Language Log

Linguistics is a relatively young discipline, formally dating from roughly the mid-19th century.  In the study of language, it was preceded by philology, which has hoary roots going all the way back to Pāṇini (520-460 BC) and beyond.

In my own lifetime, until recently I preferred to identify myself as a philologist, but that met with too many dumb stares, so I gave up on that.  Now, however, I find that there is a World Philology Union to carry the torch for this venerable profession, so perhaps there's hope for reviving my lost lifework after all.

From the WPU's website:

The World Philology Union (WPU) was founded on 2 December 2021 in Oslo, Norway. The WPU is an international association whose purpose is to promote philology worldwide, in research, education, society and culture.

The first General Assembly of the WPU was held in Rome, 15 December 2022. At the same occasion, the first WPU conference was held, 14–16 December, hosted by the Sapienza University of Rome and ISMEO – The International Association of Mediterranean and Oriental Studies. This conference discussed the current state of philology at universities and other academic institutions worldwide.

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Which do you think is harder — reading and writing Taiwanese with characters (sinographs) or with romanization?

I maintain — and I have tried to show over the years — that it's much easier to read Taiwanese written with roman letters than with Chinese characters.  The same is true of all vernacular Sinitic languages.

It is relatively easy for a speaker of Taiwanese to become literate in roman letters, not at all so in characters.  See the posts under "Selected readings" below.

[This is a guest post by Hiroshi Kumamoto]

The Last Words of Helmut Humbach (1921-2017)

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When an eminent classicist, the late Martin L. West published The Hymns of Zoroaster: A New Translation of the Most Ancient Sacred Texts of Iran, London: Tauris, 2010, Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst wrote (Review in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2011, p. 379),"This book (…) comes as something of a surprise, since scholars of the difficult texts in Old Avestan, the oldest known texts in Old Iranian, do not usually emerge out of the blue". Now another surprise is brought by Heindio Uesugi, who edited Old Avestan Dictionary, Tokyo : Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa  (ILCAA), 2024 [became available in Feb. 2025] (XXVIII, 404 + VI, 116 pages). Although Adam Alvah Catt at Kyoto University, who is credited as editorial supervisor, is known from his works in Indo-Iranian and Tocharian linguistics, the name of the editor has been totally unknown in the field in Iranian linguistics.

Some assembly required.

From Olaf Zimmermann:

(source [2002 no. 5])

…and not just for women:

Is Taishanese Cantonese?

Legally, in Canada, no.

[Preface:  This is one of the eeriest posts I've ever written, where thoughts I had about a student two decades ago while I was teaching her in my classes at Penn have become reality today, in a conspicuous, public way.  The realization of mental projection into the future.]

The material for this post came to me by a curious path.  From Bruce Rusk:

My father is a retired journalist in Toronto and one of his hobbies is tracking Ontario appeal court decisions. He came across a case that is of potential relevance to those interested in the status of Sinitic languages and the nature of fangyan. I thought that you (and perhaps Language Log readers) would find it interesting.

Because it was about Sinitic languages and fangyan ("topolects"), I was moderately interested, but because the written decision, like most judicial documents, was long and tediously detailed, I thought I'd just skim through it quickly.

Something for everyone

First, how to say the name. 

I think that the "correct" pronunciation of IKEA is "ee-kay-uh", with emphasis on the "ee" sound, similar to the way a native Swedish speaker would say it, not "eye-kee-ah" or "ai-kee-uh" with stress on the second syllable, the way most Americans say it (all the Americans I know).

What does it mean?

IKEA is an acronym for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd, the names of the founder and the places where he grew up.

From Kai Ryssdal:

I always find it helpful to remember tariffs end with FFS

[image or embed]

— Kai Ryssdal (@kairyssdal.bsky.social) March 6, 2025 at 4:00 PM

Want a Million Dollars? Get Busy Deciphering This Ancient Script.  A prize offered by an Indian state leader is intended to shed light on a Bronze Age civilization — and settle a cultural battle.
By Pragati K.B., NYT (2/1/25)

The Indus Valley civilization, also called the Harappan civilization, is seen by experts as on a par with the better-known ones of Egypt, Mesopotamia and China.

One of the earliest, it flourished on the banks of the Indus and Saraswati Rivers during the Bronze Age. It had planned townships, water management and drainage systems, huge fortified walls and exquisite pottery and terra cotta artistry.

Tuesday's Frazz:

Danny L. Bate has a new article declaring that "PIE was not SOV" (2/20/25), in which he attempts to demonstrate under three objections why "SOV" is not a useful term for describing and summarizing the word order of Proto-Indo-European clauses:  1. "clausal bias", 2. "changing the subject", 3. "discourse dominates".

 

Over the years, we've documented various applications of voice morphing technology besides the malicious creation of "deep fake" audio clips. Here's a new one: Amrit Dillon, "AI erases call centre staff’s Indian accents", The Times 3/2/2025:

A French company which operates the largest number of call centres in the world is using artificial intelligence to soften Indian accents in real time to make customer conversations easier and shorter.

Teleperformance said that it was sometimes difficult for customers calling call centres in India — and the Philippines — to understand workers’ accents, leading to frustration and longer than necessary calls.

“When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard to hear, to understand,” Thomas Mackenbrock, the company’s deputy chief executive, told Bloomberg News. “The technology can neutralise the accent of the Indian speaker with zero latency. This creates more intimacy, increases customer satisfaction, and reduces the average handling time. It is a win-win for both parties.”

The software, called “accent translation”, has been developed by Sanas, a start-up based in Palo Alto, California.