This post is the 8th instalment of the Welsh leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers chapter 7 of Colloquial Welsh. For earlier instalments, please see Welsh Archives – Language Miscellany I’ve used bold type below to highlight words affected by mutations, SM after words that induce soft mutation and SM before words affected…… Continue reading Welsh challenge (8)
Tag: Tense: past
Irish challenge (7)
This post is the 7th instalment of the Irish leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers chapter 6 of Teach Yourself Irish. For previous instalments, please see https://languagemiscellany.com/tag/irish/ It covers: past, present and future of tá time expressions adjectives weather nouns other words and phrases Mutation is indicated below using bold type. Past, present,…… Continue reading Irish challenge (7)
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 (4)
This post is the 4th instalment of the Irish leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers chapter 3 of Teach Yourself Irish. For previous instalments, please see https://languagemiscellany.com/tag/irish/ Possession, and personal forms of ag Irish has no transitive verb meaning ‘have’. Instead, use the preposition ag (‘at’), see example 1.(1) Ta clann ag Síle …… Continue reading Irish challenge (4)
Albanian suppletive verbs
Sometimes, an inflected form of a verb was originally an inflected form of another verb. For example, went—the past tense form of the English verb go—was originally the past tense of the now obsolescent verb wend. This phenomenon is called suppletion and I have discussed it before at https://languagemiscellany.com/2024/11/borrowing-verb-forms-from-another-verb/ Albanian has a surprisingly large number of verbs with…… Continue reading Albanian suppletive verbs
Xmas with kids
Spending a week with our grandchildren between Christmas and New Year, I noticed a few things about how they use language. Strong verbs I came across 2 more examples of some creative formations of a past participle and of a simple past tense from strong verbs: our middle grandson (now 7 years 0 months) produced…… Continue reading Xmas with kids
Talking at three and a half
Spending a few days recently with our grandsons, I got a good chance to see how their language is coming on. 3-year-old The youngest one (3 years 7 months) speaks very clearly now. The only pronunciation feature I noticed was in words beginning with the sequence /fl-/. He doesn’t quite pronounce the initial /f-/ fully.…… Continue reading Talking at three and a half
The hadted to do it
My grandson (8 years, 11 months) and his brother (6 years, 6 months) both form the past tense of had to in an unusual and interesting way. They have both been doing this consistently and reasonably often for several months, perhaps as long as a year. I don’t know which one started doing this first,…… Continue reading The hadted to do it
Language sketch: Danish, Swedish and Norwegian
Here is a summary of some things I learnt about the Mainland Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian) a couple of years ago, when I was carrying out a self-imposed language challenge. http://languagemiscellany.com/2021/09/scandinavian-challenge-how-did-it-go/ I am commenting here only on those 3 languages, not their relatives, the insular Scandinavian Languages (Icelandic and Faroese). For an…… Continue reading Language sketch: Danish, Swedish and Norwegian
A language with only 3 verbs?
Recent press reports talked about a language that has only 3 verbs. Researchers claim that this language (Jingulu) may form a basis for creating a language that leads to better communication between humans and artificial intelligence systems. The basis for these reports is a paper in the journal Frontiers in Physics: JSwarm: A Jingulu-Inspired Human-AI-Teaming…… Continue reading A language with only 3 verbs?