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Posts published in “Joseph Lovestrand”

Want or Will? Intention or Desire?

At least for people speaking colloquial Indonesian, mau (normally pronounced mo) can be used both to express a desire (“want”) and also to express an intention (“will”). What is happening here? Can words just arbitrarily change their meaning?

Points of Articulation

Phonetics is the study of the sounds of speech. Articulation refers to the mechanics of makings sounds for speech. In formal Indonesian, a prefix me- that is used with transitive verbs is pronounced in different ways depending on what verb it attaches to.

A Linguist Tries to Learn Indonesian

A polyglot is someone who speaks a lot of languages. Some polyglots are linguists, and some linguists are polyglots. But I’m the kind of linguist who is not a polyglot. Language learning is not particularly easy or fun for me. It’s more of an occupational hazard than an end in itself.

Mixing Languages

Borrowing words is not a sign of any linguistic defect. It is natural response to the need to express new concepts. Rather than weakening a language, borrowing actually strengthens it.

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