FLAILARAMA

[schmerica]

YOU GUYS, I DON'T KNOW IF YOU KNOW THIS OR NOT, BUT THE PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN PHONOLOGICAL SYSTEM IS CRAZYCAKES.

Seriously, seriously, their consonant system omigosh! There are FOURTEEN STOPS and ONE FRICATIVE. There are five places of articulations, labial and dental and velar but also palatovelar [k', g'] and labiovelar [k^w, g^w], and they are all come in both voiced and unvoiced EXCEPT the labial voiced stop [b] which just DOESN'T REALLY EXIST. And then there are the aspirated stops [b^h, d^h, etc] which come in all of the points of articulation but ONLY VOICED. There are no aspirated unvoiced stops at all!

And [s]. That is IT, fricative-wise. No affricates, either. It gets voiced to z when a voiced stop follows, but STILL.

And we're not even going to TALK about laryngeals, because dude, Ferdinand de Saussure made them up with HIS PSYCHIC MIND POWERS. I'm serious! He was all "I'm a 19th century linguist, ha ha ha, and I think historical linguistics would make much more sense if Indo-European had some weird random sounds occurring RIGHT HERE." And then everybody laughed. And then FIFTY YEARS LATER HERE COMES HITTITE and everybody is like "..............OK. LARYNGEALS FOR EVERYBODY?"

UGH YOU GUUUUUUUUUUUYS I LOVE MY MAJOR OKAY.

(...etben, this makes me want more THEY'RE ALL LINGUISTS. Hee.)

(PS NEW ICONS. This entry is made by me, 'is anybody out there'. lordessrenegade made me 'frank needs a hug'.)

Comments

[prairiedaun.livejournal.com]

More! More! More! *loves my major too*

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

And then FIFTY YEARS LATER HERE COMES HITTITE and everybody is like "..............OK. LARYNGEALS FOR EVERYBODY?"

...I love you.

And you have seen this (http://entangledbank.livejournal.com/10116.html), haven't you?

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

Why I love my flist, part 98752783561:

Up pops a post with FLAIL and CAPLOCKS and SQUEE -- and proto-IndoEuropean fricatives. All at once!

I will not play with your boyz until they are (a) imaginary and (b) washed, but I do love the ringside seat.

[go-gentle.livejournal.com]

The fricatives! What did they do with all the fricatives?

[thesamefire.livejournal.com]

DUDE THEY HAVE b^h BUT NOT b?!?!? WEIRD.

Today I wrote a critical response on why W. Freeman Twaddell is totally ridiculous! Dude, the phoneme DOES TOO exist--or at least, I refuse to accept your arguments that it does not! Pls die.

[blueandbrady.livejournal.com]

I love you. I don't even really know you, but I really think I do.

This post made me smile so hard. I was reading and nodding and nodding because I understood you. Understood. Not like 100% but at least 90% and that made me happy. I'm still new to the major but have fallen in love with all my classes so far. And everything you said in this post is what interests me so much. I love learning about articulation and change over time. It's INTERESTING.

I think you either really love linguistics or you don't. It makes me happy. I do not care in the least that I could/do sound like a geek. Linguistics is COOL. And interesting.

/being weird

[sofiaviolet]

I kind of followed that! \o/

[angelchildr.livejournal.com]

Oh man, this reminded me of the semester in college I took of the Physics of Sound. Having to do with how people make sound and the different physical characteristics of the soundwaves and such. That was such a cool class.

*dork*

[etben.livejournal.com]

WHY ARE THERE NO FRICATIVES, PEARL?

HOW CAN YOU TELL SOMEONE TO FUCK OFF WITHOUT FRICATIVES*? FAAAAAAAIL.



*yes obviously the WORDS ARE ALSO DIFFERENT. i don't care! i want there to be fricatives other than [s] (arguably the lamest fricative, i'm sure you'll agree).

[serialkarma.livejournal.com]

What texts are you studying from? I want to knoooooooooooooowwwwwww!

[blondiusmaximus.livejournal.com]

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT ANYTHING IN THIS ENTRY MEANS but I like when people get really excited about things they're passionate about, so A+++ for this entry.


I just realized that almost all of my FOB icons are Pete-centric. Whodathunk! I could have sworn I went into bandom thinking I'd end up a Patrick girl.

[tipsofpencils.livejournal.com]

Hi! *waves from behind corner* i just friended you. i've been lurking around lj for years and just got mine up. band boys squee for the win?

[speshope.livejournal.com]

Awww, I wish we were sitting in the EMU right now and you were telling me all about this and I was nodding along until you got done so I could go "I totally didn't understand any of that, but cool. What's a fricative?"

And then I'd spend the rest of lunch making weird noises.

[ubixtiz.livejournal.com]

You linguists are all weirdos. o.0 (Also you are funny.)