nephihaha

I read in a book some years ago how some Sorbian speakers had started to use articles under the influence of German, but I've no idea how widespread it was, and I think it's been discouraged during language revival.

When Wikipedia says "Sorbian uses no articles", it is not telling the full story.

I couldn't find much on this online when I searched for it. But did find at least one respectable reference, which agrees with what I remember:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277973156_Unarticul...

Abstract: "Slavonic languages in general do not use articles to indicate (in)definiteness. The development of an article in some of them is the result of language contact. In the case of Sorbian the influence of German led to the use of the demonstrative pronoun ‘this’ and the numeral ‘one’ to indicate definiteness and indefiniteness, respectively. Originally the German system was copied almost without changes, but eventually specific rules developed, subject to phonotactic constraints and restricting the use of the article mainly to intratextual and pragmatic definiteness. The use of the article depended on the kind of text and language (spoken language, Bible translation and original texts, translations from German). Grammatical purism managed to eliminate the use of the article in today’s written variants as well as in most official uses of spoken Sorbian almost completely. In colloquial language and in the dialects, however, the article is very much alive but its use differs considerably from German. There are also differences between Upper and Lower Sorbian, the latter being closer to German usage."

Wikipedia tends to be better on linguistics than some other areas, but best not to become over-reliant on it. This is just one reminder that it does not cover many things.

My guess is something Slavic (since Slavic languages lack articles apart from Sorbian). I could be wrong. I don't think Finno-Ugric languages have them either. That's just Europe, there are plenty of such examples elsewhere — Japanese has tonnes of suffixes but no direct equivalent to this?

Eh? I hear both of these on a regular basis. It is a phenomenon.

"I think it's mostly Irish with the former."

Actually, it's a shibboleth. It used to be said in Ireland that Roman Catholic called it "haitch" and Protestants called it "aitch". "Haitch" is to be found furth of Ireland though.

Most English accents don't drop the "h" in herb, although American influence will change that.

But you can hear "an" used in phrases like "an hotel" or "an historic building", where the "h" is usually pronounced.

I notice "an" is in decline in some forms of spoken English. I noticed this shift years ago. Some English speakers say "a (y)apple" rather than "an apple" or "a(y) orange" rather than "an orange". In some case the "y" sound is replaced by a glottal stop (a' apple, a' orange).

[Why is this getting voted down? Bizarre.]

The North Koreans would find it easier to smuggle nuclear weapons in by boat.

It depends on what you are trying to convey and how.

Sorry, but Walkmans and Discmans were considered cool... At the time.

Personally I like simple designs. I always remind people who make posters that whoever looks at them will only do so for a matter of seconds. If you want extensive detail, put it in smaller print. Put the main hook in large letters and a brief description.

I remember seeing a poster for Chinese New Year years ago, and someone had included the kanji for Japan on it (日本). Obviously they just wanted generic looking characters without bothering to see what they meant. I couldn't resist writing a comment on the poster about it.

It showed whoever did it had no clue about East Asia or Chinese script...

Adding a safety pin to the punk design was too much of a cliché.

I wasn't a fan of the Memphis one as it reminds me of the worst eighties and nineties designs.

They still have widespread international distribution.

Personally I thought the internet would have been a bigger threat to their readership.

It's common. But I tend to find people in the south east of England barely talk to one another. :)

I don't know of a single "mere" in Scotland or Ireland. I doubt there are any in Wales... Maybe in the eastern bits that are less Welsh speaking. I'm surprised about Cheshire. Maybe it is more widespread than I thought it was! But it isn't a word I hear used in spoken in English outside of place names.

Some of it is regional. "Tarn" turns up in the Danelaw. "Lough" turns up in the far north of England for about twenty place names, which is a variant of "loch", but is pronounced "luff". You can find some "loughs" near Hadrian's Wall.

The problem right now is that there aren't enough peer reviewers.

I went to see Michael Gazzanigga talk about hemispheric separation some years ago. Fascinating. The two hemispheres can operate separately.

I don't live in the USA. Never heard of it.

There seems to be a strong attempt to unseat the USA and the dollar right now. BRICS has tried to, China and Russia would love to and it looks like the EU may follow suit.

The question as always is what to replace it with, and hopefully not something worse.

I would struggle to think of any. Google Earth was useful. I wonder if Streetview or Google Maps will end up becoming a subscription service.

I am not sure what you mean by "Eurocentric" here. These distinctions exist in most Asian languages and probably in other continental landmasses.

Peoples living on remote oceanic islands are the exception rather than the rule, and lost the words for larger freshwater bodies because they didn't tend to encounter them, just as some inland peoples had no words for oceans. You've even mentioned a distinction... "brackish". It is pretty important to know if one can drink water or not.

By the way, in some parts of Europe these distinctions don't quite happen either. "Loch" is used for branches of the sea as much as freshwater. In some places "lake" and "lago" are used for both. In fact, without looking it up, "lagoon" is probably related to the Romance word for "lake". River isn't reserved for freshwater in European languages. The Menai Straits are Afon Menai (Menai River) in Welsh. In tradition, the ocean was described as a river encircling the continents.

"Which makes sense right?"

Most of them do, except waitapu. Taboos often make little sense, and the reasons can be long forgotten. Sometimes they are just dangerous stretches of water. We used to have notions of taboo here too.

20 km isn't that far away but still shocking. (No pun intended.)

Hence I said "pretty uncommon'. Windermere is the most prominent example but is often called Lake Windermere. There is also Fowlmere nature reserve.

Definitely not the most common name for inland bodies of water by a country mile though. "Pond", "pool", and "lake" are more common.

The trajectory of disagreement online.

2009: I disagree. You're a troll.

2019: I don't like you. You're a Russian bot.

2029: Is there anyone out there? Are you human?

There was one major distinction, which was "is it drinkable?" Someone crossing the North American Great Lakes (before pollution), didn't need to store water. But they would crossing an ocean, or the Caspian Sea. It's not like you can use seawater to irrigate most crops (except seaweed and a handful of others).

"Mere" in English doesn't seem to refer to saltwater at all. Nearly always small lakes and mostly in certain locales of eastern England.

The word "mere" in English is pretty uncommon but tends to refer to small bodies of water.

Yes, there are many substantial ones in New Zealand. Lake Taupo is an obvious one, and there are some large ones in Otago and Southland which are not abutting the sea.

I would imagine Polynesian languages would distinguish between fresh water bodies and salt water ones, since they need to be able to drink. Even small islands can have pools.

[Edit to add: much of Polynesia is of volcanic origin, so freshwater crater lakes are a feature of these landscapes.]

The author does mention the possibility of more than one non-IE pre-Greek language, as well as the possibility of an Indo-European predecessor in the region.

There are similar arguments over Pictish, but at least with Greek there is a substantial body of vocabulary, which Pictish lacks.

Quote: "Google Earth Pro on desktop will no longer be available for download beginning June 25, 2027. Google Earth launched as a free program in 2005, and now it will be replaced with Earth on the web."

Beautiful piece of family memoir. Thank you for posting this.

Look at what's left in Europe:

* Nordics: Iceland and Norway which are ambivalent, despite repeated attempts to get them to join. (They are already in EFTA.) Greenland and the Faroe Islands fall more under the dependencies category below.

* Switzerland which can't because it wishes to be neutral, and also because of the finance sector. The Vatican has some similar issues.

* Microstates, dependencies and tax havens.

* Ex-USSR. The Baltics function well in the EU and are the exceptions, but Moldova, Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia each have massive issues. (Including how Moldova doesn't control much of its territory and much of Belarus is contaminated by Chernobyl.)

* The Balkans. Problematic recent history. I think Albania and North Macedonia may join in the near future. Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo have ex-USSR style issues.

* Turkey.

* The UK, which is problematic since it is the only major state which has left.