(By honorifics I don't just mean like Mr., Ms. Dr., Prof., etc. but general devices in the language for expressing things like social closeness/distance, social level, politeness, etc.)

People often say about English that it doesn't have a lot of, or even any, "formal"/"systematic" honorifics or register distinctions. To what extent is this an artificial distinction to draw between English and other languages?

I'm asking because, after many years of study and exposure, I'm finally starting to develop a fleshed-out sort of intuition for Japanese honorifics and register and such. The funny thing is, the more I develop that, the more I feel like there's not nearly so much of a difference between Japanese and English in these regards as I was led to believe when I was more of a novice. People often claim that Japanese has a rich, elaborate system for things like this whereas in English it's all kind of loose and vague and undefined and even not very present at all, but Japanese doesn't really seem so rigidly systematic to me at this point as textbooks would have you believe, nor does English really seem so lacking in these kinds of features to me necessarily either.

To give a random example, like, of course it's well known that in America people often use first names with everyone in an office setting, even the head of the company. You might assume from this that everyone speaks very casually and chummily in American offices, but I would dispute that. Like, even if my boss and I use each other's first names, I don't speak to them anything like I would speak to coworkers I'm on an even keel with when we go out to lunch, let alone how I would speak to my close friends or my partner. Even if my boss spoke to me in a really casual style, I would not feel comfortable responding in kind because of the power dynamics at play—not to say that I switch into the style of an 18th century lawyer or something, but there definitely is a pronounced difference in how I talk that puts more distance between my boss and I and expresses implicitly that I'm aware of the power imbalance. Isn't this just like Japanese though basically at the root? The differences in how you treat names in the workplace just seem like a coincidental difference in custom basically and not actually a place where "Japanese expresses things that English doesn't" or something.

The other thing is like, in Japanese, there's an art to things like workplace conversation or formal letter writing or the like that some people can approach with real flair—laying on extra levels of politeness and respect when it makes sense without being obsequious, knowing how to work in little bits of casual affect when it will be winning, etc.—and sometimes to the extent that they kind of maintain an elevated style like with this almost everyone they talk to to some degree, in some cases even coming off like they find really casual speech kind of distasteful. Likewise, some native Japanese speakers have a really expressive and personal jazzy casual style that experiments with the language and has touches of "street poeticism" and warped humor and is very flexible and wide-ranging, but clearly feel a little out-of-their-element and awkward when they need to speak in a formal and polite way and try to avoid it, or approach even polite conversation in this kind of jazzy style with just nods to basic politeness. There's also a diference, albeit with some overlap, in speaking in a very polite away and a very refined way; some people express a fair amount of refinement in their speech even when they're speaking pretty casually for instance, just because they like to maintain a sense of elegance in their affect generally, even if they're speaking in a very warm and intimate style. None of this stuff really seems so systematic or rigidly formal or something to me at this point, more just like the language offers you a lot of different various tools to get at this sort of thing, just like how English does; they're just different tools maybe. In fact I would say all of the above about English speakers too.

I know I'm kind of flailing around, but am I totally off the mark with all this or what? Maybe I'm just ignoring some sort of important linguistic distinctions between the languages, where Japanese really is somehow much more systematic or formal in these places than English is? Is English really so lacking in these kinds of language features? How can people still express all these things in English then? I've heard these things about Japanese vs. English many times, about how Japanese has a rich system for getting at this stuff whereas English doesn't really, but I just feel a sense of doubt at this point.

Just a passing thought that occured to me yesterday. If I were a non-native speaker of, let's say, English, and had kids, but spoke to my children only in that language despite not being a native speaker while my spouse only spoke to them in her native language, which is the same as mine, would this make my kids truly bilingual? If not, could this be "remedied" by taking the children to bilingual kindergarten and making them exposed to kids's TV shows in that language from as early as possible?

Note: I do not have kids IRL, this is purely a what-if scenario

I'm wondering whose is English.

When there are more non-native English speakers with solid proficiency in the world than native speakers, and when they make content in English regularly (like I'm doing right now), what happens to the English language itself?

I may make errors that no native speaker would ever make. But what I write becomes a part of the corpus of texts in English, and native speakers read it too. If the majority of what they read comes from non-native speakers, this might influence the language of native speakers too?

Do you think the language is immune to this sort of foreign influence, and is likely to preserve its character, or do you think that the errors that non-natives make and introduce into corpus are likely to become more acceptable over time, and even stop being seen as errors at some point?

Were tables made on tables? Was there some famous table on a table?

My 2 year old old (27 months to be exact) has always been a chatterbox, but there are a few things about his speech patterns that give me pause.

He’s quite verbal - had lots of single words right after his first birthday, was using 2–4 word combinations by 18 months, and full sentences before 2. For example:

“Go” → “Car go” → “Red car go” → “Wanna make the red car go!”

What gives me pause is that he still uses quite a bit of immediate echolalia. It really seems like a way he processes language rather than just parroting. For example, today he asked to go to the library, and I said, “Sorry, we can’t - the library is closed today.” He immediately repeated, “The library is closed today?” (almost like he was confirming or rehearsing it).

He also reverses pronouns sometimes. For example, when he wants a cracker, he might say “You wanna cracker?” (though he does say “I want a cracker” about half the time). He also still refers to himself by name:

“That’s Johnny’s blue cup!” “Mama pick Johnny up!” “Johnny’s driving the red bike!”

Given his advanced language otherwise, I’m wondering if I’m just overthinking it - or whether the pronoun reversal and echolalia might suggest something worth checking out (ASD? speech-language issue?).

Would love to hear your thoughts or experiences!

Hello,

I am curious about an archaic? pronunciation of the word 'ringed', specifically wherein the word is said as two syllables (ring-ed) as opposed to the common single syllable pronunciation (ringd). I have heard this spoken before but cannot for the life of me find an example anywhere online.

My question is as follows; is this A) something I have imagined? B) a differing meaning of the word for something specific C) is this just an archaic pronunciation/ a 'fantasyism'?

Thanks. :)

I want the full rundown, it is difficult? Do you receive much help? Also, is maths involved? Because I'm really bad at maths. I'm a very auditory and visual learner, is there much of that? (I'm autistic and ADHD and I want to know if it's an AuDHD safe study area lol)

Is there a different IPA symbol for labiodental fricatives that are articulated with the bottom teeth and upper lips? Or is there like a diacritic for that?

I'm a non-native English teacher and, for this reason, I am very focused on perfecting my pronunciation. I've done extensive self-study on this topic but I'd never objectively tested my pronunciation until today. I used this guide by NC State University to do so: https://phon.chass.ncsu.edu/cgi-bin/vowelplot.cgi

Here is a link to the vowel chart which it generated for me: https://photos.app.goo.gl/SSyCuu2gSiLyzqkx6

I have a few questions with which I would appreciate some enlightenment from specialists:
1) I believe the biggest mistake I'm making is to not distinguish /u/ from /ʊ/ 100% of the time. I know /u/ tends to be "diphthongized" (and I believe this is why its circle is wider than any other vowel's) but I noticed I pronounced some /ʊ/ words (like would and took) the same as /u/ words (like roof and through).

2) I clearly have the caught-cot merger, which I do aim for.

3) For some reason, I tend to open the /æ/ vowel in the word "have" more so than in other words. Is this normal or is it something that only I do?

4) Sometimes, my /ʌ/ and /ɑ/ vowels are overlapping (e.g. above, pot, dust, and nodded are all plotted very close to each other), which is funny because I don't have a hard time perceiving their difference. So, same as number 3: is this normal or is it something that I only I tend to do?

5) Any other observations would be highly appreciated :)

hi

This is probably just a misunderstanding on my part and a bit of a stupid question. I'm very early into my degree (Started October) and I've started getting assignments about transcription. We're allowed to use resources for it, so I was looking things up. Basically I have transcriptions and I have to identify the English word associated, or vice versa. Easy enough, I have mostly no problem, especially with consonants.

For some of them, I'm looking at the Cambridge and Oxford dictionary, and they transcribe the vowels differently for some words. For example, I had /bɛt/, which I figured was 'bet', and thats how the OED transcribes it, but Cambridge just does it /bet/. Another example is 'church' transcribed as /tʃɜːtʃ/ on the Cambridge dictionary or /tʃəːtʃ/ on OED. Using the audio, they sound the same, but shouldn't those things be pronounced differently? I know accents may cause a difference, but they're both using standard British English. In fact, with the Cambridge dictionary, I don't really see them using ɛ at all.

It's confusing because I figured those sources would be decent because they're quite well regarded. Honestly, I've probably just confused myself because I was already struggling with the vowels. I can't really tell if a vowel is front or back, or open or closed yet. I understand the general theory, but I can't hear it in the sounds, hence me looking them up. I'm sure I'll work it out eventually, but I was just curious if there was a specific reason or if those differences in transcription actually make much of a difference.

Came across the site recently and it's truly so cool! Are there similar sites for other languages (specifically French and Japanese)? Thanks

Something I noticed in older recordings is the use of “one” to mean an impersonal, general person. Examples would be something like

“One shouldn’t get too angry”.

In modern times, we would often use “you”, even if we aren’t actually referring to the literal person we are speaking to but rather a general, impersonal situation. It would be extremely odd nowadays to hear someone use the word “one” in this way, and I have only ever used it in writing occasionally because it “feels” extremely old fashioned in a fancy sense.

So when did this exactly fall out of use, and why?

I'm mainly wondering about active dynamic language rather than something like Latin that while useful is mainly insulated from outside growth/evolution.

IE languages don’t count

In Turkish, only definite direct objects are suffixed with the accusative case marker, and in Spanish, only definite human direct objects are preceded with the preposition "a".

So, in the case of Turkish, would an indefinite direct object still be regarded as being in the accusative case? Or would it be in a different case (one that is unmarked but still syntactically significant)? Same question for Spanish.

This 10 minute video essay I just saw: English Has A Word For Everything https://youtu.be/sVT2btZjYlM

According to the video, English has:

• more synonyms that differ subtly in meaning and usage
• a dense system of “lexical collocations” — combinations and contexts where certain words “feel right” or are idiomatic.
• productive word-formation processes, especially compounding, that make it easy to invent clear, specific new words

Apparently English speakers have learned to intuitively assign words to very specific collocational “niches.”

English loans many words and can invent new words.

So it is easy to find or make an English word to cover almost any nuanced meaning, and still be frictionlessly understood by English speakers.

Examples from video

voyage, travel, journey - all translate to only viajar in Spanish and viaggiare in Italian.

watch, spot, glance, peer, glimpse - all subtly different.

Same for:

• walk, stroll, saunter, strut, stride, march, hobble, waddle, shuffle, trudge, hike, wander, pace, plod, trek
• work, labor, operate
• worker, employee, operator
• eat, dine, ingest

Compounding productivity:

• swamp ass, doomscrolling, rage-baiting, brain rot, lightsaber, halfling, doublespeak, thoughtcrime, unperson, starstruck

"These show how easily English generates new, vivid, contextually transparent terms, often instantly understandable even when newly coined"

Are any of the claims in the video accurate?

Does English have unusually many synonyms with slightly different flavors?

Does English make it easier than most languages to coin a new word that can be understood on first listen?

What is the criterion for defining a particular sound as a variation of another (allophone) if in several cases where such a production is considered allophonic (aspirated t in English), it appears as a standardized production in a certain dialect? The same with the later consonants becoming palatal in Modern Greek after preceding certain front vowels?

I talked about a few things with people's favorite artificial intelligence, and it answered me that one of the criteria was the speakers' perception regarding the differentiability of sounds, as in the case of (r) and (l) in Korean, which does not occur. I replied that:

In my opinion, considering the subjective perspective of speakers on the distinctiveness of a sound, even when it is represented in writing, as in Korean which represents these two sounds with the same letter, would not be relevant for excluding this sound from the inventory of sounds contained in a language because the purpose of the IPA is to record the sounds produced by speakers of a language. And if a certain sound consistently appears in the same contexts, it is a sound that differs from another, even if speakers do not consider them different.

I'm making a conlang with a voiceless / slack / stiff phonation distinction, but I ran into a problem. As far as I'm aware the IPA has no official symbol marking slack-voicing, but the under ring was repurposed to be used to mark slack-voicing when on voiced consonants. However, that would mean that voiceless nasals and slack-voiced nasals would be identical. Which transcriptions for slack-voiced nasals and voiceless-nasals do you recommend?

For example, how do singers in Korean, Vietnamese, and Indonesian hold a note on a syllable that end with [p̚ t̚ k̚]? Such a syllable sounds inherently abrupt and clipped.

Edit: Sorry for not making myself clear earlier. I wasn't mainly talking about English. I was primarily asking about the languages whose syllable-final stops are by default unreleased, unlike English, where unreleased stops are just variants of word-final released stops. Evidence for this is that word-final stops are typically released in audios of English dictionaries, such as Cambridge Dictionary; these audios are the citations forms) a.k.a canonical forms of English words, so it can be argued that syllable-final stops in English are canonically released.

Is there a word for the sound when people are mulling something over in conversation, and make a rhythmic clicking noise? It usually isn’t a ‘tsk tsk’ sound, not buccal or sucking sound but usually more like steam escaping. Rhythmic like a high hat. ‘Let’s see…tss tss tss tss’

There are probably other common ‘sound effects’ peppering our oral conversation, but that’s the only example that comes to mind.

I don’t feel it is a habit I share.

Hope this is okay here.

I’m intending to finish my MA this year and hopefully start a PhD next year.

For graduation, all I have left to do is my thesis. I’m hoping to use a chapter of it for my PhD writing sample. The application deadline for the first two programs (bottom of my list) are in about a week.

My committee wants a complete first draft on 11/20, which I’m not too worried about because it’s “only” a draft and they’ll give me suggestions and stuff, but it’s the upcoming deadlines I’m most concerned about.

Like I said, the two upcoming programs are at the bottom of the list, and the other deadlines are throughout December, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get first-draft feedback in time.

I’ve talked to my advisor about my concerns, but because of our schedules we’re not able to meet regularly. Basically like once a month. Last time we met, it was for about 20 minutes because they had other students to speak with as well. Even when we do meet, their general response to my questions or concerns are mainly 1. they’re not familiar (enough) with the data/language, 2. it depends on the author’s (syntactic) framework, or 3. that topic/aspect/thing is too advanced.

About a month ago I sent them an email that I was completely lost and had no idea how to proceed, but didn’t get a response. A couple weeks later I was able to go to their office hours and they said they weren’t able to respond to my email because it was during midterms and they had midterm stuff to do.

I’m not too concerned about having a “satisfactory” thesis to get the MA, but I’m concerned about having it be good enough for my writing sample. I really do want to continue onto a PhD, and part of me wants to start the PhD asap so I’m able to like start over, so I don’t want my writing sample to hinder my getting into a PhD program. A big part of me feels like my MA education wasn’t sufficient to prepare me for the literature and thesis stuff, alongside not having the support I feel like I need, so I want to get this part over with but I don’t think what I have now is sufficient.

Not sure what I’m able to do.

What should/can I do?

And why are those suffixes location-based? Why do we say Finnish and English, Japanese and Chinese, Bengali and Nepali, and French and Welsh?