Kestrell

Article: The English Word That Hasn’t Changed in Sound or Meaning in 8,000 Years

2022-11-17T13:49:14Z

Sevindj Nurkiyazova
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-english-word-that-hasn-t-changed-in-sound-or-meaning-in-8-000-years

One of my favorite words is lox,” says Gregory Guy, a professor of linguistics at New York University. There is hardly a more quintessential New York food than a lox bagel—a century-old popular appetizing store, Russ & Daughters, calls it “The Classic.” But Guy, who has lived in the city for the past 17 years, is passionate about lox for a different reason. “The pronunciation in the Proto-Indo-European was probably ‘lox,’ and that’s exactly how it is pronounced in modern English,” he says. “Then, it meant salmon, and now it specifically means ‘smoked salmon.’ It’s really cool that that word hasn’t changed its pronunciation at all in 8,000 years and still refers to a particular fish.”

....The family tree of the Indo-European languages sprawls across Eurasia, including such different species as English and Tocharian B, an extinct language once spoken on the territory of Xinjiang in modern China. In Tocharian B, the word for “fish/salmon” is laks, similar to German lachs, and Icelandic lax—the only ancestor all these languages share is the Proto-Indo-European. In Russian, Czech, Croatian, Macedonian, and Latvian, the [k] sound changed to [s,] resulting in the word losos.

This kind of millennia-long semantic consistency also appears in other words. For example, the Indo-European porkos, similar to modern English pork, meant a young pig. “What is interesting about the word lox is that it simply happened to consist of sounds that didn’t undergo changes in English and several other daughter languages descended from Proto-Indo-European,” says Guy. “The sounds that change across time are unpredictable, and differ from language to language, and some may not happen to change at all.”

The word lox was one of the clues that eventually led linguists to discover who the Proto-Indo-Europeans were, and where they lived. The fact that those distantly related Indo-European languages had almost the same pronunciation of a single word meant that the word—and the concept behind it—had most likely existed in the Proto-Indo-European language. “If they had a word for it, they must have lived in a place where there was salmon,” explains Guy. “Salmon is a fish that lives in the ocean, reproduces in fresh water and swims up to rivers to lay eggs and mate. There are only a few places on the planet where that happens.”

In reconstructed Indo-European, there were words for bear, honey, oak tree, and snow, and, which is also important, no words for palm tree, elephant, lion, or zebra. Based on evidence like that, linguists reconstructed what their homeland was. The only possible geographic location turned out to be in a narrow band between Eastern Europe and the Black Sea where animals, trees, and insects matched the ancient Indo-European words.

In the 1950s, archaeological discoveries backed up this theory with remnants of an ancient culture that existed in that region from 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. Those people used to build kurgans, burial mountains, that archaeologists excavated to study cultural remains. In that process, scholars not only learned more about the Proto-Indo-Europeans but also why they were able to migrate across Europe and Asia.

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Ferrite beads and other tech you might not know the name for

2021-09-12T13:58:03Z

Kes: Of course every blind person known about teh key bumps, but I only recently learn about teh third ring on headphone jacks from Jesse the K.
FYI: when designing keyboards and keypads for visually impaired people, you only need these basic key bumps: if you add too many more, it becomes confusing and tmi.

https://www.makeuseof.com/pointless-technology-that-make-life-better/

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Zoombie

2021-03-24T15:23:44Z

Noun.
Definition: An undead creature which was once human but has spent too much time in Zoom meetings.

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Here it is, the big scary question: what color is this?

2020-10-01T13:15:50Z

You would think that, web developers having assigned numeric values to colors, that these systems would be precise, or even reliable...okay, perhaps somewhat predictable?

Not so!

I'm not asking for weird girl colors: all I wanted was forest green text on a cream background.

I fially got a result of forest green for at least the h1 heading.

Cream has been a lot more adventurous. Using the hex, rgb, or even the color name "cream," I have gotten lemon chiffon, gray, and default white. I even tried settling for cornsilk, but that gave me bisque. And bisque can be another weeny color word that varies from off-white to beige, which are even more variable as colors categories.

So, can I borrow some eyeballs out there? (I promise to let you keep the tooth.)
What colors are on this webpage: https://kestrell7.github.io

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Pangrams

2020-09-19T14:21:13Z

Sadly, these are not letters to Pan, but they are those sentences which use all the letters of the alphabet.
https://people.howstuffworks.com/14-pangrams.htm

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Remember: the Boston Public Library is offering online classes

2020-09-03T12:22:40Z

Last night I had the first of three online poetry writing classes being offered through the Boston Public Library.

Perhaps it's all the technology-related blogging and documentation I have been writing lately, but I've felt the need to start writing poetry again.

Remember when you used to write poetry and songs just for fun, without thinking of it as something that required a lot of preparation and effort and, most of all, seriousness, just to begin? Or maybe you used to draw, or sing out loud, or play guitar, or whatever, just for fun? There's a phrase: "just for fun." For pleasure. For enjoyment. "Enjoyment" is what you get when you mix entertainment and joy.

And then, one day, you don't remember when, the invisible adult critic showed up, staring at you, judging, and the joy went out.

Okay, maybe that's just me, but I want to get back to the place before the invisible critic, and just write.

Then, while browsing the BPL's website a couple of nights ago, I found an online class titled "Just Writing," so I registered (it's a Zoom class).

IT WAS AMAZING! I didn't think I would be able to write anything, but we had free writing exercises and off I went.

I promise not to share my poetry with you, but I wanted to share just this first poem I wrote (don't worry, it's short).

The word we were given was "miss" and everyone else wrote about what they are missing during the pandemic, but that never even occurred to me. What hit me immediately was things I miss about being sighted, which I never allow myself to talk about, so sharing this with strangers was really jumping into the deep end.

I miss feeling brave.
I miss walking with nowhere to go.
I miss sunlight, the changing ocean, birds wings.
Most of all, I miss your face.

Words do, literally, have very different meanings for different people, and that's one of the main things that poetry plays with, so poets are word tricksters. I've been reading poetry by Albert Goldbarth and Billy Collins, because they *definitely* go for being word tricksters.

So this is me, encouraging you to find an online class in something you love doing and rediscover enjoyment.

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Hot Dryden on Jonson action

2019-05-01T20:29:39Z

That is the title acquired along the way by this history of the "never end a sentence with a preposition" debate.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004454.html
Also, I now like Ben Jonson a lot better, and I am enchanted by the image of Dryden and Jonson getting into a grammar smackdown.

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Visual cortex in young blind children adapts to respond to spoken language

2019-04-10T19:43:49Z

At an adult level, and before they are old enough to learn to read braille. Could this imply that people who are born blind are intellectually inclined to be storytellers? Could all those blind bards and poets be a product as much of nature as of nurture?
https://hub.jhu.edu/2015/08/18/brain-vision-center-adaptability/

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Another reason you don't need to apologize for using gestures when talking to a blind person

2019-04-02T12:48:53Z

It's not unusual for people to apologize for finding themselves using gestures while talking to me, although I always assure them that, being Italian, I get it.

Here is an article that explores the theory that gestures and other body movements are an integral part of learning language itself, and that making related gestures can improve language learning
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-brain-links-gestures-perception-and-meaning-20190325/

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So, I'm working on a design for an Alexa game

2019-01-12T17:21:29Z

The idea is to use Alexa to create a voice-based adventure game that would allow the player to explore a virtual map of the MIT campus. I am including a voice companion which can add some additional features. I'm basing this companion on the MIT mascot, Tim the beaver, and I picture him as a steampunk-style beaver, still named TIM, but it's an acronym for Touring Intelligent Machine (for screen reader users, that is spelled t o u r i n g).
If I accomplish nothing else today, I will still consider the day a big win.

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Reading aloud assists in memory recall

2018-02-19T14:11:44Z

And listening to yourself reading out loud might improve recall even more
https://qz.com/1144521/you-remember-more-of-what-you-read-out-loud/

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The evil Babel fish strikes again

2017-08-19T21:48:01Z

Alexx: *complaining about how one of his favorite TV shows got cancelled*
Kestrell: Did you just call it Netflakes?
Alexx: No, but I approve of that word.

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Want to caption some witty protest signs?

2017-02-08T16:46:13Z

I've been enjoying Alexx's descriptions of signs he sees, but I really wish there was a Website where someone collected and captioned the best signs.
Yeah! "the semiotics of protest signs" --someone needs to do this as a thesis!

For now, could I ask people to caption the signs in this article?
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/not-usually-a-sign-guy-but-geez?utm_term=.pn8W4qv4zE#.oc24M6jMxW

I would also be interested in people leaving comments regarding their favorite signs.

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How to say squirrel in 65 languages

2016-11-23T16:46:29Z

Posted mostly for the amusement of you know who you are. My screenreader does weird things with pronounciation marks, but you can find these words with their proper spelling and more at
http://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the/french-word-for-squirrel.html

from _The Portable Veblen_ (2016)
Elizabeth Mckenzie

block quote start
Her thoughts wandered. "You know, I wonder if the gentlemanly title of squire could be connected to the word squirrel. Way back, of course. Although I've heard it comes from the old Greek skiouros, which means shade ass."
He jauntily lifted his tail and fanned it out over his backside!
"I know the old English was aquerne, like acorn. And the German word for squirrel is Eichhornchen, which means something like oak-kitty. Nothing to do with squires or knights at all. In fact, your name is used derisively a lot of the time. To be squirrelly is to be crazy, nutty, weird. Outside the norm. And to squirrel something away is to be a hoarder, a stasher, a miser, a skinflint.
"Why has your name been so abused?
"It's not fair."
block quote end

Appendix C: 65 Ways to Say Squirrel

Ainu--akkamui
Albanian--ketri
Apache--na'iltso'
Arabic--sinjaab
Armenian--skyurr
Azerbaijani--d l
Basque--urtxintxa
Cherokee--sa-lo-li
Chickasaw--funni
Chinese--songshu
Croatian--vjeverica
Czech--veverka
Danish--egern
Dutch--eekhoorn
English--squirrel
Estonian--orav
Filipino--ardilya
Finnish--orava
French--écureuil
German--Eichhornchen
( Read more... )

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The scanno of the day

2013-11-26T13:50:22Z

"The Name of the Roue"

Now I have the image of Maurice Chevalier wandering around the abbey singing "Thank Heaven for little girls..."

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The word of the day is: pelf

2013-11-10T16:02:48Z

Pelf is money gained in a disreputable manner, as in,
Pirates plunder pelf!
Mostly, I just posted this because I wanted to get that bit of alliterative silliness out of my ssystem. Also, for those of you who play Scrabble, this seems as if it would be a really useful word.

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Scanno of the day

2013-11-04T12:57:06Z

What it was supposed to be: Purgatorio
What I heard: PurgaTokyo
The scanno: Purgatokio

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Misheard word of the day

2013-09-08T14:56:26Z

What I heard: "Caroling iron"
Is this some sort of blunt object carried by carollers in order to enforce payment of the figgy pudding? Sadly, no.

What the word actually was: a scanno of "Carolingian"

Carolling Carolingians carrying carolling irons? Could this be a new tradition?

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Can anyone translate this Latin phrase?

2013-08-20T15:24:27Z

Found as an epigraph in a book about the philosophy of Abelard:

Suae specialiter suus singulariter

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"It ain't about being perfect..."

2013-07-03T21:14:22Z

I was listening to clips from a new Woody Guthrie compilation CD, and came across another compilation, titled "Til We Outnumber 'Em," which had a great MP3 by Craig Werner. He told a story about how, in the early days of his radio show, Guthrie would tell racist jokes, until he received a letter from a young black man who said that those "jokes" were hurtful. Then comes the heroic part: Guthrie apologized on his show and said he hadn't thought about what he was saying, because "it ain't about being perfect, it ain't about being politically correct, it's about dealing with the times we mess up."

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Dead Greek guy of the day: Diogenes

2013-06-13T13:25:19Z

Diogenes the Cynic 5th century BC
a.k.a. "The Dog"

1
I have come to debase the coinage.

7
I am a citizen of the world.

18
When I die, throw me to the wolves. I'm used to it.

30
A. I am Alexander the Great.
B. I am Diogenes, the dog.
A. The dog?
B. I nuzzle the land, bark at the greedy, and bite louts.
A. What can I do for you?
B. Stand out of my light.

39
One wrong will not balance another to be honorable and just is our only defense against men without honor or justice.

42
There is no stick hard enough to drive me away from a man from whom I can learn something.

54
Bury me prone: I have always faced the other way.

66
Even with a lamp in broad daylight I cannot find an honest man.

73
I pissed on the man who called me a dog. Why was he so surprised?

102
Discourse on virtue and they pass by in droves, whistle and dance the shimmy, and you've got an audience.

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Anyone familiar with French or the works of Georges Bataille?

2013-05-31T12:29:53Z

This is the epigraph to _The Encyclopedia of the Dead_ by Danilo Kis; I am including the translation given by Google, but it doesn't entirely make sense to me, so I wanted to make sure the translation was correct before I banged my head against it some more.

Ma rage d'aimer donne sur la mort comme une fenetre sur la cour.

["love my rage faces death as a window onto the courtyard"]

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Best ever line to use on female bibliophiles

2013-05-24T17:39:14Z

Drunk, Jane spoke as though she were Nancy Drew. I was a fool for a girl with a dainty lexicon.

Michael Chabon, from _Mysteries of Pittsburgh_

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Words of wisdom from my favorite Kate

2013-05-12T13:55:14Z

Katherine Hepburn is my favorite actress ever, as she starred in my three favorite films: "Bringing Up Baby," "The Lion in Winter" (in which she played Eleanor of Aquitaine, my favorite historical figure), and "Desk Set" (I always wanted to grow up to be the character Hepburn plays in the movie), so I'm pleased to find such a perfect quote from her:

If you obey all of the rules, you miss all of the fun.

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Flirting with the blind side

2013-05-10T13:11:17Z

Did you know that Mark Twain was a fanboy for Helen Keller? What is it about curmudgeons and blind women?

Here is a letter from Twain to Keller
http://www.braillebug.org/hktwain.asp

My favorite bits:

1. block quote start
I must steal half a moment from my work to say how glad I am to have your book and how highly I value it, both for its own sake and as a remembrance of an affectionate friendship which has subsisted between us for nine years without a break and without a single act of violence that I can call to mind. I suppose there is nothing like it in heaven; and not likely to be, until we get there and show off. I often think of it with longing, and how they'll say, "there they come--sit down in front." I am practicing with a tin halo. You do the same.
block quote end
I expect that it was this sort of encouragement which resulted in J. Edgar Hoover keeping a file on Keller...

2. block quote start
Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that "plagiarism" farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul--let us go farther and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances in plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second hand, consciously or unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them any where except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.

When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten thousand men--but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington's battle, in some degree, and we call it his but there were others that contributed. It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a telephone, or any other important thing--and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite--that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.
block quote end

3. Oh, and here is my favorite Mark Twain quote about Keller:
Blindness is an exciting business, I tell you; if you don't believe it get up some dark night on the wrong side of your bed when the house is on fire and try to find the door.
- quoted by Helen Keller, Midstream
from this page on Mark Twain quotes about Helen Keller
http://www.twainquotes.com/Keller_Helen.html

4. And last, but not least, here is an online exhibit about Twain and Keller, their friendship, and parallels in each of their lives
http://www.historyofredding.com/epl/twain-keller-exhibit.htm

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