Category Archives: Language is Great!

My musings on languages natural and artificial and the science of linguistics

The Little Red-Hat

Posted on November 13, 2021 by dan

This one is dedicated to T. Mike Keesey. Does it work?   (step 1: English) Once upon a time, there was a little girl whose granny loved her so much, that she bought the girl a red riding hood to … Continue reading →

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The Sheep and the Horses

Posted on November 7, 2021 by dan

(This post first appeared on my Patreon.) I’m thinking about an epic fantasy story. It’ll have ghosts, but ALSO, I want to make a dialect continuum.  This is how a dialect continuum works: start out at, say, Lisbon, and travel … Continue reading →

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Bulgarian words for try

Posted on July 26, 2018 by dan

Sorry I don’t have much for this week’s Wonderful Awful ideas. Just four Bulgarian words that might all be translated as English “try.” Opitvam se (опитвам се) is related to pitam (I ask). As in opitah se da pobedya, “I … Continue reading →

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Securing Emergent Thrive-ity

Posted on February 23, 2018 by dan

I was thinking about the political system of the “Present day” (2145) in The Centuries Unlimited, and also about the ways I have the English language evolving in the next ~140 years (fast+weird). The result is the following: Far’s via … Continue reading →

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Trolls-ish

Posted on January 17, 2018 by dan

I have watched the Trolls movie so many times, you guys… Help me Uh, I mean, ahem! <in universe voice> Trollish (Silampampsun Gi’impsun, Gi’impsun, Impish, or Turxulsun (archaic) ) is the language of the Troll People of the Melean Mountain Range. In its standard dialect, centered … Continue reading →

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The Thitherlands

Posted on December 1, 2017 by dan

Japanese is great! Today I was talking with my teacher about the word yo (世). In general, it means “world” as in yo no naka ni wa iro-iro na ningen ga histyou da (世の中にはいろいろな人間が必要だ, or “in this world, you need different sorts … Continue reading →

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The History of Niwyowid

Posted on November 22, 2017 by dan

proto-Niwyowid (PNV) Xe eisi yi zuha vei yi xe yi skyay avan eyii tyi exi. /ɣe eˈihi dzi ˈzɯha ˈvei dzi ɣe dzi skjaj ˈavan eˈjii ci ˈeɣi/ “And stood his hat holding he and his wet face turned to the wind” … Continue reading →

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Every morning I am subjected to the performance that my daughter doesn’t want to go to school

Posted on October 24, 2017 by dan

My Japanese teacher is as much a language nerd as I am, I had ten minutes between Japanese class and my next class, so here we are, talking about cool stuff that the Japanese language can do. We started by … Continue reading →

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The Andzhijans

Posted on September 2, 2017 by dan

The Andzhijans (pronounced [ʌnd͡ʒ’ijənz] or [‘anʒjənz]) (Andzhijan: Ъndжista, Andzhista, [ɤnd͡ʒ’iʃtɐ], also spelled Ънджийчиtе, Ανγιση, Andжijani, and Ăngițile. Reich spellings: Ænġista, Angista — dated exonym: Vrans, Vrani) are a Balkan ethnic group composed of the roughly two million citizens of the Macedonian Republic of Andzija, an additional … Continue reading →

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Babytalks: And he became a beybo gwegwe

Posted on August 17, 2017 by dan

My daughter can now recite “the very hungry caterpillar” from memory. Which is great because it gives me a direct one-to-one comparison for her utterances. Here’s one of the more bizarre. Instead of saying “beautiful butterfly” (the last two words … Continue reading →

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