Silly Linguistics Magazine

9 August 2024

We here at Silly Linguistics love language and linguistics and want to share it with the world. Have you ever wondered why English spelling was so weird? Have you ever wondered where words come from? Well, in this magazine we cover all this and more. We talk to linguists and ask them all sorts of interesting questions about language. We talk to language lovers and talk to them about their highs and lows of language learning. We discuss etymology and where words come from. We look at the social impact of words and how words shape the world around us. Languages are fundamentally human and they touch all parts of our lives. We seek to explore how language shapes our lives and the world around us. How do different groups use language and what can that teach us about being human. Discover all this and more in our magazine Silly Linguistics. In issue 74, you'll find: One little word, a world of happiness By Christian Vinther “In the Scandinavian societies – and especially Denmark – there is, however, a single, little word that serves as an explanatory model for the Scandinavian happiness. “Hygge”. However, linguists point out that despite the term’s unique cultural significance to the Danish society, the word originates from Norwegian and can be traced back to the Middle Ages. The word’s original meaning was “to think about” or “show concern,” but after 1800 it acquired its current meaning, which is used to convey a sense of security and comfort. As people were able to spend more time with their families and work less, the idea of “hygge” developed along with the welfare state and became a key term for a manner of being together.” Dog-eat-dog linguistics By Joana Atanasova “Dogs are able to learn certain words and their meaning. Which of course doesn’t mean they can pronounce or use them, but they do recognize them and in turn react to them. That’s how they learn to do commands like “sit” or “stay”. And they manage to do it the best out of all animals in the animal kingdom, surprisingly. Why? The answer is simple yet very cute – because they evolved alongside us. Someone somewhere threw some food at the wolves around their settlement and befriended them. Since then, we domesticated them and they just went along with it, which is why they can understand conversation or command cues, as well as mastered the art of begging for food. But that doesn’t mean they want to join in on the conversation.” If there’s a will, there’s a… wish? Grammaticalization and Past Future in English and Serbian By Neda Stefanović “That is why we get some pretty funny constructions in Serbian when we want to express the particular meaning of the Past Future, which isn’t exactly recognized as a tense, but it is a construction that is needed in different conversations. In English, Past Future can be expressed with going to (I was going to go there, meaning I was planning, having an intention to go there), but it cannot be expressed using the auxiliary will. However, as there is only one future auxiliary in Serbian, that cannot be converted to the past in a form of a clitic – poor speakers are sometimes forced to use the verb’s full form, conveying unwanted meanings in the worst possible situations. It happens, to a certain level, in English, as well, as the expression going to carries an intentional meaning to a certain extent.” Initial consonant mutations in modern Irish, a question of point of view? Part 1 – Phonology By Linguipixie “Celtic languages are extremely cool: first, they’re Celtic; second, they conjugate – not decline, conjugate! – prepositions (maybe I’ll come back to this point in a further article on day); and third, they admittedly make it sooo much harder for a learner to find a word in the dictionary, because they are among the very few languages in the world that feature initial consonant mutations, that is to say that the initial consonant of a word may vary depending on the context. Well, at least in Irish, although the phoneme (sound) varies orally, in spelling the ‘original’ consonant remains, but is preceded or followed by a mark of that phonetic variation; whereas in Breton, they just change the letter itself: “karout” = “love” / “da garout a ran” = “I love you”… *exploding face emoji*” The Sinhala Script – An Artform By Rochana Jayasinghe “Nestled in the heart of the pearl-shaped island of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean lies a unique linguistic gem that dazzles both the eyes and the imagination. Whenever I show my script to international friends (especially those outside Asia), they exclaim that I must be quite the artist. As a child, this used to take me by surprise, since the script was simply a mundane part of my daily life. However, I began to see the incredible artistry in the script myself, understanding why people might think those who know how to use it are gifted in art. My script is Sinhala, which has earned the accolade of being one of the world’s five most beautiful alphabets, according to the Matador Network.” The Komi-Zyrian language, The Talking Golden Idol, and other languages in the Ural Mountains By Linden Alexander Pentecost “In Komi-Zyrian the word керӧс – kerös means ”mountain”. The “sky” is енэж – jenež, and a “forest” is вӧр – vör. In the image there is also a river, known in Komi-Zyrian as ю – ju. The Komi were traditionally an animistic people, and were, like several other indigenous peoples of Eurasia, polytheistic in a sense, but also believed in a primary creative force or original mysterious creator. In Komi-Zyrian, this creator is referred to as Ен, En, and could appear to people in the form of a swan. The Komi-Zyrian word for “swan” is юсь, juś. For me personally, when I look at the photo below, and think on the name Ен, the name of the creator connected to the Komi lands, world and people, the world of the Komi does come more alive to me (I have never been there). Thus is the power of language.”