Tag: language is amazing

doughtier:

ricekrispyjoints:

nerdyqueerandjewish:

captainlordauditor:

jewish-privilege:

palominojacoby:

kazoobard:

Jewish mood

It’s almost that time of the year!

?חנוכה

?חֲנֻכָּה

Xanike?

xanike made me ascend out of the physical realm and into an astral plane

Honka and Xanike are on opposite sides of the spelling spectrum

the answer to “how do you spell Hanukkah” is “with a different alphabet”

Gather round, my children, and let me tell you how to spell this pesky word.

I’ll start by what everybody agrees on in the spelling: the vowels. Everybody agrees that they go -a-u-a- (I’m using the dashes to denote possibly missing consonants for now).

You may have noticed the 2 different spellings of The Word in Hebrew above:

  1. חֲנֻכָּה: the original word, in which the /u/ portrayed in 

    נֻ  (/nu/) is a short one. Biblical Hebrew distinguished between long vowels, short vowels, and half-sized vowels. Due to Biblical Hebrew syllable-structure shenanigans, the /u/ is short.

  2. חנוכה: the modern way of writing the word. The נו (/nu/) would have denoted a long vowel in Biblical Hebrew … but Modern Hebrew does not distinguish vowels by length.  
  3. The first /a/ (in 

    חֲ) used to denote a half-length vowel. Since vowel-length doesn’t mean anything anymore in Hebrew, both /a/ are equal.

Therefore, in Modern Hebrew, 

חנוכה = 

חֲנֻכָּה.

That covers the vowels. Next, the bits where everybody who knows even a bit of transliteration would agree on:

  1. There’s only 1 /n/. That means it’s -anu-a-.
  2. There are 2 /k/ after the /u/. That’s because the Hebrew is 

    כָּ. You see the little dot in the middle? That used to mean that the sound used to be geminated. We don’t really observe gemination in Modern Hebrew anymore, except that in some letters (v, f, ch) the little dot (dagesh) denotes something very important.

    • In case you don’t want to double the K, because the language that you’re using, AKA English, that doubling means absolutely nothing, you can skip it.

This leaves us with -anuk(k)a- as a definite spelling so far.

This is where things get murky. Because you see … this is when the transliteration rules start falling apart by way of a long tradition of transliteration as well phonology rules across several languages in the duration of about 2000 years.

The beginning

ח: is it h, kh, or ch? Frankly, it could be any of these.

  • KH: This is the transliteration of a sound in Hebrew that no European language has or has had. Standard Modern Hebrew doesn’t have it anymore, but it’s still considered an acceptable, very common variance of the consonant ח. In linguistics, it’s written as [

    ħ

    ], and in Semitic studies, it’s written as

    ḥ (an h with a little dot below it). You can listen to it [here on Wikipedia]. This is the classical, old-fashioned, origins-faithful spelling … which looks very very wrong: Khanukka-. Weird, right? Still correct.

  • If you listened to the recording, you might think it sounds between an /h/ and an /x/ (as in ‘ch’ in the Scottish Gaelic word for lake ‘loch’), depending on which sound you preferred.
  • H is how the Greeks transliterated the letter ח in the Bible (such as in the second h in the word ‘Bethlehem’)
  • CH is how Standard Modern Hebrew pronounces via the Ashkenazi pronunciation of Yiddish.
  • So if you spell it with a KH, you’re an out-of-date traditionalist; if you spell it with an H, you’re faithful to the name of the holiday in your own language, and if you spell it with a CH you’re faithful to the Standard Modern Hebrew pronunciation (and probably have family who speaks either Hebrew or Yiddish).

Possible, correct options so far:

  • Khanuk(k)a-
  • Hanuk(k)a-
  • Chanuk(k)a-

Which leads us to the very last dash! Is there an H at the end? Should there be an H at the end?

  • This is where it gets the most complicated, because it requires some background in Hebrew noun-noun constructs.
  • The word ‘

    חנוכה

    ‘ is an actual word in Hebrew that means ‘inauguration, dedication, consecration‘ according to morfix.co.il (the Hebrew-English-Hebrew web translator). Since Hebrew is a gendered language, The Word is a feminine noun. A lot of feminine nouns in Hebrew end with what can be directly transliterated as ‘-ah’, or, in Hebrew, a word-final ‘

    ה

    ‘ (the name of this letter is either He or Hey, depending on how much official Hebrew education the person had).

  • This Hey is silent. It hanging around does not mean there’s an /h/ sound in the word. All it does is tell the user of the language that they should pay attention to this word, because in noun-noun constructs, the Hey becomes a Tav (or Taf). This was ‘inauguration of [noun]’ is חנוכת-בית (khanukkat-bayit in pefect translit; ‘bayit’ is ‘house’ or ‘home’).
  • So, it’s really up to you whether to add that last H or not.

What you should be careful of, probably, is mix-and-matching. Khanuka is just outright weird, because you’re mixing a bunch of translit styles – going from extreme translit mode (KH) to mild mode (one K, no H). Chanuka also looks strange, because the CH is also somewhat strict-ish translit.

This all means that these are all the correct spellings in English, from a Hebrew standpoint, from most-strict transliteration to the most permissive:

  • Khanukkah
  • Chanukkah
  • Hanukkah
  • Chanukka (h is silent, double-k still serves a phonetic purpose that I didn’t bother going much into)
  • Hanukah
  • Hanukka
  • Hanuka (as much as it makes me twitch)

You’re welcome, and may you all confuzzle everybody you come across! 

🎉

fozmeadows:

hollowedskin:

derinthemadscientist:

languageoclock:

deflare:

penfairy:

Throwback to the time my poor German teacher had to explain the concept of formal and informal pronouns to a class full of Australians and everyone was scandalised and loudly complained “why can’t I treat everyone the same?” “I don’t want to be a Sie!” “but being friendly is respectful!” “wouldn’t using ‘du’ just show I like them?” until one guy conceded “I suppose maybe I’d use Sie with someone like the prime minister, if he weren’t such a cunt” and my teacher ended up with her head in her hands saying “you are all banned from using du until I can trust you”

God help Japanese teachers in Australia.

if this isnt an accurate representation of australia idk what is

Australia’s reverse-formality respect culture is fascinating. We don’t even really think about it until we try to communicate or learn about another culture and the rules that are pretty standard for most of the world just feel so wrong. I went to America this one time and I kept automatically thinking that strangers using ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ were sassing me. 

Australians could not be trusted with a language with ingrained tiers of formal address. The most formal forms would immediately become synonyms for ‘go fuck yourself’ and if you weren’t using the most informal version possible within three sentences of meeting someone they’d take it to mean you hated them.

100% true.

the difference between “‘scuse me” and “excuse me” is a fistfight

See also: the Australian habit of insulting people by way of showing affection, which other English-speakers also do, but not in a context where deescalating the spoken invective actively increases the degree of offence intended, particularly if you’ve just been affectionately-insulting with someone else.

By which I mean: if you’ve just called your best mate an absolute dickhead, you can’t then call a hated politician something that’s (technically) worse, like a total fuckwit, because that would imply either that you were really insulting your mate or that you like the politician. Instead, you have to use a milder epithet, like bastard, to convey your seething hatred for the second person. But if your opening conversational gambit is slagging someone off, then it’s acceptable to go big (”The PM’s a total cockstain!”) at the outset.

Also note that different modifiers radically change the meaning of particular insults. Case in point: calling someone a fuckin’ cunt is a deadly insult, calling someone a mad cunt is a compliment, and calling someone a fuckin’ mad cunt means you’re literally in awe of them. Because STRAYA. 

lillyrosaura:

There’s a website where you can learn ASL (American Sign Language) on your own, free and it’s a 31 Day program! The woman on there, her name is Rochelle Barlow, she runs the site and she actually is a homeschool teacher and teaches ASL. I am passing this on to some of you guys cause most of y’all on here is open-minded and curious and it is something important to learn.

I truly believe this site is helpful for some people who can not afford to going to ASL classes, or someone like me that just enjoys learning something new. This site will help with that. Once you sign up you will put in your email address and Rochelle sends you emails on tips on how to sign, gives you practice sheets, and gives you your weekly videos. And its all online. No need to paying for anything. (Unless if you want to she has something very different to this program) 

IMO and yes, this site is really amazing and is important because you never know if someone who is deaf or HOH needs help, if you end up losing your hearing ability this is something you will at least have on the back of your head, and it is just like any other language and should be taught. 

latining:

nodoyodobenkyou:

nodoyodobenkyou:

I want to share with you all one of the tools I have used to learn Japanese since very early on in my pursuit of fluency. It’s one of my favorite applications and I really recommend it to anyone who is learning any language.

(psst! long post coming, but stick around to the end for a shot at the giveaway!)

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HelloTalk is a language learning app that allows you to connect with native speakers of your target language.What I really like about HelloTalk is that there are multiple features that not only encourage you to try speaking, but also help to ease you into it without to pressure of a real time face to face conversation (this is a real life saver if you are even marginally as shy as I am!)

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On your profile you can write a nice self introduction- Try writing it all in Japanese!- and you can even record up to a 60 second audio introduction! This is great because it’s a good opportunity to practice your pronunciation and to let other people hear your pronunciation so that they can let you know what you’re doing wrong (or right!)

From there you can go to the search page , which will show you all of your new potential language exchange partners or to the moments page, which will show you some other members short personal posts that you can like or comment on to get a conversation going.

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If you tap “learn” on the moments page it will display posts that are written in your target language. I love this because it allows you to immerse yourself in the language and to practice thinking in it.

All that there is left to do is to start talking!

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Most conversations will start of text based, but there is always the option to send an audio message by clicking on the microphone icon at the bottom right corner. There is also a transliteration button just above the microphone icon. This allows you to check to see that what you’re writing makes sense. After you type a sentence you can check it by hitting the transliteration button.

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Once your ready, and after you have received 5 messages from you language partner you will have the option to do a voice call.

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This will work like a regular telephone call and will be real time. And on top of that; if you and your language exchange partner are both VIP members you can make a video call and talk face to face!

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Seriously!

HelloTalk is such a useful app to have! Having conversations with native Japanese speakers and helping them with their English while they help me with my Japanese has been both fun and challenging, and that’s the best way to learn something new! Keeping regular contact with someone in your target language will definitely help you to retain more!

As an apology for my long time absence, and as a thank you for both new followers and those who have been hanging on with me for a long time (we have more than 2,000 study buddies now! WOW!)

 I’ll be working with the nice people at HelloTalk to give away a one year VIP-membership to one lucky follower!

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All you have to do to enter is reblog this post!! That’s it! And for the sake of inspiring some of you to practice speaking out loud; if you record a video of yourself giving a short self introduction in Japanese you’ll get a second entry for the giveaway!! 

BE SURE TO TAG ME (@nodoyobenkyou) SO I’LL SEE IT! And please make sure to include subtitles in your video so that we can all understand what you’re saying, no matter our level of understanding!

The giveaway will end Friday December 29th, so reblog and record before then! Good luck everyone!

一緒に日本語を勉強するのはつづきましょう！

Morning reblog!

This is a great app and I’ve met tons of amazing people on here. They also have a really low tolerance for harassment, which is always a concern with any of these apps.

Seriously, I’m sharing recipes with Japanese housewives and talking about dinosaurs with a financial analyst it is EXCELLENT

🐱 KIT
👗 DRESS
🕳 TRAP
🍔 LOT
💃🏻 STRUT
👣 FOOT
🛁 BATH
👔 CLOTH
👨‍⚕️ NURSE
🐑 FLEECE
🙂 FACE
✋ PALM
💡 THOUGHT
🐐 GOAT
🦆 GOOSE
🤑 PRICE
💁 CHOICE
👄 MOUTH
🔜 NEAR
🔲 SQUARE
🎬 START
⬆️ NORTH
💨 FORCE
💊 CURE

Above: The Standard Lexical Sets for English as emoji.

These terms were introduced by John C. Wells and are often used when people talk about specific vowel sounds.

Different English varieties split or merge these distinctions in different ways, for example, the 🕳/🛁 split, and the 💡/🍔 merger.

For more see Lexical Set on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_set

Make your own set!

(via superlinguo)

I’ve put these on the vowel trapezoid, for ease of reference! 

Note that all positions are approximate because the lexical sets (by design) vary across English dialects. 

(via allthingslinguistic)

llywela13:

bogganbeliefs:

cosmogyros:

seonaxus:

rubidium118:

stephrc79:

crystalpoints:

When people assume Celtic = Irish I get a strong urge to stab myself in the eye.

No no no no no no. 

Sit down we must have a conversation.

There were 6 Celtic nations.

Éire, Cymru, Alba, Kernow, Breizh, and Ellan Vannin.

Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, Brittany, and the Isle of Mann respectively.

They’re all related, but not the same. They all have different languages descended from a similar group, Irish (Gaeilge), Scottish (Gàidhlig), Manx (Gaelg), Welsh (Cymraeg), Cornish (Kernowek), and Breton (Brezhoneg). Some are more widely spoken than others, for example Welsh is still commonly spoken in Wales, whereas hearing Cornish in Cornwall instead of English is rare. 

All Celtic nations have varied mythology and culture.

Irish Mythology is different from Breton Mythology, and even Welsh and Cornish mythology (arguably the most related Celtic Nations) have subtle differences to each other. I wish I could add more about the cultures at this time but my knowledge of Celtic nations is primarily made up of the history and languages of those regions, particularly Cornwall. 

You might have notice that England and English are missing from this, because the English descended from Anglo-Saxons, who were German invaders that came to the isles right around the Fall of the Roman empire in the 5th Century, erasing the Celtic influence in what is now England. 

So what this all really means is that Celtic is an umbrella term, and just because it’s Celtic doesn’t mean it has anything to do with Ireland at all. So don’t assume that just because someone’s talking about something Celtic that they’re talking about something Irish.

I actually didn’t know this. Thank you, tumblr person

I love you for this. I love learning and this day started in a good note.

Furthermore there are currently six modern Celtic languages divided into two families. The Goidelic or Gaelic languages: Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx, which are all descended from Middle Irish; and the Brythonic languages: Welsh, Cornish and Breton all descended from Common Brythonic. It should be noted that both Manx and Cornish are revived languages, that is they effectively died (There were no living native speakers) for a time, but revitalisation efforts amongst the communities to learn the languages as second languages resulted in children picking up the languages as their first language, thus returning the languages to living languages with communities of native speakers. Although all of the languages are growing in number of speakers at each count, only Welsh is not counted as being endangered. This revitalisation is part of why the written form of Manx is so different to that of its sisters, despite the close similarity of the spoken form; its spelling is designed to make sense to a native English speaker, whereas Irish and Gaelic use a more traditional phonetic spelling system which only makes sense if you are used to the concept of a séimhiú being represented by the letter h. The Manx for “Isle of Man”, for example, is “Ellan Vannin” whereas the Irish name is “Oileán Mhanann” while the spelling is very different the actual pronunciation is almost identical. Both refer to Manannán mac Lir of the Tuath dé Danann, an ancient race of supernatural creatures, often interpreted as a christian retelling of the ancient Gaelic gods.

Also, depending on who you ask, there’s a seventh Celtic nation! It’s Galicia, a region in northwestern Spain. Opinions are divided as to whether it’s Celtic enough to “count”, but here are some sources for further reading:

BBC: Where is the seventh Celtic nation?
Spain Then and Now: The Celts in Spain
Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies: Celtic Legacy in Galicia
University of Pennsylvania Museum: The Modern Celts of Northern Spain

…and I can’t help but link to my own post of the beautiful song “Va unan,” sung in Breton and Spanish by the chorus “L’Ensemble choral du bout du monde” with the Spanish guest vocalist Jesús Cifuentes from the band Celtas Cortos.

I think I’m honor bound to always repost this.

It’s easiest to think of the difference between Goidelic and Brythonic languages as q-Celts and p-Celts. Take the word ‘son of’, for instance, which we’ve all seen in names like MacDonald or MacGregor. Mac. That’s a q-Celtic word, Goidelic, ending in a ‘c’. In Welsh, which is a Brythonic or p-Celtic language, the same word became ‘map’ or ‘ap’. So where the son of Donald in Scotland became MacDonald, in Wales the son of Rhys became ap Rhys became Prys became Price or Preece. Same original root, leading to a very different linguistic end.

How to tell apart theta θ and eth ð

allthingslinguistic:

It’s easy to find words that distinguish between other voiced/voiceless pairs in English – bus and buzz, fine and vine – but the two sounds represented by the “th” sequence in English are rarer and harder to learn, especially since English uses the same spelling for both of them.  

A lot of people give up and just use near-minimal pairs like “think” and “this”, or “theta” and “they”, but there are actually a few true minimal pairs that you can use: 

thigh  –  thy
ether  –  either 
thistle  – this’ll 

It’s worth noting that function words in English, like pronouns, prepositions, and determiners, tend to have ð, while content words, especially nouns, tend to have θ.

Theta θ and eth ð are also found in the following noun/verb minimal pairs, at least for many dialects:   

wreath  –  wreathe 

(I put a wreath on the door / I wreathe the door)

teeth  – teethe

(my teeth / the baby is teething) 

loath  –  loathe 

(I’m loath to do it / I loathe doing it) 

sheath  –  sheathe

(in a sheath / to sheathe one’s sword)

sooth  –  soothe 

(for sooth! / to soothe someone) 

Here the vowels differ, but the theta θ to eth ð, noun to verb relationship is preserved: 

cloth  –  clothe

(wear cloth / clothe oneself)

bath  –  bathe

(take a bath / bathe the baby)  

breath  –  breathe 

(take a breath / breathe deeply)

Make sure to try them at full volume, not whispering, because whispering involves turning off your vocal cords (which is why you can whisper when they’re inflamed with laryngitis). 

These sounds are called dental fricatives or interdental fricatives, because the sound is produced by a thin stream of air friction where the tongue is at (dental) or between (interdental) the teeth. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the voiceless interdental fricative, theta, is written θ, and the voiced interdental fricative, eth, is written ð. 

As a bonus, here’s a minimal pair for ʒ and ð, thanks to recent developments in clothing technology: pleasure and pleather.