In northeastern America, there is a confederacy founded by the Great Law of Peace, or the Gayanashagowa. This brought together five (and later, a sixth) nations, who would be collectively known as the Haudenosaunee, or the People of the Long House. To English and French colonists, the confederacy would be known by several other names, … Continue reading The languages of the Haudenosaunee (Pt 1)
Canada
The syllables in Nuxalk
In the world's languages, speech is often organised into sequences of speech sounds called syllables. For instance, in English, "golf" has one syllable, while "defenestration" has five syllables. However, in British Columbia, Canada, there exists a language which appears (emphasis on the appears here) to do things a little differently. In fact, it has been … Continue reading The syllables in Nuxalk
Languages with case prefixes? (Canada)
We have been quite unsuccessful in uncovering languages in Australia and Vanuatu that use a true system of case prefixes, with all of them using a mix of suffixes, particles, markers, and prefixes to mark a certain word for its case. In fact, one of the only languages near that region that has a system … Continue reading Languages with case prefixes? (Canada)
The Languages of North America
When this topic pops into mind, our first instinct may be to gravitate towards English, French, and Spanish, the dominant languages in this region. French and English are spoken in Canada, English and Spanish are spoken in the United States, and Spanish is spoken in Mexico (North America largely includes only the Northern Mexican states, … Continue reading The Languages of North America
The variant of German not quite spoken in Germany now
When people talk about High and Low German, one might think that High German refers to the variant spoken in the northern parts of Germany, while Low German refers to the variant spoken in the southern parts. But as geography suggests, this is not the case. Low German is used to refer to the German … Continue reading The variant of German not quite spoken in Germany now
Writing in North America — Great Lakes Algonquian Syllabics (GLAS)
In the 1880s, syllabic blocks of text recorded the languages of Ho-Chunk, Fox and several more languages. Derived from the Latin alphabet, this writing system strongly resembled Latin texts. But yet, no digitisation of this writing system was ever made, and what is revealed online is only an approximation, usually using a cursive Latin script. … Continue reading Writing in North America — Great Lakes Algonquian Syllabics (GLAS)
Writing in North America — Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics
In 1827, an English-Canadian missionary and linguist set foot onto Rice Lake, Ontario. By the turn of the 20th century, virtually all Cree speakers were literate in a new writing system. From the Nunavut Inuktitut languages in the north to Ojibwe and Cree in eastern Canada, this writing system certainly has made its mark, and … Continue reading Writing in North America — Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics
Writing in North America
Previously, we have covered the various writing systems in Africa, to much interest, as not many are aware about the scripts used in the continent. From Ge'ez to Nsibidi, we have discussed the features and successes of these writing systems. This series of posts have certainly shown that writing systems in Africa are not just … Continue reading Writing in North America
Intermission – The Beauty of Nunavut Inuktitut
So last year I did a little segment on learning the lesser known languages and I did cover a bit on Nunavut Inuktitut. And now, here is a post dedicated to the wonders of this poly-synthetic language. Many people have heard of this language because of its alleged diversity of words to mean snow and … Continue reading Intermission – The Beauty of Nunavut Inuktitut
