There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: Related to the recent discussion about counting the number of po
From: Leonardo Castro
1.2. Re: Related to the recent discussion about counting the number of po
From: MorphemeAddict
1.3. Re: Related to the recent discussion about counting the number of po
From: Roger Mills
1.4. Re: Related to the recent discussion about counting the number of po
From: Leonardo Castro
2.1. Tonogenesis
From: Patrick Dunn
2.2. Re: Tonogenesis
From: Alex Fink
2.3. Re: Tonogenesis
From: George Corley
2.4. Re: Tonogenesis
From: David McCann
2.5. Re: Tonogenesis
From: Patrick Dunn
3a. Re: USAGE: Do foreign names sound like phrases in Chinese?
From: Douglas Koller
3b. Re: USAGE: Do foreign names sound like phrases in Chinese?
From: yuri
3c. Re: USAGE: Do foreign names sound like phrases in Chinese?
From: George Corley
3d. Re: USAGE: Do foreign names sound like phrases in Chinese?
From: Leonardo Castro
3e. Re: USAGE: Do foreign names sound like phrases in Chinese?
From: George Corley
4. THEORY: Bilinguals Find It Easier to Learn a Third Language
From: Leonardo Castro
Messages
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1.1. Re: Related to the recent discussion about counting the number of po
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 1, 2013 5:44 pm ((PST))
2013/3/1 Alex Fink <[email protected]>:
> On Fri, 1 Mar 2013 08:21:06 -0300, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>>2013/2/28 Matthew George <[email protected]>:
>>> I suppose definite/indefinite gets a lot of use in English precisely
>>> because it's simple and available. Plus, there are many situations where
>>> it can't be omitted formally.
>>
>>I've considering using the same word for "it" and the definite article
>>in my conlang.
>>
>>"The dog wants the bone." -> "It dog wants it bone."
>>
>>The only problem I see is that "it" could refer to an undefined object,
>>
>>"The dog gnaws a bone and don't want to drop it.".
>
> That's completely the opposite of a problem, as I see it! It's a natural
> unification of the functions: "it" just means 'that thing we're talking
> about, or that thing that's salient'; if you want to give the hearer a bit
> more of a hint, supply a noun after "it"; if not, fine. I mean, pronouns and
> articles both tend to derive from demonstratives, which at least for
> English-speakers it's less surprising that take identical forms whether
> modifying a noun or standing alone. "My dog wants that (bone)."
> And there are ANADEWs: e.g. nonstandard German does this, doesn't it?
I thought standard German did this: aren't "Was ist das?" and "Das
Auto." standard German?
>
> Do you select "it" by contrast to other gender forms of the pronouns? The
> most natural thing to do would be to make gender behave the same way in
> pronoun and article function, IMO.
My conlang doesn't distinguish pronouns by gender: "it", "he" and
"she" are all written as "liai".
Messages in this topic (42)
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1.2. Re: Related to the recent discussion about counting the number of po
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 1, 2013 8:07 pm ((PST))
On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 8:44 PM, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>wrote:
> 2013/3/1 Alex Fink <[email protected]>:
> > On Fri, 1 Mar 2013 08:21:06 -0300, Leonardo Castro <
> [email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >>2013/2/28 Matthew George <[email protected]>:
> >>> I suppose definite/indefinite gets a lot of use in English precisely
> >>> because it's simple and available. Plus, there are many situations
> where
> >>> it can't be omitted formally.
> >>
> >>I've considering using the same word for "it" and the definite article
> >>in my conlang.
> >>
> >>"The dog wants the bone." -> "It dog wants it bone."
> >>
> >>The only problem I see is that "it" could refer to an undefined object,
> >>
> >>"The dog gnaws a bone and don't want to drop it.".
> >
> > That's completely the opposite of a problem, as I see it! It's a
> natural unification of the functions: "it" just means 'that thing we're
> talking about, or that thing that's salient'; if you want to give the
> hearer a bit more of a hint, supply a noun after "it"; if not, fine. I
> mean, pronouns and articles both tend to derive from demonstratives, which
> at least for English-speakers it's less surprising that take identical
> forms whether modifying a noun or standing alone. "My dog wants that
> (bone)."
> > And there are ANADEWs: e.g. nonstandard German does this, doesn't it?
>
> I thought standard German did this: aren't "Was ist das?" and "Das
> Auto." standard German?
>
"Das" is both a pronoun ("that") and a definite article (neuter singular
nominative/accusative. It doesn't mean 'it', which is "es".
stevo
>
> >
> > Do you select "it" by contrast to other gender forms of the pronouns?
> The most natural thing to do would be to make gender behave the same way
> in pronoun and article function, IMO.
>
> My conlang doesn't distinguish pronouns by gender: "it", "he" and
> "she" are all written as "liai".
>
Messages in this topic (42)
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1.3. Re: Related to the recent discussion about counting the number of po
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 1, 2013 8:15 pm ((PST))
--- On Fri, 3/1/13, MorphemeAddict <[email protected]> wrote:
> In Spanish, the masculine definite article is identical to the nominative
> of the masculine pronoun (though in writing, the pronoun is spelled with an
> acute accent to disambiguate).
Only in the singular: el libro (the book) vs. él (he). In the plural it's
"los libros" (the books) vs. ellos (they [m or mixed]).
stevo
Also, I believe the pronominal forms _lo_
> and _la_ (object forms of some kind -- often cliticised to the verb) are
> also used as a kind of article, though I'm not sure what to call it.
================================================
lo is the masc. object pronoun; la of course is the fem. def. art and also the
object pronoun (plural ellas, las parallel with ellos, los.)
lo is also used to form "neuter" nouns < adjectives, but with a special
meaning-- lo bueno can be just "the good", but more often I think means 'the
good thing is....' or 'the good part is...' I'm not sure you can use it with
every adjective
Messages in this topic (42)
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1.4. Re: Related to the recent discussion about counting the number of po
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 2, 2013 4:56 am ((PST))
2013/3/2 Roger Mills <[email protected]>:
> --- On Fri, 3/1/13, MorphemeAddict <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> In Spanish, the masculine definite article is identical to the nominative
>> of the masculine pronoun (though in writing, the pronoun is spelled with an
>> acute accent to disambiguate).
>
> Only in the singular: el libro (the book) vs. él (he). In the plural it's
> "los libros" (the books) vs. ellos (they [m or mixed]).
>
> stevo
>
> Also, I believe the pronominal forms _lo_
>> and _la_ (object forms of some kind -- often cliticised to the verb) are
>> also used as a kind of article, though I'm not sure what to call it.
>
> ================================================
>
> lo is the masc. object pronoun; la of course is the fem. def. art and also
> the object pronoun (plural ellas, las parallel with ellos, los.)
>
> lo is also used to form "neuter" nouns < adjectives, but with a special
> meaning-- lo bueno can be just "the good", but more often I think means 'the
> good thing is....' or 'the good part is...' I'm not sure you can use it
> with every adjective
In Portuguese, the object pronouns have exactly the same form of the
definite articles: "o, a, os, as" . But sometimes the object pronouns
can be written as "lo, la, los, las / no, na, nos, nas" for
phonotactics reasons.
Messages in this topic (42)
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2.1. Tonogenesis
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected]
Date: Fri Mar 1, 2013 10:57 pm ((PST))
So now I'm looking at tonogenesis. I'm thinking perhaps that stops will
raise the tone of the preceding vowel, while fricatives will lower it,
which appears to be an attested stage in the development of Sino-Tibetan
languages (yes?). I'm toying with the notion that perhaps there will be
two forms of words, one free-standing with a final consonant, and one with
a tone that combines in compounds, so, just as an example:
sak -- person
taf -- make a sound
sátaf -- language; to speak
Other ideas in re: tonogenesis, or comments on the plausibility of such a
system?
--
Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
order from Finishing Line
Press<http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
and
Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2>.
Messages in this topic (30)
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2.2. Re: Tonogenesis
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 2, 2013 7:37 am ((PST))
On Sat, 2 Mar 2013 00:57:31 -0600, Patrick Dunn <[email protected]> wrote:
>So now I'm looking at tonogenesis. I'm thinking perhaps that stops will
>raise the tone of the preceding vowel, while fricatives will lower it,
>which appears to be an attested stage in the development of Sino-Tibetan
>languages (yes?).
It's not really one stage; I'd construe it as two or maybe three. First, the
final stops weakened to [?], and [s] (the only fricative that was ever in final
position in Sino-Tibetan, afaik) to [h]. These then induced (allophonic?)
phonations on the vowels: breathy voice for [h], and stiff for [?]. Breathy
voicing lowers pitch, while stiff voicing raises it, and this survived when the
glottal consonants fell.
By the way, AIUI, in a language where [?] goes so far as to induce _creaky_
voice (which is more glottal than stiff voice), that also lowers pitch. This
varying effect of [?] accounts for e.g. high-tones corresponding with low tones
in comparative Athabaskan.
>I'm toying with the notion that perhaps there will be
>two forms of words, one free-standing with a final consonant, and one with
>a tone that combines in compounds, so, just as an example:
>
>sak -- person
>taf -- make a sound
>sátaf -- language; to speak
>
>Other ideas in re: tonogenesis, or comments on the plausibility of such a
>system?
I guess the question is whether consonants could decay to [? h] in position
before another consonant, but not finally. I don't see why this couldn't
happen.
Alex
Messages in this topic (30)
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2.3. Re: Tonogenesis
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 2, 2013 8:04 am ((PST))
On Sat, Mar 2, 2013 at 12:57 AM, Patrick Dunn <[email protected]> wrote:
> So now I'm looking at tonogenesis. I'm thinking perhaps that stops will
> raise the tone of the preceding vowel, while fricatives will lower it,
> which appears to be an attested stage in the development of Sino-Tibetan
> languages (yes?). I'm toying with the notion that perhaps there will be
> two forms of words, one free-standing with a final consonant, and one with
> a tone that combines in compounds, so, just as an example:
>
> sak -- person
> taf -- make a sound
> sátaf -- language; to speak
>
> Other ideas in re: tonogenesis, or comments on the plausibility of such a
> system?
Certainly seems possible. I think you might end up with tones showing up
in other places through processes like analogy and tone spreading, but this
could be a sort of initial toe-dip into the tonogenesis process.
Messages in this topic (30)
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2.4. Re: Tonogenesis
Posted by: "David McCann" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 2, 2013 8:35 am ((PST))
On Sat, 2 Mar 2013 00:57:31 -0600
Patrick Dunn <[email protected]> wrote:
> Other ideas in re: tonogenesis, or comments on the plausibility of
> such a system?
>
The loss of final consonants often leads to tones.
stop > Ê > creaky voice > high tone
e.g. Chipewyan -tó < Athbascan *-taÊ
fricative > h > breathy voice > low tone
e.g. Vietnamese
But it can happen the other way round:
stop > Ê > arrest > low tone
e.g. Sarcee -tò < *-taÊ
fricative > h > ??? > high tone
e.g. Punjabi
For internal changes, look at Norwegian:
ON bÅndr and baunir give Norwegian /bönÉr/ with tone differences on the
first syllable. Cue Taliesin to explain exactly what!
Messages in this topic (30)
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2.5. Re: Tonogenesis
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 2, 2013 8:41 am ((PST))
So I could have a general lenition rule for final consonants. Stops are
weakened to [?] and fricatives to [h] before another consonant, which
triggers creaky and breathy voicing respectively, which gets reinterpreted
as tone.
Does nasalization also trigger tonogenesis in any languages?
Hmm, this'll lead to a high degree of homophony, but since this only occurs
in compounds, it might be easier to disambiguate.
Oooh, especially if this occurs in an earlier agglunative phase of the
language, which then becomes more analytic.
How confusing. :)
--Patrick
On Sat, Mar 2, 2013 at 10:35 AM, David McCann <[email protected]>wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Mar 2013 00:57:31 -0600
> Patrick Dunn <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Other ideas in re: tonogenesis, or comments on the plausibility of
> > such a system?
> >
>
> The loss of final consonants often leads to tones.
> stop > Ê > creaky voice > high tone
> e.g. Chipewyan -tó < Athbascan *-taÊ
> fricative > h > breathy voice > low tone
> e.g. Vietnamese
>
> But it can happen the other way round:
> stop > Ê > arrest > low tone
> e.g. Sarcee -tò < *-taÊ
> fricative > h > ??? > high tone
> e.g. Punjabi
>
> For internal changes, look at Norwegian:
> ON bÅndr and baunir give Norwegian /bönÉr/ with tone differences on the
> first syllable. Cue Taliesin to explain exactly what!
>
--
Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
order from Finishing Line
Press<http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
and
Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2>.
Messages in this topic (30)
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3a. Re: USAGE: Do foreign names sound like phrases in Chinese?
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 2, 2013 12:28 am ((PST))
> Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2013 10:24:51 -0300
> From: [email protected]
> Subject: USAGE: Do foreign names sound like phrases in Chinese?
> To: [email protected]
> Do some foreign names sound like phrases in Chinese? Is it somewhat
> funny to natives?
> I have learnt that my name (Leonardo) is À³°ºÄɶà in Chinese. Does it
> sound like "someone who admits being very proud of weed"?
> À³ - weed
> °º - proud
> ÄÉ - admit
> ¶à - very
> Naturally, the word order is not syntactically significant, but do
> these type of association occur?
This has been covered quite adequately by others, but please to indulge me to
opine... :)
Yes and no. NO, I feel a kind of mental suspension of character meanings when
*I* read foreign imports. They have a katakana-y, just-there-for-the-sounds
feel to them; there is a quasi-standardized set of these used for such purposes
which I *thought*, at least, was something one just internalized along the way
through usage, but lo, as George points out, there's an actual Xinhua table:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_into_Chinese_characters#Transcription_table
If you start factoring many proud weeds into the proceedings, it gets very
hinky, very unfulfilling, very nonsensical, very quickly. Chinese surnames were
apparently capriciously (?) assigned by the emperor pulling characters from a
text I-know-not-what, so if you start saying things like, "Well, this surname
means 'king' (Íõ) and this one means 'yellow' (»Æ) and this one means 'horse'
(Âí).", a Chinese person will correct you and say, "No, they don't *mean*
anything." There's a disconnect. And that's the level I think one should leave
the list of transcription characters at. That said, however, YES. Caveat
barbarus: If someone mischievous or malicious, as H.S. points, swapped out "À³"
for "ñ®" ("scabies" -- as in "ñ®Æ¤¹·" "lai4pi2gou3" -- "mangy cur", a
less-than-flattering epithet for someone), you should SUE!! :) But clearly,
someone would have deliberately gone off-transcription table and off-message.
But *that* said, however, I don't think one should get too terribly overly
weird about this sort of thing. There was much ballyhoo in the Boston Globe a
few years back (musta been 2008?) about Chinese translators painstakingly
writhing in angst about how to transcribe politicians' names for
Chinese-language ballots in Massachusetts lest "inauspicious" characters be
chosen (*translators* don't know about the transcription set? -- uh-huh <big
wink>). After all, you wouldn't want Obama to be transcribed as doing something
untoward to to your mother or suffer the same fate as Pepsi Cola or some such,
which apparently on the first market run-through got monikered, "Raises your
ancestors from the dead". Hogwash. Stuff and nonsense. And Spanish speakers
don't buy Nova's because they analyze it as "No va". And there are forty words
for snow. The transcription process is not (or need not be) that mysterious.
But *that* said, however, if you want someone to plunk down their tael of
silver for your product, you *might* want to aim for something that sounds
close *and* is commercially upbeat. Âóµ±ÀÍ for McDonald's looks like it came
from the transliteration table -- someone might as well have phoned it in.
Èü°Ùζ for Subway isn't bad. ¿É¿Ú¿ÉÀÖ for Coca-Cola is okay. I think "µÃÀ´ËÙ"
(de2lai2su4) for (fastfood) "drive-thru" is absolutely brilliant. But I
digress...
Gotta admit, my first visceral reaction to À³°ºÄɶà was "Blech!". I would have
more expected "ÁаÂÄɶà" (as in ÁаÂÄɶࡤ´ï¡¤·ÒÆæ -- Leonardo da Vinci) or
"Àï°ÂÄɶà", but a mouse click or two yields:
http://www.mandarintools.com/cgi-bin/wordlook.pl?word=0x840A&searchtype=trad&where=anywhere
and "Leonardo DiCaprio" is À³°ºÄɶࡤµÏ¿¨ÆÕÀï°Â, according to Wikipedia, so
what do I know?
But my "Blech!" comes from other quarters, too. If you are Leonardo DiCaprio,
Angelina Jolie, President Obama, or Michael Jordan, and/or you have absolutely
no intention of getting down and dirty with the masses and living the China
experience, then I think the "À³°ºÄɶࡤµÏ¿¨ÆÕÀï°Â" treatment is perfectly fine
and dandy. You come, you do your press junket, you're in the paper, you leave,
you're done. Great, who cares. But at the high school/university "Foreign
Language Fair" or at tourist sites here, there is inevitably a stall inviting
you to get your "Chinese name" in calligraphy, (or if you really want to drop
some hard cash, carved into a chop,) and foreigners gleefully come away from
the experience with a piece of paper saying: "My name in Chinese is:
". They're characters pulled from the table, but characters *qua* characters,
they're swathed in the mystique of the Orient. How to tell starry-eyed "Edie"
who has the soundtrack from "Flower Drum Song" playing in
the back of her mind and wants to know what "ÒÀµÙ" (yi1di4) *means* that it
doesn't really go much of anywhere meaning-wise ("rely-bud", "according to
pedicle"?). Sorry, "my little serene lotus blossom", it isn't.
So the expat route, if you're planning on staying longer than twenty minutes,
is most often to adopt a more "genuine" "Chinese name". After all, if Chinese
people are going to insist that you call them by their English names
("Andromeda Fang", "Spanakopita Wu", "Cistern Lee"), shouldn't you get in on
the fun? Grab a real Chinese surname that comes close in sound (not that
difficult), then a character or two that resonate for you (lots more leeway on
sound correspondence to English given name here). Take "Conlangery's" own Mike
L (won't venture to spell it, sight unseen -- rhymes with "canteen").
Chinese:È~Ã÷Òã. Don't know where the "È~" (ye4) comes from (isn't Mom part
Chinese?), but it's a real surname. Ã÷ (ming2) captures the "M" of "Mike", Òã
(yi4) has the [i] of "canteen". "Bright" and "resolute" -- butch enough for a
guy. Looks Chinese, looks like a little thought went into it. If he used it in
Taiwan, it's got street cred. I wholeheartedly approve.
Likewise:
> Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2013 14:34:02 -0800
> From: [email protected]
> Choosing a "Chinese written name" with meaningful characters can be very
> fun. I settled on °²ÄÏ (an1 nan4), made up of the characters for
> "tranquility" and "south" - in part because I'm from the (American) South.
> However, my Chinese-speaking friend said the name reminded him,
> surprisingly to me, of a military general since it could also be
> interpreted as "pacifying or subduing the south." No worries - it seems to
> be the same combination used to transcribe Kofi Anan's name, so it can't be
> all that bad.
°²: Legit surname. ÄÏ (nan2 -- nitpick, *second* tone :D ): it resonates for
you. *My* mind first went to an old name for "Vietnam", not a general, but hey,
generals are butch. Kofi Anan's "Anan" *is* written that way, so it ain't all
that bad. Close to Adnan in sound. You have my blessing. Go in peace... (I'm
sure you were worried) :)
Incidentally, I thought, erroneously it seems, that if you were lucky enough to
be granted "old friend of China" status, you would automatically be
immortalized with a Chinese name. But it ain't necessarily so. While Gladys May
Aylward *did* get that treatment with °¬¥µÂ (Ai4 Wei3de2), the headstones of
Edgar Snow and Agnes Smedley read °£µÂ¼Ó¡¤Ë¹Åµand Ê·ÄÌØÀ³ Ůʿ respectively.
Still foreign after all these years... (I think they may have gotten
commemorative postage stamps out of the deal, though).
Kou
Messages in this topic (14)
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3b. Re: USAGE: Do foreign names sound like phrases in Chinese?
Posted by: "yuri" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 2, 2013 1:10 am ((PST))
On 2 March 2013 05:17, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> So be careful who is transliterating your name, as someone with not the best
> of intentions may deliberately mangle it in embarrassing ways. And yes,
> some names do sound very funny, especially if it was not properly chosen
> to avoid the wrong connotations.
I had a linguistics lecturer at uni who told us that when she went to
Thailand (I think it was Thailand - it might've been somewhere else)
the locals got great amusement from putting tones onto her surname
"Dawson" to render it as "small penis".
So yes, be careful about transliterations.
Yuri
Messages in this topic (14)
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3c. Re: USAGE: Do foreign names sound like phrases in Chinese?
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 2, 2013 7:32 am ((PST))
On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 6:03 PM, H. S. Teoh <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 01, 2013 at 04:54:16PM -0600, George Corley wrote:
> > On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 10:17 AM, H. S. Teoh <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >
> > > First of all, due to the fact that Chinese has tone distinction but
> > > most other languages (like English) don't, means that when
> > > transliterating names we get a lot of leeway in what characters can
> > > be used. Second of all, due to the vast difference in syllabic
> > > structure from, say, English, some degree of mangling is possible or
> > > even necessary, which gives even more leeway in how a name can be
> > > translated.
> > >
> >
> > For clarity, according to WALS, tone languages are actually more common
> > than non-tone languages:
> > http://wals.info/feature/13A?tg_format=map&v1=cfff&v2=cf6f&v3=cd00,
> > though complex tone systems like Chinese (with many contours) are less
> > common, and will differ significantly in their tone inventories.
>
> Huh, that's new to me. :) I stand corrected.
Actually, I should be corrected. Alex pointed this out:
On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 5:38 PM, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> How do you get that? I see 307 toneless languages there and 220 languages
> with simple or complex tone systems.
I guess my point is that tone languages are quite common, though they
aren't actually MORE common than non-tone languages, at least according to
WALS.
Messages in this topic (14)
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3d. Re: USAGE: Do foreign names sound like phrases in Chinese?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 2, 2013 8:43 am ((PST))
2013/3/2 George Corley <[email protected]>:
[...]
> On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 5:38 PM, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>> How do you get that? I see 307 toneless languages there and 220 languages
>> with simple or complex tone systems.
>
>
> I guess my point is that tone languages are quite common, though they
> aren't actually MORE common than non-tone languages, at least according to
> WALS.
"Of the 526 languages included in the data used for this chapter, 306
(58.2%) are classified as non-tonal. This probably underrepresents the
proportion of the worlds languages which are tonal since the sample
is not proportional to the density of languages in different areas."
http://wals.info/chapter/13
Messages in this topic (14)
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3e. Re: USAGE: Do foreign names sound like phrases in Chinese?
Posted by: "George Corley" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 2, 2013 8:55 am ((PST))
On Sat, Mar 2, 2013 at 10:42 AM, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>wrote:
> 2013/3/2 George Corley <[email protected]>:
>
> [...]
>
> > On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 5:38 PM, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> How do you get that? I see 307 toneless languages there and 220
> languages
> >> with simple or complex tone systems.
> >
> >
> > I guess my point is that tone languages are quite common, though they
> > aren't actually MORE common than non-tone languages, at least according
> to
> > WALS.
>
> "Of the 526 languages included in the data used for this chapter, 306
> (58.2%) are classified as non-tonal. This probably underrepresents the
> proportion of the worlds languages which are tonal since the sample
> is not proportional to the density of languages in different areas."
> http://wals.Ainfo/chapter/13 <http://wals.info/chapter/13>
>
That doesn't mean that tone languages are actually more common than
non-tone languages, which was what I incorrectly claimed earlier. It just
means that WALS is not entirely accurate. We'd need to find a separate
study to get more accurate numbers.
Messages in this topic (14)
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4. THEORY: Bilinguals Find It Easier to Learn a Third Language
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Sat Mar 2, 2013 8:55 am ((PST))
Bilinguals Find It Easier to Learn a Third Language
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110201110915.htm
Actually, I wasn't able to learn a third language when I was a monolingual!
Até mais!
Leonardo
Messages in this topic (1)
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