Example

Additionally, the example link above is a hyperlink to the permalink of a comment, but it doesn’t work. Any idea on how to link to a comment?

  • Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
    212·
    1 year ago

    “I guess”.

    I’m specially interested on this because, for all intents and purposes, it works like an inferential evidential - it marks that the speaker reached that conclusion based on [potentially partial] knowledge, neither directly attesting it nor reporting it from someone else. someone with direct evidence.

    Quechua would grammaticalise the shit out of this info, but in informal English you either need to be damn verbose (“I guess”, “I think that”) or rely on a somewhat obscure acronym.

    • BOMBS@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      41·
      1 year ago

      woah! this is the first time I have heard of the Quechua language. any other near facts or links to neat facts/video for someone that just learned about it?

      • Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
        7·
        1 year ago

        Zompist has a nice page with small facts about the language; for something a bit deeper Langfocus gives it a rather good introduction. I’ll mention some bits but keep in mind that I don’t speak it, nor live anywhere close to speakers.

        It’s mostly associated with the Inca empire. But even after the Spanish conquest of the Andes, the language has 7~10 million speakers; alongside Guarani it’s one of the two “big” native languages of South America.

        I’m not sure however if I should be calling it “language” or “languages”; there’s a bunch of Quechuan varieties, and some might argue that they’re related but already distinct languages.

        Some years ago some PhD student made into the news for actually defending her PhD thesis in Quechua, instead of shifting it to Spanish.

        A few other tidbits of info, applying to most Quechua varieties:

        Only three vowels - /a i u/. They’re typically pronounced as the ones in “bat”, “bit” and “book”, but this varies considerably. On the other hand it has quite a bit of consonants, Cusco Quechua for example has 26 (or 30 if counting /f b d g/, from Spanish loanwords).

        Words are mostly built from blocks, as in Turkish or Finnish. And just like Finnish it relies quite a bit on suffixes, so they can get quite long. For example, the word for “dog” can be simply allqu (nominative [subject], singular) or something like “allqukunapaq” (benefactive, plural - roughly “for the sake of my dogs”; -kuna- is the plural and -paq the case mark). On the other hand you typically use less words per sentence; for example it barely uses adpositions and particles.

        There are different words for we = I+you (inclusive “we”) and we = I+someone else (exclusive “we”). Not that you’re going to see them a lot; the verb conjugation is usually enough, so pronouns can be dropped entirely.

        The evidentials are actually a big deal, and the difference between people taking your bullshit for irony or for you being a liar. If we were to emulate this in English:

        • “The Moon is made of green cheese, I can attest it” - yeah nah bullshit
        • “The Moon is made of green cheese, I guess” - note how it implies some irony

        …except that I had to use full sentences to do this in English. If English had Quechua-like evidentials you’d simply plop -mi and -chra after “The Moon” and call it a day.

  • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
    192·
    1 year ago

    I don’t know why people can’t just write the full words, it’s not like it takes any time to write “I guess”.

    • gmtom@lemmy.world
      115·
      1 year ago

      I do not know why people can not just write the full words, it is Not like it takes any time to write “I guess”.

    • nutsack@lemmy.world
      5·
      1 year ago

      why can’t people just type the whole letters it’s going to be read by like 10,000 people for 40 years potentially you can’t just type all the goddamn letters

      I hate the internet

      • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
        9·
        1 year ago

        Still takes a moment to understand what they mean, and leads to confusion like the poster experienced. Doesn’t cost anything to write the full words! Maybe I’m just getting old!

        • rhsJack@lemmy.world
          3·
          1 year ago

          To continue @[email protected] , use short word, have more time, see world. Response: Do you mean “see world” like in travel and explore or the water park Sea World? Answer: Yes.

          • howsetheraven@lemmy.world
            2·
            1 year ago

            Clearly it’s referring to typed words and if you’re asking someone that question given that sentence, I’d say you’re being intentionally ignorant.