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Justin R. Leung 梁路明

@justinrleung.bsky.social

560 followers 340 following 90 posts

Christ follower, PhDing @uoftlinguistics.bsky.social (heritage languages, LVC, morphosyntax, Cantonese), editing and admining @enwiktionary.bsky.social, learning (about) languages. Prov. 3:5–6. 效基督、學語言、語言學。箴三5–6。 🇨🇦🇭🇰😅

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Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · Mar 26

Interesting way of writing taat1 'tart' sighted in LA Chinatown ❤️: <⿰米達> with a 米 'rice' radical instead of the usual <撻>, a phonetic borrowing.

This character is already under the radar of the Ideographic Research Group, so hopefully this will be encoded soon 😊 hc.jsecs.org/irg/ws2024/a...

A sign at the entrance of Kim Hung Bakery 金興餅家 (959 N Broadway, Los Angeles, California), behind an iron gate. Among the list of items on the sign is 鬆化蛋⿰米達 sung1 faa3 daan6 taat1 'crisp and flaky egg tarts'.

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Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · 16h

Look for this bag during the poster session, and learn about my new project on heritage Cantonese in Toronto #NWAV53
(special thanks to Jon Chui of canto.hk for sending this lovely bag my way right in time for NWAV!)

Bag with a music score, treble clef, 4/4 time. The lyrics are 三碗細牛腩麵 saam1 wun2 sai3 ngau4 naam5 min6.

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Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · 19d

Chapter by Angelika Kiss, Roger Lo and myself on Cantonese sentence-final particles in rhetorical questions is finally out 😊

langscipress.bsky.social @langscipress.bsky.social · 20d

Just published "Biased questions: Experimental results and theoretical modelling" edited by Tue Trinh, Anton Benz, Daniel Goodhue, Kazuko Yatsushiro & Manfred Krifka #openaccess #tgdi langsci-press.org/catalog/book...

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Reposted by Justin R. Leung 梁路明

ChrisTCollins @christcollins.bsky.social · 27d

It is that time of year again for linguistics students to start thinking of graduate school applications. In order to help them out, I wrote the following blog post. It is by far the most popular blog post I ever wrote. ordinaryworkinggrammarian.blogspot.com/2019/12/writ...

Writing a Statement of Purpose for Linguistics Graduate School

A blog about natural language syntax. Topics will include (but are not limited to): syntax, semantics, morphology, typology and syntactic fieldwork.

ordinaryworkinggrammarian.blogspot.com

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Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · Sep 26

Cool post I stumbled upon explaining why 豬腸 became 豬番 in Teochew... but it just irks me a bit when people say things "rhyme" when they are *homophones*... They're technically not wrong but what about the maxim of quantity 🤓

Poster by Dialect Exchange 方言广场, with an anatomical diagram of a pig's digestive system.

Text on the poster:
DID YOU KNOW?
Pig's intestines (豬腸) in TEOCHEW is called (豬番) "de¹ huang¹"

DE¹ HUANG¹
While "intestines" itself is called 腸 in TEOCHEW, only the word 番 "huang¹" is used for "pig's intestine" because 腸 "deng⁵" happens to rhyme with 唐 "deng⁵" (Chinese people) in TEOCHEW, so 番 (Barbarians) is substituted as 豬番 for 豬腸

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Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · Sep 20

Just learned today that some people write #Cantonese jyun4 dam4 doe4 /jyn˨˩ tɐm˨˩ tœ˨˩/ 'very round' (ideophonic form of 圓 jyun4 'round') as "圓 dum the" 😂

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Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · Sep 19

唔知大家做成點呢？ #廣東話 #Cantonese #香港地道粵語達人挑戰
forms.gle/9wKCwoZsyQ4T...

Reposted by Justin R. Leung 梁路明

Linguist List @linguistlist.bsky.social · Sep 18

Books: Continuing Syntax: Roberts (2025)

A logical and clear exposition of hierarchy and locality by a leading figure in the field, Continuing Syntax takes students from an introductory level of syntactic theory to an understanding of cutting-edge research in the field. A comprehensive range of topics is covered, including configurationality, head-movement, clause structure, nominal structure, subjacency, barriers and phases, ensuring that students have a thorough understanding of all the main components of contemporary theory. The man

dlvr.it

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Reposted by Justin R. Leung 梁路明

Egas Moniz Bandeira ᠡᡤᠠᠰ ᠮᠣᠨᠢᠰ ᠪᠠᠨᡩ᠋ᠠᠶᠢᠷᠠ @egasmb.bsky.social · Jul 16

I am utterly shocked and saddened by the news of Andrew West‘s @babelstone.co.uk untimely passing. He was a huge inspiration, an impressive scholar, and a kind and generous person.
FAMA PER ORA VOLAT
SPIRITUS ASTRA TENET

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Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · Jun 18

Is "mouse" 🐁🖱️ losing its polysemous status and turning into a case of homophony? A couple of students have already told me that they're confused why "mouse" is polysemous but "bat" 🦇🏏 is homophonous. Does it have something to do with mouses becoming "tail"less? 🤔

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Reposted by Justin R. Leung 梁路明

depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · Jun 12

big fan of wiktionary's "hot words"

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Reposted by Justin R. Leung 梁路明

enwiktionary @enwiktionary.bsky.social · May 21

#Wiktionary #FWOTD for 21 May 2025 (World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development): “buuz • ᠪᠤᠤᠽ” (Mongolian)—“steamed meat dumpling”. Borrowed from Borrowed from Mandarin “包子” (bāozi) en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktion...

A plate of Mongolian buuz (steamed meat dumplings). By Mizu basyo (CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mongolian_buuz.jpg).

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Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · Apr 20

He is risen!

Reposted by Justin R. Leung 梁路明

Zev Handel @zevhandel.bsky.social · Mar 23

A 🧵 on dǎdī 打的.

The Mandarin word dǎdī 打的 meaning ‘hail a cab’, ‘ride in a taxi’ is strange, right? It sounds strange. It looks strange. What’s up with this word?

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cartoon image of anthropomorphized yellow taxi smiling and giving a thumbs-up with one large white hand

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Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · Mar 26

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Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · Mar 24

Finally received a copy of Chinese Characters Across Asia by @zevhandel.bsky.social ! Looking forward to reading it!

A copy of Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese by Zev Handel

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Reposted by Justin R. Leung 梁路明

Because Language (becauselangpod) @becauselanguage.com · Mar 23

Happy OK Day!

On 23 March 1839, the word OK appeared for the first time in the Boston Morning Globe. It was a humorous abbreviation for "oll korrect". Funny abbreviations were kind of a fad at the time, kind of like the netspeak we see today.

We at Because Language hope your day is OK.

The screen grab of the Boston Morning Post, 23 March 1839:

The above is from the Providence Journal, the editor of which is a little too quick on the trigger, on this occasion. We said not a word about our deputation passing "through the city" of Providence.
We said our brethren were going to New York in the Richmond, and they did go, as per Post of Thursday.
The "Chairman of the Committee on Charity Lecture Bells," is one of the deputation, and perhaps if he should return to Boston, via Providence, he of the Journal, and his trein-band, would have the
"contribution box," et ceteras, o.k.—all correct—and cause the corks to fly, like sparks, upward

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Reposted by Justin R. Leung 梁路明

Zev Handel @zevhandel.bsky.social · Feb 22

🎉 🎉 🎉

A photo of the book Chinese Characters Across Asia by Zev Handel

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Reposted by Justin R. Leung 梁路明

Zev Handel @zevhandel.bsky.social · Feb 2

Have you ever noticed that there is something strange about the Mandarin word wǎsī '(natural) gas'? Looking at the written form 瓦斯, it just doesn’t seem like a typical Chinese compound word. What's a roof tile got to do with gas?

Let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on. 加油!

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a yellow cat with its eyes closed and a fist in its mouth .

Alt: GIF of cartoon cat fiercely crying "加油"

media.tenor.com

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Reposted by Justin R. Leung 梁路明

Graham Sanders (he/him) @gmsprof.bsky.social · Jan 29

Happy Year of the Wood Snake! (your slithery second sibling)
蛇出山穴喜報春!

#CNY2025 #CNY #LunarNewYear
H/t @justinrleung.bsky.social for the map.

Map of China and Taiwan, showing some examples of other names in Chinese languages:
官話 Mandarin
> 成都(蓉) Chengdu: 梭老二 ꜀so ꜂nau ɚ꜄ 'slithery second sibling'
> 樂山(樂) Leshan: 乾黃鱔 ꜀kan ꜁xuaŋ san꜄ 'dry eel'
> 昭通(昭) Zhaotong: 老梭 ꜂naɔ ꜀so 'old slither'
吳語 Wu
> 松江(松) Songjiang: 長頭 ꜁zæ̃꜁dɯ 'long one'
湘語 Xiang
> 雙峰(雙) Shuangfeng: 溜子 ꜀liʊ ꜂tsɿ 'slithery one'
客語 Hakka
> 苗栗(苗) Miaoli: 土龍 ꜂tʰu ꜁liuŋ 'earth dragon'
> 銅鼓(銅) Tonggu: 溜哥 ꜀liu ꜀ko 'slithery brother'
閩南語 Southern Min
> 高雄(高) Kaohsiung: 溜 ꜀liu 'slither'
鄉話 Waxiang
> 沅陵(沅) Yuanling: 虺 ꜂ɸi

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Reposted by Justin R. Leung 梁路明

Ted @tedzu.bsky.social · Jan 29

I have never heard 蛇 snake called 溜 “liu” (meaning: slither) in Taiwanese, but apparently some people do because of the belief from the old agrarian days that calling the snake by its name 蛇 “tsua” will invite it to come your way 😅

On that note, Happy “Liu” Year！ 🐍

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Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · Jan 29

That's it from me! Any interesting etymologies for 'snake' in other languages?
May you be "shrewd as snakes 靈巧像蛇" in this new year! God bless! 5/5

Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · Jan 29

Some other names, many of which reflect the slithering and length of the snake, or analogy to similar creatures.
One exception among these is 虺, which is the rare retention of the ancient (probably Sino-Tibetan) word for snake in Waxiang! /4

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Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · Jan 29

In some Chinese languages, some morpheme showing "respectful familiarity towards harmful creatures" (Jerry Norman 1988) may be in the name, e.g. 老蛇 in some southern Mandarin dialects, Eastern Min and Puxian Min, the same 老 'old, venerable' as in 老虎 🐯 and 老鼠 🐭. /3

Map of China and Taiwan, showing some examples of respectful names in different Chinese languages:
官話 Mandarin
> 貴陽(貴) Guiyang: 老蛇 ꜂lau ꜁se
客語 Hakka
> 梅縣(梅) Meixian: 蛇哥 ꜁sa ꜀ko
閩東語 Eastern Min
> 福州(榕) Fuzhou: 老蛇 lau꜅ ꜁lie (< s-)
莆仙語 Puxian Min
> 莆田(莆) Putian: 大蛇 tua꜅ ꜁lyɒ (< ɬ-)

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Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · Jan 29

A colloquial term for the snake, most common in northern China, is 長蟲 'long worm'. /2

Map of China and Taiwan, with the pronunciations of 長蟲 in different Chinese languages:
官話 Mandarin
> 北京(京) Beijing: ꜁ʈʂʰaŋ ·ʈʂʰuŋ
> 赤峰(赤) Chifeng: ꜁ʈʂʰaŋ ꜁ʈʂʰuŋ
> 達州(達) Dazhou: ꜁tsʰaŋ ꜁tsʰoŋ
> 海拉爾(海) Hailar: ꜁ʈʂʰaŋ ꜁ʈʂʰuŋ
> 哈爾濱(哈) Harbin: ꜁ʈʂʰaŋ ·ʈʂʰuŋ
> 昆明(昆) Kunming: ꜁ʈʂʰã ꜁ʈʂʰoŋ
> 蘭州(蘭) Lanzhou: ꜁ʈʂʰɔŋ ·pfʰən
> 連雲港(連) Lianyungang: ꜁ʈʂʰaŋ ꜁tsʰoŋ
> 青島(青) Qingdao: tʃʰaŋ꜄ ·ʈʂʰoŋ
> 瀋陽(瀋) Shenyang: ꜁tsʰaŋ ·tsʰuŋ
> 烏魯木齊(烏) Ürümqi: ꜂ʈʂʰaŋ ·ʈʂʰuŋ
> 西安(鎬) Xi'an: ꜁ʈʂʰɑŋ ·pfʰəŋ
> 襄陽(襄) Xiangyang: ꜁tsʰaŋ ꜁tsʰoŋ
> 銀川(銀) Yinchuan: ꜁ʈʂʰaŋ ꜁ʈʂʰuŋ
晉語 Jin
> 長治(潞) Changzhi: ꜁ʈʂʰaŋ ꜁ʈʂʰuŋ
> 臨河(臨) Linhe: ꜁ʈʂʰɑ̃ ꜁ʈʂʰuŋ
粵語 Yue
> 鬱林(鬱) Yulin: ꜁tɕa ꜁tɕoŋ

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Justin R. Leung 梁路明 @justinrleung.bsky.social · Jan 29

蛇年大吉！Happy Year of the Snake!
Here are different ways the Chinese languages have landed on naming the slithery creature 🧵

The most common name is 蛇, attested in the oracle bones as 它. (The etymology of this word is uncertain; see en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%9B%87) /1

Map of China and Taiwan, with the pronunciations of 蛇 in different Chinese languages:
官話 Mandarin
> 合肥(合) Hefei: ꜁ʂe
> 柳州(柳) Liuzhou: ꜁siɛ
> 蒙自(蒙) Mengzi: ꜁sɔ
> 武漢(漢) Wuhan: ꜁sɤ
> 遵義(遵) Zunyi: ꜁sei
晉語 Jin
> 太原(并) Taiyuan: ꜀sɤ
吳語 Wu
> 上海(滬) Shanghai: zo꜅
> 溫州(甌) Wenzhou: ꜁zei
湘語 Xiang
> 長沙(長) Changsha: ꜁ʂa
> 婁底(婁) Loudi: ꜁ʑiɔ
贛語 Gan
> 南昌(昌) Nanchang: sa꜄
客語 Hakka
> 河婆(河) Hepo: ꜁ʃa
粵語 Yue
> 香港(港) Hong Kong: ꜁sɛ
平話 Pinghua
> 南寧(邕) Nanning: ꜁se
閩北語 Northern Min
> 建甌(芝) Jian'ou: yɛ꜄
閩南語 Southern Min
> 廈門(廈) Xiamen: ꜁tsua
瓊語 Hainanese
> 海口(椰) Haikou: ꜁tua

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