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(Source: briefsketch)
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Hieroglyphs of the week
dAdA
copulate, masturbate, misbehave, rape, sodomize? [verb]
***
So I was looking through my dictionary while writing the “thy buttocks” post, and this word happened. Couldn’t resist sharing.
Pronunciation: That “A” (the vulture) is thought to stand for a glottal stop as in the Arabic letter Aleph, or an “R” sound pretty much like the English “R”. The “d” is the same as an English “D”.
The ejaculating penis is silent. The symbols placed at the end of a word are often used to clarify the meaning and aren’t meant to be pronounced. For example:
All four of these words are pronounced iH, with a voiceless uvular fricative “H” sound. The first means “to cry”, the second “pleasant aroma”, the third “to move/go somewhere”, and the fourth “bull/oxen/cattle/herds”. Pretty straightforward, right?
On its own, by the way, that penis is pronounced Hnn. That’s henen, same H sound as above. And it means, well, penis.
Isn’t this language amazing? The use of ideograms to differentiate homophones reminds me a lot of some radicals in Japanese kanji that will influence the meaning of the character but not be linked to its pronunciation.
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(Source: speech-path-way)
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The Speed of Language
(Source: languageek)
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“Before you judge me as some kind of ‘anything goes’ language heathen, let me just say that I’m not against usage standards. I don’t violate them when I want to sound like an educated person, for the same reason I don’t wear a bikini to a funeral when I want to look like a respectful person. There are social conventions for the way we do lots of things, and it is to everyone’s benefit to be familiar with them. But logic ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.”Arika Okrent, In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language
(Source: victoriousvocabulary)
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“In Africa, when an old man dies, a library burns down”Amadou Hampâté Bâ
(Source: sidewinder-sleeps-tonight)
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I want to be a schwa… it’s never stressed. Except in Afrikaans. （ノ益）ノ
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Page from a multilingual phrase book compiled for Elizabeth I of England.
(Source: isos.dias.ie)
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Discussion
- Redditor: What's the etymology of the word "race"?
- Reddit hive: We can't be sure.
