xkcd #2942: Fluid Speech

https://xkcd.com/2942

explainxkcd.com for #2942

Alt text:

Thank you to linguist Gretchen McCulloch for teaching me about phonetic assimilation, and for teaching me that if you stand around in public reading texts from a linguist and murmuring example phrases to yourself, people will eventually ask if you’re okay.

  • lars@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    9·
    5 months ago

    Joseph Justus Scaliger said something similar about Basque in the 17th century:

    C’eſt un langage eſtrange que le Baſque… On dit, qu’ils s’entendent, je n’en crois rien

    Basque is a strange language… It is said that they understand one another, but I don’t believe any of it.