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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 20h

One of the unexpected positive side effects of being a linguist is that after glossing this Galela text I'm now capable of building a compost

(In case you are interested: www.sil.org/resources/ar...)

www.sil.org

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 4d

Dutch "zonder" 'without' is cognate to German "sondern" 'rather, but'. Both come from a Proto-Germanic root meaning 'separate, apart'. English are "sunder", "asunder" etc. are cognate as well.
#LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 8d

100% of participants in my survey said linguistics should be funded over other fields of study

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 9d

For 'weird, odd' German uses "seltsam". This is cognate to Dutch "zeldzaam" 'rare'. In this case, it is German that changed the semantics. The first element "selt-"/"zeld-" is derived from "selten"/"zelden" (both 'rarely'), cognate to English "seldom". 2/2

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 9d

Dutch "raar", German "rar" and English "rare" are all borrowed from French "rare". German and English kept the French semantics 'rare' while in Dutch, the meaming changed to 'weird, odd'. The same thing happened in German ⬇️ 1/2
#LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 15d

#TIL: Beriberi (Thiamine deficiency) may be borrowed from Sinhalese බැරි බැරි "bæri bæri", 'I cannot, I cannot'
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiamin...

Thiamine deficiency - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Reposted by Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach

Tolkien Seminar DTG @tolkienseminardtg.bsky.social · 29d

📢 21st Seminar of the @germantolksoc.bsky.social
📜Tolkien’s Works on the Book Market
📅31 October-02 November 2025, @unimainz.bsky.social
🌐Attendance in-person or online is free
#Tolkien #bookstudies 💙📚 #lit #litwiss #fantasy #bookhistory #booksky

Tolkiens Werk auf dem Buchmarkt
Tolkien’s Works on the Book Market

Deutsche Tolkien Gesellschaft e. V./German Tolkien Society
in Kooperation mit dem/in co-operation with
Department of Book Studies/Abteilung für Buchwissenschaft
(Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) und Walking Tree Publishers
31. Oktober - 02. November 2025

Vorläufiges Programm/Provisional Programme

Freitag, 31. Oktober 2025

15.00 Registration opens
16.00 Eröffnung/Opening

16.15 Allan Turner (p): Tolkien and his Publishers
17.00 Jonathan Nauman (p): Tolkien and the Unwins – Creation and Commercial Negotiation

Abendessen im Mali&Milo (Große Bleiche 29; Voranmeldung erforderlich bis zum 24. Oktober bei tolkienseminar25@uni-mainz.de /Dinner at Mali&Milo (Große Bleiche 29; please register till 24 October with tolkienseminar25@uni-mainz.de)

Samstag, 01. November 2025

09.30 Norbert Schürer (p): Advertising Tolkien in Newspapers and Magazines
10.15 Ralf Tornow: Tolkien – Ein Blick in den verlegerischen Maschinenraum

11.00 Pause/Break

11.15 Robin Auer: A Book of Both Worlds – The Lord of the Rings and the Primary World Experience of Secondary Worlds

12.00 Mittagspause/Lunch Break

14.15 Magdalena Mączyńska (p): Reading Arda and its Inhabitants – Tolkien’s Book of Stories

15:00 Pause/Break

15.45 Filip R. Zahariev (p): Tolkien on the Tabletop Role-Playing Game Market: Free League’s The One Ring™ (2021) Adaptation
16.30 Annika Röttinger & Tobias Eckrich (p): Zwischen Fußnote und Fandom: Der Podcast Tolkiens Briefe als kommentierte Werkausgabe für die Ohren
17.30 Präsentation neuer Veröffentlichungen und Verleihung des Ehrendoktortitels

Abendessen im Wirtshaus Zenz (Bahnhofsplatz 4; Voranmeldung erforderlich bis zum 24. Oktober bei tolkienseminar25@uni-mainz.de )/Dinner at Wirtshaus Zenz (Bahnhofsplatz 4; please register till 24 October with tolkienseminar25@uni-mainz.de)

Sonntag, 02. November 2025

9.30 Sonja Virta (v): Different ways of revising Finnish Tolkien translations: the case of The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion in Finnish
10.15 Marius Wagner (v): Das Warten auf einen Klassiker: Die Deutschen Übersetzungen von Tolkiens Der (kleine) Hobbit

11.00 Pause/Break

11.30 Schlußdiskussion/Final Discussion

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 21d

*for
*Javanese

Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 21d

They don't differ too much. There are some letter shapes that are associated with the Javanese Pegon script and vocalization is also more common von Javanaese. This is not surprising given that the Ternate likely got the script from Javanese traders

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 21d

No, the remaining North Halmahera languages use very different Phasal Polarity systems but there are no traces in in 17th cent. document. And neither is there evidence for an alternative system

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 21d

#linguistics #Papuanlanguages #Ternate #Tidore #Sahu #historicallinguistics

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 21d

Without the 17th cent. document we wouldn't know that. Distinguishing inheritance from borrowing is extremely difficult for closely related languages.
Reconstructions are not perfect and not identical to the real languages they model 5/5

More about 17th cent. Ternate:
zenodo.org/records/1668...

How different are 17th century and contemporary Ternate?

zenodo.org

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 21d

17th cent. Ternate already shows all sound changes distinguishing it from Tidore, so their common ancestor must have split-up before. No matter how the convergent Phasal Polarity systems came to be, the forms cannot be inherited from their common ancestor :( 4/5

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 21d

Three of the markers occur in this text but with completely different functions and properties. So the Phasal Polarity system of contemporary Ternate must have developed later (assuming the text is representative of 17th cent. Ternate). 3/5

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 21d

Forms may be cognate though there are some problems with ALREADY and ANYMORE. Awesome, you may think, we can reconstruct them to their common ancestor. Well unfortunately, we can't. There's one Ternate text available from the 17th century. And, guess what, the Phasal Polarity system is no there. 2/5

Photo of an old manuscript with two colums. Left Latin handwritting in Dutch. Right Ternate in Arabic script

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 21d

I recently came across a nice example for why historical records are crucial for linguistic reconstruction, even when the contemporary languages are well attested. 🧵

The related Papuan languages Ternate, Tidore and Sahu (North Halmahera) have very similar Phasal Polarity markers (see Table). 1/5

ALREADY Ternate rai Tidore rai Sahu re, due
STILL Ternate moju Tidore moju Sahu moju
YET Ternate hang Tidore yang Sahu nyang(u)
ANYMORE Ternate ri ua Tidore rewa Sahu riwara

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 22d

The etymology of German "Rotz" is unclear but there was an Old English cognate: "hrot" 'snot'. 2/2

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 22d

Dutch "rots" 'rock' is a Middle Dutch loan from French "roche" 'rock'. It is NOT cognate to German "Rotz" 'snot'!
English borrowed 'rock' twice: Once in Old English times prob. from Latin "rocca" and later from Old North French "roque" 'rock'. Both fused to "rock" 1/
#LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

Screenshot of Duolingo reads in Dutch: Ik zie veel rotsen langs de kust.

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 24d

Dutch "leur" in "teleurstellen" 'disappoint' is derived from the same root as "verliezen" 'lose', cognate to German "verlieren".
English "forlese" 'abandon' is obsolete but the past participle "forlorn" is cognate to Dutch and German "verloren" 'lost'
#LessObviousDutchGermanCognates

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 25d

I'm aware of "person form" and "person marking"

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 25d

Linguists, what's your preferred umbrella term for forms that express person or are marked/inflected for person?

(Pronoun or pro-form is not what I'm looking for because demonstratives are also pro-forms but often not marked for person)

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 26d

Ich musste gerade an diesen Post denken, als wir Köln Hbf abweichend auf Gleis 5 "für Sie" erreichten
Merke: es gibt kein niederländisches oder englisches Äquivalent

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 26d

Congratulations!

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Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 27d

Potentially...

Uwe Edelheid feat. mariazielenbach @mariazielenbach.bsky.social · 29d

As I explain in this blog post I just find it odd and also pretty rude to tell multigenerational Esperanto speaking families that their home language is "artificial"
halmahera.hypotheses.org/700

What are Conlangs Good For?

This blog post is a reply to a twitter thread titled “Here are 3 reasons why I hate conlangs”. I show where the author of the thread is wrong in my opinion and explore what conlangs are good for.

halmahera.hypotheses.org

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