Never have I seen something as despicable as someone answering a historical phonology question on the Internet by using the characters ϑ and δ instead of IPA’s θ and ð

This is how you get people to spell things like “ant vs aunt” instead of using the right tool. I get that some symbols are inherited from different time periods or are different transcription traditions but some of these symbols are just too niche or outdated for the 21rst century

It’s funny how thrown off you might feel when some language branches don’t behave like the rest of the family

When looking up etymons and diverse phonological developments amongst Indo-European languages, I get the most upset about the disappearance of initial *p- in Celtic and Armenian for instance

This initial bilabial plosive is a reliable marker of kinship among IE languages (even in languages like Germanic where *p- > *f- which retained the bilabial component) and descendants can be identified/guessed with a certain degree of confidence because of *p-’s stability

Having a look at Wikipedia puts things into perspective quite easily. Most IE language retained *p- but these 2 branches almost systematically got rid of it;


*pH₂tér- "father"

  • Celtic: Old Irish athir "father";  Welsh edrydd "paternal domain"
  • Armenian: hayr "father"


*pōds, *ped- "foot"

  • Celtic: Old Irish īs "below" < PIE loc. pl. *pēd-suWelsh is(od) "below, under; lower (than)“
  • Armenian: otn "foot”, otkʿ "feet"


*peH₃- "to drink"

  • Celtic: Old Irish ibid "drinks" < *pibetiWelsh yfwn "we drink"
  • Armenian: əmpem "I drink"


*prek̂-, *pr̥-sk̂- < *pr̥k̂-sk̂- "to ask"

  • Celtic: Old Irish imm-chom-arc "mutual questions, greetings" ; Welsh archaf "I ask"
  • Armenian: harcʿanem "I ask"


I’m taking PIE *p- as an example because it has been most stable throughout the many phonological stages PIE went through. Celtic and Armenian represent the most drastic departures from archaic *p-, while Germanic seems to be the second most deviant with PIE *p- > Proto-Germanic *f-

The absence of initial *p- in these groups actually appears less “upsetting” when we take into consideration the intermediary steps like PIE *p- > Proto-Celtic *-ɸ > ∅- and PIE *p- > Proto-Armenian *h-

To note that the proto-languages retained fossils of PIE *p- in some specific environments and that words starting with /b/ in Irish or /w/ and /pʰ/ in Armenian retain a fairly transparent kinship with their PIE ancestor but they seem to be rather few. For instance, an absolutely-not-representative research on Wiktionary for words in Armenian that start with փ /pʰ/ show that they mostly tend to have been inherited or strongly influenced by neighbouring Iranic languages

Likewise, for Irish words starting with /b/ seem to demonstrate that the greater provider of the initial bilabial stop are /b/, /bʰ/ or /gw/

celtic armenian etymology

languageoficeandfire:

languageoficeandfire:

languageoficeandfire:

languageoficeandfire:

Drunk live from a bar in Paris. Experiencing a very Parisian social event. Surrounded by people I don’t know

Hovering over the 2 people I know. One of my best friends and her boyfriend


Making friends as I drunkenly stumble upon random groups of people outside the bar

Currently live-blogging from the pavement opposite the bar


Music good and people nice. Reached my limit in terms of alcohol

Sunglasses on my head, temperature chilly


Is this what being 30 supposed to be like?

Former Tinder match keeps messaging me despite previous exchanges telling her I’m in a relationship


Not equipped to deal with this situation

languageoficeandfire:

languageoficeandfire:

languageoficeandfire:

Drunk live from a bar in Paris. Experiencing a very Parisian social event. Surrounded by people I don’t know

Hovering over the 2 people I know. One of my best friends and her boyfriend


Making friends as I drunkenly stumble upon random groups of people outside the bar

Currently live-blogging from the pavement opposite the bar


Music good and people nice. Reached my limit in terms of alcohol

Sunglasses on my head, temperature chilly


Is this what being 30 supposed to be like?

languageoficeandfire:

languageoficeandfire:

Drunk live from a bar in Paris. Experiencing a very Parisian social event. Surrounded by people I don’t know

Hovering over the 2 people I know. One of my best friends and her boyfriend


Making friends as I drunkenly stumble upon random groups of people outside the bar

Currently live-blogging from the pavement opposite the bar


Music good and people nice. Reached my limit in terms of alcohol

languageoficeandfire:

Drunk live from a bar in Paris. Experiencing a very Parisian social event. Surrounded by people I don’t know

Hovering over the 2 people I know. One of my best friends and her boyfriend


Making friends as I drunkenly stumble upon random groups of people outside the bar

Drunk live from a bar in Paris. Experiencing a very Parisian social event. Surrounded by people I don’t know

mapsontheweb:
“Annual cigarette consumption per person aged 15 or older.
by lingue.maps
”
You can tell this is map is based on a faulty analysis of data because of Andorra. Andorra is a haven for tourists when it comes to low taxes. French people...

mapsontheweb:

Annual cigarette consumption per person aged 15 or older.

by lingue.maps

You can tell this is map is based on a faulty analysis of data because of Andorra. Andorra is a haven for tourists when it comes to low taxes. French people (but not exclusively) are known to cross the border to buy alcohol and cigarettes, hence the whopping 6.000+ cigarettes per year per person

Basically, this map equates the number of cigarettes bought with the number of cigarettes smoked within the same country and totally overlooks the trans-border purchases that often take place.

This leads to blown figures for Andorra and possibly underestimated ones for France where French people go to Luxembourg, Belgium or Andorra to buy cigarettes

(Source: instagram.com)


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