Armchair Linguist
@manof2moro.bsky.social
Just wandering through the ether
Thanks for sharing
November 3, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Thanks for sharing
I think you should change “speak” to “read” unless you’re referring to the all-encompassing “speak” which also includes understanding, reading, writing a language, in which case I wish there were a specific word to group all four together. There’s “know” but that seems vague.
speaking.in
November 1, 2025 at 9:19 PM
I think you should change “speak” to “read” unless you’re referring to the all-encompassing “speak” which also includes understanding, reading, writing a language, in which case I wish there were a specific word to group all four together. There’s “know” but that seems vague.
Do/did any other English verbs ending in ‘ow/e’ have a past tense form ending in ‘-ght’?
November 1, 2025 at 6:55 PM
Do/did any other English verbs ending in ‘ow/e’ have a past tense form ending in ‘-ght’?
Where does “sit” fit in all this?
October 13, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Where does “sit” fit in all this?
I wonder why we didn’t just calque it to “offsole” 🤔
October 13, 2025 at 6:29 PM
I wonder why we didn’t just calque it to “offsole” 🤔
When you say “mandatory’ and “optional” do you mean some languages were easier to be understood without the prefix or do you mean some languages had more strict standard dialects/governing bodies that made it mandatory?
September 20, 2025 at 11:36 PM
When you say “mandatory’ and “optional” do you mean some languages were easier to be understood without the prefix or do you mean some languages had more strict standard dialects/governing bodies that made it mandatory?
Could one argue that ‘ge(g)-‘ in the other west Germanic languages also doesn’t add much to the meaning of a past participle other than underscoring that the action was completed? I wonder what made English less conservative when it comes to retaining such grammatical markers
September 20, 2025 at 11:23 PM
Could one argue that ‘ge(g)-‘ in the other west Germanic languages also doesn’t add much to the meaning of a past participle other than underscoring that the action was completed? I wonder what made English less conservative when it comes to retaining such grammatical markers
Did the'i-' in 'icumen' make it to modern English? If not, what would it have become and why did English lose it?
September 20, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Did the'i-' in 'icumen' make it to modern English? If not, what would it have become and why did English lose it?
Any chance you post them online? 😅
September 4, 2025 at 7:40 AM
Any chance you post them online? 😅
Thanks for the context. It’s always fun hearing other’s perspectives on linguistic matters.
Also, you now make me want to learn Dutch!
Also, you now make me want to learn Dutch!
September 4, 2025 at 7:27 AM
Thanks for the context. It’s always fun hearing other’s perspectives on linguistic matters.
Also, you now make me want to learn Dutch!
Also, you now make me want to learn Dutch!
It’s hard to argue against English being one of, if not the most, forgiving languages when it comes to not adhering to grammar rules.
I didn’t think about the frequency side of it. That definitely plays a part!
I didn’t think about the frequency side of it. That definitely plays a part!
September 4, 2025 at 6:49 AM
It’s hard to argue against English being one of, if not the most, forgiving languages when it comes to not adhering to grammar rules.
I didn’t think about the frequency side of it. That definitely plays a part!
I didn’t think about the frequency side of it. That definitely plays a part!
I don’t think you’d last a day in Germany or any Slavic country for that matter without all of those grammatical features I mentioned. Idk about the UK or Australia, but people can have fulfilling careers and even lives only speaking broken/substandard English in many parts of the US, Canada & India
September 4, 2025 at 6:43 AM
I don’t think you’d last a day in Germany or any Slavic country for that matter without all of those grammatical features I mentioned. Idk about the UK or Australia, but people can have fulfilling careers and even lives only speaking broken/substandard English in many parts of the US, Canada & India
Tenses might be complex to master but any native speaker can fully understand broken English (minimal tenses, nonstandard word order, no articles, lack of plural markers, omission of the copula, etc.) with ease. And spelling has nothing to do with one’s ability to become fluent in a language
September 4, 2025 at 6:26 AM
Tenses might be complex to master but any native speaker can fully understand broken English (minimal tenses, nonstandard word order, no articles, lack of plural markers, omission of the copula, etc.) with ease. And spelling has nothing to do with one’s ability to become fluent in a language
Wasn't 'felis' the original Latin word for cat?
September 4, 2025 at 5:06 AM
Wasn't 'felis' the original Latin word for cat?
Coincidentally, right after my response, the messenger app asked if I wanted to "bubble" my conversation. Hence re/unbubble and the adjective bubbled can also be coined. What other language can one take the default noun and use it as a verb and adjective willy nilly and it still be understandable?
September 4, 2025 at 5:04 AM
Coincidentally, right after my response, the messenger app asked if I wanted to "bubble" my conversation. Hence re/unbubble and the adjective bubbled can also be coined. What other language can one take the default noun and use it as a verb and adjective willy nilly and it still be understandable?
Is it safe to say whatever would’ve been the most spoken language of NA would’ve become the lingua Franca?
September 4, 2025 at 12:12 AM
Is it safe to say whatever would’ve been the most spoken language of NA would’ve become the lingua Franca?
That’s one in a million nowadays
September 3, 2025 at 11:07 PM
That’s one in a million nowadays
T and SS also need I to represent the sh sound in -tion and -ssion!
September 3, 2025 at 11:05 PM
T and SS also need I to represent the sh sound in -tion and -ssion!
Being genderless is one of the reasons English is the lingua Franca. One learns a noun and *poof* you can now use it however you like. Add ‘-(e)s’ to make it plural and ‘-ed’ to make it a past tense verb/adjective
September 3, 2025 at 10:59 PM
Being genderless is one of the reasons English is the lingua Franca. One learns a noun and *poof* you can now use it however you like. Add ‘-(e)s’ to make it plural and ‘-ed’ to make it a past tense verb/adjective
Doesn’t the same happen with the romance words for cat and dog?
September 3, 2025 at 10:46 PM
Doesn’t the same happen with the romance words for cat and dog?
All the terms we use for tenses and moods would make more sense if we used English-derived terms instead!
September 3, 2025 at 10:41 PM
All the terms we use for tenses and moods would make more sense if we used English-derived terms instead!
The prevalence of creative spellings in the 21st century makes it to where a traditional name with previously set spelling can now have the most out of pocket spelling you can think of, perhaps even supplanting original spellings in decades time: Britnee, Kristafer, Josif, Jazmin, Jaymee, Mykle, etc
September 3, 2025 at 10:09 PM
The prevalence of creative spellings in the 21st century makes it to where a traditional name with previously set spelling can now have the most out of pocket spelling you can think of, perhaps even supplanting original spellings in decades time: Britnee, Kristafer, Josif, Jazmin, Jaymee, Mykle, etc
And then there’s the name “Leigh”
September 3, 2025 at 9:50 PM
And then there’s the name “Leigh”
In 100 years English might be more like a character-based language where pronunciation and spelling are so different that each word’s spelling has to be memorized individually like a character has to be memorized in Mandarin. This is most likely a stretch but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened
September 3, 2025 at 9:49 PM
In 100 years English might be more like a character-based language where pronunciation and spelling are so different that each word’s spelling has to be memorized individually like a character has to be memorized in Mandarin. This is most likely a stretch but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened
Are examples of this in Romance languages the Spanish verb ‘soler’ and the French verb ‘falloir’?
September 3, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Are examples of this in Romance languages the Spanish verb ‘soler’ and the French verb ‘falloir’?