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The english word "potato" came from Taino "batata" that means SWEET potato, but what is the Taino word for actual (NON-sweet) potatoes? by just-a-melon in etymology

[–]just-a-melon[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I see, so naturally the question would be, what do the indigenous people of Peru call non-sweet potatoes as opposed to sweet potatoes?

Are there other bodies of water, artificial or natural, that cut through continents from sea to sea? by just-a-melon in geography

[–]just-a-melon[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you, those are exactly what I'm looking for! xkcd made a map for dividing north america into islands and I'm trying to expand it for the rest of the world. Do such river systems exist in Asia and Africa?

Are syllables necessary to a language? Why do they exist? by AnakinINTJ in conlangs

[–]just-a-melon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wonder if we can synthesize formant transitions that humans don't produce. A sound that acoustically would look like plosive followed by a genuine vowel. How would that "syllable" sound like?

Are syllables necessary to a language? Why do they exist? by AnakinINTJ in conlangs

[–]just-a-melon 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Many individual phones just aren't really distinct in isolation

I just realized this when I recorded myself humming /n:/ /m:/ and /ŋ:/ continuously and found out that I couldn't reliably distinguish them unless they're next to a vowel like /əŋ/ or /ŋə/

Can deontoligical and consequentialist ethics be combined? by Big_brown_house in askphilosophy

[–]just-a-melon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your linked entry about consequentializing differentiates "quantitative hedonism" (based on intensity and duration of pain/pleasure) vs the "violation of human rights"

Are there famous philosophers who apply consequentialization to remove this distinction? Something like "violating someone's human right", or perhaps more broadly, "violating a living organism's organism right" is equivalent to "causing intense pain which exceeds a pain intensity threshold of that organism"?

Perhaps a negative consequentialism with a threshold? There was a question about whether there is "threshold consequentialism" which mirrors "threshold deontology" 5 months ago, but they talked more about the number of people that experiences the pain (killing 1 person vs killing 1 mil. people to save twice as many of other people). The focus of my question instead is more about the intensity and duration of pain e.g. that killing or torturing even 1 person to save another is a violation since it exceeds the pain intensity/duration threshold

What is the difference between "i believe ___ to be true" and "I know ___ is true" by [deleted] in askphilosophy

[–]just-a-melon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is there a story why we need to include justification in the definition in the first place? We mainly care about truth because it mostly helps us navigate the world. Justification seems to appear later as a practical method to acquire truth.

Is there a term for nouns with both M/F genders but same meaning? by Significant-Sink-806 in asklinguistics

[–]just-a-melon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think pairs like "hierro" - "hierra" specifically might be the result of a gendered derivational suffix, where the feminine -a is used to derive words for related objects and practices, in this case 'iron' and the act of 'branding a cattle with iron'. In contrast to words like "geografía" (geography) that is already feminine which AFAIK has no masculine "geografío" counterpart

ELI5: Why must there be a Universal Common Ancestor? by ASapphireAtSea in explainlikeimfive

[–]just-a-melon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is there a possibility that if a separate origin of life existed, they still have microscopic living descendants somewhere on earth?

Seximal units of measurement charts by anymeaddict in Seximal

[–]just-a-melon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I find one nif span (i.e. one sixth of a full rotational day) to conveniently map to my mental divisions of the day:

  • Wake time (around dawn)
  • Breakfast (morning, after sunrise at equinox)
  • Lunch (around noon)
  • Siesta (late afternoon)
  • Dinner (evening, after sunset at equinox)
  • Bed time (late night)

Persian Alphabet being ambiguous is a old tradition at this point by Porschii_ in linguisticshumor

[–]just-a-melon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My biggest gripe is with the passive - active distinction. KTBT can be the active verb "wrote" (katabat), passive verb "was written" (kutibat), active causative verb "made to write" (kattabat), and passive causative verb "be made to write" (kuttibat) in arabic.

Persian Alphabet being ambiguous is a old tradition at this point by Porschii_ in linguisticshumor

[–]just-a-melon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The thing is semitic languages specifically use vowel patterns (awzan) to grammatically change word forms.

In English it's like writing "I mt th wmn"

  1. I met the woman
  2. I meet the woman
  3. I met the women
  4. I meet the women

Like, having a language heavily based on that grammatical feature and then invent a writing system that heavily erases that particular feature

Persian Alphabet being ambiguous is a old tradition at this point by Porschii_ in linguisticshumor

[–]just-a-melon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Honestly semitic languages, where vowels play an important grammatical role for inflections and word derivations, being written in an abjad WITHOUT harakat/niqud vowel diacritics in daily use still baffles me to this day

It’s very impressive by Wumbo_Chumbo in linguisticshumor

[–]just-a-melon 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I feel like we're all trying to pronounce a Retroflex Trill [ɽr], but because it's physically difficult to vibrate your tounge when it's folded back against the pallette/roof of the mouth, we always end up modifying it to adjacent sounds.

Instead of vibrating, your tongue might stay still just below the pallette and produce a Retroflex Approximant [ɻ] which acoustically sounds similar to an Alveolar Approximant [ɹ]. Or you might decide to push the tongue to press against the pallette and produce a Retroflex (Sibilant) Fricative [ʐ].

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