43
votes
Accepted
Why isn’t the letter “G” immediately after “C” in the alphabet?
Short answer: The letter G was inserted into the Latin alphabet on the place of the letter Z that was abolished officially at the same time. For more information, see this answer and also this answer ...
- 28.3k
30
votes
Accepted
Does an affinity between languages necessitate that the speakers be ethnically related?
No,
this is not generally assumed. In fact, it is assumed that any human (of any ethnic background) can learn any language as first language or second language.
Large language families often cross ...
- 28.3k
20
votes
Accepted
How to identify a foreign language from handwriting?
Problem 1. Identify the language
I found this diagram (in Russian). It seems to be pretty simple, and it amazingly covers a vast majority of world's languages. I took my liberty to adjust it slightly....
- 8,610
18
votes
Why isn’t the letter “G” immediately after “C” in the alphabet?
We know that the Romans invented the letter G, derived its shape from C, and put G in seventh place.
jk linked to an answer to a Latin.SE question. None of the answers to that question, nor any of ...
- 602
16
votes
Native English speakers: worse understanding of other accents?
The first thing to consider is that this is a comedy show, and Lily Tomlin is a comedian. The second is that US speakers of English don't have a lot of exposure to UK accents, especially those most-...
- 74.9k
13
votes
Native English speakers: worse understanding of other accents?
Lily Thomlin is a comedian. She's playing the supposed difficulty of understanding the accents as a joke. If you pay attention, she laughs quite appropriately to the jokes the others make. When ...
- 231
11
votes
Does an affinity between languages necessitate that the speakers be ethnically related?
It does not, it only establishes that there was some communicative contact between the ancestoral populations (which before the interwebs was invented meant "living in proximity"). However, the notion ...
- 74.9k
9
votes
Accepted
Is there a tendency to name money after other things?
Although anecdotally the answer to the question is a confident "yes", there is a big complication: the many concepts of economic value that are bundled into the Western European concept of "money". ...
- 6,323
9
votes
Is there a document to summarize characteristics of various languages?
As usual, yes and no depending on what you mean. I disagree with the characteristics attributed to Japanese, French and German. I do however understand that there are popular language stereotypes, and ...
- 74.9k
9
votes
Accepted
What is linguistics?
I think "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language" by David Crystal is a good read in this respect.
You can also look at this question and its answers for some more suggestions.
- 28.3k
8
votes
Textbooks in Formal Semantics / Montague semantics
I really depends on what you are after. Here is a list of my favorite text books, together with some short annotations.
Heim & Kratzer 1998: one of the best intro to semantics if you are ...
- 326
8
votes
Accepted
Database of Swadesh lists
Wikipedia (as another commenter already mentioned): 168 languages or language families.
Internet Archive: Rosetta Project: Swadesh Lists: 1234 languages - the most extensive I know of (unless you wish ...
- 629
8
votes
The Sound of Latin
Vox Latina: A Guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Latin by W.Sydney Allen is probably what you're looking for.
- 74.9k
8
votes
Accepted
Reverse-etymology resources
Wiktionary is a great free resource for inflection, meaning, pronounciation, etymology and other information on a large amount of words from many languages, and provides a "Descendants" section ...
- 6,303
8
votes
Accepted
What are the different schools of PIE reconstruction?
I know that this question has remained unanswered for over four years, but I have decided to revive it considering that it's currently the unanswered question with the most upvotes here on Linguistics ...
- 196
8
votes
Accepted
Is there an aggregation of Oracle Bone Script glyphs?
The largest publication and seriously academically attempted transcription of oracle bones in modern script (using an umbrella method known by Chinese paleographers as 隸定, or clericalification), is ...
- 449
8
votes
Could Cimmerian be a transitional language between Iranian and Slavic?
With only three personal names surviving our knowledge of the Cimmerian language is extremely limited. And even for that three names it is unclear
how to read them, different readings have been ...
- 28.3k
7
votes
Accepted
4 or 5: is thumb a finger? Distribution across languages
What about the idiom “five finger discount” that is popular in at least modern English? Giving someone a “high five” also indirectly refers to the five fingers of one’s hand. To me the “thumb” has ...
7
votes
Charles Hockett - 'F' article?
Here's the citation:
Hockett, C. F. (1985). Distinguished lecture: F. American Anthropologist, 87(2), 263-281.
The link is here, but it's also behind a paywall.
Google Scholar profiles, personal ...
- 3,391
7
votes
Does a scientific methodology exist for evaluating bilingual dictionaries?
That answer on Spanish SE is misleading on key points - "neural networks" have nothing to do with dictionaries.
Let's step back and imagine that we are tasked with creating bilingual dictionaries ...
- 7,293
7
votes
How did these first person plural pronouns come to be in Catalan?
The following isogloss map from L’Atles Lingüístic del Domini Català details the different pronunciations by region:
ALDC phonetic symbol guide
- 3,084
7
votes
Accepted
Historical explanations for soft/hard declensions in Czech
Balto-Slavic languages developed their own way to decline adjectives, by combining the nominal forms with the forms of personal pronouns (In Slavic *jъ, ja, je).
Many Slavic languages (e.g., Russian) ...
- 1,214
6
votes
Textbooks in Formal Semantics / Montague semantics
I warmly recommend Coppock & Champollion (2020). It's free, very accessibly written and essentially a formally precise version of Heim & Kratzer's style. It also comes with a computer program ...
- 6,303
6
votes
What is the relationship between syntax and semantics?
As a supplement to MGN's great answer on CxG in general, there's a closely related approach by Ray Jackendoff and Peter Culicover called "Parallel Architecture" that I think is relevant here.
The ...
- 2,605
6
votes
A syntactician "must-read" list
I agree with Greg Lee that McCawley is the place to go for the canonical generative treatment of English syntax and that GPSG is the generative counterpart to that. However, things have moved on since ...
- 10.6k
6
votes
What does it mean for a verb to be stative, really?
With English verbs the notion of lexical aspect is only useful up to a point.
It's a handy device for explaining things like why some verbs are rarely cast in the progressive construction, or why ...
- 1,460
6
votes
Accepted
Thaqovelith: Is this language extinct?
It is alive enough that there is a Wikipedia entry. It is a dialect of Kabyle Berber indigenously called Taqbaylit ([ˈθɐqβæjlɪθ] if Wiki is to be believed). Shaltz doesn't get more specific than say "...
- 74.9k
6
votes
Reverse-etymology resources
The book Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch by Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke contains the Romance descendants of Vulgar Latin words.
It does not include direct borrowings from Latin (such as Spanish causa ...
- 885
6
votes
Accepted
What are some good books/publications that discuss the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
This list includes both common recommendations and stuff I've actually read:
Deutscher, G. (2010). Through the language glass: Why the world looks different in other languages. Macmillan.
Gumperz, J....
- 3,391
6
votes
Good recent historical grammar of Sanskrit, preferably in English?
Burrow’s The Sanskrit language (1955) is still very good (though pre-laryngealist). There is also an English translation of Mayrhofer’s Sanskrit-Grammatik, which is short but also very good.
- 23.1k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible