I've borrowed a #Welsh-language copy of Harry Potter and the Phisopher's Stone from the library, and that led to searching my dictionary app for the word for "witch" (dewines). I found that another word for "witch" in the sense of "old hag, crone" is gwrach, pl. gwrachod.
So, imagine my amusement at seeing this misspelling of Gwarchodfa Cenedlaethol lower down in the dictionary - instead of being a force (llu) of people who preserve (gwarchod) the nation (cenedl), under the misspelling it now means the National Old Hags' Force. 😄

Just imagine their evil cackles when they catch a wrongdoer...

@languagelovers
@linguistics
#languagemastodon #language #languages

Launching a free 'Dysgu #Cymraeg' (Learn #Welsh) module for native speakers of #Syrian #Arabic, #Ukrainian, #Farsi and #Pashto, to introduce Wales and its language.
Partnered with #SaySomethingInWelsh #SSIW

Original article in Welsh, here:
https://golwg.360.cymru/newyddion/cymru/2113897-lansio-pecyn-dysgu-cymraeg-trwy-gyfrwng-arabeg

#linguistics #languagemastodon
@linguistics @languagelovers

'Imagine you’re strolling through a park and you overhear a middle-aged couple cooing over each other, doting over their “wittle sugar pwum” and “baby doll.”

“Ewwww,” you might reflexively think.

#BabyTalk is cute when grown-ups dote on babies. But when adults converse with each other? Not so much.'

Yet as many as 2/3 of couples do it, and it's correlated with strong relationships.

https://theconversation.com/why-do-couples-use-baby-talk-with-one-another-171361
#language #LanguageMastodon #Psychology #Romance

Y'all listening?

Y'all as a second-person plural pronoun is not just “the quintessential Southern pronoun.” A linguist has found uses going back to a 1631 in England, hundreds of years before the more recent usages cited by the Oxford English Dictionary.

And its inclusiveness is also gaining new respect, you hear?

https://theconversation.com/yall-that-most-southern-of-southernisms-is-going-mainstream-and-its-about-time-193265

#pronouns #YAll #LanguageMastodon #Etymology #words