SpecGram—Most Popular Pages

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 ]

An Iñupik Linguistic Fragment, (or, the Last Grammarian). Metalleus. The following fragment was found in a shoe box at Indiana University. It was translated by Metalleus with the help of a Phi Beta Kappa key. The author is unknown. ...thus was born the generation of linguists. The race multiplied and replenished the groves of Academe, and great and noble members arose. Thousands of years passed, and prophets rose up among the generation of linguists, prophesying the coming of a golden age of linguistics to be ushered in by a Great and Exalted One to atone for Panini’s fall. St. Descartes, the prophet Leibnitz, the wise men of the Royal Port, and St. Humboldt spoke of his coming, and of the golden age. ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CXCV, Number 1 Antepenultimate Issue Editor-in-Chief: Trey Jones; Executive Editors: Keith Slater, Mikael Thompson; Senior Editors: Jonathan Downie, Deak Kirkham, Vincent Fish; Contributing Editors: Pete Bleackley, Luca Dinu; Associate Editors: Yuval Wigderson, Daniel Swanson; Editorial Associates: Kenny Baclawski, Emily Davis, Andrew Lamont, Gabriel Lanyi, Tel Monks; Comptroller General: Joey Whitford; Declarative in the Streets, Hortative in the Sheets; September 2025, ... [ more ]

Neo-Latin and Craft Latin: Recent Trends in Rival Latinitates. Fletcher Bowyer Scrugg, Social Columnist for The Philological Weekly. “Classical Latin: First the Romans killed it, then the medievals worshipped its bastard offspring, then the Renaissance robbed its tomb and embalmed it, and finally the 19^th century philologists dissected it and shelved the samples in the less healthsome sections of the library.” Raising a glass of unwatered wine, Grumby Kerr Mudgin added, “It is my job to revive the blessed thing whole and hearty,” and drained his glass in one go. I had met Mr. Mudgin in the course of researching reactions to the publication of the second half of the ... [ more ]

The Ten Commandments: Linguistic Universals, A Finite Set of Rules from Infinite Wisdom, As Told To Moses by God. Evan Smith. Thou shalt not talk with thy mouth full. Thou shalt capture all linguistically significant generalizations. Thou shalt invoke the cycle even as thou shalt invoke the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not order thy rules, save that thou find’st theoretical or empirical reason for so doing. Thou shalt not fudge thy data. Thou shalt call informants ‘consultants’. Thou shalt not write ad hoc rules. Thou shalt not falsify a theory save that it be falsifiable unto God. Thou shalt not edit thy field tapes, even if there be expletives therein. Thou shalt obey God’s Truth and not ... [ more ]

The Priority of Written Language. One of the principle tenets of modern American linguistics is the priority of spoken as opposed to written language. This priority is understood both as importance as an object of study and as temporal precedence. Temporal precedence is further taken to include both ontogenetic and historical precedence; that is, as students in introductory linguistics classes are repeatedly told, children learn to understand speech and to speak themselves before they learn to read and to write, while historically (more properly prehistorically), the story goes, humanity had already been speaking for tens of thousands of years by the time writing was invented. It is this last conclusion, that speech ... [ more ]

“Double-Dot Wide O / Nasal-Ingressive Voiceless Velar Trill” by J–––– J––––––. From Speculative Grammarian CLI.3; July 2006. Reviewed by Jonathan van der Meer. ... Double-Dot Wide O, Spoiler Alert !. It’s been more than eight years, so I’m going to go ahead and let you in on a little secret: the nasal-ingressive voiceless velar trill is a pig snort, and the double-dot wide O looks like a pig snout. (Some phoneticians will argue that they themselves produce a uvular trill. They probably do—especially when reading journals less interesting than SpecGram—but ... [ more ]

Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, by Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D. (with guest contributors Hilário Parenchyma, C.Phil. and Erin Taylor). From Speculative Grammarian CLII.1-CLV.2; January 2007 -; November 2008. Reviewed by Steve Dodson. Far, far back in the murky mist of the distant past, nearly unrecoverable by present methods—to wit, in; January 2007—Speculative Grammarian™ began a series called “Cartoon Theories of Linguistics” that first installment, on Non-Configurational Languages, explained that “we should be able to reduce the essence of important linguistic concepts to something we can explain to that bright, interested ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXX, Number ν ... Speculative Grammarian, in association with Psammeticus Press, is proud to present a special supplemental monograph: Strangecraft, by Mikael Thompson, Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Bill Spruiell, Senior Editor, Mikael Thompson, Monograph Editor, Strangecraft; Mid-July 2014 ... [ more ]

~~Linguimericks~~, Schwimmericks, Book ७६. With Guest Editors Ross and Rachel. As we worship the gods of the schwas We dance in a circle round fires; We bring central vowel gifts, Whose sacrifice lifts Our chant (‘[ ə ], [ ə ], [ ə ]!’) to the stars —Carly C. Cairns, A versatile grapheme is ⟨E⟩ Flip ⟨E⟩ round and it means “There must be.” Little ⟨e⟩’s heard in “bait” see But rotate ⟨e⟩ one-eighty, And it’s stress-free and placed centrally —Emily Davis, The best monophthong—and by far— Is not [i], [y], [e], [ ɔ ], [ ɪ ] or [a:] But the ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXXV, Number 4 ... Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Mikael Thompson, Senior Editor; Jonathan Downie, Contributing Editor; Associate Editors: Pete Bleackley, Mark Mandel; Assistant Editors: Emily Davis, Vincent Fish, Deak Kirkham, Yuval Wigderson; Editorial Associates: Mary Shapiro; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Exorcising Some, Exercising Others; October 2019 ... [ more ]

Special Supplemental Letter from the Editor. Once again our long-time colleague and comrade/editor-in-arms Mikael Thompson has provided some high-quality summer reading material (and in this case a novel’s worth of quantity, to boot) for the discriminating fan of linguistic themed fiction. Strangecraft is a slow-burning weird tale, a detailed, personal story told against a stygian, cosmic-scale backdrop. The narrator wends his way through the wilds of post-Subsidence New England in search of an advanced degree in linguistics, but both he and the reader find considerably more than they bargained for in and around the environs of the Miskatonic Institute of Technology, as numerous ... [ more ]

A Stratificational Approach to Making Macaroni and Cheese. It has long been a tenet of stratificational theory that stratificational notation is adaptable to extralinguistic structures. The contention of this paper is that not only can we use relational networks in this way, but that in fact a stratificational diagram is superior to, and should supplant, the traditional tool for visual transmission of information, namely written representation of natural human language. As an example, compare the traditional version of instructions for preparing macaroni and cheese with the new and improved version. (The text is that of “Directions,” Food Club Macaroni and Cheese Dinner, Wgt. .453# (the package is distributed by ... [ more ]

与工以口 - 尺口爪凡以 — 凡仍巨十十巨尺与亡尺工尸十斤口尺巨以也乙工与廿. 巨乂巨亡凹十工立巨巨刀工十口尺片巨工十廿与乙凡十巨尺. 十廿巨巨以也乙工与廿与亡尺工尸十工与山凡丫十口口巨凡与丫 ... [ more ]

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CLX, Number 4; January 2011, MANAGING EDITOR, SENIOR EDITOR, EDITOR EMERITUS, Trey Jones, Keith Slater, Tim Pulju, Speculative Grammarian, Vol CLX, No 4, CONSULTING EDITORS, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jouni Maho, Daniela Müller, David J. Peterson, Bill Spruiell, ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Jonathan Downie, Mikael Thompson, EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES, Bethany Carlson, Carin Marais, Tel Monks, Freya Shipley, Tom, Stinnett, Sheri Wells-Jensen, COMPTROLLER GENERAL, Joey Whitford, Publishing in a higher register, than Language in Society, ... [ more ]

HanjieLinguru II. Trey Jones, l’École de SpecGram, Tokyo. That new batch of Puzzle Elves™ from Japan are at it again with another token of the Linguistically-Themed Pseudo-Nihonese Puzzle type: HanjieLinguru II. HanjieLinguru is a simple extension of the traditional Hanjie form, but keeping with SpecGram tradition, it adds a thin veneer of linguistics that keeps all the non-linguists feeling woefully inadequate. The rules are simple: first, replace each Greek letter with the number indicated by the clue provided. Then proceed with the standard Hanjie rules to determine for each cell of the grid whether it should be black or white. The cells in the grid are to be painted ... [ more ]

The Semantics and Pragmatics of Voice Systems: A Functional Analysis, by Carrie Cameron. 170 pages. Houston, Texas, USA: Rice University Press, 1990.. This well-written volume takes as its goal the attempt “to reconcile and integrate the diverse phenomena that have been taken under the heading of voice” more specifically it focusses “on certain voice phenomena that have been considered marginal or ignored altogether, in order to contribute some fresh ideas to an old problem.” A laudable goal, this, and indeed Cameron does an excellent job in the main. Her overall framework and conclusions seem quite reasonable, and I recommend her work highly to anyone interested in this topic. Since I could ... [ more ]

Ambiguity In Action: A Bawdy Count. Norman C. Stageberg, University of Northern Iowa. One major source of humor is found in the many and various situations of everyday life, both as they occur in actuality and as they are refined and recounted in literature. A second major source of humor is language itself in its many aspects. One of these aspects is ambiguity. This is our subject for today: ambiguity in language and the pranks it plays. First, however, I believe that every gathering of people to pursue a serious subject should have a motto to give direction and purpose to their thoughts. So, I offer as a motto for us on this solemn occasion a sign that I once saw outside a dance hall near Iowa City. It goes like this: Clean ... [ more ]

Strangecraft. by Mikael Thompson. ... - I -, Ruffles and Blood. A copy of the book on a table It is perhaps best to begin my chronicle as I stood on the deck of the freighter taking me from New York City to Brockton. I had flown from Houston to New York, but having time to spare until I matriculated, I chose a more leisurely route to New England proper. Our ship, the S.S. Paludament, was an old but serviceable midsize freighter that transported sundry machine parts in the final stretch of their passage from the industrial heartland north and east to the rural hinterlands of New England and carried passengers as space permitted; I smiled at the thought that much of our cargo had come along the same route I ... [ more ]

What Else Happened to Sociolinguistics?. Ronald Macaulay. [Editor’s Note: It’s no surprise, given the volume of correspondence we receive (at last estimate, triple the volume of the United States Postal Service), that missives—even important ones—will go missing from time to time. However, it’s a travesty each and every time it happens. So, it is with many apologies to Dr. Macaulay that we present the following, originally submitted to us in 2013. Any inaccuracy or out-of-datedness is on us. Our apologies for any inconvenience —Eds.] In 1988 I published a paper entitled ‘What happened to sociolinguistics?’ My concern at that time was ... [ more ]

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