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January 9, 2024 @ 5:48 pm
· Filed under Language and biology
[Several days ago, I had prepared a post on this topic, but Mark scooped me with his "Mushroom language?" (1/9/24). His coverage of the counterposed Adamatzky and Blatt, et al. papers is superior to mine, so I will just strip out that part of my post and leave the remaining observations with which I had […]
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December 29, 2023 @ 7:48 pm
· Filed under Language teaching and learning, Multilingualism, Transcription, Translation, Writing systems
From Emma Knightley: Sent by my boomer parents – according to the caption how a Taiwanese village is teaching seniors how to sing "You Are My Sunshine" in English, which requires them to know a combination of Mandarin, Taiwanese ("阿粿"), English ("B"), and Japanese ("の")! (I think the calligraphy is wonderful, to boot.)
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November 2, 2023 @ 4:23 am
· Filed under Acronyms, Language and culture, Language play
As Laura Morland said to me in a p.c., I am a "Swiftie" (I admit it, even though I'm a Penn prof), but there are plenty of things about pop culture that I do not know, including IJBOL. What Is IJBOL? A Korean word? A new boy band? This new acronym is replacing LOL and […]
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September 3, 2023 @ 7:45 am
· Filed under Censorship, Emojis and emoticons, Language and the movies, Linguistics in the comics, Writing systems
奥本海默中国大陆版本剪辑情况 pic.twitter.com/Nbjxy5PJ4J — 小径残雪 (@xiaojingcanxue) September 1, 2023 [link to full tweet here]
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March 25, 2023 @ 2:13 pm
· Filed under Emojis and emoticons, Insults, Usage advice
New article by Stephen Johnson in Lifehacker (3/24/23): "These Are the Most Savage Ways to Start or End an Email: How you start and end your work email says something about your worth as a person" N.B.: This is about work email — a very different kettle of fish from personal email, email with friends, […]
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March 7, 2023 @ 6:26 pm
· Filed under Emojis and emoticons, Writing systems
"Hanmoji" is a portmanteau consisting of the first syllable of hanzi ("Chinese character") and the second part of emoji. From Bob Bauer: Have you heard of or seen the book entitled The Hanmoji Handbook: Your Guide to the Chinese Language through Emoji, MITeen Press, published August 30, 2022? The day before yesterday (Thursday, 2 March […]
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March 4, 2023 @ 5:39 am
· Filed under Announcements, Language and archeology, Language and biology
[Please read all the way to the bottom of this post. There are some big surprises here, including references to a book and an article on linguistics by the novelist Tom Wolfe (1930-2018), who's clearly on the wrong side of the political fence. Despite the spate of mostly unremittingly anti-Wolfe comments, many important issues about […]
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February 21, 2023 @ 6:15 pm
· Filed under Emojis and emoticons, Memes
So everybody knows what we're talking about: Baozi (Chinese: 包子), Pao-tsih or bao, is a type of yeast-leavened filled bun in various Chinese cuisines. There are many variations in fillings (meat or vegetarian) and preparations, though the buns are most often steamed. They are a variation of mantou from Northern China. (source) Early on in […]
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December 30, 2022 @ 10:27 am
· Filed under Language and history, Writing systems
Long article by Josephine Quinn: Alphabet Politics:What prompted the development of systems of writing? The New York Review (1/19/23 [online 12/19/22]) This is a detailed review of these two books: The Greatest Invention: A History of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts by Silvia Ferrara, translated from the Italian by Todd Portnowitz Farrar, Straus and […]
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December 17, 2022 @ 9:05 am
· Filed under Borrowing, Lexicon and lexicography, Neologisms, Word of the year, Words words words
No "lying flat" or "coiling up" for us! Here are Japanese words (not characters) of the year for 2022. No Time to Waste: “Taipa” Chosen as One of Japan’s Words of 2022 nippon.com (12/16/22) Quite a different set of attitudes from what young people in China are feeling nowadays. You will note that extreme abbreviation […]
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December 12, 2022 @ 8:12 pm
· Filed under Sociolinguistics
Danielle Abril, "Gen Z came to ‘slay.’ Their bosses don’t know what that means.", WaPo 12/12/2022: When 24-year-old Mary Clare Wall read a message that said her colleague would be “out of pocket,” she and her young co-workers giggled. As Generation Z workers, Wall and her peers interpreted the phrase to mean that their colleague […]
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September 9, 2022 @ 10:00 am
· Filed under Colloquial, Semantics, Slang, Variation, Writing systems
Matt Jenkins writes: I am hoping you'll indulge a question that's been bugging me. I have been trying to improve my fluency by watching as many Chinese online dramas as possible, and sóng (U+2AA0A) comes up in show after show. But the character is always quite obviously "cut-and-pasted" into the subtitles. I'm (generally) familiar with the character as […]
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September 4, 2022 @ 10:35 am
· Filed under Emojis and emoticons, Orthography, Writing, Writing systems
It'sssssssssssss finally out! ✨ The Hanmoji Handbook: Your Guide to the Chinese Language Though Emoji ✨ — by me, An Xiao Mina & @jenny8lee, published by @MITeenPress — appears in bookshops across the US and Canada today! pic.twitter.com/sTkudPAwxb — Jason Li (@jasonli) August 30, 2022
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