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Danny Bate Profile picture
@DannyBate4
May 15, 2020 • 3 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
inspired by @DocCrom's loveliness, I'd like to offer my own #FollowFriday, something I haven't done before

please do check out and follow:
@oldenoughtosay
@phil_lol_ogist
@etabecila
@benjcartlidge
@OftTimAnhaga
@DrFrancisYoung
@ChrisRouse1212
and, of course, @DocCrom
please go follow and adore these lovely people, as they all do deserve it
this unexpected kindness was especially welcome, as I feel I've been in a Twitter slump for the past few weeks, unable to contribute actually funny or interesting things. It's happened before, but not for this long. Don't know if this happens to others!

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More from @DannyBate4

Danny Bate Profile picture
Mar 31, 2022
Here's something about English that amazes me:

TH at the beginning of a word (typically) stands for one of two sounds: /θ/ as in 'thin' or /ð/ as in 'this'.

The difference works according to what type of word it is: lexical TH words start with /θ/, functional TH words with /ð/! Black text on white background. It reads: Lexical words: thi
'Lexical/functional' are vague terms, so to clarify: lexical words that those that refer to something in the world - things, actions, properties. They're 'meaningful'.

Functional words are different. They don't have a reference in the same way, and serve grammatical functions.
That "typically" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, I admit - my attempt to acknowledge all the variation of English!

Many Englishes do not have the same /θ/ and /ð/ pair, such as the TH-fronting varieties of Essex and London. Still, the functional/lexical split is very strong.
Read 7 tweets
Danny Bate Profile picture
Jan 3, 2022
Recently, someone made the fair point that I don't cite sources with my tweets.

While I'm always happy to provide them if asked, it's true, there's hard work going uncredited.

So, it's a new year and a chance to remedy that! Here's a thread on some of the great resources I use.
I rely so much on certain resources to do my funny little language tweets - it all wouldn't be possible without them.

Even when my knowledge of languages and historical linguistics are enough for me to think up the connections, I still need somewhere to check them!
Since I mostly tweet about English, my go-to resource is the Oxford English Dictionary online, as well as my copy of the Oxford Dict. of English Etymology.

oed.com is an incredible resource, but it's not free. It's worth checking if you have institutional access.
Read 11 tweets
Danny Bate Profile picture
Nov 14, 2021
There's a lot of difference between the Indo-European languages as to the dates of their oldest surviving sources.

While we have Hittite sources from the 2nd millennium BC, the earliest Albanian text is from 1462 AD.

It's a baptismal formula, quoted by the Archbishop of Durrës. An image of the oldest surviving sentence in Albanian, a bap
The formula reads:

"Un'te paghesont pr'emenit Atit e Birit e Spertit Senit" ('I baptise you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit')

It includes a borrowing from Latin Spīritus Sānctus, as well as the word emenit 'the name', a cognate of Latin nōmen and English name.
The use of "emenit" ('the name') even allows us to be more specific about the dialect of Albanian quoted here - it's a variety of Gheg, as opposed to Tosk, the basis for the modern standard. A map of the modern dialects of Albanian, with Gheg in green
Read 4 tweets
Danny Bate Profile picture
Jun 1, 2021
"For some say 'oc', others say 'oil' and others 'si' when agreeing."

This is Dante's description of the ways of saying 'yes' in three dialects of western Europe - among which we can recognise Modern French oui and Italian sì.

It's Romance linguistics from the 14th century!
Oc is the word for 'yes' used by speakers, Dante continues, in "a western part of southern Europe, starting from the borders of Genoa".

It's from this use that the language within that area gets its name - Occitan, the 'yes' language!
A curious thing though is how Dante names the three peoples that use these three words.

Oil is said by "Franci", si by "Latini" and oc by "Yspani", which suggests that oc once had a more southern distribution, spoken in what is now Spain.
Read 4 tweets
Danny Bate Profile picture
Mar 20, 2021
"Quia cod estis, fui, et quod sum, essere abetis."

This Latin inscription dates to the 7th century (or later). To be precise, it's Late Latin and it contains features important for the history of the Romance languages - which get linguists rather excited.

Let's find out why! 🧵
The sentence has nothing to do with fish, but translates to "For what you are, I was, and what I am, you will be".

Not too surprisingly, the text was part of a tomb in the Basilica of Santi Quattro Coronati, in Rome. Sadly, I can't find a picture of the original.
Why does this short text matter to linguists?

Because it shows linguistic features that emerged during the transition from Latin to the Romance family of languages - things that you won't find in the classical Latin of earlier centuries, but you will find in Italian today.
Read 10 tweets
Danny Bate Profile picture
Feb 10, 2021
The English modal verb 'must' lacks a past tense form. We say 'had to' instead.

This is because 'must' was once itself a past tense form - of the archaic verb 'mote'.

Present 'mote' and past 'must' began to lose their association in Middle English, just like 'owe' and 'ought'.
This old 'mote/must' paradigm brings English into line with the verbs for 'must' in other Germanic languages.

Dutch has 'ik moet' in the present tense and 'ik moest' in the past, while German, with a bit of consonant shifting, has present 'ich muss' and past 'ich musste'.
The idea behind this change in modals was that the past tense could be (in the subjunctive mood) a "moderate, cautious, or polite substitute" (OED) for the present tense.

Some modals still maintain both the original past and the newer present uses, such as 'could' and 'might'.
Read 4 tweets

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