Both English and Polish permit syllables to start with a cluster /tr-/ or /dr-/, but the two languages treat these clusters differently. In English, these clusters are affricated, so for example the cluster /tr-/ in train sounds quite similar to the initial consonant in chain. On the other hand, in Polish, an initial cluster /tr-/…… Continue reading Trains, chains and terrains
Month: August 2025
Surprising noun plurals in Russian
Two common Russian nouns have a plural form bearing no resemblance to their singular form. When different inflected forms of a word (for example, a noun) do not from the same root, the relationship between those roots is called suppletion. A well-known English example of suppletion is the verb go, which borrows its past tense…… Continue reading Surprising noun plurals in Russian
Getting your hair cut in Portuguese
Portuguese contains a construction that does not exist in many other languages. The construction uses words: appearing to mean ‘John cut his hair’; but in fact meaning ‘John had his hair cut’.(‘cut’ here is a verb, not a noun.) This post considers: how this construction works similarities with the passive how this construction differs in…… Continue reading Getting your hair cut in Portuguese
When is 12 pm?
I was looking at entering a ballot due to close at, supposedly, 12 pm. I couldn’t work out whether 12 pm means 12.00 or 24.00. pm is short for the Latin phrase post meridiem ‘after noon’. It contrasts with am (ante meridiem) ‘before noon’. Of course, 12.00 is exactly noon, so strictly speaking it is…… Continue reading When is 12 pm?
Vowels and consonants, vocoids and contoids
Most people probably have a rough idea of what vowels and consonants are. But drawing the line between them isn’t that easy. So, in 1943, American Linguist Kenneth Pike introduced the terms vocoid and contoid to help clarify the distinction. In essence: a contoid is a sound produced without narrowing the vocal tract enough to…… Continue reading Vowels and consonants, vocoids and contoids
Two ways to write some Japanese sounds
The 2 Japanese syllabaries (syllabic wiring systems) known as kana have 2 different ways of writing the sound [(d)ʑi] and also have 2 different ways of writing the sound [(d)zɯ]. I will first show how this works in the hiragana syllabary and then show briefly what the symbols are in the other syllabary (katakana). Hiragana…… Continue reading Two ways to write some Japanese sounds
English Grammar Day 2025
I went last month to an event called English Grammar Day, hosted by University College London (UCL), the University of Oxford and the British Library. This annual event has been held ten times, but I went for the first time in 2023. There were 6 talks, called: Puzzling linguists: olympians and others, Billy Clark 100…… Continue reading English Grammar Day 2025
Transliterating Russian into English
There are 2 widely used systems for transliterating Russian text from the Cyrillic alphabet into English: an American system used by the Library of Congress a scientific system used by linguists Table 1 lists Cyrillic letters whose corresponding English letters are the same in both systems. CyrillicAmerican and ScientificаaбbвvгgдdеeзzиiкkлlмmнnоoпpрrсsтtуuфfъʺыyьʹTable 1. Cyrillic letters with the same…… Continue reading Transliterating Russian into English
Some Mandarin names for countries
For a few countries, Mandarin uses names made up of a morpheme that sounds like the first syllable in the country’s native name, followed by the symbol 国 (guó) meaning country. Table 1 lists some of those countries, with the Mandarin character (simplified, rather than traditional), the official pinyin transcription and the literal meaning of…… Continue reading Some Mandarin names for countries
Some World Atlases about languages
I’ve recently discovered 2 useful atlases, each devoted to a specific feature of languages: the World Atlas of Transitivity Pairs (WATP) the World Atlas of Classifier Languages (WACL) They provide more detail than is found in more general databases, such as the World Atlas of Linguistic Structures (WALS), which I’ve mentioned in some other posts…… Continue reading Some World Atlases about languages