Other languages have good ideas too, you know.
Have you noticed something cool about another language, and wished English did that? Is there any feature of another language that you wish English had?
Daniel and Hedvig are engaging in a bit of language envy on this episode of Talk the Talk.
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Cutting Room Floor
Hedvig hits Daniel with her best programming joke. Then she tells the first thing she ever tried to say in Tok Pisin. (It didn’t go well.)
English speakers are really into -s. Is you guys really marked for gender?
And more ways that English could be cooler: negation anywhere, and nominal tense. Also, we really have to do something about that spelling.
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Show notes
Doctor Dolittle animal fantasy could become reality with AI
https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/doctor-dolittle-animal-fantasy-could-become-reality-with-ai-37322859.html
Nonsense About Universal Translation, Strictly for the Gullible – Lingua Franca – Blogs – The Chronicle of Higher Education
https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2018/09/20/nonsense-about-universal-translation-strictly-for-the-gullible/
The ‘language gene’ didn’t give humans a big leg up in evolution | Science News
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/language-gene-foxp2-no-humans-evolution-boost
Study challenges evolution of FOXP2 as human-specific language gene — ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180802141733.htm
Study Challenges Evolution of How Humans Acquired Language – Egghead
http://blogs.ucdavis.edu/egghead/2018/08/02/study-challenges-evolution-humans-acquired-language/
No Evidence for Recent Selection at FOXP2 among Diverse Human Populations: Cell
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(18)30851-1
Anaana’s Tent
http://www.anaanastent.com/en/home/index
kittugialuviningai! – Lots oh flies out eh! by UKâlalautta Inuttitut | Free Listening on SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/user-623280927/kittugialuviningai-lots-oh-flies-out-eh
Kupu on the App Store
https://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/kupu/id1433830550?mt=8
Kupu: The new app that translates whatever you take a photo of into Te Reo Māori
https://www.maifm.co.nz/home/headlines/2018/09/kupu–the-new-app-that-translates-whatever-you-take-a-photo-of-i.html
‘Imagine the futures’: The Māori language app helping Kiwis connect with Indigenous culture – Hack – triple j
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/maori-language-app-kupu/10264970
LINGUIST List 6.411: Jakobson reference
https://linguistlist.org/issues/6/6-411.html
Personal Pronouns
https://people.umass.edu/sharris/in/gram/GrammarBook/GramPersPronouns.html
Logophoricity – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logophoricity#Ewe
Perth Zoo devastated over missing meerkitten, feared stolen or taken by predatory bird – ABC News
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-19/perth-zoo-baby-meerkat-missing/10283452
meerkitten – Wiktionary
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/meerkitten
Etymonline: meerkat (n.)
https://www.etymonline.com/word/meerkat
Baby meerkat stolen from Perth Zoo found “tired and hungry” at Beverley house – ABC News
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-22/stolen-baby-meerkat-recovered/10293996
If you’ve nothing to read over lunch, I highly recommend Justice Wigney’s judgment striking out Mark Latham’s 76-page defence to Osman Faruqi’s defamation action against him. It is absolutely hilarious and a champagne piece of legal writing. https://t.co/zXydHzJGuJ— Annabel Crabb (@annabelcrabb) August 30, 2018
BarNet Jade – Find recent Australian legal decisions, judgments, case summaries for legal professionals (Judgments And Decisions Enhanced)
https://jade.io/article/602963?at.hl=faruqi+latham
Economist: How the internet could revive a 60-year-old punctuation mark
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2014/10/01/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-interrobang
Interrobang – 99% Invisible
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/interrobang/
Meet the precariat, the new global class fuelling the rise of populism | World Economic Forum
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/precariat-global-class-rise-of-populism/
Transcript
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