Comments on: Reflections on a year of Linguistic Mysticism

By: Ken Crofutt

Ken Crofutt — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 07:33:36 +0000

Regarding your story about the difference between ano with and without the tilde: I have a language training center in Italy and a similar difference exists in the Italian language between “anno” (year) and “ano” (anus). In Italian it is very important to carefully enunciate each ‘n’ separately, but being American, I find this difficult, as a double consonant in the middle of an English word doesn’t change the pronunciation much and in any case is not usually going to change the meaning. Anyway, shortly after my arrival here in Italy back in 1984, I went to the doctor for the first time and haltingly tried to state my age in my best Italian - “Ho 37 ani”, I said. The doctor raised his eyebrows, regarded me a moment, then smiled wryly and calmly asked “Very interesting! Would you kindly disrobe and show me where all these orafices are?”
Ken

By: Jangari

Jangari — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 04:42:36 +0000

Congratulations on the year. I only discovered you a few months ago, but I try and read your posts as much as I can. A point of order though, news.com.au is not Australia’s State Press; that title belongs to the Australian Broadcast Commission, abc.net.au.

Re: Anuses and years, the same Latin geminate/simplicate opposition holds in Italian. A teacher of mine back in my undergraduate years was quick to point out the difference between quanti anni hai and quanti ani hai. Just how a geminate/simplicate contrast in Latin became a palatal/alveolar contrast in Spanish still eludes me. Does Spanish retain a consonantal length contrast? If not, it might be hypothesised that during the loss of the geminate, the imperative to keep certain forms differentiated forced the contrast to take on a different phonological basis - if that makes any sense outside my head.

By: 't'-'ah'

't'-'ah' — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 20:24:09 +0000

I always check your website every once in awhile, but I have yet to leave a comment (though I might have left one longgg ago). Anyhow, I wanted to congratulate you on this year-long accomplishment and let you know that you not only affect the lives of ppl around you, but also ppl from all-around the world thru this website. You should be proud. ~*Congratulations*~

-your friend, guess who ;)

By: NewsScribe

NewsScribe — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 22:07:12 +0000

Thank-you, I’ve been wondering what the spanish word for anus was.
Congratulations on your 1 year anniversary. I’m putting you in my blogroll, I think I’ll learn a lot. :smile:

By: ILikePi

ILikePi — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:13:57 +0000

Congrats on your anniversary! Looking forward to another year of mysticism!

By: zmjezhd

zmjezhd — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:05:48 +0000

Spanish año is from Latin annus and ano is from ānus (the latter not to be confused with anus, (a fourth declension noun meaning 'old lady'). I wonder how Latin geminate n yielded ñ in Spanish.

By: José Luis Cabello

José Luis Cabello — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 08:54:59 +0000

My students were often asked in an email exchange with Northamericans:
Cuántos anos tiene?
One of my students asked: Haven’t they got only one?

Congratulations to Linguistic Mystic for its first birthday. A year full of good posts. Wish you many more.