I've become increasingly interested in IPA ever since I first peeked into the world of phonetics. It fascinates me at the same time it frustrates me. But I was incredibly excited to find this little gem of a game: Can you name the word given their IPA pronunciation?
It's pretty simple: 26 English words in IPA are written in one box, and you type in the Latin alphabet equivalent for it. You don't have to go in order.
I did manage to get them all on the first try, but just barely - haɪt stumped me until the last minute. (I kept thinking it was "hide".)
A really fun way to practice your IPA knowledge!
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Game: Finnish Numbers
Let's start off with something simple for the first Game Time Wednesday. A basic Finnish vocabulary game from quia.com, test how well you know some Finnish numbers! You can choose multiple modes to play in.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Forgive Me - And What's New On Wednesdays
I really am sorry I've let the blog gather dust for so long. Life's been incredibly hectic lately, with school, choir, acting, and everything else just crashing back at once. Stress has been limiting my ability to think about language.
And, as you've probably noticed, I haven't been doing Songs In Languages I Don't Speak. That's because of business, but also because I'm a little tired of looking for great songs in new languages. I do still listen to music that's 90% in non-English languages, but the problem is that they tend to be the same language. A lot of German, a lot of French, a lot of Finnish and Hungarian. And I don't want to just search "*X language* folk music" at the last minute because I haven't prepared.
So, until further notice, Songs In Languages I Don't Speak is going on hold for a while.
However, that doesn't mean that there will be nothing on Wednesdays. I've been looking at create language games on websites like Quia and Sporcle, and since I know games are a fun way to either practice the language you're learning or take a glance at a new language, I've decided to link some of my favorite language games on Wednesdays.
Again, I'll try to be as diverse as possible, but I want to work with what's on the websites.
So thank you for being patient about my absence, and looks forward to Wednesday Game Time!
And, as you've probably noticed, I haven't been doing Songs In Languages I Don't Speak. That's because of business, but also because I'm a little tired of looking for great songs in new languages. I do still listen to music that's 90% in non-English languages, but the problem is that they tend to be the same language. A lot of German, a lot of French, a lot of Finnish and Hungarian. And I don't want to just search "*X language* folk music" at the last minute because I haven't prepared.
So, until further notice, Songs In Languages I Don't Speak is going on hold for a while.
However, that doesn't mean that there will be nothing on Wednesdays. I've been looking at create language games on websites like Quia and Sporcle, and since I know games are a fun way to either practice the language you're learning or take a glance at a new language, I've decided to link some of my favorite language games on Wednesdays.
Again, I'll try to be as diverse as possible, but I want to work with what's on the websites.
So thank you for being patient about my absence, and looks forward to Wednesday Game Time!
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Controlling Language
I've been thinking a lot about prescriptivism and descriptivism lately. You should probably be able to tell it based on the rest of this blog, but I'm firmly descriptivist. And one of the subjects this led me thinking to was how futile the efforts of prescriptivists are. After all, I thought, you can't control a whole language!
But then I remembered: Isn't the whole point of descriptivist philosophy that a language comes from the people who speak it? Isn't that a form of control?
So, you wind up with two statements here that you need to balance:
1.People who speak a language make the rules for it by how they speak it.
2.It is impossible for people to control how other people speak a language.
There may be base "rules" in languages, but they change over time through language evolution. And language doesn't magically change on its own - people have to start speaking it differently. But is that really a form of "control"?
I say it is. When we're deciding whether language is this distant amorphous deity which we have no power over or something that we control completely and utterly, there really is only one thing that needs to be taken into account: Whose speaking are you trying to control?
When you control how you yourself speak - when you actively make the effort to say "is not" or "are not" instead of "ain't" - that is away of controlling language. That is natural, you have the power and right to do that, and it contributes to language evolution either way.
But, when you try to control how someone else speaks - when you yell at them for saying "ain't" instead of "are not" - then you should feel how completely out of control you are. Because one person does not control a language - evolution is made by every single speaker speaking the language their way.
So yes, language is in your control. YOUR control - not your English teacher's, not your parents'. Sorry prescriptivists, you simply can't win.
But then I remembered: Isn't the whole point of descriptivist philosophy that a language comes from the people who speak it? Isn't that a form of control?
So, you wind up with two statements here that you need to balance:
1.People who speak a language make the rules for it by how they speak it.
2.It is impossible for people to control how other people speak a language.
There may be base "rules" in languages, but they change over time through language evolution. And language doesn't magically change on its own - people have to start speaking it differently. But is that really a form of "control"?
I say it is. When we're deciding whether language is this distant amorphous deity which we have no power over or something that we control completely and utterly, there really is only one thing that needs to be taken into account: Whose speaking are you trying to control?
When you control how you yourself speak - when you actively make the effort to say "is not" or "are not" instead of "ain't" - that is away of controlling language. That is natural, you have the power and right to do that, and it contributes to language evolution either way.
But, when you try to control how someone else speaks - when you yell at them for saying "ain't" instead of "are not" - then you should feel how completely out of control you are. Because one person does not control a language - evolution is made by every single speaker speaking the language their way.
So yes, language is in your control. YOUR control - not your English teacher's, not your parents'. Sorry prescriptivists, you simply can't win.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Linguistics Word Cloud
As promised, a general linguistics word cloud. In the shape of a duck because, well, DUCKS:
(Click for full size.)
Obviously, I had a lot to choose from. I just tried to get words from lots of linguistic areas. For the families, I was limited to only one word (no hyphens), which narrowed my choices a little, but I tried to go all over the globe.
Enjoy!
Pseudo-Amateur Linguist As A Word Cloud
Okay, so I might have had far too much fun discovering this little toy. I'm planning on making a general linguistics cloud soon, but I was curious what would happen when I put my blog through. Here's the result:
(Click for full size.)
Nice. My only question is....why the hell are "Facebook" and "Twitter" on there? I've never mentioned those...have I?
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