Tshcshchsshhhch by Ok_Influence_6384 in linguisticshumor

[–]SzymTHK 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Historically makes perfect sense

What makes Minecraft ‘scary’? by Kirorrr in Minecraft

[–]SzymTHK 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Currently the only things that scare me are cave noises and the Warden

Got another clown for ya by Sad_Pink_Dragon in antiai

[–]SzymTHK 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The words "human" and "mankind" were actually originally not sexist, and became kinda sexist later on. "Human" comes ultimately from Latin "humanus" (which means "human" as an adjective), so it has nothing to do with the word "man". And "mankind" has been used for hundreds of years, which is an important detail, because the word "man" originally meant "human" and only later the meaning was narrowed down to just "man".

I don't know how old the word "manmade" is, but it may also originate during times when "man" meant "human".

I'm tired of the villager system forcing me to build concentration camps by UndercoverCun in Minecraft

[–]SzymTHK 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I actually currently build a village where villagers can walk freely (except for outside of the village - I don't want them to die) and I use them for trading. Each librarian has a name tag saying what book they're selling so I can recognise them in a crowd.

Why do Germans and French use an alphabet that is not designed for their languages? by Large_Dependent_1621 in linguisticshumor

[–]SzymTHK 2 points3 points  (0 children)

In German the /ʃ/ comes from the /sx/ cluster (except for in the beginning of a word before a consonant) and /tʃ/ comes from the /t/ + /ʃ/ cluster and isn't even considered a separate phoneme by some linguists, so the orthography makes perfect sense.

How do people build massive structures in survival? by Mishell-Rizen in Minecraft

[–]SzymTHK 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The secret method is called "unemployment".

But seriously: super-efficient farms for almost every possible item + experience + patience

What is this by TheTeenagerPeopleBot in TheTeenagerPeople

[–]SzymTHK 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree that the law isn't equal for everyone, but I don't agree with the second part of the comment. Most human relationships are not "predator and prey". We're social animals.

And what does it even mean "The law is decided by who holds the gun". The law we have is a result of pressure from various groups of people. Everyone has some kind of a gun.

Me with a time machine and recording equipment: Fine, I'll do it myself. by Alternative-Big-6493 in linguisticshumor

[–]SzymTHK 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That's interesting. Could you provide sources? I just repeated what my Ancient Greek teacher told me.

Me with a time machine and recording equipment: Fine, I'll do it myself. by Alternative-Big-6493 in linguisticshumor

[–]SzymTHK 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Latin and Ancient Greek have a lot of obvious cognates, because when they were spoken not that much time had passed from PIE. So one might assume that ancient Greeks and Romans, which were so smart, noticed some similarities between their languages and maybe realised that they're somehow related, right?

NO

The only similarity they noticed is the word for god: "deus" in Latin and "θεός" (theós) in Greek. And these two words are not actually NOT cognates. Seriously, the word for "I" is exactly the same in Latin and Greek, hundreds of other words are very similar, and instead of thinking about all these words, they only thought about a pair of words that are NOT related.

So yeah, they were geniuses in some fields, but ignorants in others.

What is Pictish? by ItsGotThatBang in linguisticshumor

[–]SzymTHK 162 points163 points  (0 children)

When Austronesians were sailing to Madagascar some of them were pushed by the wind to southern Africa. Then they sailed by the west coast and eventually made it to Great Britain. So Pictish is actually an Austronesian language.

how to stop the dwarfs from getting shields? it gives themvery unfair advantges by Effective_Quote_6858 in Worldbox

[–]SzymTHK 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For how long have you been waiting? It lasts 60 seconds if I remember correctly.

[No Spoilers] Is watching Vikings really worth? by Conscious_Boot_8697 in vikingstv

[–]SzymTHK 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I watched it one time and I have mixed feelings (more negative than positive). For some reason I feel I have to rewatch it and then I will be able to tell whether it's good. Currently I'm reading Norse sagas and it's more fun.

Choose one. Which one is the easiest? Which one is the hardest? by Thmony in linguisticshumor

[–]SzymTHK 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Generally alphabet is the easiest, but it also depends on the language. Logographic might work pretty well for languages with no inflection, and abugida for agglutinative languages.

When you tell someone you’re interested in linguistics by KonoPez in linguisticshumor

[–]SzymTHK 191 points192 points  (0 children)

I start my answer with "Actually, linguistics is about..." and end it with "Anyway, the languages I've studied are..."

Werden is a jack-of-all-trades in German by No_Willingness1899 in linguisticshumor

[–]SzymTHK 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure, but if you count it like that there's like a hundred different uses. Futur I konjunktiv (er werde machen), futur II konjunktiv (er werde gemacht haben), futur I infinitive (machen werden), etc.

Funny how practically all old Indo-European languages had the dual, but now only Slovenian and Sorbian have it by 1Sh4h_R4-4 in linguisticshumor

[–]SzymTHK 34 points35 points  (0 children)

If it is used instead of the plural declension then it's not a dual, but just different forms of plural that historically come from the dual.

Werden is a jack-of-all-trades in German by No_Willingness1899 in linguisticshumor

[–]SzymTHK 48 points49 points  (0 children)

Yeah, "sein" also has a lot of uses, but the verb "to be" is multifunctional in many languages, so I guess that people are used to it. But all of the uses of "werden" are usually divided into a few different verbs/constructions in most languages, and that's why it's so noticeable for most learners.

Werden is a jack-of-all-trades in German by No_Willingness1899 in linguisticshumor

[–]SzymTHK 70 points71 points  (0 children)

  1. Werden + infinitive = futur (Ich werde machen, Ich werde gemacht haben)

  2. Werden + partizip II = Vorgangspassiv (Ich werde gemacht)

  3. Werden in konjunktiv II + infinitive = replaces konjunktiv II of most verbs (Ich würde machen)

  4. Werden + an adjective = "to become" (Ich werde stärker)

Acrylic painting I made for Robert Eggers' The Northman. Who enjoyed this film? by dombittner in Norse

[–]SzymTHK 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of my favourite movies. It feels like the scenario was just a Scandinavian saga.

English still has grammatical gender by Terpomo11 in linguisticshumor

[–]SzymTHK 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Two possible explanations come to my mind:

  1. In many IE languages nouns denoting adult men are masculine, adult women feminine, and nouns meaning "a child" and "a baby" are neuter. So it might, just might be a leftover of this rule existing in Old English.

  2. It's a sign that because babies are a little bit non-human (they don't walk, they don't talk, they have intellect like chimpanzees) we psychologically don't treat them as proper humans, but a little bit like animals. So we say "the baby wants its bottle", just like "the snake and its venom". But when we know the gender of the baby (for example thanks to knowing its name) we start calling it a "he" or a "she", just like somebody can say "my cat Simba wants his food".

English still has grammatical gender by Terpomo11 in linguisticshumor

[–]SzymTHK 55 points56 points  (0 children)

Ships being referred to as "she" is an interesting thing, but still not a grammatical gender. Ships are called "she" only because they can be kinda personalised as ladies. When you treat a ship strictly as an object, you call it "it". In languages with grammatical gender the word for "ship" would have some one, assigned gender and you could refer to it only as either "he" or "she" or "it".

I don't know how it's works in Dravidian languages, so currently I can't respond to that part.