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1500 questions
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What makes certain sounds linguistically "rarer" than others?
Every sound is equally as capable of being performed by the human mouth, and I (correct me if I'm wrong) remember my psychology teacher telling me that infants go and say every sound babbling - even ones that aren't used by their soon-to-be native…
kayay78
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Is there a name for the "case" that is a conflation of nominative and accusative?
In Indo-European languages, the neuter is often characterized by syncretism between nominative and accusative.
There are other examples of syncretism and also historical change where the nominative pairs with accusative and genitive pairs with…
James Tauber
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Why did German and flip over?
I speak English and Norwegian and a little German and a little Dutch and I discovered a pattern while thinking about words which are obviously cognate. The pattern is wherever English, Norwegian and Dutch have , German often has .
There are…
Omar and Lorraine
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Does the English "Garden" come from the French "Jardin" or the German "Garten"?
I always assumed that the English word "Garden" was similar to the German "Garten" due to the Germanic roots of English.
But according to Wikipedia, "Garden" in English is related to the French "Jardin" through the Norman "Gardin".
If this is the…
Alex Kinman
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Apical postalveolar approximant [ɹ̺] and retroflex approximant [ɻ]: What is the difference?
English [ɹ] has two realizations: apical and bunched (aka molar). ExtIPA (extensions to the IPA) thus recommends the use of [ɹ̺] and [ɹ̈] to differentiate the two. But I also often see English /r/ transcribed as retroflex [ɻ] rather than [ɹ],…
Nardog
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Grimm's law: what motivates stop -> fricative sound change?
I am trying to understand the sound change that brought PIE *dent- to P.Gmc. *tanth-. Grimm's law seems to be the culprit for the consonant changes:
Initial voiced stop /d/ devoiced to /t/
Terminal voiceless stop /t/ brought to voiceless fricative…
Jon Gauthier
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What is the oldest language that we know enough about to construct a plausible sentence in it?
One exciting way to track the evolution of our understanding of Proto-Indo-European is to look at the different versions of Schleicher's fable from different years. The more time we spend studying the language, the more 'precise' our reconstructions…
Simon Korneev
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What was the function of the Lycian spelling m̃m and ñn
I am trying to understand the function of double (?) nasals in Lycian. Usually an /ñ/ is followed by /n/ and so does /m̃/ which is followed by an /m/. What was the function of this spelling in Lycian? Did they really try to produce both nasals or is…
Midas
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Is there any superstrate influence of Old East Norse left in East Slavic languages?
The word "Russia" is derived from the name "Rus", the name of a Viking tribe originating from Sweden who ended up founding kingdoms in what is now Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, most notably the so-called Kievan Rus'.
Now the Vikings probably spoke a…
Typhon
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IPA for phonemes - does this make sense at all?
On the Wikipedia page for the International Phonetic Alphabet, slashes for phonemes are mentioned quite casually, without getting into the discussion of how or if it makes sense to use a phonetic alphabet to transcribe phonemes.
I can understand how…
dainichi
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Did modern Farsi lose its casual word for yes?
Hobby linguistic learner here.
Farsi naturally shares a lot of simple words with other Indo-European languages:
German for [daughter]: "Tochter" / "doxtar" (دختر)
English for [bad]: "bad"/"bad" (بد)
Russian for [thank you]: "Spasiba" (Спасибо) /…
techSultan
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Is there any evidence of language contact between the Inuit and Ainu languages?
The Eskimo-Aleut and Ainu languages were historically spoken in the same region (near the Kamchatka Peninsula), and they share some features that are common in Paleo-Siberian languages, including incorporation.
I have also noticed that the native…
Anderson Green
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7
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How do people deal with loanwords with highly alien phonemes?
I've been thinking about how a people who speak a language without rhotics would perceive a rhotic sound. Obviously of course, this would depend on exactly which rhotic we're talking about. I thought about making this question about rhotics…
user19661
7
votes
1 answer
How different are Chinese dialects?
How different are Chinese dialects, on average, relative to the differences between European languages?
Are the dialects spoken in Western and Eastern China as different as, say, Russian and Polish, or Italian and Spanish?
MWB
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Meaning of "Prejacent"?
I have seen the word "prejacent" in many linguistics related papers. However, none of them explains what exactly a prejacent is. Could someone elaborate more on this?
Mr.cysl
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