= Linguistics == word order examples via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_order S-O-V 45% Japanese, Korean, Latin, Persian, Sanskrit, Tamil, Turkish, Telugu, Ancient Greek S-V-O 42% English V-S-O 9% Biblical Hebrew, Classical Arabic, Filipino, Māori, Welsh V-O-S 3% Fijian, Malagasy, Terêna, Car O-V-S 1% Hixkaryana, Urarina O-S-V 0% Tobati, Warao == via Guy Deutscher "Through the language glass - how words color our world" "Si vis pacem, para bellum" (Latin adage) If you want peace, prepare for war "four languages have come into the world to be used: Greek for singing, Latin for warfare, Aramaic (sursi) for lamentation, Hebrew (ivri) for speaking" (Palestinian Talmud) A hypothetical Martian anthropologist, upon studying the world's languages, would conclude that they are all dialects of a single language embodying a "universal grammar" reflecting a hardwired, genetically determined linguistic module inherent in the human brain. Hebrew (yad): hand = arm (in Archaic Hebrew the distinction existed) Hawaiian language: hand = arm = finger EN: neck := outer part between head and chest; throat := inner part between head and chest (archaic: nape = back part …) DE: Hals := front part between head and chest; Genick := back part between head and chest (not mentioned: Nacken, Rachen) Revere Perkins (1992): the more complex a society, the less complex its morphology (or equivalently "the less information is stored in a single word"); vice versa rotokas of papua-neuguinea use 6 consonants, hawaiian uses 8, !Xóõ KOH (= Taa TAH) in Botswana uses 47 but additionally 78 click sounds Jennifer Hay and Laurie Bauer (2007, stat. result): the higher the number of speakers, the vaster its sound system via Sapir (1931): EN: "the stone falls" Nootka: "[it] stones down" semitic languages inflect the verb by genus ("you think" would be different depending on the person's gender) Roman Jakobson & Franz Boas (~1958): Languages distinguish themselves mainly by what they *have* to convey, not what they *can* convey. "I spent the night with my neighbor" → EN: gender is unknown, DE (Nachbar/Nachbarin) / FR (voisin / voisine) / RU (sosed / sosedka): gender must be revealed "we are dining" (right now), "we dine" (regularly), "we dined" (one or more times in the past), "we have been dining" (several times, ongoing) … English distinguishes these cases, German cannot, in Chinese the speaker must not even reveal past or present of the action Matsés language: three forms of past tense: {up to 1 month, up to 50 years, more than 50 years} additionally it uses a system of evidentiality/certainty for expressions: {direct experience, clear indicators, suspicion, gossip} "How many women do you have?" "It has been two when I counted last" (because one might have died or alike; since they are not right next to the responder) Guugu Yimithirr: source language of the word /gaŋuru/ (kangaroo) Guugu Yimithirr: does not use egocentric coordinates (“left of you”, “right hand”, “front”, “back”) but geographic coordinates (“to the south”, “downtown”, gungga=north, jiba=south, guwa=west, naga=east) … has difficulties when something is shown in TV… descriptions are provided with coordinates based on the orientation of the TV device … same for books Tzeltal (Maya people of Mexico) … uses coordinates in relation to their valley (“downhill”, “uphill”, “transversal”) Genus: Sumerian: human versus nonhuman (difficulties with “slave”) Manambu: {male, big, long, intense, extremely dark} versus {female, small, round, sensitive, dark} Tamil ~ English Turkish, Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Indonesian, Vietnam: no genus for nouns French, Italian, Spanish, Portugese, Romanian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norvegian, Danish, Russian, Polish, Czech, Greek: unpredictable German (neutrum for females): “das Mädchen”, “das Fräulein”, “das Weib”, “das Frauenzimmer” Greek: “koritsi” (girl), “koritsaros” (strapper) DE: Messer (neu), Löffel (mal), Gabel (fem) ES: el tenedor (fork, mal), la cuchara (spoon, fem) Hebrew: Unpredictable for inanimate objects Dyribal: water → genus female, Mayali (aboriginal): water → genus vegetable, Gurrgoni: erriplen (airplane) → genus vegetable EN had a three-genus system like German until the 11th century 2002-03-20 magazine “Lloyd's List” switches from feminimum for ships to neutrum 1915 psychological experiment in Russia: {Mon, Tue, Thu} are recognized as “male”, {Wed, Fri, Sat} as female … coincides with genus of Russian different genus between German and Spanish: DE(mal) ES(fem): bridge (el puente), clock, flat, fork, newspaper, bag, shoulder, poststamp, bus ticket, violine, sun, world, love DE(fem) ES(mal): apple (la manzana), stool, broom, butterfly, key, mountain, star, desk, war, rain, trash 1990 Toshi Konishi: showed that Germans associate “strong” with masculine nouns, Spanish people associate “strong” with masculine nouns ES versus FR: la fourchette (fem) el tenedor (mal), la voiture (fem) el carro (mal), la banane (fem) el plátano (mal), le lit (mal) la cama (fem), la nuage (fem) la nube (mal), le papillon (mal) la mariposa (fem) Maria Sera et al: humanize objects on pictures for a play, shall the voice be mal/fem? EN and ES speakers picked them according to their used genus == terminology in more detail → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym#Related_terms meaning spelling pronounciation term example ≠ = = homonym fall as verb/season ≠ ≠ = heterograph their/they're ≠ = ≠ heteronym lead as noun/verb ≠ ≠ ≈ homophone bark (sound of a dog vs. skin of a tree) analizo fenomeno se oni uzas pluraj morfemoj per pluraj vortoj sintezo (grado je kiu ĝi kunigas plurajn morfemojn samvorten) fenomeno se oni uzas pluraj morfemoj per unu vorto morfemoj kiu havas la saman funkcion estas alomorfa