lɪŋˈgwɪstɪks

Otavio Macedo

01:09

The ancient Egyptians were very resourceful, indeed:

musee.louvre.fr/oal/scribe/indexEN.html

Kamil S.

07:00

@Gigili Whoa, how come you're already level 5? How did you do that? Will you teach me?

Stack Exchange

07:20

0

Q: Are there languages with PCC effects and a more developed person-number system?

The Person-Case Constraint (PCC) is a constraint on which arguments can co-occur in a construction such as a causative/applicative/ditransitive. It might cause a combination of persons to be ungrammatical or to be unavailable for processes like cliticization/agreement. It is a restriction that on...

Stack Exchange

07:47

0

Q: what is the best way to accurately translate slang?

It may not even be accurate to call it "slang"... I am working on a filtering system that blocks pornography. I have a set of key words and phrases in English. Essentially, I would like to have the equivalent of these words and phrases in various languages. I considered trying to use Google Tran...

translation machine-translation multilingualism

Alenanno

09:52

@Cerberus I need advice... I added this edit to my answer, but I feel like it's too much about the least unrelated part of the matter... If you get what I mean

Do you think the edit is too much or is it ok?

Hello @DavidWallace Welcome to Linguistics!

David Wallace

Hello @Alenanno

Not quite my first trip here though.

Alenanno

@DavidWallace Oh, well this is the first time I see you on chat. :D

David Wallace

To answer the question you addressed to Cerby, I think the edit is fine. Very inspiring and well thought out, even if it is slightly tangential to the question.

... and it just earned you an upvote :-)

I used to think that I had a reasonable grasp of linguistics, but every time I visit linguistics.se, I end up feeling particularly stupid.

Alenanno

Ahah

I share that feeling

I think that

Linguistics is just too wide that unavoidably

you'll find things you have no idea about

David Wallace

10:08

I guess so. But my usual hang-out is Stack Overflow, where I usually manage to feel quite clever :-) I think that a wider variety of subject matter gets discussed on Stack Overflow than on linguistics.se.

Alenanno

Uhm, probably, but the typical subject in SO is much more practical then what we discuss on here.

I mean, discussing on code is much more practical than discussing on "untouchable" sound changes over the centuries. :D

David Wallace

Hey, I was just looking at your bio. I'm very impressed with the number of languages you either speak, or are learning.

Alenanno

Oh thanks! I want to learn even more!

I wanted to learn also fictional languages or technical languages like Python.

David Wallace

I guess because I live in a country where most people speak only English, I'm always pleasantly surprised to run across multi-lingual people.

Alenanno

Are you interested in any language at the moment?

David Wallace

10:18

Technical languages are very different from human languages; because they have grammar but no vocabulary (or very little vocabulary). I find vocabulary the hardest part of learning a human language, so it never seems a valid parallel to me.

Alenanno

Oh, yeah well, every language has its hard parts... but it's ok. I like challenges. :)

David Wallace

In my home, Bosnian (or "Serbo-Croat" if you prefer) and English are both spoken. I'm not fluent in Bosnian, but I know enough to have basic conversations with Bosnians, go shopping in Bosnia (Croatia, Serbia) and so on.

Alenanno

Oh, I see!

You're happy with those two? You don't want to learn other languages?

David Wallace

I guess the difference for you, as a student of languages, is that it's kind of the focus of your career. I, however, as an IT consultant, can only devote a limited amount of time to language learning.

Alenanno

That is a good point...

David Wallace

10:22

I went to a primary school (= elementary school) where French was compulsory. I studied Latin and German at secondary school. I studied one year of Italian at University. I have been to Argentina twice, and can get by to some extent in Argentine Spanish. But for the past 13 or so years, Bosnian (or whatever you want to call it) has been the only language into which I have invested any effort.

Alenanno

I see. :)

David Wallace

But these are all (obviously) European languages, and all use the Roman alphabet. Learning unrelated languages or languages with different writing systems is far more difficult.

but you are learning Japanese, Chinese and Finnish; in addition to a swag of European languages.

Alenanno

Well, it depends on many factors. First of all, the person. I think that they are not hard for all people the same way. For you it might be easier to study Russian than it is for me, for example.

David Wallace

Maybe, but only because of my background in Bosnian. Much of the grammar would be familiar, and many words are the same or similar.

I found that having learnt Latin helped me with Bosnian; understanding declension of nouns and adjectives was not a problem for me.

But I still occasionally struggle with "aspect", which for me was new with Bosnian.

I actually surprise myself occasionally by making a reasonable fist of reading Russian.

Alenanno

You mean like the one in russian?

David Wallace

10:31

"Aspect" - yeah, I think all the Slavic languages have it.

Also, Bosnian has some odd tenses. There's something called "aorist", which I don't quite understand, but it seems to be a tense just for telling stories.

Alenanno

Cool!

I never heard about something like that...

David Wallace

But then it gets used in odd idioms, like one common expression which is "where do you find me?" / "where did you find me?"; but in the aorist tense. I still can't precisely translate this idiom into English.

Apparently, ancient Greek had an aorist tense, but not modern Greek.

According to Wikipedia - "The aorist usually implies a past event in the indicative, but it does not assert pastness, and can be used of present or future events."

Alenanno

11:02

Sorry I'm on and off

I'm quite busy here

I think I'll go offline. It was nice to meet you, see you around! :)

David Wallace

You too. Bye.

Cerberus

11:13

@DavidWallace The aorist expresses mainly that an action is non-durative.

So it only takes place for a moment rather than a period.

kaleissin

Bah, "aorist" is so vague a term it should not be used

needs to be defined per language. it's worse than "middle"

Cerberus

@Alenanno Your edit is fine. It may not be entirely required, but then it adds useful and interesting information.

@kaleissin It is not vague at all.

At least not in Greek.

It is narrowly defined.

It is a morpho-syntactic feature of verbs.

kaleissin

it might be narrowly defined in greek, but it is contradictory narrowly defined in other languages

should not be used for new languages, and should go with a language name if used. "the aorist in greek" not just "aorist"

Cerberus

If another language has a phenomenon that resembles the Greek aorist and can be reasonably well defined, why should it be a problem?

I don't know about the aorist outside Greek, so I might very well agree that it is a bad term for Bosnian or something.

But I would not rule it out categorically.

No term is exactly can stand for exactly the same thing in two different languages.

kaleissin

there has been a tendency to use "aorist" whenever one needed one extra term to describe an aspect or tense or aktionsart that does not exist in English. That's not a very useful distinction to make :)

I'll look up trask's dictionary later tonight if you will, there was a short rant about it there IIRC

Cerberus

11:20

@kaleissin Haha, agreed.

David Wallace

@Cerberus - that may be how it's used in Ancient Greek, but not in Bosnian.

Happy now?

kaleissin

<-- would collect reference grammars if they weren't so mind-bogglingly expensive

Cerberus

If another language has something that can reasonably be called an aspect and it expresses non-durative, I would not be against calling it an aorist. Otherwise, it seems a bad choice.

@DavidWallace Yayy!! I am overjoyed.

@kaleissin And heavy.

kaleissin

I have several in my amazon shopping cart, so that I can snap 'em up if the price falls :)

Cerberus

Haha.

You don't buy them second hand?

I got my Oxford Latin Dictionary for € 90.

kaleissin

11:23

they're often even more expensive second hand ;)

Cerberus

Instead of € 350 or so.

It depends, probably.

kaleissin

I got this one:

Aikhenvald, Alexandra (2003). A Grammar of Tariana. Cambridge University Press

for a pittance

very interesting language too

David Wallace

@Cerberus - No, the Bosnian aorist is a TENSE, not an ASPECT

Cerberus

Tariana? Haha.

@DavidWallace Yeah I got that, thanks.

David Wallace

Bosnian's aspects are "perfective", "imperfective" and sometimes "repetitive".

kaleissin

11:26

I'm quite happy about my answer to the following

0

Q: What is the best way to accurately translate slang?

It may not even be accurate to call it "slang"... I am working on a filtering system that blocks pornography. I have a set of key words and phrases in English. Essentially, I would like to have the equivalent of these words and phrases in various languages. I considered trying to use Google Tran...

translation machine-translation multilingualism

David Wallace

I'm struggling with the technology here!

kaleissin

ditto

irc is easier

Cerberus

This is so much better.

kaleissin

I consider the reference in that answer to be required reading btw. :)

David Wallace

Yes, @kaleissin, it's a good answer all right. I'll go and upvote you.

And I can't help the fact that the word "aorist" is used (and no other word) to describe this peculiar Southern Slavic tense that nobody else understands.

Cerberus

11:30

I'm afraid I don't understand the question.

David Wallace

The way I see it, I could tell a story something like "John opens the door. He goes into the room. He finds a monster under the bed". Or I could say "John opened the door. He went into the room. He found a monster under the bed". If I were to translate this story into Bosnian, I would use the aorist tense.

Cerberus

I don't understand what that guy wants.

kaleissin

I think we should make a list of terms that are too vague to be useful

Cerberus

Block pornography based on word in the text of pornographic pages, or just censor words from any page? Two very different things.

kaleissin

not very stackexchangey maybe but it would save time: "if you use a term on this list, you must provide examples"

David Wallace

11:32

He wants an algorithm for looking at a swag of text, in any language, and judging whether the content is pornographic. He feels that this requires some knowledge of which expressions are dodgy. So a passage that mentions architects a lot, in a language spoken in Belgium, might qualify.

kaleissin

would be impractical to block "beaver" on a page about castor fiber or castor canadensis now wouldn't it

Cerberus

@DavidWallace I am getting the impression that this Bosnian tense is based on a contingent aspect of the Greek aorist, namely that it is used for the most important actions in a story.

@kaleissin I vote for.

@DavidWallace Then why is his question about translating?

David Wallace

@Cerberus You're probably right. Now how do I express the idiom that translates literally as "Where do/did you find me?"

kaleissin

@Cerberus because he thinks smut is translatable?

Cerberus

@DavidWallace The present in that example is typically called the historic present in languages that allow that.

Gigili

11:34

@KamilS Hih. I really like the diary thingy. But I haven't done anything special except some encouragements and punishments and whatnot!

Cerberus

@kaleissin I mean, translating ≠ blocking.

David Wallace

He thought he could get a list of smutty Dutch expressions by translating a list of smutty English expressions literally into Dutch.

Cerberus

In any case, I think his question is badly worded, and I am disinclined to work with people to design filters anyway.

David Wallace

"Historic present" - now that's an oxymoron!

Is there an "ancient future" too?

Cerberus

There is a future that does not express the future, yes.

kaleissin

11:36

I read this hilarious thread analysing a dream-sequence in this Norwegian movie I like. it involves a (european) elk running through the streets... and some possibly redneck guy wondered whether the elk is a sexual symbol in Norwegian. sigh

Cerberus

@DavidWallace It is an oxymoron precisely because the actual phenomenon is oxymoronic!

kaleissin

@DavidWallace near future, far future, immediate future do exist :)

David Wallace

There's a tampon ad in New Zealand that features an actual beaver, and a girl being super nice to it. The catch phrase at the end is "because you've only got one".

Cerberus

@kaleissin And is it?

kaleissin

nah

Cerberus

11:37

OK.

kaleissin

but some ppl insist on seeing smut everywhere

David Wallace

@kaleissin Yeah, Bosnian has something that they call "second future", which seems to be a kind of cross between future perfect and future subjunctive. Mostly, if I were translating it into English, I'd use the present.

Cerberus

Languages are fun.

David Wallace

Time here = 12:40am. IT geek here needs sleep. Take care all, this has been an interesting chat. Good night.

kaleissin

I saw a word in I think spanish or portuguese once that might cover what a lone elk may symbolize in Norwegian but of course I can't remember the word

Cerberus

11:44

Night Dave!

kaleissin

it's the feeling you get when you're alone in a beautiful piece of natural landscape and it's quiet and everything is just right and you get this almost religious zen moment of perfection

Cerberus

The powerful harmony of nature?

kaleissin

harmony isn't the word I'd use. Might be a Norwegian cultural thing, but since I found this prefect term for this in an unexpected language... it's also used for when you grok a piece of art

the impression it makes

Cerberus

Revelation? Being moved? Awe?

kaleissin

if you read sf, it's almost sensawunda but different

sensawunda is related to awe

Cerberus

11:55

Sense of wonder?

kaleissin

yeah

kirkusreviews.com/blog/science-fiction-and-fantasy/…

Cerberus

Oh yes, I like that.

One of the great perks of Scifi.

kaleissin

the art-thing is recognizing that the art has an effect on you and maybe what the effect was, but the nature thing is harder to describe :)

works best with modern art btw

Cerberus

Hmm I rarely ever feel anything with modern art.

Though I must admit paintings generally cause very little emotion in me.

Sculptures a bit more, but still not a great deal.

Architecture, on the other hand, very easily touches me.

But then I hate almost all modern architecture.

Oh, bit I have to go again.

Later!

kaleissin

I can't find a link but I'll describe 'em anyway: there were these totem poles made out of white jogging shoes with red highlights. Amazing piece of art. The shoes hade been shaped into the heads of various animals. It was very <whatever the word is>

Otavio Macedo

14:20

@Cerberus, do you have any e-reader?

Stack Exchange

16:09

0

Q: Are certain phonological processes more likely to be surface true?

This question occurred to me when studying OT phonology. For reduplication in OT, the base of the stem (/reduplicated part) is taken to be the input for the reduplicated morph. However, sometimes the base and reduplicant differ. For example, if I was reduplicating a word like "ban" /ban-REDUP/ in...

phonology phonetics cross-linguistic optimality-theory reduplication

Cerberus

16:43

@OtavioMacedo Nope, I prefer books.

Why?

Otavio Macedo

I'm thinking about buying one

Cerberus

Hmm.

I wouldn't want to carry an expensive thing around that might get stolen or broken...

I would like a phone with a big screen, though.

As long as I can carry it around in my pocket, it will be safe.

Gigili

Galaxy Nexus, let's buy.

Cerberus

Yay!

I want it.

Gigili

Uhum.

Cerberus

16:55

But I can wait.

Gigili

Will they offer a discount if we buy two?

Yeah, me too.

I don't like buy something like that now.

Buy kindle Otavio.

Otavio Macedo

@Gigili yeah, I'm considering the kindle and sony reader.

Gigili

Sony is not as good.

Otavio Macedo

Why?

Gigili

I have one, it doesn't read all file extensions and not as user friendly as kindle.

You can find kindle e-books everywhere.

Otavio Macedo

17:08

What features do you like, that sony doesn't have?

Cerberus

By the way, are you looking to buy a reader with a regular screen (like a tablet), or one of those screens that read like real paper (much more comfortable)?

Or do all modern readers have the paper-like screen?

Otavio Macedo

Yeah, those that read like paper, like the kindle

Cerberus

I don't know what it's called.

Ah OK.

Otavio Macedo

e-ink

Cerberus

Ah OK, noted.

Otavio Macedo

17:18

At least, that's the trade mark

Cerberus

So why don't all tablets and phones have that too?

Because it is slower?

Otavio Macedo

And because there's no color e-ink yet

only black and white

Cerberus

Oh! I see.

I suppose that doesn't matter for novels.

But textbooks?

Otavio Macedo

Yeah, that's another problem.

Some friends have told me that they have tried to read textbooks on kindle

and it's a horrible experience

Cerberus

Picture quality is that bad?

Otavio Macedo

17:23

Yes, and if you have a large picture, you have to keep scrolling the page back and forth.

At least on the 6'' ones

Cerberus

No zooming?

Gigili

Nothing is better than a real book.

Cerberus

Ah, 6".

There are phones that are almost as large, 5.5" I think.

The Galaxy Note comes to mind.

Gigili

I never could learn anything from e-books. I can't highlight lines I want.

Cerberus

@Gigili I agree.

I would hate having to be careful with whatever I'm reading.

But I suppose they can be practical in certain situations.

Otavio Macedo

17:28

The best thing is the economy of space

In a device that consumes very little energy

Cerberus

Right, in cases where you would otherwise carry around lots of books. But then, when would you do that?

Otavio Macedo

Not only for carrying around, but also for storaging

Cerberus

Hmm.

I actually enjoy having book cases in my house.

kaleissin

I don't think 'storaging' is a word

Cerberus

Even though I still haven't bought any.

Otavio Macedo

17:31

Oh, really?

Would it be "storage"?

kaleissin

yeah

Cerberus

Storage or storing.

Otavio Macedo

Yay! Thank you!

kaleissin

I hang on mobileread. There was a poll there: "Do you still buy paper books?" Well, I no longer buy fiction in paper...

Gigili

Paper book was the word, peh.

Otavio Macedo

17:33

What is mobileread?

Gigili

I was thinking of real book, physical book and blabla book.

Cerberus

@kaleissin How much is, say, a digital version of a Russian classic?

@Gigili Those terms are just as good.

One thing is that paper books are cheap. Another is that they are free from the library.

kaleissin

mobileread.com

bulletin board for talking about ebooks, ereaders, ebook-technology, ebook software, ebook politics etc

@Cerberus if it was translated to English before 1923, probably free on Gutenberg

Cerberus

Ah, OK!

So and do most readers work with virtual pages that you flip? Or is it a continuous text that you have to scroll?

kaleissin

e-ink is "flipped" pages

the tech can't scroll well

Cerberus

17:39

OK, that's good.

And it is capable of converting the books from Gutenberg into flippable books?

Because they seem to be continuous.

kaleissin

dunno about e-book programs on multi-purpose devices, at least there, scrolling is technically feasible

it's not the book itself that is flippable but the reader, that shows enough to fill one page at a time

Otavio Macedo

Gutenberg has already books on epub and mobi

kaleissin

that's the two most popular formats

Otavio Macedo

These formats can be read directly by most readers

Cerberus

OK, and it can handle any random text file in a flippable way?

kaleissin

17:41

if it can handle text at all

Otavio Macedo

I think so

kaleissin

i think most can handle .txt

it's so easy after all

Cerberus

@OtavioMacedo I was looking at The Way We Live Now by Trollope, on Gutenberg, and it seemed they only have a regular text/html file.

kaleissin

might not handle all of unicode though

Cerberus

They said to use that in an e-reader.

kaleissin

17:42

calibre can convert ebook-formats

pdfs and html too

Cerberus

OK.

kaleissin

I use sigil to edit epubs, then convert them to mobi before I sideload them onto my kindle keyboard

Otavio Macedo

Yeah, epub and mobi are nothing but html/css/images compacted in a file

kaleissin

mobi is a poorly defined superset of html3

Cerberus

Still, the fact that I can't just put in in my jacket when I'm in a bar without worrying would be a problem for me.

kaleissin

17:44

epub is a well defined subset of xhtml

Cerberus

You know what I would like? A small, light, foldable screen that my phone would project a book on.

Just paper or plastic.

Otavio Macedo

I think we'll get there one day

kaleissin

you can get really small projectors now

not quite sugarcube-sized but still

Cerberus

A projector for a small screen at close range should not be very difficult.

By the way, there are also thin, flexible LCD-like screens, I believe.

Otavio Macedo

@kaleissin, what reader do you have?

Gigili

18:04

O-kaay, buckle up everyone

I want to change my avatar.

Muhahaha.

Cerberus

Again...

Gigili

Uhum, again ...

Otavio Macedo

What body part will it be now?

Gigili

Nose?

Eyebrow?

Okay, wrist.

Otavio Macedo

Shoulders

kaleissin

18:15

@OtavioMacedo Kindle Keyboard w/wifi aka. Kindle 3 wifi

Cerberus

We should save the pieces of the puzzle and put them together to get a full picture of Gigi.

Otavio Macedo

@kaleissin what do you like most about it?

kaleissin

@OtavioMacedo e-ink!

I've read ebooks for years, on both crt and lcd screens, but I prefer e-ink

Cerberus

Understandable.

kaleissin

this particular model also have the forward/backward-buttons in very handy spots

makes it easy to read one-handed, and easy to switch hands too

it's not touch, so no finger-marks on the screen :)

Otavio Macedo

18:24

@Gigili, I must say, you are very pretty!

Cerberus

Are finger marks bad?

Otavio Macedo

@kaleissin do you miss touch?

kaleissin

i've yet to have owned a touch-device of any sort

if we disregard remote controls ;)

Cerberus

@OtavioMacedo Second that.

Gigili

@OtavioMacedo Ah thank you.

Cerberus

18:26

Although of course I would not wish to discount Ale and you.

@kaleissin It is quite convenient on a multi-purpose device like a phone.

Less so on an e-reader, I imagine.

Gigili

But that's just a painting or whatever that quote was.

kaleissin

the reason why textbooks and graphics and tables work so poorly on mobi is because they are gifs, jpgs or pngs and not scalable

in order to move forward one page all I need do is curl either the ring- or long finger just a leetle. don't need to use my finger tips at all

Cerberus

@Gigili What do you mean? That is you, isn't it?

Otavio Macedo

@kaleissin ah, so the buttons are on each side of the device?

Gigili

@Cerberus Do you want me to shame him in public?

Cerberus

18:34

@Gigili Him? Your ex? Not really. So is that you or not?

kaleissin

@OtavioMacedo yup

Gigili

Mar 2 at 15:26, by Gigili

Feb 25 at 18:59, by Otavio Macedo

c'est ne une pipe

kaleissin

often the buttons are only on the lower half

Gigili

@Cerberus I meant Otavio, pft.

Cerberus

Oh, haha.

Poor guy.

So it is you.

Otavio Macedo

18:36

Women have a vengeful memory

Gigili

It's me, yeah, it is me, yes, me.

kaleissin

buy harry potter as ebooks or not? hmm. at least they are out now

Cerberus

@Gigili Clarity at last!

Gigili

I thought it was clear enough.

Cerberus

Not entirely.

Gigili

18:52

But efficiently.

So you like my new avatar?

It's really brilliant in its conception.

Cerberus

So you call yourself brilliant?

Gigili

I think you need to press f5.

kaleissin

anyone know what timezone Alenanno is in?

Gigili

Italy.

Otavio Macedo

GMT+1

kaleissin

18:58

that's my own... I got a question for him, see

Gigili

Does this make sense to you @OtavioMacedo:

> Herpes viruses family has a capsid with a tetrahedral symmetry. Broken skin and mucous membranes of the body are ways of getting infected with this virus.
Glycoproteins which covers the external surface of viruses, sticks on external of cell external surface and enters the cell reproducing and moving forward to enter the body, they enter neuric cells of the host and thos cycle will continue until complete treatment’s done. They’l remain in Neural Ganglions inactively

Transcript for