PhoeniX’s blog Vox 2009-11-07T12:07:54Z PhoeniX http://phoenixblog.vox.com/?_c=feed-atom tag:vox.com,2006:6p00ccff939f53d756/ My blog about linguistics The problem with *i and *u in Semitic tag:vox.com,2009-10-27:asset-6a00ccff939f53d7560123f17408e1860f 2009-10-27T19:43:21Z 2009-11-07T12:07:54Z PhoeniX http://phoenixblog.vox.com/?_c=feed-atom One of the typologically puzzling things about Arabic, and Semitic languages in general, is that /i/ and /u/ very often contrast with /a/, but hardly ever with each other. This is usually an indication that these are allophones, but this explanati...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

]]> Marijn van Putten, BA tag:vox.com,2009-10-19:asset-6a00ccff939f53d7560123ddd9c282860d 2009-10-19T20:09:22Z 2009-11-02T18:19:23Z PhoeniX http://phoenixblog.vox.com/?_c=feed-atom That's right after 3 years and a bit, I am now officially a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Indo-European Linguistics. Yay me, and yay for shameless self-promotion! So I finished my final Bachelor Thesis with a score of 9/10, that is to say, pret...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

]]> Cold Kaki's tag:vox.com,2009-10-13:asset-6a00ccff939f53d75601240b68ef89860e 2009-10-13T19:05:15Z 2009-10-14T09:03:21Z PhoeniX http://phoenixblog.vox.com/?_c=feed-atom Recently I've been doing a class on fieldwork, in this class we have an informant who speaks Minangkabau, a Malay dialect spoken by about 5 million people around Padang (which was recently hit by quite a severe earthquake). Last week it was my tu...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

]]> Afro-Asiatic is weird tag:vox.com,2009-10-03:asset-6a00ccff939f53d7560123f167602b860f 2009-10-03T12:12:53Z 2009-11-02T18:16:39Z PhoeniX http://phoenixblog.vox.com/?_c=feed-atom As the title says, I am often perplexed by afro-asiatic. I've learned some Arabic and Hebrew, followed a class on comparative semitic, I have a (hardly looked at) book on Egyptian, and I'm currently following a class on Riffian Berber and general ...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

]]> 19th of October tag:vox.com,2009-10-03:asset-6a00ccff939f53d7560123ddbd9318860c 2009-10-03T11:19:35Z 2009-10-04T06:13:16Z PhoeniX http://phoenixblog.vox.com/?_c=feed-atom The 19th of october, that will be the date that I will be defending my Bachelor thesis on Consonant Gradation in the Verbal System of Proto-Indo-European. This defense is open to public, if any reader happens to be around and wants to come, he is...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

]]> One shall not Stop to blog! tag:vox.com,2009-09-15:asset-6a00ccff939f53d7560123dda283ac860b 2009-09-15T23:48:45Z 2009-10-03T11:22:52Z PhoeniX http://phoenixblog.vox.com/?_c=feed-atom Hey guys! Long time no see. My Bachelor thesis was eating a lot of time, combined with work on the Greek Etymological Dictionary and me just simply enjoying my holiday. But I'm back, with this word that has been bothering me for some time now. Th...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

]]> More funny prescriptivism tag:vox.com,2009-08-08:asset-6a00ccff939f53d756011016bf2666860d 2009-08-08T13:47:38Z 2009-08-19T02:27:04Z PhoeniX http://phoenixblog.vox.com/?_c=feed-atom The other day I had a discussion about the Dutch verb willen 'to want'. It is a funny verb, because it formally has two past tenses. Both wou and wilde. I was watching a movie in which the form wou was used in the subtitles and the person who I w...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

]]> The Magnetic Fields tag:vox.com,2009-05-29:asset-6a00ccff939f53d75601101652f88c860c 2009-05-29T10:58:48Z 2009-05-29T10:59:30Z PhoeniX http://phoenixblog.vox.com/?_c=feed-atom Not sure if any of you ever saw this, but there's a band called The Magnetic Fields who did a song on Ferdinand de Saussure, which is cool enough for me to justify posting it here.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

]]> She-Wolves and Godesses tag:vox.com,2009-05-04:asset-6a00ccff939f53d75601101644d976860c 2009-05-21T16:43:08Z 2009-05-27T18:27:34Z PhoeniX http://phoenixblog.vox.com/?_c=feed-atom She-Wolves and Godesses in Sanskrit are and odd bunch. You have two types of ī-stems in Sanskrit (and also in Indo-european) the hysterodynamic and proterodynamic ones. vṛkī- 'she-wolf' is one of the Hysterodynamic ones (which is quite rare). no...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

]]> Dutch linguistic purism tag:vox.com,2009-05-17:asset-6a00ccff939f53d75601101685e187860d 2009-05-17T15:33:06Z 2009-05-21T10:23:18Z PhoeniX http://phoenixblog.vox.com/?_c=feed-atom One of the great annoyances about the Dutch language, is that the definition of the 'correct' standard languages is rather different from what we actually speak. This has to do with the standardisation of the Dutch language when the first bible tr...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

]]>