Almost everyone uses language, so inevitably almost everyone thinks they are an expert in it. I don’t consider myself an expert, though most of my work requires at least language competence and sometimes actual skill, but I do follow the blogs featured on this feeds page.
(If you are wondering where the translation-related feeds have all gone, I have put them on their own page.)
Most of the blogs represented here are in English, most of the time, but don’t be surprised to find other languages used. Go with the flow – I occasionally find myself pleasantly surprised at how much I can grasp in languages I have never seen before.
Language On the Net
Omniglot blog
Language quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language. Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken? [Link]
Mysterious calendar
A reader of this blog would like to know if anybody knows which language this is: Kiländer (Ray Ráán) Rááninfel: Sunday Serinfáál: Monday Yóŕuwow: Tuesday Yéélúwan: Wesnesday Yófowan: Thursday Yalimow: Friday Yommol: Saturday I discovered that the word ráán means day in Trukese/Chuukese, but this Trukese dictionary gives different, though seemingly related, words for the days of the week. Any … [Link]
Urban Word of the Day
bible
An ancient novel full of murder, corruption, homosexuality, bestiality, incest and cruelty. It is often read to children on Sunday.
[Link]
hyfr
Hell Yeah Fuckin' Right, a song of Drake's album 'Take Care' raj: dude, drake is raw as hellbob: hyfr
[Link]
Wordorigins.org
1975 Words
The Oxford English Dictionary has 256 words with first citations from 1975. In that year, you could get a set-top box that played Betamax videotapes; Page Three girls were nobody’s idea of womyn; computer scientist brainiacs played with fractals, Phong shaders, and wetware; and CAT scans revolutionized medicine, while Reiki began to scam sick people. [Link]
Washington’s Love For Acronyms
Not a bad article, but it’s hardly news. The obsession with acronyms in the U. S. capital has been around for decades and decades. [Discuss this post] [Link]
the world in words
Tourette’s Hero: Changing the World One Tic at a Time
Jess Thom dresses like a superhero. Mask, shiny blue cape, the whole bit. She calls her alter ego Tourette’s Hero. Whether dressed as Tourette’s Hero or as herself, Thom speaks with an impressive array of verbal tics. She says biscuit a lot. “Tourette’s is a condition that waxes and wanes BISCUIT,” says Thom. “So it changes over the course of somebody’s … [Link]
In Vietnam, a Nation Learns English
In Vietnam, history is daily life. So says economist Le Dang Doanh. So history might be a good indicator of which foreign languages the Vietnamese would be more inclined to learn. French? Russian? Mandarin? English? The Vietnamese have gone to war many times in the past few decades. With France, the United States, Cambodia, China. And themselves. China is considered … [Link]
languagehat.com
DIGITAL DEAD SEA SCROLLS.
A report of a nice project:In September 2011, Google and the Israel Museum launched the ambitious Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Project, with the aim of eventually making English translations and high-resolution images of all of the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts available online. Within days of the projects launch, more than a million people from across the world had stopped to … [Link]
SABELLIAN.
When I was studying Indo-European, back in the Jurassic Era, "Sabellian" was considered to mean… well, I'll quote Webster's Third International: "one or all of a number of poorly known languages or dialects of ancient central Italy that are presumably closely related to Oscan and Umbrian." A book I used a lot in my grad school days, W. B. Lockwood's … [Link]
World Wide Words updates
New online: Cantankerous
It has nothing to do with either cans or tanks, so why cantankerous? [Link]
New online: Dictionary of American Regional English
Review of the final volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English. [Link]
Language Log
Rating American English Accents
If you're a native speaker of American English, a Dutch linguist needs your responses to an accent questionnaire: In this questionnaire we will ask you as a native U.S. English speaker to rate the pronunciation of different speakers, some of whom were born outside the U.S. We ask you to rate how native-like the pronunciations are. While we offer a … [Link]
Is this a great photo or what!
That was the start of my heading-comment on a photo of my son Dave. Ensuing back-and-forth on Facebook between me and Andy Rogers (with a relevant interpolation from my son Morriss): Andy Rogers: Shouldn't it be "or what?"? Barbara H Partee: I punctuated it as I would pronounce it! Maybe if it was somebody else I might right "or what?". … [Link]
You Don't Say
Moving on
Today You Don’t Say relocates to a new Web address and new software. You will be able to find it at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/la~ where … [Link]
A spell of rough weather
There was a mild dustup today on the Internet over, of all things, spelling.The rhubarb started when Anne Trubek flung down the gauntlet with a suggestion in Wi … [Link]
Talk Wordy to Me
Words of Others | The ABCs of Alien
One of my more recent follows on twitter is author Damien Walters Grintalis. I enjoy her tweets, but she outdid herself on Friday, with the Alien ABCs (from the movie Alien): 
Used under CC license from teachernz's Flickr photostream. A is for Alien, who lives out in space, B is for Burke, who is a disgrace. C is for Crew, they … [Link]
The violence of hate
I read an article in Rolling Stone, One Town’s War on Gay Teens, during my downtime at work last night, and I was truly ready to vomit on my desk by the time I was halfway through it. The heart of it is that a Minnesota school district had a policy that led to teachers being so afraid of talking … [Link]
Archive
20 May 2012 19 May 2012 18 May 2012 17 May 2012 16 May 2012 15 May 2012 14 May 2012 13 May 2012 12 May 2012 11 May 2012 10 May 2012 09 May 2012 08 May 2012 07 May 2012 06 May 2012 05 May 2012 04 May 2012 03 May 2012 02 May 2012 01 May 2012 30 Apr 2012 29 Apr 2012 28 Apr 2012 27 Apr 2012 26 Apr 2012 25 Apr 2012 24 Apr 2012 23 Apr 2012 22 Apr 2012 21 Apr 2012 20 Apr 2012 19 Apr 2012
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