One of the unexpected positive side effects of being a linguist is that after glossing this Galela text I'm now capable of building a compost (In case you are interested: www.sil.org/resources/ar...)

Dutch "zonder" 'without' is cognate to German "sondern" 'rather, but'. Both come from a Proto-Germanic root meaning 'separate, apart'. English are "sunder", "asunder" etc. are cognate as well. #LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

Dutch "raar", German "rar" and English "rare" are all borrowed from French "rare". German and English kept the French semantics 'rare' while in Dutch, the meaming changed to 'weird, odd'. The same thing happened in German ⬇️ 1/2 #LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

#TIL: Beriberi (Thiamine deficiency) may be borrowed from Sinhalese බැරි බැරි "bæri bæri", 'I cannot, I cannot' en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiamin...

📢 21st Seminar of the @germantolksoc.bsky.social 📜Tolkien’s Works on the Book Market 📅31 October-02 November 2025, @unimainz.bsky.social 🌐Attendance in-person or online is free #Tolkien #bookstudies 💙📚 #lit #litwiss #fantasy #bookhistory #booksky

I recently came across a nice example for why historical records are crucial for linguistic reconstruction, even when the contemporary languages are well attested. 🧵 The related Papuan languages Ternate, Tidore and Sahu (North Halmahera) have very similar Phasal Polarity markers (see Table). 1/5

Dutch "rots" 'rock' is a Middle Dutch loan from French "roche" 'rock'. It is NOT cognate to German "Rotz" 'snot'! English borrowed 'rock' twice: Once in Old English times prob. from Latin "rocca" and later from Old North French "roque" 'rock'. Both fused to "rock" 1/ #LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

Dutch "leur" in "teleurstellen" 'disappoint' is derived from the same root as "verliezen" 'lose', cognate to German "verlieren". English "forlese" 'abandon' is obsolete but the past participle "forlorn" is cognate to Dutch and German "verloren" 'lost' #LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

Linguists, what's your preferred umbrella term for forms that express person or are marked/inflected for person? (Pronoun or pro-form is not what I'm looking for because demonstratives are also pro-forms but often not marked for person)

Updated alignment chart: What counts as a #conlang?

I first encountered the hypothesis that teenagers drive language change in a paper by Kerswill "Children, adolescents, and language change" from 1996. Which means it is at least older than me! /1

Also I'm so happy I'm writing a thesis instead of papers. I've now seen some people doing a traditional historical linguistics PhD in papers and naturally they propose a slightly different phonological reconstruction in each paper. I changed my opinion on whether to reconstruct *w twice - today!

I'm now at the point of my PhD project where I can confidently say I'm solving more problems than I'm creating 💪🏻 (which is good because I only have three more months of paid work left 🥵)

In finally finished reading The Unnaming of Kroeber Hall by @andrewgarrett.bsky.social cover to cover and wooow, it's so good! Big recommendation for all linguists, anthropologists, ethnologists, Ursula K. LeGuin fans and everyone else! So many things 100% relevant to my work to reflect on

Tolkien language nerds, scans of the first five issues of Parma Eldalamberon, long only available as photocopies, are now available open access: dc.swosu.edu/parma/

I may have found the best picture posted on google maps

Happy birthday to our new open access paper 🥳 We argue for an early and strong influence of Javanese on Eastern Indonesian languages (including North Halmahera), which mostly has been overlooked so far in the literature. evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/df11f5...

Happy birthday to our new open access paper 🥳 We argue for an early and strong influence of Javanese on Eastern Indonesian languages (including North Halmahera), which mostly has been overlooked so far in the literature. evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/df11f5...

I have question for the North Americans here: What is the current status/popularity of The Swiss Family Robinson. I know it's popular among conservative Christian families but what about the rest of society? AFAIK basically nobody in Germany has ever heard of this book or the movie...

Great new paper: Patterns of genetic admixture reveal similar rates of borrowing across diverse scenarios of language contact #linguistics #language www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

And here's a picture of me searching for regular sound correspondences

Hey bsky friends, I need your help! I've made a GoFundMe for top surgery, which I ideally want to do early next year (funds allowing). Because I'm only able to work part-time due to disability and PhD, any little bit helps towards this goal. Please share far and wide! gofund.me/639f4a03

Dutch "schattig" 'cute' is NOT cognate to German "schattig" 'shady'. The German cognate is colloquial "schatzig". Both come from cognate nouns meaning 'treasure': German "Schatz", Dutch "schatt". Old English had a cognate "sceat", used today for a small coin 1/2 #LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

Dutch "schattig" 'cute' is NOT cognate to German "schattig" 'shady'. The German cognate is colloquial "schatzig". Both come from cognate nouns meaning 'treasure': German "Schatz", Dutch "schatt". Old English had a cognate "sceat", used today for a small coin 1/2 #LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

The pocket PhD believes ma'am consists of two words 😊

Die Verblüffung, wenn man in einer mitteleuropäischen Stadt ein imposantes Gebäude aus dem 19. Jahrhundert mit der Aufschrift "Postamt" betritt und darin tatsächlich eine Post vorfindet

Deutschsprachige Menschen! Was bevorzugt ihr als Calque von "unhinged"? (z.B. "Die Szene in dem Film is völlig unhinged.") 1) unscharniert 2) ausgehängt 3) was anderes (bitte antworten!)

Ein Hummus : zwei Humanoiden

Ein Hummus : zwei Humanoiden

I really don't get the fuss about the question which one of the languages currently spoken on earth is the most difficult to learn Because obviously the answer must be: North Sentinelese

I will never not be chuckling about this sign

Heute haben wir leider keine neue Folge für Euch und wir werden es dieses Jahr leider auch nicht mehr schaffen, eine Folge vorzubereiten und aufzunehmen. 😔 Die Gründe erfahrt Ihr hier:

Dutch "dapper" 'brave' is cognate to German "tapfer" 'brave' English "dapper" is a borrowing of the Dutch word but got a semantic life of its own #LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

Very important text! I encountered a similar attitude among speakers of North Halmahera languages, but varying a lot among individuals. It seems to be mostly absent from the discourse about language endangerment in ling., which I feel treats severe grief as the natural reaction by speakers 1/3

Dutch "raken" 'touch, become' is not cognate to German "reichen" 'reach, pass' and English "reach". Instead, it's English cognate is "rake". No! Not the tool but the verb meaning 'move swiftly' 1/2 #LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

There's a neighborhood in east Amsterdam where all streets are named after islands and cities in Indonesia. Arrangement feels a little random to me tough. So Tidore got this nice long street leading to... 1/3

I couple of weeks ago I gave a talk about the differences between 17th century and contemporary Ternate, based on the van Diemen contract. You can now find it for free on my Zenodo zenodo.org/records/1668...

There's a neighborhood in east Amsterdam where all streets are named after islands and cities in Indonesia. Arrangement feels a little random to me tough. So Tidore got this nice long street leading to... 1/3

I couple of weeks ago I gave a talk about the differences between 17th century and contemporary Ternate, based on the van Diemen contract. You can now find it for free on my Zenodo zenodo.org/records/1668...

Dutch "zindelijk" 'potty-trained', formerly also 'clean, tidy' is cognate to German "sinnlich" 'sensual'. "zindelijk" is derived from "zinnelijk" 'sensual' with an epenthetic /d/. All words contain "zin"/"Sinn" 'sense' 1/3 #LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

Linguists! Is someone here aware of a documented/proposed change retroflex stop (phonemic or allophone) > implosive? (Not the other way round!) thank you! 🤗 #linguistics #phonetics #historicalphonology

Dutch "beschaafd" 'civilized, cultured, polite' is cognate to German "schaben" 'scrape, plane' and English "shave". "Beschaafd" used to mean 'smooth, polished' and got its new meaning in analogy to French "poli" which also used to mean both 'smooth' and 'polite'. 1/3 #LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

#TIL a "nickelodeon" used to be a small cinema that charged a nickel (i.e. 5 cents). Btw "nickel" has a most fascinating etymology: www.etymonline.com/word/nickel

My local Jumbo now offers 3 (three!) MioMio flavors - change is coming!

2 Ph.D. positions (48m/100% FTE) in the project "Description of the endangered Mönpa language of Bhutan” headed by Tim Bodt at Trinity College Dublin www.tcd.ie/media/tcd/sl...

Programm und Registrierung für unsere Konferenz "Jenseits von Elbisch: Konstruierte Sprachen in Phantastischen Welten" ist veröffentlicht! 12. - 14. September in der @phanbibwz.bsky.social Da die Website sehr schwer zu finden ist, sind wir über jeden Share dankbar! 🙏 phantastik.eu/events/41-we...

Dutch "breien" 'to knit' has no etymological relation to German "Brei" 'mash, pap, porridige'. Instead, it is cognate to English "braid". The German cognate is "bretten" but it's no longer used AFAIK 1/2 #LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

Confs: Jenseits von Elbisch: Konstruierte Sprachen in phantastischen Welten

Awesome news! This is a great collection, especially "Sleepwalker"

Warum heißt es "Die Befreiung des Auenlands" und nicht "Die Scheuerung der Scheier"?