bivargen · HackerTrans

While I agree with your sentiments, I must correct you in that Sweden doesn't have a minimum wage, never had! Our societal safety also isn't all that it was, but to be sure it's much stronger than the US. For the other nordic countries I can't tell, though I seem to remember that Denmark has a minimum wage and Norway doesn't. As for Finland I have no idea.

bivargen

3년 전discuss

While I do not doubt that your spouse, this is besides the point, the point is that Min Nan pronounces the first phoneme of the word for “tea” with a dental stop, other chinese variants/languages realize the same phoneme with a dental affricate.

I do not know if the article author/cartographer ever studied linguistics or phonetics, but this is the main takeaway from the map for me, a linguist, the pattern is the message, not the somewhat imprecise data points.

bivargen

3년 전discuss

While being no expert on the historical development of the english personal pronouns (I do read some old english and maintain some fluency in modern ditto, not my first language), the linked Wikipedia page clearly states the opposite: singular they came into use after the plural use.

This is a minor nitpick, as I suspect that third person personal pronouns where in a state of flux during the middle english period, replacing some inherited pronouns with pronouns borrowed from old norse. More so, language isn't defined by it's history but from how it is used presently!

I myself wouldn't use singular they, it goes against my “language intuition ” (probably formed by my native language which wouldn't allow that construction), others feel free!

bivargen

3년 전discuss

Apropos salt in coffee, the way I heard it when growing up was that coffee brewed (or rather boiled) on meltwater didn't quite taste right, add some salt and presto! Having tried that myself I can easily believe that, meltwater doesn't taste the same as well-water. For the record, I tried myself, and yes, when boiling instead of brewing some salt will work, in brewed coffee though, not!

bivargen

3년 전discuss

I grew up in Norrbotten (north of the gulf of botnia, northernmost part of Sweden). This was (and still is a thing). Anyway, my mother is from the province of Hälsingland (in the middle part of Sweden), there one eats ”ostkaka” (cheese cake), which is almost the same thing, but heated in the oven and eaten with jam. I therefore suspect these to be ”relic-dishes” and that this type of dairy product was once more widely spread.

And for those who have neither heard or eaten kaffeost, the most similar thing I can think of is Halloumi, though unsalted and made from predominantly cow's milk.

bivargen

3년 전discuss

No, Anglo-Saxon (or more correct Old English) is not a north-germanic language. Germanic languages per se are traditionally split into three branches: west- east- and north-germanic. English, as do German, belongs to the west-germanic branch. Though it is true that English for a time was heavily influenced by Old Norse (which as a precursor to the modern scandinavian languages sits on the north-germanic branch).

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