Language - Blog Posts

🇮🇹 Passegiata~

ˌpasəˈjädə

~ a leisurely walk or stroll, especially one taken in the evening

꧁☆✩❣︎𝑾𝒆𝒍𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒚 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒈 ❣︎☆✩꧂

Hi! My name is jj (they/them), and this is my blog where I plan on posting everything that is crowding my brain. If you like cool words, languages, art, and aesthetics, you’re in the right place! I hope you’ll stick around and give me a follow for more content in the future! Xx ❤︎︎

Hey did you know I keep a google drive folder with linguistics and language books  that I try to update regularly 

it’s really hard to speak dutch while high oh my god dry mouth is a bitch

How old r u sound 11

HELP- is vcs I talk 3 other language….🖤

But I 18 year old LOLZ

Well, time to ramble about the Iliad again even tho no one asked, yay! This time it's about language: there's one specific expression which I'm kind of obsessed with, and it's φίλη κεφαλή (phìle kephalè).

So, phìle is the feminine form of the adjective phìlos (the word where philtatos comes from), which obviously means "dear", "beloved": but by extension, in the Homeric language especially, it means "something that belongs to someone". Which actually makes sense because it's basically implied that if something belongs to someone, it has to be something dear to them. And this is mostly used with body parts (like, instead of saying "my hands", in Homer you'd find something along "the dear hands" and so on.)

And that's where kephalè comes in! The word literally means "head". In the poem there's a lot of talking about heads: chopped heads, disfigured heads, pierced heads, and so on. But many times, metaphorically, it can also mean "body" or "life". Why? Because, since the head is the most important part of one's body, it is the essential part in order to live. And of course it's "dear" to you, because otherwise you'd be dead.

So what happens if you put the two words together? You basically get an affectionate form of address, which could be translated to "my dear head", but most precisely "my dear life".

In the Iliad, when Achilles learns of Patroclus' death, he states to have loved him "like his own head" (kephalè is the word he uses), and right after, he refers to Hector as the man who killed his phìle kephalè...

Because the head is to the body what Patroclus is to Achilles: the most important and precious part of himself. And now that he's lost him, he feels as if Hector had killed a whole part of himself, the one that kept him alive. Because his head has been literally torn away from him.

Also in another passage he refers to Patroclus as ηθείη κεφαλή (hethèie kephalè), where hethèie basically means "sweet", "beloved", "worthy of honor". And once again the "head".

I'll stop rambling for now, but this stuff was just too beautiful not to be talked about?? (and for me not to hyperfixate over it)

Man I need a mutual who can converse with me in simple German because deise Sprache ist nicht einfach when you don't have anyone to practice with let me tell you man

Create a fantasy language, they said. It'll be fun, they said

venting

saya takde apa pun nak cakap. Bila ku tak tinggal di msia saya takde orang nak bercakap melayu dengan. Saya berasa macam sedih sikit? Ini paling lama masa yang saya tak cakap dan tak dengar bm dah. Bukan lah macam bm is my first language also, saya bercakap ingris kat rumah dan sekolah selalu, so speaking english is not the adjustment. Walaupun saya tak berfikir dalam bm, ku mau the chance to bercakap dalam malay anyways.

You know how there are medical or lawyer dramas and I was wondering are there any lamguage interpreter dramas? I realised how whenever I watch a series that revolves around a certain profession, I always want to practise it so I think an interpreter series would give me motivation (I just started Defending Jacob and the whole attorney setting is just😩)

Under the read more is a huuuuuuuge (70+) list of free resources I’ve complied during my time studying Thai, with some resources on Isaan and Lao as well. I’ve organized it by alphabetical order for Tumblr but you can view by level, format, and content on Notion (you don’t need an account to view btw). Since I’ve been using Notion to organize and keep track of all these resources that’s also where you’ll find more notes and future updates. This list focuses on resources meant specifically for language learners and does not include native content made for native speakers.

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