#language thoughts

It's so strange to be able to express yourself in a language that is not your mother tongue.

There are things that I could say in my mother tongue (which is French) that I would feel weird about... I don't like to use that word, but that would make me "cringe".

However if I say these same things in English... I can be poetic, state something that could be philosophical, and not feel as weird as I would in French. It's English, it's different.

It's like... since it is not "my" language, I can let my thoughts out freely (to a certain degree).

It has happened to me at some point where I wanted to say something to someone (who was also French) but I was embarrassed so I ended up saying it in English (language that the person could understand too) so I felt less embarrassed to say it in English.

It feels like if I speak another language than my mother tongue it is not really me. It is a different me. That other me is more confident in what she says, even if I'm not confident in the language I speak (because my English level is shit), but I am more confident about my words, my thoughts.

But I have 30 years of “yapping” being the VERY NEGATIVE, DEROGATORY word for a dog barking endlessly at nothing, to the point of disturbing everyone around it. The kind of endless, pointless noise that makes you sincerely wish a coyote or car would just kill it already, so it would fucking shut up. A living air horn that refuses to stop blasting.

“Yapping dog” basically meant “useless screaming creature that everyone loathed” - having something that yaps is an embarrassing thing, that you shoo into another room and keep it away from guests, and hope it stops before it ruins the whole gathering. People abandon or buy electric collars or remove voice boxes or euthanize yapping dogs, who don’t learn to stop perpetually full-volume barking at nothing.

-

I know it’s used neutrally now.

I know it just means chatting with people.

But when someone says they want to yap, or they’re someone who is always yapping, my gut instinct is to wonder if they’re a bit suicidal, or perhaps are about to start literally begin howling and gibbering into the sky and I need to plan an escape.

My gut instinct is WARINESS and ALARM, because I’ve got 30-ish years of memory that says claiming to be a yapping thing is an insane and self-destructive thing to say, like openly claiming to be someone who prefers to piss and shit on open public floors instead of in toilets. Being compared to a yapping dog was a huge insult. It’s not something that humans do, that’s an animal thing. That’s a deeply disliked animal thing, what the fuck.

And I have to keep my expression frozen as I mentally remind my gut that no, that word means something different to kids now. It’s neutral now.

Yap just means “to talk” to them. The deeply negative connotations I grew up with aren’t there.

Of all the new slang I’ve seen, I’m WAY more comfortable with stuff like “ohio rizz” than I am with the new use of “yap” becoming common.

Since this blog is apparently where I have decided to dump all meta-related thoughts... Here are some thoughts regarding “Silvanizing” Sindarin words that came up on the SWG discord this morning. Sometimes when we write together, we share sentences at the end of the writing session, and that can create conversation.

Me:  [My shared sentence] is just meta because thats what i'm working on, but here is my sentence: “While there is conflicting information on Silvan language in the Third Age, Tolkien’s final writing on Silvan language in Mirkwood explains that Oropher and the few Sindarin refugees with him assimilated into Silvan culture, “adopting their language and taking names of Silvan form and style,” which we see explicitly in the name of Oropher’s grandson, Legolas, a “dialectical” or “silvanized” form of the more traditional Sindarin laegolas.” Other member: do they always do the ae->e in their accent? would Lego say "Medhros"??

Me:  As for what Legolas would say... IDK, it depends on which version of woodelf languages in the third age you latch onto, but...  There are only about 30 purely nandorin words "recorded" by tolkien, and only in one of those set of words does "ae" appear instead of a simple "a" or "e."  "dh" is also a Sindarin spelling whereas Nandorin uses simply "d", so in Silvan/Nandorin, it is safe to assume that words traditionally with "dh" in Sindarin would probably be Silvanized by dropping the H. 

 So I would conclude by saying it is entirely possible that a strictly Silvan-speaking wood-elf might pronounce/spell/whatever Maedhros as "Madros" or "Medros" instead. 

 But this is all just inference based on the few, like, clues we get from the nandorin words and silvan-dialectical sindarin words peppered about, really

Love the SWG discord, because I literally would never have been inspired to think about this on my own. Hm... Looking forward to exploring these ideas more another time. 

Japanese & English were my first languages, never fully developed my Japanese, learned Portuguese to an advanced/fluent level and now my 2 strongest are English and Portuguese, followed my an intermediate-ish level of Spanish, then my Japanese. 

“我余生所求皆在于此，你别想再靠近半步。”

姜曦暴怒：“你余生所求，就是鱼死网破吗？”

(xu shuanglin says) "This is all that I seek in what remains of my life, don't think you can get even a step closer."

Jiang Xi exploded, "Is a life and death struggle what you seek in what remains of your life?"

So it's an intense conversation but I laughed because the words for "remains" and "fish" sound the same. In this case remains is used in place of "what is left of". ( This pun is potentially intentional because the phrase for life and death struggle meatbun used is literally "the fish dies, the net breaks".) Anyway, if we want, we can "hear"/pun this conversation into:

(xu shuanglin says) "This is all that I seek in my life as a fish, don't think you can get even a step closer."

Jiang Xi exploded, "Is a life and death struggle what you seek in your life as a fish?"

And now I'm just imagining Xi Shuanglin as a fish in the middle of a magical array, surrounded by 5 elemental divine weapons, flopping.

Also, cultural note: for the Lunar New Year the reason we serve fish is for this pun. There the idea to have excess every year -- which means you have enough (money, food, etc). And the word for excess in this case is remains -- like to have something left over.

Replacing remaining with fish, the phrase becomes have fish every year.

Traditionally, the definition of “asexual” is “a person who does not experience sexual attraction”, often with that exact phrasing, because that is what’s given on the AVEN front page.  “Aromantic”, however, does not have such a strong tradition.  For example, an early version of the AVENwiki article said:

There is no concrete definition for aromantic.  Some people think of it as the lack of romantic attraction, whereas others define it as the lack of desire to be in a romantic relationship.

My recollection is that in 2009, people were not consistent about the definition, because, what even is romantic attraction, besides a desire to be in a romantic relationship?  Nowadays, the concept of romantic attraction is taken more for granted, and “aromantic” is almost always defined in terms of romantic attraction, seemingly in imitation of “asexual”.

And... I think it’s taken too much for granted that whatever the ace community did with its language is worthy of emulation, and it’s not clear to me that this is the case.

The attraction-based definition of asexual has the advantage that it accommodates people who strongly relate to the asexual experience, and yet are sex-favorable.  The disadvantage, is that it does not accommodate people who strongly relate to the asexual experience, and yet experience sexual attraction.  For example, imagine someone who doesn’t experience sexual desire, but who either experiences sexual attraction or just isn’t sure what that means.  To my mind, that person belongs in the ace community, and there’s no sense in creating a separate community just for people who lack sexual desire rather than sexual attraction.