the japanese “-ne?” particle and the british slang term “innit” serve the same function
Standard English: It’s cold, isn’t it?
Japanese: Samui desu ne?
British: It’s fuckin’ freezin’, innit?
i have to do everything around here
i hate this cause i did japanese for like a year and this explains the use of the -ne particle WAYYYY better than my teachers ever did. it took me ages to comprehend what this post makes abundantly clear.
my teachers: its like a, a little rise at the end of a sentence, to show that you are seeking a response, while not warranting the -ka particle which would make it a proper question.
me: ok. i guess i get that??
this post: its like saying “innit?”
me: oh. oh no.
fun fact: afaik, “-ne” was inherited from the Portuguese settlers/priests that stayed in Japan in the 16th century. It comes from “né?”, which the contraction of “não é?”, “isn’t it?”.
The Vulcan salutation is such an iconic feature of the Star Trek universe that it has its own Wikipedia page and was added to the Unicode emoji set (🖖). There are many ways to build a fictional reality, and gestures are one way of doing this.
These gestures are often Emblems, a type of gesture that has a fixed form and a fixed meaning for the group that use them. Gestures are distinct from performing magic or Jedi mind tricks, which in the fictional world are technically actions. There’s also this fun paper that looks at the way people in scifi use gestures to interact with computers and technology.
The intentional use and fixed meaning of emblem gestures mean that they can take on a life outside the fictional world. For example, here’s European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti in 2015 on the ISS, in a final salute to Leonard Nimoy.
Perhaps the most fascinating example of an emblem gesture extending beyond fiction in recent times has been the emergency of the three fingers salute from the Hunger Games books and films. This gesture has been used in pro-democracy protests in countries including Hong Kong, Thailand and Myanmar. The image below is from the 2021 protests in Myanmar.
These examples got me thinking about emblem gestures in other fantasy and scifi worlds. A recent one that came to mind was the two fingered blessing from Emperor Cleon in the television version of Foundation. Iconic enough in-world that statues of him are positioned using this gesture. It has a long history in Greek rhetoric and Christian iconography.
There’s a rude hand gesture in P.M. Freestone’s Shadowscent books - two fingers raised in a backhanded V, which parallels the Up Yours gesture in the UK and Australia, but also fits the in-world context as the offensive act is to plug someone’s nostrils (the hight of rudeness in a scent-focused world!).
I’m sure there are others too. I’ll undoubtedly start noticing them and add them to this post! (if you have any examples, I’d love to hear from you!)
I’m kind of glad to hear that everyone does this. Because it means it isn’t colonizer bullshit, it’s what everyone does. It’s just people discovering new things. Everyone goes:
“Oh hey these people have their own style of [language A’s word for thing. Say, what do you call it?”
“Oh it’s [language B’s word for thing].”
“Got it, it’s [language B’s word for thing] variety [language A’s word for thing]”
This is seriously not colonizer bullshit, it’s just one of the common ways that loan words work.
linguistics side of tumblr please talk about how this is a type of reduplication
Andso, a finger on the monkey’s paw curled.
This isn’t a type of reduplication. Reduplication is a very specific linguistic phenomenon which refers to the duplication of phonemes, morphemes, words, or whole ass clauses, as a way to changing meaning, add or remove emphasis, or a whole bunch of other things. But it’s specifically about the repeatition of sound: ‘bread’ is reduplicated to ‘bread bread’ or ‘brebread’ or ‘breadad’ or what have you depending on your reduplication scheme; and not ‘naan bread.’
Naan Bread and such are an example of an entirely different linguistic phenomenon centering reduncency, except it isn’t the sound that’s redundent but the meaning assigned to the sound. It’s the broadest terms, naan bread is a tautology(linguistics); narrowing in on specifics, it’s Semantic Pleonasm, in which two words which convey similar information are paired together to give the best combination of information; Think “tuna fish” for a monolingual example of variety-category semantic Pleonasm. Then getting to specifics, we have Bilingual Tautological/‘Pleonastic’ Expressions, in which the combination of words are sourced from two differet languages. This is where we find ‘Naan Bread’ and everything else this post is talking about.
“Gretchen: I was looking up other languages’ word for “cheese,” and I saw the Dutch “kaas” (/kɑːs/), which, I don’t speak any Dutch, but there’s one Dutch word that I know which is “pindakaas,” and “pindakaas” literally translates as “peanut cheese.”
Lauren: Oh. Oh, hang on. Like peanut butter?
Gretchen: Yeah, so the Dutch word for “peanut butter” is literally translated as “peanut cheese,” which at first seems like, “This is maybe an interesting dish,” but then you’re like, “Is ‘peanut butter’ really any better as a term for it?” Because it’s still a dairy metaphor.
Lauren: Yeah, because I was like, “That’s a weird choice,” but actually, it’s not that different.
Gretchen: It’s really not that different at all. Especially, if you think of a cream cheese, which is like a creamier cheese, maybe? Peanut butter is kind of creamy sometimes.
Lauren: I’m still gonna eat it no matter what it’s called.”
Excerpt from Lingthusiasm episode ‘Why do C and G come in hard and soft versions? Palatalization’
Bonus Episode 61: Behind the scenes on how linguists come up with research topics
When you hear about a research study, the questions can seem very authoritative and the results very tidy. But research is ultimately done by humans, and humans need to figure out ways of coming up with questions and methods for answering them.
In this episode, Lauren and Gretchen get enthusiastic about how linguistic research topics come together! We talk about where our own research came from, figuring out spaces for new questions in the existing literature, and bridging gaps between multiple subject areas and communities.
Announcements:
We’re doing another Lingthusiasm liveshow on April 9th (Canada) slash 10th (Australia)! (What time is it for me?) It will be a live Q&A for you, our wonderful patreons, all about fan fave topic: swearing! We’ll be hosting this session on our Discord server, where you can share your favourite swear words and associated stories in various languages either during or before the show, and it will be available as an edited-for-legibility recording in your usual Patreon live feed if you prefer to listen at a later date. If you haven’t joined the Discord yet, here are instructions for linking your Patreon and Discord accounts.
This month’s interview is with Shivonne Gates, who works at Frontline, a charity which aims to create social change by developing excellent social work practice and leadership. This interview is a great example of how one can conduct research and utilize mixed methods outside of academia, as Shivonne does on a daily basis in her role as an Impact Lead. You can follow Shivonne on Twitter (@ShivGates) and LinkedIn. You can hear more about Shivonne‘s academic work, and post-PhD career, in Lingthusiasm Episode 48: Who you are in high school, linguistically speaking.
What did you study at university?
I have three degrees in linguistics! BA, MA and PhD. My undergrad was from the University of Sheffield, which gave me a really broad and varied grounding in lots of subfields of linguistics (sociolinguistics, phonetics, historical linguistics, language acquisition, dialectology, syntax, stylistics… all the good stuff!). I then focused in on sociolinguistics during my MA at North Carolina State University which was a great springboard into my PhD at Queen Mary University of London where my thesis explored linguistic variation and ethnic identity among adolescents in East London.
What is your job?
In my new job as Impact Lead for Frontline, I am designing and delivering a programme of research focused on demonstrating the longer-term outcomes and impacts of the Frontline social work training programme. Essentially, Frontline wants to know how effective their programme is at training top-notch social workers, and as a result how this programme leads to better outcomes for the children and families supported by these social workers.
How does your linguistics training help you in your job?
In lots of ways! From a practical research skills perspective, my training in sociolinguistics was a helpful stepping stone into mixed methods social research. For example, for sociolinguistic interviews we use question modules, which is very similar to a discussion/topic guide used for in-depth qualitative interviews. And my understanding of inferential statistical modelling has been helpful in being able to pick up impact evaluation methodologies quickly. I also got lots of transferrable skills: I am now an excellent writer and not daunted by producing research reports - they feel like a walk in the park compared with a PhD thesis! I also think conference and teaching experience were really helpful in honing my skills in synthesising complex information, public speaking, and working with and supporting junior staff.
What was the transition from university to work like for you?
Honestly, it was quite difficult. My first job after my PhD was as a social researcher at the National Centre for Social Research. Because I was no longer directly doing linguistics in my job, I really missed it (and still do). I also found the transition from working on my own research to working on a team led by someone else quite hard (although I did love the support of working on a team!). I also found it hard not having the time to dive deep into research in the way you do in academia, as I was across multiple projects and had much tighter deadlines than you do in academia. But, once I adjusted, I actually really enjoyed the pace, loved how much I learned in such a short space of time and thrived working across lots of different projects within a broad policy area.
Do you have any advice do you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university?
I wish I had known how much of a financial undertaking it is to do a PhD! Even though I was funded, I feel I’m still playing catch up financially from having four years in my 20s when I wasn’t earning very much money. I also received some advice that I wish I had ignored: that it is good to move around for your degrees. Yes, it can be a good way to broaden your training, but it’s not a dealbreaker for academic jobs and staying in one place might have given me more stability (and therefore headspace and better mental health) which really helps with managing the stress of a PhD. I also wish someone had warned me about how emotionally invested you become in your thesis, which makes it really difficult to deal with days/weeks that don’t go as you intended. I coped well with my BA and MA, so the emotional and mental health challenges that came up for me during my PhD took me by surprise. Get a therapist!
Any other thoughts or comments?
Doing a PhD was on the whole a really fulfilling experience, and I don’t regret doing one. But ultimately I could do my current job without one. I guess I kind of wish I’d known about social research careers as an undergrad: I went into my MA and PhD with the goal of being a researcher, I had no idea I could do research as a career outside of academia until the second or third year of my PhD.
The Linguistics Jobs Interview series is edited by Martha Tsutsui Billins. Martha is a linguist whose research focuses on the Ryukyuan language Amami Oshima, specifically honourifics and politeness strategies in the context of language endangerment. Martha runs Field Notes, a podcast about linguistic fieldwork.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The pen is
mightier than the sword. Knowledge is power, France is bacon. These,
ahem, classic quotes all have something linguistically interesting in
common: they’re all formed around a particular use of the verb “be”
known as a copula.
In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and
Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about copulas! This is a special
name for a way of grammatically linking two concepts together that’s
linguistically special in a lot of different languages: sometimes it’s a
verb that’s super irregular (like be/is/was in English, Latin, and many
other languages), sometimes it’s several verbs (like ser and estar in
Iberian and Celtic languages), sometimes it’s a form of marking other
words (like in Nahuatl, Auslan, and ASL), and sometimes it’s not even
visible or audible at all (like zero copula in Arabic, African American
English, and Russian). We also talk about some of the fun things you can
do with copulas in English, such as the lexical gap that’s filled
by “ain’t”, the news headline null copula, and the oddball philosophical
experiment known as E-Prime.
Announcements: We’re doing another online Lingthusiasm liveshow on April 9th (Canada) slash 10th (Australia)! (What time is that for me?) It will be a live Q&A for patrons about a fan fave topic: swearing!
We’ll be hosting this session on the Lingthusiasm patron Discord
server. Become a patron before the event, and it will also be available
as an edited-for-legibility recording in your usual Patreon live feed if
you prefer to listen at a later date. In the meantime: tell us about
your favourite examples of swearing in various languages and we might
include them in the show!
LingComm
Grants are back in 2022! These are small grants to help kickstart new
projects to communicate linguistics to broader audiences. There will be a
$500 Project Grant, and ten Startup Grants of $100 each. Apply here by March 31, 2022 or forward this page to anyone you think might be interested, and if you’d like to help us offer more grants, you can support Lingthusiasm on Patreon or contribute directly.
We started these grants because a small amount of seed money would have
made a huge difference to us when we were starting out, and we want to
help there be more interesting linguistics communication in the world.
If
you want to help keep our ongoing lingthusiastic activities going, from
the LingComm Grants to regular episodes to fun things like liveshows
and Q&As, join us on Patreon!
As a reward, you will get over 50 bonus episodes to listen to and
access to our Discord server to chat with other language nerds. In this
month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about character encoding! We
talk about the massive list of symbols that your phone carries around,
how that list (aka Unicode) came into existence, and why it’s still
growing a bit every year. Listen here!
You can help keep Lingthusiasm advertising-free by supporting our Patreon. Being a patron gives you access to bonus content, our Discord server, and other perks.
Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production manager is Liz McCullough, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.
The thing about working with a giant language model like GPT-3 is it has read parts of the internet that it never occurred to me might exist. Like press releases from breakfast cereal companies, articles about press releases from breakfast cereal companies, blogs by breakfast cereal enthusiasts, and probably every bit of copy from every grocery store’s online cereal section.
My own brush with the cereal world came when someone tagged me in a tweet about four new cereals being released in late 2021. Apparently, the cereal makers have continued to innovate on many fronts, including ever-more-decadent combinations (“CinnaGraham Toast Crunch”, anyone?).
I took the four cereals (the other three: Strawberry Banana Cheerios, Reese’s Puffs Cluster Crunch, and Kashi Maple Waffle), found short descriptions of them, and gave them to GPT-3 as a list it could build on. I tried this experiment with DaVinci, the largest GPT-3 model, and Ada, the smallest.
DaVinci definitely understood the assignment.
Ada, on the other hand, didn’t understand that the examples were cereal, or didn’t understand how cereal works, and/or didn’t understand how humans talk about foods. Its …cereals were a bit questionable.
Many of Ada’s cereals sounded like a really bad idea.
Original Cool Ranch Cheese and Dried Cranberry Oatmeal - all the wholesome, cheesy oatmeal with a choice of mild, sweet or salty!
Ingredis Fiberwaste Cream Cheese Cheerios - kids grab a box and put them in their mouths, making fun flavors taste even better !!! !!! !!! !!!
The Brain Squirrels oatmeal box is the best oatmeal I’ve found that really tastes like the sourdoughty oatmeal best!
And are these even cereals?
Happy Day Candy and Treats - fun and sweet small puffs of real candy and treat that kids and adults can consume with their regular meal.
Paper dinner punches - Breakaway mini punch bowls filled with homemade cigars and foil dollar cups outdid those ear bonnets included
Two Finger Bobops - Unlike regular bobs and bastons that grow on their own, BBQ bobs, smitchers and hot bobs grow on trees.
work is sending me to french training, which i have been nervous about. had the first lesson this morning. teacher told me i had beautiful pronunciation, like i’d been raised with it (i was not). dangerous ego levels for someone who can only hold conversations that sound like téléfrançais episodes
today’s feedback was essentially that it’s confusing to speak to me because instead of sounding like an anglo i sound like a francophone who is an idiot fhklgglh
you’re like the real life version of that Paul Taylor bit
thank fuck for subtitles, all I have to say
the linguist experience of
a) learning the international phonetic alphabet so you can pronounce all the languages b) deliberately doing not-quite-accurate pronunciation even though you now Know Better so that people don’t overestimate your fluency
The 2022 LingComm Grants consist of ten $100 (USD) LingComm Startup
Grants and one $500 (USD) LingComm Project Grant to support linguistics
communication projects that bring linguistics to new audiences in
engaging ways. The grants also include a group mentoring meeting with
Gretchen and Lauren to refine your idea, and promotion of your project
to our lingthusiastic audience.
The grants are funded by Lingthusiasm, thanks to the kind support of our patrons, and judged by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne.
Dates
Applications and funding close: 31 March
2022, midnight (i.e. as long as it is still March anywhere in the
world). Any contributions to LingComm Grants made before this date will
count towards more grants existing in 2022; after this date
contributions will count towards future years.
We also have information in the FAQ if you’d like to support Lingcomm to give out more grants.
We’re excited to be bringing back the LingComm Grants for another year! And we’re also very pleased to report that thanks to many generous contributors, we’re already in a position to give out four LingComm Project Grants instead of just one, including one Project Grant targeted towards Queer Linguistics and brought to you by friends of Kirby Conrod.
Forward it to anyone who you think might be interested in applying!
