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Thomas Batchelor

@tobbinatorscw.bsky.social

Linguistics PhD, Sydney > Köln > 台北 Linguistics (Creoles, Australia, Asia-Pacific, morphosyntax, policy, endangerment), politics (Syria, Taiwan, Australia in particular ig), history and other ramblings Anarchist at heart @tobbinatorscw in most places

1,355 Followers  |  563 Following  |  2,500 Posts  |  Joined: 12.06.2023
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Posts by Thomas Batchelor (@tobbinatorscw.bsky.social)

We'll have to leave it to the council to decide whether gemination of consonants is allowed (vowels apparently are)

01.03.2026 17:10 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Been here about 10 hours and already picking up the essentials

01.03.2026 16:20 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Death toll from Iran school bombing reportedly rises to almost 150 Strike on girls’ elementary school in south of Iran has killed 148 people and injured 95 others, according to Iran state media

Trump: 'pinpoint precision'

01.03.2026 15:55 — 👍 7    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 0

A lot of people would die! On all sides!

01.03.2026 15:59 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

A little known requirement (and tough hurdle for some) for selecting a new Iranian supreme leader is that their name must follow the khVmVnV syllable template

01.03.2026 15:55 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

Israel has closed all the crossings into Gaza and reimposed total siege.

28.02.2026 19:39 — 👍 1103    🔁 586    💬 12    📌 37

A whole lot of people's idea of Taiwan and a potential invasion is that it's a small flat urban island a short ferry ride away and not a mountainous country with major cities across a busy 100km wide sea

01.03.2026 01:33 — 👍 7    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

I think cursory knowledge of Kinmen has distorted a bunch of people's ideas of what Taiwan and the Taiwan strait is actually like and how easy this would all be

01.03.2026 01:14 — 👍 5    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0
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BREAKING — 51 Iranian children are dead after a strike hits Minab girls elementary school in Iran.

28.02.2026 12:33 — 👍 3085    🔁 2003    💬 161    📌 731

2018 is an especially prescient moment, because it was both the year that Israel explicitly defined itself as a Jewish state at-the-expense-of-everyone-else and the year that the IDF shot hundreds of unarmed protestors in Gaza. There was also no longer the pretext of eventual negotiations.

27.02.2026 16:47 — 👍 358    🔁 88    💬 5    📌 5
“For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it,” he said in a message directed to the Iranian people. “No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want, so let’s see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force.”

The president said the U.S. military campaign was aimed at Iran’s missiles, its Navy and its proxy groups in the region — and warned that there could be U.S. casualties.


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“For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it,” he said in a message directed to the Iranian people. “No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want, so let’s see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force.” The president said the U.S. military campaign was aimed at Iran’s missiles, its Navy and its proxy groups in the region — and warned that there could be U.S. casualties. ---

truly appalling to drag Iranian people's liberation struggles into their war rhetoric. this is at the root of why debates about anti-imperialism and anti-authoritarianism are so messed up today, and fundamentally detrimental to democracy movements anywhere

28.02.2026 08:46 — 👍 48    🔁 20    💬 0    📌 0
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林宅血案找不到真相! 賴清德:當年許多證據已被「系統性毁滅」 - 政治 - 自由時報電子報 總統賴清德今南下高雄主持228紀念追思活動,他致詞時提及,林宅血案有直接或間接相關的檔卷已經全數解密,但令人遺憾的是,經過詳盡的追查後發現,林宅血案和當年的資料並未完整,甚至口述資料也並非真實正確,尤其從促轉會或監察院等調查報告,當年許多證據已被「系統性毁滅」。

Comments by Lai suggest that records related to the Lin family massacre were destroyed during the authoritarian era

news.ltn.com.tw/news/politic...

28.02.2026 07:02 — 👍 6    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

Israel starting its umpteenth war in just a few years but it's still just those fickle Arabs who don't want peace

28.02.2026 07:40 — 👍 51    🔁 15    💬 1    📌 0

"preemptive strikes" WAR OF AGGRESSION

28.02.2026 06:33 — 👍 1388    🔁 305    💬 7    📌 1

Please read this article to the end. Even before ICE got involved, this started because this *blind man who speaks no English and uses a curtain rod as a walking stick* got lost on a walk and some Karen called the police on him and they tasered and beat him bc he didn’t drop the rod. WTF

25.02.2026 20:41 — 👍 15492    🔁 8145    💬 855    📌 543

I’m sorry, I can’t get over this. How is your first response coming right out of the Olympics ‘our team sucked because those losers aren’t actually really Chinese’

25.02.2026 04:57 — 👍 211    🔁 30    💬 8    📌 3

Having worked on the copy desk, it is indeed the copyeditors usually writing the headlines but it is really nice on the odd occasion a reporter actually suggests one for us instead of leaving it blank

24.02.2026 16:49 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Taiwan's Martial Law-era archives fully declassified - Focus Taiwan Taiwan's top intelligence agency said Monday that it has completely declassified tens of thousands of political archives it possessed from the Martial Law period and transferred them to the National A...

🇹🇼 Tens of thousands of political documents from Taiwan’s years of one-party rule have been fully declassified by its top intelligence agency. All pre-1992 records have been transferred to the National Archives for public view with no redactions.

focustaiwan.tw/politics/202...

24.02.2026 00:53 — 👍 19    🔁 13    💬 0    📌 0

Hong Kong Judge admitting that HKSARG fucked up so bad that the one mathematically possible way of pro-democratic gaining control in the LegCo had to be stopped by the gov't.

That is why the election was scrapped, the system was changed & the 47 prosecuted. Not because of "national security"

23.02.2026 07:11 — 👍 19    🔁 13    💬 1    📌 0

owned my camera for 7 years now and only just found out it has a built in light meter in the viewfinder when the whole time i've been (poorly) guessing the right shutter speed

23.02.2026 16:44 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Star Wars is worst when run by star wars fans and that's unfortunately what makes the money to occasionally give us Tony Gilroy

23.02.2026 15:53 — 👍 6    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

He named his political party in his brief Senate campaign after himself!

23.02.2026 07:28 — 👍 12    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Note: None of the people interviewed are fully named and at least one used a pseudonym because: "“Now, anything you do, they [the authorities] would say it’s seditious,” Brian said. “Be careful, otherwise they will arrest you too.”"

22.02.2026 14:43 — 👍 8    🔁 5    💬 1    📌 0

Like, the shrinking of the legislature was a bipartisan thing between the DPP and KMT (who she supports), and Lungmen's fate was sealed under Ma, who she sees as a hero

22.02.2026 03:15 — 👍 14    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

Normal to blame all of the country's problems on a single victim of KMT violence (and also deny the violence)

22.02.2026 03:06 — 👍 12    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

Unfortunately

22.02.2026 03:04 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

She's so deep blue/red now she makes Cheng Li-wun look like a reasoned moderate

22.02.2026 03:02 — 👍 11    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

The term "language nest" is a calque of the Māori phrase kōhanga reo. In a language nest, older speakers of the language help teach children through intergenerational language transference, placing focus on local Indigenous cultural practices and perspectives.

Free: archive.ph/2024.07.02-1...

20.02.2026 12:36 — 👍 91    🔁 44    💬 0    📌 0
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Creating a sign language out of everything and everywhere Mariana Martins: Creating a sign language out of everything and everywhere - An example from the deaf people of Bissau

It was a great pleasure and a honor to act as the co-supervisor for Mariana Martins’ dissertation about the emergence of a new Sign Language in Guinea Bissau, for which she received the doctorate yesterday. The book is available open-access.🧵

www.lotpublications.nl/creating-a-s...

20.02.2026 07:21 — 👍 27    🔁 15    💬 1    📌 1

and we keep on saying it until the thesis is fully understood in mainstream discourse.

www.noemamag.com/the-clash-of...

20.02.2026 01:42 — 👍 25    🔁 5    💬 1    📌 0