Languages! Are! Weird!

I remember I was shown this video (I could only find it with Spanish subtitles, curiously). And I always remember how complicated it seemed when the teacher starts explaining how tuna can be counted so many different ways depending on its current form.

The confusion also works the other way around. When native speakers of Korean (which is similar in that there are counters) learn English, they get confused as hell when learning the concept of countable and non-countable nouns. Like, "Why are cheese and bread not countable?" "Why is coffee not countable when you can go to a Starbucks and ask for two iced Americanos?"

Oh, indeed, countable words and plurals in English are silly. The answer is "it depends on what language they're originally from" but that means nothing nowadays!

And then you have things like the plural of mouse being mice but the plural of house being houses, not hice. Sure thing.

This language is an absolute mess.

Edited by Zazie122 on Feb 17th 2024 at 8:17:01 AM

Well, in Polish uncountable nouns are generally names of substances (bread, cheese, milk, sugar, water, beer). Things that can be measured, but not counted, although many of these words can be pluralised in certain contexts (going to the waters; many kinds of cheese; etc.). New writers still can't get their heads around this. And many other things they really ought to know, since they've been speaking this language since they were kids. </rant> (Sorry, been editing today.)

Have linguists resolved the Germanic-Celtic-Romance trichotomy?

I'm learning Japanese.

I haven't heard of such a problem - do tell?

Celtic & Romance languages have traditionally been united in a single grouping to the exclusion of Germanic languages due to shared similarities, but these might be primitive for all Indo-European languages & all three possible permutations have been proposed in the literature.

However, I'm having difficulty memorizing the Japanese symbols so I'm sticking with using English pronunciations. It's not like I'm ever going to actually VISIT Japan, since it's too expensive.

United in what way? Do you mean they were classified as closely related, in one group? Or, to be more exact, one group within the Indo-European family? I.e. those three are closer to each other than they are to Baltic, Slavic or Hellenic languages? And the problem would be - which pair has a closer relation, am I right?

That’s basically it, but I’ve learned since my last post that Germanic might be closer to Greek, Armenian, Albanian, Indo-Iranian & Balto-Slavic than to Italic & Celtic.

I guess technically I should learn Celtic since I'm part Irish, but I have a bigger interest in Asian culture...hence my learning Japanese. Bit by bit.

TIL a Russian idiom for being insanely busy: "to have ass full of cucumbers".

Where did you hear that? I haven't ever encountered an idiom that could be translated that way.

Google only finds a very very small sample of usage. And basically all of the occurrences are in a different context.

Edited by Adannor on Mar 20th 2024 at 9:27:55 PM

A Belarussian girl said it in Polish, and my GF who speaks Russian figured out it's a Russian idiom. Also, after checking the internet, it's less "insanely busy" and more what we generally call "przejebane".

Which is another story altogether.

My searching only found that usage is the wiktionary entry citing one book of idioms and one livejournal post thinking about it. Every other mention of the phrase is from a joke in which character mashes two unrelated phrases into something nonsensical.

So, you only have one example, some guessing and next to no sources. Sounds like someone's idiolect. My Mum, for example, used to say, when something was dirty, "so dirty you can write 'ass' on it" - this was her own particular phrase some members of the family picked up, but that doesn't make it an idiom until it spreads around Polish speakers. Same for your "idiom" I'm afraid.

Two unrelated people know the Russian version, in addition to Wiktionary entry that would be edited to hell by the pedantic editors long ago if it wasn't well documented. So not a family thing.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's some Russian equivalent of redneck wisdom, in that it's common in one region or social class but didn't break into mass usage outside of some memes.

That's another possibility.