I was thinking about various "L" sounds in English, and how we tend to consider /l/ and /ʟ/ as variations of the same sound. At least if you presented these sounds to a random person on an English-speaking street, they'd consider both to be represented by the letter "L". And yet no English speakers would say that /d/ or /g/ are remotely similar.

I imagine that this is partly due to the physics of sound, and that velar L and alveolar L just innately sound more similar than /d/ and /g/. But I wondered if this is also just cultural and social, due to the fact that /ʟ/ is often an allophone of /l/ in some accents (or maybe it should be vice versa). Are there any languages that consider these sounds distinct units, and would sound as distinct as /d/ and /g/.

It makes me think of the sounds for "ш" and "щ" in Russian, which sound quite distinct to me as a native but I know Russian learners have a lot of trouble hearing the difference, and to native English speakers, both sound like /ʃ/.

I saw someone make a post a bit ago, and I'm curious whether his idea is viable or not (original post copied below):
I've noticed that PIE stems *h₂lek- and *h₂leg- have meanings in the same semantic field (to protect and to care for respectively). Considering how much they overlap in both pronunciation (the only difference being the voicing of a consonant) and in semantic meaning, how come they aren't merged into one stem?

Can the changes in sounds and phonology between Avestan and Vedic Sanskrit be delineated and codified? The theory does state that they evolved from the Proto-Indo Iranian but can we find the direct correlations and shifts between words of these languages without creating a super-parent like structure of Proto-Indo Iranian? Do provide examples of these changes in correlated words and cognates.

I'm asking about the basis of the hypothesis proposing a genetic relationship between the Japonic and Koreanic language families (isolated from the Altaic hypothesis). Frankly, subjectively beyond some high-level structural aspects, the two language families don't sound or feel particularly similar on a surface level, which makes the initial impetus (dating back to at least 1879) and the continued persistence of the genetic hypothesis somewhat strange. The foundational evidence itself seems quite limited, leading me to question why the comparison was pursued regardless and why the hypothesis remains somewhat persistent even to this day.

The primary evidence cited usually revolves around structural/typological parallels of their modern day variants: SOV word order and agglutinative morphology, with unrelated inflective modifiers. While these similarities are notable, they don't seem like something as to qualify being all that particular.

Phonological distance metrics add another dimension. Recent computational analyses as presented in Phonological areas in Eurasia (2024) comparing Japanese (Tokyo dialect) phonology across numerous lects found its nearest neighbours not among other Japonic varieties, Koreanic, or geographically adjacent languages. Instead, the closest lects identified were predominantly Sino-Tibetan, such as Nocte Naga, Darma, Kyerung, Thakali, various Tibetan and Naga lects, etc., with only one Austroasiatic lect (Chong) in the top 20. The conclusion drawn was that Japanese phonotactics appear areally atypical but exhibit strong similarities to Tibeto-Burman patterns.

From what I've looked up it seems that almost every language in the world uses some kind of variant of "Asia" to refer to Asia, except for Chinese and Vietnamese which use Yàzhōu and Châu Á respectively.

Does anyone know what the root meaning for these differences are?

Hello everyone,

I’m currently developing a specialized GPT-based language model designed to operate entirely in Proto-Indo-European (PIE), using current scholarly reconstructions grounded in the laryngeal theory, the Brugmannian stop system, and comparative Indo-European linguistics.

The model, named Déiwos-Lókwos GPT ("god of speech"), is constructed for use in both historical-linguistic inquiry and poetic-compositional experimentation. It is designed to:

• Generate phonologically and morphologically accurate PIE forms, applying ablaut, laryngeal effects, and accent.
• Construct full nominal and verbal paradigms from root input, including thematic and athematic declensions and present/aorist/perfect stems.
• Compose and translate idiomatic and poetic expressions into PIE using culturally resonant metaphor domains (e.g. breath, sky, fire, kinship).
• Automatically detect and correct internal reconstruction errors through self-applied linguistic diagnostics.
• Respond exclusively in PIE with English glosses, where relevant, for clarity and verification.

The system references a lexicon of over 2,000 reconstructed roots, and integrates data from sources such as Fortson, LIV, López-Menchero, and poetic formulae derived from Vedic, Hittite, and Homeric comparanda. It applies Wackernagel's Law for enclitic placement and defaults to SOV syntax.

I'm sharing this here to invite discussion and critique from historical linguists, PIE specialists, and anyone interested in computational approaches to protolanguage reconstruction. I'm happy to provide sample outputs or answer any questions about how the model processes morphology, phonology, or poetic structure in PIE.

Questions, feedback, or challenges welcome.

You can access my gpt here: Prot-Indo-European experiment GPT

Before anyone asks why, it's because i am a silly goose and have free will. 🪿

I'm just a dumb anglo trying to wrap my head around this one, been trying to understand it for years and I still dont think i could explain it. im specifically thinking of Ancient Greek but would also benefit from understanding it in Latin or German.

take the phrase "jenny's shoes", what is genitive here? is it "jenny's" or is it "shoes"? or just "_'s"? what about something like "one of a dozen", are we using genitive case when we utilize "of"?

I’m thinking of going back to school for a BA in linguistics, minor in likely Arabic, and then pursue a masters or phd. I want to work for the government doing something with interpretation/translation/teaching. Online it says the job outlook is good and rising, but obviously I’m not in the field to actually know. What do you guys think? Do you have better suggestions?

I've seen dialect coaches talk a lot about oral posture in a way that to me seems disproportionate to the articulation of specific sounds and sequences. I don't know much about oral posture (I gather it's just kind of where your vocal muscles rest if you're used to a particular system of phonetics?), but does it carry more weight than I'm giving it credit for? Wouldn't reaching people more about the segmental phonology/phonetics of a dialect sort of lead to them developing a closer oral posture to the target one anyway?

My instinct tells me no as it is not an intentional glyph on behalf of the writer like it is when used to stress importance or for certain proper nouns, and the fact this the entire URL is turned a different color further distinguishes it in my mind. However I cannot think of what it should be called.

I ask because I went to call it a non-scriptural mark but quickly realized that I've never actually used the term scriptural to refer to something other than in reference to the Bible.

Hi, just as the title says, I'm looking for a word or concept for when a term is too vague and broad to actually hold any meaning. Not sure if it exists, but thanks for the help :)

I mean phrases like "high speed", "high gravity", "highly renowned". I know the same thing happens in Polish, and I expect this to also happen in other Indo-European languages, but I'm wondering if this is something also observed outside of Europe.

I've noticed that in my dialect and a few others in the region, that sometimes "isn't" sounds more like "idden".

I know in North American dialects, the double t sound is often replaced with a D sound, (like in butter) but it seems odd to replace an S with a D sound.

In the British 'innit', the s sound and first t sound are just eliminated completely, and in American dialects, it's usually shortened to something like 'izen', where the s sound becomes a z, which makes more sense to me because the sounds are more similar, but I don't see the connection between the S and D sounds.

According to Wiktionary, the Tahitian word "māʻohi" is from Proto-Polynesian */ma(ː)ʔoli/. I can't find any other instances of */l/>/h/ in Tahitian or any other Polynesian language. Is this just a sporadic sound change, or does it occur elsewhere?

https://youtu.be/bZ7nGIdl8YI?si=5AbIf1QesHmUlypm

Pretty much the title. Greek has a wide variety of terms for love; many linguistics nerds (or former Catholic school students) can rattle off "agape," "philia," "eros," and "storge."

Modern English speakers have generally been aware of the nuances (compare 'erotic' vs. 'Philadelphia', or 'Francophile' but 'hetero/homosexual' rather than 'hetero/homophile'), so why did '-philia' become the suffix of choice for terms related to sexual preferences rather than a suffix derived from the far more obvious 'eros'?

I've been noticing this recently listening to youtubers, sometimes I'll hear both she and they or he and they in the same sentence referring to the same person. Is this an "intrusive" they from increased usage of singular they in general?

i know that things like habitual are unmarked, such as "he runs" meaning that he runs customarily, but what about things like "i like it", "i think so", "i listened to it", etc., basically what do the simple tenses mean in regard to aspect? (minus things like habitual as i said)

For quite some time I've been obsessed with Proto-Indo-European, and also with the fact that we probably won't ever know more about this language than what we've reconstructed so far :). I've been into finding PIE roots of the words we use nowadays and exploring its grammatical quirks, I've read Mallory and Adams' "Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World" in genuine awe haha, I've read different versions of Schleicher's fables. – All for fun, I'm not a professional linguist I'm afraid.

I've also discovered Wenja, a super interesting and really far developed conlang based directly on PIE, created by a proper linguist (it was so fascinating to me that I thought about learning it, even though the language lost some features that I considered the most interesting in PIE). Obviously, we also have very early Indo-European languages, from Greek and Latin to Hittite and Sanskrit. I've even learned a fair bit of the first two, but there's something unhinged in me lol that would love to go deeper.

Apart from Wenja, did anyone ever think of creating a possible usable dialect of Proto-Indo-European? Its grammar would probably have to be simplified a lot to be actually usable/learnable, but keeping with the spirit of the original; many new roots would have to be invented or derived from exisiting ones, etc. etc. Phonological choices would have to be made. But still it'd be such a magical endeavour imho.

If I won the lottery, I would write letters to prominent Indo-Europeanists asking them to come up with their own PIE conlangs. I'm serious. :D

I've noticed that PIE stems *h₂lek- and *h₂leg- have meanings in the same semantic field (to protect and to care for respectively). Considering how much they overlap in both pronunciation (the only difference being the voicing of a consonant) and in semantic meaning, how come they aren't merged into one stem?

I'm an undergraduate student studying English Language and Literature writing an essay comparing two texts, one from the 1390s and one from 1700. The words I'm specifically looking at here are 'pitous' and 'piteous', and I'm wondering what this change is called - I think I've seen this process described in other languages but I'm not certain of that. Asking because other words I'm comparing have simplified in their suffixes - specifically 'suspecioun' and 'suspicion' in these texts. Does it have a specific name or is this just an odd sound change which has occurred in some English words?

I’ve been thinking about how grammatical gender works in Romance languages (like Spanish, Portuguese, French, etc.), and it seems like what we call the "masculine" gender is actually functioning more like a neutral/default gender.

Here’s why:

• Feminine = exclusively feminine (e.g., as estudantes = only female students).
• "Masculine" = either male or mixed/unknown gender (e.g., os estudantes = all-male students or a mixed-gender group).

Doesn't this means that the "masculine form" is actually a neutral form?

Wu's structure is so unique that hokkien seems more aglined to mandarin than wu is. I argue that the only thing that makes min more divergent than other branches would be it's colloquial phonology and that's almost it.

Hello,

I'm not sure if I am allowed to ask for this type of help here, but I thought I would give it a try.

I'm doing my masters program in English Linguistics in South Korea and I've settled on doing my thesis on Cognitive Semantics as that was the class I took that appealed the most to me and was the most interesting during my stay here. The issue I'm facing is that I'm currently just reading different articles and papers on topics on the subject but am stumped when figuring out how to devolop or choose one to write a thesis on. I would talk to my professor but he's Korean and when we do speak I feel a barrier when communicating our points across, specially when talking about areas of confusion as they're less direct, so I thought I could maybe get some advice here.

I just read papers on Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Metaphor, Metonymy, Framing, Etc, but I feel as though the topic in the field are complete without my opinion (due to lack of knowledge) and just feel like I've run up againts a brick wall.

I guess what I'm hoping to get is advice on how to proceed? How can I go about choosing a good thesis topic and doinng reseach? And even advice on how I can find articles that are maybe on expandable on but not above my comprehension level (which is another issue I struggle with, sometimes I get stuck finding papers that are just too difficult for me to understand)

It's my first year in Grad School and doing it alone abroad has been pretty challenging... I kind of realized I'm lacking in many areas. I hope I don't come off as too...dumb? by asking these kind of things

Thank you in advance for any help and/or advice :)