The artificial language artificial language Esperanto was created by a Polish Doctor Ludovic Zamenhof in 1887. He initially called the language simply la Lingvo Internacia (‘the international language’), but he wrote using the pseudonym Dr Esperanto and Esperanto quickly became the language’s accepted name. Alphabet Esperanto uses a Latin alphabet of 28 letters: 22 letters…… Continue reading Language sketch: Esperanto
Tag: Article
Irish challenge (6)
This post is the 6th instalment of the Irish leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers chapter 5 of Teach Yourself Irish. For previous instalments, please see https://languagemiscellany.com/tag/irish/ It covers: the demonstrative sin (‘that’) possessive phrases ‘above’ and ‘below’ more on prepositions ‘very’ ann (‘there’) cá bhfuil? (‘where is?) verbs: (1) perfect tense; (2)…… Continue reading Irish challenge (6)
The Italian Language Today
The Italian Language Today, by Anna Laura Lepschy and Giulio Lepschy (2nd edition, 1988) is a useful guide for anyone who has been through a basic to intermediate Italian course. The book has 2 parts: part one The Linguistic Situation in Italy has 4 sections: Italian today; a historical view; Italian dialects; varieties of…… Continue reading The Italian Language Today
Irish challenge (3)
This post is the 3rd instalment of the Irish leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers those parts of chapters 1 and 2 of Teach Yourself Irish that I didn’t cover in the 2nd instalment. The 1st instalment covered Irish spelling and pronunciation. Questions and answers Yes and no Irish has no words for…… Continue reading Irish challenge (3)
Irish challenge (2)
This post is the 2nd instalment of the Irish leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers parts of chapters 1 and 2 of Teach Yourself Irish (and part of appendix 2) . I will cover the rest of chapters 1 and 2 in the next post. The 1st instalment covered Irish spelling and pronunciation.…… Continue reading Irish challenge (2)
Welsh challenge (2)
This post is the 2nd instalment of the Welsh leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers chapters 1a and 1b of Colloquial Welsh. The 1st instalment covered Welsh spelling and pronunciation, and mentioned the important process of consonant mutation. Learning Welsh and Irish – Language Miscellany In some places, I mention differences between northern…… Continue reading Welsh challenge (2)
Faithful to the English language?
The latest season of the UK version of the TV reality game show The Traitors has just finished. I suspect most viewers didn’t spot an interesting piece of morphosyntax. The game The game is played between 22 people. 19 of them are selected to be ‘faithful’ and the other 3 are selected to be ‘traitors’.…… Continue reading Faithful to the English language?
An apparent mismatch between an article and the noun it modifies
Sometimes a definite or indefinite article appears not to match the match the gender and/or number of the noun modified by it (in languages which have grammatical gender and/or mark number). Fábregas and Scalise (2012) give 2 interesting examples of such mismatches, one Italian and the other Spanish. Italian example Testa is a feminine noun…… Continue reading An apparent mismatch between an article and the noun it modifies
Does the definite article belong in these names?
Listening to the TV and radio coverage of the cricket competition The Hundred, I was struck by an odd use of the definite article the. Many of the commentators use the definite article even with names that are grammatically singular. I give below some background on The Hundred. Then I discuss the use of the…… Continue reading Does the definite article belong in these names?
Languages differ in what they MUST say
There is a popular belief that some things can only be expressed in some languages and not in other languages. The linguist and literary theorist Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) took issue with that belief in his well-known statement: ‘Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey’. That statement appears in his short essay…… Continue reading Languages differ in what they MUST say