Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Comments on How do linguists identify the origins of verbal habits that originate from other languages?

Post

How do linguists identify the origins of verbal habits that originate from other languages?

+4
−0

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, if some speakers of Language A add an extra vowel to certain words, in a way that seems to resemble both Language B and Language C, how would a linguist determine if one, both, or neither languages were likely responsible for introducing the change?

I'm assuming that Language A has many speakers of both Languages B & C

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

1 comment thread

Inspired by the ‘r’ insertion questions (1 comment)
Inspired by the ‘r’ insertion questions
Eric Isaac‭ wrote 11 months ago

Inspired by questions here on English speakers inserting an ‘r’ into various words. While trying to answer these questions, I realized that I didn’t have a particularly rigorous way to choose between several plausible causes, and was curious what a better method may look like.