# Where are the linguists at? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 29, 2004, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616 "2004-09-29T04:10:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![andygirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@andygirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andygirl)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/1 "2004-09-29T04:10:54Z")
The six of you who recall when I was a very active poster may remember that I’m training to be a linguist. I want to be a fieldworker; what I’d most like to do is document, preserve, and hopefully help revitalize endangered languages. It passes the time. I’m curious as to who else is a linguist. I know that Dragonblink is in grad school like me, matt\_mcl also did ling, as did Wendell Wagner, and I’m eternally grateful to Ol’Gaffer for some tips he gave me in the application process. So who else is out there? And since I just spent all weekend working on it, what syntax theory do you work with? I’m in a class right now that is mostly about Construction Grammar, but spends a great deal of time discussing HPSG and Chomskyan theory to give it some context. Also, playing with Praat is far too entertaining for its own good. ---
**Author:** ![Sharky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@Sharky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sharky)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/2 "2004-09-29T04:52:04Z")
They are busy debating the propriety of ending a sentence with a preposition. 😉 > [@](#): > > A Southerner stopped a stranger on the Harvard campus and asked, “Could you please tell me where the library is at?” The stranger responded, “Educated people never end their sentences with a preposition.” The overly polite Southerner then apologetically repeated himself: “Could you please tell me where the library is at, you jerk?” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![andygirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@andygirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andygirl)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/3 "2004-09-29T04:59:25Z")
> [@Sharky](#): > > They are busy debating the propriety of ending a sentence with a preposition. 😉 > > 😃 I said ‘linguists,’ not ‘perscriptive grammar freaks’. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/4 "2004-09-29T05:08:39Z")
Just a hunch, but I doubt very many linguists are prescriptivists. And I always joke about the necessity of a “bitch clause”, refering to another version of that joke. (Yes, I know the word “bitch” is not a clause: it lacks a verb.) ---
**Author:** ![Doobieous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Doobieous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doobieous)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/5 "2004-09-29T13:08:52Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > Just a hunch, but I doubt very many linguists are prescriptivists. > > And I always joke about the necessity of a “bitch clause”, refering to another version of that joke. (Yes, I know the word “bitch” is not a clause: it lacks a verb.) Not a linguist, but yes, very few are prescriptivists. The prescriptivists tend to be English majors. ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/6 "2004-09-29T13:23:00Z")
Are you looking for cunning linguists? ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_Gaffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Ol\_Gaffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_Gaffer)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/7 "2004-09-29T18:14:05Z")
Hey **andygirl**! Good to see you hanging around a bit, but are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be writing a paper or something?! So how is school going? Have they completely driven your passion for the field out of you yet? Ugh. Syntax. My least favorite part of Linguistics…no, check that…2nd least favorite. The worst was formal semantics. In any case, in my undergrad we did X-Bar analysis. Grad school syntax was very Chomskyan (Gov’t-Binding theory at the time although Minimalist was starting to show up in some of the after class discussion) and I did do a seminar with some of the Stanford folks during my 2nd year on OT Syntax. So have you determined which class of languages you want to work on? (oops my apologies to **Sharky** …the preceding sentence should read “So have you determined the class of languages upon which you want to work?”) ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/8 "2004-09-29T18:19:16Z")
[obligatory punchline]That is something up with which we will not put![/obligatory punchline] ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/9 "2004-09-29T20:34:54Z")
I’d like to be. I love languages. Hopefully starting my 4th soon (Italian). But I didn’t know what I’d do besides be a translator if I followed that path. I don’t wanna be a translator, or a speech pathologist, or a… whatever it is you do. I just like languages. ---
**Author:** ![andygirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@andygirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andygirl)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/10 "2004-09-29T20:54:11Z")
> [@Ol'Gaffer](#): > > Hey **andygirl**! Good to see you hanging around a bit, but are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be writing a paper or something?! > > So how is school going? Have they completely driven your passion for the field out of you yet? > > So have you determined which class of languages you want to work on? School is going pretty well, although I should spend more time on phonetics. Silly hearing impairment. Still planning on being a fieldworker, yeah. I’m not sure what class I want to work on yet, although right now I’m on a documentation project for an Ethiopian language and I’m enjoying it a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2004, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/11 "2004-09-29T22:18:10Z")
Hi. I’m a doctoral student in linguistics. Focusing on computational semantics, fun fun! Syntax here was all Minimalism, with whispered rumors that something called “government and binding” preceded it. Just had a blast teaching phonology to an introductory class–will someone please give an unvoiced interlabial fricative? Yes? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/12 "2004-09-30T00:52:29Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > Just had a blast teaching phonology to an introductory class–will someone please give an unvoiced interlabial fricative? Yes? We don’t have it in English, do we? I first thought of _f_, but that’s dental-labial, I believe. No, I never got a degree in ling but I did do almost half a major in it, being really interested in it. In retrospect, I should have stuck with that instead of changing to German literature, a decision which I cannot now fathom. In terms of what I have most retained from my actual classwork, as opposed to extracurricular reading, travel, and museum visits, I remember far more of my work in linguistics. When I took my syntax it was very Chomskyan, and we used _Syntactic Structures_ as our text. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/13 "2004-09-30T00:56:09Z")
Uhm…would that be a raspberry? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Magic8ball](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Miss\_Magic8ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Magic8ball)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/14 "2004-09-30T01:09:42Z")
Hey! I haven’t been in the SDMB for a while, and I’m smacking myself for it after this post… I’m 17, last year of school… Next year, I’m planning on going to university… well, somewhere OTHER then Canada or the US. Preferably Italy, because I want to learn italian. I’m planning on being a linguist. It’l be great. I have an ear for languages, and plus I love to talk. I’m gonna be a nurse, too, so I’l be a multi-lingual traveling nurse. My sole aspiration in life is to travel. So anyways, I know English and French fluently. I’ve jsut started with spanish, I have the basics, I’m taking advanced this year, and I’m starting German. It’l be awesome, I’l be able to talk dirty in 4 languages! I also plan on learning Yiddish, Italian, Latin, gaelic, arabic and mandarin. ---
**Author:** ![andygirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a9adbd/32.png) [@andygirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andygirl)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/15 "2004-09-30T02:42:19Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > Hi. I’m a doctoral student in linguistics. Focusing on computational semantics, fun fun! Syntax here was all Minimalism, with whispered rumors that something called “government and binding” preceded it. Just had a blast teaching phonology to an introductory class–will someone please give an unvoiced interlabial fricative? Yes? oooh! oooh! I know that one. Phi. And the voiced is Beta. Where are you, Sattua? I’m in Colorado. ---
**Author:** ![Kiminy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Kiminy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiminy)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/16 "2004-09-30T03:05:33Z")
I spent ten years studying French Linguistics, with a minor in general linguistics. I got an MA in the field, then took all the PhD courses, passed the comps, and got about three chapters of my dissertation written. Then things sort of frazzled. My dissertation director moved to Holland, and there wasn’t anyone else on campus who could direct my topic. (The syntactic structure of French/Romance causatives) I lost funding to continue working on campus, and couldn’t find a job teaching anywhere else. My second child was born with disabilities, and I had to spend a lot of time toting him to doctors and therapists. I quit work on the dissertation about ten years ago, and I’ve barely spoken a word of French since then. ☹ Now I teach classes in computer science, and I’ve pretty much lost touch with the world of Syntax. Chomskyan linguistics was dominant when I was in the field, and I haven’t had much time to stay caught up with new developments. I’m in a position now where I could theoretically go back and finish the dissertation, but I’d essentially have to redo grad school over from scratch to know what’s going on, and that just doesn’t appeal to me right now… One semester when I was an undergraduate (and a just-plain-French major), I took classes in four different lanuages in a single term: A French literature class (in my major, so it was conducted entirely in French), a second-semester German language class, a first-semester Ancient Greek class, and an English literature class. I remember having very bizzarre dreams where I didn’t know what language I was speaking at any given time. The Greek class meant that I also dreamed I didn’t know what alphabet I was using. My 13yo daughter is also a budding linguist. She’s been trying to teach herself Swahili for the last couple of years, and already has plans to go to the same school I did my graduate work in so that she can study African Linguistics. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/17 "2004-09-30T03:53:49Z")
Yes, it’s a raspberry! Miss Magic8ball --\> Do not confuse linguists with people who know lots of languages. Linguists study the structure of language in general; even field linguists have to be well versed in formal linguistics, in order to have a snowball’s chance in hell of understanding and describing a new language. AndyGirl --\> East of you… ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/18 "2004-09-30T03:54:51Z")
Kiminy --\> I did Swahili for my “structural familiarity” language. It’s awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Kiminy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Kiminy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiminy)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/19 "2004-09-30T04:11:13Z")
[QUOTE=Sattua] Miss Magic8ball --\> Do not confuse linguists with people who know lots of languages. Linguists study the structure of language in general; even field linguists have to be well versed in formal linguistics, in order to have a snowball’s chance in hell of understanding and describing a new language. /QUOTE] Right. I consider myself a linguist, although I only speak English and French really well. I know smatterings of other languages, and can get by in Italian and German when I need to, but what’s most interesting to me is _how_ different languages are structured. I learned French very easily. I never spoke it at all when I was growing up in the Appalachians of NC, but French was definitely the easiest subject I had in HS. I had a good understanding of the language even before going to France. I also picked up Italian and German relatively easily, just in traveling through Italy and Germany while living in France. I can’t say I’m fluent in either of those languages, but I always knew what was going on around me when I was in those countries, and never had a problem making myself understood. (I did take a few formal classes in German, but never in Italian.) I studied Latin in high school (before taking French), and LOVED it. Ditto for Ancient Greek that I took in college. I can’t claim to speak either of those languages, but I loved studying the structure and grammar. For some inexplicable reason, though, I cannot learn to speak any dialect of Spanish. I spent a few weeks in Spain when I lived in France many years ago, but I never had a clue what anyone was talking about when I was there. (I was traveling with friends who spoke Spanish, which was the only way I knew anything about what was going on around me.) I’ve tried listening to Spanish tapes, radio, and TV to pick it up, but it just doesn’t come to me at all. ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616/20 "2004-09-30T04:45:51Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > And I always joke about the necessity of a “bitch clause”, refering to another version of that joke. (Yes, I know the word “bitch” is not a clause: it lacks a verb.) Yes, which is why you often add “fuck” and “off” to make it a complete clause. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-the-linguists-at/266616.md?page=2)