When we talk about the use of the French language in the Americas, we often think about Quebec in Canada, St. Pierre and Miquelon, Haiti (though it also has a French-based creole), and that bit in the Guyana Shield which is part of overseas France, French Guiana. However, the French language also has considerable use … Continue reading The French of the Cajuns
French
A book that lets you learn… 4 languages at once?
Learning a language is by no means an easy thing to do. Quite often, you will experience words, sounds, grammars, and nuances that are different from what you are normally used to in your native languages. And so, there is a split opinion on whether or not it is advisable to learn multiple languages at … Continue reading A book that lets you learn… 4 languages at once?
The language of … yes?
When we talk about the languages of France, we would most likely tend to gravitate towards the French language. But in the southern parts of France, Monaco, and some regions in Italy and Spain, there is another language not as known as its French counterpart. Like the major languages spoken in the region (except Basque), … Continue reading The language of … yes?
The tactile writing systems before Braille
Across all of the writing systems introduced on this website, there are several fundamentals that are universal among them. One of them is, it requires vision, or the sense of sight, to encode the intended message in writing, and to decode the text into the intended message in reading. But what happens when this sense … Continue reading The tactile writing systems before Braille
Diaresis, tréma, Umlaut. Which is it?
Sometimes you would see two dots above some vowels, like Joyeux Noël (French for Merry Christmas), or naïve in, curiously, English. This diacritic can be found in alphabets from Albanian to Swedish. Normally represented by two dots above the letter where the sound is modified, or some other things, we also find a similar-looking sort … Continue reading Diaresis, tréma, Umlaut. Which is it?
Why does “ph” make an “f” sound?
Phone. Phase. Phoenix. These words start with a "ph", yet this digraph is pronounced with an "f". In some other languages, we see such a pattern as well. Take French, for example. The word for "the seal", le phoque, also has its "ph" pronounced as an "f". We also see such a pattern in Vietnamese, … Continue reading Why does “ph” make an “f” sound?
The story of the cedilla
This diacritic we will cover today will bother a lot of font developers who want to make a sans-serif font, basically a typeface that lacks any sort of protruding bits at the end of a stroke. These projecting features are called "serifs", and here, the one bothersome bit is called the cedilla, a diacritic mark … Continue reading The story of the cedilla
Why does French have circumflex letters?
French is probably one of the more well-known languages with diacritics, although it does not get as elaborate as languages like Vietnamese today. This language has five different types of diacritics, also known as accents -- the accent aigu (é), accent grave (Eg. è), accent circonflexe (Eg. û), accent tréma (Eg. ë), and cédille (ç). … Continue reading Why does French have circumflex letters?
Word Bites — Des milliers, des millions, des milliards
I remember a song by a French singer Jean-Louis Aubert titled "Milliers, Millions, Milliards", translated as "Thousands, Millions, Billions" in English. While a rather catchy song in its melody and lyrics, the title alone sort of hides a little linguistic curiosity. Let's explore another example, using a different language branch. In German, "million" is, well, … Continue reading Word Bites — Des milliers, des millions, des milliards
A Non-Anglocentric Language Tier System?
1. How many languages do you know ? Okay, lemme define this question. To “know” a language, usually means to have the knowledge to speak, read, write, understand and communicate in a language. So yeah, as of now, I do know quite a bunch of languages to varying standards, like English, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, French, Japanese, […]
The Language Closet 