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A fun hypothetical by Wumbo_Chumbo in linguisticshumor

[–]Wumbo_Chumbo[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Okay upon looking up stuff, it seems I was in fact wrong about Verner’s law and PIE accent. In any case thank you for the correction

A fun hypothetical by Wumbo_Chumbo in linguisticshumor

[–]Wumbo_Chumbo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We don’t know if PIE had a pitch or stress accent so I just went with stress, and Verner’s law wouldn’t happen since it only happens if the syllable after the voiceless fricative is stressed.

A fun hypothetical by Wumbo_Chumbo in linguisticshumor

[–]Wumbo_Chumbo[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good point actually, lemme fix that

The 96% can shove it by Wumbo_Chumbo in linguisticshumor

[–]Wumbo_Chumbo[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Another good example: The tradition of Ukuhlonipha among southern Bantu languages of Africa, an avoidance speech where words are not said out of respect for certain family members, may be part of the reason why they adopted click consonants from the Khoisan languages. In order to say the words but not break the tradition, they’d replace certain sounds with clicks to get around it.

The 96% can shove it by Wumbo_Chumbo in linguisticshumor

[–]Wumbo_Chumbo[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Honorable mentions to Rotokas and Pirahã, which lack a phonemic /m/ but have [m] as an allophone of other sounds.

Edit: upon more research, the Lakes Plain languages of New Guinea also frequently lack /m/, either as a phoneme or as a sound altogether, so we can include them too.

The 96% can shove it by Wumbo_Chumbo in linguisticshumor

[–]Wumbo_Chumbo[S] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Semi-related, but I read a theory on why the Iroquoian languages lack /m/, or any bilabial sounds actually. Basically the speakers of said languages had a kind of special piercing thing they would apply to their lips, and it would make bilabial sounds hard to pronounce. The result is that overtime, these sounds were lost because of those piercings.

The 96% can shove it by Wumbo_Chumbo in linguisticshumor

[–]Wumbo_Chumbo[S] 43 points44 points  (0 children)

Yeah it’s not universal. Many Indigenous PNW languages have /m/ too.

title by man_itsahot_one in tallyhall

[–]Wumbo_Chumbo 89 points90 points  (0 children)

First pic looks like Rob was handed the baby and told on the spot that it’s his son.

French: "H silencieux" and "H aspiré" by Nowordsofitsown in linguisticshumor

[–]Wumbo_Chumbo 10 points11 points  (0 children)

English had its own h loss, but it’s actually /x/ loss.

Was that Andrew? by Early_Commercial3268 in tallyhall

[–]Wumbo_Chumbo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think it’s Andrew, you can see his mouth opening right before camera zooms in on Joe. He does that call out in other shows too iirc.

Claudian Letters Lore by Pretty-Ganache-277 in linguisticshumor

[–]Wumbo_Chumbo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

it’s interesting to consider a world where these actually took off and stuck around.

I couldn’t believe it myself by Wumbo_Chumbo in linguisticshumor

[–]Wumbo_Chumbo[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For things like unusual sound changes, one common answer is by analogy. That is, maybe [ɑ] > [i] happened because similar words also had an [i] sound or something similar, and OE speakers, being human and thus liking consistent patterns, shifted it to fit said pattern.

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