h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I doubt it'd be 'yes' (=kyllä). Two syllables might be too much in that situation.

Ah, indeed. Allright and OK are the same (OK = orl korrect). So...now I'm wondering...did OK simply take over allright - or as there more to it than that?

I was going to add that Molly Bloom's Solilloquoy is the longest unpunctuated sentence in English (language) literature - but I see it's been beaten by a 13,000 word unpunctuated stretch in Jonathan Coe's 'The Rotters Club' (Quite a good book - but not quite as brilliant as his 'What a Carve Up')

Going back to labial-velar, did you follow the link to the detailed page? It does have rather more information, including a bit that almost explains the role the velum plays!

You can also search in wikipedia for "velar" and see the other velar consonants for comparison.

I'm getting even more confused now!

I can just about kid myself into thinking that I can detect the back of my tongue approaching my soft palate.

But now it's telling me that the 'labial-velar approximant' (W) is voiced - ie the larynx is vibrating, wheras with the labialvoiceless labial-velar fricative, the larynx isn't.

I'm having difficulty sensing that - even with my fingers on my Adam's apple.

It's amazing where the web can take you. Following on from labial-velars. I made various clicks in the topic of linguistics, and arrived at Inuktitut.

Amongst other things, I discovered that a common Inuit name is 'Usuiituk', meaning 'has no penis'. Kind parents!

I also discovered that the Canadian Inuktitut writing system is based on the syllabaries for Cree and Ojibwe - which were in turn derived from Pitman's shorthand!

But now I'm trying to remember which other Native American language had its own writing system. It was invented by one of its speakers and for a few years, newspapers were published in it. Can anyone remind me?

Imagining a labial-velar "wh". Sort of like hawking before you spit?

It was Cherokee that had it own writing system. See A1064846.

Off-topic, sorry, but I was reading 'Discover' magazine the other day (an American science magazine) - particularly, a fascinating article about the Finnish Genetic Heritage, I think they call it...

What an interesting question! I'd say, first that okay is informal, and yes is used in all sorts of circumstances. I tend to use OK in a resigned sense, as in "Oh, OK, if you insist.." or if I am answering a request from a family member, in a hurry...

I'm sure there is more to it, though.

What is our genetic heritage, then? I have no idea.

Finnish Genes: http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/geeneng.html

It seems that you're largely Baltic, Siberian and Germanic. No great surprise.

Isn't there something of a vogue for genetic linguistics? Looking for clues about the relationships between languages from the genes of their speakers? Of course - it would be a messy business. The genes of many Americans would suggest that English is closely related to West-African languages. Etc. etc. There is also a dubious theory that Basques are Neanderthals!

(I once had a boss who claimed to be half Basque. Of course, we all knew he was a complete Basque!)

>>Basques are Neanderthals<< How flattering for them.

Thanks for the link. I've always thought it's a really weird idea that Finns just hiked their way up here from the Volga Bend. The spreading of some sort of Proto-Finno-Ugric through cultural adaptation sounds much more probable. And besides, we're way too blonde to have come so far from the South. I don't know much about genetics, but I assume that it takes quite a while for the skin and hair colour of a people to change that much.

Similarly Celtic. The Scots, Irish, Welsh, Manx, Cornish, Bretons and Gallicians weren't one people. They were trading partners speaking a Celtic lingua franca.

(We've done this one before. Granted, there were Celts who spread outard from Hungary etc. etc. But they were thoroughly intermixed with Latin types on the coastal fringes of Europe.)

Edward -- got a link for those Celts? I may use them when I get back to Forty Shades of Anglo-Irish (the prospect is not inviting, at the moment).

oooh - I'm relying on memory so haven't got a link. There was an excellent R4 discussion led by Lord Melvyn of Buttermere a couple of years ago.

I gather that your Entry is a bit of a poke at tiddly-Irishism.

More of a heartfelt "get off my back".

It was all about studying various genetic diseases, particularly using the Finns who apparently constitute a natural laboratory. The woman involved, is called Dr Leena Peltonen, and the article starts on p 52, of the Discover magazine of April 2005. For instance "The rate of lactose intolerance is much lower among Finns than among populations in Asia or Africa". (p55)

The Finnish Disease database - www.findis.org

It's fascinating, but AFAIK, doesn't bear on linguistics - yet..

Here is a *working* link..

http://www.findis.org/

'bout time someone posted here.

At work, I've just been discussing a potential project which would require a website to be developed, with versions in 20 languages.

WITHOUT REFERENCE TO GOOGLE or other forms of cheating, see how long it takes you to work out which of the 25 EU countries are united by a single language.

Jaysus, you could probably make a fortune if you were able to translate Maltese into Slovene...