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1500 questions
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8 answers
Why are the Dutch called "belanda" in Malay and Indonesian?
While reading on the etymology of the turkey, I found that the Malays and Indonesians called the animal ayam belanda (Dutch chicken). I was then reminded of the proboscis monkey, which is called monyet belanda (Dutch monkey) due to its nose and…
March Ho
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13
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3 answers
Is there an IPA character for the sympathetic sucking in sound?
Is there an IPA symbol for the sound you might make when you burn yourself or someone tells you a story about an injury they have—when you suck your breath quickly through your teeth with your tongue pressed forward and to the roof of your mouth?…
Kazark
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13
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1 answer
Do the words "angst" and "anxiety" share a common root?
The English word angst, taken from German Angst, seems to ultimately originate from Proto-Germanic *angustiz. This word has descendants in many Germanic languages, including, but not limited to, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, German and Dutch. The…
Fiksdal
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13
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4 answers
Are Tamil and Malayalam mutually intelligible?
I have read that Malayalam originates from Middle Tamil. This leads me to ask whether Tamil and Malayalam are mutually intelligible. Or perhaps just partly, or asymmetrically?
I prefer either answers with a source, or from people who can speak and…
Fiksdal
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13
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0 answers
How did Chinese recursion evolve?
The modern Chinese linguistic recursion system is essentially the same as English. If you have a highly embedded sentence, you can translate it word for word, the embedding is very much the same. In my youth, I believed this was just another datum…
Ron Maimon
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13
votes
3 answers
Why does Spanish have so many diphthongs compared to other Romance languages?
I have studied and known Spanish my whole life, and got a job at a University where I am allowed to take some free classes. Over the past three years, I have taken all the Italian classes offered, all the Arabic classes, and now I am currently…
Ryan David Ward
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13
votes
5 answers
Why is prescriptivism criticized?
Several linguists criticize prescriptivism. Stephen Pinker is probably the one to have made the strongest case against it. But, is their criticism based on a methodological principle (the abstraction of value judgements) or is it a statement of fact…
Otavio Macedo
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13
votes
4 answers
How are proper nouns distinguished from other nouns in linguistics (not in orthography)?
When you ask most people the difference between common nouns and proper nouns they mostly can only tell you that proper nouns start with a capital letter.
But this has problems:
Capital letters and writing systems as a whole are recent inventions…
hippietrail
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13
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8 answers
Are there any languages without /a/ or /i/?
Arabic languages include only three vowels: /a/, /i/ and /u/.
Japanese is the only language I know about that doesn't have a /u/ sound - it has /ɯ/ instead.
Do there exist any languages that do not use /a/ or /i/ or they could be considered…
Arsen
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13
votes
4 answers
Does any language use bound morphology to express the concept "less"?
In English, many adjectives support the -er ending to express a notion of exceeding:
John is taller than Mary (is).
Mary is smarter than John (is).
Of course, you can also have the more analytic construction:
Mary is more intelligent than John…
Alexis Wellwood
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13
votes
1 answer
Are English 'butterfly', German 'Butterfliege' and Dutch 'botervlieg' cognates?
Yesterday the question was raised why many languages do not share a root for 'butterfly'. When we look at the etymology of the English word, parallels are drawn to Dutch and German forms (OED):
OE buttorfleoge, ME buterfliȝe, ME boterfleȝe, -flye,…
user444
13
votes
6 answers
Evidence for age cutoff in foreign accent acquistion
Steven Pinker in "The Language Instinct" claims that there is strong psychological evidence for the existence of a sharp age cutoff for the ability to acquire a flawless foreign accent (I may dig up the exact reference, if needed). In other words,…
Marcin Kotowski
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13
votes
1 answer
Automatic phonetic transcription of speech: is it still a difficult problem?
A friend was asking me why there aren't any programs that can analyze a user's pronunciation of words and then give feedback/suggestions.
Indeed, given an accurate phonetic transcription of a predetermined set of words, determining if a user's…
Animadvert
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13
votes
6 answers
Does majority of linguists accept universal grammar?
I was trying to educate myself on "big picture" in theoretical linguistics, and started with often mentioned universal grammar, but found online resources very confusing. According to Wikipedia, "while the majority of linguists accept universal…
Conifold
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13
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1 answer
Why was the name תאומא transliterated as Θωμᾶς (Thomas) rather than Τωμᾶς (Tomas)?
Thomas derives from Aramaic תאומא (cognate with the Hebrew תאום). My understanding was that Aramaic, like Tiberian Hebrew, had the fricative [θ] as a conditioned allophone for the plosive [t], and that the latter would always appear at the start of…
Uri Granta
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