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
Language Log » Chinglish with tones
4th tone – 3rd tone, it would appear: 
Well, maybe not; the diacritics are probably meant to indicate vowel quality, but I don't know what system (if any) they are using. Ben Zimmer writes: The diacritics may be intended to evoke pinyin tone marks, but they're also reminiscent of dictionary-style phonetic respelling and stress marking. The grave accent on "ì" … [Link]
Language Log » Another use for final rises
Today's Frazz: 
[Link]
Language Log » Ask Language Log: "assuage"
Query from a reader: Is it correct to use the word assuage to indicate a lessening of something? That is, it is often used in the realm of feelings, i.e. assuage hunger, assuage grief, etc. But would it be acceptable to use to indicate the lessening of something more tangible, such as assuage criminality, assuage the flow of water, assuage … [Link]
Urban Word of the Day » She Shed
The female equivalent to a Man Cave. Wife: Hey, your going to your Man Cave? Husband: Yep. Need some me time. Wife: That's okay, I have my she shed.
[Link]
Language Log » Genetic evidence for the spread of Indo-Aryan languages
My own investigations on the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age peoples of Eastern Central Asia (ECA) began essentially as a genetics cum linguistics project back in the early 90s. That was not long after the extraction of mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) from ancient human tissues and its amplification by means of PCR (polymerase chain reaction) became possible. By the mid-90s … [Link]
languagehat.com » Purging Western Words from Turkish.
Over at the Log, Victor Mair posted about the latest silly governmental attempt to control language, in this case Erdoğan’s campaign against foreign influences in Turkish; he quotes an article in The Economist: Mr Erdogan started by ordering the word “arena”, which reminded him of ancient Roman depravity, removed from sports venues across the country. Turkey’s biggest teams complied overnight. … [Link]
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
You must log in to post a comment.