/r/linguisticshumor
Linguistics Humor: a sub for humor relating to linguistics
Welcome to /r/linguisticshumor! This is the home for jokes about linguistics, i.e., the study of human language.
Linguistics memes, funny textbook illustrations, crackpot theories, rude drawings made up of IPA symbols, and other linguological ludicrousness goes here. If you've got something that you'd like to share with the class that isn't scientifically rigorous enough for /r/linguistics, post it in this sub.
For more serious linguistics, check out /r/linguistics and /r/asklinguistics.
For humor and discussion about modern foreign languages, check out /r/languagelearning.
For examples of bad linguistics, check out /r/badlinguistics.
For linguistics shit-posting, check out /r/shittylinguistics.
For goofy linguistics thoughts, check out /r/showerlinguistics.
/r/linguisticshumor
What does this guy say?? Specifically the Arabic text
singular is removed. like deer or fish, antix covers
Spicy inquiry
I feel like the rate of emergence of new languages is becoming incredibly slow because of writing and increasing literacy rates
Could the natural sound changes of a given language get a threshold as soon as they get a script (assuming they stick to it for a while)? And I know that “English” has been using the Latin alphabet since like the 7th century and still has undergone hella changes in phonology and lexicon, but I assume a lot fewer than before the Latin script and Anglo-Frisian runes.
As access to media and long distance transportation become more available (along with increasing literacy rates), certain popular dialects are probably impacting and standardizing others.
This could all be nonsense ☝️🤓 but idk does anyone have any thoughts about this? I don’t have any doctoral background in anthropological linguistics, which I’m sure all of you do
Despite time having shown the opposite, I think languages might be converging. That is my dissertation thank you if you disagree with me you will be forsaken
This writes most distinctions made in different English dialects. It only takes into account the 24 standard lexical sets, but I've added suggested local spelling in parentheses. It uses no diacritics or new letters. It merges LOT/CLOTH and BATH/TRAP as they are usually (not always) predictable based on following consonants. If there are within-set contrasts I'm not aware of, please let me know.
I plan on calling Mrs Starmer, Trump, and Albanese tomorrow and getting this enforced by the New Year. I see no issues with my plan
Vowels: Short lax monophthongs: i KIT,
e DRESS,
a TRAP/BATH,
o LOT/CLOTH,
u FOOT,
q STRUT,
x COMMA,
(for bad-lad split, write bad <ah>, lad <a>)
Long Monophthongs:
aa - PALM
oo - THOUGHT
rr - NURSE
(for dialects without vein-vane merger, write /e:/ as <ee>)
(for dialects without toe-tow merger, write /o:/ as <ou>)
(for dialects with fir-fur-fern merger, write them as <iir, qrr, eer>
j and w-linking diphthongs:
iy - FLEECE
ey - FACE
ay - PRICE
oy - CHOICE
uw - GOOSE without /j/
yuw - GOOSE with /j/
(iw - GOOSE from EME /ɪw/)
ow - GOAT
aw - MOUTH
/Vr/ sequences before intervocalic /r/, write the vowel as usual. Use doubled <rr> for when one of the following precedes another vowel (so nirrxr for <nearer>, mirxr for <mirror>)
ir - NEAR
er - SQUARE
ar - START
or - NORTH (owr - FORCE)
ur - CURE without /j/
yur - CURE with /j/
xr - LETTER
Consonants: <b p m f v w> for /b p m f v w/,
<th dh> for /θ ð/,<t d n s z l> for /t d n s z l/,
<sh zh c j r> for /ʃ ʒ tʃ dʒ r/,
<k g nh y h> for /k g ŋ j h/
Sample text:
Al hyuwmxn biyinhz ar born friy and iykwxl in dignitiy and raits. They ar endawd with riysxn and konshins and shud akt txwordz wqn qdhxr in x spirit qv brqdhxrhud
Awxr faadhxr hwuw art in hevin, blesid biy dhai neym. Dhai kinhdxm kqm. Dhai wil biy dqn on rrth as it iz in hevin. Giv qs dhis dey awxr deyliy bred, and frrgiv qs awxr trespasiz, as wiy frrgiv dhowz hwuw trespas xgenst qs, and liyd qs not intuw tempteyshxn, bqt delivxr qs frqm iyvil. For dhain iz dhx kinhdxm and thx pawxr, and the gloriy, frrevxr and evxr.
Biggest downside is that now in Scrabble, <X Q Z> go down from being worth 10 points to being worth 1 each
"Bouba" is the circular figure, "Kiki" is the pointy figure
As we know, the standard Egyptological pronunciation is rather arbitrary, treating the signs for the glottal stop and voiced pharyngeal fricative as /a/, and the signs for /j/ and /w/ as /i/ and /u/ respectively, with an /ɛ/ inserted between consonants pretty much whenever one feels like it. The choice of /ɛ/ was arbitrary.
I propose this alternative: alternate between the vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/ between all the signs, treating every sign as a consonant, until you reach the last consonant, and start over when you get to the next word in a compound word/phrase. (Pronounce the pharyngeal fricative as a glottal stop.)
(Of course, since Egyptian used ꜣ and w as matres lectionis, this might lead to some absurdly long/silly-sounding pronunciations, but at least it's less silly than inserting /ɛ/ between every consonant.)
Let's compile a list of spoken languages which lack phonemes/phonotactics found in their English names, in native vocabulary (or in "naturalised" loanwords).
I'll start: Vietnamese has no syllable-final /s/ or /z/, and no lexical stress.
EDIT: IDK why the text below the link got deleted when I first posted this.
What if humans, assuming that they still communicated with sound, had really no limit to the sounds they produce and their hearing?
Hear me out bro. I am a music theorist and this is very interesting to me.
What if humans were capable to produce singular and multiple sine waves with frequencies from 0 to infinity (negative infinity to infinity, depending on your definition of frequency), amplitudes from 0 to infinity, and were able to hear them all, and immediately recognize every single frequency and its amplitude within a fraction of a second, sort of like a super, SUPER perfect pitch?
What if humans were also able to control sound's location in space, and had MASTERED sound localisation?
Obviously, I'm not asking what would happen to the society, the environment or whatever. I'm asking only linguistically and musically.
What would happen to human language, if they could control the sound to its fullest potential and had no pre-existing ideas of a language? How would language evolve in this case?