Wikipedia says that Uyghur /e/ "only occurs in words of non-Turkic origin and as the result of vowel raising", which seemed confusing as on the Uyghur Grammar page they list the words "مەن men" and "سەن sen" which don't appear to have any conditions that would imply vowel raising. What's going on here? Is 'men' actually underlying /mæn/ but /æ/ surfaces as [e] before /n/?

I have a question about language contact and how words acquire new meanings. I'm wondering whether there's a specific linguistic term for this phenomenon, and whether there are any real-world examples.

Imagine this scenario: An English speaker points to a branch of a tree and asks a native speaker of another language what it's called. The native speaker gives them the local word for a tree branch — let's call it X. Now, English uses the word branch for both a tree branch and a branch of a bank. The English speaker knows both meanings, but the native speaker initially taught them X only for the tree-related meaning.

Could the native speaker eventually start using their own word X for a bank branch as well, because they've learned that the English word branch has both meanings?

In other words, could the second meaning of an English word transfer to its native-language equivalent, even though that equivalent originally had only the first meaning?

I'm not asking whether the word itself gets borrowed from English. I'm specifically interested in whether the additional meaning of an English word can influence the meaning of an existing native word.

Does this happen in real languages? Is there a name for this process, and are there any such examples?

Sounds like a massive headache to specify "enemies are approaching" and "he was singing" because you can't say "enemies will approach" or "he sang". "Everything is happening, always, because time is flowing like the river" or whatever. But it's one of the silly language quirks of the silly language character Petra from Fire Emblem and I was wondering if this Teen Titans Starfire style gimmicky way of talking was a real thing foreign languages actually do or if no language with such stupid rules would survive this long without patches.

English speaking people sort of know what you're talking about when you're using the most common foreign words. Many would be surprised to know "head honcho" comes from.the Japanese term "Hancho" and yet we wouldn't think of that as weeby talk like a grown-ass man saying "So kawaii uguu".

As English people and Americans continue to have more contact with foreigners will more loan words be assimilated until eventually english containe every foreign word ever?

In every country I've lived in (Germany, Norway, Italy), there are not only regional dialects but also sociolects, oftentimes associated with major immigrant groups, like Turkish people in Germany or Somalis in Norway.

Now, I am curious as to people's opinion (or maybe even some fixed definition I am not aware of) on when something can be called a sociolect. For example, the second or third generation immigrants who speak this way obviously speak German/Norwegian/Italian as (one of) their native languages, and in areas where these communities are the majority, even children with a different background adopt this way of speaking. At the same time, you can still clearly hear how this way of speaking has been influenced by the accent the people who moved to the respective country as adults had, and in their case, no one would speak of a sociolect.

So when is a certain way of speaking no longer considered a foreign accent? When there are enough speakers? When someone born in the language's country speaks it?

[ɐ] [ʌ] [ä]

I cannot distinguish between any of these vowels. To me, they sound identical—or, at best, very similar. My native language is Rioplatense Spanish, and we do not have these sounds.

In my phonetic dictionary, the German ending "-er" is represented by the vowel [ʌ]; however, in an updated version of the same dictionary, [ʌ] has been replaced by [ɐ].

Are these sounds actually that different? Is this a matter of allophones or regional accents?

I look forward to your response.
Thanks in advance

I'm a linguistics masters degree student and I'm still stuck on what my topic should be , I want to tackle something in Critical Discourse Analysis but I don't want a typical piece of media analysis. Since CDA is a multidisciplinary field, I want to hear ur suggestions for topics or sources I can read or check that could help me decide , feel free to give any piece of advice. I'd really appreciate it.

Wanted, Opinions and perspectives on the following.
If Astrology is to Astronomy
as Alchemy is to Chemistry
Could There be an equivalent
Langmythics is to Linguistics?

What I mean by (Langmythics = Language+mystery+Theos+Mathematics) is an equivalent parallel track. An Unprovable Gnosis is to provable Knowledge.
Could there perhaps be another way of decoding words,
that isn't based on strict rules and terms of history of previous written evidence,
but rather some unseen logic of words,
that is underlying as The Logos. A Logos that is a hidden pattern function of additive building of mathematical vibrations of sounds.
For example, if we can find the mathematical golden ratio in geometry which is mathematical,
could there be yet to discovered patterns in words which are made of sounds which are frequencies which are also mathematical.
Or could there possibly be other methods that are yet to be discovered are not provable and never will be that are nonetheless logical and probable and plausible.
Question
1.) Do you believe if here could be yet to be discovered forward progress in Linguistics that is more forward looking through new tools and outsider perspectives rather than primarily based on written past referencing like Linguistics? Y or N
2.) If you answered YES and could believe there might be other unorthodox ways to reverse engineer the development of language other than past written evidence, what is it called?
What do linguistics call CONVINCING word relationship theories that have no historical provable evidence that could reveal plausible prehistoric proto languages communication relationships?
And I am not looking for juvenile snarky jokes as an answer (although I do enjoy them,) I am asking is there a parallel branch of study to Linguistics like Astrology is Astronomy, Like alchemy is to Chemistry.

Hi guys! My toddler is 2 (27 months to be exact so freshly two). For context, he has always talked extremely well and been early on his speech milestones. He is saying full sentences now and starting to ask “Can” and “What” questions. He also has almost every book memorized on his bookshelf that we consistently read as well as nursery rhymes and bedtime songs I sing. Something weird he has always done though is struggle with pronouns. Since he started talking, he has always referred to himself by only his first name. Not I or Me. For example, “Tim is sleepy” or “Tim wants to hug Mommy”. He is starting to use pronouns but now mixes up me and You. For example “Mommy, hold you.” Instead of me.

Is this normal? I never thought much of it except that I was reading somewhere it could maybe be a flag for Autism or Hyperlexia.

Just wondering if anyone has experience with this. Thanks!

After reading some comments, thank you SO much for the people who commented. You were so kind and informative in your answers and didn’t make me feel dumb for asking. Which isn’t always common on Reddit. Thank you ❤️

Pretty much what the title says. Could a hypothetical native speaker of Classical Latin from 2,000 years ago speak with a Catholic priest or deacon who is taught Ecclesiatical Latin and has never been exposed to the Classical pronunciation?

I've always thought of Netanyahu as the "standard" for bilinguals and I just recently found out that most bilinguals even who are fluent in both sometimes make errors when saying a standard sentence where the other one just slips out and they don't even notice. Would you say he's more perfect than the average bilingual (even if they're fluent in both) and if so how do you experience your languages and how do you think he does by comparison?

Hello ! I’m pretty sure that in modern French notre and le nôtre (our (+ thing) and ours) and votre and le vôtre (your (+ thing) and yours) come from Latin’s noster et vester/voster roughly like…
Noster voster/vester (latin)
↓
nostre vostre (old or Middle French with s still pronounced)
↓
notre/le nôtre votre/le vôtre (both pronounced without an [s])

Does anyone know why when pronounced the same and coming from the same root, why one (pronom possessif) preserves the circonflexe and the other (adjectif possessif) does not ? I tried looking this up and all I got were guides explaining the difference between les pronoms et les adjectifs possessifs. 😅

Thanks :)

As an example, if I accidentally called Sophie, my coworker, Ava and said "I'm really sorry, that wasn't intentional." Sounds more impolite (or at least more awkward) than saying "My bad, Sophie, I won't do it again." even though the second apology seems more casual.

To me, the concern expressed in the first apology implies that I am someone who takes calling others by their correct name very seriously, and so to mess up Sophie's name as someone who ostensibly values respecting others makes it seem like I was unusually inconsiderate with Sophie specifically. The more I go out of my way to explain that it was an accident, the more it makes it seem like there was a possibility that it was intentional, or that I don't actually care about calling others by their correct names as much as I say I do.

This is entirely hypothetical. I'm curious as to whether this phenomena is widely observed. I'm aware the first apology doesn't feel explicitly *impolite*, I just mean it sounds more impolite when put into direct comparison with the second apology. Not very experienced with linguistics so sorry if this is the wrong sub! Thanks

At some point there must have been a transition from the earliest forms of verbal communication with simple words for things and actions, into the modern day level of complexity with all the grammatical challenges.

So at what point did this happen?

Hey, I am interested in this topic, I would like you to share with me which language or states that did orthographic reforms, whether it's the alphabet, spelling, or grammatical rules and segmentation, these types of things. I saw that Uzbek did some update, i was able to understand the issue with the help of Gemini, however, if you could elaborate with other languages and what they did. Thanks.

I mean when you think about it a soldier or yakuza guy screaming in Japanese isn't cute. But when I think Japan I think anime girl. Or vtuber. Is the language cute sounding on its own? Or is it just the anime association?

I've been more curious about indigenous American families recently (initiated by learning about Dene-Yeniseian) so I've been looking at pre-contact language maps, and I noticed it seems like most have a blank patch between Miami-Illinois — Shawnee, the Northern Iroquoian languages, and the eastern Siouan languages (roughly across S Pennsylvania, SE Ohio, and West Virginia). Is this the result of a lack of data from the area, a lack of people in the area around the 15-16th centuries (say due to migration), any data there seeming to represent isolates, etcetera?

Unfortunately I've only found papers on its phonology and some of the lexicon lately but not really anything on the grammar, any suggestion? Thanks

Out of boredom, I've been reading up on place of articulation lately and learning about the different ways that one place can be called depending on the language, family, or academic discipline. This started by learning about Aboriginal Australian peripheral consonants and the way they group their coronal phonemes into laminal and apical pairs, which seemed super cool to me, but as I've read some of the terminology has gotten confusing—particularly the term domal. The Wikipedia articles for laminal, retroflex, and palatal consonants all say that domal has occasionally been used for retroflex/palatal places of articulation via terms like apico-domal and lamino-domal, but they lack any sources referring to such, and subsequent research has turned up virtually nothing. Most sources online seem to begin and end with defining "domal" as an alternate term for retroflex consonants, and any language I've found that has been described as having a domal place of articulation (Damin, Pintupi, Warlmanpa) only use the term "apico-domal" as a stand in for retroflex with seemingly no languages using the term "lamino-domal" despite Wikipedia claiming it to be attested. I understand that Wikipedia probably isn't the most reliable source on linguistics, but other websites do mention the use of "domal" as a synonym for retroflex, so I'm assuming that it's not entirely erroneous, I just don't really know where to start.

With all that being said, I guess my questions are:

• Where did the term domal come from?
• What languages/language families/linguistic disciplines tend to use it the most?
• Is it still used, or is it obsolete in linguistics?

And particularly: does "domal" refer to the dome of the mouth (as in the alveolar ridge/soft palate) or the domed shape that the tongue makes for retroflex consonants? This last question is what I've really been trying to find out before falling into the rabbit hole above.

Thank you for any responses!

I'm not a linguist so please correct if I'm wording it poorly. What are the most spoken languages you know of that neither feature a voicing or aspiration contrast phonemically? As far as I'm aware, Hawaiian is one of them. Hawaiian doesn't feature /b d g/ or /pʰ tʰ kʰ/, only /p t k/.

what is a language with mainly voiceless plosives, approximants, and sibilants in its main usage of letters?

I recently, by chance, watched a video comparing the various Gaelic languages and was really suprised by how similar they sounded to Hebrew (as a semi-fluent speaker), especially European/Yiddish accented Hebrew. They also sound similar to plain Yiddish, and in some ways Arabic.

It has routine use of the hard "chkh", which I haven't really seen outside of semetic languages and maybe German, and a lot of the rhythm and indentation are similar.

I looked it up and​ they don't seem to share any common linguistic origins. Do ya'll have any more insight? I've vaguely heard of a potential genetic Levant connection within Ireland, so maybe Celtic is a mixture of some Semetic and European (like Yiddish)?

Why do people introduce themselves as he/him, she/her, they/them and so forth instead of just he, she, and they?