#linguistics

Webcam Model(lucesita25) is live
LIVE

Well worth reading for linguists and movie historians alike:

meravhoffman:

kechpaja:

my naim is wug
and wen you’r yung
and sussing owt
yur nativ tung
and wen ther’s tu
of mee arownd
you pluralyze
you pik the sownd

Hey,@animatedamerican.@2ells2tees put this where I could see it.

i love it :D

allthingslinguistic: How to crochet your own wug  This DIY wug pattern was very kindly sent into me allthingslinguistic: How to crochet your own wug  This DIY wug pattern was very kindly sent into me allthingslinguistic: How to crochet your own wug  This DIY wug pattern was very kindly sent into me allthingslinguistic: How to crochet your own wug  This DIY wug pattern was very kindly sent into me

allthingslinguistic:

How to crochet your own wug 

This DIY wug pattern was very kindly sent into me by Maida Percival, a linguistics grad student at University of Toronto. See the whole pattern as a pdf here


Post link

allthingslinguistic:

stanzicapparatireplayers:

anemotionallyunstablecreature:

a6:

u kno when u keysmash but the jumble of letters dont convery the right Feeling so u gotta backspace and re-keysmash to turn ur HKELSXPXA to a JKFSDKAS

Vaguely wondering how future anthropologists will explain this…

*raises hand* Hi. So - the use of a keysmash is emotive. You use it to indicate that you’re so overwhelmed with emotion that you can’t even type, you’re just flailing at the keyboard.

So why is there a difference between a “hkelsxpxa” and a “jkfsdkas” or an “asdfs”?

Because language evolves! It’s actually really exciting to think about, but there’s a reason why slang is continually changing and why Old People are usually characterized by not knowing the slang variants that are being used by The Youth - it’s because the way we use words changes over time, especially in response to technological or environmental changes.

And text-based communication - texting someone on your phone, or chatting with friends on Skype or Discord - is actually really new, this is something which started in my lifetime. And grammatical rules have been evolving and settling into place around that form of communication.

For instance, linguistic researchers have noticed that anyone who’s grown up with texting being a normal thing will usually not end their texts or IMs with a period unless they’re angry or annoyed. This is because it’s a lot harder to do a run-on sentence in those mediums; you can just hit ‘enter’ and go to a new line. A period, then, becomes an indicator of emphasis, instead of an indicator of “there is nothing missing from this sentence” - and it’s an indicator of negative emphasis (rather than the positive emphasis that an exclaimation mark can give).

So, the keysmash has its own grammatical rule. And it’s one that makes sense, considering that it’s entirely possible for a keysmash to be caused accidentally - by something falling onto the keyboard, or a cat walking across it. The rule, then, is that a deliberate keysmash and an accidental one need to be distinguishable.

So a deliberate keysmash will nearly always use keys only in the home row, and usually in a particular order that isn’t likely to have happened purely accidentally.

So, future anthropologists will likely explain it as a marker of language evolving to work with a text-based medium where expressions and body language are difficult-to-impossible to convey. Much like emojis, crytyping, and whether or not you put punctuation at the end of a sentence (and in what context you do so), keysmashing is used to convey how you feel - in a way that body language and facial expressions would usually be expected to fill in the gap.

I did a survey once of people who use keysmash and over half of people reported that they’d adjust a few letters or delete and re-smash when it didn’t look “right” (except for the poor Dvorak users, who had kind of given up on keysmash entirely because their vowely home row made theirs emotionally illegible to other people).

cipi127:

“Morpheme is the Smallest Meaningful Unit in a Language“

is the linguistic equivalent of

“Mitochondria is the Powerhouse of the Cell”

dave-pen:mapsontheweb:Simplified map of European language families.map creator’s secretary: ex

dave-pen:

mapsontheweb:

Simplified map of European language families.

map creator’s secretary: excuse me …sir
map creator looking up from map angrily: what now??
map creator’s secretary: sorry…it’s just…we have complaints about the lack of celtic language representation
map creatorin sarcastic tone: oOoOoh have we now? and what language did these “celts”  use to complain huh?
map creator’s secretary: …sir it’s just… maybe… we could…
map creator :  WHATEVER. i’ll put them in.
map creator’s secretary:  they’ll appreciate that sir
map creator : but NO label…. and not scotland or that weird little piece of france




Post link
ahencyclopedia:ROMAN GOVERNMENT: WESTERN Civilization is forever indebted to the people of ancieahencyclopedia:ROMAN GOVERNMENT: WESTERN Civilization is forever indebted to the people of ancieahencyclopedia:ROMAN GOVERNMENT: WESTERN Civilization is forever indebted to the people of ancieahencyclopedia:ROMAN GOVERNMENT: WESTERN Civilization is forever indebted to the people of ancieahencyclopedia:ROMAN GOVERNMENT: WESTERN Civilization is forever indebted to the people of ancie

ahencyclopedia:

ROMAN GOVERNMENT: 

WESTERN Civilization is forever indebted to the people of ancient GreeceandRome. Among the numerous contributions these societies made are in the fields of art, literatureandphilosophy; however, perhaps their greatest gift to future generations was the modern perception of government. 

The contemporary idea of democracy, while borne out of the political struggles in the cityof Athens, came to fruition in the Roman Republic, surviving, despite the constant interference of the emperor, through the Roman Empire. Although the present definition of democracy has changed considerably, one must still recognize its early evolution in that eternal city, Rome.

TheRoman Republic emerged out of what one historian called “the ashes of the monarchy.”  Years underneath the unyielding yoke of a king taught the people of Rome that they had to safeguard against the rule, and possible oppression, of one individual. The real authority or imperium of the republic, and later empire, was to be divided among three basic elements - elected non-hereditary magistrates, a Senate to advise and consent, and popular assemblies.  

Read More 



Info by Donald L. Wasson on Ancient History Encyclopedia 


Post link
interretialia:telemache:today in ‘latin is a ridiculous language pass it on’: usquequaqueOptim

interretialia:

telemache:

today in ‘latin is a ridiculous language pass it on’: usquequaque

Optime!

@kmarmen


Post link
last-of-the-romans:The Founding of Rome The most cherished legend concerned the founding of Rome. last-of-the-romans:The Founding of Rome The most cherished legend concerned the founding of Rome. last-of-the-romans:The Founding of Rome The most cherished legend concerned the founding of Rome.

last-of-the-romans:

The Founding of Rome

The most cherished legend concerned the founding of Rome. In its retelling Roman historians stress the grandeur of Romes’s origins, and paid little heed to accuracy.

Rome, the legend states, was planned by the gods who, after the Fall of Troy, ordered the defeated prince Aeneas, a son of Venus, to lead his fellow refugees to a promised land in the West, Surviving many trials and temptations on their roundabout voyage, the Trojans reached Italy. Eventually the joined forces with the Latins and with Aeneas as their king, founded Lavinium, a city near the coast and about 16 miles southeast of the site of Rome. Later, under Aeneas’ son Ascanius, they moved a few miles inland to begin a new city, Alba Longa.

In the 8th century BC, the legend continues, the Latin princess Rhea Silvia, sworn to chastity as a Vestal Virgin, gave birth to twin sons fathered by the god Mars. As punishment for the violation of her oath, her uncle, King Amulius, imprisoned her and ordered that infants, Romulus and Remus, be abandoned to die on the bank of the flooding Tiber. The boys were found by a she-wolf who nursed them until a shepherd discovered them and took them into his home. When they reached manhood, they resolved to build a new city on the Tiber, and Romulus traced to boundaries of Rome with his plow. And Remus meet his demise.


Post link
realworldlatin:More inspired Latin than found Latin here, and a bad pun. This piece of heart-shape

realworldlatin:

More inspired Latin than found Latin here, and a bad pun.

This piece of heart-shaped lettuce just spoke to me in the voice of Catullus. 

“Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus.” - Catullus 5

I suppose I should thank Whole Foods for the lettuce from my salad bar lunch yesterday.


Post link
classicalmeangirls:Aeneid VI, or: that time when your ex-wife did not appreciate your presence

classicalmeangirls:

Aeneid VI, or: that time when your ex-wife did notappreciate your presence


Post link
latin-student-problems:With the general and his soldiers having captured and pillage the small vil

latin-student-problems:

With the general and his soldiers having captured and pillage the small village with torches and spears, they left.


Post link

woozapooza:

vergilliusrex:

astynomi:

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed that’s common to tumblr and non-tumblr classicists, it’s hatred for Aeneas, from benign condescension to flat out antagonism. Admittedly, for many years scholarship advertised Aeneas as nothing more than ‘the founder of the Roman race’, which doesn’t really sell these days. Scholars swept under the carpet the qualities that make Aeneas such a gift of a character - his compassion for others, his pain, his humanity - because it’s not fashionable for a manly hero to have those qualities, right?! 

I cannot take it any longer. I must tell you how we have all been cheated, and why Aeneas is one of the literary figures I most admire.

Nowadays most people study Latin first, and then Greek, and the Aeneidis one of the first things everyone studies. But Vergil’s Roman readers will have already read the Iliadfirst. So Vergil’s Aeneas is Vergil’s take on a familiar character, and Vergil takes it for granted that we know all about him. What is Aeneas like in the Iliad?

  • Aeneas is honoured by the Trojans as much as Hector is (5.467).
  • Aeneas and Hector are rebuked for letting the allies fight in their place, and it is Aeneas who is addressed first (5.77).
  • Priam does not appear to share his people’s favour for Aeneas (13.461). While Aeneas is brooding over this, he is sought out by Deiphobus: ‘Aeneas, counsellor of the Teucrians, you need to help the army’ (13.463-4).
  • Glaucus appeals to Hector andAeneas to save the body of Sarpedon, unaware that Zeus has already done this (16.536-47).
  • Hectorlistens to Aeneas’ advice. Are we going to argue with Hector? Everyone loves Hector, and Hector loves Aeneas. When Apollo rebukes Aeneas because he, Hector and others aren’t fighting (17.327-32), Aeneas recognises the god and tells Hector that it is shameful to retreat into Troy (17.335-41). Hector listens to him, although he doesn’t usually listen to the good advice of Polydamas, but threatens him instead (12.230-50, 18.296).
  • Aeneas is a renowned warrior (8.108). But that doesn’t make him arrogant – Aeneas is sensibly reluctant to try to fight Achilles when he knows that Achilles is stronger (20.89-99), but he is goaded into it by Apollo, who protests that Aeneas too is the son of a goddess (20.104-9).
  • The gods (20.115-31) and the poet (20.158-60) suggest that Aeneas is at least nearly equal to Achilles in valour.
  • Aeneas’ reply to Achilles’ taunts is measured (20.200-58).
  • Even though Achilles is the best warrior, it is by no means easyfor him to defeat Aeneas (20.288-90).
  • Aeneas is rescued from his battle with Achilles by Poseidon, who is a pro-Greek god. Poseidon saves Aeneas on the grounds that: he’s unaware of his fate to survive (20.296), has done nothing wrong (20.297), always gives gifts to the gods (20.299), and most importantly is fated to survive (20.300-8). Poseidon’s only rebuke is that Aeneas shouldn’t have listened to Apollo and fought with Achilles; rather, he should stick to the otherwarriors, since none of the others will be able to kill him (20.331-9). Achilles muses in bewildered disgust: ‘Well then, Aeneas truly was beloved of the immortal gods’ (20.347-8).

In other words, Aeneas is one of the few characters in the Iliadwho is rewarded by the gods for being a good person. He is also not allowed to show valour in the way he wants to, like the other heroes, because the gods have plans for him.

In the Aeneid, we learn that Aeneas does not want these plans, but he has to follow them anyway. He does not regain his agency, but the gods’ protection is removed from him by the anger of Juno. How can anyone hate a character who is introduced like this:

This is a song of war, and of the hero who was the first to come,

by fate a refugee, from the shores of Troy to Italy and Lavinian

shores, and who was furthermore tossed all over land and sea

by the violence of the gods, because of cruel Juno’s unforgiving anger;

he suffered much in war, too, so that he might found a city

and bring his gods to Latium, whence come the Latin race,

the Alban fathers, and the walls of lofty Rome.

Muse, tell me the reasons – what slight to her divinity,

what grief made the queen of the gods drive to endure

so many misfortunes, to encounter so many trials, a man famed

for his goodness? Can there be such anger in the minds of the gods?

Vergil has a lot of feelings about Aeneas. You should, too.

‘But Vergil goes out of his way to make Aeneas a drip!’ NO.Vergil writes a realistic character. Vergil’s Aeneas behaves EXACTLY LIKE anyone should expect a war-torn refugee to behave. He is miserableand scared. But he accepts the responsibility put upon him, and he puts this responsibility before his own fears and his own desires. 

Vergil could have written a poem about ‘the founder of the Roman race’ just marching into Italy and lording it over everyone because that was his destiny and that was his right. But Vergil stopped to think, and he thought, ‘Wait, this figure is a refugee. This is a good man who loved his home and his people and would value that quality in others. This is a man who suffered and would not want others to suffer like he did. This is a man who would forget how to want his own happiness.’

I can’t go through the whole Aeneidhere, because I could write reams about every scene, but I’ll talk a little about two of the things for which Aeneas is most criticised, which I haven’t already talked about in my previous Aeneid rants (all in my tag here, but especially this one).

Lees verder

Thanks for taking the time to put this together and include all the references!

“Aeneas constantly puts others first and all he gets in return is misery.“ Ouch. That is so true.

This is a fantastic post. I could write a thousand words here elaborating on it but I’d probably just be reiterating stuff from your post that I just don’t think can be emphasized enough, so I’ll keep it short. I don’t understand why Aeneas isn’t more popular either. The classics fandom is rightly wild about Hector and Patroclus because they remain good people amidst the annoying violent masculine hero culture, so why not Aeneas? He’s a devoted family man who goes through hell but remains incredibly resilient and selfless. He’s a fairly understated, easily overlooked character in the Iliad, yet, as you showed, he’s already got a lot of good qualities there, and he’s not as flashy as Achilles or Hector but that’s exactly why he’s the one who survives, why he’s the one who’s worthy of carrying the destiny of the Trojans. It is tough, seemingly endless work to be the kind of hero the Aeneid requires but he does it, and IMO he deserves ALL the respect and sympathy for it. What’s not to love? (Well, there was the time he tried to kill Helen, but it was just one time and he was very upset and under a lot of stress so I can forgive him.)

I’m gonna stop here before I spend all night ranting in praise of my small son Aeneas.

gandalf1202:Germán Amores Hernández - Socrates Chiding Alcibiades’ Home of a Courtesan [1857] on F

gandalf1202:

Germán Amores Hernández - Socrates Chiding Alcibiades’ Home of a Courtesan [1857] on Flickr.

Germán Amores Hernández (June 10, 1823 or 1827 - May 16, 1894) was a Spanish painter. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in San Fernando, Paris, and Rome. His topics were mainly mythological and classical, and he was noted for the precision of his drawing.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 278 x 226 cm]


Post link
gaynerdcomic:jinxasaurus:humansofcolor:prokopetz:sarahtypeswords:wetorturedsomefolks:mem

gaynerdcomic:

jinxasaurus:

humansofcolor:

prokopetz:

sarahtypeswords:

wetorturedsomefolks:

memejacker:

several-talking-corpses:

memejacker:

caligula had anime eyes

wait romans painted their marble sculptures

it looks like a cheap theme park ride mascot

yep

here’s a statue of Augustus

and here’s a reproduction of the statue with the colors restored 

i honestly think that what we consider the height of sculpture in all of Western civilization being essentially the leftover templates of gaudy pieces of theme park shit to be evidence of the potential merit of found art

“I tried coloring it and then I ruined it”

And you know what the funniest part is? The paint didn’t just wear off over time. A bunch of asshole British historians back in the Victorian era actually went around scrubbing the remaining paint off of Greek and Roman statues - often destroying the fine details of the carving in the process - because the bright colours didn’t fit the dignified image they wished to present of the the cultures they claimed to be heirs to. This process also removed visible evidence of the fact that at least some of the statues thus stripped of paint had originally depicted non-white individuals.

Whenever you look at a Roman statue with a bare marble face, you’re looking at the face of imperialist historical revisionism.

(The missing noses on a lot of Egyptian statues are a similar deal. It’s not that the ancient Egyptians made statues with strangely fragile noses. Many Victorian archaeologists had a habit of chipping the noses off of the statues they brought back, then claiming that they’d found them that way - because with the noses intact, it was too obvious that the statues were meant to depict individuals of black African descent.)

Sorry, I keep reblogging this over and over, the last comment is unbelievable. Wow.

Same thing for the pillars. They were all very brightly colored. Michalangello was not primarily a painter, but a sculptor. So if you think that the statues would look gaudy, these artists were painstakingly detailed and you can bet your asses the painting would probably have made them look nearly lifelike. This was an entire system. They didn’t say “eh let’s put some crappy paint on there and call it a day.” No. It would have been amazing.

That makes sense. Residual particles of paint would give us the general colors (or at least the base colors) but certainly not the detail.


Post link

You know how articles reporting on psycholinguistic experiments often say something like ‘X number of people took part but Y number of people’s results were discounted for various reasons…didn’t understand the instructions, wasn’t paying attention, was generally incompetent…’, well now I can say I have probably just been admitted to that inevitable and illustrious group of rejected data-providers.

First, I did some example tests to get used to the computer and the instructions for the task which involved learning a made-up language. That was all well and good. Then I started the experiment proper. I was plugging away at the exercises, tapping here, tapping there as required until the researcher came in mid-way and told me, in a kindly, roundabout sort of way, that I was being too slow (it was meant to be a short-term memory test after all)!

After that, I sped up as best I could. After the first short-term memory part, I moved on to the second long-term memory one. Essentially they were testing to see what kinds of rules I had learned from part 1. After the experiment there was a quick interview-like section where the experimenter asked me to describe the rules I had learned from the exercises and what I thought this made-up language was. Now here’s the bizarre bit…I correctly spotted that the made-up language was essentially an ergative language - hooray! However, virtually all the rules that I had been using during the experiment (and consequently my answers) were completely wrong!

It turns out they are testing whether certain alignments (e.g. ergative alignment or accusative alignment or some unattested one) are equally learnable or not. I reckon their null hypothesis will be that unattested and attested systems are equally learnable with the aim of demonstrating that typologically-unattested systems are harder to learn. Evidently I find even attested systems hard to learn! I suppose (and hope, for dignity’s sake!) that in every experiment there’s always one such person!

marauderssnowfight:

image

I just find this extremely hilarious

loading