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Languages of Italy: part 2
In yesterday’s posting I discussed linguistic varieties spoken Italy and noted that there is a divide between northern Italy and central/southern Italy. The development of northern Italian dialects was...
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On Northern Italian Dialects, again
Some time ago, I discussed Italian dialects, noting that Northern Italian dialects occupy an intermediate position between Southern Italian dialects and French. Curiously, when it comes to the dialect...
View ArticleModern Hebrew: old or new? (Part 3)
In the previous posting, I discussed word order patterns in Modern Hebrew and suggested that while the influence of the revivalists’ native tongues — Russian, Yiddish, Polish — cannot be denied, Modern...
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Fruit, vegetable, boy, girl…
It may appear from the previous post that gender is “lost in translation” only when a literary text is translated from a language with no grammatical gender system into a language that does have one,...
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It’s not all black and white
As was discussed in earlier postings, the cross-linguistic range of color terms is quite complex and languages differ as to how the treat the color spectrum (e.g., see how Hanunoo does it). But...
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Making my case
In the last couple of posts, I’ve discussed the issue of grammatical complexity and have shown that even if an objective measure of such complexity is absent, languages clearly differ as to which...
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On geographic determinism and nasal vowels in French
In a recent post, I discussed one example of geographic determinism applied to linguistic typology. The thinking behind geographic determinism is as follows: certain kinds of terrain or weather favor...
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The plural of virus? Latinate plurals reconsidered
[Thanks to Cynthia Typaldos for bringing this topic to my attention! The cartoon to the left is from this site] A recent article on paidContent.org by Robert Andrews states: “Google (NSDQ: GOOG)...
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Jerusalem artichokes and Jordan almonds: are they from the Middle East?
Despite what their names suggest neither Jerusalem artichokes nor Jordan almonds are from the Middle East. Both expressions are examples of folk etymology, a process by which the form (and sometimes...
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Dante Alighieri and the Italian Language
My recent trip to Italy has taken me to several places associated with the country’s leading cultural hero—Dante Alighieri. I have visited Florence, where he was born and spent his early years, and...
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