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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?
In many Germanic and Finno-ugric languages there are many compound words. One does not write "yhdys sana", but rather "yhdyssana". Learning to write these correctly is notoriously hard for people, ...
In English, at least in USA, people write $3 and mean three dollars (rather than dollars three), while other units are written after the number; no c99, h13, min22, '5, etc. to be seen. Why is it $...
I think questions about linguistics as applied to a language one is constructing (or has come across) should be on-topic as linguistics questions. For example: "Here's a description of how noun cas...
In English certain pairs words can be contracted with an apostrophe, such as "I've" (I have). I don't know if there are strong rules for which words can be combined in this way and which can't. I...
It is often said that Japanese doesn't really have a pronoun word class, such as in the Wikipedia article on Japanese Grammar: Although many grammars and textbooks mention pronouns (代名詞 daimeish...
As we have set up communities here on the Codidact network we've been appointing temporary moderators. Ultimately, of course, we want each community to choose its own moderators; we've been doing ...
tl;dr, English just borrowed other languages' suffixes I shouldn't really come as too much of a surprise to know that the irregularity comes from borrowing endings from multiple different language...
This site is young and asking some questions and seeing how they end up received is a good way to judge what kind of coverage can be found here. That said, questions entirely disconnected from a m...
I nominate Moshi, since they are an active member, and consistently post well written questions and answers to this forum. I think they will be a good fit for the moderator role.
It's built just like the normal present perfect. I have had it. Have you had it?
Languages & Linguistics has been getting some questions about relatively basic issues in the English language. There's nothing wrong with these questions as such, but they don't really fit the ...
It is tempting for a foreigner, but perhaps not accurate to identify "Sie" as the polite (respectful) pronoun and to identify "du" as the impolite (less respectful) one, and it could be more accura...
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...
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...
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...
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...
After getting various inputs, I can offer a partial answer to my own question. I'm not a native speaker, so feel free to offer a better one. The explanation Duden offers covers most of the bases. ...
Deciphering a language which has left behind only a limited number of very short texts is hard. There are lots of undeciphered ancient languages; for additional distraction, some of those scripts ...
This is the kind of question there's more than one correct answer to. Most trained linguists will tell you to do whatever is most natural or whatever everyone else does. They tend to be a descripti...
I'm a native Swede but not exactly a grammar wizard. "kommit" is past participle for the verb komma: "komma" = to arrive "kom" = arrived "har kommit" = have arrived In order to say "I have arrive...
In Arabic the word مُسَدَّس refers to pistol when an arm is meant (see here on wikipedia). But it also refers to a hexagon (see here on wikipedia) -also سداسي أضلاع or سداسي- as it is a description...
I've often seen that "we can only look back in time a short distance in linguistics". What prevents linguistics from deducing information far in the past? Is this limit something that can be pushed...
A major aspect to some people of building imaginary worlds is to come up with an artificial language for the people in that world; often referred to as "conlangs" for "constructed languages". Are q...
Finally, I have found a book which explicitly mentions that it is a matter of manner. It says: a. Good manners require that the order of singular pronouns should be second person, third person ...
