General Q&A about specific languages, language in general, and linguistics.
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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...
When I first moved to Israel, one of the first things I was warned about was using the word "maniac". As an American, this is considered a very minor insult - minor enough for little kids to use wi...
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...
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...
Why did historical linguists impute propitius to PIE *per-1? What semantic notions underlie them? All boldenings are mine. propitiation (n.) late 14c., propiciacioun, "atonement, expiation," fr...
THEMES and PATIENTS are rather similar, and not all linguists distinguish between these roles. A THEME typically moves from one location or one person to another, like the letter in (31...
Isn't "the idea of dressing one’s capital up in different clothes by putting it into a particular business, stock, etc" batty? This semantic relationship would never cross the mind of an amateur re...
Some people use they/them if they can't identity gender/sex (gender and sex isn't same). But when mentioning a single person should we use plural pronoun? We know that "they/them" is plural form. ...
Pretend that you're Devil's Advocate. 1. How can you possibly contend that fulsome is "a case of ironic understatement"? What's ironic? What's fulsome understating? "fulsome" feels r...
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...
What does the prefix ad- semantically mean here? How did the compounding of ad- + rogare yield 'to make great claims about oneself' and "to claim for oneself, assume"? What semantic n...
As you can read below, emō meant to take, buy, gain, procure. But perimō meant to destroy and annihilate. Plainly, their meanings differ! So why was perimō formed from emō and compounded with per-?...
In normed Finnish language hän (he/she) refers to people, while se (it) refers to non-people. However, in spoken language, at least in many dialects, se is used also for people. (Both hän and se ar...
Most reliable sources say that the Arabic-derived "djinni" is a singular word and its plural is "djinn." (Or "jinni" and "jinn," if you prefer.) The dropping of a final letter or syllable to plural...
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...
I inquire about Languages or language families in which, in general / in flowing conversion there is no plural ; from a bit of read I understand that both Mandarin and Japanese are such language; t...
Malay languages or Indonesian languages --- which is more close to Philippine languages? I don't know much about any so I would not make any assumptions.
The Tironian et was a scribal abbreviation for the Latin word et; it was used for centuries across Europe, but finally died out and was replaced with & in almost all languages. The exception wa...
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...
What is the difference between a guild and a lodge? The context to this question is pretty much Freemasonry terminology but please feel free to answer with a general English context.
How did the adverb vērum semantically shift from "truly" to mean 'but, yet, however'? These 2 senses look completely unrelated to me! Oxford Latin Dictionary (2012 2 ed), pp 2254-5.
Is it true to say that Lao script is a simplified version of the Thai script? A criteria might be: Fewer letters Fewer diacritics Fewer tone markers More reforms over the years (possibly due...
Replying to the last edit (#4)... Since it language related site hence I am asking the question by creating new Q rather than commenting there. The earlier title was Is using plural form for sin...
Kindly see the embolded phrase below. Etymonline is written too abstrusely. issue [13] The words issue and exit are closely related etymologically. Both go back ultimately to the Latin v...
What does "phoolon" mean in Hindi? Google translate said that it means flower. But, I know that "ful" means flower. phoolon word is new to me. I guess, it is not usable nowadays,is it?
What are the exceptions to the fact that most Asian, Middle Eastern and European languages greet with words anent health or peace? I know that "salutation" itself meant "health". Why don'...
I think that in most languages, when people define sets of data in general and when people create taxonomy for website webpages in particular (webpage categorization), they would mostly name catego...
Is there any country in South America in which Spanish and/or Portuguese aren't dominant? (excluding the Caribbean's but not excluding any other island around South America).
I do a research on Swedish verbs with the meaning of mixing something. I struggle with some of words. There are two words 'blanda' and 'röra' which are usually used with prepositions, like 'om', 'i...
Why did historical linguists impute saeculum to PIE *se-? What semantic notions underlie them? All boldenings are mine. secular (adj) c. 1300, "living in the world, not belonging to a religious...
As we know have is verb and auxiliary also. What should I say when I have to use have in present perfect tense (sentence). Usually, what came to my mind that is Have you have it? (completely wro...
What is the most dominant Arabic dialect in Horn of Africa region? Egyptian Arabic dialect? Sudanic Arabic dialect? Somali Arabic dialect? Some other Arabic dialect?
Etymonline's entries for the homonyms "counter" don't semantically appertain to its meaning in typography. How does "counter" in typography relate to the common lay English 2021 meanings of "co...
What is ทำดีได้อย่าเด่นจะเป็นภัย in Thai? I find the structure of this sentence a bit odd. If I break it down: ทำ ดี ได้ This means "Doing good order" (the action of doing good in some contex...
If I understand correctly both Vietnamese lệnh ("ley") and Thai เลย ("l'ey") are vague in both languages in the sense that they can have various meanings which depend on context but generally used ...
I recently stumbled upon this wikipedia page and it got me thinking. Take a look at the following table (terms are lifted from the Wikipedia page) W (interrogative) H (proximal) T (medial)...
I ask about its meaning merely for stocks here (not Equity = Assets — Liabilities). See Personal Finance For Canadians For Dummies (2018), p 217. Equity — not to be confused with equity in real ...
I knew merely the first most popular meaning of negotiate. I never knew this second legal meaning A document of an amount of money, or a title, which is readily transferable to another. Diff...
I quote Etymonline on impute (v.): early 15c., from Old French imputer, emputer (14c.) and directly from Latin imputare "to reckon, make account of, charge, ascribe," from assimilated form of ...
I can read Russian, and the character that interests me most is Ь. In other words, the soft sign as it's called. I know other languages also has this but I got this from Russian so I'll focus on th...
What semantic notions underlie less than and IF NOT? How did less than semantically shift to mean IF NOT in at least these 5 languages? Just edit this post if you pine to add other languages with t...
Recently, I read the phrase "Us neither", and for some reason it irked me. I don't know why though, since I can't immediately say what exactly is wrong with it. Logically, "Me neither" and "Neither...
I quote the OED 's etymology for the adverb inasmuch. originally 3 words in as much (in northern Middle English in als mikel), subsequently sometimes written as 2 words, in asmuch, and now (espe...
This French StackExchange post merely paraprhased "histoire de/que" as afin de / afin que, meaning pour / pour que — all this can be translated as "in order to/that" in English. But nobody in fact...
In an examination in my country (India) I had a multiple choice question on the order of pronouns. Q: Please try to remember when I, you and my wife were talking there. Options: A. you, I and ...
There's a list of certain letters in Hebrew that have a different form if they're at the end of a word - much like capital letters at the beginning of a sentence in English, but only for specific l...
I don't understand the "semantic progression" that I emboldened. The steps in the "semantic progression" feel farfetched and unconnected to me. Can someone please fill in, and elaborate, the steps...
Here are two claims I've often heard or read: The Hebrew language originally did not write down vowels. The Greek (and subsequently the Latin) alphabet developed from the Hebrew alphabet....
Here I ask merely ask about Equity = Assets — Liabilities here, not its meaning as stock. 1. Why was 'equity' was adopted to describe this difference? equity: In the real-estate world, this ter...
What did the etymons of "on by out", "on by up", "on by over" mean? Why did Old English tack and jam these different prepositions together? E.g. didn't ufan alone mean "above"? Why prefix...
