How Do I Love Thee?, Let Me Draw a Tree Diagram.Alex Savoy.[Author’s Note: Quite in fitting with the approach of Valentine’s Day, I submit this love poem, which, surprisingly, actually worked—though alas I am no longer dating said person anymore, which is why I am bitterly prostituting this former declaration of love, which I have suitably altered for the occasion.] How do I love thee? Let me draw a tree diagram— I was maundering, lonely as a bilabial trill, When I first heard your voice—(some breathy strange tongue), I was love-struck at once—(after all, I was young), How rounded your mouth, And iotally perfect your skin. Your eyes are like geminates, plosive and clear, ... [ more ]
Draw Me a Linguist.Aster E. O’Gnosis and Margo Llicso. Much has been made recently in certain circles of the stereotypical views children have of scientists, and how those views are changed after paying a visit to CERN—all reflected in the drawings of the children. (Drollette, 2010) The cliché says that children are our future, and the humanizing effect of the CERN visit on children’s perceptions may eventually be parlayed into an increase in the number of young people who choose to pursue science as a profession, which of course results in better enrollment in college courses, and thus more funding for science departments. We figured linguistics could probably use some of that action, too. ... [ more ]
The Real Etymology of Timothy.Eura U. Pertú Peninsular Institute of Etymology.[Note: More than twenty years ago (SpecGram CXLVII.3, to be exact) we published what now appears to have been a spurious etymology of Timothy, seemingly forced upon us by shadowy forces and/or powerful lobbies. We can’t for the life of us imagine who would do such a thing. Fortunately, this original, unbowdlerized version—presented here without fear of lost fingers—quite surprisingly turned up among our executive editors’ stockpile of Hanebisho toilet paper. The truth wants to be told —Eds.] It has long been observed that Timothy is a name of obscure ... [ more ]
SpecGram Archives. A word from our Senior Archivist, Holger Delbrück: While bringing aging media to the web and hence the world is truly a labor of love, SpecGram tries the passion of even the most ardent admirer. Needless to say, we’ve fallen behind schedule. At every turn, the authors found in the pages of this hallowed journal stretch credibility with their gratuitous font mongering—first it was the IPA, then a few non-standard transcription systems, then Greek, and not just the alphabet, but the entire diacritical mess, and now I’ve got some god-forsaken Old Church Slavonic glyph sitting on my desk that no one can even name, and which would give the Unicode Consortium ... [ more ]
Do You Suffer the Embarrassment of Loose Vowel Syndrome?.Dr. Goodword. It is an affliction so embarrassing that no one wants to talk about it, yet it is spreading like Harry Potter books throughout the English-speaking world. The symptoms are slurred speech, confusion, misunderstood utterances. By now you’ve guessed it: I am writing about Loose Vowel Syndrome (LVS). LVS involves the loosening of unaccented vowels until they drop out of words completely! The origin of LVS is clearly Merry Old England, where Worcester has been worn down to Wooster, library is pronounced libr’y, and laboratory is laborat’ry (lab’ratory in the U.S.) How many young men have seen their naval ... [ more ]
Texan for Linguists.Katy Jo Parker, and, Truman ‘Tex’ Beauregard. This article is not about the descriptively interesting linguistic features of Texan dialects of English (such as incipient fixin’ singular they, modal stacking, second person plural y’all,ain’t and cain’t, bidness, coke for soda, etc.) nor is it about any of the interesting Spanish-related linguistic phenomena in Texas (such as “Spanglish” Chicano and Tejano English, code-switching, or Pachuco slang). Rather, this article is about the colorful language and evocative phrasing that makes Texan English a much-talked-about dialect, even (and especially) ... [ more ]
The SpecGram Ministry of Propaganda. Welcome to the SpecGramMinistry of Propaganda. The SpecGram Archive Elves™ have undertaken a project to digitize and share a sheaf of early 20th century SpecGram propaganda posters, which were used during the Great Linguistic War and the Second Linguistic War to encourage linguists everywhere to keep a stiff upper lip and a sense of humor during those trying times. We provide the digitized posters here for you to enjoy, retrospect on, and share. Select a poster to see a higher quality image, and for links to share on social media, to email friends, and to view or download the highest quality version of the image. ... Read SpecGram Every Month! ... [ more ]
Teaching Historical Linguistics: A Program of Much-Needed Reform.by Lea Kim Shopmont, Assistant Professor of Communication, Ancilla College, Indiana. Linguistics is a branch of the humanities that prides itself on its scientific character in much the same way as phrenology, astrology, and eugenics did. Perhaps the most pernicious branch of linguistics is historical linguistics, which, regardless of its protestations of studying the history of any language, in fact concerns itself for the most part with dead white male speakers of the ludicrously misnamed “Indo-European” family of languages—even by its own testimony, neither all Europeans nor all Indians speak these languages, and thus ... [ more ]
The Compleat Encyclopaedia of Compendious Historical Lexicons of Obscure and Archaic Vernacular and Nomenclature. Welcome to Online Selections from The Compleat Encyclopaedia of Compendious Historical Lexicons of Obscure and Archaic Vernacular and Nomenclature, researched, compiled, and edited by the lexicographers, etymologists, and philologists of Speculative Grammarian. The editors of Speculative Grammarian are delighted to present selections of the fifty-volume lexicographic opus, The Compleat Encyclopaedia of Compendious Historical Lexicons of Obscure and Archaic Vernacular and Nomenclature, online for the first time ever. The Compleat Encyclopaedia is a one-of-a-kind resource, compiled ... [ more ]
PAID ADVERTISEMENT — http://SpecGram.com/PaniniPress New from Panini Press! .Word Problems for Linguists ❦पा by Barbara Millicent Roberts, Ph.D. Department of Applied Mathematical Linguistics Handler University Published 2025. 194 pg. Linguists! You’ve spent years dissecting syntax trees, contemplating the very origin of language itself, and arguing about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or the Voynich manuscript with clueless neckbeards online—safe in the knowledge that you’d never again have to do anything more mathematically complicated than figure out the tip on your dinner bill—and if you have tenure, you don’t even have to do ... [ more ]
On the Go ~ Went Alternation.A Contribution (?) to the Generative Phonology of English*.Bernard Comrie, University of Cambridge. Most theories of phonology (morphophonology, morphology) allow for suppletion, whereby the allomorphs of a morpheme are completely unrelated phonetically. In discussing English phonology, one example of suppletion that is frequently cited is go [gōw] ~ went [went]. Within generative phonology (taken here essentially in the sense of Chomsky & Halle (1968)), one attempts to set up a single underlying representation for all allomorphs of a morpheme. The fact (if it is a fact) that suppletion exists, i.e. that certain allomorphs of a single morpheme ... [ more ]
Personal Ads for Linguists—including linguists of every kind seeking romance, academic partnerships, and more—all with that special SpecGram twist. N.B.: Information in personal ads is provided by the submitters. The editors and publishers of Speculative Grammarian are not responsible for their content, including, but not limited to, typos, spelling mistakes, poor grammar, bad judgment, factual errors, bald-faced lies, or lapses in national security ... [ more ]
A New Study of Linguistic Synesthesia.by Ott Harfondle, Independent Scholar1. Synesthesia is a peculiar psychological phenomenon in which one sensory stimulus causes a response of a different sense. A prototypical example of synesthesia is sensing color when hearing certain tones. Thus, the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff recalled an occasion when he and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakoff encountered Alexander Scriabin, who associated colors with musical keys. To Rachmaninoff’s surprise, Rimsky-Korsakoff agreed with Scriabin in general, though they disagreed on several of the associations. The two agreed on the key of D major as yellow, but when Rachmaninoff expressed his disbelief, Rimsky-Korsakoff ... [ more ]
PAID ADVERTISEMENT — http://SpecGram.com/PaniniPress Now available from Panini Press: EuroSprachGames Carcassonorant ... In this ingenious tile-laying game, players construct dialect regions by creating a fictionalized map of the southern French countryside. Each player, in turn, draws a tile, which may bear a vowel or consonant or an urban or rural isogloss line. He must then place the tile such that it matches those already played. Points are scored by completely encircling a contiguous region with isogloss lines, by joining multiple ... [ more ]
Examination of the Raartong Language VI: The Intoxicational Affix.J. S. S. van der Fort, Geen van de Bovenstaande University. Given that the present study is the sixth in a series, a short recapitulation of information previously presented in van der Fort (2008), van der Fort (2009) and van der Fort (2010a-c) is in order. Raartong is the name given to a language spoken by a group of approximately 350 natives of the Brazilian rain forest. They were not in constant contact with Western civilization until very recently. Raartong descends, apparently, from late 18th-century Dutch, but has been overlaid with an Algonquian-like1 polysynthetic morphology and grammar. We theorize that, sometime prior to ... [ more ]
Linguimericks, Book ६८. The Bar-Raising Principle There once was a field linguistic That loved not a single statistic. The field built a fence With definitions so dense Its contraction became its prime characteristic —Christian DiCanio, Young grad students I just can’t believe in; In my office I’m always a-grievin’: Though they’re smart in the head And leave nothing unread, When they speak they’re unable to even —Morris Swadesh III, There once was a linguistics journal, Whose staff’s views to the mainstream were foreign. “All You lot think you’re clever, Even art,” said some haverer, “But you’re only a glorified urinal.” ... [ more ]
ADVERTISEMENTS.WORLD’S LARGEST linguistic data collections now available for private purchase. We must liquidate our enormous stock of unpublished field notes for literally hundreds of languages. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to harvest the fruits of others’ labor. FIELD DATA CLEARING HOUSE ATTN: ARLENE. P.O. BOX 1991, BUTTE, MT. APPLIED WHORFISM Are you tired of those unannounced 3-week visits by your mother-in-law, but unable to think of a legal way to prevent them? Do you wish your boss would shut up already about the project that’s a little overdue? The Applied Whorfism Center has your answer. Just write for information about sponsoring the offending person in our excellent programs ... [ more ]
Speculative Grammarian and SpecGram.com.Our Story. The august journal Speculative Grammarian has a long, rich, and varied history, weaving an intricate and subtle tapestry from disparate strands of linguistics, philology, history, politics, science, technology, botany, pharmacokinetics, computer science, the mathematics of humor, basket weaving, archery, glass blowing, roller coaster design, and bowling, among numerous other, less obvious fields. SpecGram, as it is known to devotees and sworn enemies alike, has for centuries sought to bring together the greatest yet least understood minds of the time, embedding itself firmly in the cultural and psychological matrix of the global society while ... [ more ]
Falsehoods About Linguistics.Compiled by N. Correct, N. Accurate, and Aaron Nius. Inspired by Patrick McKenzie’s “Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names” here is a list of ideas, thoughts, and assumptions about linguists and linguistics that come up from time to time, but none of which are necessarily true. Linguists know what a language is. Linguists know what a word is. Linguists know what linguistics is. Linguists can tell you the correct way of doing linguistics. Linguists can tell you the correct way of speaking a language. All linguists know multiple, if not many, languages. All linguists love languages. All linguists enjoy learning, and learning about, different languages. Knowing how to ... [ more ]
The Library of Never-Written Books, Part II.compiled by, Beebly O’Gnost & Libby R. Arian, Bibliothēca Obscūra, Novigrad. For the amusement of the readers of Speculative Grammarian, we have compiled a list of the many non-existent, never-written linguistics and linguistics-adjacent books that our patrons have tried to borrow, put on hold, or acquire through interlibrary loan. (See also, Part I.) We’re not sure what this peek into the collective unconscious of academics and scholars of language says about them—whether these titles are tomes half-forgotten or pranks they fell for—but it must be something deep. Lessons in Phonetics From ... [ more ]
