General Q&A about specific languages, language in general, and linguistics.
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Yes, Tamil is one of the oldest languages in the world. It has a rich history that dates back over 2,000 years, with ancient literature and inscriptions found from as early as the 3rd century BCE. ...
"concern" is quite old English for an establishment or business of some kind.“ How did this business meaning of concern develop from the Latin concernō that meant “to mix, sift or mingle toge...
All pages refer to Oxford Latin Dictionary 2012 2nd edition (OLD). Page 48 breaks down adimō as ‘[AD- + EMŌ]”, and defines adimō as follow 1 To remove (something) by physical force (from a perso...
I saw this at https://english.stackexchange.com/q/624915, but it got closed without answer. I would like answers, thx. Etymonline commences with c. 1300, "counting," especially "reckoning of money...
This quote explains that in “going concern”, ‘going’ means ‘ongoing’. No, it's not a "concern" in the sense of "worries". It's a concern in the sense of "commercial enterprise, entity". Simila...
In Icelandic, certain accented vowel letters (especially ó, á) are consistently explained as diphthongs ([ou] and [au], respectively) in pronunciation guides. Accented vowel letters are also encou...
I am interested in exploring a series of prompts for a large language model which move from instructions which have a clear-cut "correct result", such as the instruction to capitalize every letter ...
One difficulty I’ve seen in learning languages is matching orthography to pronunciation - especially vowels. English has several distinct sounds that a native speaker will describe as the vowel ‘e...
The German word "Weihnachten" (Christmas) is an odd one. It's a neuter noun (das Weihnachten) even though it's based on a feminine one (die Nacht, night). The traditional Christmas greetings, "Froh...
In this quiz on Yle's website I met the nice word "murremestari": https://yle.fi/a/74-20058169 Obviously this means one who masters dialects, but in that meaning I pronounce it as "murremmestari"....
When I, maybe Br.E speaker, pronounce adverbs ending '-bly' I find myself occasionally inserting an extra vowel. So I say feeble-y, noble-y but I 'correctly' say 'nim-bly' and 'lim-ply' (I've plac...
When an observed verbal habit has more than one potential source, and that source is likely to be a different language or dialect, how do linguists determine the most likely origin? For example, i...
The original meaning of humor of course refers to the obsolete theory of the four humors and their effect on human temperament. I'm not asking about that. It appears that initially, the meaning sh...
It seems like a lot of humor has an element of surprise. Sudden meanings, unexpected turns of the plot, language unexpected given the context (impolite language in polite context, technical in a no...
Devalue is commonly used to mean diminish value. Seems like the prefix re- is sometimes used with opposite effect to de-, as in reinforce meaning to increase force or refried meaning more fried. ...
Everyone knows what "nifty" is. It's obvious, isn't it? A thing which possesses nift. But what is this mysterious nift? Looking at things that are considered nifty, I cannot quite come up with a g...
Lawrence Sanders, Caper, 1980. 1987 paperback edition, page 61: We saw crumbling walls, decayed ceilings, cracked plumbing fixtures, exposed electrical wiring. We saw one room that appeared to h...
I was trying to explain to someone that my door can only be opened with a key, regardless of whether the door is locked or simply closed. I figured schließen would fail to express that unambiguous...
As the title says. Background I often find myself in the need of building an English sentence that I almost know how to get right. The scaffolding is there, but there are maybe one or two words ...
Here's the image of the humourous 'translations', and my wife has helped me 'untranslate' some of them, but we're stuck on some: Bill Gates has released Windows in a Bengali version called JAN...
Some words are examples of the concept they name. Examples: "Word" is a word. "Noun" is a noun. "Eggcorn" is an eggcorn (a mistaken word that sounds like and has some connection to another wor...
It seems that people used to say "listen to" and "hear" television, a holdover from radio, and that that gave way to "watch" and "see" over time. Has anyone any information on the timeline of this ...
Hi. I'm learning Icelandic and planning to visit the country a few months later. But there is a thing I can't figure out yet. For clarity, in majority of English speaking families there is just on...
English speakers from certain areas, in particular British, seem to add an extra r sound after vowels. For example: Idea -> idea-r Drawing -> draw-r-ing China -> China-r What is th...
While learning a language, there are a surprising (to me at least) number of people who say that you should never output until fluent - that is, as long as you get enough input, you will eventually...
In my experience of speaking with immigrants from China to the United States, it seems many of them pronounce the word idea with a final ɹ (even before a consonant). Why?
Wiktionary doesn't expound how furuncle ("1 cm tender red papule or fluctuant nodule") is a "transferred sense" from "pilferer (petty thief)". How do these notions in these nouns relate to each oth...
Generally speaking, German verbs inflect with the following table Person Inflection Example ich -e sage, arbeite du -(e)st sagst, arbeitest er/sie/es -(e)t sagt, a...
The Indonesian word "terdiri" meaning "consist/s (of)" is an interesting word as it uses two words along with it: "atas" ("on/top/above") and "dari" ("from" / "than" in some cases). Every time I en...
1 -- Are you a member of GE? -- No, I was a member for 9 years. I think Correct 2 -- Are you a member of GE? -- No, I had been a member for 9 years. I think WRONG 3 -- Are you a member of ...
Many quantity words trigger agreement with their object rather than themselves. For instance, syntactically, "a lot, "a bunch", "an amount" seem to all be singular. However, as a native speaker, "T...
Old English rǣda semantically shifted from ‘advise, consult, guess’ to mean ‘interpret, interpret letters, read’. But isn't this semantic shift unsyntactical and infelicitous? Advisor's writin...
On October 31 2016, Kevin Stroud wrote The connection between “ghost” and “guest/host” is mentioned on page 303 of ‘The Horse, The Wheel and Language” by David W. Anthony [quoted on English Stac...
How did ‘advise, consult, guess’ semantically shift 🢂 to signify ‘interpret, interpret letters, read’? How do they semantically appertain? read [OE] In most western European languages, the wor...
I have never heard of "to raise (someone) out of trouble"! What does this mean? relieve (v.) [on Etymonline] late 14c., releven, "alleviate (pain, etc.) wholly or partly, mitigate; afford comfo...
How did con- + sign semantically shift 🡲 to this modern sense in Commerce? Why did con- + sign shift so radically, but NOT 'sign'? In Modern English, "sign" alone doesn't possess this Comm...
What semantic notions underlie "give back" with 🢂 "make[,] or cause to be in a certain state"? 🡪 "represent, depict"? render (v.) [on Etymonline] late 14c., rendren, rendre, "repe...
Are these definitions correct? Even though p. 262 below (bottom scan) doesn't list "take up" as a meaning of assūmptiō? (13th, from Latin assūmptiō, the act of taking up, from Latin assūmere...
How did intimus "inmost, innermost, deepest" (adj.) semantically shift to 🡺 intimare "make known, announce, impress" ? These meanings are polar opposites! If something is inmost, then it's private...
So I started learning Indonesian through a Duolingo course for 2 weeks now, and I've gotten to the "Me- Verbs" part as I'm writing this question. I have already learned a few verbs from past lesso...
Isn't lībra pondō redundant? It feels pleonastic and tautological — because both lībra and pondō meant "weight" — see below. Wikipedia translates lībra pondō as "("the weight measured in libr...
What semantic notions underlie meaning 1 ("The act of coming and going") 🡺 with 5 ("Leave of absence)? Please fill in the gaps, and show the steps, between meanings 1-4 and 5? The Oxford Latin Dict...
What semantic notions underlie in- + partire 🡺 with "communicate as knowledge or information"? This semantic shift flummoxes me, because in- + partire "was not originally restricted to immaterial ...
Wiktionary asservates May be for *mītō (with lengthening of the consonant; compare mitāt), from Proto-Italic *meitō, from Proto-Indo-European *meyth₂- (“to exchange”), an extension of the root...
What semantic notions underlie "put apart" 🡺 "a transfer of title to property"? This semantic shift addles me. Why? Because "put apart" feels casual and laid-back! In modern English, "put apart" r...
What semantic notions underlie "dismiss, put away" (desmetre) 🢂 with transferring property or granting a lease (demise)? This semantic shift befuddles me, because — Humans "dismiss, put away"...
Wiktionary allegates that, for the Latin mittō (“to send”), The semantic shift from "send" to "put" probably occurred in Vulgar Latin. What semantic notions underlie "send" and "put"? I can'...
Consider the following sentences: "She was against his joining the team." "She was against his joining of the team." "She was against him joining the team." Instinctively, the first just so...
In Portuguese a male speaker thanks with an «obrigado», while a female with an «obrigada». I am reading a text (some thank you notice for buying some mass-produced industrial product with no obvio...
German has three sets of pronouns for the second person: the familiar singular (du), the familiar plural (ihr), and the polite singular or plural (Sie). The polite form is identical with the third ...
