language

Which English do you speak?

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

{{Title link: http://www.gameswithwords.org/WhichEnglish/ }}

profuseponderings:

What countries have most influenced the way you speak? Take this test designed by MIT researchers and find out.

Take this test, guys! It determines what dialect you speak (if your native language is English) and which country you are from (if English isn’t your first language!). 

It is an algorithm which maps out the differences in English grammar around the world. 

 

theheroheart:

Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
1. American (Standard)
2. Canadian
3. Singaporean

Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. English
2. Russian
3. Dutch

Interestingly, I’m Norwegian, I always use British spellings and words, but standard American is probably what’s affected me most.

 

willowrosenberq:

Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
1. South African
2. Australian
3. English (UK)

Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. English
2. Finnish
3. Russian

…HUH. Wasn’t expecting that at all.

 

laangol:

Cool!!!

Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
1. English (UK)
2. Singaporean
3. Australian

Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. Italian
2. Finnish
3. Spanish

 

littleleofitz:

Haahaa this is awesome.

top guesses for your English dialect:

  1. Scottish (UK)
  2. Irish (Southern)
  3. Australian

Top guesses for your native (first language) a complete fail lol

  1. Portuguese
  2. English
  3. Finnish

 

ftchocoholic:

Well, it was accurate for me xD. Although Finnish does seem like a rather random second guess for a native first language…

Our top three guesses for your English dialect:

1. English (UK)
2. Scottish (UK)
3. Irish (Southern) 

Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:

1. English
2. Finnish
3. Russian 

 

 

karalianne:

Our top three guesses for your English dialect:

  1. Canadian
  2. American (Standard)
  3. Australian

Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:

  1. English
  2. Dutch
  3. German

I’m Canadian, so that’s pretty good. I find the Australian bit funny. Not sure why Dutch and German? Maybe because where we lived for grades 6-12 has way more Dutch people than anywhere else I’ve lived and my French teachers in high school were Dutch and German…? No idea. My family is UK for the most part. Mom’s parents came to Canada, Dad’s family was here for generations but came from the UK originally.

 

youneedacat:

Our top three guesses for your English dialect:

1. New Zealand
2. Scottish (UK)
3. South African

 
Our top three guesses for your native (first) language: 

1. Russian
2. English
3. Spanish

Um… I’m from California, the only language my family spoke besides English was Swedish, and the dialects of English my family spoke were generally Southern (Okie/Arkie).  So no idea how that works.

 

slepaulica:

I think it works based partially on how many people with your dialect have contributed. If there haven’t been too many with your dialect it won’t know it and won’t guess it right. Also, I think it might be on a country-level, not a within-country level, because it doesn’t seem to be making guesses like “california english” but just “united states english” or “scottish english”.

It’s possible that some of the ways you talk in your dialect of English was influenced by immigrants from one place or another, or that the rules for speaking your dialect are similar to the rules for speaking some other type english.

also for the “ntaive language” part it seems to be making guesses based on major world languages that lots of people speak. Like guessing Finnish instead of Udmurt or guessing Russian instead of Sorbian. :)

Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
1. Scottish (UK)
2. Australian
3. Canadian

Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. Russian
2. English
3. Spanish

Our top three guesses for your English dialect:
1. American (Standard)
2. Australian
3. Singaporean

Our top three guesses for your native (first) language:
1. English
2. German
3. Dutch

I wonder how you tell whether someone is speaking Singaporean English.

I forgot to mention this in their own comment box, but it would be nice if they told you how good a match it is. Like, German’s the second guess for my native tongue, but how distant a second?

Tags:

#language #meme

My belief is a TVtrope

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

lb-lee:

I spent all that time rambling about gods, when really, I could’ve just linked to the relevant TVtrope.

I’m a Naytheist.  Boom.  Easy.

Seems to me that if “monolatrism” is acknowledging many gods but only worshiping one, then acknowledging gods but not worshiping them should be “alatrism”. The main problem with that is probably that latreia is a sufficiently uncommon root to make “alatrist” unintuitive. (I don’t know about you, but looking at it written down I can’t even tell it’s “a-latrist” rather than “ala-trist”.)

Mind you, to me “naytheist” reads like a synonym of “maltheist”, so I’m not sure it would actually be any worse on the intuitiveness front.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #language #alatrism #should be a word #I have actually thought so for several years #but it’s never really come up

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

the-andorian-mining-consortium:

vortisaurus:

(the entire exchange, preserved for posterity)

(I don’t know if anyone cares to tell me if the Klingon is correct or not?)

Some of the words are correct, but the grammar and usage is all off. The passages above look like straight, word-for-word translations from English, which would come out as nonsense if you said it to a Klingon. XD

Here’s a slightly more accurate translation, but I had to shift things around quite a bit to make it work, and it comes out as an entirely different song! But here it is:

yuQDaq wIpawDI’
‘ej HovDaq mayIt
Dochmey DIlegh
Dochmey law’!
reH poH’e’ DIvangbe’laHtaH!

Doch’e’mey law’. 
Doch’e’mey DIyajbe’leH
DItu’be’
chalDaq Hov Sal ach
Doch’e’mey DochSuSmey je
gho boghtaH
poH’e’

It does change the meaning of the words, since some of what’s expressed in the original doesn’t really translate in the same way to Klingonese. This is a rough translation back to English:

When we arrive on the planet
And walk into the star
We see things
Many things!
We can not continue to talk action forever!

Many huge things.
Huge things we cannot understand.
We cannot find them
But into the sky the star rises high
Big things and small things
The circle is born and continues
Forever.

And Circle of Life I suppose would be “gho yInmeH” – circle for living. You could say “yIn gho” (life’s circle) but it’s not very clear what is meant as it could be also interpretated as “the circle is alive”.

gho yInmeH
Hoch SeH
Hoch ‘IQ, hoch tul, hoch voq je
bang

maHmeH  wItu’eghtaH voghDaq
HeDaq wIleng
He Qatlh
gho yInmeH
gho yInmeH

Circle for living
It controls everyone and everything
Everyone is sad, everyone has hope, everyone has faith,
The ones who are loved

We continue to find somewhere for ourselves
On the route we travel
The route is difficult
The circle for living
The circle for living

Someone else could probably do a better job of this than me, but that’s as close as I can get!

Tags:

#oh dear Kahless #Star Trek #language #awesome

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

Tagged by cakehorse.

Rules:

  1. your name
  2. your username
  3. your blog title
  4. your favourite colour
  5. the name of your current crush
  6. CAPSLOCK ABOUT SOMETHING
  7. your favourite band
  8. your favourite number
  9. your favourite drink
  10. tag someone!

You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to! Bonus points if you write something in a different language.

(P.S. If you are having any trouble with it, the image is much easier to make out if you click on it.)

Tags:

#oh look an original post #eponymous rose #cosmic llin #there’s been so many people doing this meme it’s hard to keep track of who’s done it already #I hope I at least got someone right #the blotches on the corners are to force my scanner’s overzealous auto-trimming to let me scan the whole thing #(I don’t own a camera) #(not even a phone with a camera function) #my thought process on the capslock went like this: ‘What’s written in all-caps? …Latin!’ #’What’s the Latin-y-est Latin phrase I can think of?’ #I am told by people who have experienced both crushes and perseverations that they feel very similar #meme #handwriting meme #tag rambles

Quote ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

I swear to every heaven ever imagined,
if I hear one more dead-eyed hipster
tell me that art is dead, I will personally summon Shakespeare
from the grave so he can tell them every reason
why he wishes he were born in a time where
he could have a damn Gmail account.
The day after I taught my mother
how to send pictures over Iphone she texted
me a blurry image of our cocker spaniel ten times in a row.
Don’t you dare try to tell me that that is not beautiful.
But whatever, go ahead and choose to stay in
your backwards-hoping-all-inclusive club
while the rest of us fall in love over Skype.
Send angry letters to state representatives,
as we record the years first sunrise so
we can remember what beginning feels like when
we are inches away from the trigger.
Lock yourself away in your Antoinette castle
while eat cake and tweet to the whole universe that we did.
Hashtag you’re a pretentious ass hole.
Van Gogh would have taken 20 selflies a day.
Sylvia Plath would have texted her lovers
nothing but heart eyed emojis when she ran out of words.
Andy Warhol would have had the worlds weirdest Vine account,
and we all would have checked it every morning while we
Snap Chat our coffee orders to the people
we wish were pressed against our lips instead of lattes.
This life is spilling over with 85 year olds
rewatching JFK’s assassination and
7 year olds teaching themselves guitar over Youtube videos.
Never again do I have to be afraid of forgetting
what my fathers voice sounds like.
No longer must we sneak into our families phonebook
to look up an eating disorder hotline for our best friend.
No more must I wonder what people in Australia sound like
or how grasshoppers procreate.
I will gleefully continue to take pictures of tulips
in public parks on my cellphone
and you will continue to scoff and that is okay.
But I hope, I pray, that one day you will realize how blessed
you are to be alive in a moment where you can google search
how to say I love you in 164 different languages.

b.e.fitzgerald (Art is a Facebook status about your winter break.)

This.

(via byrdiegrey)

Tags:

#poetry #I love you all #(Je vous aime tous) #(Rwyf wrth fy modd i chi i gyd) #(Я люблю вас всех) #(Vi amo tutti) #(אני אוהב את כולכם) #(Rakastan teitä kaikkia) #(ผมรักทุกคน) #(look May 7th has only questionably begun) #(and already I am using excessive amounts of Google Translate)

Ok you guys, we all know that Tumblr runs primarily in English

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

seagreeneyes:

seagreeneyes:

BUT WE ALSO KNOW THAT A SIGNIFICANT PART OF TUMBLR USERS ARE NOT NATIVE SPEAKERS

Here’s the deal: my first language is Italian. I know plenty of people on this website whose first language is Italian. Nevertheless, when we’re interacting with each other on Tumblr, we speak English.

I am not objecting to this system, it’s actually good practice for some people, to be able to speak a second language extensively.

BUT I HAVE A PROPOSITION FOR YOU.

Why not have a “Speak Your Own Language Day” where all of us exclusively speak in our native language?

(No but apart from the small rebellion from the US-centric and generally Anglophone-centric environment we got here, think about trying to speak to people from other countries via excessive use of Google Translate it’ll be a blast)

Ok, since this post has finally reached 100 notes I think it’s a good time to give a date, and since no one else has advanced suggestions I’m gonna do it

I’m proposing Wednesday 7th May, so the post has a chance to do a couple more laps and more people get a chance to participate (French Friday sounded hilarious, but I don’t wanna wait until next friday and this friday seems a bit too soon).

How it’ll work:

  • If you’re native language is something other than English, speak that!
  • If you have multiple languages you can pick from the choice is yous friend, speak all, speak one, whatever’s best for you
  • You’ll blog in your language all day: text posts, replies, tags (except triggers and organizational tags), the whole nine yards. Regardless of what language people choose to speak to you, you answer in your own.
  • Midnight to midnight according to your own time zone
  • English native speakers, if you wanna participate maybe you could practice a second language you’re learning
  • If anyone makes fun of anyone else for their language (and I’m including English native speakers that might choose to speak a second language on the day) I’m gonna come for you (◕‿◕✿)
  • The tag is gonna be #Speak Your Language Day if you wanna tag your posts with that!

Tags:

#language #interesting #I don’t speak French past a ‘La voiture est bleue’ level #and other non-English languages even less #but this is a neat idea #and I look forward to excessive use of Google Translate

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

ubungmachtdenmeister:

So you know how every language has that word/phrase/sentence that native speakers can pronounce just fine, but foreigners can almost never pronounce it correctly? And the natives have a lot of fun telling the foreigners to try and say it and laughing at their attempts?

They’re called Shibboleths, and wikipedia has a whole article on them. 
Even better, wikipedia has a whole article on examples of them.

Some of them are ridiculous, I can’t stop reading this article.

 

jazzypom:

Wow. Cheers for this. 

 

nenya-kanadka:

“Art thou an Ephraimite?”

“Um, uh … No?”

“Prove it. Say ‘shibboleth.’”

“Sibboleth.”

“Aha! Die Ephraimite!”

“Oh sit.”

(Judges 12 according to Fred Clark)

 

slepaulica:

re: your tags, native speakers of hebrew probably, not native speakers of english

 

brin-bellway:

Well, English is known for its extensive use of “th”, and that’s where the problem comes in for me. (In fact, the original Hebrew word might have used a perfectly pronounceable “t”, though it’s not clear from a few minutes of looking things up.)

 

slepaulica:

dunno, don’t speak hebrew. but the shibboleth part of the shibboleth is the sh sound.

according to wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth 

The term originates from the Hebrew word shibbólet (שִׁבֹּלֶת), which literally means the part of a plant containing grains, such as an ear of corn or a stalk ofgrain[3] or, in different contexts, “stream, torrent”.[4][5]

which means that you would be able to pronounce it, because it was shibbólet, not shibbóleth :)

Yeah, I saw that, but then I saw the Wiki page on Hebrew pronunciation in general:

Some historically distinctive Hebrew phonemes have merged in modern Hebrew, such as historically distinctive /t/, /θ/, /tˤ/ (now all [t]), written respectively by the letters Tav (תּ), Ṯav (ת) and Ṭet (ט).

This would seem to imply (note the use of tav-with-no-dot in the Hebrew you quoted, for whatever that’s worth) that it was soft-“th” at the time and only became “t” later.

(What do you do if someone fails a shibboleth in an unexpected manner? People who say “shibbolef” aren’t the kind of Them you’re killing on sight (well, hearing), but they’re not Us either.)

Tags:

#language #reply via reblog #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #fun wif forn fronting