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darkkitten1
Feb. 14th, 2004 04:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pauraque_bk1. Explain any one concept in linguistics you think is very cool, in terms a complete layman (like me!) can understand.
Okay, here's one for you: Regularity of sound change.
Languages change over time. That's why we don't speak Old English, and why the Italians don't speak Classical Latin. How does it happen? One of the primary ways is sound change.
There's a certain amount of randomness involved in which sounds change, though some are easy to understand. For example, the Latin word for tree is "arbor". It's easy to imagine accidentally saying "arbol", which is exactly what the early Spaniards started doing. The mispronunciation became so common that "arbol" is now the standard Spanish word for tree.
The thing that's cool is that sound change from the parent language (say, Latin) to the daughter language (say, Spanish) is *regular*. That is, if one sound changes to another in a certain "sound environment" (that is, what other sounds are around it), then it will change in that environment no matter what word it's in. If Latin also had the words "erbor" and "irbor", they would have become "erbol" and "irbol" in Spanish, the same way "arbor" became "arbol". It doesn't matter what "erbor" and "irbor" might mean -- the meaning of the word has nothing to do with it. If the right sound is present in the right environment, the change will happen.
Here's an example in English. The words with "silent E" (make, take, bake) originally had all their letters pronounced. You can approximate this by trying to say them as if they're Japanese words (mah-kay, tah-kay, bah-kay). Then English underwent two sound changes affecting these words. The first changed the "ah" in those words to the "long A" sound. The second change dropped the Es from the end. (Dropping final sounds is a very common sound change.) So now, instead of mah-kay, tah-kay, bah-kay, we say them like mayk, tayk, bayk -- the modern pronunciation.
The rule of regularity of sound change is why all the words like that changed, not just some. You can't have a sound change that only applies sometimes, so that we'd end up with some of the "-ake" words not rhyming (mah-kay vs. bayk, say). Once one of them changes, they ALL change. So, while the modern spellings of those words may not be phonetic, they are *predictable*.
When a few sound changes happen, we call it a dialect. When enough happen that the speakers of the original language can no longer understand, we call it a new language. So that's where languages come from. In case you were curious. :)
(I found myself starting to go on about how sound change affects grammar, but you said *one* concept!)
2. What's your favorite candy or dessert?
A slice of good apple pie with a scoop of ice cream. My favorite to make and to eat.
3. If you could do anything in the world for a living, what would it be?
If I could make money writing fanfic, I'd be one happy camper. :)
But if you mean a real job, I want to work with animals. I used to care for ill, quarantined, and pregnant animals at a pet shop, which I found very fulfilling. I hardly ever went home.
4. Tell me something surprising about your Krycek.
My *Krycek*. Curveball!
I don't know how surprising this will be, but Krycek was never the same after the oil. He doesn't *miss* it, but he feels its absence all the time. A day doesn't go by that he doesn't think about it. He goes over his (hazy) memories of it again and again, almost compulsively.
5. What dragon is that in your icon, and why did you choose it?
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/28/1075088090949.html?from=top5
It appealed to me because I've always felt a connection with dragons, and I really got a kick out of the reactions to that discovery. The dragon image is deeply rooted in the human psyche, so when people seem something like this, they *want* to believe it's real; the idea that dragons don't exist is fundamentally disappointing. And hey, the biopsy results haven't come back yet -- maybe it is real!
Good questions,darkkitten1. I'll have some for you soon.
Okay, here's one for you: Regularity of sound change.
Languages change over time. That's why we don't speak Old English, and why the Italians don't speak Classical Latin. How does it happen? One of the primary ways is sound change.
There's a certain amount of randomness involved in which sounds change, though some are easy to understand. For example, the Latin word for tree is "arbor". It's easy to imagine accidentally saying "arbol", which is exactly what the early Spaniards started doing. The mispronunciation became so common that "arbol" is now the standard Spanish word for tree.
The thing that's cool is that sound change from the parent language (say, Latin) to the daughter language (say, Spanish) is *regular*. That is, if one sound changes to another in a certain "sound environment" (that is, what other sounds are around it), then it will change in that environment no matter what word it's in. If Latin also had the words "erbor" and "irbor", they would have become "erbol" and "irbol" in Spanish, the same way "arbor" became "arbol". It doesn't matter what "erbor" and "irbor" might mean -- the meaning of the word has nothing to do with it. If the right sound is present in the right environment, the change will happen.
Here's an example in English. The words with "silent E" (make, take, bake) originally had all their letters pronounced. You can approximate this by trying to say them as if they're Japanese words (mah-kay, tah-kay, bah-kay). Then English underwent two sound changes affecting these words. The first changed the "ah" in those words to the "long A" sound. The second change dropped the Es from the end. (Dropping final sounds is a very common sound change.) So now, instead of mah-kay, tah-kay, bah-kay, we say them like mayk, tayk, bayk -- the modern pronunciation.
The rule of regularity of sound change is why all the words like that changed, not just some. You can't have a sound change that only applies sometimes, so that we'd end up with some of the "-ake" words not rhyming (mah-kay vs. bayk, say). Once one of them changes, they ALL change. So, while the modern spellings of those words may not be phonetic, they are *predictable*.
When a few sound changes happen, we call it a dialect. When enough happen that the speakers of the original language can no longer understand, we call it a new language. So that's where languages come from. In case you were curious. :)
(I found myself starting to go on about how sound change affects grammar, but you said *one* concept!)
2. What's your favorite candy or dessert?
A slice of good apple pie with a scoop of ice cream. My favorite to make and to eat.
3. If you could do anything in the world for a living, what would it be?
If I could make money writing fanfic, I'd be one happy camper. :)
But if you mean a real job, I want to work with animals. I used to care for ill, quarantined, and pregnant animals at a pet shop, which I found very fulfilling. I hardly ever went home.
4. Tell me something surprising about your Krycek.
My *Krycek*. Curveball!
I don't know how surprising this will be, but Krycek was never the same after the oil. He doesn't *miss* it, but he feels its absence all the time. A day doesn't go by that he doesn't think about it. He goes over his (hazy) memories of it again and again, almost compulsively.
5. What dragon is that in your icon, and why did you choose it?
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/28/1075088090949.html?from=top5
It appealed to me because I've always felt a connection with dragons, and I really got a kick out of the reactions to that discovery. The dragon image is deeply rooted in the human psyche, so when people seem something like this, they *want* to believe it's real; the idea that dragons don't exist is fundamentally disappointing. And hey, the biopsy results haven't come back yet -- maybe it is real!
Good questions,
darkkitten1. I'll have some for you soon.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-14 05:35 pm (UTC)You could continue, if you'd like. *g* I'm interested in this stuff (in no small part due to my current fandom obsession), but I don't know exactly where to start with the reading to learn about it.
Thanks for the info, BTW. Now I have at least one tidbit of knowledge to use should I ever need to have my favorite character (a linguist) show off his knowledge. ;)
Re:
Date: 2004-02-14 07:53 pm (UTC)If you want to do some research, I'd suggest seeing if your library has the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Linguistics, edited by David Crystal. It's a big book, but it's actually quite easy to read, with a wide variety of articles. And if you ever want someone to talk about linguistics with, I'm always game. As you can see, it's one of my favorite subjects.
Now, as for sound change and grammar. It turns out that sound change alters more than vocabulary: It changes the grammar of languages, too.
Let's say we're speaking Latin. In Latin, you can put words in any order you want without changing the meaning, because the nouns change form depending on what their role is in the sentence (subject, object, etc.).
Canis mordet virum means "Dog bites man". The -is ending of canis (dog) means it's the subject -- it's doing the biting. The -um ending of virum (man) means it's the object -- it's getting bitten. So, we can just as easily say Virum mordet canis, or Virum canis mordet, or Mordet canis virum, and it still means "Dog bites man". That's a notable feature of Latin grammar.
Above I mentioned that the loss of final sounds is a very common sound change. So what happens if that sound change occurs in Latin?
Canis mordet virum becomes Can mord vir
Uh-oh. Now our helpful -is and -um endings are gone. If we keep putting the words in any order we want, we'll end up hopelessly confused; we won't know who's doing what. The way we speak will have to change.
Let's make a rule that the subject (the do-er) always comes first. Now, if we want to say "Dog bites man", we *must* say Can mord vir, and not Vir mord can.
Latin had free word order, but our new language doesn't, so it can't really be called Latin anymore. Maybe we could call it Old French. :)
Re:
Date: 2004-02-14 08:34 pm (UTC)Yep. Daniel is the resident linguist on the team. Technically he's an archaeologist (assuming he only has one Ph.D, that's what it's in) but he's also a linguist and anthropologist. (Likely one of the reasons I'm in love with the character; all three subjects interested me in one way or another before I got into the show.)
Although, to be honest, he's never been called a linguist on the show and I'm not sure that just being able to speak a highly improbable number of languages qualifies him as one, but he also has to do translations and trace modified languages back to their root. (Most languages on SG have some sort of relationship to a real language. Goa'uld--the language of the bad guys--is supposed to be the origin of ancient Egyptian for example. But they've never really done anything terribly interesting with the concept. If you got into the fandom, maybe you could write something to that effect. /pimping *g*)
Part of it is plot device (someone has to be able to translate all the alien text they're always finding), but he gets to show off sometimes which is fun. *g* (Incidentally, he gets to show off a lot less than I'd like because of the way the whole universe speaks English. It annoys me to no end even if I understand the reasoning behind it and there are some (flimsy) ways to fix the gaping plot hole.)
Thanks for the extended explanation of the way language changes. :) I'm studying Italian right now, which is the closest language to Latin (I assume) and one of the things I find interesting is the way you can omit personal pronouns and play with word order due to the verb endings.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-16 09:58 pm (UTC)If I got into the fandom, I'm sure I would. :) I know a little Egyptian; I have some books on it. If you ever wanted to incorporate that into some fic of yours, I'd be happy to help.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-15 04:17 am (UTC)what do you mean they don't exist!!!! they do in my world!! ( then again I find I have alot in common with Luna ! )
Re:
Date: 2004-02-15 01:38 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-15 03:50 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-16 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-15 02:31 pm (UTC)That's a very intriguing concept, especially in light of your "Oil" where the oilien, although parasitical and intrusive, isn't really a hostile presence. I'd love to see you explore this idea in a fic.
the idea that dragons don't exist is fundamentally disappointing.
This observation of yours is so perfect and spot on that it made me smile. I read the article and I have to agree that it's hard not to feel an irrational little hope that the dragon fetus might be proved to be real. Great article, by the way, and knowing its origin makes me love your dragon icon even better than before!
Re:
Date: 2004-02-16 10:03 pm (UTC)*nods* I touched on it briefly in "A Pack of Cards", but I'd like to revisit it.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-04 10:30 am (UTC)