Idiom of the Day
kids will be kids
Kids behave childishly or immaturely by nature, so it is unrealistic to expect otherwise. Watch the video
➖ @EngSkills ➖
kids will be kids
Kids behave childishly or immaturely by nature, so it is unrealistic to expect otherwise. Watch the video
➖ @EngSkills ➖
TheFreeDictionary.com
kids will be kids
Definition of kids will be kids in the Idioms Dictionary by The Free Dictionary
Word of the Day
quagmire
Definition: (noun) Land with a soft muddy surface.
Synonyms: mire, morass, quag, slack.
Usage: We had some difficulty in reaching the point, owing to the intolerably bad paths; for everywhere in the shade the ground soon becomes a perfect quagmire.
Discuss
➖ @EngSkills ➖
quagmire
Definition: (noun) Land with a soft muddy surface.
Synonyms: mire, morass, quag, slack.
Usage: We had some difficulty in reaching the point, owing to the intolerably bad paths; for everywhere in the shade the ground soon becomes a perfect quagmire.
Discuss
➖ @EngSkills ➖
TheFreeDictionary.com
quagmire
Definition, Synonyms, Translations of quagmire by The Free Dictionary
Language Log
Perso-Arabic script for Mandarin, Pe̍h-ōe-jī for Taiwanese: sad cripples?
We have been intrigued by Iskander Ding since encountering him on X/Twitter a while back, several posts from his account having made it onto Language Log (see "Selected readings").
With a handle like his, where Iskandar is the Persian form of the name of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great (256–323 BC) and Ding has an unmistakable Sinitic / Hannic ring to it, we suspected from the start that he is a Hui (Chinese Muslim). So far, though, we have not been able to track down the sinographs for his full Hannic name, which is a bit unusual, where even Mongols, Uyghurs, Tibetans, and other non-Sinitic people are compelled to take Sinographic names.
Iskandar Ding is currently writing a Ph.D. dissertation on Yaghnobi linguistics and culture at SOAS in London (see this page for basic information about him). Yaghnobi is an Eastern Iranian language spoken in the upper valley of the Yaghnob River in the Zarafshan area of Tajikistan by the Yaghnobi people. It is considered to be a direct descendant of Sogdian and has sometimes been called Neo-Sogdian in academic literature.
(source) Here is a 53 second video of ID announcing a talk on Perso-Arabic-script Hannic. Here is the 43.44 talk ("Xiao’erjing – Writing Chinese with Perso-Arabic Letters" – Iskandar Ding | PG 2022) as it actually happened. IA comment: "What he said throughout the talk was pleasing now and then — saying 'Eastern Turkistan' in Uighur for example…". Here is a 1 hour 22 minute interview with ID. If you click the link it will open at the 18:11 mark, where he speaks of Perso-Arabic-script Hannic . That part ends at 22:40.
The above is based largely on information provided by IA, and the following quotes IA directly:
[VHM prefatory note: IA prefers "Hannic" to "Sinitic", "Mandarin", etc. and "Hanograph" to "Chinese character", etc. In general, I have endeavored to follow his preferences for terminological usage.]
As much as I try to avoid spending (wasting) time on audio(-visual) media I did listen to the entirety of this interview. The interviewer — who fortunately speaks less and less as time goes on — is a bit clueless and at one point asks ID about the relationship of Cantonese to Mandarin — something that does not have the slightest to do with the Sogdian/Yaghnobi connection, the Persianate or anything else! The affable ID (somewhat clumsily) answers him anyway, the least valuable part of a not terribly taut interview. Apart from ID introducing his background at the beginning, the better parts are in the second half, about the Yaghnobis, ID's views on the the (mis-) understandings / translation-problems of the word 'Persianate', the Turco-Persian synthesis, and some other things of that nature.
With no great relevance to the above, and with the proviso that I have given almost no attention to this script and related research for over 20 years — I must say that I am irritated at the canonisation of “xiǎo'ér jǐn / xiǎo'ér jīng 小兒錦 / 小兒經” as the 'normalised' way to hanographically refer to this script. I was first introduced to the script as “xiǎo jīng 小經”; and then learned that it was also rendered as “xiāojīng 消經", as ”xiájīng 狹經“, as ”xiǎo'ér jīng 小兒經“, as ”xiǎo'ér jǐn 小兒錦“, as ”xiǎojǐn 小錦“ (no ”ér 兒“!), and as ”báizì jīng 白字經“, pretty much in that order. My non-expert and unprofessional suspicion is that ”xiǎo'ér jǐn / xiǎo'ér jīng 小兒經/小兒錦“ has become popular (which I mean in the worst sense of the word) on account of Wikipedia, and perhaps Ying-sheng Liu 劉迎勝* as well.
[VHM: literal meanings of cited hanographs:
xiǎo 小 ("small, little, minor")
ér 兒 ("child")
jǐn 錦 ("brocade")
jīng 經 ("scripture")
xiāo 消 ("disappear, vanish; dispel")
xiá 狹 ("narrow")
bái 白 ("plain; white")
zì[...]
Perso-Arabic script for Mandarin, Pe̍h-ōe-jī for Taiwanese: sad cripples?
We have been intrigued by Iskander Ding since encountering him on X/Twitter a while back, several posts from his account having made it onto Language Log (see "Selected readings").
With a handle like his, where Iskandar is the Persian form of the name of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great (256–323 BC) and Ding has an unmistakable Sinitic / Hannic ring to it, we suspected from the start that he is a Hui (Chinese Muslim). So far, though, we have not been able to track down the sinographs for his full Hannic name, which is a bit unusual, where even Mongols, Uyghurs, Tibetans, and other non-Sinitic people are compelled to take Sinographic names.
Iskandar Ding is currently writing a Ph.D. dissertation on Yaghnobi linguistics and culture at SOAS in London (see this page for basic information about him). Yaghnobi is an Eastern Iranian language spoken in the upper valley of the Yaghnob River in the Zarafshan area of Tajikistan by the Yaghnobi people. It is considered to be a direct descendant of Sogdian and has sometimes been called Neo-Sogdian in academic literature.
(source) Here is a 53 second video of ID announcing a talk on Perso-Arabic-script Hannic. Here is the 43.44 talk ("Xiao’erjing – Writing Chinese with Perso-Arabic Letters" – Iskandar Ding | PG 2022) as it actually happened. IA comment: "What he said throughout the talk was pleasing now and then — saying 'Eastern Turkistan' in Uighur for example…". Here is a 1 hour 22 minute interview with ID. If you click the link it will open at the 18:11 mark, where he speaks of Perso-Arabic-script Hannic . That part ends at 22:40.
The above is based largely on information provided by IA, and the following quotes IA directly:
[VHM prefatory note: IA prefers "Hannic" to "Sinitic", "Mandarin", etc. and "Hanograph" to "Chinese character", etc. In general, I have endeavored to follow his preferences for terminological usage.]
As much as I try to avoid spending (wasting) time on audio(-visual) media I did listen to the entirety of this interview. The interviewer — who fortunately speaks less and less as time goes on — is a bit clueless and at one point asks ID about the relationship of Cantonese to Mandarin — something that does not have the slightest to do with the Sogdian/Yaghnobi connection, the Persianate or anything else! The affable ID (somewhat clumsily) answers him anyway, the least valuable part of a not terribly taut interview. Apart from ID introducing his background at the beginning, the better parts are in the second half, about the Yaghnobis, ID's views on the the (mis-) understandings / translation-problems of the word 'Persianate', the Turco-Persian synthesis, and some other things of that nature.
With no great relevance to the above, and with the proviso that I have given almost no attention to this script and related research for over 20 years — I must say that I am irritated at the canonisation of “xiǎo'ér jǐn / xiǎo'ér jīng 小兒錦 / 小兒經” as the 'normalised' way to hanographically refer to this script. I was first introduced to the script as “xiǎo jīng 小經”; and then learned that it was also rendered as “xiāojīng 消經", as ”xiájīng 狹經“, as ”xiǎo'ér jīng 小兒經“, as ”xiǎo'ér jǐn 小兒錦“, as ”xiǎojǐn 小錦“ (no ”ér 兒“!), and as ”báizì jīng 白字經“, pretty much in that order. My non-expert and unprofessional suspicion is that ”xiǎo'ér jǐn / xiǎo'ér jīng 小兒經/小兒錦“ has become popular (which I mean in the worst sense of the word) on account of Wikipedia, and perhaps Ying-sheng Liu 劉迎勝* as well.
[VHM: literal meanings of cited hanographs:
xiǎo 小 ("small, little, minor")
ér 兒 ("child")
jǐn 錦 ("brocade")
jīng 經 ("scripture")
xiāo 消 ("disappear, vanish; dispel")
xiá 狹 ("narrow")
bái 白 ("plain; white")
zì[...]
Advanced English Skills
Language Log Perso-Arabic script for Mandarin, Pe̍h-ōe-jī for Taiwanese: sad cripples? We have been intrigued by Iskander Ding since encountering him on X/Twitter a while back, several posts from his account having made it onto Language Log (see "Selected…
字 ("graph; glyph; character")
Of course, most of these characters could have many other meanings, but I list only the one(s) that come to mind first given the context.
It is evident that the sinographic / hanographic representations for the terms designating the Perso-Arabic script for writing Mandarin are fundamentally sound transcriptions, not translations, though the fact that the sinographs / hanographs used to write many of the syllables convey meanings that superficially seem to make some kind of sense in these expressions leads to regrettable misunderstandings. This slippage between sound transcription and meaning translation annoys IA to no end (ditto for me).]
The question, for me [IA], is: what are (or rather, perhaps, were) the various areal realisations of the term by users who were (whether illiterate in Hanographs or not) unfamiliar with (or indifferent to) its Hanographic representations? The point is, I doubt that even in areas where the rhotic segment occurs / occurred* in this term the rhotic segment had anything more to do with 'sons' or 'children' than does the “兒” in Pekinese “xǎoguǎn'er 小館兒” ("small restaurant"). But true to the ways of folk-etmology, one sees ”xiǎo'ér jǐn / xiǎo'ér jīng 小兒經 / 小兒錦“ cutely-repugnantly 'translated' as 'children's script' and the like. This is a great blow against the dignity of the script.
I'd think that this hanographic “兒” really simply reflects what dialectologists might record in the first syllable as [ɕ] + [ iɔ , iɔo, iao] (etc) + [ɹ] , and in which this rhotic final is non-syllabic. [VHM: I heartily concur with IA's analysis.]
*Some areas of the Northwest only have a vowel — [ɛ] or [ɯ] where Standard Hannic has the syllable /ər/.
1) Looking back at the Wikipedia article after all these years, I see:
According to A. Kalimov, a famous Dungan linguist, the Dungan of the former Soviet Union called this script щёҗин (şjoⱬin, 消經).
a) Well, this is good at least in so far as it attests to this lexical item in the Dungan script, but it gives no reason to believe that the morphemes in question are indeed 消 and 經 as opposed to something else. And there is no clue as to where Kalimov wrote this. At any rate, there's no rhotic in it.
b) I no longer have the one from the USSR era, but the КРАТКИЙ ДУНГАНСКОРУССКИЙ СЛОВАРЬ edition of 2009), on page 257 , has:
ЩЁҖИН (I II) книга толкования Корана. [VHM: book of interpretation of the Qur'an]
The same, and likewise no rhotic. And finally, a rendition with tones. If I am not mistaken this phonologically corresponds to xiao1 jin3 and xiao1 jing3 in Standard Chinese.* (Dungan merges final -n and -ng here. And phonetically this can simply be a nasalised vowel rather than an actual [n] or [ŋ], or so it seems to me from listening to Dungan.)
*[VHM: IA supplements this with the following:
I meant of course tone-class, not pitch-value, and more accurately should have written 'xiao （平） jin（上） and xiao （平） jing（上）'
“平” rather than “陰平”: this is because Dungan (along with some other lects in the 中原官話 group) semi-merges (as pitch values) what in Standard Hannic are 陰平 and 陽平. Whether underlying 陰平 or 陽平 'surfaces' in Dungan (and thus two different pitch-values) depends upon the tone-class of the following syllable.
In this case (平 + 上, which is what 'I II' refers to ), the first syllable does indeed surface as 陰平. (So, pitch-wise, if I am not mistaken, this 'ЩЁҖИН (I II)' would sound like Standard Hannic 3+4 i.e. low + high falling.)
(About the tones, I have just refreshed my memory by quickly consulting the superlative 'Dungan' by Ольга Завьялова, in the Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics, 2017.)]
2) In 2014 I ordered and received the three volume work Xiǎoér jǐn yánjiū 小儿锦研究 (Research on Perso-Arabic script for Mandarin) [VHM: machine translators give something like "Studies on Pediatric Brocade" — now you can see why IA and I detest the literalization / semanticization of that purely phonetic 儿, but you can't really blame t[...]
Of course, most of these characters could have many other meanings, but I list only the one(s) that come to mind first given the context.
It is evident that the sinographic / hanographic representations for the terms designating the Perso-Arabic script for writing Mandarin are fundamentally sound transcriptions, not translations, though the fact that the sinographs / hanographs used to write many of the syllables convey meanings that superficially seem to make some kind of sense in these expressions leads to regrettable misunderstandings. This slippage between sound transcription and meaning translation annoys IA to no end (ditto for me).]
The question, for me [IA], is: what are (or rather, perhaps, were) the various areal realisations of the term by users who were (whether illiterate in Hanographs or not) unfamiliar with (or indifferent to) its Hanographic representations? The point is, I doubt that even in areas where the rhotic segment occurs / occurred* in this term the rhotic segment had anything more to do with 'sons' or 'children' than does the “兒” in Pekinese “xǎoguǎn'er 小館兒” ("small restaurant"). But true to the ways of folk-etmology, one sees ”xiǎo'ér jǐn / xiǎo'ér jīng 小兒經 / 小兒錦“ cutely-repugnantly 'translated' as 'children's script' and the like. This is a great blow against the dignity of the script.
I'd think that this hanographic “兒” really simply reflects what dialectologists might record in the first syllable as [ɕ] + [ iɔ , iɔo, iao] (etc) + [ɹ] , and in which this rhotic final is non-syllabic. [VHM: I heartily concur with IA's analysis.]
*Some areas of the Northwest only have a vowel — [ɛ] or [ɯ] where Standard Hannic has the syllable /ər/.
1) Looking back at the Wikipedia article after all these years, I see:
According to A. Kalimov, a famous Dungan linguist, the Dungan of the former Soviet Union called this script щёҗин (şjoⱬin, 消經).
a) Well, this is good at least in so far as it attests to this lexical item in the Dungan script, but it gives no reason to believe that the morphemes in question are indeed 消 and 經 as opposed to something else. And there is no clue as to where Kalimov wrote this. At any rate, there's no rhotic in it.
b) I no longer have the one from the USSR era, but the КРАТКИЙ ДУНГАНСКОРУССКИЙ СЛОВАРЬ edition of 2009), on page 257 , has:
ЩЁҖИН (I II) книга толкования Корана. [VHM: book of interpretation of the Qur'an]
The same, and likewise no rhotic. And finally, a rendition with tones. If I am not mistaken this phonologically corresponds to xiao1 jin3 and xiao1 jing3 in Standard Chinese.* (Dungan merges final -n and -ng here. And phonetically this can simply be a nasalised vowel rather than an actual [n] or [ŋ], or so it seems to me from listening to Dungan.)
*[VHM: IA supplements this with the following:
I meant of course tone-class, not pitch-value, and more accurately should have written 'xiao （平） jin（上） and xiao （平） jing（上）'
“平” rather than “陰平”: this is because Dungan (along with some other lects in the 中原官話 group) semi-merges (as pitch values) what in Standard Hannic are 陰平 and 陽平. Whether underlying 陰平 or 陽平 'surfaces' in Dungan (and thus two different pitch-values) depends upon the tone-class of the following syllable.
In this case (平 + 上, which is what 'I II' refers to ), the first syllable does indeed surface as 陰平. (So, pitch-wise, if I am not mistaken, this 'ЩЁҖИН (I II)' would sound like Standard Hannic 3+4 i.e. low + high falling.)
(About the tones, I have just refreshed my memory by quickly consulting the superlative 'Dungan' by Ольга Завьялова, in the Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics, 2017.)]
2) In 2014 I ordered and received the three volume work Xiǎoér jǐn yánjiū 小儿锦研究 (Research on Perso-Arabic script for Mandarin) [VHM: machine translators give something like "Studies on Pediatric Brocade" — now you can see why IA and I detest the literalization / semanticization of that purely phonetic 儿, but you can't really blame t[...]
Advanced English Skills
字 ("graph; glyph; character") Of course, most of these characters could have many other meanings, but I list only the one(s) that come to mind first given the context. It is evident that the sinographic / hanographic representations for the terms designating…
he machines, because humans are more likely than not to read it that way too] by Liú Yíngshèng 刘迎胜 (which you'd told me about). Having lost interest in the subject, I hardly ever even opened it. Now I have opened it. (Also I find that electronic editions are available from the shadow libraries and have downloaded it.)
In the Liu Yingsheng dictionary I find a comprehensive discussion of the origin of this lexical item. The idea that the name has anything to do with teaching children (referring to the version(s) containing “兒”) is virtually ridiculed. And the ur-form of the various names may be xiájīng 狹經. [VHM: IA has made a screen shot of this entry in the dictionary (pp. 36-41 of vol. 1).]
VHM: To conclude this episode of my conversation with the reclusive IA, I asked him:
<in
He replied:
I really have no idea. (You ought not mistake me for someone with a great degree of coherent thinking.) Best that you use your own judgment and viewpoint.
I don't know how it should be incorporated, if at all, but to repeat myself, I am very much irritated by the infantilising and denigrating indignity done to the Perso-Arabic script by the wide-spread presentation of it (which I believe is on account of hanograph-mediated folk-etymology involving “兒”) as ''children's script' and the like. A logical consequence of such a presentation can result, consciously or unconsciously, in thinking of the Perso-Arabic script as something that adults unfortunately bereft of 'a proper knowledge' of hanography unfortunately had to resort to. The underpinning premise is that any Hannic speech-variety, if written at all, must of course be written in Hanographs. Phonographic representations … Perso-Arabic script, Pe̍h-ōe-jī, or what have you … are but a sad cripple.
(I'm sure there are many who would find this viewpoint to be trivial and or madly eccentric/wrong.)
VHM: Not me. I find it to be brilliantly incisive and insightful. Selected readings
* "Persophone Muslim population in China" (4/2/24) — from Iskandar Ding
* "Ask Language Log: Syriac Christian tombstone inscription from Mongol period East Asia" (2/11/24) — also from Iskandar Ding
* "A Persian word in a Sinitic topolect" (3/10/20)"
* "Perso-Arabic and Sinitic Literacy" (6/19/09)
* "Café Sogdiana" (5/2/24)
* "Dungan: a Sinitic language written with the Cyrillic alphabet" (4/20/13) — Google Victor Mair Dungan Language Log for many more posts about this intriguing and linguistically important Sintic / Hannic language (Mandarin written in Cyrillic with numerous borrowings from Russian, Uyghur, and other non-Sinitic / Hannic languages)
* "Implications of the Soviet Dungan Script for Chinese Language Reform" (May, 1990)
➖ @EngSkills ➖
In the Liu Yingsheng dictionary I find a comprehensive discussion of the origin of this lexical item. The idea that the name has anything to do with teaching children (referring to the version(s) containing “兒”) is virtually ridiculed. And the ur-form of the various names may be xiájīng 狹經. [VHM: IA has made a screen shot of this entry in the dictionary (pp. 36-41 of vol. 1).]
VHM: To conclude this episode of my conversation with the reclusive IA, I asked him:
<in
He replied:
I really have no idea. (You ought not mistake me for someone with a great degree of coherent thinking.) Best that you use your own judgment and viewpoint.
I don't know how it should be incorporated, if at all, but to repeat myself, I am very much irritated by the infantilising and denigrating indignity done to the Perso-Arabic script by the wide-spread presentation of it (which I believe is on account of hanograph-mediated folk-etymology involving “兒”) as ''children's script' and the like. A logical consequence of such a presentation can result, consciously or unconsciously, in thinking of the Perso-Arabic script as something that adults unfortunately bereft of 'a proper knowledge' of hanography unfortunately had to resort to. The underpinning premise is that any Hannic speech-variety, if written at all, must of course be written in Hanographs. Phonographic representations … Perso-Arabic script, Pe̍h-ōe-jī, or what have you … are but a sad cripple.
(I'm sure there are many who would find this viewpoint to be trivial and or madly eccentric/wrong.)
VHM: Not me. I find it to be brilliantly incisive and insightful. Selected readings
* "Persophone Muslim population in China" (4/2/24) — from Iskandar Ding
* "Ask Language Log: Syriac Christian tombstone inscription from Mongol period East Asia" (2/11/24) — also from Iskandar Ding
* "A Persian word in a Sinitic topolect" (3/10/20)"
* "Perso-Arabic and Sinitic Literacy" (6/19/09)
* "Café Sogdiana" (5/2/24)
* "Dungan: a Sinitic language written with the Cyrillic alphabet" (4/20/13) — Google Victor Mair Dungan Language Log for many more posts about this intriguing and linguistically important Sintic / Hannic language (Mandarin written in Cyrillic with numerous borrowings from Russian, Uyghur, and other non-Sinitic / Hannic languages)
* "Implications of the Soviet Dungan Script for Chinese Language Reform" (May, 1990)
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Language Log
AI voice-over?
On 5/8/2024, the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) offered a "Graphical representation of how the precision cutting charges will be used on key bridge section":
Your browser does not support the video tag.
Several bits in the voice-over suggest that it was generated by a text-to-speech program — I'll note a couple of them below. And the failure to capitalize "Key Bridge" in the page's title might also be a symptom of AI-generation?
The first voice-over issue is the phrasing of the opening sentence:
Your browser does not support the audio element.
To refloat the motor vessel Dalí
the section of steel structure draped over it
and pinning it down must be removed.
Since the conjunction "draped over it and pinning it down" is a reduced relative clause, it's odd to have a strong phrase break after "over it".
And a bit later, the voice seems to place main word stress on the final syllable of "analyzed":
Your browser does not support the audio element.
First, salvage and demolition teams will have analyzed the structure,
Zeroing in a bit futrher:
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Listen to the whole thing — what else do you hear?
Your browser does not support the audio element.
➖ @EngSkills ➖
AI voice-over?
On 5/8/2024, the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) offered a "Graphical representation of how the precision cutting charges will be used on key bridge section":
Your browser does not support the video tag.
Several bits in the voice-over suggest that it was generated by a text-to-speech program — I'll note a couple of them below. And the failure to capitalize "Key Bridge" in the page's title might also be a symptom of AI-generation?
The first voice-over issue is the phrasing of the opening sentence:
Your browser does not support the audio element.
To refloat the motor vessel Dalí
the section of steel structure draped over it
and pinning it down must be removed.
Since the conjunction "draped over it and pinning it down" is a reduced relative clause, it's odd to have a strong phrase break after "over it".
And a bit later, the voice seems to place main word stress on the final syllable of "analyzed":
Your browser does not support the audio element.
First, salvage and demolition teams will have analyzed the structure,
Zeroing in a bit futrher:
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Listen to the whole thing — what else do you hear?
Your browser does not support the audio element.
➖ @EngSkills ➖
DVIDS
Graphical representation of how the precision cutting charges will be used on key bridge section
A graphical representation of how the Key Bridge Unified Command prepares to remove the bridge piece that lies atop the M/V Dali. Removing the bridge section, in the fastest, safest, and most predictable means requires the use of precision cuts made by these…
Language Log
AI voice-over?
On 5/8/2024, the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) offered a "Graphical representation of how the precision cutting charges will be used on key bridge section":
Your browser does not support the video tag.
Several bits in the voice-over suggest that it was generated by a text-to-speech program — I'll note a couple of them below. And the failure to capitalize "Key Bridge" in the page's title might also be a symptom of AI-generation?
The first voice-over issue is the phrasing of the opening sentence:
Your browser does not support the audio element.
To refloat the motor vessel Dalí
the section of steel structure draped over it
and pinning it down must be removed.
Since the conjunction "draped over it and pinning it down" is a reduced relative clause, it's odd to have a strong phrase break after "over it".
And a bit later, the voice seems to place main word stress on the final syllable of "analyzed":
Your browser does not support the audio element.
First, salvage and demolition teams will have analyzed the structure,
Zeroing in a bit futrher:
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Listen to the whole thing — what else do you hear?
Your browser does not support the audio element.
➖ @EngSkills ➖
AI voice-over?
On 5/8/2024, the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) offered a "Graphical representation of how the precision cutting charges will be used on key bridge section":
Your browser does not support the video tag.
Several bits in the voice-over suggest that it was generated by a text-to-speech program — I'll note a couple of them below. And the failure to capitalize "Key Bridge" in the page's title might also be a symptom of AI-generation?
The first voice-over issue is the phrasing of the opening sentence:
Your browser does not support the audio element.
To refloat the motor vessel Dalí
the section of steel structure draped over it
and pinning it down must be removed.
Since the conjunction "draped over it and pinning it down" is a reduced relative clause, it's odd to have a strong phrase break after "over it".
And a bit later, the voice seems to place main word stress on the final syllable of "analyzed":
Your browser does not support the audio element.
First, salvage and demolition teams will have analyzed the structure,
Zeroing in a bit futrher:
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Listen to the whole thing — what else do you hear?
Your browser does not support the audio element.
➖ @EngSkills ➖
DVIDS
Graphical representation of how the precision cutting charges will be used on key bridge section
A graphical representation of how the Key Bridge Unified Command prepares to remove the bridge piece that lies atop the M/V Dali. Removing the bridge section, in the fastest, safest, and most predictable means requires the use of precision cuts made by these…
Language Log
Indigo and cabbage, part 2
The first part of this series, "Indigo and cabbage", written the day before Thanksgiving in 2023, is one of the most satisfying and fulfilling posts I've ever made. This follow-up is even more of a delight, because here I get to introduce a new paper by anthropologist-linguist-textile expert Elizabeth J. W. Barber, and what a tour de force it is (see below).
Here I give an extended account of her scholarship, especially her early activities in the computer analysis of Chinese, because she was instrumental in helping to make that possible at its foundational stage.
She earned a bachelor's degree from Bryn Mawr College in Archaeology and Greek in 1962. Her chief mentor was Mabel Lang from whom she learned Linear B and who advised her honors thesis on Linear A. In addition to Lang, Wayland wrote her thesis under Emmett L. Bennett Jr. Her thesis used computer indices of the Hagia Triada Linear A texts in an attempt to decipher its signs and symbols. The computer indices were made via punched cards, a method which was preceded by the work of Alice E. Kober on Linear B. She earned her PhD from Yale University in linguistics in 1968. Her doctoral study at Yale University was supervised by Sydney Lamb, under whom she wrote her dissertation, "The Computer Aided Analysis of Undeciphered Ancient Texts."
Her books include: Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean (1992) — a monumental masterpiece Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years; Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times (1995) The Mummies of Ürümchi (1999) When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth (2004; coauthored with husband Paul T. Barber) The Dancing Goddesses: Folklore, Archaeology, and the Origins of European Dance (2013) Resplendent Dress from Southeastern Europe: A History in Layers (2013) Two Thoughts with but a Single Mind: Crime and Punishment and the Writing of Fiction (2013; co-authored with husband P.T. Barber and Mary F. Zirin).
(Wikipedia)
From 1967 through 1969, Betchen (her nickname) was involved with The Chinese Linguistics Project at Princeton. It was run by Frank Kierman, and the objective was to computerize a million-character corpus of Modern Vernacular Chinese, for teaching and analysis. They hired her because she knew a lot about the computers of those days and was experienced in figuring out how to put weird scripts onto computers (having done Minoan Linear A as part of her PhD thesis). There were two ways to go: give each character a unique number, or digitize the shape. She was a pro at designing number systems for weird scripts. On the other hand, the RAND Tablet (the original RAND Tablet cost $18,000 and was said to be "low cost") had just been invented, and the Mathematical Society in Providence had one, so she recalls a group from the Princeton project trekking up there to check it out. You could draw the Chinese character–or any design–on the tablet and it would digitize it (with a much longer and more cumbersome number, but with lots of additional data about the shape encoded).
Also involved in the Princeton project were Jerry Norman from the University of Washington, whom we've often mentioned on Language Log, and his young colleague William Boltz, plus Hashimoto Mantaro, a graduate of the University of Tokyo and The Ohio State University,
Now for Betchen's new paper:
============ Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-forty-fifth issue:
"Of Salt Men and Cloth: The Remarkable Textile History Preserved in Eurasian Salt-beds," by E.J.W. Barber. https://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp345_salt_preserved_ancient_textiles.pdf
ABSTRACT
Ancient colored textiles are seldom preserved by anything exc[...]
Indigo and cabbage, part 2
The first part of this series, "Indigo and cabbage", written the day before Thanksgiving in 2023, is one of the most satisfying and fulfilling posts I've ever made. This follow-up is even more of a delight, because here I get to introduce a new paper by anthropologist-linguist-textile expert Elizabeth J. W. Barber, and what a tour de force it is (see below).
Here I give an extended account of her scholarship, especially her early activities in the computer analysis of Chinese, because she was instrumental in helping to make that possible at its foundational stage.
She earned a bachelor's degree from Bryn Mawr College in Archaeology and Greek in 1962. Her chief mentor was Mabel Lang from whom she learned Linear B and who advised her honors thesis on Linear A. In addition to Lang, Wayland wrote her thesis under Emmett L. Bennett Jr. Her thesis used computer indices of the Hagia Triada Linear A texts in an attempt to decipher its signs and symbols. The computer indices were made via punched cards, a method which was preceded by the work of Alice E. Kober on Linear B. She earned her PhD from Yale University in linguistics in 1968. Her doctoral study at Yale University was supervised by Sydney Lamb, under whom she wrote her dissertation, "The Computer Aided Analysis of Undeciphered Ancient Texts."
Her books include: Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean (1992) — a monumental masterpiece Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years; Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times (1995) The Mummies of Ürümchi (1999) When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth (2004; coauthored with husband Paul T. Barber) The Dancing Goddesses: Folklore, Archaeology, and the Origins of European Dance (2013) Resplendent Dress from Southeastern Europe: A History in Layers (2013) Two Thoughts with but a Single Mind: Crime and Punishment and the Writing of Fiction (2013; co-authored with husband P.T. Barber and Mary F. Zirin).
(Wikipedia)
From 1967 through 1969, Betchen (her nickname) was involved with The Chinese Linguistics Project at Princeton. It was run by Frank Kierman, and the objective was to computerize a million-character corpus of Modern Vernacular Chinese, for teaching and analysis. They hired her because she knew a lot about the computers of those days and was experienced in figuring out how to put weird scripts onto computers (having done Minoan Linear A as part of her PhD thesis). There were two ways to go: give each character a unique number, or digitize the shape. She was a pro at designing number systems for weird scripts. On the other hand, the RAND Tablet (the original RAND Tablet cost $18,000 and was said to be "low cost") had just been invented, and the Mathematical Society in Providence had one, so she recalls a group from the Princeton project trekking up there to check it out. You could draw the Chinese character–or any design–on the tablet and it would digitize it (with a much longer and more cumbersome number, but with lots of additional data about the shape encoded).
Also involved in the Princeton project were Jerry Norman from the University of Washington, whom we've often mentioned on Language Log, and his young colleague William Boltz, plus Hashimoto Mantaro, a graduate of the University of Tokyo and The Ohio State University,
Now for Betchen's new paper:
============ Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-forty-fifth issue:
"Of Salt Men and Cloth: The Remarkable Textile History Preserved in Eurasian Salt-beds," by E.J.W. Barber. https://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp345_salt_preserved_ancient_textiles.pdf
ABSTRACT
Ancient colored textiles are seldom preserved by anything exc[...]
Advanced English Skills
Language Log Indigo and cabbage, part 2 The first part of this series, "Indigo and cabbage", written the day before Thanksgiving in 2023, is one of the most satisfying and fulfilling posts I've ever made. This follow-up is even more of a delight, because…
ept salt or permafrost. Recent discoveries in collapsed areas of a salt mine in NW Iran have prompted this very brief comparison of the new finds, including their dyes, to the other two major Eurasian groups of salt-bed textiles.
—–
All issues of Sino-Platonic Papers are available in full for no charge.
To view our catalog, visit http://www.sino-platonic.org/
============
What does this new paper have to do with indigo and cabbage? The last section is about dyes for blue, a favorite hue of humans. The very last paragraph of that section reads as follows:
Sinologists have long wondered why the words for “blue” and “cabbage” in Chinese are homonyms: both 藍 lán in Mandarin. But just recently, perusing dye information about woad [VHM: a common plant dye for blue] from Richard Laursen, Victor Mair noticed that woad is actually in the cabbage family, Brassicaceae (earlier called Cruciferae), and that rural people have long found ways to get blue coloring out of a number of types of cabbage (Mair 11/22/2023), especially the purple kind. Hence the unexpected homonyms. Thus, from all these textiles preserved in salt, we even have the solution of an interesting etymological conundrum.
And it includes one of humankind's favorite foods, which tastes good with a bit of salt sprinkled on and even better when turned into sauerkraut with the aid of salt. Selected readings
* "What's this pickled cabbage?" (5/25/12)
* "Conehead cabbage" (8/20/22)
* "Napa cabbage" (1/16/21)
* "Kimchee" (1/2/14)
* "What's this pickled cabbage?" (5/25/12)
* "The shrimp did what to the cabbage?" (9/11/06)
* "Wondrous blue" (5/9/22)
* "Sacré bleu! — the synesthesia of Walmart cyan" (10/8/22)
* "The colors of the seas and the directions" (4/28/21)
* "Grue and bleen: the blue-green distinction and its implications" (10/4/19)
* "Blue-Green Iranian 'Danube'" (10/26/19)
➖ @EngSkills ➖
—–
All issues of Sino-Platonic Papers are available in full for no charge.
To view our catalog, visit http://www.sino-platonic.org/
============
What does this new paper have to do with indigo and cabbage? The last section is about dyes for blue, a favorite hue of humans. The very last paragraph of that section reads as follows:
Sinologists have long wondered why the words for “blue” and “cabbage” in Chinese are homonyms: both 藍 lán in Mandarin. But just recently, perusing dye information about woad [VHM: a common plant dye for blue] from Richard Laursen, Victor Mair noticed that woad is actually in the cabbage family, Brassicaceae (earlier called Cruciferae), and that rural people have long found ways to get blue coloring out of a number of types of cabbage (Mair 11/22/2023), especially the purple kind. Hence the unexpected homonyms. Thus, from all these textiles preserved in salt, we even have the solution of an interesting etymological conundrum.
And it includes one of humankind's favorite foods, which tastes good with a bit of salt sprinkled on and even better when turned into sauerkraut with the aid of salt. Selected readings
* "What's this pickled cabbage?" (5/25/12)
* "Conehead cabbage" (8/20/22)
* "Napa cabbage" (1/16/21)
* "Kimchee" (1/2/14)
* "What's this pickled cabbage?" (5/25/12)
* "The shrimp did what to the cabbage?" (9/11/06)
* "Wondrous blue" (5/9/22)
* "Sacré bleu! — the synesthesia of Walmart cyan" (10/8/22)
* "The colors of the seas and the directions" (4/28/21)
* "Grue and bleen: the blue-green distinction and its implications" (10/4/19)
* "Blue-Green Iranian 'Danube'" (10/26/19)
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
account for
If you account for something, you explain how it came to be the way it is.
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account for
If you account for something, you explain how it came to be the way it is.
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Englishclub
account for
Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
louse up
to spoil something or make it fail
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louse up
to spoil something or make it fail
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Englishclub
louse up
Idiom of the Day
don't shoot the messenger
Don't get angry at or punish someone who is simply delivering bad or undesirable news, as he or she is not responsible for it. Watch the video
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don't shoot the messenger
Don't get angry at or punish someone who is simply delivering bad or undesirable news, as he or she is not responsible for it. Watch the video
➖ @EngSkills ➖
TheFreeDictionary.com
don't shoot the messenger
Definition of don't shoot the messenger in the Idioms Dictionary by The Free Dictionary
Language Log
Taiwanese in France
On a wall at INALCO (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales [National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations]) (established 1669) in Paris:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/inalco.jpg
Note that Taiwanese is referred to as "Taiwanais" in French and Tâi-gú / Tâi-gír / Tâi-gí (MSM Táiyǔ in sinoglyphs. According to the author of this article, where the photograph comes from, those designations are preferable to Bân-lâm-gí/gú 閩南語 (MSM Mǐnnányǔ) because, unlike Bân-lâm-gí/gú 閩南語 (MSM Mǐnnányǔ), they can directly bring the topic of discussion into the context of "Taiwan". "In fact, the term 'Taiwanese' does clearly and directly represent a part of Taiwan's linguistic and cultural subjectivity."
Selected readings
* "Teaching Taiwanese in France" (8/17/23) — with a useful bibliography
* "Confessions of an Ex-Hokkien Creationist" (9/20/16)
[h.t. Chau Wu]
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Taiwanese in France
On a wall at INALCO (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales [National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations]) (established 1669) in Paris:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/inalco.jpg
Note that Taiwanese is referred to as "Taiwanais" in French and Tâi-gú / Tâi-gír / Tâi-gí (MSM Táiyǔ in sinoglyphs. According to the author of this article, where the photograph comes from, those designations are preferable to Bân-lâm-gí/gú 閩南語 (MSM Mǐnnányǔ) because, unlike Bân-lâm-gí/gú 閩南語 (MSM Mǐnnányǔ), they can directly bring the topic of discussion into the context of "Taiwan". "In fact, the term 'Taiwanese' does clearly and directly represent a part of Taiwan's linguistic and cultural subjectivity."
Selected readings
* "Teaching Taiwanese in France" (8/17/23) — with a useful bibliography
* "Confessions of an Ex-Hokkien Creationist" (9/20/16)
[h.t. Chau Wu]
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Word of the Day
athirst
Definition: (adjective) Extremely desirous.
Synonyms: hungry, thirsty.
Usage: The young, enthusiastic student was athirst for knowledge.
Discuss
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athirst
Definition: (adjective) Extremely desirous.
Synonyms: hungry, thirsty.
Usage: The young, enthusiastic student was athirst for knowledge.
Discuss
➖ @EngSkills ➖
TheFreeDictionary.com
athirst
Definition, Synonyms, Translations of athirst by The Free Dictionary
Language Log
"Talking out of two ears"
From p. 224 of the transcript of the April 30 session of The People of the State of New York against Donald Trump, Defendant, where prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is questioning Keith Davidson, who was Stormy Daniel's lawyer at the time of the hush-money payment from Michael Cohen:
Q. During this time, were you also speaking with Michael Cohen on the phone?
A. Yes.
Q. How would you describe his demeanor during this time?
A. He was highly excitable. Sort of a pants on fire kind of guy. He had a lot of things going on. Frequently I would be on the phone with him, he would take another call, he would be talking out of two ears. Sort of like that movie with the dogs and squirrels.
I think Davidson probably meant "hair on fire", which is the normal idiom for being excited, rather than "pants on fire", which is the idiom for egregious falsehood. And it's clear what "talking of of two ears" means, logic aside. But I don't get the "movie with the dogs and squirrels" reference — any suggestions?
➖ @EngSkills ➖
"Talking out of two ears"
From p. 224 of the transcript of the April 30 session of The People of the State of New York against Donald Trump, Defendant, where prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is questioning Keith Davidson, who was Stormy Daniel's lawyer at the time of the hush-money payment from Michael Cohen:
Q. During this time, were you also speaking with Michael Cohen on the phone?
A. Yes.
Q. How would you describe his demeanor during this time?
A. He was highly excitable. Sort of a pants on fire kind of guy. He had a lot of things going on. Frequently I would be on the phone with him, he would take another call, he would be talking out of two ears. Sort of like that movie with the dogs and squirrels.
I think Davidson probably meant "hair on fire", which is the normal idiom for being excited, rather than "pants on fire", which is the idiom for egregious falsehood. And it's clear what "talking of of two ears" means, logic aside. But I don't get the "movie with the dogs and squirrels" reference — any suggestions?
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Language Log
Arabic and the vernaculars, part 6
This post grew out of a comment I was making yesterday to a previous post about a wall at INALCO (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales [National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations]) (established 1669) in Paris that listed the many languages taught at that venerable institution.
As my eyes surveyed the mass of names on the wall, one thing struck me powerfully: the large number of different Arabic languages. This raised an interesting question: common "wisdom" is that there is only one Arabic language, viz., Modern Standard Arabic [MSA], so how come there are so many different Arabic languages taught at INALCO?
Since the Arab vernaculars have been one of our favorite foci here at Language Log (see "Selected readings" below), I was interested to see how many different varieties of Arabic are represented on this wall:
Judéo-Arabe, Moroccan Arabic, Algerian Arabic, Libyan Arabic (but that is MSA), Yemeni Arabic (also MSA, though it is generally considered to be a very conservative dialect cluster), Lebanese Arabic, Palestinian Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, Arabe Littéral (which I take to signify written / literary MSA) in contrast to dialectal Arabic (though I'm not sure how it differs from regular MSA; perhaps it is hyper-conservative to a degree that it it not really "sayable", i.e., "writable but not sayable", cf. "Sayable but not writable" [9/12/13]; i.e., MWA [Modern Written Arabic]?).
I do not include Maltese because of the Romance superstrata, nor do I include Sorabe because that only refers to the script used to write the Austronesian language known as Malagasy, much as the Perso-Arabic script is used to write Sinitic Hui (Muslim) Mandarin.
It would appear that, to the teachers and administrators at INALCO, there must be sufficient differences among all these Arabic languages that they merit having separate offerings.
It seems that Arabic speaking countries possess a diglossia of MSA for formal, "proper" occasions and usage and a variety of vernaculars on a dialectal continuum for daily informal usage. SFAIK, only Egyptian vernacular has developed a widely used literary / written / cinematic form, even transcending its political borders to a certain degree. To what extent the other vernaculars are popular in music / song / TV, etc., in general, the situation must vary widely by country.
Worldwide, Arabic has about 372.7 million speakers (source), yet it has all of these different Arabic languages listed on the INALCO wall, despite the fact that theoretically and doctrinally there is only one (MSA).
Contrast that with India, which has a total population of 1.417 billion people, yet only has two or three languages represented on the INALCO wall, if you count Sanskrit, which is overwhelmingly a classical language. Here at Penn, we teach virtually all of India's 22 official languages, at least 10 at any given time.
Urdu, which is mutually sayable with Hindi, but not mutually readable, is not taught at INALCO (source); with 230 million speakers, it is the 10th-most widely spoken language in the world (source).
Hindi, which is taught at INALCO, has 615 million speakers and is the 3rd-most widely spoken language in the world (source).
Bengali is also taught at INALCO, probably because it is the official language of Bangladesh, has 272.7 million speakers and is the 7th-most widely spoken language in the world (source).
China has a total population of 1.412 billion people, of whom Ethnologue claims there are roughly 900 million speakers of Mandarin. I don't believe it. These are simply political propaganda figures put out by the CCP / PRC government. At least half of those 900 million don't understand the other half. It is telling that the wall refers to "Chinese" (Mandarin?) as Chinois in French and Zhōngwén 中文 (lit.[...]
Arabic and the vernaculars, part 6
This post grew out of a comment I was making yesterday to a previous post about a wall at INALCO (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales [National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations]) (established 1669) in Paris that listed the many languages taught at that venerable institution.
As my eyes surveyed the mass of names on the wall, one thing struck me powerfully: the large number of different Arabic languages. This raised an interesting question: common "wisdom" is that there is only one Arabic language, viz., Modern Standard Arabic [MSA], so how come there are so many different Arabic languages taught at INALCO?
Since the Arab vernaculars have been one of our favorite foci here at Language Log (see "Selected readings" below), I was interested to see how many different varieties of Arabic are represented on this wall:
Judéo-Arabe, Moroccan Arabic, Algerian Arabic, Libyan Arabic (but that is MSA), Yemeni Arabic (also MSA, though it is generally considered to be a very conservative dialect cluster), Lebanese Arabic, Palestinian Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, Arabe Littéral (which I take to signify written / literary MSA) in contrast to dialectal Arabic (though I'm not sure how it differs from regular MSA; perhaps it is hyper-conservative to a degree that it it not really "sayable", i.e., "writable but not sayable", cf. "Sayable but not writable" [9/12/13]; i.e., MWA [Modern Written Arabic]?).
I do not include Maltese because of the Romance superstrata, nor do I include Sorabe because that only refers to the script used to write the Austronesian language known as Malagasy, much as the Perso-Arabic script is used to write Sinitic Hui (Muslim) Mandarin.
It would appear that, to the teachers and administrators at INALCO, there must be sufficient differences among all these Arabic languages that they merit having separate offerings.
It seems that Arabic speaking countries possess a diglossia of MSA for formal, "proper" occasions and usage and a variety of vernaculars on a dialectal continuum for daily informal usage. SFAIK, only Egyptian vernacular has developed a widely used literary / written / cinematic form, even transcending its political borders to a certain degree. To what extent the other vernaculars are popular in music / song / TV, etc., in general, the situation must vary widely by country.
Worldwide, Arabic has about 372.7 million speakers (source), yet it has all of these different Arabic languages listed on the INALCO wall, despite the fact that theoretically and doctrinally there is only one (MSA).
Contrast that with India, which has a total population of 1.417 billion people, yet only has two or three languages represented on the INALCO wall, if you count Sanskrit, which is overwhelmingly a classical language. Here at Penn, we teach virtually all of India's 22 official languages, at least 10 at any given time.
Urdu, which is mutually sayable with Hindi, but not mutually readable, is not taught at INALCO (source); with 230 million speakers, it is the 10th-most widely spoken language in the world (source).
Hindi, which is taught at INALCO, has 615 million speakers and is the 3rd-most widely spoken language in the world (source).
Bengali is also taught at INALCO, probably because it is the official language of Bangladesh, has 272.7 million speakers and is the 7th-most widely spoken language in the world (source).
China has a total population of 1.412 billion people, of whom Ethnologue claims there are roughly 900 million speakers of Mandarin. I don't believe it. These are simply political propaganda figures put out by the CCP / PRC government. At least half of those 900 million don't understand the other half. It is telling that the wall refers to "Chinese" (Mandarin?) as Chinois in French and Zhōngwén 中文 (lit.[...]
Advanced English Skills
Language Log Arabic and the vernaculars, part 6 This post grew out of a comment I was making yesterday to a previous post about a wall at INALCO (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales [National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations])…
, "central script / writing") in Sinographs. Even if they're referring to "Mandarin" writ exceptionally large, Pǔtōnghuà 普通話 ("Common Speech") or Guóyǔ 國語 ("National Spoken Language") would be a better designation.
The INALCO wall also lists Cantonese, which certainly is a separate language, worldwide has nearly 100 million speakers. Taiwanese (Táiyǔ 臺語) is listed on the wall and has approximately 15 million speakers. Added to their related confreres on the mainland they constitute a group of approximately 50 million Minnan ("Southern Min") speakers. I am pleased to see that the INALCO wall includes Uyghur, Mongolian, and Tibetan, all three of which non-Sinitic languages the CCP/PRC is actively trying to eliminate.
On balance, the INALCO wall reveals a great deal about the geopolitics of French language policy in the world today. Selected readings
* "Arabic and the vernaculars, part 5" (8/20/22) — if you are interested in the problems raised in the current post, part 5 in the series is must reading.
* "Arabic and the vernaculars" (3/6/22)
* "Arabic and the vernaculars, part 2" (3/8/22)
* "Arabic and the vernaculars, part 3" (3/9/22)
* "Arabic and the vernaculars, part 4 — the case of Bible translations" (3/10/22)
* "Arabic as a macrolanguage" (10/21/18)
* "Arablish" (9/23/18)
* "Mutual intelligibility" (5/28/14)
* "Sayable but not writable" (9/12/13)
* "Sinitic is a group of languages, not a single language" (10/12/17)
* "Cantonese and Mandarin are two different languages" (9/25/15)
* "Taiwanese in France" (5/11/24)
* "Sanskrit is far from extinct" (11/29/23)
* "Sanskrit resurgent" (8/13/14)
* "Spoken Sanskrit" (1/9/16)
* "'In Pāṇini We Trust'" (12/15/22)
➖ @EngSkills ➖
The INALCO wall also lists Cantonese, which certainly is a separate language, worldwide has nearly 100 million speakers. Taiwanese (Táiyǔ 臺語) is listed on the wall and has approximately 15 million speakers. Added to their related confreres on the mainland they constitute a group of approximately 50 million Minnan ("Southern Min") speakers. I am pleased to see that the INALCO wall includes Uyghur, Mongolian, and Tibetan, all three of which non-Sinitic languages the CCP/PRC is actively trying to eliminate.
On balance, the INALCO wall reveals a great deal about the geopolitics of French language policy in the world today. Selected readings
* "Arabic and the vernaculars, part 5" (8/20/22) — if you are interested in the problems raised in the current post, part 5 in the series is must reading.
* "Arabic and the vernaculars" (3/6/22)
* "Arabic and the vernaculars, part 2" (3/8/22)
* "Arabic and the vernaculars, part 3" (3/9/22)
* "Arabic and the vernaculars, part 4 — the case of Bible translations" (3/10/22)
* "Arabic as a macrolanguage" (10/21/18)
* "Arablish" (9/23/18)
* "Mutual intelligibility" (5/28/14)
* "Sayable but not writable" (9/12/13)
* "Sinitic is a group of languages, not a single language" (10/12/17)
* "Cantonese and Mandarin are two different languages" (9/25/15)
* "Taiwanese in France" (5/11/24)
* "Sanskrit is far from extinct" (11/29/23)
* "Sanskrit resurgent" (8/13/14)
* "Spoken Sanskrit" (1/9/16)
* "'In Pāṇini We Trust'" (12/15/22)
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
yearn for
to want something very much
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yearn for
to want something very much
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Englishclub
yearn for
Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
effing
used as a less offensive substitute for the highly-offensive taboo word "fucking"
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effing
used as a less offensive substitute for the highly-offensive taboo word "fucking"
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Englishclub
effing