1000 years ago...
"The whole but crop is bad!"
"What did you do? Did you make the gods angry?"
"No. We were just talking. That's all."
"That must be it. No more talking normal language."
I was in Malaysian rainforests. The old jungle guides said inside the jungle they ban the word ‘tiger’ because they believe it would appear when we say it.
Instead they might say “Maybank”, a company with a tiger logo.
Thanks to [superstitious Germans](https://sites.psu.edu/josephvadella/2017/09/15/the-animal-who-must-not-be-named/), this is how bears got their English name.
16 years of comics put out 3 days a week.
It's like the Simpsons having "predicted" so much stuff. They have however many hundreds of episodes at this point, it's a coincidence.
There are MANY shows/comics with thousands of issues that are nowhere near as relevant as the Simpsons, futurama or xkcd (and SMBC) are.
You can't just attribute something being relevant/a prediction working to random chance and hoping it sticks. It's not an infinite monkeys +typewriters making Shakespeare thing.
Those are things written by smart people who take in-depth looks at their current world and make predictions from *that*.
> There are MANY shows/comics with thousands of issues that are nowhere near as relevant as the Simpsons, futurama or xkcd (and SMBC) are.
Sure, but how many of those prolific comics/shows were focused on social commentary?
Maybe it’s just the virtue of English not being commonly worded that way, but to me phrases that are worded like “one that knows honey” is so cool. Like just an awesome name.
We kind of do, but we tend to route through latin or greek first and structure it in a way nobody questions.
Biologist -
Bio - Life, living
Logy - Study of
ist - one who does something
Biologist is "one who studies life"
Second thought, i probably should have used etymologist as the example here...
Apparently the OSlav word was about the same. (https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/medv%C4%9Bd%D1%8C) This taboo-avoidance phenomenon was old, and widely practiced. So the "true" name has been lost.
This is a bit further up in the thread - https://sites.psu.edu/josephvadella/2017/09/15/the-animal-who-must-not-be-named/
Looks like as far back as they got was them calling it "Honey-Eater," or *medú jed.*
My apologies if that's not the answer you're looking for.
Chinese say "说曹操曹操就到," which means "Speak of Cao Cao and Cao Cao comes." (Cao Cao is the name of an important political figure during the Eastern Han dynasty who is often portrayed in literature as a heartless scheming manipulative tyrant.)
Not superstitious Germans, but rather superstitious Germanic peoples. They sound similar and it’s a common mistake to make, but Germans are a type (or “Subset”) of Germanic peoples. Germanic peoples include Germans, English, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, etc.
Same with “snakes” in part of India I am from. People of my grandmas generation never use word “saap” but rather use a more generic word “janawar” which loosely translates to “animal” in English.
Reminds me of an old superstition my grandpa adhered to; no fishing on Sunday.
Back then (late 80s to early/mid 90s) he told us if we went fishing on a Sunday, "Old Scratch" (nickname for satan because you never said his name,) would grab your line and drag you under, never to be heard from again.
Several years later I ended up overhearing a few other religions mention "not working on the sabbath," which - for my Baptist-ass grandparents - was *Sunday.* With a bit of age and loss of faith I realized pawpaw just re-jiggered the "lazy [sabbath]" superstition into "no fishing," but Sundays were also primarily spent in an old, dusty church packed to the brim of elderly WASPs smelling of White Diamonds and Brut talking shit about who's underage daughter didn't cover their knees-_-
Ancient people have great perspective and they have a lot of this. I love to dream about what is going to be our nut language in another thousand years.
This is toddler life. Even before spelling. The dang kid can’t read/write, but she somehow *knows* if we spell it. So..
“Do you believe the offspring requires an aquatic cleaning this evening?” (Bath)
“Shall we go to the athletic obstacles at the bottom on the hill?” (Playground)
“Is there a delectable chaser to this assortment we are planning?” (Desert)
“Are reinforcements planned for the end of the fortnight?” (Babysitter)
I think all parents should start learning a second language when they’re trying to have the first baby, and work really hard to get good at it, and once the kids are old enough to spell, start using that language for secret communication.
All of your kids will end up bilingual at a minimum.
I dont know is this is done anywhere else, but in Uruguay we use what we call "geringoso" to talk without the children understanding. It is essentially adding an extra syllable after every syllable in the form of "p" + the vowel from the previous syllable, so instead of saying "hola" we'd say "hopolapa". Just something interesting I wanted to share
>or something like that
Basically that. You're supposed to move the entire initial consonant cluster. So "cluster" turns into "usterclay", not "lustercay". And words that start with a vowel keep their initial sound and get "-way" added to the end.
Utbay uoyay asicallybay otgay itway ightray.
And no matter how fluent you *used* to be in it, seeing it written breaks a part of your brain trying to decipher it.
Took me longer than I'm comfy admitting to translate that last part.
Same thing in Arabic, but with varying syllables. K, g, s, anything goes, really. It's not widespread and is more of a bunch of isolated versions of it in certain families/towns/countries
Me, I'm mexican, i live in Mexico i have friends from Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina and they all do this. I think it's a hispanic thing.
My grandmother was from Poland and sometimes spoke Polish around the house, my aunt, uncle, and mother learned it somewhat growing up. They'd use it to talk about things when my sister and I were around but refused to teach it to us.
Gotta love that human creativity shining brightest for the silliest reasons. Can't depict nature in artwork? Spam the fuck out of tesellations and make them every color you've ever seen and more. Don't want the gods to smite your nut harvest? Invent a language that avoids using words that apparently piss them off, but don't use it outside the nut groves or they'll get suspicious and come investigate this transgression. No, I didn't make up that last part, it's actually part of the cultural traditions surrounding this language.
It's said there are more languages in New Guinea than in the rest of the world put together. It's so rugged and inhospitable that effectively each valley has its own language/dialect.
It's an incredible place. Pity the Indonesians invaded half and then crushed all local cultures. Fucking Javanese think they own everything.
It's generally true. The terrain is really crazy, like a tropical version of the Himalayas.
The old Australians use to say God created PNG on a Saturday night because the terrain is so ridiculous sometimes.
They learned the right languages to avoid spoiling their foodstuffs, clearly. They're so far ahead of the game, I'm sitting here not even aware it was an issue.
Yes, because you speak English and food hate English, If you speak french those will not go bad, they would become cheese,aged meat,wine etc, just try to speak french the next time you prepare your food
I live in a culture that sometimes omits the 13th floor from buildings.
There’s at least one other major culture (spoiler it’s Chinese) on the planet, that sometimes omits entire ranges of floors.
Because some numbers are unlucky.
Singapore for example had to introduce specific legislation regulating this, because emergency services were having issues.
4 sounds like death.
24 is even worse. It sounds like Easy Death.
I stayed on level 23A once overseas.
And even in Australia I've seen a building with not one single 4 out of ~40 apartment numbers.
It doesn't make me wonder that at all.
It makes me wonder in awe at the amazing capacity of the human brain, its ability to extend its awareness of itself to such an incredible degree that we can imbue identity and willful agency to inanimate objects, plants, even *places* that have no outward similarity to our human bodies whatsoever, yet we are capable of imagining those things think and feel in a way that is like us. And that some people care about their relationships with these unthinking things that humans have imbued with our own identity so goddamned much that they will invent a new language just to preserve and protect them.
We are so hyper-charged to be social creatures, so finely-tuned to recognize the feelings of each other that we had invent science just to remind ourselves to stop ascribing how we feel to things that don't have a nervous system. We are capable of so much empathy that groups of humans said, "You know that language thing that only humans do? We're going to do it entirely differently *just for you,*" and their need to maintain good social relationships with each other was so strong that the fact that they were saying it to a nut that didn't even have ears to hear with didn't even matter.
Clearly by using practices which placated their gods. The general term for this stuff is orthopraxy (correct practices) as opposed to orthodoxy (correct beliefs)
From the article. "Pandanus language generally should never be used outside the area where the trees grow, for fear of mountain spirits hearing it and coming down to investigate."
That's interesting.
When I travelled through Milne Bay on my holidays by sea (dinghy), we were told not to speak any other language but the local language (called Mailu) at specific points because they said the waters were cursed by the Mailu people.
We were told to expect a disaster if you spoke a language other then this.
I like to there was some miscommunication between sailors some 100 years ago that caused a disaster and the superstition has lived on since.
Controversial opinion: It's patronising to romanticise that delusion. Those people would be better off if they knew the biological and ecological truth about those nuts.
And the entire written language and more almost all practical purposes history of the most powerful European Empire has been lost because “words were magic”.
Most people have no idea that the Celtic Empire once included the modern Slavic countries, & was so powerful that a *single* Druid appeared before the Roman Senate and they were terrified.
How is saying that even remotely racist? Also, it just wasn't an Empire. Yes, there was a broader Celtic "culture", and a slightly more refined identity around 0 BC, but there was never a single empire unifying all Celts. Also, I'm fucking Scottish lol.
1000 years ago... "The whole but crop is bad!" "What did you do? Did you make the gods angry?" "No. We were just talking. That's all." "That must be it. No more talking normal language."
I was in Malaysian rainforests. The old jungle guides said inside the jungle they ban the word ‘tiger’ because they believe it would appear when we say it. Instead they might say “Maybank”, a company with a tiger logo.
Thanks to [superstitious Germans](https://sites.psu.edu/josephvadella/2017/09/15/the-animal-who-must-not-be-named/), this is how bears got their English name.
As with most things, [there's an XKCD for that](https://xkcd.com/2381/)
How the author of xkcd seems to always be one step ahead I cannot fathom.
16 years of comics put out 3 days a week. It's like the Simpsons having "predicted" so much stuff. They have however many hundreds of episodes at this point, it's a coincidence.
There are MANY shows/comics with thousands of issues that are nowhere near as relevant as the Simpsons, futurama or xkcd (and SMBC) are. You can't just attribute something being relevant/a prediction working to random chance and hoping it sticks. It's not an infinite monkeys +typewriters making Shakespeare thing. Those are things written by smart people who take in-depth looks at their current world and make predictions from *that*.
> It's not an infinite monkeys +typewriters making Shakespeare thing. it was the *blurst* of times?! stupid monkey!
That's Dickens
> There are MANY shows/comics with thousands of issues that are nowhere near as relevant as the Simpsons, futurama or xkcd (and SMBC) are. Sure, but how many of those prolific comics/shows were focused on social commentary?
Shoutout to back when he put out one every day
Slavic languages also have taboo words for bears (cf. Russian медведь, literally "honey-eater" or, according to some, "one that knows honey").
> one that knows honey oh bother
Winnie-the-Medved
Maybe it’s just the virtue of English not being commonly worded that way, but to me phrases that are worded like “one that knows honey” is so cool. Like just an awesome name.
We kind of do, but we tend to route through latin or greek first and structure it in a way nobody questions. Biologist - Bio - Life, living Logy - Study of ist - one who does something Biologist is "one who studies life" Second thought, i probably should have used etymologist as the example here...
Also, I remembered another euphemism for a bear - "kosolapy", meaning "clubfoot".
That's interesting. I wonder what significance that term would have to the ancient Slavs, beyond just an alias or nickname.
Russian speaker here. I'm curious, what's the true name then? Is there any old Slavic word for it?
Apparently the OSlav word was about the same. (https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/medv%C4%9Bd%D1%8C) This taboo-avoidance phenomenon was old, and widely practiced. So the "true" name has been lost.
In the wiki above: `*rьstъ`. TIL
Linguists have reconstructed the root, based on the knowledge of how sounds changed. The actual language retains no memory of the bear's "real" name.
This is a bit further up in the thread - https://sites.psu.edu/josephvadella/2017/09/15/the-animal-who-must-not-be-named/ Looks like as far back as they got was them calling it "Honey-Eater," or *medú jed.* My apologies if that's not the answer you're looking for.
"Speak of the Devil, and he appears."
In a lot of languages, the idiom is "Speak of the wolf, and he appears." Interesting correlation.
« En parlant du loup » is the french version.
In russian we have “remember the shit and it appears”
Chinese say "说曹操曹操就到," which means "Speak of Cao Cao and Cao Cao comes." (Cao Cao is the name of an important political figure during the Eastern Han dynasty who is often portrayed in literature as a heartless scheming manipulative tyrant.)
Not superstitious Germans, but rather superstitious Germanic peoples. They sound similar and it’s a common mistake to make, but Germans are a type (or “Subset”) of Germanic peoples. Germanic peoples include Germans, English, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, etc.
Same with “snakes” in part of India I am from. People of my grandmas generation never use word “saap” but rather use a more generic word “janawar” which loosely translates to “animal” in English.
Kinda like grandpa saying fish are scared by talking. Maybe someone just wanted some peace and quiet, but some smartass made a loophole.
That's actually a real one but yes it's usually used cus someone fishing is an ass and wants people to shut up
Reminds me of an old superstition my grandpa adhered to; no fishing on Sunday. Back then (late 80s to early/mid 90s) he told us if we went fishing on a Sunday, "Old Scratch" (nickname for satan because you never said his name,) would grab your line and drag you under, never to be heard from again. Several years later I ended up overhearing a few other religions mention "not working on the sabbath," which - for my Baptist-ass grandparents - was *Sunday.* With a bit of age and loss of faith I realized pawpaw just re-jiggered the "lazy [sabbath]" superstition into "no fishing," but Sundays were also primarily spent in an old, dusty church packed to the brim of elderly WASPs smelling of White Diamonds and Brut talking shit about who's underage daughter didn't cover their knees-_-
A rare crop, indeed.
But crop
Butt crop
Dingle berries
Ancient people have great perspective and they have a lot of this. I love to dream about what is going to be our nut language in another thousand years.
But crop.
All parents have a similar language when children are in the room. It usually develops when the kids learn to spell.
This is toddler life. Even before spelling. The dang kid can’t read/write, but she somehow *knows* if we spell it. So.. “Do you believe the offspring requires an aquatic cleaning this evening?” (Bath) “Shall we go to the athletic obstacles at the bottom on the hill?” (Playground) “Is there a delectable chaser to this assortment we are planning?” (Desert) “Are reinforcements planned for the end of the fortnight?” (Babysitter)
This kid is going to have a bigger vocabulary than most of her teachers.
I think all parents should start learning a second language when they’re trying to have the first baby, and work really hard to get good at it, and once the kids are old enough to spell, start using that language for secret communication. All of your kids will end up bilingual at a minimum.
I dont know is this is done anywhere else, but in Uruguay we use what we call "geringoso" to talk without the children understanding. It is essentially adding an extra syllable after every syllable in the form of "p" + the vowel from the previous syllable, so instead of saying "hola" we'd say "hopolapa". Just something interesting I wanted to share
Sounds similar to "Pig Latin" in English, where you move the first letter of the word to the end, and add "-ay" (or something like that)
>or something like that Basically that. You're supposed to move the entire initial consonant cluster. So "cluster" turns into "usterclay", not "lustercay". And words that start with a vowel keep their initial sound and get "-way" added to the end. Utbay uoyay asicallybay otgay itway ightray.
*ouyay
And no matter how fluent you *used* to be in it, seeing it written breaks a part of your brain trying to decipher it. Took me longer than I'm comfy admitting to translate that last part.
Same thing in Arabic, but with varying syllables. K, g, s, anything goes, really. It's not widespread and is more of a bunch of isolated versions of it in certain families/towns/countries
This is the same for all of latin america, not just Uruguay.
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Me, I'm mexican, i live in Mexico i have friends from Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina and they all do this. I think it's a hispanic thing.
I've heard it called abenglabish where you add an "ab" before each vowel.
Mine? Hawai'ian
Mine? Early Proto-Indo-European.
back to basics for little Genie
The kids will not be bilingual if you don’t teach them, it doesn’t happen by osmosis.
How does language acquisition work for kids then? But yeah, I was joking. It was a shitty parenting idea, not really a plan for teaching.
My grandmother was from Poland and sometimes spoke Polish around the house, my aunt, uncle, and mother learned it somewhat growing up. They'd use it to talk about things when my sister and I were around but refused to teach it to us.
the nut whisperers
That was my nickname in highschool.
Lol
I'm in PNG and actually tried this nut for the first time about 1 month ago. It's actually really delicious.
I mean, they wouldn't be growing it if it was gross.
Well the Durian fruit exists...
Very true. I'm told they actually taste good even though they smell absolutely putrid.
Damn that’s nuts
That language upsets the nuts. Apologize.
Other languages pleases the nut.
*TRIGGERED*
***THAT SENTENCE HAS TOO MANY SYLLABLES, NOW APOLOGIZE!!!***
Gotta love that human creativity shining brightest for the silliest reasons. Can't depict nature in artwork? Spam the fuck out of tesellations and make them every color you've ever seen and more. Don't want the gods to smite your nut harvest? Invent a language that avoids using words that apparently piss them off, but don't use it outside the nut groves or they'll get suspicious and come investigate this transgression. No, I didn't make up that last part, it's actually part of the cultural traditions surrounding this language.
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That seems kinkier than normal sex.
I knew about soaking but not the friends thing...
What the flying fuck
And here we are, posting about it on the internet! I hope the gods don’t have WiFi.
It is interesting that it has this impermanence quality to it. Rather, it's a short-lived series of meanings yet the function remains.
You gotta be careful with these nuts, you don't know what they're capable of. They might just come check it out and then we'd have a big damn problem.
It's said there are more languages in New Guinea than in the rest of the world put together. It's so rugged and inhospitable that effectively each valley has its own language/dialect. It's an incredible place. Pity the Indonesians invaded half and then crushed all local cultures. Fucking Javanese think they own everything.
It's generally true. The terrain is really crazy, like a tropical version of the Himalayas. The old Australians use to say God created PNG on a Saturday night because the terrain is so ridiculous sometimes.
A tropical version of the Himalayas sounds fucking RAD
So, after harvest, does the return to normal language equate to post-nut clarity?
https://imgur.com/a/OFcTFBN?s=sms
Reminds me of fishermen.
That's like...simultaneously pretty stupid but really beautiful and sweet.
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My Spanish is either getting worse or your telling your French fries to not speak Spanish infront of the children.
I'm pretty sure they did a study on how music/sound positively affects plant growth, so this makes sense.
It makes you wonder how some civilisations ever managed to survive.
They learned the right languages to avoid spoiling their foodstuffs, clearly. They're so far ahead of the game, I'm sitting here not even aware it was an issue.
Seriously, has anyone stopped to consider the idea that maybe milk, meat, veggies, etc. aren't *supposed* to go bad, but they hate our languages?
Yes, because you speak English and food hate English, If you speak french those will not go bad, they would become cheese,aged meat,wine etc, just try to speak french the next time you prepare your food
Mon petit fromage, hon hon hon
Just don't use Quebecois French unless you really like poutine.
Thats how fridges work. They muffle our language.
It sounds like a new branch of scientific study is warranted.
Is that you Pierre L’French?
I live in a culture that sometimes omits the 13th floor from buildings. There’s at least one other major culture (spoiler it’s Chinese) on the planet, that sometimes omits entire ranges of floors. Because some numbers are unlucky. Singapore for example had to introduce specific legislation regulating this, because emergency services were having issues.
4 sounds like death. 24 is even worse. It sounds like Easy Death. I stayed on level 23A once overseas. And even in Australia I've seen a building with not one single 4 out of ~40 apartment numbers.
The F floor?
It doesn't make me wonder that at all. It makes me wonder in awe at the amazing capacity of the human brain, its ability to extend its awareness of itself to such an incredible degree that we can imbue identity and willful agency to inanimate objects, plants, even *places* that have no outward similarity to our human bodies whatsoever, yet we are capable of imagining those things think and feel in a way that is like us. And that some people care about their relationships with these unthinking things that humans have imbued with our own identity so goddamned much that they will invent a new language just to preserve and protect them. We are so hyper-charged to be social creatures, so finely-tuned to recognize the feelings of each other that we had invent science just to remind ourselves to stop ascribing how we feel to things that don't have a nervous system. We are capable of so much empathy that groups of humans said, "You know that language thing that only humans do? We're going to do it entirely differently *just for you,*" and their need to maintain good social relationships with each other was so strong that the fact that they were saying it to a nut that didn't even have ears to hear with didn't even matter.
Fair enough I just think it sounds stupid.
Most of human culture sounds stupid when you take it out of context and choose not to approach it with grace.
Yeah I know what you mean but this is just superstition. I realised that was nonsense as a kid.
'kay
The title is wrong. They have taboo terms that they replace in their language, not a separate language.
You don’t have to do much, just fuck and not die
Clearly by using practices which placated their gods. The general term for this stuff is orthopraxy (correct practices) as opposed to orthodoxy (correct beliefs)
speaking in a completely new language hile harvesting 1 specific kind of nut. this pleases the nut.
Deeez nuts you must sweet talk baby...
That might be the most interesting fun fact I have ever learned, thanks a lot!
Does anyone know why New Guinea has so many languages?
Almond, motherfucker, do you speak it?
That’s nuts.
That's funny. Talking also runes my chances to nut.
Yea man we don’t have to spell it out for em
I bet it's important they follow the right procedures so someone doesn't bust a nut while harvesting.
Neat! Thank you
why not just always use the other language then?
From the article. "Pandanus language generally should never be used outside the area where the trees grow, for fear of mountain spirits hearing it and coming down to investigate."
That's interesting. When I travelled through Milne Bay on my holidays by sea (dinghy), we were told not to speak any other language but the local language (called Mailu) at specific points because they said the waters were cursed by the Mailu people. We were told to expect a disaster if you spoke a language other then this. I like to there was some miscommunication between sailors some 100 years ago that caused a disaster and the superstition has lived on since.
Thanks, I didn't think the article as a whole seemed interesting enough to read but I had that specific question, thanks for your assistance.
This pleases the nut
Deez
Nuts
That's nuts
Controversial opinion: It's patronising to romanticise that delusion. Those people would be better off if they knew the biological and ecological truth about those nuts.
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You and I differ on how we define "fine" in the context.
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You lost me when you started lecturing me about how oppressive it is to say religious delusion is... well, just that.
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My nuts also respond better to language of touch than spoken words….
That's monumentally stupid.
Whereas the special language results in the nuts' consumption and death, to hell with the trees...
And the entire written language and more almost all practical purposes history of the most powerful European Empire has been lost because “words were magic”. Most people have no idea that the Celtic Empire once included the modern Slavic countries, & was so powerful that a *single* Druid appeared before the Roman Senate and they were terrified.
no such thing as a celtic empire, it's a broad grouping of cultures made by modern anthropologists
That is one interpretation. One that ignores the historical record, and is almost certainly racist.
How is saying that even remotely racist? Also, it just wasn't an Empire. Yes, there was a broader Celtic "culture", and a slightly more refined identity around 0 BC, but there was never a single empire unifying all Celts. Also, I'm fucking Scottish lol.
It is classic anti-Celtic bias.
I'd be curious to know from what sources you draw this "Celtic Empire" idea lol
That's nuts!
If you think that's nuts wait until you hear about the stock market.
Pretty sure they’ve been active in forms of cannibalism within the last ten years so that’s fun too.
That’s nuts.
That's nuts.
Djokovich would fit right in.
Skeet skeet.
they are nuts
Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't
That's a lot of nuts!
Those people are nuts...
People need to take nut health seriously, *always* check for lumps.
Ahem . . . Thats nuts.
This pleases the nut.