Language Ramblings

Every single time, I said, “if you don’t ask questions, I don’t get paid! Please, ask me more.” Much of my job was about reassuring people’s curiosity and creating a safe space in which it was okay to not know things.

I noticed in these jobs that we teach shame. When children asked questions, parents often apologized to me in front of the children. “Sorry. Thank you for taking the time.”

We grow up learning it’s embarrassing to ask questions, even in settings where someone is being paid to answer them. But it’s up to you to move on. It’s so important to move past this. Only you can make the choice to do so.

One of the most important things I learned in my own training was to admit when I don’t know something. It’s crucial that an educator can say, “I don’t know the answer to that question! Let’s look it up together.”

I was the curator of a museum about marine biology, and every week, someone asked me something about the ocean I couldn’t answer. I always thanked the visitor for giving me a chance to learn something new.

der Anis -- anise; aniseed das Basilikum -- basil das Blatt (pl. die Blätter) -- leaf (pl. leaves) der Bund -- bunch der Cayennepfeffer -- cayenne die Chilischote -- chilli pepper das Currypulver -- curry powder der Dill -- dill die Fenchelsaat -- fennel seed die Flocken (pl.) -- flakes das Gewürz (pl. die Gewürze) -- seasoning; spice der Ingwer -- ginger das Kardamom -- cardamom der Kerbel -- chervil die Knoblauchzehe -- garlic clove der Koriander -- coriander; cilantro das Kraut (pl. die Kräuter) -- herb das Lorbeerblatt -- bay leaf der Meerrettich -- horseradish die Minze -- mint die Mischung -- mixture; blend die Muskatnuss -- nutmeg die Nelken (pl.) -- cloves der Oregano -- oregano das Paprikapulver -- ground paprika die Petersilie -- parsley der Pfeffer -- pepper der Piment -- allspice der Rosmarin -- rosemary der Safran -- saffron das Salz -- salt der Schnittlauch -- chives das Senfkorn (pl. die Senfkörner) -- mustard seed der Sternanis -- star anise der Stiel (pl. die Stiele) -- stem der Thymian -- thyme die Vanille -- vanilla der Zimt -- cinnamon

garnieren -- to garnish mahlen -- to grind reiben -- to grate salzen -- to salt würzen -- to season

aromatisch -- aromatic bitter -- bitter frisch -- fresh gemahlen -- ground getrocknet -- dried mild -- mild roh -- raw scharf -- hot; spicy süß -- sweet zart -- delicate

So the Crunchyroll newsroom isn't a "room" so much as a Slack channel. We have news writers all over the US, in Australia, and in Japan. This means we have something akin to 'round-the-clock coverage, but it also means that our schedules respective to each other are skewed. For example, when the East Coast contingent is starting their day, the Japan contingent is shutting down for the evening.

Because of that, we started experimenting with greetings that could apply when Party A was coming in for the morning and Party B was leaving for the night. One person came up with "konbarning": a combination of "good morning" and "konban wa" ("good evening" in Japanese). It stuck.

Over the following months, "konbarning" got shortened to "barning" and other permutations. Now, a year or some later, this is how we announce our arrival:

When we say that "linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive," we mean that linguistics is an empirical field of study: We base our understanding of how language works on the actual evidence. And there's no evidence that any language variety is "worse" or "less grammatical" or anything like that. There is, however, a lot of evidence that attitudes toward different language varieties are heavily correlated with attitudes toward the people who speak them. Language prejudice is a proxy for social prejudice a lot of the time.

However.

That doesn't mean that a linguist can never have an opinion about how language should be used.

For example, I'm a linguist and I genuinely believe that singular "they" is a better option than "he or she" when speaking about a hypothetical person whose gender is unknown. Not only is it less clunky, it's more inclusive of people with non-binary gender. And I don't think you should use the generic masculine. I also think that "flammable" is clearer than "inflammable," and therefore is preferable when it's really important that someone not light a cigarette in the flour factory.

Am I making a statement about how people "should" use language, and thus being a prescriptivist? Sure. But the divide between descriptivism and prescriptivism is false a lot of the time; they're not opposite ends of a continuum, but orthogonal to each other. A prescriptive argument can be sound or unsound--compatible with an empirical understanding of language or not.

Or to make an analogy. Biologists don't really have to contend with people who think that one variety of giraffe is more "correct" than another. That's just not a misconception that a lot of people have. So biologists don't have to go around emphasizing the descriptive nature of their field. And no one will get confused when a biologist speaks up and says, "hey, maybe we shouldn't breed dogs that can't breathe?" No one will say, "Aren't you being rather prescriptivist?"

But because language is so socially salient and people come into Linguistics 101 with so many preconceptions, we have to emphasize that linguistics is a descriptive field--that we're not here to study how to "write properly" or whatever. That often ends with students swinging wildly in the other direction, thinking that there is this eternal struggle between descriptive and prescriptive, like between heaven and hell, light and dark--and that if a linguist says something prescriptive they've betrayed their fundamental principles. It's not so. It's an issue with a lot of nuance that of course gets lost as it gets passed around.

So for example. I speak Spanish, and i was taught to address everyone formally unless specifically invited otherwise. People explained to me that "usted" was formal, for use with strangers, bosses, and other people you respect or are distant from, while "tú" is used most often between family and good friends.

That's pretty straightforward, but it gets interesting when you see people using "tú" as a form of address for flirting with strangers, or for picking a fight or intimidating someone. In other languages I've sometimes heard people switch to formal address with partners, friends or family to show when they are upset. That's just so interesting! You're indicating social and emotional space and hierarchy just in the words you choose to address the other person as "you"!!

Not to mention the "what form of address should I use for you...?" conversation which, idk how other people feel about it, but to me it always felt awkward as heck, like a DTR but with someone you're only just becoming comfortable with. "You can use tú with me" always felt... Weirdly intimate? Like, i am comfortable around you, i consider you a friend. Like what a vulnerable thing to say to a person. (That's probably also just a function of how i was strictly told to use formal address when i was learning. Maybe others don't feel so weird about it?)

And if you aren't going to have a conversation about it and you're just going to switch, how do you know when? If you switch too soon it might feel overly familiar and pushy but if you don't switch soon enough you might seem cold??? It's so interesting.

I speak Icelandic. Icelandic doesn't have titles or last names or everyday use of a formal plural or any other obvious markers of formality and intimacy. Formality is still marked, just in non-grammatical lexical terms...but because it's not marked in ways I as a L1 English speaker recognize, it's harder for me to reproduce.

1. For folks who don't know, Japanese words/grammar change depending on formality, the genders of the speaker and listener, the age of the speaker and listener, etc.

2. But English words/grammar ALSO change depending on the above contexts described. It's just not formalized in grammar books. Consider the differences:

A. "The honor of your presence is requested for dinner this evening."

B. "I would like to invite you to dinner."

C. "Do you want to get dinner together?"

D. "Wanna grab a bite to eat?"

E. "Yo, bro, you want a burger?"

Etc. People will be like "it's wild that Japanese has different words for 'meal' depending on formality!! Gohan? Omeshi? Crazy!!!" But ENGLISH IS THE SAME WAY.

And this actually makes it harder for speakers of languages like Japanese to learn natural English, because they've been taught that there's no difference in tone between telling a waiter "I'd like a coffee" and "I want coffee." Since one of those feels easier to learn, they'll choose the option that makes them sound weirdly dickish to the waitstaff.

hehe here you go

[in Slovak] "good day."

[in Czech] "sorry, I don't understand Slovak"

[in Czech now] good day. [literally one letter of difference]

In Old English, the word "child" was cild in the singular cildru in the plural, one of only four nouns that took -ru in the plural. It was sometimes pluralized as an a-stem, where the plural would be cild (i.e., identical to the singular)

Cildru would've become "childer" in Modern English (at least in American spelling, possibly spelled childre in Commonwealth English) if it had survived unchanged. But at some point in the Middle English period, people began adding the (at that time still common) plural ending -en to the plural form, hence the Modern English children. The form childres was also found in Middle English, adding the -es plural (the zero-plural child was also encountered as well as the original childre). So, basically, children is doubly pluralized, the -r- and -en both denoting plural

and

Both with a total of 64 strokes. Both of these consist of a single 16-stroke radical repeated 4 times. There's another 58-stroke character which uses multiple radicals

Meaning biangbiang noodles

However, in Japanese, there is a very rare kokuji (kanji created in Japan) with 84 strokes

also written as

燕 yàn - swallow (bird) / 16

蕾 lěi - bud / 16

凝 níng - to congeal, to concentrate attention, to stare / 16

霏 fēi - fall of snow / 16

霖 lín - continued rain / 16

腾 téng - to gallop, to prance, to soar, to hover, to make room, to clear out, to vacate, verb suffix indicating repeated action / 16

儒 rú - scholar, Confucian / 16

赟 yūn - good appearance / 16

熹 xī - bright, warm / 16

臻 zhēn - to arrive, to reach (esp. perfection), utmost / 16

薇 wēi - Osmunda regalis (a species of fern) / 16

璐 lù - beautiful jade / 17

翼 yì - wing, area surrounding the bullseye of a target, to assist, one of the 28 constellations of Chinese astronomy / 17

霞 xiá - rose-tinted sky or clouds at sunrise or sunset / 17

繁 fán - complicated, many, in great numbers / 17

濠 háo - trench / 17

鹭 lù - heron / 18

麒 qí - mythical male unicorn / 19

瀚 hàn - ocean, vastness / 19

馨 xīn - fragrant / 20

耀 yào - brilliant, glorious / 20

巍 wēi - lofty, towering / 20

曦 xī - sunlight (usu. in early morning) / 20

露 lù - dew, syrup, nectar, outdoors (not under cover), to show, to reveal, to betray, to expose / 21

灏 hào - vast (of water) / 21

懿 yì - exemplary, virtuous / 22

麟 lín - female unicorn / 23

鑫 xīn - used in names of people and shops, symbolizing prosperity / 24

Plus some "exclusive" characters for all those who use traditional characters: These do not meet the criteria in their simplified forms.

穎 yǐng - head of grain, husk, tip, point, clever, gifted, outstanding / 16

龍 lóng - dragon, imperial / 16

興 xīng - to rise, to flourish, to become popular, to start, to encourage, to get up / 16

鴻 hóng - eastern bean goose, great, large / 17

禮 lǐ - gift, rite, ceremony, propriety, etiquette, courtesy / 17

瀅 yíng - clear, limpid (of water) / 18

藝 yì - skill, art / 18

豐 fēng - abundant, plentiful, fertile, plump, great / 18

懷 huái - bosom, heart, mind, to think of, to harbor in one's mind, to conceive (a child) / 19

鵬 péng - Peng, large fabulous bird / 19

麗 lì - beautiful / 19

瀟 xiāo - (of water) deep and clear, (of wind and rain) howling and pounding, (of light rain) pattering / 19

寶 bǎo - jewel, gem, treasure, precious / 20

蘭 lán orchid, elegant, graceful / 20

鶴 hè - crane / 21

權 quán - authority, power, right, to weigh, expedient, temporary / 21

艷 yàn - colorful, splendid, gaudy, amorous, romantic, to envy / 24

And as a bonus, consider changing your last name to a surname such as:

薛 Xuē, 霍 Huò, 戴 Dài, 魏 Wèi

盧 Lú, 賴 Lài, 閻 Yán, 錢 Qián, 韓 Hán, 鍾 Zhōng, 謝 Xiè, 簡 Jiǎn, 蕭 Xiāo, 顏 Yán, 龐 Páng, 譚 Tán, 關 Guān, 嚴 Yán, 羅 Luó, 顧 Gù, 蘇 Sū, 龔 Gōng

The Government seeks to include the other languages that are official in the State of Spain, apart from Spanish, in the language regime of the European Union.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jose Manuel Albares, has officially requested today [Aug. 17 2023] on behalf of the Spanish Government, the inclusion of Basque, Catalan and Galician in the language regime of the European Union.

The minister has asked to change Regulation 1, which regulates the EU's language system, so that "the other languages that have an official statute besides Spanish" are also official in the European Union.

"Spain speaks Spanish, but also Catalan, Basque and Galician, and it is our duty to guarantee spaces to represent, use and learn about these languages," said Pedro Sanchez, acting president of Spain.

Source

For context, the inclusion of our languages in the European Union has been a discussion that's been going on for decades, and it was possible to do it since 1986 (when Spain entered the European Community). I don't know about how present this topic is in the Basque Country and Galicia, so I will only talk about what's it's like here.

In Catalonia, this is talked about every legislature and there has been many campaigns and attempts to get Catalan be recognised as an official language in the European Union. It's been considered a central issue for years, and Catalan political parties have been asking for it many times, but the EU only takes into consideration if a member state (and not a member culture or non-independent country) officially proposes it, so the Spanish government has always refused it. For this reason, it has never happened before: because the Spanish government has blocked it over and over again.

There is one precedent though: in 2004, the PSOE party got the votes of the Catalan party ERC to be able to get their president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero with the promise that he was going to do it (same way he promised he'd respect the Statue of Autonomy, and we all know how that ended)... but he never did it, he never even started the procedure.

So what happened now?

Last month, there were elections in Spain. These were the results:

As you can see, no party or coalition has enough votes to form a government without the votes in favour of smaller parties or the partis that are from Catalonia (Junts and ERC) and the Basque Country (Bildu, and there's also UPN but that one isn't independentist nor progressive).

The possible coalitions are:

PP (right-wing Spanish nationalist, the party founded by the heirs of the dictatorship) with Vox (the fascist party). They'd have a total of 170 seats, and none of the Catalan parties nor the Basque or Galician parties would ever under any circumstance vote for them.

PSOE (centrist Spanish nationalist, might call itself centre-left but nobody has seen the left in a long time) with Sumar (left-wing). Together they have a total of 152 seats, still far from the 176 they need to have absolute majority, but with the votes in favour of the national minorities they can form government.

Obviously there has been negotiations for a PSOE-Sumar government with support from Catalan (Junts and ERC), Basque (Bildu) and Galician (BNG) parties, because if that weren't possible, we would have to repeat the elections. Considering that PSOE already called these 2023 elections early, before they had finished their legislature, another round of elections would be disastrous for them and would grant victory to PP-Vox, and some newspapers were already calling it a proof that the Spanish democracy is a failed system. So you can see they're quite desperate.

In the negociations, the Catalan party Junts has made a list of 4 indiscutible demands that if PSOE-Sumar promises to follow, Junts will vote in favour of forming the PSOE-Sumar government. One of these demands is that they send the request to make Catalan, Basque and Galician official EU languages; the other demands are:

to be able to use Catalan, Basque and Galician in the Spanish Congress (until now, only Spanish was allowed and if you spoke any of the indigenous languages you were kicked out of the stand)

to investigate the 17th August 2017 terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils (terrorist attacks committed by ISIS in two Catalan cities that were not allowed to be investigated as a crime would be, because the Spanish government blocked it and protected the imam who radicalised the terrorists when it was revealed that he worked for the Spanish intelligence service and that the state knew the attacks were going to happen and didn't stop them, precisely right before the independence referendum)

and to investigate the Pegasus spyware (the Spanish government uses the Israeli spyware system Pegasus as part as the espionage on Catalans, it's confirmed Spain used Pegasus to spy more than 65 Catalan politicians and activists and possibly 150 more, which makes it the biggest Pegasus political spionage campaign in the world. Again, the Spanish government refused to investigate it when it was revealed, and justified it saying it was necessary to defend against terrorism).

Now, we've said how the PSOE party in 2004 had already promised that they would make Catalan an official EU language just to get the votes but did nothing about it. For this reason, Junts said that a promise wasn't enough, and that they would only give them their support if they showed proof that they were initiating the procedure. And thus, they have already sent the letter of request to the EU. The Catalan and Basque parties have given their votes, and the PSOE-Sumar government is already official.

Now it's only a matter of time: the next EU assembly is on September 19th, so we're expecting the vote to happen then. As @beautiful-basquecountry said, all the states of the EU must accept the change, but it should be alright once Spain has proposed it (the only other worry can be France, but considering that now it's Spain's turn to be president of the EU, other countries will want its favour).

Official recognition of the EU is a huge step that will have positive consequences for us (unlike being able to speak our languages in the Spanish Congress which really is just symbolic). That being said, Spain continues having many laws that discriminate against Catalan, Basque, Galician, Aranese Occitan, Asturian-Leonese and Aragonese languages. Let's see if there's anything that can be done about that as well, or if they forget about us once they have the votes.

廿

It meant 20, which you can remember because it's made up of two tens (十) and looks similar to two (二). It can be read nijū, jū, or nyū. It's also an alternate way to write 二十歳 (hatachi), meaning 20 years old.

卅 (30)

呉音　ソウ SŌ ← ソフ SOFU

漢音　ソウ SŌ ← サフ SAFU

訓　みそ miso, さんじゅう sanjū ← さむじふ samzifu

卌 (40)

音　シュウ SHŪ ← シフ SIFU

訓　よそ yoso, しじゅう shijū ← しじふ sizifu, よんじゅう yonjū ← よんじふ yonzifu

These aren’t probably used in names at all, I wager.

皕 (200)

呉音　ヒキ HIKI ← FIKI

漢音　ヒョク HYOKU ← FYOKU

Because 廿，卅 and 卌 (while archaic/not as commonly used in Japanese today) is still actively used in colloquial Cantonese.

皕 remains quite uncommon, and there's an even more obscure character: *𤾩!

*There have been suggestions 𤾩 is a relatively recent made-up character originating from Hong Kong.

The fact that I can only find this character input on the Cangjie keyboard (Chinese input keyboard common in Hong Kong) and not other Chinese keyboards like Pinyin or Zhuyin, lends some credibility to this suggestion.

I also haven't been able to find any definition to this character. Though logic would suggest it obviously means ‘300’.

廿 (*jaa6)

卅 (saa1 or, saa1-aa6)

卌 (se3 or, se3-aa6)

皕 (bik1)

𤾩 (bik1)

*In Cantonese Jyutping (the equivalent of Mandarin Pinyin or Japanese Romaji), the ‘J’ is silent or, more like a ‘Y’, much like the ‘J’ sound in German or Spanish.

Also fun to note, that when typing 卅 and 卌 on the Cangjie keyboard, it's entered like this:

卅 = 廿 + 十 (i.e. 20+10)

卌 = 廿 + 廿 (i.e. 20+20)

The only other info on it I was able to dig up is that, according to Glyph Wiki, it also has a variant form (異體字):

This looks like something one would use in handwriting.

Cangjie decomposition rules matching with arithmetics for 卅 & 卌 is quite neat!

Also, looking at the Cantonese readings of 廿, 卅, 卌, & 皕, I cannot help but notice that, much like Sino-Japanese on’yomi, Cantonese retains the syllable-final implosive /k̚/ from Middle Chinese but lost the /p̚/:

廿 OC /*njɯb/ → MC /ȵiɪp̚/ → 🇭🇰 jaa⁶ / 🇯🇵 ニフ NIPU → NIFU → ニュウ NYŪ, ジフ ZIPU → ZIFU → ジュウ JŪ;

卅 OC /*suːb/, /*soːb/ → MC /s?p̚/** → 🇭🇰 saa¹ / 🇯🇵 ソフ SOPU → SOFU → ソウ SŌ, サフ SAPU → SAFU → ソウ SŌ;

卌 OC /*sub/ → MC /siɪp̚/ → 🇭🇰 se³ / 🇯🇵 シフ SIPU → SIFU → シュウ SHŪ;

皕 OC /*prɯɡ/ → MC /pɨk̚/ → 🇭🇰 bik¹ / 🇯🇵 ヒキ PIKI → FIKI → HIKI.

** Couldn’t find the exact Middle Chinese pronounciation of that one.

I have heard it said that Sino-Japanese on’yomi bears a closer resemblance to Cantonese phonology than, say, Mandarin.

I've heard this one a lot too. I didn't look too deeply into it, and given my rather average understanding of Cantonese and rudimentary knowledge of Japanese, I don't think I'm qualified to speak too much on this.

That being said, I do find myself thinking how similar Cantonese sounds to the on'yomi of more than a few Japanese characters, much more often than I find with Mandarin.

And I'm inclined to think a few other Chinese dialects are more similar phonetically to on'yomi Japanese too, way more than Mandarin ever is.