Rhuyeve tamile Amaharukwe, Rhux̌akwe tanajha chiwirachive, Tanapm Rhalamereve. ”Amaharu said it to me, I have come to say it to you, And I will go say it to the world (OR: And you will go say it to the world)"
Phonotactics: CV syllables only. /ə/ is pronounced [ɨ] in a stressed syllable unless preceded by a pharyngeal/pharyngealized consonant, otherwise it is pronounced [ə]. Syllabic consonants /l̩/, /r̩/, /n̩/ and /m̩/ appear word finally, but these are best understood as underlying /ənə/, /əmə/, /ələ/ and /ərə/ respectively. With voiced consonants, pharyngealization is realised as:
A pharyngeal/epiglottal voiced trill-release of the consonant.
The following vowel is pronounced with a murmured voice.
With voiceless consonants (including ejectives), pharyngealization is realised as:
A pharyngeal/epiglottal voiceless trill-release of the consonant.
The following vowel is pronounced with a noisy, aspirated release.
Furthermore, vowels /i/ and are diphthongized following pharyngeals: /i/ -> [əi], -> [əu] Thus: /dˁu/ -> [d͡ʢə̤ṳ] /tˁi/ -> [t͡ʜʰəi] (This is based on Chechen btw) Sound changes since Kesan: The aspirated series shift to fricatives: /pʰ/ -> /f/ /tʰ/ -> /s/ /kʲʰ/ -> /xʲ/ /kʷʰ/ -> /xʷ/ /qʰ/ -> /χ/ /qʷʰ/ -> /χʷ/ Palatalized velars shift to Alveopalatals, leaving the language with only a labialized velar series. /kʲ/ -> /t͡ʃ/ /xʲ/ -> /ʃ/ /kʲ'/ -> /t͡ʃ'/ /gʲ/ -> /d͡ʒ/ Following this, alveolars also shift to alveopalatals when followed by /i/ /ti/ -> /t͡ʃi/ /si/ -> /ʃi/ /t’i/ -> /t͡ʃ’i/ /zi/ -> /ʒi/ /t͡si/ -> /t͡ʃi/ /d͡zi/ -> /d͡ʒi/ Glottals become pharyngeals when followed by a pharyngealized vowel: /hVˁ/ -> [ħVˁ] /ʔVˁ/ -> [ʕVˁ] Pharyngealization shifts from vowels to adjacent alveolalabial consonants, If no eligible consonants are adjacent to the vowel pharyngealization is lost, if both adjacent consonants are eligible, the consonant following the vowel is pharyngealized. P=eligible consonant. K=non-eligible consonant. /PVˁK/ -> /PˁVK/ /KVˁP/ -> /KVPˁ/ /KVˁK/ -> /KVK/ /PVˁP/ -> /PVPˁ/ Some time following this, /vˁ/ and /fˁ/ shift to /ʕ/ and /ħ/, respectively. /ə/ inserted errywhere: /CC/ -> /CəC/ /CVC__/ -> /CVCə/ (is this how you denote word-final consonants? pls halp my linguistics formulafu is weak) Vowel reduction? I haven't figured out the exact details yet, open to suggestions. Word final voiceless fricatives and word-final syllables composed of a voiceless fricative and an /ə/ are dropped. This has an interesting effect on certain words, which now develop two distinct forms depending on whether or not they take any suffixes. For instance, the 1st person singular pronoun nominative /ʕuχə/ loses the final syllable, becoming /ʕu/, but in the plural, the final syllable is "protected" by the plural suffix, and so the original form remains: /ʕuχa-t͡ʃə/ Lastly: /ɮ/ -> /ʒ/ /ɬ/ -> /l/ /t͡s’/ -> /səʔ/ /t͡s/ -> /s/ /d͡z/ -> /z/ /ji/ -> /jə/ /wu/ -> /wə/ /Cʷu/ -> /Cʷə/ /VhV/ -> /VnV/ (unless at least one of V=, in which case /VhV/->/VmV/) Overall grammatical changes from the proto-language:
Pronouns developed tripartite allignment (rest of the language stays ergative-absolutive)
Developed a three-way gender system (masculine animate, feminine animate, inanimate)
BECAME NON-CONFIGURATIONAL. Word order is more or less random, discontinuity all over the place, pro-dropping, this language doesn't give a shit.
Lost most of the inflected verbs, so might only have 3 verbs depending on how you look at it. See below.
Omni-predicative? Sort of? Technically not? It's hard to explain, see below, in practice everything can be verbified, but it's less that nouns serve as verbs and more that semantically deficient verbs can have nouns bolted on to them to give them an actual meaning... it's weird.
Pronouns, which are now tripartite:
Singular
Dual
Plural
1.
Nominative
ʕu
ʕuʕu
ʕuχat͡ʃə
Ergative
ʕuχakʷə
ʕuʕuχakʷə
ʕuχat͡ʃəkʷə
Accusative
ʕuju
ʕuʕuju
ʕuχat͡ʃəju
Genitive
ʕujə-
ʕuʕujə-
ʕuχat͡ʃi-
2.
Nominative
t͡ʃiwira
t͡ʃit͡ʃiwira
t͡ʃiwirat͡ʃə
Ergative
t͡ʃiwirakʷə
t͡ʃit͡ʃiwirakʷə
t͡ʃiwirat͡ʃəkʷə
Accusative
t͡ʃiwiju
t͡ʃit͡ʃiwiju
t͡ʃiwirat͡ʃəju
Genitive
t͡ʃiwi-
t͡ʃit͡ʃiwi-
t͡ʃiwirat͡ʃi-
3.
Nominative
kʷ’ə
kʷ’əkʷ’ə
kʷ’əʃat͡ʃə
Ergative
-
-
-
Accusative
kʷ’əʃu
kʷ’əkʷ’əʃu
kʷ’əʃat͡ʃu
Genitive
kʷ’i-
kʷ’əkʷ’i-
kʷ’əʃat͡ʃi-
As you can see above, Chesar has a tripartite pronoun system, with distinct forms for intransitive subject (nominative), transitive subject (ergative) and transitive object (accusative). Note that the lack of ergative pronouns in the third person is not an accident, as Kesar completely lacks them. Demonstratives are instead used. Other 3rd person pronouns exist, but demonstratives are again commonly in their place. True 3rd person pronouns are only used for emphasis. Genitive pronouns may appear on their own without an overt head and may thus both be translated as "my" and "mine". ("That's my book. It's mine"). They agree with their head in gender and case. The tripartite system developed, in parts, as a result of the increased use of demonstratives in lieu of third person pronouns. The fact that these demonstratives, unlike pronouns, but like other nouns, followed an ergative allignment, brought further confusion to to an already complex system. The pattern of these demonstratives, which were marked with an Ergative case suffix when transitive subjects, was regularized to apply to other pronouns, and formed by attaching an ergative /-(a)kʷə/ suffix to the nominative form. However, pronouns had distinct Nominative and Accusative forms, and these stuck around even after the addition of the ergative. Thus you get a tripartite system, with no distinct ergative form for 3rd person pronouns. Examples: ”I went” Rhu rhuzigwe.
GRAMMATICAL GENDER SYSTEM: Each grammatical gender has a "common" ending that many words in the group end on, and this ending is used to derive further words into the group. Gender is also mostyl semantically determined, so it is somewhat predictable. But still, for a lot of words you just have to memorize it. The grammatical gender of a noun triggers agreement in adjectives (whose only distinction from nouns is having no inherent gender) and usually demonstratives and genitive pronouns. Gender suffixes: Masculine: /-Ø ~ -na/ (/-na/ is used for deriving new words into the class and also functions as a generic nomen agentis, in agreement context it only appears on adjectives. Genitive pronouns and demonstratives show null-agreement) Feminine (smaller): /-waʃi ~ -ʃi/ (/-waʃi/ is the prefered form for derivation, while /-ʃi/ is the prefered form for agreement) Inanimate: /-Ø ~ -sə-/ (The /-sə-/ form appears only when followed by another suffix, otherwise /-Ø/ is used) ”That big man” Br zejhina rhala
The gender-system developed as a result of a combination of several things... stuff... stuff happened. The basic idea is that continued dislocation resulted in certain derivational suffixes becoming used A LOT, think of the following: "I killed that fat woman", a sentence we have all said at some point in our life. Over time it became more and more common for Chesar speakers to dislocate parts of the sentence: "I killed fat woman, that (one)", or "I killed that woman, (the) fat (one)". With sentences like these becoming more and more common, speakers needed to disambiguate who the dislocated bit refered to. In the above example, the referent is a woman, and the language already had a derivational suffix /-wasi/ used for deriving words, typically refering to females. This suffix was expanded and applied to the dislocated part when it refered back to a female, so the above would be rendered: "I killed fat woman, that-FEM (one)", or "I killed that woman, (the) fat-FEM (one)". This was then regularized to be used even when these elements were not dislocated, and over time dislocation would become simple discontinuity, so the above would end out as: "I killed fat-FEM woman that-FEM" "I killed that-FEM woman fat-FEM." "I killed that-FEM fat-FEM woman." See? Easy peasy. So the development of gender and non-configurationality was closely related. Anyway, the origin of gender: (WIP) The feminine animate came about due to the following:
Increased productivity of the "feminine/odd" derivational suffix /-wasi/ (/-waʃi/ following sound changes).
Generalization/reinterpretation of many words ending on /-si/ (mostly small birds) as part of a grammatical group, along with words that refered to "odd" members of a particular group (such as flightless birds or legless lizards).
The masculine animate (largest group, default for refering to animates):
Old nomen agentis suffix /-na/ reanalyzed as a masculine/non-feminine animate gender marker.
The inanimate:
The old nominalizing/gerundive suffix /-tʰ/ (/-sə/ following sound changes) reanalyzed as an inanimate/abstract gender marker. It is then lost word-finally as a result of regular sound changes, and only surfaces when followed by other suffixes (such as case markers).
Since all gender markers originated as derivational suffixes, they appear before any other nominal inflectional suffixes. VERBS Form: SIGNIFIER-AGREEMENT-LIGHT.VERB "We went to drink it" Chitekweyenazi. /t͡ʃitəkʷə-jəna-zi/ drink-1.PLU.ERG:3.SG.ABS-go.PERF Verbs in Chesar are unspecified for transitivity, the only thing determining their transitivity is the upper number of arguments they can meaningfully take. The verb meaning "go" can also mean "bring", the verb meaning "dive" can mean "throw into water". "He died" Brhule
bˁu-Ø-lə die-3.SG.ABS-do.PERF
"He killed him" (lit. "he died him") Brhumile
bˁu-mi-lə die-3.SG.ERG:3.SG.ABS-do.PERF
Changes from Kesan: The verbs overall structure is mostly unchanged from Kesan (see the previous post), but six major developments have taken place in the interim:
The Uninflected verbs have integrated fully with whatever inflected verb postcedes them, becoming morphologically part of the same word. They are now refered to as "signifiers" (not sure what else to call them). So /ɮaˁ mid͡zigʷɨd͡zɨ/ -> /ɮaˁmid͡zigʷɨd͡zɨ/. Furthermore, there is no longer a clear distinction between them and nouns; signifiers can serve as nouns if marked for gender, and nouns can serve as signifiers (in most cases losing their gender)
The vast majority of the Inflected Verbs have been lost, reducing the class to a mere handful. This class is now refered to as the "Light Verbs".
Nouns may now be verbed freely, this came about as a result of A: some nouns also serving as uninflected verbs/signifiers set a precedence. B: reduced subordinate clauses became a mainstay: /magʷəχʷə ʔə-lə/ "a bear he-was" became /magʷəχʷə-lə/ "(he) was a bear"
The light verb base has fused with aspect/mode/tense suffixes.
The agreement affixes have undergone some degree of fusion.
The subordinating relativizer affix /-fə/ has been lost as part of regular sound changes.
Signifier: The Signifier is the element of the verb that carries most of the core meaning of the verb, /t͡ʃitəkʷə/, for instance, means "to drink". Signifiers may serve as predicates on their own, with no agreement or light verb, in certain subordinate clauses (see below), but oddly enough, in spite of what I just wrote, they aren't really the core of the verb - the light verb is. A regular noun may also serve as a signifier. The exact meaning of the resulting verb varries, but generally it means "to be NOUN" or "to do (as one would do if one were a) NOUN to X". Signifiers aren't truly distinct from regular nouns, and may in fact just be interpreted as inanimate nouns incorporated into the verb (it's weird). Agreement: See the link below for a comparison between verbal agreement in Kesan (Proto-Dwarf) and Chesar. https://imgur.com/a/mLoU80Z Reflexives and reciprocals are formed by specialized affixes followed by an intransitive agreement affix. Light Verb: There is, in one way of looking at it, only 3 verbs in Chesar. "to do/be", "to go" and "to come". These are the light verbs. They are the final part of the full verb and serve as a way of indicating associated motion, as well as tense, aspect and modality. Light verbs may appear (with agreement) without any signifier when refering to simple motion. "I go to you" could be expressed simply as: Nawegweze.
nawə-gʷəzə 1SG.ERG:2SG.ABS-go.IMPF
No signifier necessary. The same is true when the action refered to refers back to one previously mentioned, or when it is obvious from context: "I killed him, I did it". or "I did that" (pointing to a corpse) Some inflections have two forms: a short and a long form. The short form is used if the light verb is preceded by four or more syllables (including signifier and agreement), the long form is used otherwise. The light verbs are as follows: To go: Four conjugations: Perfect, Imperfect, Future and Imperative (used for positive imperatives which include motion, "go and X") PERFECT: /-zi ~ -zigʷə/ IMPERFECT: /-gʷə ~ -gʷəzə/ FUTURE: /-pəmə/ MOVEMENT-IMPERATIVE: /-ma ~ -d͡ʒima/ To come: Three conjugations: Perfect, Imperfect and Future. PERFECT: /-χa ~ -χad͡ʒa)/ IMPERFECT: /-d͡ʒa/ FUTURE: /-xʷi/ To be/to do: Rather than indicating a lack of motion, this light verb is simply unspecified for motion - it may refer to motion to-or-from an endpoint, it may not. Unlike the other two light verbs, this one has a bunch of forms, including various irrealis forms. It may be treated as many forms of one light verb or many light verbs with a single form, hard to say. PERFECT: /-lə/ IMPERFECT: /-dˁa ~ -nidˁa/ FUTURE: /-dələ/ HABITUAL: /-t’əka/ PERFECT HABITUAL: /-t’ət’ə/ IMPERATIVE: /-da/ NEGATIVE IMPERATIV: /-dənə ~ -nadənə/ SUBJUNCTIVE: /-bˁa/ JUSSIVE: /-χʷəlu/ Subordinate clauses: Due to the loss of the subordinating relative suffix /-fə/ , there is no longer any formal distinction between verbs in subordinate clauses and verbs in main clauses. Instead you just know them from context, and from the fact that most subordinate clauses are headed by some kind of subordinating particle (haven't done any work on them yet). The aspect/tense used in subordinate clauses is always relative to that of the main clause. When the referent and tense is identical to that of the main clause, the agreement and light verb may be omitted entirely, leaving nothing but a naked signifier as the predicate of the subordinate clause. "I fell and cut my leg" Qwagwerhule, qaye t'ume.
qʷagʷə-ʕu-lə qajə t'umə fall-1SG.ABS-do.PERF leg cut
Note how the signifier /t'umə/ lacks both agreement and light verb. This developed from nominalized signifiers which then lost the nominalizing /-sə/ suffix due to sound changes. The alternate system of forming subordinate clauses by attaching case suffixes to the nominalized verb was completely lost in Chesar. But it would have a massive impact on another branch of the family, but more about that next week. Fun, isn't it? Still a bunch of stuff I haven't figured out, including how exactly the case system turned out (Reduced? Mostly unchanged? Expanded?). But it works.
Benvinguts - This week's language of the week: Catalan
Catalan is a Romance language spoken by approximately 10 million speakers, with roughly 4 million being native speakers. It is the only official language of Andorra, and a co-official language of the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencia (where the language is known as Valencian). It also has semi-official status in the Italian comune of Alghero. It is also spoken in the eastern strip of Aragon, in some villages of Region of Murcia called Carche and in the Pyrénées-Orientales department of France. These territories are often called Països Catalans or "Catalan Countries".
History
Historian Jaume Villanueva stated that the first sample of Catalan was a sentence in a now-lost manuscript from Ripoll. It was a whimsical note in 10th- or early 11th-century calligraphy: Magister m[eu]s no vol que em miras novel ("my master does not want you to watch me, newbie"). Around the 9th century, however, certain texts written in macaronic Latin start to show Catalan traits. However, it was not until the 11th century that texts written wholly in Catalan started to appear. Some of these texts are Oath of Radulf Oriol (ca. 1028-1047) Complaints of Guitard Isarn, Lord of Caboet (ca. 1080–1095), or The Oath of Peace and Truce of Count Pere Ramon (1098). However, it was often difficult at this time to determine if the language of some texts was Catalan or Occitan, as the two languages were extremely similar at the time. Catalan lived a golden age during the Late Middle Ages, reaching a peak of maturity and cultural plenitude. Examples of this can be seen in the works of Majorcan polymath Ramon Llull (1232–1315), the Four Great Chronicles (13th-14th centuries), and the Valencian school of poetry which culminated in Ausiàs March (1397–1459). By the 15th century, the city of Valencia had become the center of social and cultural dynamism, and Catalan was present all over the Mediterranean world.The belief that political splendor was correlated with linguistic consolidation was voiced through the Royal Chancery, which promoted a highly standardized language After the Nueva Planta Decrees, the use of Catalan in administration and education was banned in the Kingdom of Spain. It was not until the Renaixença that use of the Catalan language saw a resurgence. In Francoist Spain (1939–1975), the use of Spanish in place of Catalan was promoted, and public use of Catalan was initially repressed and discouraged by official propaganda campaigns. The use of Catalan in government-run institutions and in public events was banned. During later stages of the Francoist regime, certain folkloric or religious celebrations in Catalan were allowed to resume and were tolerated. Use of Catalan in the mass media was initially forbidden, but beginning in the early 1950s, it was permitted in the theater. Publishing in Catalan continued throughout the dictatorship. There were attempts at prohibiting the use of spoken Catalan in public and in commerce, and all advertising and signage had to be in Spanish, as did all written communication in business. Following the death of Franco in 1975 and the restoration of democracy under a constitutional monarchy, the use of Catalan increased significantly because of new affirmative action and subsidy policies. The Catalan language is now used in politics, education and the media, including the newspapers Avui ("Today"), El Punt ("The Point"), Ara ("Now"), La Vanguardia and El Periódico de Catalunya (sharing content with El Periòdic d'Andorra, printed in Andorra); and the television channels of Televisió de Catalunya (TVC): TV3, and Canal 33 (culture channel), Super3/3XL (cartoons channel) as well as a 24-hour news channel 3/24 and the sports channel Esport 3; in Valencia à punt; in the Balearic islands IB3; in Catalonia there are also some private channels such as 8TV and Barça TV.
Linguistics
As a Romance language, Catalan is related to other well-known languages such as Spanish and French, as well as to lesser-known Romance languages such as Aromanian and Sardinian. It is more distantly related to other Indo-European languages such as English, Hindi and ancient Hittite. Classification Catalan's full classification is as follows: Indo-European > Italic > Romance > Western Romance > Gallo-Romance > Occitano-Romance > Catalan Morphophonemics Catalan contains seven stressed vowel phonemes, which, depending on the dialect, often reduce down to three distinct phonemes when they are unstressed. There are 25 or 26 consonant phonemes, depending on the dialect. Stress most often occurs on any of the last three syllables of a word. Syntax As in most Romance languages, Catalan nouns, adjectives, pronouns and articles are inflected for two genders (masculine and feminine) and two numbers (singular and plural). Apart from the pronouns, Catalan retains no case inflection. Catalan exhibits more personal pronouns than either Spanish or Italian, with a total of 13, the subject forms are listed in the table below. Like most European languages, there is a T-V distinction in the language based on formality, so a different (more formal) pronoun would be used. There is also an additional, more respectful form of the second person singular pronoun that is archaic except in a few dialects and administrative texts, also included in the table below. Like many Romance language, pronomial objects (both direct and indirect) are represented as either clitics before the verb or as suffixes to the verb.
Pronoun
Meaning
jo, mi
1st singular
nosaltres
1st plural
tu
2nd singular informal
vosaltres
2nd plural informal
vostè
2nd singular formal
vostès
2nd plural formal
vós
2nd person respectful
ell
3rd person singular masculine
ells
3rd person plural masculine
ella
3rd person singular feminine
elles
3rd person plural feminine
si
3rd person reflexive
hom
3rd person impersonal
Catalan verbs can inflect for a wide variety of tenses, aspects and moods, and is typologically a fusional paradigm. Overall, there are 11 total verbal forms, though one of them is archaic. The non-finite forms are the infinitive, the root form of the verb, the gerund, the past participial; the finite forms include indicative present, imperfect, preterite (archaic), future and conditional; subjunctive present and imperfect; and the imperative. Within each finite paradigm, there are six different forms, representing each of the three persons and two numbers; like many other Romance languages, the formal second person forms conjugate in the manner of the third person. Catalan word order is generally subject-verb-object, but can also be fairly free to allow for slight semantic differences and topic focuses. Orthography Catalan uses the Latin script, with some added symbols and digraphs. The Catalan orthography is systematic and largely phonologically based.Standardization of Catalan was among the topics discussed during the First International Congress of the Catalan Language, held in Barcelona October 1906. Subsequently, the Philological Section of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC, founded in 1911) published the Normes ortogràfiques in 1913 under the direction of Antoni Maria Alcover and Pompeu Fabra. In 1932, Valencian writers and intellectuals gathered in Castelló de la Plana to make a formal adoption of the so-called Normes de Castelló, a set of guidelines following Pompeu Fabra's Catalan language norms Text sample: Tenia prop de divuit anys quan vaig conèixer en Raül, a l'estació de Manresa. El meu pare havia mort, inesperadament i encara jove, un parell d'anys abans, i d'aquells temps conservo un record de punyent solitud. Les meves relacions amb la mare no havien pas millorat, tot el contrari, potser fins i tot empitjoraven a mesura que em feia gran. No existia, no existí mai entre nosaltres, una comunitat d'interessos, d'afeccions. Cal creure que cercava... una persona en qui centrar la meva vida afectiva. Spoken sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN4fDhAcGTM (Wikitongues video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diITZkQlcxs&list=PLjDCKlXHQBGYSpTwIy3MSfs7qmn0Artz- (Playlist of Catalan folksongs) Sources & Further reading Wikipedia on Catalan /catalan What now? This thread is foremost a place for discussion. Are you a native speaker? Share your culture with us. Learning the language? Tell us why you chose it and what you like about it. Thinking of learning? Ask a native a question. Interested in linguistics? Tell us what's interesting about it, or ask other people. Discussion is week-long, so don't worry about post age, as long as it's this week's language.
Japanese is a member of the Japonic language family mostly spoken in the Japanese Archipelago. As of 2010, it was spoken by over 125 million people, placing it in the top 15 of the most spoken languages.
History
The first extant evidence of the Japanese language comes from the Old Japanese period of the language, lasting until the end of the Nara Period in 794 CE. Older inscriptions do exist, and there are some phonetic transcriptions of Japanese words/names found in old Chinese literature, but the accuracy of these is debatable. Anything from before the Old Japanese period must be based on reconstructions. Some fossilized constructions from Old Japanese are still found in Modern Japanese. The Middle Japanese period is divided into two time frames: Early Middle Japanese, which lasted through the Heian Period (794-1185) and Late Middle Japanese (1185 - 1600) during the Kamakura and Muromachi periods. Late Middle Japanese is subdivided into two periods corresponding to the two periods of Japanese history. It was during Late Japanese period that the first European loan words entered the language, including pan (bread) and tabako (originally tobacco, now cigarette), both coming from Portuguese. Late Middle Japanese was also the first form of the language to be described by non-native scholars. The Middle Japanese period gave way to the Early Modern Japanese which roughly spans the Edo period until the Meiji Restoration. Modern Japanese proper emerged after the Meiji Restoration, and continues today.
Linguistics
As a Japonic language, Japanese is closely related to the Ryukyuan languages which could have split from Japanese during the Yamato period. Japanese was long considered a language isolate before the acceptance of the Ryukyuan languages as separate languages. Since then, it has firmly been linked to them. Other theories link Japanese and Korean, sometimes with the broader Altaic family. These, however, have not garnered wide support Classification Japanese's full classification is as follows: Japonic > Japanese Phonology and Phonotactics Japanese has a five vowel system, /i e a o u/, which contrasts for length, giving a total of 10 vowel phonemes. Japanese has a "pure" vowel system, meaning that there are no diphthongs. The vowels /i/ and often become voiceless when they occur between two voiceless consonants. Japanese has 16 native vowel phonemes, including two special ones that occur with moras, /N/ mora nasalization and /Q/, geminination. Furthermore, there are 11 other vowel sounds in the language, though these only occur allophonically or as phonemes in loan words. Japanese does not use a syllabic system for the timing of words, instead using a mora system. Each mora occupies one rhythmic unit, i.e. it is perceived to have the same time value. Each "regular" mora can consist of a vowel, or a consonant vowel combination, sometimes with a glide before the vowel. The two moraic phonemes can constitute a mora as well. Long vowels constitute two mora, with some analyses introducing a third moraic phoneme, / to constitute this break. A table of all the mora types can be seen below (period representing a mora break). Japanese has a standard pitch accent system as well. A word can have one of its moras bearing an accent or not. An accented mora is pronounced with a relatively high tone and is followed by a drop in pitch. The various Japanese dialects have different accent patterns, and some exhibit more complex tonic systems.
Mora type
Example
Japanese
English
Number of Moras
V
/o/
o 尾
tail
1 mora
jV
/jo/
yo世
world
1 mora
CV
/ko/
ko 子
child
1 mora
CjV
/kjo/
kyo 巨
hugeness
1 mora
R
/ in /kjo. or /kjo.o/
kyō 今日
today
2 moras
N
N/ in /ko.N / kon紺
deep blue
2 moras
Q
/Q/ in in /ko.Q.ko/ or /ko.k.ko/
kokko 国庫
national treasury
3 moras
Morphology and Syntax Japanese is an aggulitinative language, and follows a Subject-Object-Verb word order. The only strict rule of Japanese sentence structure is that the verb must be placed at the end of the sentence, though it can be followed by sentence-ending particles. Japanese is a head-final and left-branching language. Japanese can also be described as a 'topic-prominent' language, a feature which arose during the Middle Japanese period and the subject of the sentence is often omitted unless absolutely necessary to prevent ambiguity or to introduce the topic. Japanese nouns do not inflect for number or gender, and definite articles do not exist (though the determiners can sometimes be translated as articles). However, Japanese does have several cases, which are expressed by particles attached to the nouns. These are summarized in the table below:
Case
Particle
Nominative
が (ga) for subject, は (wa) for the topic
Genitive
の (no)
Dative
に (ni)
Accusative
を (wo)
Lative
へ (e)
Ablative
から (kara)
Instrumental
で (de)
Although many grammars and textbooks mention pronouns (代名詞 daimeishi), Japanese lacks true pronouns. (Daimeishi can be considered a subset of nouns.) Strictly speaking, pronouns do not take modifiers, but Japanese daimeishi do: 背の高い彼 se no takai kare (lit. tall he) is valid in Japanese. Interestingly, unlike true pronouns, Japanese daimeishi do not represent a closed-class, meaning that new members can be, and are, regularly added. Like other subjects, Japanese deemphasizes personal daimeishi, which are seldom used. This is partly because Japanese sentences do not always require explicit subjects, and partly because names or titles are often used where pronouns would appear in a translation. Furthermore, Japanese only has one reflexive daimeishi, with uses much different to English reflexives. Japanese verbs do not conjugate for person or number, meaning the same form of the verb is used regardless of the subject of the sentence. However, they do conjugate differently based on the level of politness required. The basic form of the Japanese verb is the imperfective aspect, which can encompass the present or the future and is thus sometimes called a 'non-past' form. It is the lemma of the word, and thus what will be found in the dictionary, and can stand on its own, as in (私は)買い物する (watashi wa) kaimono suru: "(I) shop", or "(I) will shop". The perfective aspect of a verb generally ends in -ta (or -da), but various phonetic changes are made, depending on the verb's last syllable. This is often presented as a past tense, but can be used in any tense. To make a verb negative, the -u of the ending generally becomes -anai, though this changes based on formality in some auxiliary verbs, notably the copula (which has different forms based on formality). The "i form" of the verb is formed by changing the -u to -i and has a variety of uses including (among others) to form polite verbs when followed by the -ます -masu ending, to express a wish when followed by the ending -たい -tai and to express that something is easy or hard when followed by -易い -yasui or -難い -nikui. The te form of a Japanese verb (sometimes called the "participle", the "gerund", or the "gerundive form") is used when the verb has some kind of connection to the following words. Usages of this form include forming a simple command, in requests (with くれる kureru and 下さい kudasai) and to form the progressive tense as an auxiliary. Many other uses of the te form exist as well. To form the potential form of the verb, the -u ending becomes -eru. This is used to express that one has the ability to do something. Since this is a passive form, what would be a direct object in English is marked with the particle が ga instead of を o. For example, 日本語が読める nihongo ga yomeru: "I can read Japanese" (lit. "Japanese can be read"). It is also used to request some action from someone, in the exact sense of the English "Can you ... ?", though this would never be used to ask permission, unlike in English. The general pattern for the passive voice is: -u becomes -areru. The passive is used as a general passive, as a 'suffering passive', to indicate that something regretful was done to someone, or as a form of polite language. The causative forms are characterized by the final u becoming aseru for consonant stem verbs, and ru becoming saseru for vowel stem verbs. This form is used for making someone do something, allowing someone to do something, with explicit actors making someone do something as well as as an honorific form. The causative passive form is obtained by first conjugating in the causative form and then conjugating the result in the passive form. As its rule suggests, the causative passive is used to express causation passively: 両親に勉強させられる ryōshin ni benkyō saserareru: "(I) am made to study by (my) parents". The eba provisional conditional form is characterized by the final -u becoming -eba for all verbs (with the semi-exception of -tsu verbs becoming -teba). This form is used in conditionals where more emphasis is on the condition than the result as well as to express obligations. The conditional ra form (also called the past conditional) is formed from the past tense (TA form) by simply adding ra. ba can be further added to that, which makes it more formal. This form is used when emphasis is needed to be placed on the result and the condition is less uncertain to be met. 日本に行ったら、カメラを買いたい。nihon ni ittara, kamera wo kaitai: "If (when) I go to Japan, then (when that has happened) I want to buy a camera." It can also be used as the main clause of the past tense and is often translated as 'when'; when used like this, it carries an emphasis that the result was unexpected. Most of the imperative forms are characterized by the final u becoming e. The imperative form is used in orders, set phrases, reported speech where a request might be rephrased this way, on signs and in motivation speaking. Volitional, presumptive, or hortative forms have several endings based on the verb class. This form is used to express or ask volitional ("Let's/Shall we?") statements and questions, to express a conjecture (with deshō), to express what one is thinking of doing (with omou) and to express 'about to' and 'trying to'. Japanese does not have traditional adjectives like English, instead expressing adjectives with 'adjectival verbs' or 'adjectival nouns'. Japanese adjectives do not have comparative or superlative inflections; comparatives and superlatives have to be marked periphrastically using adverbs. Every adjective in Japanese can be used in an attributive position. Nearly every Japanese adjective can be used in a predicative position. Finally, Japanese has many particles. Among the ones already mentioned, with identify the case of the noun, Japanese uses particles to express what would normally be expressed by prepositions in English, but they also have other meanings such as "just" in "I just ate" or "not only" when adding information ("not only did I eat it, but he did too").
Miscellany
The oldest writing in Japan is in Classical Chinese, though some evidence points to the fact that these texts were supposed to be read as Old Japanese.
Japan currently has three writing systems: the syllabic systems of hiragana and katakana as well as the logographic system of the kanji. All of these came from borrowings (and then simplification) of Chinese logographs.
Japanese has had several different methods of adapting the Chinese symbols to their language. Among these are the Kojiki system of mixed writing, Man'yōgana (which hiragana and katakana came from, and is a sister system to modern day kanji).
Hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were generally not allowed access to the same levels of education as men. And thus hiragana was first widely used among court women in the writing of personal communications and literature. From this comes the alternative name of onnade (女手) "women's writing". For example, The Tale of Genji and other early novels by female authors used hiragana extensively or exclusively.
Japanese was traditionally written right to left, top to bottom.
Want to know How will be your Future Life? How transit of Saturn can affect you? Free accurate future prediction by date of birth and time will give you the exact effects according to Zodiac sign. Come in and know what you should do for negative effects.
With the beginning of the new year, we are going to experience a significant groundbreaking planetary occasion and a noteworthy visionary marvel. The intense drill sergeant and disciplinary teacher, Saturn is going to make its amazing travel in the Capricorn moon sign according to Vedic crystal gazing. Presently, what is so colossal about this? This isn't only an ordinary travel. The planet is returning to its own sign following 30 years of short-lived movements in other zodiac signs! It’s like a homecoming, right? This travel is going to begin from January 23, 2020, and Saturn will continue advancing and retrograding in the sign for around two years.
Impacts of Saturn on your Kundali
At the point when Saturn is well-positioned in one's horoscope, the local will in general become a researcher with great correspondence powers. At the point when it is malefic, it has the forces to try and transform gold into remains. Then again, in the event that it is charitable, its endowments fortunes throughout everyday life. Future prediction says Locals with a valuable Saturn have great prospects of seeking after a profession in the exchange, regardless of whether it is identified with hardware, cowhide, concrete, heater, wood, elastic, and so on. Be that as it may, Saturn put in a troublesome way can make the individual face battles throughout everyday life. They can experience the ill effects of medical problems, essentially identified with the stomach related framework, stomach, and nutritious trench. They are likewise liable to lose riches or be misled to lawful issues throughout everyday life. Find out about the solutions to nullify the terrible impact of Saturn in your horoscope in Exact future predictions free report
What this Saturn travel in Capricorn 2020 methods for you?
According to accurate astrology Predictions free report, Saturn is viewed as a coach and an exacting slave driver who causes an individual to learn noteworthy exercises in life through different encounters which can be either joyful or unfeeling. It is accepted that Saturn is the best instructor taking all things together. As Saturn rules Capricorn sign, its travel would make an extraordinary mix. Capricorn is additionally alluded to as 'Father of the zodiac' as it has its own particular manners of making individuals move in the direction of their objectives after an arranged execution. Consequently, when the disciplinarian itself advances into the place that is known for power and control, it would resemble your own mark vast occasion. Get your Future prediction by date of birth.
What is the planning of Saturn travel in Capricorn?
As per Free accurate future prediction by date of birth and time, Saturn is going to leave the zodiac sign Sagittarius and travel to its own sign Capricorn on January 23, 2020, at around 22:27 hours. It will at that point get into retrograde movement between May 10, 2020, and September 29, 2020. The travel will proceed till April 28, 2022. The Saturn travel in Capricorn is going to give good outcomes to a couple of zodiac signs and to the others, it might give a difficult time. How about we perceive how the zodiac signs will be affected during this stage. Take a look at below paragraph to know how it will affect you by your zodiac sign
Aries
Saturn is the Lord of the tenth and eleventh house in the birth graph of Aries. It is traveling into the tenth house this time. This is a crucial journey for you as this house centers around the satisfaction of objectives. You should take your vitality levels to a more eager level. Notwithstanding, you have to stay cautious about money-related choices. Need to find out about what the planet has for you? Get The most accurate horoscope predictions free.
Taurus
The Lord of the ninth and tenth house, Saturn will make its travel through the ninth house in the Taurians' introduction to the world diagram. Because of its travel in this house, you will be more disposed to strict and otherworldly excursions. The travel will assist you with maintaining compatibility with encompassing individuals. Do you have an advancement anticipating at work in the following stage? Get free Instant future prediction report.
Gemini
For the Geminis, Saturn is the leader of the eighth and ninth house. You will be under the effect of Dhaiya (little panoti) as Saturn is traveling to the eighth house in your graph. Begin arranging your profession with a more slanted demeanor as the planet will test your assurance. Be valiant and certain enough to confront circumstances during the travel stage. Get A detailed life predictions free report on Saturn transit by your date of birth.
cancer
Saturn is the Lord of the seventh and eighth house for you. It will go into the seventh house (place of organizations) in your introduction to the world graph. You should keep tolerance in your conjugal life as the travel may make disbalance in it. It will be remunerating for you to develop new abilities in your expert life. This will be a decent an ideal opportunity to return to your past activities invocation and gain from your mix-ups. Is it true that you are probably going to find a new line of work move or advancement in office? Get Free AstrologyPrediction for career.
Leo
For the Leos, Saturn runs the sixth and seventh house in your introduction to the world diagram. It will travel through the sixth place of rivals. Because of this, you should utilize class and have quiet discussions with your bosses. You are recommended to design your accounts as there are some sudden costs anticipated. As the travel advances, Saturn will have a few amazements for you. Get a Personal Future prediction.
Virgo
Saturn is the decision planet of the fifth and sixth house for the Virgos and this time it is traveling to the fifth house. Till January 23, 2020, you will be under the impacts of Dhaiya (little panoti of Saturn). Because of this, a few issues identified with residential or public activity would have come up in the last 2.5 years. Presently, your Dhaiya stage will get over in the moving toward travel. By what means will your general life way be in the up and coming travel stage? Get an Accurate life prediction by date of birth free report and know your upcoming.
Libra
According to Indian Vedic astrology, Saturn is the Lord of the fourth and fifth house for the Librans. You will be affected by Dhaiya (little panoti) as Saturn is traveling to the fourth house in your horoscope. Being the planet of impediments, it will cause you to feel confined. Be that as it may, you should keep your assurance and confidence first rate. Will the stage assist you with accomplishing a higher rise in your career? Predict your future free online to know about your career.
Scorpio
According to Indian astrology by date of birth For the Scorpions, Saturn is the Lord of the third and fourth house. You will be under the impacts of Sade Sati till January 23, 2020. So, you would have encountered money related limitations. After this stage, Saturn will travel through the third house in your introduction to the world outline. This is by all accounts a productive time for your profession. Do you have an advancement coming your direction? Get full report using free wealth Prediction by date of birth and time.
Sagittarius
Free future prediction by date of birth says Saturn is the leader of the second and third house for Sagittarians. You will be affected by the second period of Sade Sati till January 23, 2020. You may have confronted a log jam invocation or marriage related issues because of this. After this, the third Sade Sati stage will begin with Saturn's travel to the second house in your horoscope. Does the forthcoming stage have some brilliant open doors for you? You can know the answer to this type of question in the Free future prediction report.
Capricorn
Accurate astrology predictions free report says The Lord of the first and second house, Saturn is going into the first house (place of self) in your introduction to the world graph. It is returning to Capricorn moon sign practically following 30 monotonous years. You will enter the second period of Sade Sati in this travel. The faith in yourself and solid self-assurance will come in picture while dealing with testing circumstances.
Aquarius
Saturn is the decision planet of the first and twelfth house for Aquarians. It will make its travel through the twelfth house (place of movement and costs). It's the first period of Sade Sati for you. You will be relied upon to work more viably than expected. Testing circumstances at work may come upon occasion.
Pisces
Saturn is the Lord of the eleventh and twelfth house. It will travel through the eleventh one that is the place of additions. This is by all accounts a decent stage for your expert life. You will be more dedicated and furthermore have great associations with your subordinates. Is the travel ideal for the money related front? Know your future stats with this Free Tamil astrology Full life prediction.
Slovak (/ˈsloʊvæk, -vɑːk/) or less frequently Slovakian is a West Slavic language (together with Czech, Polish, and Sorbian). It is called slovenský jazyk (pronounced [ˈslɔʋɛnskiː ˈjazik] ) or slovenčina ([ˈslɔʋɛntʃina]) in the language itself. Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by approximately 5.51 million people (2014). Slovak speakers are also found in the United States, the Czech Republic, Argentina, Serbia, Ireland, Romania, Poland, Canada, Hungary, Germany, Croatia, Israel, the United Kingdom, Australia, Austria, Ukraine, Norway and many other countries worldwide.
History
he earliest written records of Slovak are represented by personal and place names, later by sentences, short notes and verses in Latin and Czech documents. Latin documents contain also mentions about a cultivation of the vernacular language. The complete texts are available since the 15th century. In the 15th century, Latin began to lose its privileged position in favor of Czech and cultural Slovak. The Old Church Slavonic became the literary and liturgical language, and the Glagolitic alphabet, the corresponding script in Great Moravia until 885. Latin continues to be used in parallel. Some of the early Old Church Slavonic texts contain elements of the language of the Slavic inhabitants of Great Moravia and Pannonia, which were called the Sloviene by Slavic texts at that time. The use of Old Church Slavonic in Great Moravia was prohibited by Pope Stephen V in 885; consequently, Latin became the administrative and liturgical language again. Many followers and students of Constantine and Methodius fled to Bulgaria, Croatia, Bohemia, the Kievan Rus' and other countries. From the 10th century onward, Slovak began to develop independently. Very few written records of Old Slovak remain, mainly from the 13th century onwards, consisting of groups of words or single sentences. Fuller Slovak texts appeared starting from 15th century. The old Slovak language and its development can be research mainly through old Slovak toponyms, petrificated within Latin texts. Examples include crali (1113) > kráľ, king; dorz (1113) > dvorec; grinchar (1113) > hrnčiar, potter; mussenic (1113) > mučeník, martyr; scitar (1113) > štítar, shieldmaker; zaltinc (1156) > zlatník, goldmaker; duor (1156) > dvor, courtyard; and otroč (1156) > otrok, slave, servant. In 1294, the monk Ivanka from Kláštor pod Znievom wrote: "ad parvam arborem nystra slowenski breza ubi est meta". It is important mainly because it contains the oldest recorded adjective Slovak in the Slovak language, whose modern form is slovensky. Up until this point, all adjectives were recorded mainly in Latin, including sclavus, slavus and sclavoniae. Anton Bernolák, a Catholic priest (1762-1813), published the Dissertatio philologico-critica de litteris Slavorum in 1787, in which he codifies a Slovak language standard that is based on the Western Slovak language of the University of Trnava but contains also some central Slovak elements, e.g. soft consonants ď, ť, ň, ľ and many words. The orthography is strictly diacritical. The language is often called the Bernolák language. Bernolák continued his codification work in other books in the 1780s and 1790s and especially in his huge six-volume Slovak-Czech-Latin-German-Hungarian Dictionary, in print from 1825-1927. In the 1820s, the Bernolák standard was revised, and Central Slovak elements were systematically replaced by their Western Slovak equivalents. This was the first successful establishment of a Slovak language standard. Bernolák's language was used by Slovak Catholics, especially by the writers Juraj Fándly and Ján Hollý, but Protestants still wrote in the Czech language in its old form used in Bohemia until the 17th century. In 1843, young Slovak Lutheran Protestants, led by Ľudovít Štúr, decided to establish and discuss the central Slovak dialect as the new Slovak language standard instead of both Bernolák's language used by the Catholics and the Czech language used by older Slovak Lutheran Protestants. The new standard was also accepted by some users of the Bernolák language led by Ján Hollý, but was initially criticized by the older Lutheran Protestants led by Ján Kollár (died 1852). This language formed the basis of the later literary Slovak language that is used today. It was officially declared the new language standard in August 1844. The first Slovak grammar of the new language will be published by Ľudovít Štúr in 1846. With the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, Slovak became an official language for the first time in history along with the Czech language. The Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920 and the constitutional law on minorities which was adopted alongside the constitution on the same day established the Czechoslovak language as an official language Since the Czechoslovak language did not exist, the law recognized its two variants, Czech and Slovak. Czech was usually used in administration in the Czech lands; Slovak, in Slovakia. In practice, the position of languages was not equal. Along with political reasons, this situation was caused by a different historical experience and numerous Czech teachers and clerks in Slovakia, who helped to restore the educational system and administration because Slovaks educated in the Slovak language were missing. Czechoslovakia split into Slovakia and Czechia in 1992. The Slovak language became the official language of Slovakia.
Linguistics
An Indo-European language, Slovak is closely related to other languages such as Czech. It is more distantly related to languages as far apart as English and Ancient Hittite. Classification Slovak's full classification is as follows: Indo-European > Balto-Slavic > Slavic > West Slavic > Czech–Slovak > Slovak Morphophonemics Slovak has five (or six) short vowel phonemes. These five can also be distinguished by length, giving a total of 10 contrastive vowel phonemes. There are four diphthongs in the language. Slovak has 29 consonant phonemes, however. These phonemes are contrasted by place of articulation as well as voicing. Voiceless stops and affricates are made without aspiration. In the standard language, the stress is always on the first syllable of a word (or on the preceding preposition, see below). This is not the case in certain dialects. Eastern dialects have penultimate stress (as in Polish), which at times makes them difficult to understand for speakers of standard Slovak. Some of the north-central dialects have a weak stress on the first syllable, which becomes stronger and moves to the penultimate in certain cases. Monosyllabic conjunctions, monosyllabic short personal pronouns and auxiliary verb forms of the verb byť (to be) are usually unstressed. Prepositions form a single prosodic unit with the following word, unless the word is long (four syllables or more) or the preposition stands at the beginning of a sentence. Syntax Word order in Slovak is relatively free, since strong inflection enables the identification of grammatical roles (subject, object, predicate, etc.) regardless of word placement. This relatively free word order allows the use of word order to convey topic and emphasis. Slovak nouns are inflected for case and number. There are six cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative, and instrumental. The vocative is no longer morphologically marked. There are two numbers: singular and plural. Nouns have inherent gender. There are three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives and pronouns must agree with nouns in case, number, and gender. Slovak has 9 different personal pronouns, which can also appear in the various cases. The 9 pronouns are given in the nominative case in the table below.
Meaning
Pronoun
1s
ja
2s informal
ty
3s masc
on
3s neut
ono
3s fem
ona
1p
my
2p (2s formal)
vy
3p (masculine animate, or mixed genders)
oni
3p (other)
ony
Verbs have three major conjugations. Three persons and two numbers (singular and plural) are distinguished. Several conjugation paradigms exist as follows: Slovak is a pro-drop language, which means the pronouns are generally omitted unless they are needed to add emphasis. Historically, two past tense forms were utilized. Both are formed analytically. The second of these, equivalent to the pluperfect, is not used in the modern language, being considered archaic and/or grammatically incorrect. One future tense exists. For imperfective verbs, it is formed analytically, for perfective verbs it is identical with the present tense. Two conditional forms exist, both formed analytically from the past tense. Most Slovak verbs can have two forms: perfective (the action has ended or is complete) and imperfective (the action has not yet ended). Orthography Slovak uses the Latin script with small modifications that include the four diacritics (ˇ, ´, ¨, ˆ) placed above certain letters (a-á,ä; c-č; d-ď; dz-dž; e-é; i-í; l-ľ,ĺ; n-ň; o-ó,ô; r-ŕ; s-š; t-ť; u-ú; y-ý; z-ž) The primary principle of Slovak spelling is the phonemic principle. The secondary principle is the morphological principle: forms derived from the same stem are written in the same way even if they are pronounced differently. An example of this principle is the assimilation rule (see below). The tertiary principle is the etymological principle, which can be seen in the use of i after certain consonants and of y after other consonants, although both i and y are usually pronounced the same way. Finally, the rarely applied grammatical principle is present when, for example, the basic singular form and plural form of masculine adjectives are written differently with no difference in pronunciation (e.g. pekný = nice – singular versus pekní = nice – plural). Written Sample: Všetci ľudia sa rodia slobodní a sebe rovní, čo sa týka ich dostôjnosti a práv. Sú obdarení rozumom a majú navzájom jednať v bratskom duchu. Spoken sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLwMLhr_McQ (interview) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShR1Hp4xFDw (lullaby) https://youtu.be/qW0GpWnioTQ (wikitongues) Sources & Further reading Wikipedia articles on Slovak What now? This thread is foremost a place for discussion. Are you a native speaker? Share your culture with us. Learning the language? Tell us why you chose it and what you like about it. Thinking of learning? Ask a native a question. Interested in linguistics? Tell us what's interesting about it, or ask other people. Discussion is week-long, so don't worry about post age, as long as it's this week's language.
Hebrew ( עִבְרִית, Ivrit [ʔivˈʁit] or [ʕivˈɾit] ) is a Northwest Semitic language and the official language of Israel and is spoken by over 9 million people worldwide. Hebrew is traditionally the language of the Israelites and their ancestors. Writing in the language (more accurately, an ancestral form) has been verified as occurring since the 10th century BCE, though some scholars posit an archaeological find with writing from 3000 years ago; others contest this as being a sister language to Hebrew, and not Hebrew itself. Despite this extensive written history of the language, it went extinct as a daily language sometime between the 3rd and 5th centuries CE, though it was often still used liturgically. A revival movement started in the 19th century, and today Hebrew has over 9 million speakers, making it the only successful case of language revival. Like other Semitic languages, Hebrew features the tri-consonantal root system (though some roots can contain four or five consonants), which allows various words with broadly similar meanings to be derived from the same three roots.
Linguistics
Hebrew, as mentioned, is a Northwest Semitic language, making it closely related to Aramaic and the extinct languages Ugaritic and Amorite. More specifically, it is a Canaanite language, the only extant one (the other solidly Canaanite language being Phonecian). Less broadly, it is part of the Semitic languages as a whole, which are Afro-Asiastic languages. This means that Hebrew is related to languages as varied as Arabic, Amharic, Maltese, Tigrinya (all Semitic languages) as well as Hausa, Ancient Egyptian and Central Atlas Tamazight Classification Hebrew's full classification is as follows: Afro-Asiatic (Proto-Afroasiatic) > Semitic (Proto-Semitic) > Northwest Semitic > Canaanite > Hebrew Phonology and Phonotactics Hebrew only has five phonemic vowels (/a e i o u/), though more can occur allophonically. Modern Hebrew has around 20 consonant phonemes, having lost/neutralized two of the typical Semitic elements -- the historical pharyngeals and the historical emphatics. Stress in Hebrew is generally found on the final syllable, in the Sephardi reading tradition. Grammar The default word order of Hebrew is subject-verb-object (SVO). Hebrew nouns decline for two genders and two numbers. A noun without an article is considered indefinite. Therefore, there is no need to use an indefinite article (English a(n)) in Hebrew. Definiteness can be expressed through prefixing a definite article or through a pronoun suffix of possession. In a construct phrase, where two or more nouns are used together, the definite article is prefixed before the last noun. Some nouns, such as proper names, are inherently definite. Nouns can have a dependent or an independent form; the dependent form is used when it's the first component of a two-noun phrase or when it has a suffix attached. Despite the fact that most Hebrew nouns decline for only two numbers, singular and plural, there is a vestigial dual marking that occurs mostly with time units and objects that occur in pairs. Adjectives must decline to agree with the nouns in number, gender and definiteness. Hebrew has 10 personal pronouns, distinguishing three persons, two numbers, and two genders on all except the first person singular. So that gives: first person singular, second person singular masculine, second person singular feminine, third person singular masculine, third person singular feminine, etc. Pronouns can stand alone, but there are also various forms that suffix or prefix to prepositions, nouns and verbs. Hebrew verbs consist of two parts - the verb stem and morphemes that denote gender, person and number. Verb stems arise through the use of verb-roots (the famous tri-consonantal roots of Semitic languages), with different stems reflecting different verb forms. Hebrew verbs can be classified into two separate groups: those that conjugate for tense and those that do not. Among those that conjugate for tense, there are three possible tenses -- past, present and future. The past tense indicates a completed one-time action or an action that started at some point in the past and was completed or has ceased. Thus the Hebrew past tense includes both the simple past and the past perfect of English. The present tense indicates an ongoing action, event or state or a habitual action. Thus, like the Romance languages, it combines the English present tense and the present progressive. The future indicates actions or states that are contemplated, planned or considered at a future time. The present tense of all verbs has four forms, marking gender and number, but not person; they therefore do not include a subject on the verb. The past tense, in contrast, has nine different forms, with the subject being suffixed to the verb in the first and second person; the third person never includes the subject as a suffix, and thus a separate noun or pronoun must be used. The future tense is similar to the past, except the feminine singular and plural third person also suffix to the future tense of the verb to indicate gender and number. Altogether, the three Hebrew tenses cover 8 different English verb forms. Outside of tenses, there are also two additional moods in Hebrew (the indicative is used with the tenses): imperative and infinitive. Only give of the 7 verbal paradigm groups have an imperative form; the two representing a passive do not. The imperative is used to convey commands. In daily speech, the future forms can be used in place of the imperative. Likewise, only five verb paradigms have an infinitive structure. Hebrew also has verbal nouns. Traditional Hebrew grammars have presented seven verbal conjugation groups; however, modern grammars only reflect five of these (the five that can conjugate for the infinitive and imperative), with the remaining two being classified as 'internal passives'. Writing and Literature There are several issues with dating the earliest known Hebrew inscriptions, with the biggest one being the early date of some, which is likely to have preceded the split of the common Canaanite language. One example of this si the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions, which are often very short and date from between the 17th and 15th centuries BCE in a script known by the same name, and which was likely the ancestor to both the Phonecian and Hebrew (among others) scripts. The earliest extant inscriptions that can perhaps be definitively called Hebrew arise on the Gezer caldendar and a ceramic shard found at Khirbet Qeiyafa. However, there is still scholarly debate on whether these are Hebrew or a closely related language and whether they are written in a Phonecian, Proto-Sinaitic or Paleo-Hebrew script. Likewise, there are several other early inscriptions, such as the Mesha Stele and El-Kerak Stela, written in Moabite and the Amman Citadel Inscription, written in Ammonite. These, along with the Deir Alla inscription, make it difficult to state when the earliest written evidence of Hebrew is. This is compounded because little is known about the languages that they are written in, and the line between a dialect and language is often thing and politically motivated. This issue is also often compounded by the differences between traditional dating and secular scholarly dating of the Hebrew Bible. Traditional dating suggests that the first five books -- the Pentatuch -- were first written between the 16th and 12th centuries BCE, while some secular scholars posit a final redaction between the 9th and 5th centuries BCE, while the earliest extant versions date to around the 2nd Century BCE and were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, even if they were written later, scholars do posit that some parts of the books could be dated as far as the second millennium BCE and are among the most ancient poems in the history of literature. Today, however, Hebrew is written in the Hebrew alphabet, which is more properly defined as an abjad. The Hebrew script contains 22 letters, each denoting a consonant, and originally did not contain a way to denote vowels. However, a way to denote vowels did arise, though this is not in general use and is used mainly in dictionaries, poetry, or for children/immigrants learning to read the language. The most famous of all Hebrew literature, is, without a doubt, the Tanakh, which corresponds roughly with the Christian Old Testament. However, several other early works also survive, as it was not uncommon for poetry, narratives and rules to be preserved orally and written down at a later date. The Misnah, completed around 200 CE, is perhaps the other major early work composed in Hebrew. While there were many important Jewish philosophers during the medieval period, most of them did not write in Hebrew, with Judaeo-Arabic being used by Maimonedes. However, much of the Rabbinical literature composed during this time period was written in Hebrew. These writings often included commentaries, codifications of Jewish law and didactic ethical literature. During this period poetry, both religious and secular, was written in Hebrew and one work of fiction, a collection of fables, was written in the language; several religious and secular works were also being translated from Arabic into Hebrew. It was really in the 19th century that modern Hebrew literature took off. Several great poets, novelists and biographers wrote during this period; the first Hebrew novel was published in 1819. This continued into the 20th century, and Shmuel Yosef Agnon won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1966 for his short stories and novels containing a blend of Biblical, Talmudic and Modern Hebrew. Hebrew literature continues to this date, with thousands of new novels and translations published each year.
Various Wikipedia pages on Hebrew. The phonology and grammar pages are iffy at times, claiming multiple phonemic contrasts, for instance, where every scholar I read didn't report them. Most grammatical/phonological data came from A Reference Grammar of Modern Hebrew (Coffin, 2005)
Terve - This week's language of the week: Finnish!
Finnish (suomi, or suomen kieli [ˈsuomen ˈkieli]) is a Finnic language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken. The Kven language, a dialect of Finnish, is spoken in Northern Norway by a minority group of Finnish descent.
Linguistics
Classification Finnish's full classification (using an agnostic approach that assumes all branches are distinct, since Finno-Urgic having been challenged and abandoned by Ethnologue) is as follows: Uralic (Proto-Uralic) > Finnic (Proto-Finnic) > Finnish Phonology and Phonotactics Standard Finnish has 8 vowels and 18 diphthongs. Vowels are contrasted based on length, with both long and short vowels existing. These contrasts occur in both stressed and unstressed syllables, though long vowels tend to be more common in short syllables. There is almost no allophony between among the Finnish vowels. Finnish has 13 consonant sounds, and, like the vowels, these too can be short or long (gemination), with these being phonemic. Independent consonant clusters are not allowed in native words, except for a small set of two-consonant syllable codas, e.g. 'rs' in karsta. However, because of a number of recently adopted loanwords using them, e.g. strutsi from Swedish struts, meaning "ostrich", Finnish speakers can pronounce them, even if it is somewhat awkward. The main stress is always on the first syllable. Stress does not cause any measurable modifications in vowel quality (very much unlike English). However, stress is not strong and words appear evenly stressed. In some cases, stress is so weak that the highest points of volume, pitch and other indicators of "articulation intensity" are not on the first syllable, although native speakers recognize the first syllable as a stressed syllable. Finnish has several morphophonological processes that require modification of the forms of words for daily speech. The most important processes are vowel harmony and consonant gradation. Vowel harmony is a redundancy feature, which means that the feature [±back] is uniform within a word, and so it is necessary to interpret it only once for a given word. It is meaning-distinguishing in the initial syllable, and suffixes follow; so, if the listener hears [±back] in any part of the word, they can derive [±back] for the initial syllable. For example, from the stem tuote ("product") one derives tuotteeseensa ("into his product"), where the final vowel becomes the back vowel 'a' (rather than the front vowel 'ä') because the initial syllable contains the back vowels 'uo'. This is especially notable because vowels 'a' and 'ä' are different, meaning-distinguishing phonemes, not interchangeable or allophonic. Finnish front vowels are not umlauts. Consonant gradation is a partly nonproductive lenition process for P, T and K in inherited vocabulary, with the oblique stem "weakened" from the nominative stem, or vice versa. For example, tarkka "precise" has the oblique stem tarka-, as in tarkan "of the precise". There is also another gradation pattern, which is older, and causes simple elision of T and K in suffixes. However, it is very common since it is found in the partitive case marker: if V is a single vowel, V+ta → Va, e.g. *tarkka+ta → tarkkaa. Finnish syllable structure can be classified as (C)V(S)(C) where (S) stands for 'segment', either a consonant or a phoneme. There are some rare syllables that break these general rules, but the basic syllable type given above constitute well over 90% of the words. Grammar Finnish is an agglutinative language. Finnish word order is fairly free, though a general tendency towards subject-verb-object does exist. However, this is often overridden by the fact that the topic of the conversation comes first (if talking about a man that was bitten by a dog, the word for man would come first). Neither Finnish nouns nor pronouns decline for gender. There is also no article in the language. However, Finnish does distinguish 15 (16 in some dialects) noun cases. There are four grammatical cases (nominative, genitive, accusative and partitive), six locative cases (inessive, elative, illative, adessive, ablative, allative), two (three in some dialects) essive cases (essive and translative) and three 'marginal cases' (instructive, abessive and comitative). Finnish has 7 pronouns, distinguishing three persons and two numbers (singular and plural), but no gender distinction in the third person. The seventh pronoun is a formal 2nd person. While the first and second person pronouns are generally dropped in Standard Finnish, they are common in colloquial speech; third person is required in both standard and colloquial Finnish. The third person pronouns, hän and he are often replaced with se and ne (singular and plural, respectively) in colloquial speech. Finnish adjectives share the inflection paradigms of Finnish nouns and must agree with the noun in both number and case. Adverbs are generally formed by adding the suffix -sti to the inflecting form of the corresponding adjectives. Outside of this derivational process, they are not inflected. Being a case rich language, Finnish has few post- or prepositions. However, what few it has tend to be postpositions. When the postposition governs a noun, the noun takes the genitive case. Likewise, a postposition can take a possessive suffix to express persons. Prepositions tend to take nouns in the partitive case. Finnish has six conjugation classes; even though each class takes the same personal endings, the stems take different suffixes and change slightly when the verb is conjugated. Finnish has very few irregular verbs, and even some of those are irregular only in certain persons, moods, tenses, etc. Finnish verbs can conjugate for four tenses: non-past, historically called the present, which can express the present or the future; preterite, historically called the imperfect, which covers English past simple and past continuous; perfect, which corresponds to the English present perfect; plusperfect, which corresponds to the English past perfect. Finnish verbs can also conjugate for two voices, the active and the passive. The Finnish passive is unipersonal, that is, it only appears in one form regardless of who is understood to be performing the action. In that respect, it could be described as a "fourth person", since there is no (standard) way of connecting the action performed with a particular agent. Finnish verbs conjugate for five different moods. These are the indicative, the conditional, the imperative (split into several types), the optative and the potential. A sixth mood, the eventitive, is no longer used in Finnish, but is the mood used in the Finnish epic poem Kalevala. Finnish infinitives can come in four, sometimes analyzed as five, different groups. The first one is the citation form of the infinitive and corresponds to the English 'to X' infinitive use. The second infinitive is used to express aspects of actions relating to the time when an action takes place or the manner in which an action happens. In equivalent English phrases these time aspects can often be expressed using 'when', 'while' or 'whilst' and the manner aspects using the word 'by' or else the gerund, which is formed by adding "ing" to English verb to express manner. The third infinitive corresponds to the English gerund while the fourth and the fifth, both of which are rare in Finnish today, mark obligation and 'just about to...' respectively. Miscellany
Finnish, with 15/16 cases, has more cases than its ancestor Proto-Uralic, which is typically reconstructed with six; so, unlike most Indo-European languages, Finnish gained cases over time.
The exessive case is the essive case found only in some dialects
Finnish has borrowed extensively, with some linguists positing that only 300 Proto-Uralic words can be found in Finnish; however, due to the radical differences between Finnish and its Indo-European neighbors, borrowings quickly get nativized.
Some Finnish loan words do not seem to have come from Indo-European languages or have cognates in other Uralic languages. It is possible that these are borrowings from whatever languages were spoken in Europe before the spread of Indo-European languages.
Finnish orthography is highly phonemic, and, barring distinctions between colloquial and standard forms, one can often "write as you read, read as you write".
The language's orthography is often easily-recognizable because of its lack of b, c, f, q, w, x, z and å.
Samples
Spoken sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFCixLn9qRw (Lullaby) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejIdIKidqcc (folk song) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCEw4uH2a8I&list=PLL92dfFL9ZdJBbTpg-h9AMnZfxNlHwrbh (Playlist of songs popular in Finland currently) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vYH1JH73pw (Finnish newscast on Bitcoin) Written sample: Vaka vanha Väinämöinen itse tuon sanoiksi virkki: "Näistäpä toki tulisi kalanluinen kanteloinen, kun oisi osoajata, soiton luisen laatijata." Kun ei toista tullutkana, ei ollut osoajata, soiton luisen laatijata, vaka vanha Väinämöinen itse loihe laatijaksi, tekijäksi teentelihe. (Verses 221-232 of song 40 of the Kalevala) Audio here Kaikki ihmiset syntyvät vapaina ja tasavertaisina arvoltaan ja oikeuksiltaan. Heille on annettu järki ja omatunto, ja heidän on toimittava toisiaan kohtaan veljeyden hengessä. (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
Sources
Further Reading
Wikipedia page on Finnish, and related links
Finnish Sound Structure: Phonetics, phonology, phonotactics and prosody (Suomi, Toivan and Ylitalo 2008)
Тавтай морилогтун - This week's language of the week: Mongolian!
Mongolian is a Mongolic language and the official language of Mongolian. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. In Mongolia, the Khalkha dialect, written in Cyrillic (and at times in Latin for social networking), is predominant, while in Inner Mongolia, the language is dialectally more diverse and is written in the traditional Mongolian script.
History
The history of the Mongolian language is usually divided into three distinct eras. The first of these, Old, or Ancient, Mongolian, was spoken until around the 12th century CE. This is often equated with the Proto-Mongolian language. It was then followed by the Middle Mongolian period, lasted until the 16th century CE. Modern Mongolian has been dominant since. The first attestation of the Mongolian Script is from around 1225 CE, though it seems to have developed about 30 years earlier. The texts in this script are classified as Middle Mongolian, and are part of a pre-Classical era of Mongolian literature. The conversion of the Mongols to Buddhism (c. 1575) ushered in the Classical period (17th and early 18th centuries) of translation of scriptural texts from Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese, and this period corresponds to the commencement of the Modern period of the spoken language. Not until the 19th century did features of contemporary spoken Mongolian languages begin to appear in Mongolian texts. The other Mongolian languages started to split off from Old Mongolian following the expansion of the Mongols during the Middle Mongolian period.
Linguistics
As a Mongolic language, Mongolian is related to other languages such as Daur, Oirat, Monguor, Shira Yugur and Moghol. Some linguists theorize it is part of a larger family with the Kitan language. The data discussed here is from the standard Khalkha variety of Mongolian in Mongolia. Classification Mongolian's full classification is as follows: Mongolic (Proto-Mongolic Language) > Mongolian Phonology and Phonotactics There are seven monophthong vowel phonemes in Mongolian. Word-initially, there is a phonemic contrast for length, giving a total of 14 contrastive vowel phonemes (length is only contrastive word initially). These phonemes are /i e ɵ a ɔ ʊ u/ with their corresponding long forms (/oː/ is the long form of /ɵ/, due to a sound change in the non-lenghtened one). There are 29 consonant phonemes, with an additional four that only appear in loan words. The maximal syllable structure is CVVCCC, and stress is non-phonemic and there is not much scholary consensus on where stress falls in a word. Mongolian also has two types of vowel harmony. The first, known as Advanced Tongue Root, is a three-way system. The other is based off rounding, and does not affect closed vowels. Morphology and Syntax Mongolian is an aggulitinative language, and almost wholly suffixing, with the one exception being reduplication. Mongolian nouns decline for plurality and case, as well as reflexivization. Plurality is not required, and is never used when the context already indicates the noun is plural. Mongolian declines for eight different cases: nominative, genitive, dative-locative, accusative, ablative, instrumental, comitative and directive. Mongolian verbs are conjugated by extensive addition of suffixes. These are attached in the following order: voice - aspect - mood. Mongolian has several different voice suffixes.
The active suffix, is unmarked on the verb and is used when the subject of the sentence is active.
The causative voice suffix is used when the subject (which doesn't have to appear) causes something to happen.
The passive voice suffix, which works similar to the English passive but is rarely used.
The communal voice suffix, which expresses that the action of the subject is associated with the action(s) of other(s). The subject is usually a helper, but the action of 'helping' is not being stressed; rather, it's the fact that someone takes part or is involved in the action that is being stressed.
The adversative voice suffix is used when actions of two or more subjects happen simultaneously; despite its name, it is not inherently negative.
Likewise, there are many aspect suffixes:
quick action suffix, which expresses that the action happens quickly and in a short time. Can sometimes be translated with "a little, a bit".
temporary action, which signifies the action is to continue for a little while, but has a temporary character.
completed action, which expresses an action that has been fully completed; often appears with the perfect aspect, and bears a slight perfect meaning
collective action, which reveals that many people (usually more than two) are involved in the action, and thus the subject is plural
repetitive action, which expresses an action that is repeated again and again
progressive action, which indicates something is happening currently
perfect action, which is an action that continues up to a certain selected point of time in the past/present/future; very similar to the English perfect aspect
progressive-perfect aspect, which combines the previous two.
The following mood suffixes are used in Mongolian:
noun determining suffixes, which link the verb to a succeeding noun. Among these there are ones for past, indefinite present, progressive present, future, and "doer".
adword determining suffixes, which include suffixes for wish, possibility and necessity.
tense-bound terminating suffixes, which include: general past, three other past suffixes, indefinite present, progressive present, present and future.
There are seven personal pronouns used in Mongolian. There are two singular 'you', with one being an honorific and the other being more informal. The honorific is the original form, and it was from this that the plural 'you' is derived. The third person pronouns are considered impolite, as they originally derived from demonstratives. All forms can be seen in the table below:
Meaning
Pronoun
1s
Би
2s informal
Чи
2s formal
Та
3s
Тэр
1pl
Бид
2pl
Та нар
3pl
Тэд
нар, required with the second person plural, can be added to the third and first person plural to stress the plural meaning or to indicate a group of individuals.
Miscellany
Mongolian is now currently written in the Cyrillic alphabet, though the Mongolian Script is used in China.
السلام عليكم - This week's language of the week: Arabic!
Arabic (Arabic: العَرَبِيَّة, al-ʻarabiyyah [ʔalʕaraˈbijːah] or Arabic: عَرَبِيّ ʻarabī [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbijː]) is a Semitic language spoken by anywhere between 290-420 million people worldwide. It is an official or co-official language in 27 countries worldwide, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. Arabic dialects have diverged quite a bit, to the point where mutual intelligibility has been lost, but only one -- Maltese -- is regularly considered a separate language. This is due to political/cultural reasons, as well as the existence of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which is a unifying standard register. Several other big dialects do dominate, such as Egyptian Arabic. The examples in this write-up are from MSA.
Linguistics
Arabic is a Semitic language, making it related to languages such as Hebrew and Amharic as well as extinct languages like Akkadian and Ugaritic. Semitic languages are part of the bigger Afro-Asiatic language family, which also makes it related to languages such as the Berber languages. Classification Arabic's full classification is: Afro-Asiatic (Proto-Afro-Asiatic) > Semitic (Proto-Semitic) > West Semitic > Central Semitic > Arabic languages Phonology and Phonotactics Modern Arabic has six pure vowels -- /a i u/ and their corresponding long vowels. There are also two diphthongs -- /aj/ and /aw/. MSA has 28 phonemic consonants, with a 29th that appears only in the word الله ('Allah'). Arabic has two types of syllables: open syllables, with structures of CV and CVV; and closed syllables, with structures of CVC, CVVC and CVCC. The syllable types with two morae (units of time), i.e. CVC and CVV, are termed heavy syllables, while those with three morae, i.e. CVVC and CVCC, are superheavy syllables. Arabic lacks contrastive word stress, which is heavily correlated to vowel length. The general rules for word stress in MSA are:
A final vowel, long or short, may not be stressed.
Only one of the last three syllables may be stressed.
Given this restriction, the last heavy syllable (containing a long vowel or ending in a consonant) is stressed, if it is not the final syllable.
If the final syllable is super heavy and closed (of the form CVVC or CVCC) it receives stress.
If no syllable is heavy or super heavy, the first possible syllable (i.e. third from end) is stressed.
As a special exception, in Form VII and VIII verb forms stress may not be on the first syllable, despite the above rules
Grammar The basic word order of Arabic is Verb-Subject-Object. Following general typological rules, the adjectives in Arabic follow the nouns they quantify, auxiliary verbs precede main verbs, prepositions precede their objects, and nouns precede their relative clauses (thus Arabic is a head-initial language). Typologically, Arabic is also considered a fusional language, making it typologically similar to Spanish and French. Arabic nouns are declined for case, state, gender and number. Arabic has three cases -- nominative, genitive and accusative -- with six declension patterns. There are two genders -- masculine and feminine -- with animate nouns usually following natural gender with inanimate nouns being placed largely arbitrarily. There are three numbers in Arabic -- singular, plural and dual. State is a grammatical category common to the Semitic languages, with the basic division in Arabic being definite and indefinite, which roughly corresponds to the English definite article and indefinite article. More correctly, a definite noun signals either a particular entity previously referenced or a generic concept, and corresponds to one of the following in English: English nouns preceded by the, this, that, or a possessive adjective (e.g. my, your); English nouns taken in a generic sense ("Milk is good", "Dogs are friendly"); or proper nouns (e.g. John or Muhammad). Indefinite nouns refer to entities not previously mentioned, and correspond to either English nouns preceded by a, an or some, or English mass nouns with no preceding determiner and not having a generic sense ("We need milk"). Definite nouns are usually marked by a definite article prefix اَلـ al- (which is reduced to l- following vowels, and further assimilates to (a)t-, (a)s-, (a)r- etc. preceding certain consonants). Indefinite nouns are usually marked by nunation (a following -n). Adjectives modifying a noun generally decline to agree with the noun except in one case: inanimate plural nouns take feminine-singular agreement. Arabic personal pronouns have twelve forms -- 1st person singular, 1st person dual/plural, 2nd person singular masculine, 2nd person singular feminine, 2nd person dual, 2nd person plural masculine, 2nd person plural feminine, 3rd person singular masculine, 3rd person singular feminine, 3rd person dual, 3rd person plural masculine and 3rd person plural feminine. Arabic also has enclitic pronouns which affix to various parts of speech to change the meaning. Furthermore, Arabic also inflects its prepositions based on the following pronoun, a feature it shares with the Celtic languages. For example, the Arabic preposition 'with' is مَعَ (ma'a), but 'with me' becomes مَعِي (ma‘ī). Arabic verbs undergo extensive conjugation and, like verbs in other Semitic languages, are extremely complex. In Arabic, verbs are conjugated for: three tenses -- past, present and future; two voices -- active and passive; two genders -- masculine and feminine; three persons -- first, second and third; three numbers -- singular, dual and plural; four moods in the non-past -- indicative, subjunctive, jussive and imperative (two more exist in Classical Arabic); nineteen forms, the derivational systems indicating derivative concepts such as intensive, causative, reciprocal, reflexive, frequentative etc. For each form, there is also an active and a passive participle (both adjectives, declined through the full paradigm of gender, number, case and state) and a verbal noun (declined for case; also, when lexicalized, may be declined for number). Weakness is an inherent property of a given verb determined by the particular consonants of the verb root (corresponding to a verb conjugation in Classical Latin and other European languages), with five main types of weakness and two or three subtypes of each type. Miscellany As mentioned, the Arabic language has broken into many dialects over the centuries, with some of these being unintelligible. Despite this, most still consider Arabic a single language -- except for Maltese spoken on Malta -- due to political and cultural reasons. The distinction between dialect and language is inherently more of a political issue than a linguistic one. The main dialects of Arabic are: Egyptian Arabic spoken by 53 million people in Egypt and widely understood outside it; Levantine Arabic spoken by 21 million people; Maghrebi Arabic also called 'Darija' and spoken by 70 million people and which is the dialect that Maltese descends from. There are many other varieties as well. Arabic literature has existed since the 5th century in the form of poems, with the possibility of some oral poems dating back even farther. Before the Qur'an, most literature was poetry. However, after the Qur'an, it quickly became the standard to which all literature was held and Islamic literature soon pervaded the language. Many different types of work have been written in the Arabic language, including poetry, compilations and manuals, geographic works, works of history and biography, diaries, literary theory and criticism. Within the realm of fiction, there are epics, Maqama, romantic literature, murder mysteries, satire and comedy, drama, philosophical novels and science fiction. Exemplars of these works were written before the 13th century, showcasing the diversity of the early Arabic literary tradition. Perhaps the most well-known Arabic work, outside the Qur'an, is the One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of folklore compiled in Arabic in the Islamic Golden Age.
ADJECTIVE(பெயரடை)- Learn Tamil through ENglish Definition of Conjugate in the Online Tamil Dictionary. Meaning of Conjugate. Tamil Translations of Conjugate. Information about Conjugate in the free online Tamil dictionary. points, lines, axes, curves, etc. Noun. A word agreeing in derivation with another word, and therefore generally resembling it in signification. combustion tamil meaning and more example for combustion will be given in tamil. As part of its advanced technology initiative in airbreathing propulsion the Thiruvananthapurambased Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation ISRO has designed and developed a Supersonic Combustion Ramjet recording a major technological breakthrough. contest tamil meaning and more example for contest will be given in tamil. Prizes given Students who won in an elocution contest on consumer problems and the Consumers Act were given away prizes. Disappointing final As a contest the final could not gather momentum as PSB failed to find a way to breach the rival defence. So we've learned that each of the four terms in N, the conjugate matrix, carries information about the system where the focal planes is the system in focus. It turns out we can write the conjugate matrix in an extremely compact form using the logic that we've just gone through, and that form is important enough that we should know it. Partner provides Clues à Tamil Beginners guesses the Word. A list of 500 Tamil Words will be provided. For example: Book – Puththagam, Thank you – Nandri; Tamil Beginners are expected to learn these Tamil words along with their English meanings. Partner may/ may not know Tamil. Clues may be either in English or Tamil conjugate in Tamil translation and definition "conjugate", English-Tamil Dictionary online. conjugate . points, lines, axes, curves, etc. Any entity formed by joining two or more smaller entities together. and therefore generally resembling it in meaning. To inflect (a verb) for each person, in order, for one or more tenses. a. (of a molecule, compound, or substance) containing two or more double bonds alternating with single bonds Verb conjugation in Tamil is different from English; the points listed below will explain those differences and will be explained with examples. 1) Similar to English we use ‘person’ which comes before a conjugated verb but this is optional here because we use a verb suffix which represents the PNG (Person Number Gender) conjugate definition: 1. If a verb conjugates, it has different forms that show different tenses, the number of people it…. Learn more.
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