Languages! Are! Weird!

I was always told it was a combination of the dialect of the settlers, along with French and African English dialects too. And then the various accents lead to the various Southern American Accents. I've heard stories that it was French landowners who were the main contributors to the accent.

But I don't feel like looking it up at the moment. All I know is that Vowel Breaking played it's part too.

Aight, guys, I need y'all help with something. My final exam in Spanish is coming up and I need to do an oral presentation as part of it. The topic I chose is to describe what I did this morning upon getting up. I've written down what I want to say in Spanish, but I'm not sure if all of it's correct. That's where y'all come in. I want anyone here who's fluent in Spanish to check the grammar in the following sentence and tell me if anything needs correcting and what.

"Primero, yo me levanté y fui al baño. Después, yo me cepillé los dientes. Después yo me vestí. navegé por la red para veinte minutos antes me poniendo mis zapatos y saliendo mi casa. Los fines de semana, yo me desperto, voy al baño y cepillo los dientes, cómo hago en la semana. Despues, yo navego por la red casi todo el día y a veces estudio. Claro, yo como también."

Hopefully y'all understand what I'm trying to say.

@blackcoldren and Ferret: There is no one southern accent, though they all share similarities. Most of the accents in Appalachia are Celtic influenced from the Scots-Irish who settled there. Also, from what I understand, "ain't" was originally used by English aristocrats.

Louisiana has a lot more influences in it's dialect's background, Spanish and French being the biggest.

Also, for some reason, most of the people here in Utah consider me to have a Southern accent. I grew up in Southwest Florida. For those not in the know, the farther south you go in Florida, the less "southern" it gets. Go figure.

I never implied a single dialect. Heck I even specified the opposite. "And then the various accents lead to the various Southern American Accents."

The South Ohio and North Florida dialects are basically interchangeable due to people moving between. You're just more likely to hear Y'all in Florida than in Ohio.

I should know I've lived in both states for many years. It's kinda amusing though when you go too North or too South and suddenly everyone wonders if your from Georgia.

A shame I know nothing about Spanish or I would help.

Mostly it's pretty good. Couple nitpicky things:

If you went with the de que me puse construction as opposed to de poniéndome, you'd need to put salí where saliendo is. I'm also not sure about using the imperfect navegaba as opposed to preterit navegué (which needs the "u," by the way); I think because it was over a duration of time, you use the imperfect, but maybe not.

Mostly just spelling errors. Obligatory corrections are in bold; in italics are the ones that aren't wrong necessarily, but sound more fluent to me personally.

edited 29th Apr '14 8:48:17 AM by somerandomdude

Thanks for the help, but a couple of things:

1. My professor told us that despite saying "yo" isn't necessary, we have to for the purpose of the class/when talking with your professor. Or something like that.
2. We haven't learned "navegaba" yet.

Also, what does "por supuesto" mean?

Ah, thanks.

edited 29th Apr '14 12:54:48 PM by PhysicalStamina

'por supuesto' certainly, of course.

Seems I'll be needing to take Spanish soon. German only goes for 2 year and I need 3 years. /le sigh

Es tut mir leid. One Summer term and my language requirements are done

I'm afraid I need your help again. This time for the written part of my final exam. The topic I chose was to describe the last party I went to. I talked about a casual party I had with some friends form high school shortly after I graduated (or shortly before, I'm not sure which). This is what I wrote:

Hace unos años, yo fui a una fiesta con unos amigos desde colégio. Nosotros hacemos cosas como jugar videojuegos, hablé, y vimos la tele. Los videojuegos nosotros jugamos fueron generalmente juegos de combatiendo. Comemos unas papas fritas - yo llevé algunos conmigo^note Was going for "I took some with me" - y alguna pizza pienso. Nosotros también bebimos soda. Fuiste mucho diversión y nos divertimos. Algún tiempo antes salé, nosotros empezamos ver la tele. Mi madre regresó para mi y fuimos a mi casa.

...so? How is it?

Make sure you pay attention to gender agreement and tense conjugations; you had a few in the present that should be in the preterit. Also remember that Spanish needs a relative pronoun; you have to say "the video games that we play," not just "the video games we play."

Finally, "before" as a preposition is antes de, not simply antes.

Code is the same as my previous post; bold for needed corrections, italics for optional ones.

Also, this isn't a grammar thing, but "Fui mucha diversión y nos divertimos" means "It was a lot of fun and we had fun." Sounds kind of weird to me.

edited 29th Apr '14 5:56:09 PM by somerandomdude

I see. Thanks a bunch for your help.

No problemo.

Would "Fui muy bueno..." work better?

So I've been working on my own little alphabet for about 2+ years now during my spare time. And I decided to dig up the graves and look at my older attempts. So here's my oldest I can find, a middle one and the modern one.

Standard: Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

• Quote: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Old: Aa Ææ Bb Cc Dd Ðð Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

• "Wee holde ðeez chrueðs tue bee self-evidint, ðæt al men ar creeaitid eecwul, ðæt ðai ar indowd bie ðair creeaiter wif sertin unaileeubul riets, ðæt umung ðiz ar laif, liberty, ænd ðee persuet uv hæpynis."

Middle: Aa Āā Ææ Bb Cc Dd Ee Ēē Əə Ff Gg Hh Ii Īī Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Ŋŋ Oo Ōō Ɐɒ Pp Qq Rr Ss Ʃʃ Tt Þþ Uu Ūū Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

• "Wē hōld þēz cr?þs t? bē self-evidint, þæt ol men ar krēātid ēqəl, þæt þā ar indoūd bī þāer krēāter wif sertin unālīəbəl rīts, þæt əməŋ þēz ar līf, libertē, ænd þē pers?t əv hæpēnis."

Modern: Aa Ȧȧ Āā Ææ Bb Cc Dd Ðð Ee Ėė Ff Gg Ȝȝ Hh Ii Īī Ÿÿ Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Øø Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Þþ Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz Ʒʒ

• "Wÿ hold ðÿz cruþs tu bÿ selfevidint, ðæt al men ar krÿėtid ÿqøl, ðæt ðė ar indaud bȧ ðėr krÿėter wif sertin ønėlÿøbøl rȧts, ðæt ømøng ðÿz ar lȧf, libertÿ, ænd ðÿ persut øv hæpÿnis."

Had to edit to fix red links. In Middle I never made a sound for [u:] thus I just put a '?'.

edited 1st May '14 1:20:43 PM by blackcoldren

Honestly, I'd just go with "nos divertimos."

Comparing with my two alphabets:

Arcane:
Consonants: Pp Bb Tt Dd Kk Gg Ff Vv Ss Zz Šš Žž Cc Jj Čč J̌ǰ Mm Nn Ŋŋ Ɲɲ Ll Rr Yy Ww Hh (extra: Þþ Ðð Xx Ȝȝ)
Vowels: Ii Ɨɨ Ee Aa Ɑɑ Oo Ʉʉ Uu Øø

Sanim:
Consonants: Ss Zz Pp Bb Tt Dd Kk Gg Hh Mm Nn Ŋŋ Ll Rr Yy Ww
Vowels: Ii Ee Aa Ɑɑ Oo Uu (extra: Øø)

edited 1st May '14 3:18:11 PM by Blueeyedrat

It really amuses me Blueye that two people making their own little spelling system actually end up making similar systems.

I have to ask what dialect do you speak? I speak North Midlands American English. Thus tr becomes chr, and uh becomes ih in places, and wif.

Wī hold ðīz cruþs tu bī selfevidint, ðæt al men ar krīėtid īqøl, ðæt ðė ar indaud bȧ ðėr krīėter wif sertin ønėlīøbøl rȧts, ðæt ømøng ðīz ar lȧf, libertī, ænd ðī persut øv hæpīnis.

Wi hold ðiz truþs tø bi self-evødønt, ðøt ɑl men ɑr krieitød ikwøl, ðøt ðei ɑr øndaud bai ðer Krieitør wɨþ sørtøn oneiliønøbøl Raic, ðøt ømoŋ ðiz ɑr Laif, Lɨbørti, ønd ðø pørsut øv hapinøs.

(I switched out the ÿ's for ī's to help show how similar they are. I have both in my little alphabet in case someone likes one over the other.)

West Coast or Pacific Northwest, I'd wager, given that's where I've lived my whole life.

My two alphabets are actually transliterations of fictional ones I created for an ongoing project, which I may have mentioned once or twice before. I initially based them on English phonology, and then sorta branched out from there to be used for multiple languages. (Here's a rough draft of consonants◊ and vowels◊; Arcane in blue, Sanim in red.) Only one proper conlang in the works, though (Arcane, which can be written in both scripts).

edited 1st May '14 4:11:42 PM by Blueeyedrat

I'm curious about something that I've encountered rarely: the use of the verb "to mantle" to mean "to climb up onto something".

Looking at Dictionary.com, I don't find any such definition, implying that it's at the least a rare usage. I can see where it might have come from—"to mantle" does have a dictionary definition involving "spreading over something", which one climbing onto an object from below might resemble.

I could also see it stemming from "mantel" (specifically in reference to a "mantel shelf"): here "mantel" might be taken to mean "ledge", and become a verb referring to "climbing up onto a ledge".

I've seen this usage in the old Thief games (where it described the gameplay mechanic that allowed the player to grab onto ledges and pull themselves up while jumping), and in our article on CinematicPlatformGame (in the fourth bullet point).

Has anyone else noticed this usage, or have thoughts on its origins?

, I wonder whether the alphabets that you two cited above (well, Blue's less so, given the description given of it) don't illustrate one of the potential problems with instituting spelling reform (aside from the difficulty of getting people to accept it): basing spelling reform on pronunciation means that, given the variety of pronunciations extant, the new spellings will likely look rather alien to those whose pronunciations vary significantly from the model used to produce the reform. It might work if one were to normalise pronunciation first, but that's likely a task that bigger yet.

edited 4th May '14 3:55:11 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

So I've been trying to figure out how many real-world languages I can (phonetically) write in my fictional script. Mostly skimming the phonology pages on Wiki; so far:
- English, Japanese, Persian, Tagalog, Esperanto, Lojban
- possible: French, German, Dutch, Polish, Greek

I have plenty of consonants (and digraphs, and trigraphs, and shorthands for the above); it's mostly figuring out the vowels.

edited 7th May '14 1:53:55 PM by Blueeyedrat

I think I've encountered that usage, but it's possible I'm just remembering Thief. I just checked several online dictionaries, though, and none of them listed it. Curious.

Your etymology seems plausible. (I would have guessed that to mantle something meant to assemble it from existing components, i.e. the logical contrary to dismantling it.) I did notice one example sentence that described a building being mantled by ivy; that may be a less likely alternative, since you could quite likely climb a wall or ledge by the use of something that already mantled it.

I have a question! I was reading about issues with translation recently (yay, Hofstadter) and happened upon the Other Wiki's article regarding translation of Jabberwocky and the choices that have to be made in trying to convey nonsense in another language. ^note I imagine a phrasebook that translates between Gibberish and Hullabaloo. The page offers quite a list of versions of Jabberwocky's first four lines in many languages, but it doesn't go into detail about what decisions each translator made during their attempt and why that sounds strange to each particular language - can anyone help explain? (I'm particularly interested in Finnish, because there are three different versions with nothing in common and only one seems to have the slightest trace of a recognisable word...)

So the things you didn't know thread is cross-eyed about the word Til. So to the best of my knowledge I'll explain what I know here:

The main source of confusion are the two words (in their proper forms) Until and Til.

Both are thought to come from Old Norse; Til coming from Old Norse Til (up to) and Until coming from Old Norse Undtil equivilant to 'and+til'. (and up to)

In modern speech both these words are interchangeable.

Confusion arises in the false thought that Til is a contraction of Until; It isn't, just a related word that means the same thing.

Nevertheless you'll most likely to run in to someone saying 'til.

Regarding "mantling": I had completely forgotten that I'd posted here, so I'm sorry that I didn't reply more quickly! ^^;

Thank you for your thoughts! I had missed the similarity with "dismantle", I believe, although it looks as though that word comes from the same source as the "cloak" sense of "mantle" (essentially referring to bringing down the walls of a fortress as though removing the cloak from a person, according to one entry on Dictionary.com). The ivy option seems quite plausible, either in the sense that you propose—using a mantling plant to climb—or by comparing the human climber with the ivy itself.

Anyone know of any lists of useful words that should be brought back into English? I'd suggest:

Ereyesterday - The day before yesterday.

Overmorrow - The day after tomorrow.

Sib - Related to, kin, reconcile.

And just for personal preference, how I was taught to spell neighbor, Naybor.

This was before so many schools were linked all together, I kind of miss small area spellings like that.

Mhh coruious you don't have those in English?

In German these would be:

Ereyesterday - Vorgestern

Overmorrow - Übermorgen

Sib - Sippe

What I also miss in the English language are gendered words for "cousin". In German "Cousin" refers soloey to male cousins while "Cousine (pronounced Cou-Si-ne) refers to female cousins.

edited 13th May '14 8:57:55 AM by Kiefen