.
Jocoserious - mingling mirth and seriousness.
Lowery - gloomy, lowering.
Malobservation - erroneous observation or interpretation
Mordacious - biting or sharp in manner or style.
Natation - the action or art of swimming.
Pandiculation - a stretching and stiffening especially of the trunk and extremities (as when fatigued and drowsy or after waking from sleep).
Pestiferous - dangerous to society; pernicious.
Satisdiction - the condition of having said enough.
Ugsome - frightful, loathsome.
Unclubbable - having or showing a disinclination for social activity: unsociable.
If any of these words make their way into your next poem/story, please tag me, or leave a link in the replies. I would love to read them!
beautiful words list pt. 1
interests yay!
all in the tags below if anyone was curious.. heh (IM NOT WEIRD I SWEAR PLEASE LETS BE FRIENDS IF U LIKE ANY OF THESE THINGS!!!) (I DIDNT ADD EVERYTHING I LIKE... JUST ASK IF I LIKE SMTH!)
So I bought a bunch of stencils (is that the right word?) and in one of the packs was this one.
And since I don't trust google translation, I thought I would ask if anyone knew what this means?
Sometimes I am so grateful that I speak Arabic, because I can not imagine learning it with no prior knowledge.
My Cowboy.
He needed help. And how could I help a cowboy? What was the best way to help him? I have no fucking idea.
"All apologies man! What else could I say?"
Is it weird to say that when he said this, I had the best eargasm ever. It's not because it's spring and in this season women are particularly "in heat", but the thing is that he looked hot as hell when he said this to my dad.
Now, to help the man that accidentally spilled his coffee drink on my texan dad's shirt, I said that he was a dear friend of mine and that he didn't do that on purpose.
My dad looked at me as if I killed his dog Roofus. Acting as if I was innocent, I look back at him and say "What's up? You're surely not mad just because of a mere shirt getting dirty, are you? Come on now dad! Can you go inside and get me a cappuccino please?" by now I was only rambling. But nonetheless my dad nodded at the man and went inside.
"Thanks for getting me out of the dirt, doll. He was pissed as hell, thought he was gon beat the fuck outta me and I would never see the light again." he said while chuckling.
"Nah, don't sweat it. You know texan men have anger issues." I laugh.
"Name's Blaze by the way. Nice to meet you." he gave me his hand and I shook it while saying: "I'm Brooklyn. Nice to meet ya too! Are you new to town? Haven't seen ya round here before"
"Yeahhh. Got here a week ago. Moved from Dallas. Wanted to change scenery and got to Austin. People 've told me that they have pretty cowgirls 'roun here, you know."
Oh you sneaky little shit.
somehow instead of saying "as a treat", I've started using the phrase "for morale", as if my body is a ship and its crew, and I (the captain) have to keep us in high spirits, lest we suffer a mutiny in the coming days.
and so I will eat this small block of fancy cheese, for morale. I will take a break and drink some tea, for morale. I will pick up that weird bug, for morale.
I'm not sure if it helps, but it does entertain me
Jonathan Stalling’s Yingelishi is a book of poetry that is read in two ways: in Chinese and in English. He offers a line of English poetry, then rewrites it phonetically in the Chinese language, so that the new line in Chinese has its own unique and coherent meaning, which is then translated back into English. The end result is a poem existing in multiple languages and in no languages at all, with multiple meanings that can be read many ways.
[Image ID: A line that reads, “早上好” which is Simplified Chinese for “good morning.” Then a line of English text that reads, “good morning,” followed by a line of pinyin or possibly a different method of transliterated Chinese that reads, “gũ dé mào níng.” Then a line of Chinese characters which reads, “孤德貌宁,” phonically the same as the above pinyin, followed by a line of English text which is the translation of the above Chinese, reading, “Even alone, the moral one / appears peaceful.” End image ID.]
i’m obsessed with these…
(From DepthOfWikipedia on Instagram)
fact: when pidgin dialects involve english, -glish becomes the suffix, eg: chinglish, konglish, hinglish fact: slash pair name order puts the top first and the bottom second, eg: deancas vs casdean conclusion: english is an uke language and that’s why we have an omegaverse, not an alphaverse
i love translations i love the act of translation i love it so so much
Trying to settle something with a friend.
Hello people of tumblr,
I have been working on a project to fix the English language. This includes making every vowel make only one sound, removing unnecessary letters, and adding new grammatical symbols. The goal is to make English a phonetic language that is easy for immigrants and people with dyslexia to learn! If you would like to participate in this experiment, click here https://discord.gg/AAmmyH5j
I am but a humble highschool linguist, but I would appreciate your support :)
Yesterday during my phonetics class my teacher was mentioning glottal stops and she immediately recommended everyone watch My Fair Lady to hear the glottal stop in a Cockney accent I could not have fangirled more in that moment my brain was fucking exploding
Fantasizing about him… 🤤
all my homies hate creating a pleasant sounding phonology and phonotactics this shit sucks how do i do this
she a 10 but she use absolutive-ergative alignment
.uinai why is learning lojban so hard
.i mi pensi lodu'u na kakne lonu cilre lo jbobau .u'inai