Dr Danny Bate

Oh dear...

Guernésiais translations generated by AI 'could be wrong' A Guernsey native language expert shares concerns if artificial intelligence translates reliably.

I mean this is just generally good advice but...

@dannybate.bsky.social

I suppose they're in the neighbourhood of case endings. We think of case as grammatical, while these endings derive new agent/patient nouns, but there's overlap between the two camps. If they started being used across the board, far beyond a particular set of nouns, we might have cases on our hands

Mid-3rd century BC, it's an old story when classical authors like Pliny write about it

Thank you so much! I'm very grateful for this endorsement and sharing!

Book Final cover This is my own page for my book, Why Q Needs U, published in the UK in October 2025 and lauded by The Economist as one of their books of the year! It’s my debut book, and hopefull…

This book is fascinating: "Why Q Needs U," by @dannybate.bsky.social. One (of millions) of fun facts: the symbol that evolved into modern Q originally depicted a monkey, with two stacked circles and a tail. Q's tail is actually a tail. dannybate.com/book/

Cf. the ablative '-āt' / '-ād' ending in Sanskrit.

It was the ablative bit I really wanted to get to, true to character.

This bronze coin from around the time of the name change bears the word "BENVENTOD", showing the old D ending of the ablative case that's lost in later Classical Latin – that is, 'from Beneventum'.

A bronze coin from Roman-era Beneventum, with Apollo's head and the text "Benven-tod" on one side, from the Classical Numismatic Group

In ancient southern Italy, there was a settlement known as something like Malies in the local Oscan language, rendered in Greek as Malioenton.

This became Maleventum to the Romans, but that by accident sounded unlucky (like 'evil-wind'). So, it got renamed Beneventum – today, the city of Benevento.

All of them? Wow! That puts you in an exclusive group of listeners (possibly just you and me). Thank you!

I have now listened to all podcast episodes of @dannybate.bsky.social's A Language I Love Is...
What should I do with my time now? There is no joy in sun, flower or even the smile of a neighbour when I can't be accompanied by facts and stories about language, lingustics and love.
Woe is me!

Thank you!

I just finished Why Q Needs U by @dannybate.bsky.social - really interesting for language nerds! - and now I'm starting 1923 by @nedboulting.bsky.social, which is bidding fair to be just as interesting for cycling nerds!

The starring linguists were:
@jesszafarris.com, @languagewriter.bsky.social, @marcofranconeves.bsky.social and @linguisticdiscovery.com. I'll be sharing some interesting snippets (such as Jess on AI and Marco's books in Brazil and Galicia) on Instagram and YouTube, as soon as I figure out how.

YouTube video by Danny Bate Public linguistics: Interview with Jess Zafarris, Gaston Dorren, Marco Neves and Daniel W. Hieber

A month ago, I spent an evening in the virtual company of four lovely linguists, who I got to share their perspectives on public linguistics and writing for general audiences. A good time was had by speakers and attendees alike, so I've made the full chat available:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_ol...

Enhanced image of palimpsested page, original writing in red; a large illuminated 'E' can be seen in bottom right quadrant.

Somehow, an 8th-c. English liturgical manuscript ended up in Mount Sinai (where it was palimpsested and written over by a Christian Arabic scribe). For more info: Michelle Brown, austriaca.at/0xc1aa5572%2...

It's a common unstressed vowel in a lot of English accents, heard for example in the -ES (roses, churches, judges) and -ED (gutted, padded, legged) endings
bsky.app/profile/dann...

It's a common unstressed vowel in a lot of English accents, heard for example in the -ES (roses, churches, judges) and -ED (gutted, padded, legged) endings
bsky.app/profile/dann...

Now available for preorder (hardback) in the US! Or on Kindle right now!

It seems ironic that the vowel sound in schwa is not a schwa.

I have to wonder whether your sixth-grade teacher was Dwight Schrute

(Compare 'roses' with 'Rosa's')
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_...

After your ears have unlocked the full power of schwa, they can then grasp an even greater English sound: schwi.

Brilliant!! I'm so pleased, this is exactly the response I hoped for when writing the book. Thank you!

How to stop a dictator I spent months studying how authoritarians like Trump lose. The answer is shockingly simple.

I have spent the past several months studying the cutting-edge research on modern democracies that have defeated authoritarian leaders.

I've learned that the conventional wisdom on the topic is wrong — in ways that have clear implications for the US going forward

THREAD www.vox.com/politics/479...

That's right. You can see it written "בשם" here, translated as 'sweet smell':
biblehub.com/text/isaiah/...

The same idea! The word comes from Semitic, later borrowed into Greek. Hebrew today pronounces its letter ש as /s/, but it was most likely the lateral sound /ɬ/ in antiquity (like the Welsh LL). This is reflected in Greek βάλσαμον, and from there the LS of 'balsamic'.

Concerned friends might say I'm procrastinating by reading about historical Semitic phonology again.

But this may be a useful alternative example of languages preserving evidence of ancient sounds in loanwords. I've gone with 'balsamic' quite a few times now.