The Ramblings of a Proto-Linguist

Pleurotus eryngii

I don't mind it because the thing about the Wikimedia projects is that the goal is not to pretend to be correct but instead to be clear about what people say. It's made clear that it's google translate and therefore we should know to be wary, and ALSO we know that it's from Spanish so the Spanish to English translation can probably be more trustworthy than one from, e.g. Veps (does it do Veps?). The whole thing about Wikipedia is that it's like a bunch of people saying shit and arguing about it until the dust settles, not because the dust will settle and leave the truth behind but because it will show evidence of a scuffle. Citing your sources isn't to prove you're right, it's to show your work so that people reading you can assess what they want to take from it.

All that to say, I'm curious on your opinion about whether English (or other languages not traditionally considered a creole) are considered creole, or if you have any unrelated facts or opinions you're interested in sharing related to pidgins and creoles that'd be cool too :D

english is not a creole. it was already established as a distinct language variety with a full germanic grammatical structure before borrowing lots of french vocabulary during the norman conquest, and there are no pervasive borrowed grammatical patterns overtaking the original germanic across contexts.

Wanna say, in case anon is still keeping an eye on this post—"complicated" features is untrue. I think the word you're looking for is "complex". Morphological complexity has a particular definition in linguistics, and it has nothing to do with "complicatedness", which is much more of an evaluative term that gets thrown around by laypeople in suntly harmful ways because of implications of "simplicity" and therefore primitiveness in especially non–Indo-European (genetic) and non-European (geographical) languages. I'm not accusing anon artaking in these narratives, sorry if the tone comes off that way. Just wanna make sure the term is clear because they're not interchangeable, even if a layperson might think so. It's helpful to be careful even when talking to laypeople because it creates a precedent if you ever feel like you get the opportunity to clarify a misunderstanding about it

There's also a very important piece that is sort of academia-internal but worth mentioning since the question takes an academic lense—for most purposes I feel like linguists are fairly on the side of analyzing things as creoles when we're looking at languages in contact within a colonial context, with outsiders having an exertion of power over (an)other group(s). Now, were William the Conqueror and friends a colonial? Their intention and been to occupy and use resources, they displaced the local population, and they became the ruling class, no? So even though I bring this up, I gotta acknowledge that it may not actually be enough as a justification to say no lol

My general opinion is that English approaches things... almost scientifically with words. It feels like for English we have so many more words that convey very specific feelings compared to other synonyms, so I find that I'm almost translating my feelings rather than the words

I've said it before in other posts I think but in English "giggle", "chuckle", "scoff", and "snicker" have totally different vibes but if you look up the words in Spanish it's usually both reír "to laugh" and then you have to add a qualifier

Like "to scoff" is sometimes reír de forma contemptuosa/disgustada "to laugh in a contemptuous/displeased way", while "giggle" I've seen come out as reír disimuladamente "to laugh discretely"

And though I do get the feeling, it kind of takes me out of it - but on the other hand it must be so confusing for a Spanish-speaker to be trying to decide which word is best

English has a very "there's a perfect word for this" while Spanish is more free form and built on vibes and context, and has better words for community, family, and intense and subtle emotions while English is like surgically picking something very specific

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Usually it's the other way around for me. Spanish doesn't have a good enough distinction between words of horror in my opinion

Things like "creepy" are harder to translate because there's espeluznante which can be "hair-raising" or "terrifying" but it's hard to convey the same... vibe of "it could be dangerous but it might not be"

I usually have to say mal rollo like "bad vibes" or some other kind of word to get the idea

Emotions in general are harder to translate well; especially happiness and joy, or fear

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For Spanish there are just... I don't know there are more specific words that I wish English had

I can't translate mala leche into English very well but any Spanish-speaker knows the intense bad vibes that mala leche has

[also not counting really specific words like tocayo/a "someone who has the same name as you", or "namesake" and "someone you were named after; which makes sense in regions that had strict name regulations coming from Latin or the Bible/saints for many decades]

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The other word that I have to always preface is la comida

Because it does mean "food", but it's also "meal". But more importantly, la comida is sometimes the big midday meal we would call "lunch", which is all very different as far as the eating schedule in places with siesta culture rather than the three main meals of (American) English

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works for me!

They have been letting go of their human staff and replacing them with AI, leading to a ton of mistakes.

(also while practicing my first language - not English, which I have been speaking since I learned how to talk and writing since I learned how to write - kept saying I was wrong except I wasn't. It leaves no room for nuance/multiple correct answers)

I feel like for me, even tho it was in the heyday of tumblinguists, it had to do with the fact that I was also doing language stuff too, and had a bunch of resources to share? You have neither the thriving tumblinguists community nor the gimmick of having downloaded gigs and gigs of language+linguistics PDFs (well actually maybe you do, but from what I've seen that's not a chief purpose) so mad props lol

I do wish we could have what you're doing again, I miss it! There's still a few linguists on here from the good ol days but I'm v curious where they are now and who would want to resurrect the community even more teehee

Level 2: I'm completely certain these two words with similar spellings and related meanings share a common origin because it's fucking obvious just from looking at them, you absolute simpleton.

Level 5: I've learned the actual sound shifts that historically occurred in this specific language family, and it turns out those two words weren't related after all. Whoops.