language

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

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slepaulica:

nenya-kanadka:

jazzypom:

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.

Wow. Cheers for this. 

“Art thou an Ephraimite?”

“Um, uh … No?”

“Prove it. Say ‘shibboleth.’”

“Sibboleth.”

“Aha! Die Ephraimite!”

“Oh sit.”

(Judges 12 according to Fred Clark)

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

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.)

Tags:

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

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~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

nenya-kanadka:

jazzypom:

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.

Wow. Cheers for this. 

“Art thou an Ephraimite?”

“Um, uh … No?”

“Prove it. Say ‘shibboleth.’”

“Sibboleth.”

“Aha! Die Ephraimite!”

“Oh sit.”

(Judges 12 according to Fred Clark)

Tags:

#I can never decide whether it’s very fitting or very *un*-fitting that I can’t pronounce ‘shibboleth’ #if it were just ‘word that is extremely difficult to pronounce’ #it would be fitting to have the word for that be extremely difficult to pronounce #but it’s ‘word that native speakers can say easily and everyone *else* finds extremely difficult to pronounce’ #and I am a native English speaker #and I can’t say it #I swear I’m not an Ephraimite please don’t kill me #language #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #fun wif forn fronting

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~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

donkos:

reading a foreign language: yeah
writing in a foreign language: ok
listening to a foreign language: wait
speaking in a foreign language: fuck

Tags:

#honestly I kind of feel this way about English #to a somewhat lesser extent #that excuse for communication called speech #was already a tag

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

austriea:

when you recognize a word from another language you’ve just begun to learn and ur like hEYHeY HEY WAIT I KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS and it’s probably something insignificant like ‘today’ or ‘maybe’ buT YOURE SO PROUD STILL LIKE HELL YEAH

Tags:

#n’oubliez pas oú est votre voiture #(‘don’t forget where your car is’) #(if they had actually said) #(word for word) #(‘remember where you parked’) #(I couldn’t have done it) #(but I’ve seen enough battery advertisements to know what n’oubliez pas means) #our home and cherished land

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

Here’s a fun fact for you:

So, you know Dr. Bronner’s soap? The one with the label covered in tiny writing that’s at least, oh, seven or eight deci-Time-Cubes on the incoherent-rambling scale?

On Canadian bottles of Dr. Bronner’s, the ramblings are translated into French.

Now that’s commitment to bilingualism.

(Or possibly commitment to evangelising the All-One-God-Faith.)

(NOUS NE FORMONS QU’UN! TOUS UNIS! D’ÉTERNELLES EXCEPTIONS? AUCUNE! ABSOLUMENT AUCUNE!)

Tags:

#oh look an original post #our home and cherished land #fun facts #I don’t actually speak French past a ‘La voiture est bleue’ level #so I don’t know if they successfully captured the essence of Bronner’s writing style #but even just knowing they *tried*

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~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

Oh hey, there is an official term for it.

Tags:

#oh look an original post #followup to the voice meme I did a little while ago #adventures in Wikipedia #I had no idea ‘brother’ wasn’t supposed to be pronounced with a ‘v’ #the more you know #(well) #(I suppose you *could* pronounce the ‘th’ in ‘brother’ like ‘they’) #(it might not even sound weird) #(but still) #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #fun wif forn fronting

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

karenhealey:

brainstatic:

This is the English word I want to get tattooed on my wrist. It means “to keep breathing even though the water rises all around you.” English is such a mystical exotic language. They can fit so much meaning into so small a word.

*cracking up*

Tags:

#language #I know this is supposed to be a joke about Orientalism #but honestly I think the face-value text has got a point? #I am frequently filled with awe at the amount of meaning you can convey with a few squiggles or phonemes #that you *can* convey meaning with a few squiggles or phonemes #it’s easy to get accustomed to it with familiar words and not notice anymore #but really all words have something wondrous about them #even ‘scuba’ #(even interpretations of ‘scuba’ that are slightly non-standard but make perfect sense when explained) #(seems to me like a pretty reasonable metaphorical use of the term when I think about it) #tag rambles