#language play

By now you might know that I freaking love languages and speak a few. I wish I spoke even more! You might have even seen my Noël/Chris trans-language bit in This Little Blaze if you've read some of my stories.

You've probably heard of Pig Latin, or ig-Pay atin-Lay, where you bring the initial consonants to the end of the word and add -ay. But what about the inverse, where you bring the final consonants to the beginning of the word and add -ay? gay-Pi nay-Lati? In theory, it should be just as easy. In practice, the second one is way more difficult for your brain. But why?

This bonus episode of Lingthusiasm talks about language play! Games like Pig Latin, the Gibberish/Obbish family, rhyming slang, and the surprisingly old French Verlan may seem like childish fun or ways of keeping secrets, but they're also linguistically fascinating. Pulling language apart, even in play, can expose how our minds put it together in the first place. 

Index: Types of Dances

It’s no surprise that a culture that loves dance so much would find it a useful tool for channeling magic. So far, I’ve mentioned a few types of specific dances, and while it’s not really important to explain them, world building is my candy, and language play is my particular favorite bonbon.

pri’ramn- “first dance” Term used for the collective of beginner’s dancers and training exercises.

il’li…

an ode, in abc... form

O, mouth, Abyss of appetite,   Bureau of belching, Cannon of cursing,   Dungeon of tongue, Emitic exit,   Fanatic of food.

O mouth,   Groom of gluttony, Hall of hiccups,   Inventor of intrigue, Joker and jester,   Knight of bite, Lover of lick and kiss.

O mouth,   Muse of mucous, Nobleman of No,   Obnoxious Opinionator, Penthouse of Prevarication,   Quarrelsome quipster, Rude rogue of rebuke,   Soothing sayer.

Tabernacle of teeth,   Union of utterance, Vector of vocabulary,   Wagon of waggery, Xanadu of flu,   Yodeler and yeller, Zone of zest, O, mouth.

I smell like a wound that won't heal, and tears that won't dry,

I smell like a clumsy pause, a room that's stale and old,

culinary difficulty your goose is cooked you're all shook up a chafed chef the sou chef vouchsafed for you, said you can dish it out after you bake it par course par boil char boil loyal to butter salt and cream, utter and scream, slow- roast a daydream of opening your own someday restaurant restore rant, saucy savant