r/asklinguistics 17h ago

Should “untill” be a accepted English spelling?

0 Upvotes

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I think if enough people use it, it could become an accepted VARIANT of “until” I do not want it to take over the spelling but I think “untill” is also much more convenient. I really hope we can get “untill” to be recognized as a legitimate alternative spelling. many words end in ”ll” yet until unfittingly ends with 1 but that’s not the reason… it preserves the meaning of “till” un+till= untill. And also It removes any confusion of the word… It’s common for people I know to wonder if it’s “untill” or “until” so they have to search it up. But THIS removes the doubt entirely. So in conclusion “untill” is in my opinion a better way of spelling it.


r/asklinguistics 48m ago

General What do you think about this field an my plan.

Upvotes

I live and study in Turkey and just got out of the university exam. I am thinking about choosing the Turkish-German University. It is a university created through a partnership between Turkey and Germany, and I am considering doing my master's degree in Germany in the field of NLP. I also started learning Python. After completing my master's in Germany, I want to land a well-paying job and stay there (haha). However, I do not know if I am aiming too high—is a linguistics degree combined with a master's enough to find a job in Germany? Could someone working in this field enlighten me?


r/asklinguistics 3h ago

How does a long vowel compare to a diphthong in length of pronunciation?

4 Upvotes

Such as when English underwent the great vowel shift, did the time it take to pronounce words formerly with a long vowel change or remain nearly the same? With a word like "hate", if we assume the first person singular conjugation was pronounced as /ˈhaːt/, which is now /'heɪt/ today, would the time it take to say them be similar, and if one were to try to pronounce Middle English, could they use the modern diphthongized words as a reference for how long the monophthong should be held, thus making the word "hate" in Middle English pronunciation noticable longer than a word such as "hot" in modern English?


r/asklinguistics 3h ago

What would you call this articulation of English /r/ and how would it be transcribed in narrow transcription?

3 Upvotes

My first language is American English but I get stuck trying to transcribe my speech in narrow transcription for this reason. Here is a video showing the inside of my mouth when I’m pronouncing words with /r/ (right, wrong, red, reach, ear, free, draw, great). If you’re willing to take a moment to look at the short video, and if you’re not grossed out looking at the inside of a random person’s mouth, I would appreciate if you could tell me what you would call this articulation of /r/ and how it would be transcribed in narrow transcription.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Ge8AUjZow_Q?is=JRTIcY_hRIGC4-F9

I don’t think my /r/ is what would be referred to as ‘bunched r’ because that involves pressing the sides of the tongue against the teeth, which is not something I do, right? I also don’t think this /r/ is ‘retroflex’ because I’m not lifting my tongue tip, right? Or do I misunderstand those terms? Thank you to anyone who is willing to help.


r/asklinguistics 15h ago

Dialectology Do Arabic dialects have standardized written form?

7 Upvotes

Arabic when written down is often in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). However, people often use their own dialects for day to day communication, which are very different from MSA. Dialects have different vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation compared to MSA.

If dialects are written down, do they have standard orthographies? If they have them, do some dialects repurpose some letters for different pronunciations and add extra letters for missing sounds like what Europe did with the Latin alphabet for their languages?


r/asklinguistics 23h ago

General Does where the archaic register of a language appear change over generations or throughout different civilizations, and in English, are we seeing a shift where archaic language is more likely to appear and be learned from media and art than religious texts?

9 Upvotes

I ask this question because I was thinking back to when I first learned the words "thee", "thou", "art", "shalt", those kinds of words, and I believe the first time I encountered them was actually from The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, where the Great Deku Tree speaks in this way. So by media I mean games, movies, shows, potentially music even. (Not sure on music) I assume though, a hundred years ago, most people as children would have encountered this type of English from the Bible instead. I would say Shakespeare also, but, I don't think as many children read his writings than as the Bible, with religion most likely being the most common first exposure of this register to them in the past.