So who else here is into linguistics? Andygirl, I know about you; anyone else?
Just as an interest, not as a career. Being an English major, it kind of comes with the territory.
I’m an armchair ling-weenie. Mainly interested in the Celtic languages and Scots, lately trying to learn more about the minority languages of Spain (Catalan, Basque and Galician). A lot of the more technical stuff about linguistics doesn’t really interest me; I’m more into the histories of and the relationships between languages.
I really regret not doing it at an academic level.
I have a master’s degree in linguistics.
heheh.
I just had to find out what a “ling-weenie” was.
Uhh…I’m not. Carry on.
Me!
Moi!
Wo!
Yo!
Ya!
Ani!
Ana!
Man!
Nan!
Ben!
Na!
Watashi!
Saya!
Mimi!
Ini!
Ené!
Én!
Jäg!
Minä!
Ego!
Nga!
Ik!
Ich!
Aham!
I nearly got a ling degree, but decided it wasn’t worth staying an extra semester for, when I already had my comp one.
I just wanted to celebrate the fact that there is one way to be a weenie that I’m not. Although I enjoyed my Linguistics classes and used to be able to transcribe in the phonetic alphabet and have actually used the phrase “bilabial fricative” in conversation.
But only while speaking English 'cuz that’s all I know.
dropzone, I was a precocious youngster and linguistics was my passion from an early age too; I knew what a bilabial fricative. But I became inhibited from using that term freely when a classmate asked me what it was and I gave him the literal definition. He said, “No, that’s not what it is!”
He was thinking of the George Carlin comedy routine in which bilabial fricative means ‘fart’.
Can someone give me an example of a bilabial fricative? I’m assuming there aren’t any used in any varieties of English. All I can come up with is a whistle (or a fart) or possibly a raspberry. Although a raspberry might be better described as inter-labial because of the tongue position just as /th/ is inter-dental with the tongue between the teeth.
Interlabial!
By George, I think she’s got it!
No, really, that sounds like exactly the right learned term for a raspberry. You have just made phonetic history. Better publish soon before someone else steals your idea. Fire off a letter to the* International Journal of Phonetics*. That’ll secure your claim while you’re writing your paper.
Bilabial fricatives don’t exist in English, but you can hear one in Spanish b or v between vowels. English v is a labiodental using upper teeth and lower lip. Spanish intervocalic b and v use both lips and no teeth. Now practice saying “huevos de Habana.”
I know I’ve been pegged. I would just like to object to the word “weenie.”
*Interestingly, gra means women in Albanian and love in Irish.
While maite means love in Basque and women in Brahui.
I love linguistics, but my professor discouraged me from going into it unless I plan to teach, which I don’t.
I suppose that makes me a linguistic dilettante.
I had a crush on my Japanese professor, who said I should try Linguistics as I was good at it, so I got a Linguistics degree. Since I didn’t plan to teach, I still got an Art degree as a fallback.
Jomo Mojo wins for the most, um, intensively ling-weenie answer.
-fh
And what exactly can you do with an art degree, hazel?
I am. I’m currently taking Swedish linguistics, and I like it. My main interest is sociolinguistics, specifically genderlects.
I’m not into linguistics, but my boyfriend is. He’s fluent in English, German, French and has Gaelic down pretty well. He’s also knowledgable about Swedish and Norwegian. He’s also great when talking about bi-labial frictives and voiced and unvoiced vowels and all of that stuff.
Me? I’m got a good beginner’s knowledge of German, just enough to get me in trouble:
(Freyr ordering ice-tea in German): Ich mochte Eis Tee, bitte? (imagine the umlauts are in the proper places in that sentence!).
I’m currently a major in linguistics, mostly concentrating in phonetics, phonology and morphology.
Um… I’m TRYING to learn how to read Ancient Egyptian, so I’m learning a bit about linguistics…
(BTW, anyone who can give me hints or suggest good books, drop me a line)