languagesandlinguistics reblogged
Great tiktok memes with Marco Mengoni’s sanremo song ahahaha mi sento così quando arriva un’email 2 minuti prima della fine della giornata e voglio partire like noo i want to LEAVE
languagesandlinguistics reblogged
But there was a period of friction, when “hello” was spreading beyond its summoning origins to become a general-purpose greeting, and not everyone was a fan. I was reminded of this when watching a scene in the BBC television series Call the Midwife, set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, where a younger midwife greets an older one with a cheerful “Hello!” “When I was in training,” sniffs the older character, “we were always taught to say ‘good morning,’ ‘good afternoon,’ or ‘good evening.’ ‘Hello’ would not have been permitted.” To the younger character, “hello” has firmly crossed the line into a phatic greeting. But to the older character, or perhaps more accurately to her instructors as a young nurse, “hello” still retains an impertinent whiff of summoning. Etiquette books as late as the 1940s were still advising against “hello,” but in the mouth of a character from the 1960s, being anti-hello is intended to make her look like a fussbudget, especially playing for an audience of the future who’s forgotten that anyone ever objected to “hello.”
Because Internet, Gretchen McCulloch
official linguistics post
languagesandlinguistics reblogged
my friend and i were going to study a language together and wound up having to cancel our plans due to scheduling pressures, but! through research we came across a really cool resource for reading in a TON of languages: bloom library!
as you can see, it has a lot of books for languages that are usually a bit harder to find materials for—we were going to use it for kyrgyz, for example, which has over 1000 books, which was really hard to find textbook materials for otherwise. as you can see it also has books with audio options, which would be really useful for pronunciation checking. as far as i can tell, everything on the site is free as well.
languagesandlinguistics reblogged
Se vi interessano serie per ragazz* recitate da persone neurodivergenti sui temi dell'inclusione, dell'autismo, dell'amicizia e della caccia alle streghe, vi consiglio "una specie di scintilla" che potete trovare su Raiplay. Potete guardarla senza bisogno di creare un account: vi basta avere una vpn Italiana. Stessa cosa vale per alcune delle altre serie linkate qui sotto ed anche alcuni film per ragazzi/bambini (qui: per esempio Mister Link e Pinocchio). Per capire quale è disponibile senza log in, vi basta cliccare sulla serie/film che vi interessa e su "riproduci": se parte senza darvi alcuna schermata ulteriore, è tutta vostra.
Unica nota negativa: non ci sono sottotitoli in inglese o altre lingue straniere (o almeno non dappertutto), per cui se la vostra conoscenza dell'italiano è molto basica, vi consiglio di partire dai cartoni per più piccoli.
languagesandlinguistics reblogged
Look, I knew five languages by age 19 and now I am learning like 3 more. I work as a language instructor and a consultant. If I can give language learners only one advice, this is it.
STOP LEARNING WORDS ON ITS OWN.
You're doing yourself a disservice by learning lists of "30 words you must know!" "100 most common words!" like it literally means nothing if you cannot use those words in an appropriate context with proper grammar. So what you actually need to do is learn those words via example sentences.
languagesandlinguistics reblogged
probably i just said it but i want to say it again:
- don’t apologise if you don’t know english.
- yes, english is the most common language on the internet but you are not forced to know it perfectly.
- your own language is beautiful.
- non-english people make a huge effort to write in English everyday on this website.
- support non-english people and don’t make them feel bad if they do not know English.
- actually support all the languages.
- spread more language diversity on Tumblr.
thank you.
Probabilmente l’ho già detto, ma voglio ribadirlo:
- non scusarti se non conosci l’inglese
- è vero, l’inglese è la lingua più comune su internet, ma non sei obbligato/a a conoscerlo perfettamente
- la tua lingua è bella
- i non anglofoni si sforzano molto ogni giorno a scrivere in inglese su questo sito
- sostieni i non anglofoni e non scoraggiarli se non conoscono l’inglese
- sostieni tutte le lingue
- sostieni la diversità linguistica su Tumblr
Grazie.
athenastudying
Wahrscheinlich habe ich es schon gesagt, aber ich sage es nochmal:
- Entschuldige dich nicht, wenn du kein Englisch kannst.
- Ja, Englisch ist vielleicht die am meisten gesprochene Sprache im Internet, aber du bist nicht dazu gezwungen, es perfekt zu sprechen.
- Deine Muttersprache ist wertvoll
- Leute, deren Muttersprache nicht Englisch ist, geben sich jeden Tag die größte Mühe, auf dieser Webseite Englisch zu benutzen
- Unterstützt Leute, deren Muttersprache nicht Englisch ist, und macht euch nicht über sie lustig, wenn sie kein Englisch sprechen.
- Unterstützt alle Sprachen
- Setzt euch für mehr Sprachenvielfalt auf Tumblr ein
Danke. :)
- ne vous excusez pas si vous ne connaissez pas l'anglais. - oui, l'anglais est la langue la plus utilisée sur Internet mais vous n'êtes pas obligé de la connaître parfaitement.
- vos langue maternelle est belle.
- les non-anglophones font un effort énorme pour écrire en anglais tous les jours sur ce site.
- soutenez les non-anglophones et ne leur faites pas sentir mal s’ils ne connaissent pas l’anglais.
- supporte toutes les langues.
- Parlez de plus de diversité linguistique sur Tumblr.
merci :)
Ik heb het waarschijnlijk al eerder gezegd maar ik wil het nogmaals zeggen:
- Zeg geen sorry als je geen Engels spreekt.
- Ja, Engels is de meest gebruikte taal op het internet maar je hoeft het niet perfect te kennen.
- Jou eigen taal is prachtig.
- Niet-Engelstalige mensen doen enorm hun best om elke dag Engels te schrijven op deze site.
- Moedig niet-Engelstalige mensen aan en geef hen geen slecht gevoel over het feit dat ze geen Engels spreken.
- Eigenlijk, moedig alle talen aan.
- Verspreid meer diversiteit in talen op Tumblr!
Dank je wel.
baionikkuthedragon
Probablemente ya lo haya dicho, pero quiero volver a decirlo.
- No te disculpes si no sabes inglés.
- Es verdad que el inglés es el idioma más hablado en internet, pero no estás obligado a hablarlo perfectamente.
- Tu idioma nativo es hermoso.
- La gente que no habla inglés como idioma nativo hace un gran esfuerzo para hablarlo todos los días en esta página web.
- Apoya a la gente que no sepa hablar inglés y no les hagas sentir mal si no saben hablarlo a la perfección.
- Apoya todos los idiomas.
- Apoya la diversidad lingüistica en Tumblr.
Muchas gracias.
也许我刚刚说过，但是我想再说一遍：
- 你不需要为不懂英语道歉
- 是的，英语是互联网上最普遍使用的语言，但是你不必毫无差错地了解它
- 你自己的语言是美丽的
- 非英语人士每天都在这个网站上很努力地写作
- 支持非英语人士，如果他们不懂英语，不要让他们为难
- 实际上，支持所有语言
- 在汤不热上传播语言多样性
谢谢
я это по-моему уже сказал ну я хочу сказать опять:
- не извиняйтесь если вы не понимаете английский язык.
- да, английский самый популярный язык на интернете, но вам не надо её знать отлично.
- ваш собственный язык прекрасный.
- люди которые не разговаривают по английскому языку сильно пробуют писать по ему здесь каждый день.
- поддерживаете других, и не оскорбляйте их если они не умеют разговаривать по английскиму.
- на самом деле, поддерживаете все языка
- позвольте большему количеству языков существовать на этом сайте.
благодарю. 💖
(извините за грамматические ошибки; русский не мой основной язык)
Jag har antagligen sagt det men jag vill säga det igen:
- be inte om ursäkt om du inte kan engelska.
- ja, engelska är det vanligaste språket på internet men du är inte tvungen att kunna det perfekt.
- ditt eget språk är vackert.
- icke-engelspråkiga personer gör en stor ansträngning varje dag för att skriva på engelska på den här sajten.
- stöd icke-engelspråkiga personer och behandla dem inte nedlåtande om de inte kan engelska.
- faktum är att du bör stödja all språk
- försök sprida mer språk-variation på Tumblr
Tack.
southsidesarcasticwriter
Вероятно го казах, но искам да го кажа отново:
- Не се извинявайте, ако не знаете английски.
- Да, английският е най-често срещаният език в интернет, но не сте длъжни да го знаете перфектно.
- Вашият собствен език е красив.
- Хората, които не говорят английски като роден език, влагат огромни усилия да пишат на английски всеки ден на този уебсайт.
- Подкрепяйте не-англоговорящите хора и не ги карайте да се чувстват зле, ако не знаят английски.
- Всъщност, подкрепяйте всички езици.
- Разпространете разнообразието на повече езици в Tumblr.
Благодаря!💕
ohnomybladder
prawdopodobnie już to powiedziałem, ale wspomnę raz jeszcze:
- nie przepraszaj, jeśli nie znasz angielskiego
- tak, angielski to najbardziej rozpowszechniony język w internecie, ale nie zmusza cię to do znania go perfekcyjnie
- twój własny język jest piękny
- osoby, których językiem ojczystym nie jest angielski, podejmują ogromny wysiłek, pisząc w języku angielskim na tej stronie
- wspieraj osoby, których językiem ojczystym nie jest angielski i nie sprawiaj, że czują się gorzej jeśli go nie znają
- wlasciwie, wspieraj wszystkie języki
- rozpowszechniaj różnorodność językową na tumblrze!
dziękuję
I’m going to use “official language” for this, anyone who knows Finnish knows that spoken and written are completely different
Varmaan jo sanoin tämän, mutta haluan sanoa uudelleen
- Älä pyydä anteeksi ettet osaa englantia
- totta, englanti on internetin yleisin kieli mutta sinun ei ole pakko osata sitä täydellisesti
- Oma kielesi on kaunis
- ei-englanninkieliset ihmiset tekevät suuren teon joka päivä kirjoittamalla englanniksi tälle nettisivulle
- tue ei-englanninkielisiä ihmisiä äläkä loukkaa heitä, jos he eivät osaa englantia
- tue kaikkia kieliä
- Levitä kielten moninaisuutta Tumblrissa
Kiitos
ฉันอาจจะพูดไปแล้ว แต่ให้ฉันได้พูดอีกครั้งเถอะ :
- อย่าขอโทษถ้าคุณไม่รู้ภาษาอังกฤษเลย
- ภาษาอังกฤษเป็นภาษาที่พบเห็นได้เยอะที่สุดในอินเตอร์เน็ท แต่คุณไม่จำเป็นต้องรู้ไปทั้งหมด
- ภาษาของคุณสวยงามในตัวของมันอยู่แล้ว
- คนที่ไม่ใช่คนอังกฤษนั้นต้องใช้ความพยายามอย่างมากในการสื่อสารด้วยภาษาอังกฤษในทุกวันนี้
- จงสนับสนุนพวกเขาและอย่าให้พวกเขาต้องรู้สึกแย่ที่ใช้ภาษาอังกฤษได้ไม่ดี
- สนับสนุนภาษาทั้งหมดด้วยใจจริง
- ช่วยเผยแพร่ความหลากหลายของภาษาให้กระจายออกไปในทัมเบลอร์
ขอบคุณ
Segur aski jadanik esan dut, baina berriro esan nahi dut:
- barkamenik ez eskatu ingelesez ez jakiteagatik
- bai, ingelesa interneteko hizkuntza ohikoena da baina ez duzu perfektoki jakin behar.
- zeure hizkuntza ederra da.
- ingelesez ez dakitenek ahalegin handia egiten dute egunero webgune honetan ingelesez idazten.
- lagun iezaiezue ingelesez ez dakitenei eta txarto ez sentiarazi ingelesez baldin ez badakite.
- hizkuntza guztiak benetan bermatu.
- indartu hizkuntza aniztasuna Tumblr-en.
Eskerrik asko.
قبلا هم اینو گفتم اما میخوام دوباره بگم:
-اگه انگلیسی بلد نیستید عذر خواهی نکنید.
-درسته، انگلیسی رایج ترین زبان تو اینترنته اما مجبور نیستی که کامل و بی نقص بلد باشیش.
-زبان خودتون زیباست.
-افراد غیر انگلیسی زبان زیادی هر روز سخت تلاش می کنند که رو سایت انگلیسی بنویسن.
-افراد غیر انگلیسی زبان رو حمایت کنید و برای اینکه انگلیسی بلد نیستن تمسخرشون نکنید.
-در واقع از همه زبان ها حمایت کنین.
-تنوع زبان ها رو تو تامبلر ترویج بدین.
Was low-key nervous as hell writing this in my native language lol
yu-2-ri-txt
Here’s another version but in the Arabic I know:
المحتمل أََني قُلت هذا الكلام من قبل ولكن اوريد أنا أقوله مجدداً :
-لا تتأسف إن كنت لا تعرف اللغة الإنجليزية
-نعم، اللغة الإنجليزية لغة مشتركة علي الإنترنت، ولكن أنت ليس مفروض عليك أن تعرفها تماما.
- لغتك جميلة.
-الذين ليسوا الانجليزيين يقومون بجهد كبير لكتابة الانجليزيه علي هذا الموقع.
- إِدْعَم من ليسوا الانجليزيين ، ولا تجعلهم يشعرون بسوء لأنهم لا يعرفون الانجليزيه.
-في الواقع إدعموا كل اللغات.
- إنشروا تنوع اللغات علي تامبلر.
شكرا 💝
Wow, this was a bit hard for some words.
Poate deja am spus, dar vreau să mai spun încă o dată.
- Nu te scuza dacă nu cunoști engleza
- Da, engleza este cea mai comună limbă de pe internet, dar nu trebuie să o cunoști perfect
- Limba ta este frumoasă
- Vorbitorii non-englezi se străduiesc în fiecare zi să scrie în engleză pe acest site
- Sprijineste vorbitorii care nu sunt englezi și nu-i descuraja dacă nu știu engleza
- Acceptă toate limbile
- Susține diversitatea lingvistică pe Tumblr
Mulțumesc. ☺
entrada lingüistica oficial
languagesandlinguistics reblogged
I'm gonna reblog with some videos of people speaking various American Indian/indigenous American languages, because I think most people don't even know what they sound like. Not to be judgement of that—just, you know, I think people who want to be informed should know what they sound like!
Former president of the Navajo Nation, Joe Shirley, giving an address in Navajo.
Nora Marks Dauenhauer telling a story, "Raven and Deer", in Tlingit.
Albert White Hat, a well known Lakota teacher, translator, and activist, speaking Lakota.
This YouTube user, Grahm Wiley-Camacho, has uploaded a bunch of videos in Colville Okanagan Salish, but I'm not sure who all the speakers are.
Multiple people speaking Cherokee and talking about revitalization of the language.
This guy speaking Yucatec Maya (guest starring: adorable small child).
There's a ton of material in Greenlandic on YouTube, but it's hard for me to find, because the titles and other metadata are also in Greenlandic! Of course, this represents a huge win for the language, since this is a biproduct of being in vibrant use by a community of speakers. Greenlandic has been an official language of the territory of Greenland since 1979, and the sole official language since 2009.
Here are some proceedings of the Greenlandic parliament, the Inatsisartut, which are conducted in Greenlandic.
Here is a radio show in Greenlandic, from Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa.
And here is a video of Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam, Greenlandic MP in the Danish parliament (Folketing), causing some upset by speaking in Greenlandic instead of Danish.
Conversation between Loran Thompson and Francis Boots in Mohawk.
Interview with Yup'ik elder Raphael Jimmy about qaneryaraq "words of wisdom/right living".
official linguistics post
languagesandlinguistics reblogged
ok, this is amazing. I found a great site with short stories in 34 languages!
"WorldStories is a growing collection of stories from around the world. The collection includes retold traditional tales and new short stories in the languages most spoken by UK children.
We are adding new stories, translations, pictures and sound recordings every week. So keep coming back to enjoy new content!"
languagesandlinguistics reblogged
Italian expressions with “mai”
- mai e poi mai – never ever, never in a million years (lit. “never and then never”)
Mai e poi mai avrei pensato che potessero fare una cosa del genere. – I never thought they could do such a thing.
- mai più – never again
Ho avuto così tanta paura sulle montagne russe che ho giurato di non salirci mai più. – The rollercoaster ride scared me so much that I swore I’d never set foot on it again.
- mai come ora – now more than ever
Mai come ora dobbiamo prestare attenzione a queste cose. – We must pay attention to these things, now more than ever.
- mai quanto me – lit. “not as much as I am/do” (meaning that, whatever it is that the other person told you, you know it as well if not better than they do)
A: Temo di essere troppo permaloso. – I’m afraid I’m too touchy. B: Tranquillo, mai quanto me. – Don’t worry, I’m definitely worse.
- come mai…? – how come…?
A: Come mai oggi non sei venuta a scuola? – How come you didn’t come to school today? B: Non mi sentivo tanto bene. – I wasn’t feeling too good.
- perché mai…? – why on earth…?
A: Pensavo che ci saresti rimasto male se te l’avessi detto. – I thought you would have been upset if I had told you. B: E perché mai? Fai bene a dirmi le cose come stanno. – And why on earth would you think that? It’s good to tell me things the way they are.
- (ma) quando mai? – lit. “when has that ever happened?” (implying that the answer is “never”, and that you’re baffled the person would even suggest it)
A: Dove hai messo la mia macchina fotografica? L’ultimo a usarla sei stato tu! – Where did you put my camera? You were the last one to use it! B: Ma quando mai! Non l’ho proprio toccata. – No I wasn’t! I haven’t even touched it.
- (non) sia mai [che…]! – heaven forbid [that…]! (often ironic)
Non sia mai che scriva un post senza un milione di esempi! – Heaven forbid I write a post without adding a million examples!
- nel giorno / nel mese / nell’anno del mai – on the day / in the month / in the year of “never”
Sì, come no: ci vedremo nell’anno del poi, nel mese del mai. – Yeah, sure: we’ll see each other in the year of “later”, in the month of “never”.
- mai dire mai – never say never
Mai dire mai: la vita può sempre sorprenderti! – Never say never: life can always surprise you!
- mai vist* (visto, vista, visti…) – lit. “never seen him/her/it/them”, meaning I have no idea what/who that is
A: Sai di chi è quel gatto? – You know whose cat is that? B: No, mai visto. – Nope, never seen it before.
- ora o mai più – now or never
Siete pronti? Ora o mai più. – Are you ready? It’s now or never.
- hai visto mai? – you never know (lit. “have you ever seen?”)
Porto sempre una penna in più in ufficio; hai visto mai che a qualcuno servisse? – I always bring an extra pen to the office; you never know, someone might need it.
- mai una gioia – lit. “never a joy” (meaning that things never go the way you want them to go; on-line slang-y and colloquial)
You can use it as an ironic comment to the everyday misfortunes of yourself and others.
- se mai – if ever
Se mai dovessi passare di qui, fammi uno squillo. – If you ever happen to be around here, ring me.
languagesandlinguistics reblogged
in my experience if you're learning a language but you're worried about not pronouncing it right or sounding ridiculous in front of native speakers, I'm here to tell you that most people do not care. they don't care if you have an accent or if your mother tongue is peeking through, because in all honesty, everyone has an accent. it's unfair and frankly unrealistic to expect people to bear no remnants of their native tongue when speaking another. you've spent your entire life speaking your language, interacting with the world in it; your understanding of language is built on your native one and its natural sounds. no one can expect you to entirely shift how your brain processes words and sounds. most native speakers will just appreciate you trying at all. if it's comprehensible, if the gist of what you're saying gets across, then it's good enough. if you're trying, your accent is fine.
languagesandlinguistics reblogged
Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide
Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:
"I just want an identical experience to DL"
Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)
"I want a good audio-based app"
Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)
"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"
Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)
*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.
"I have a pretty neat library card"
Mango (Languages: So many and all endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)
"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"
AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)
"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"
AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone
"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"
"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"
ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)
"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"
Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)
Heads up to not use Duolingo or to cease using it
In December 2023 they laid off a huge percentage of their translation teams, replacing them with ai and having the remaining members review the ai translations to make sure the translations are “acceptable” (Note how they use the world acceptable and not accurate)
Link to the tweet that informed me of this:
If you’re a current user prepare for an uptick in translations errors as I’ve already seen people in the comments say they’ve noticed
Duolingo has been shifting toward AI since last September according to their blog.
https://blog.duolingo.com/how-duolingo-experts-work-with-ai/
The rate of mispronounced words (mostly on/kun substitutions in Japanese) has gone dramatically up in my lessons, and I'm willing to bet this is why.
languagesandlinguistics reblogged
I was scrolling Tandem to find folks to practice Italian with and maybe help with English (now that I haven't taken classes for a few years, my speaking/writing skills are piss-poor and comprehension is only slightly better lol) but... I feel like the people on Tandem and the people I actually want to chat with are NOT a venn diagram?? Does anyone else have this problem and know alternative resources for practice?
Grazie mille!!!
I haven’t used Tandem because I was uncomfortable with the amount of personal information they make you share, but you might be interested in HelloTalk. It’s an app similar to Tandem in that it’s a language exchange app, but it has an added feature of a Twitter like feed where you can post and see others’ posts (again, I haven’t used tandem and don’t know if they have a similar feature). What I don’t like about HelloTalk is that it makes you choose your gender (male or female) to be able to use the app and as far as I know you can’t hide it from other users. That being said, I haven’t noticed anyone treating it like a dating app, but I’m pretty sure it happens on there as well.
Oooh thank you so much!! Funnily enough, I downloaded it right before this reply, but I haven't done much besides sign up. The gender options do suck but from a first pass this looks more up my alley. Thanks for the additional info!!
(Regarding Tandem as a dating app, I deleted my account and one of the reasons you can select for deleting is literally "It felt like a dating app". I guess they're aware of Tandem's vibes lmao. Hopefully HelloTalk is better in that regard)
I was scrolling Tandem to find folks to practice Italian with and maybe help with English (now that I haven't taken classes for a few years, my speaking/writing skills are piss-poor and comprehension is only slightly better lol) but... I feel like the people on Tandem and the people I actually want to chat with are NOT a venn diagram?? Does anyone else have this problem and know alternative resources for practice?
Grazie mille!!!
languagesandlinguistics reblogged
The etymology of the interjection pog is so insane like:
1. People are saying "pog" because there is a twitch emote named pogchamp
2. It's called pogchamp because the face of the emote is this guy:
3. who is a youtuber and streetfighter player who made this face on a video because of a production mishap and later won a competition of the game Pog for which he made a video titled "Pog Championship" that featured this face
4. Pog is a game also referred to as "milk caps" where you stack disks and slam your disks into your opponent's stack to disrupt them. They look like this:
5. The game is called pog because it is commonly played with novelty bottle caps from a drink also called POG
6. The drink is called POG because it's an initialism for its ingredients passion fruit, orange, and guava
7. Passion fruit is native to South America and got its name because Portuguese missionaries used its five-part shape as an allegory for Jesus's stigmata to explain the crucifixion of Christ to the Brazilian natives
8. The word passion comes from the Latin patior which means "I suffer" in reference to the suffering of Christ on the cross
9. The Indo-European root of patior has been reconstructed as *peh- "to hurt" which is cognate with English fiend
languagesandlinguistics reblogged
there’s this post going around that’s like ‘what if alien languages had pronouns that didn’t include gender information!’ and there’s about five different enthusiastic replies and like, i get the excitement but i’m begging you to learn about languages other than english
An incomplete list of languages that don’t have gendered pronouns (based on what people mentioned in the notes/tags:
- Mandarin Chinese (spoken)
- Cantonese
- Japanese (they exist but are rarely used)
- Korean
- Indonesian
- Malay
- Tagalog
- Swahili
- Xhosa
- Farsi
- Turkish
- Armenian
- Finnish
- Hungarian
- Estonian
- Sámegiella (& most other Sami languages)
- Yaqui
- ASL
Let’s be real here, English is highly unusual among languages in having grammatical gender align so precisely with the social concept of gender. In many other languages, not only do you get “masculine” or “feminine” inanimate objects, but you also get words that are gendered socially that don’t take the grammatical gender you expect. German Mädchen “girl” is neutral. Latin virtus “manliness” is feminine.
KiSwahili and isiXhosa arguably do have grammatical genders—more than a dozen of them. None of them have anything to do with the social concept of gender. In the Dyirbal language of Australia, there are four genders: “masculine” (which includes most animals), “feminine” (which includes fire, water, and violence), fruit, and miscellaneous.
Te reo māori (distant relative of aforementioned Tagalog, in the Austronesian language family) also has no gendered third-person pronouns, instead basing them on the amount of subjects, making a further distinction between two or more subjects, as well as whether the speaker or listener (or both) are included
Correction: Latin “Virtus” is very much masculine. That’s what the -us ending means. There are a lot of noun suffices in Latin and sometimes they overlap but all nominative nouns ending in -us are masculine, and the only non-masculine instance of the -us noun ending is in the 4th-declension genitive neuter. You’re probably thinking of “Virilis”, “manly” which is a 3rd-declension adjective and comes in a masculine (-is), feminine (-is), and neuter (-e) ending because it’s an adjective and they all do, that’s how the grammar of the language works. Its most common use is in the term “Toga virilis”, where it’s feminine because it’s modifying the feminine noun “toga”. “Vir”, Latin for “man”, is, however, masculine. “Femina”, Latin for “woman”, is feminine. “Puer” and “puella”, “boy” and “girl” respectively, are masculine and feminine respectively.
I can’t speak on anything else, but I can definitely speak on Latin.
Bengali doesn’t have gendered… well anything really. like. Okay so we do believe in masculine, feminine, both and neuter, but not, like grammatically.
Also, um. The English sense of grammatical gender is let’s say quite weak in part because Old English and Norman French grammatically gender nouns in more or less opposite ways and this was dealt with in Middle English by yeeting the whole concept.
Yeah I am highkey confused by “English is highly unusual in having grammatical gender align so precisely with the social concept of gender” because English doesn’t have grammatical gender for social gender-related things. We don’t change how words are conjugated or what articles we use based on social gender: the only thing that changes gender-wise is pronouns.
We conjugate verbs based on whether they’re singular or plural (it is vs. they are, she goes vs. they go), but not based on the gender of the nouns (because they don’t have any). And we have the weird quirk of changing the indefinite article based on whether the following word starts with a vowel sound or a consonant (a banana vs. an apple), but I don’t think that’s considered a grammatical gender.
Like, bear with me because it has been five million years since I took German, but:
Der Rock hat einen blauen Streifen. <- The skirt has a blue stripe.
Both “skirt” and “stripe” are masculine, which we know because the definite article for the skirt (“the”) is the masculine one and the indefinite article and adjective (“a” and “blue”) are conjugated masculinely.
Das Hemd hat eine blaue Tasche. <- The shirt has a blue pocket.
“Shirt” is neuter (neither masculine nor feminine) because it has the neuter definite article; “pocket” is feminine because the indefinite article and adjective are conjugated femininely.
Note that the sentences in English do not change grammatically! I am spending a lot of words explaining something that, in English, is exactly the same no matter what nouns I use! That’s because English isn’t a gendered language!
Sorry to correct the Latin, but no “virtūs” is feminine. There are a few sources of feminine -us endings in Latin in the second, third and fourth declension. “Virtūs” belongs to the third declension (genitive “virtūtis”) and is a feminine noun. If we had to morphologically analyse its ending, -us wouldn’t be a part of it, but rather we could probably analyse it as virtūt-s or simply a whole lexeme virtūs, with the resemblance to -us being only superficial.
The fourth declension has a few nouns with a nominative -us that are feminine, such as “anus” (old woman) or “manus” (hand). The second declension has more feminine nouns in -us, famously plants, like “pīnus” (pine tree). These nouns govern a feminine agreement regardless of its endings: “alta pīnus” (tall pine) or “haec manus” (this hand). Similarly, you’ll find first declension nouns that are masculine, i.e. “nauta” (sailor).
Regarding assuming-dinosaur’s statement that English is highly unusual among languages in having grammatical gender align so precisely with the social construct of gender, I think this may have been a problem of terminology, but some things are still unusual in English. The fact is that English has no grammatical gender, yet it has gendered pronouns that are purely referential, meaning that there’s no inherent arbitrsry trait to words that categorises it as “he” or “she”, instead a speaker will decide based on whether the referenced element is socially masculine or feminine. Note that referential gender coexists with grammatical gender in languages that have it. Take this example from Spanish:
“Pedro es una persona atractiva. Es alto y majo”
Here, “atractiva” is feminine because it agrees with “persona,” but “alto” and “majo” are masculine because their referent is Pedro, a boy (and also a masculine noun).
To link it to an example above, and I will need to be corrected if I am wrong on this one, German has “das Mädchen” as a neuter noun that references a feminine entity, a girl, but if a pronoun were used to reference it, the pronoun of choice would be “sie” (she), and not “es” (it).
The conclusion is that gender is a very complex thing, both socially and grammatically, and that the two types of gender are two completely different things that yet have very interesting and deep overlaps.
languagesandlinguistics reblogged
there’s this post going around that’s like ‘what if alien languages had pronouns that didn’t include gender information!’ and there’s about five different enthusiastic replies and like, i get the excitement but i’m begging you to learn about languages other than english
An incomplete list of languages that don’t have gendered pronouns (based on what people mentioned in the notes/tags:
- Mandarin Chinese (spoken)
- Cantonese
- Japanese (they exist but are rarely used)
- Korean
- Indonesian
- Malay
- Tagalog
- Swahili
- Xhosa
- Farsi
- Turkish
- Armenian
- Finnish
- Hungarian
- Estonian
- Sámegiella (& most other Sami languages)
- Yaqui
- ASL
Let’s be real here, English is highly unusual among languages in having grammatical gender align so precisely with the social concept of gender. In many other languages, not only do you get “masculine” or “feminine” inanimate objects, but you also get words that are gendered socially that don’t take the grammatical gender you expect. German Mädchen “girl” is neutral. Latin virtus “manliness” is feminine.
KiSwahili and isiXhosa arguably do have grammatical genders—more than a dozen of them. None of them have anything to do with the social concept of gender. In the Dyirbal language of Australia, there are four genders: “masculine” (which includes most animals), “feminine” (which includes fire, water, and violence), fruit, and miscellaneous.
Te reo māori (distant relative of aforementioned Tagalog, in the Austronesian language family) also has no gendered third-person pronouns, instead basing them on the amount of subjects, making a further distinction between two or more subjects, as well as whether the speaker or listener (or both) are included
Correction: Latin “Virtus” is very much masculine. That’s what the -us ending means. There are a lot of noun suffices in Latin and sometimes they overlap but all nominative nouns ending in -us are masculine, and the only non-masculine instance of the -us noun ending is in the 4th-declension genitive neuter. You’re probably thinking of “Virilis”, “manly” which is a 3rd-declension adjective and comes in a masculine (-is), feminine (-is), and neuter (-e) ending because it’s an adjective and they all do, that’s how the grammar of the language works. Its most common use is in the term “Toga virilis”, where it’s feminine because it’s modifying the feminine noun “toga”. “Vir”, Latin for “man”, is, however, masculine. “Femina”, Latin for “woman”, is feminine. “Puer” and “puella”, “boy” and “girl” respectively, are masculine and feminine respectively.
I can’t speak on anything else, but I can definitely speak on Latin.
Bengali doesn’t have gendered… well anything really. like. Okay so we do believe in masculine, feminine, both and neuter, but not, like grammatically.
Also, um. The English sense of grammatical gender is let’s say quite weak in part because Old English and Norman French grammatically gender nouns in more or less opposite ways and this was dealt with in Middle English by yeeting the whole concept.
Yeah I am highkey confused by “English is highly unusual in having grammatical gender align so precisely with the social concept of gender” because English doesn’t have grammatical gender for social gender-related things. We don’t change how words are conjugated or what articles we use based on social gender: the only thing that changes gender-wise is pronouns.
We conjugate verbs based on whether they’re singular or plural (it is vs. they are, she goes vs. they go), but not based on the gender of the nouns (because they don’t have any). And we have the weird quirk of changing the indefinite article based on whether the following word starts with a vowel sound or a consonant (a banana vs. an apple), but I don’t think that’s considered a grammatical gender.
Like, bear with me because it has been five million years since I took German, but:
Der Rock hat einen blauen Streifen. <- The skirt has a blue stripe.
Both “skirt” and “stripe” are masculine, which we know because the definite article for the skirt (“the”) is the masculine one and the indefinite article and adjective (“a” and “blue”) are conjugated masculinely.
Das Hemd hat eine blaue Tasche. <- The shirt has a blue pocket.
“Shirt” is neuter (neither masculine nor feminine) because it has the neuter definite article; “pocket” is feminine because the indefinite article and adjective are conjugated femininely.
Note that the sentences in English do not change grammatically! I am spending a lot of words explaining something that, in English, is exactly the same no matter what nouns I use! That’s because English isn’t a gendered language!