Vijay John's Avatar

Vijay John

@vijayjohn.bsky.social

American linguist from an Indian (Malayalee) family, studies (or tries) more languages than you might know exist He/him, they/them, have seen she/her Twitter: https://twitter.com/VijayJohn5 Mastodon: https://zirk.us/@vijay

249 Followers  |  45 Following  |  524 Posts  |  Joined: 12.04.2023  |  1.8222

Latest posts by vijayjohn.bsky.social on Bluesky

Sometimes it feels easier for me in other languages than in English! 😂

05.05.2025 19:06 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I very much lack this talent as well. Sometimes when there are parts that have already been deciphered for me, they don't even help. I've translated a few Afghan songs before but one of my favorites is a song where I have almost no idea what anything means

05.05.2025 05:36 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Hmm, where are you seeing this? (Link pls?)

04.05.2025 16:29 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

No!

24.03.2025 19:32 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

It is divergent and that's part of the reason why it's so hard to classify

24.03.2025 07:49 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

@proycon.social.anaproy.nl.ap.brid.gy Do you still maintain the UniLang server? It's been down for over a day

Bedankt! 🙂

16.01.2025 23:17 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

In Malayalam I'm not sure we have this word at all. At least until the mid-20th century or so at the earliest, we didn't have toothbrushes or toothpaste either. Instead we used burnt rice husk and salt before rinsing with water

09.01.2025 08:16 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I'm still here

29.10.2024 01:14 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

میں ہوں

20.10.2024 18:50 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

All kinds of people, several varieties, and for various reasons! We mainly teach Iranian (more or less Tehrani) Persian for now but are interested in branching out to teach other varieties. Usually people seem to learn it because someone in their life speaks it, but some people are just interested

13.10.2024 16:55 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I'm afraid not; I've been terribly busy because I now work for a company called Chai and Conversation to help teach Persian!
I do update my Malayalam Word Of The Day thread on Twitter every day, though

13.10.2024 03:27 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I don't, unfortunately. IMO Bluesky has quickly proven to be at least as bad

16.09.2024 07:50 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I grew up with a more SFW version of this where the condition is just that the bubbe has "a bort"
(A beard, for those who don't know Yiddish)

18.08.2024 04:37 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

The article is a non-argument. "Gothic is a language isolate" and "it is impossible to learn Gothic fluently" are completely different claims. You can certainly try to learn our best guess at how Gothic was originally spoken, but it is still only a guess. This has nothing to do with other languages

05.04.2024 05:48 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

No, and from what I understand, very little is known of Gothic because the only surviving sources are Biblical translations, which are heavily influenced by the original Greek

03.04.2024 21:41 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Thanks!

29.02.2024 18:27 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

hard to define. It doesn't correspond neatly to national or continental borders in such a way that one culture is completely distinct from another in ways that are always clear

18.02.2024 02:44 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

My point about "Indian culture" is that India is even more diverse than Europe is, yet people do still talk about "Indian culture." IMO if we can talk about "Indian culture" as something that exists, surely we can talk about "European culture" as something that also exists.
Like I said, culture is

18.02.2024 02:43 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 2    📌 0

I'm not saying there is a "unique European architecture style" per se either, but I am saying that Europe has some styles of architecture that are not part of the traditions of many other countries and that many of them are related to one another

18.02.2024 02:42 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Indeed it's not just Europe that has them; I thought you already established this. But Europe does have some. Christianity is the biggest religion in Europe as a whole, and it is largely (not exclusively) through Europe that Christianity spread elsewhere

18.02.2024 02:41 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

You're probably right about the US having many Christian sects, but I think there are at least a few in Europe as well - for example, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and the various Eastern Orthodox churches

17.02.2024 21:26 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Well, admittedly, my source isn't very reliable, but I do remember someone writing a story about being in Macedonia (I believe it was in a village though I could be wrong). People from various linguistic backgrounds lived there, and Turkish was the language they used to communicate with each other

17.02.2024 21:23 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I think it exists in about the same sense that "Indian culture" exists. Culture is kind of hard to define, but there are many cultural things in Europe that don't exist in many or even most other parts of the world, like (European) architecture and the many, many Christian sects

17.02.2024 18:53 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

In particular I have some parts of rural Macedonia in mind
It is also very common among Roma in the Balkans to speak Turkish

17.02.2024 18:51 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

In some parts of the region I think Turkish may even be used as the lingua franca between different ethnic groups

17.02.2024 06:45 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Not to be confused with Balkan Gagauz Turkish, which is yet another Turkic language (I think more closely related to Turkish)!

17.02.2024 06:44 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Basically. I don't think anyone even uses the term "Moldovan" anymore outside of the specific contexts of Ukraine and Transnistria. In Moldova itself, the official language has been exclusively called Romanian for almost a year now

17.02.2024 06:43 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I think the classification is kind of irrelevant in this context to be honest. IMO it's fair to say that speakers of any two languages are bound to influence each others' languages with enough contact, regardless of whether they are related languages or not

16.02.2024 04:01 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Actually it isn't! Turkish, Gagauz, and Balkan Gagauz Turkish are also spoken in the region. They just don't have official status there (and the latter two are also very much minority languages, especially Balkan Gagauz Turkish)

16.02.2024 04:00 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Slavic influence, like Hungarian and Albanian

14.02.2024 21:52 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

@vijayjohn is following 17 prominent accounts