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Or language extinction or whatever your preferred term. Is it a good thing? Does it help us work towards instating a universal language? Should we have a universal language? Is death of an obscure language inevitable? How much resources should go towards preserving a given language? What can we get out of preserving a language?

It doesn't look like we had this thread, and I figure it's worth talking about. Especially since I might end up dealing with it in my career years from now.

Wikipedia link.

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#351: May 20th 2023 at 12:08:36 PM

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

On a different note, I'm confused about how the voiceless palatal fricative is supposed to be. From the audio samples, it almost sounds like it's somewhere between the voiceless postalveolar fricative (i.e. the English digraph sh) and the voiceless velar fricative. Is that right? I'll admit that I have no idea how to replicate the sound myself.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Khudzlin Since: Nov, 2013
#352: May 20th 2023 at 12:30:25 PM

[up] Instead of putting your tongue behind your closed teeth like for a postalveolar fricative, put it between your slightly opened teeth. German has this consonant as an allophone of the voiceless velar fricative (it's the velar after a, o or u and the palatal after any other sound).

Jhimmibhob from Where the tea is sweet, and the cornbread ain't Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: My own grandpa
#353: May 20th 2023 at 1:03:28 PM

[up][up]For some English speakers—by no means for all!—it's the initial sound in words such as huge, humor, Houston, etc. You can approximate it by pronouncing /j/ (English y, Arabic ي), and raising the tongue just enough to create friction against the palate.

"She was the kind of dame they write similes about." —Pterodactyl Jones
Lyendith I'm not insane, I'm not… not insane! from Bègles, France Since: Mar, 2011 Relationship Status: Buried in snow, waiting for spring
I'm not insane, I'm not… not insane!
#354: May 20th 2023 at 1:45:19 PM

Japanese also transcribes the sound as "ヒャ ヒュ ヒョ" (hya hyu hyo) for what it’s worth. It actually does help to get the hang of it.

Flippé de participer à ce grand souper, je veux juste m'occuper de taper mon propre tempo.
MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#355: May 20th 2023 at 4:15:02 PM

... OMG, I think that worked. And it does sound quite different! Thanks for the help!

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Lyendith I'm not insane, I'm not… not insane! from Bègles, France Since: Mar, 2011 Relationship Status: Buried in snow, waiting for spring
I'm not insane, I'm not… not insane!
#356: May 25th 2023 at 11:31:33 AM

[up] [tup]

Random question: what are the words in your language you find the funniest?

In French I’d say carabistouillenote , chafouinnote  or turlutenote .

In English, probably shenanigan, kerfuffle and paraphernalia. tongue

Guess it’s the aliteration that make most of these funny to me.

Flippé de participer à ce grand souper, je veux juste m'occuper de taper mon propre tempo.
luisedgarf from Mexico Since: May, 2009 Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
#357: May 25th 2023 at 12:10:00 PM

Here in Mexico we have some of them:

1- Chiripiorca (epileptic seizure)

2- Prau Prau (either having sex or receiving a beating)

3- Trompada (Being punched in the face)

Edited by luisedgarf on May 25th 2023 at 2:10:13 PM

coinneach from Mordor Since: Apr, 2012 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#358: May 25th 2023 at 12:19:16 PM

2- Prau Prau (either having sex or receiving a beating)

¿Porque no los dos?

Let's see what fresh fuckwittery the dolts can contrive to torment themselves with this time.
Lyendith I'm not insane, I'm not… not insane! from Bègles, France Since: Mar, 2011 Relationship Status: Buried in snow, waiting for spring
I'm not insane, I'm not… not insane!
#359: May 25th 2023 at 12:27:57 PM

1- Chiripiorca (epileptic seizure)

Well that’s a word that has no right to sound this cute. >.>

[up] If you’re into that, I guess. evil grin

Edited by Lyendith on May 25th 2023 at 9:28:36 PM

Flippé de participer à ce grand souper, je veux juste m'occuper de taper mon propre tempo.
ElBuenCuate Since: Oct, 2010
#360: May 25th 2023 at 1:01:28 PM

Wait a minute. Was chiripiorca always a word for that... or is it because of Chespirito?

luisedgarf from Mexico Since: May, 2009 Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
#361: May 25th 2023 at 9:42:10 PM

[up]You can thank Chespirito for that. And believe me, since I'm epileptic, I heard that word a lot.

Noaqiyeum Trans Siberian Anarchestra (it/they) from the gentle and welcoming dark (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Trans Siberian Anarchestra (it/they)
#362: May 26th 2023 at 11:35:07 AM

One of my favourite words is pathognomonic ("uniquely identifying", especially in the context of disease diagnosis), I suppose because of the way your tongue has to chase the consonants all over your mouth. The second syllable sort of feels like onomatopoeically walking into a door in the middle of the word. Prophylaxis ("prevention of disease") is also fun.

Discombobulate ("to befuddle") and for that matter befuddle ("to confuse") are two I've seen listed with kerfuffle and shenanigans, though I don't like the sound of the -bob- syllable as much myself. I think I'd add anemometer ("a device for measuring wind speed"), aggregate ("to gather together"), and vicissitude ("unforeseen trouble"), which all have similar repetition.

In German, definitely Zug ("train") and Zugzwang ("compulsion to move", used in chess to describe a situation where you have to use your turn but all of your options make your position worse).

Is there a word for the transition between adjacent consonants? I know "diphthong" is only for vowels, despite appearances. Interesting phonotactics make words fun to say. Texture. Haptic. Viscous. Thimble.

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable
jawal Since: Sep, 2018
#363: May 26th 2023 at 12:12:41 PM

[up]

Is there a word for the transition between adjacent consonants?
 

Maybe Consonant Cluster?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonant_cluster

Every hero has his own way of eating Yoghurt
Khudzlin Since: Nov, 2013
#364: May 26th 2023 at 12:18:55 PM

I think several consonants in a row are called a cluster. Unsurprisingly, possible consonant clusters differ according to language.

gropcbf from France Since: Sep, 2017
#365: May 26th 2023 at 2:00:56 PM

I also like carabistouille, and in general I think I like words with many syllables. Especially when they are not obviously several words patched together (such as 'monosyllabic' which is just mono- and -syllabic; carabistouille is probably made of such parts but I can't tell them).

Edited by gropcbf on May 26th 2023 at 1:29:37 PM

DeMarquis Who Am I? from Hell, USA Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Buried in snow, waiting for spring
Who Am I?
#366: May 27th 2023 at 7:40:47 AM

"Consonant Blend" is another term I've heard, although it's somewhat inaccurate, in that the sounds do not actually blend into one sound (that's called a consonant digraph).

My favorite word is "ice". It sounds so exactly like what it is.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#367: May 28th 2023 at 8:47:17 PM

What would be the logical choice of noun to use as a formal term for the extension of lifespan - or put another way, to make an organism "longevous"? You know, like how senescence is the formal term for aging, or reviviscence (from revivify) is a formal/technical way of saying "restoring life to the dead"?

Edited by MarqFJA on May 28th 2023 at 6:47:39 PM

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#368: May 29th 2023 at 3:54:03 AM

"Longevescence" could work, I suppose. Though if you want it to be an actual formal term, you'd probably want to write a paper introducing the term first, and then get some researchers quoting your new coinage.

Optimism is a duty.
gropcbf from France Since: Sep, 2017
#369: May 29th 2023 at 7:48:55 AM

Maybe that would be a negative such as antisenescence? I am thinking of anti-aging cosmetics.

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#370: May 30th 2023 at 10:30:46 PM

Well, I did find "prolongevity" as a term for having an extended lifespan, and "prolong" is directly derived from Latin; "prolongeviscence", maybe? Or perhaps take Latin longivivax ("long-lived"), use the verbal form of the second half (vivo, "to live") in parallel to "revive" coming from revivo, and end up with "longivival" (compare "revival")?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Lyendith I'm not insane, I'm not… not insane! from Bègles, France Since: Mar, 2011 Relationship Status: Buried in snow, waiting for spring
I'm not insane, I'm not… not insane!
#371: May 31st 2023 at 6:18:11 AM

"Longivivax" sounds like a commercial brand for a miracle pill.

"Longivivax, you’ll have to take a loan to buy it, but you’ll have centuries to pay it back!"

carabistouille is probably made of such parts but I can't tell them

Dunno, Wiktionary tells us it might come from "carabin" (medicine student or novice surgeon) but that seems far-fetched to me.

Edited by Lyendith on May 31st 2023 at 3:21:46 PM

Flippé de participer à ce grand souper, je veux juste m'occuper de taper mon propre tempo.
Lyendith I'm not insane, I'm not… not insane! from Bègles, France Since: Mar, 2011 Relationship Status: Buried in snow, waiting for spring
I'm not insane, I'm not… not insane!
#372: Jun 20th 2023 at 6:45:50 AM

I’m currently reading a comic book series called Les 5 Terres (The 5 Lands), which is basically A Song of Ice and Fire meets Beastars.

While the first cycle focuses on the feline kingdom of Angleon, whose monarchy is strictly an Heir Club for Men, the second one goes to the simian kingdom of Lys, whose society is a lot more matriarchal (women being physically stronger than men there). And I like the little linguistic trick the authors use to convey that without having to spell it out − they made feminine the neutral gender.

In other words, when a group includes both females and males, it’s the feminine agreement that will prevail, and the feminine form can refer to "everyone". Even the word "quelqu’un" (someone) is replaced by "quelqu’une", which isn’t normally used in real life −at least not seriously− but totally makes sense here. It does take some getting used to, but at the same time I was like "Oh, so that’s how women feel when they read a neutral-masculine sentence, huh."

I wonder if there are other similar examples in fiction in other languages?

Flippé de participer à ce grand souper, je veux juste m'occuper de taper mon propre tempo.
MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#373: Jun 28th 2023 at 1:51:20 PM

You know how in the original Tarzan novels, the Mangani language is described as consisting "largely of grunts and growls representing nouns and various basic concepts", i.e. wordless vocalizations like real-life animals? And yet this isn't reflected in the large lexicon of human-vocalizable words that the author provides? Is there a real-life term for this dissonance? It's almost like Tarzan took it upon himself to invent a human-vocalizable representation of the language's phonology, matching each Mangani phoneme to a basic human phoneme that he arbitrarily decided was the "closest" analogue.

Related to this, I made a Trope Finder query where I asked if there are tropes that are applicable to this, but unfortunateley it got no feedback so far. The only thing that I managed to figure out on my own is that Starfish Language seems to be the best fit for the unpronounceability of Mangani phonemes for humans.

Edited by MarqFJA on Jun 28th 2023 at 11:53:39 AM

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
#374: Jun 28th 2023 at 6:32:59 PM

As a non-native English speaker myself, I found this bit so relatable:

[lol]

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Jhimmibhob from Where the tea is sweet, and the cornbread ain't Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: My own grandpa
#375: Jun 28th 2023 at 9:09:50 PM

[up][up]I don't know if any zoölogist has tried to devise a transcription method for animal vocalizations such as whalesong, meows, dolphin "speech," etc. ... but if so, that could be a useful example for writing about such a language.

Fun fact: Burroughs did, at least, note that Tarzan's Mangani name was pronounced /zʔntər/. (The glottal stop, contrary to any human phonotactics, apparently serves as a "vowel" or syllabic nucleus in Mangani. And whether the /r/ was trilled, retroflex, uvular, etc. is anybody's guess.)

Edited by Jhimmibhob on Jun 28th 2023 at 12:13:11 PM

"She was the kind of dame they write similes about." —Pterodactyl Jones

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