Issue #39

SILLY LINGUISTICS THE MAGAZINE FOR LANGUAGE LOVERS
First
to
Speak
A Good Sign Byelingualism

Visual Languages in Australia An overview
THE MAGAZINE FOR LANGUAGE LOVERS : ISSUE #39 : AUGUST 2021

T A B L E O F
CON T S
TE N
03 The Etymological Corner

By Katarzyna Ko ma ź
07 The Last Word

By Joshua Blackburn
11 A Good Sign: Visual Languages in Australia

By Rebekah Bradshaw
18 Byelingualism: An overview
By Valentin Pradelou
22 The Decline and Fall of the Latin Neuter

By Danny Bate
32
Expletive Infixation: A Fanf***ingtastic
Education
By Catherine Muxworthy
35 First to speak
By Joana Atanasova
39 It’s a bird... It’s a plane? It's... Supername!

By Joana Bourlon
Cover page photo by Kindel Media from Pexels and content page photo by Emilio Garcia on Unsplash
This week's page numbers are in Polish!
August 2021, Issue #39 Silly Linguistics: The Magazine for Language Lovers
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The
ETYMOLOGICAL
CORNER
BY KATARZYNA KOŹMA
Holiday, Urlaub, odmor, wakacje… I’m not work ing today!
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Welcome back my fellow language fans! You might have noticed that The
Etymological Corner was recently on a short hiatus. Well, sometimes life gets
in the way of doing things that we really enjoy doing. But fortunately, we are
back with our (ir)regular column now! Ironically, as I sit down today to write
this, I’m in the midst of packing and organising, as I’m preparing to take a very
much needed and long overdue summer break.
And as it is generally with these short texts that I write for you, it’s not me who
chooses a word to write about next, rather the word itself chooses me. So, as
I’m waiting to start my time off work, allow me to take you on a short journey
into the world of etymology with the words for vacations: holiday, Urlab,
odmor, and wakacje and many more!
Let’s start with English: holidays and vacation. The etymology of the British
word holidays is sort of self-explanatory: holy and day. (If we want to be even
more specific, it comes from the Anglo-Saxon hāligdæg, hālig being holy, and
dæg being day.) As you have most certainly guessed by now, the word was
originally used to indicate days of religious importance. In this place, allow me
to side-track for a second, and tell you about the British term bank holiday.
As English is my second language my first contact with the phrase was rather
confusing. (“Bank holiday?! Guys, why are you telling me about a bank having
a day off when I’m clearly asking what time I have to be at work tomorrow!”)
Bank holiday, being a term for a national public day-off in the UK, has indeed
something in common with banks. In 1871, Bank Holiday Act was introduced,
and as a result bank employees got to have fixed days off.
Ok, going back to summer breaks and English: vacation. The word was
introduced into English from Old French vacacion and originally from Latin
vacātiō, which means “a being free from a duty, service, etc.;” but also
interestingly “freedom, exemption, immunity; a freeing, exempting,
dispensation”1. (We should be free to do as we please during our vacations,
shouldn’t we?)
1
Quoted from Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, online. Link to the entry: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?
1
doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=vacatio
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As it often happens, Latin influenced also some other European languages and
so we have vacanze in Italian, vacation in French, vacação in Portugese,
vacación in Spanish, vakáció in Hungarian, and wakacje in Polish. When it
comes to Polish, though, we use wakacje mainly to indicate a summer break
for school kids or university students. Adults usually use the term urlop, which
comes from a German word Urlaub, which in turn is related to a verb
erlauben, “to permit, to allow”.
So, what about other Slavic languages? Croats have odmor which comes from
a verb odmoriti, meaning simply to rest. Czechs call their summery free time
dovolená from the word dovolený which can be translated as, similarly to the
German Urlaub, allowed, permitted. Russians have каникулы (kaníkuly). Here
once more, we have to go back to Latin, this time to the word Canicula,
meaning…a small dog. (It’ll make sense in a second, I promise).
Canicula is an alternative name for the star Sirius which rises between July
and August, which, on the Northern Hemisphere tends to be the hottest time in
a year, nowadays called by some more optimistic, thermophilic people as
summer. So here, we can see how ancient names and astronomy influence our
language, even today. Isn’t etymology fascinating?
So, however you call a summery break– I hope that you have the very best of
time and you’re able to travel safely. If you find some time in between your
adventures and time of relaxation, let us know how to say ‘holiday’ in your
language! Until the next time - keep exploring!
If you want to know more…
…about the star Canicula or Sirius – ‘See Sirius, The Brightest Star In The Night
Sky’ by Deborah Byrd, on earthsky.org – If you’d like to know more about the
star that influenced the Russian term for vacation, take a look at this
interesting article. You will learn a little bit about astronomy and about culture
at the same time.
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…about another usage of a Latin term vacātiō – ‘Vacatio Legis Institution’ –

Adam Kasprzyk. Vacatio legis is a Latin term use in the language of law in
some countries (for e.g. in Poland or Italy). It can be crudely translated as
‘vacations of the law’. Nice, isn’t it? The term is used to indicate the time period
between the announcement of a law and a time when it’s entering into force.
The academic article by Adam Kasprzyk, that you can easily find online,
explains the basics of the concept.
…about what British and American people might think of when they hear the
word holiday – film ‘Holiday’ (2006), dir. Nancy Meyers, starring Kate Winslet,
Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, and Jack Black. This romantic comedy tells a story of
two women with broken hearts who decide to… swap houses for Christmas.
And thus, our British girl ends up in sunny California whereas her new
American friend enjoys a snowy, English winter. I strongly recommend this
cosy, feel-good movie.
If you’d like to read about the etymology of a word or phrase that intrigues you send
it to magazine@sillylinguistics.com or our Twitter (@EtymologicalThe) or Instagram
(the_etymological_corner) accounts! Although we can’t promise that we’ll be able to
answer all questions we can certainly promise that we can give it a go!
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THE LAST
WORD
BY JOSHUA BLACKBURN
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Joshua Blackburn, creator of League of the Lexicon, is on a mission to

make the ultimate, alpha-and-omega language game. Eden Hart spoke
to him about how to make the perfect board game and why he can’t
spell ‘haemorrhoids’.
What is League of the Lexicon?

League of the Lexicon is a board game about words and language. It might
sound lofty, even faintly ridiculous, but we wanted to make the most
perfect, knock-it-out-the-park language game possible.
Classics like Scrabble and Rummikub are about making words, but we had
been looking for a game *about* words. There were thin pickings, so we
decided to make the game we wanted to play, but couldn’t find, ourselves.
League of the Lexicon combines exhaustive research, beautiful design and a
playful narrative. And with help from a small army of lexicographers, the
two thousand questions will give even seasoned linguists a workout.
Are you a linguist?

I make no claims to being a linguist. I still get confused about whether
something is contiguous or coterminous, and despite writing a question
about it, struggle to spell ‘haemorrhoids’. What I am, however, is curious;
and linguistics is a wonderful place for curious minds. I love delving into
the origin of words, discovering lost meanings and looking for hidden
connections. Language is not some mere functional tool; it’s suffused with
politics, culture and history. Linguistics tells the story of who we are, who
we were and who we want to be, and I love that, in all its messy glory.
One of the joys of working on the game has been how it’s made me stop
and interrogate otherwise familiar things. Language is a thread you can
keep pulling at. It’s infinitely fascinating and, really, that’s what the game
is about.
How do you play?

We didn’t want a Trivial Pursuit-style race around the board; in fact, we
didn’t want a board at all. So we conjured the tale of the League; a secret
society of adventuring lexicographers on the hunt for rare lexicographic
artefacts. Each player has a character card, and correct answers earn
Artefacts. Players must earn five Artefacts to win, but they can only keep
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Artefacts featuring a symbol also found on their player card. The rules are
exceptionally simple, which is my doing. I have a short attention span and
lose interest with complicated game rules.
The heart of the game is the questions, however. There are two thousand
in five categories, from synonyms and antonyms, to definitions, etymology
and language-based trivia. There’s also a taxing spelling bee category and
some gnarly usage questions. Some questions are straightforward (spell
‘sacrilegious’), while some are more tricksy (what is the origin of the word
‘syphilis’?). A lot of questions are multiple choice, but it’s still no cake walk
(a term which, if you’re curious, is claimed to have a particularly dark
etymology). One thing that was important was that younger players should
be able to join in too. Our mission is to share our love of language, so the
game needed to be inclusive. Of the 2,000 questions, 500 are for players
eight and up. They’ll still be stretched; but everybody ends a game knowing
more about language than when they started (which, incidentally, is our
secret, never-to-be-admitted goal).
How did you write the questions?

The task of question writing has been no mean feat. We have a small team
at Crazy Clever Games who have been immersed in many wonderful books
about language. And since the game is literally for pedants (it even says so
on the box!), we’ve had to be scrupulous in our research. We learned early
that the internet is not to be trusted. Linguistics is often not cut-and-dried,
but full of rival theories, apocryphal stories, and speculation. Too often
we’ve been suckered by something that sounds seductive on Wikipedia or
Reddit, but which turns to ash as soon as we start cross-referencing.
As much as possible, we try to double- and triple-check our ‘facts’, and if

it’s hotly debated, we’ll tend to steer clear. But even so, one can come
undone. Grammar is a particular minefield here. One grammarian’s decree
is another’s calamitous mistake. And when it’s the Chicago Manual of Style
vs the esteemed Words Into Type, it’s best to not get involved. (Or, best not
to get involved? See what I mean!)
This led me to something I’ve come to appreciate more while working on

the game. People like certainty, and mistakenly believe language should
provide it. Those people that like correcting others on their grammar or
decrying the degradation of language are commonly of this school. But
10 \ dziesięć
language is only certain until it’s not, and a mistake is only a mistake until
enough people are making it. What I’ve come to see more clearly is how
slippery, fickle, and promiscuous language can be. There are rules to
language, but the golden rule is that all rules are subject to change. Some
people doubtless find this frustrating; but I like the spirit of disruptive
democracy and dialectical churn.
One thing that makes League really special is the involvement of

lexicographers and etymologists around the world in contributing questions
to the game. We’ve reached out to dozens of amazing academics and
writers and many have been incredibly kind, contributing some wonderful
questions. It’s really raised the bar and brought something genuinely
unique to the game. It’s ensured depth and diversity and feels like an
exciting way of connecting the sometimes rarefied world of linguistics with
the real interest people have with the subject. We continue to welcome
contributions, so if anybody would like to get involved, we’d be delighted to
hear from them.
When can we expect to see the game?

After 16 months in development, League of the Lexicon is launching soon,
and it’s in equal measures exciting and scary. The game will be on the
crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and there are already a lot of people
rooting for it. As a game maker, crowd-funding is an invaluable way of
connecting a new title with a ready fanbase. And given how we’ve been
crowd-sourcing questions, crowd-funding the game felt in the spirit of the
project.
What’s particularly exciting is that this feels like the start of something.
Words and language are such endlessly interesting areas to explore that we
hope this game will just be the first. We’d love to see a League of the
Lexicon for kids not to mention a demonic edition for the real language
pros. But whatever we do, and however we do it, it will be driven by our
love of words and language, and our passion to share it.
If this is the kind of game you’d like to play, you can really help.
Information about the game and its Kickstarter campaign can be found at
www.leagueofthelexicon.com or on its Facebook page – just search for
League of the Lexicon. It’s also not too late to contribute a question. For
details, visit the website.
S ig n:
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od
Go VISUAL LANGUAGES
A IN AUSTRALIA
PART 1: PRIMARY SIGN LANGUAGE
BY REBEKAH BRADSHAW
Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels
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2020: the year everyone vowed to try a new skill in

lockdown. For my cousin and I, that meant online
classes of Auslan – Australian Sign Language. Every
Wednesday evening on Zoom, the class would mute
their microphones and spend an hour or two
conversing in complete silence. This immersion was
certainly quite challenging at first, but we soon came to
love the expressiveness and intuitiveness of the
language. Auslan is not the only sign language used to
communicate across Australia, however. The continent
hosts a rich variety of signed languages, some of them
among the oldest in the world. By exploring the
diversity and depth of signed languages across
Australia, we can really begin to appreciate the
possibilities of visual communication.
Because there is so much to say about the many sign

languages in Australia, this article has been divided into
two parts. In this first part, we will look at Auslan, the
primary language for the majority of Deaf Australians.
The second part will focus on “bimodal bilingualism”
and how it is fostered in Aboriginal communities
through the use of alternate sign languages.
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THE EMERGENCE OF AUSLAN PRIMARY SIGN LANGUAGES

AROUND THE WORLD
Like any language, Auslan was not invented
but developed naturally over time as the Deaf Because primary sign languages are
community in Australia grew. The language is independent of spoken languages, not all
closely related to British Sign Language (BSL) countries where English is spoken as a first
due to two schools established in Sydney and language use similar signs. In fact, American
Melbourne by BSL users in the 1800s. Auslan Sign Language (ASL) has more in common
developed amongst the students at these with French Sign Language (LSF) than with
schools, who then spread the language Auslan and BSL, and LSF is itself closely
throughout the rest of the country. Auslan still related to Irish Sign Language (ISL). In more
has two main dialects today as a result of recently colonised countries such as Australia
these two different schools. and the U.S., relationships between languages
can be directly observed, with the nature of
Auslan is not a visual representation of the new sign languages dependent on the
spoken English; it has its own unique nationality of the people who arrived to
vocabulary and grammar. It is not to be establish Deaf schools and institutions. Auslan
conflated with Signed English, invented by developed primarily from BSL, but was also
educators in the 1980s as an attempt to influenced by ISL through the establishment
improve English literacy in Deaf children of Catholic schools by Irish nuns.
whose first language was Auslan. Signed
English combines Auslan signs, made-up Something that distinguishes these two
signs, and finger-spelling to exactly follow the language “families” is their finger-spelling:
grammar and sentence structure of spoken Auslan and BSL use a two-handed spelling
English. Signed English can be useful for system, whilst ASL, LSF and ISL spell with one
visually reinforcing a spoken English phrase. hand. In general, Auslan and ASL are mutually
However, it is falling out of fashion in the Deaf unintelligible, whilst an Auslan speaker and
community in favour of Auslan, with its BSL speaker would have more luck
grammar that is much more natural for the understanding each other. However, Auslan
signer. does borrow signs from ASL in the same way
that spoken languages borrow from one
another.
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CREATING MEANING IN AUSLAN

Part of what makes Auslan such an expressive language are the diverse ways in which meaning is
constructed. As well as a collection of 62 hand-shapes, Auslan relies on the orientation of the
handshape, its position within the “signing space”, and its movement through the space to form
words and grammar. More meaning is added to a word or phrase through non-manual features
such as facial expression, the shape of the mouth, mouthing English words, or moving the eyes,
head, or body in certain ways. The manual signs for 'how are you' and 'I am well' are the same –
placing the hand(s) flat on the chest with fingers together and thumb(s) pointing upwards, then
moving them away from the chest whilst curling up the fingers so that the end result is a
thumbs-up. Context and facial expression differentiate the meanings of the two signs. You can
imagine some of the challenges that a global pandemic has presented to Auslan users – the
wearing of masks may obscure some meaning, and conversations over Zoom are made awkward
by the need to limit your signing space to the camera's field of view.
The manual sign for ‘how are you’ and ‘I am well
Like any language, the connection between the form of the word and its meaning may be
arbitrary. Being a visual language, however, there is more scope in Auslan for "iconic" signs that
evoke a visual characteristic of what is being referred to. For example, the sign for my hometown
of Sydney is an iconic sign, representing our recognisable Harbour Bridge.
The sign for ‘Sydney'
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Expression in Auslan is also remarkably flexible. “Established signs” are those standardised signs
that would appear in the dictionary, but a large part of communication in Auslan involves what
are known as “productive signs”: these are signs that are actively created by signers in real-time
by adapting and combining “meaningful units”. For example, the sign for ‘open’ can be adapted in
an almost unlimited number of ways to indicate what is being opened (a book, a jar, a door…)
Productive signs help to bring the language to life and make it suitable for communicating across
the full range of everyday experiences.
AUSLAN 101
Because Auslan is a visual language, it would be remiss of me not to actually show you some
signs. Here are a few more signs to add to your vocabulary:
The first sign is the sign for ‘Auslan’. With both palms flat and fingers spaced apart, bring your
right forearm up parallel with your body so your right hand is about the level of your chin with
palm facing forward. Your left forearm will extend across your body so that your left hand sits
underneath your right hand with its palm facing your right forearm. Rotate your wrists slightly to
give your hands some movement (like subtle jazz-hands).
The sign for ‘Auslan’
A useful thing to know in Auslan, as it is in any language, is how to say ‘thankyou’. This is a very
simple sign: with hand flat and fingers together, start with your fingertips touching the tip of
your chin, then move your hand away from your chin like you’re blowing a kiss.
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The sign for ‘thankyou’
The sign for ‘Australia’ is an arbitrary sign today, although it is believed the etymology of the word
has something to do with the notion of convicts being “picked up” from England and dropped in
a new country. With your forearms extended in front of you and palms facing the floor, lift your
hands slightly whilst bringing your middle fingers and thumbs together, allowing the rest of your
fingers to follow. Then drop your hands whilst extending all of your fingers again. This whole sign
should feel like one fluid motion.
The sign for ‘Australia’
An alternative sign for ‘Australia’ has also been developed by Aboriginal Auslan users who did not
feel that the existing sign represented the country that they knew. This new sign is not meant to
replace the existing one, but provides signers with an extra option. To make this alternative sign
for ‘Australia’, place your left hand in front of you with your palm facing down, your fingers
together and your thumb pointing towards your body – this represents the rough shape of the
Australian continent. Circle your right hand, forming the same hand-shape, above your left hand,
then ball it into a fist and place it on top of your left hand – this represents Uluru, the heart of
Australia.
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A new sign for ‘Australia’
It is fitting to end this first part on an Aboriginal-devised Auslan sign, as Aboriginal communities
across Australia have been using sign languages in many ways for thousands of years. These
signed languages are commonly used alongside spoken languages, in a fascinating and fairly
unique phenomenon known as “bimodal bilingualism”. This will be explored further in part two
of our deep dive into Australian visual communication, so stay tuned!
Further Reading:
Johnston, T., & Schembri, A. (2007). Australian Sign Language: An introduction to sign language
linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Slegers, C. (2010). Signs of change: Contemporary attitudes to Australian sign language. Australian
Review of Applied Linguistics, 33(1), 5-1.
https://www.auslan.org.au/
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"BYELINGUALISM"
An overview
By Valentin Pradelou
In many Facebook posts from Steve the Vagabond or

The Language Nerd, we read about "byelingualism".
What is it? A pretty fun play on words, a mix between
"bye" (short for goodbye, in case you've never
encountered that word) and "bilingual" or "bilingualism".
It plays on the following idea: when you learn a

language, you make your brain work on learning words,
syntactic structures, etc. Long story short, you learn to
see the world how the language sees it. If this
conception is very different from what you know, then
learning a new language may cause some memory
lapse in finding words or phrases structures.
This phenomenon happened to every language

learner. It also happens to be stronger on certain
people. In this article, I'll try to give an overview of this
idea. What is really "byelingualism"? Are there true
examples of it? Yes there sure are, and I'll try to show
them.
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What is "Byelingualism"?
We've said it earlier, this word consists in a mix of "bye" and

"bilingualism". It actually is a way to mean a memory lapse. But
this lapse would be directly related with language learning.
Why do we forget? In an article from 2013 on allodocteurs.fr

intitled Neuropsychologie: pourquoi oublie-t-on? are given some
elements. The author tells us two important elements. First,
memory lapse is due to a certain deterioration if we didn't search
for particular information for a long time. Then, if we memorized
other pieces of information close to others we already had in
mind, it may cause some interferences. These interferences are
actually a cornerstone in forgetting words. Learning a new
language is somewhat interfering with our everyday language,
which can explain memory lapses in one or another language
spoken, or currently learnt.
Based on that, every language learner experiences it. And I'll try
to describe how, based on my own experience.
Personal examples of "byelingualism"
I happen to have lived a good number of byelingual situations, so

do my friends, who told me some. Thus, I can gather them in three
different situations.
First, it comes with a very common problem in language learning:

memory. You want to say a word in a language you speak fluently.
But this word doesn't want to get out. And it won't, and it won't
and... Ah yeah, "expand"! I only had it in French, étendre.
Fortunately, it's rather rare and it's to be cleared quick.
Another version of it is more surprising. Forgetting words in a

fluently spoken language is common, however the native tongue
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is different. Native tongue is the one you've grown up with, and

the other languages come after, and build around this main one.
It often happens, when speaking in French and suddenly,
memory lapse. I have the word in another language (English 9
times out of 10). What's this word, ah come on... *imitating an
expansion with hands*, expand, expand, I have expand in mind,
what's the French for it, it's simple, expendre? It doesn't even
exist. ETENDRE! (It can take several hours).
It's pretty disturbing because I have (and I think many people

have) an unconscious feeling like my native tongue is an
untouchable castle. As if it was impossible to fail with my native
language (of course it is, it's pretty common, and it doesn't
matter).
Finally, the funniest situation. There are some times in which I'll
only have the image in my mind. Like, let's say, a streetlamp. I
have a streetlamp in my mind. And I want to say it in French (the
word is lampadaire). Impossible. It doesn't come. Then, against
my will, my brain starts to search the word in English, French,
Hungarian, Esperanto, Spanish, in all the languages I even barely
speak. And I don't have the word, in any language. The poor
streetlamp is trying to stay alive amongst brain cells fighting with
each other. And I'm like fooling around, wondering how I can
forget a simple word like this, come on. Sometimes, hours after,
brain cells come back, holding the word down, cuffed, and
presenting it to me like "he was hiding behind the word "fish" in
Hungarian, he was trying to escape to the "forever forgotten
zone". Remember you've let your mathematics knowledge go
there! Please be careful from now on". And then it's okay. More
seriously, situations like these are pretty bothering and
frustrating. You feel like you have the word on your tongue, and
you're not able to pronounce it.
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Conclusion
This is my version of byelingualism. And I hope I've told stories

that happened to you too. Byelingualism is related with memory,
and memory is somewhat related with emotions. Learning a
language with pleasure is a good way to insufflate positive
emotions to your work, and stay away from byelingualism.
I hope you enjoyed this article. Feel free to write to me for

comments or anything!
22 \ dwadzieścia dwa
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE
Latin
Neuter
By Danny Bate
There are many significant

differences between Latin and
its linguistic descendants, the
Romance languages. One that
stands out from the rest is
grammatical gender.
Latin has three genders for its

nouns: masculine, feminine and
neuter. However, in French,
Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan,
Italian and all the other many
Romance varieties that lack
official use and support, there
are only two genders.
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For example, the French nouns chat, fromage and garçon (‘cat, cheese, boy’) belong
to the masculine gender, while femme, ville and maison (‘woman, city, house’) are
feminine.
Of the Latin nouns dominus, gladiātor, virtūs, porta, caput and argentum (‘master,
gladiator, virtue, gate, head, silver’), the first two are masculine, the second two
are feminine and the final two are neuter.
It seems that the Latin neuter has been lost over the course of history. The nouns that
bore the feature have been reanalysed as nouns of the surviving masculine and
feminine genders, thereby carving the neuter up according to where each of its words
would fit best.
But why? And how? And when? How can a language lose something as fundamental as
a whole gender? How can its absence be so uniform across the Romance family? This
article is an introduction to the decline and death of the Latin neuter gender – as well
as its many ghosts that continue to haunt its daughter languages.
Pre-Latin and Posh Latin
The neuter gender is very old indeed, arguably older than the other two genders.
Through the systematic comparison of ancient languages, we believe that Proto-Indo-
European, in its oldest reconstructable state, had only two gender-like categories for
its nouns: animate and inanimate (that is, self-moving and not-self-moving things). It
was the inanimate that became the neuter gender in its descendant languages, while
the animate would later split into two further genders. This later three-gender system
is what Latin inherited.
If you’ve studied any Latin (whether it be the Classical Latin of Cicero or Caesar, or the
language’s later life in medieval and modern times), the three-gender system seems
strong. Roman grammarians recognised this; following Greek practices, they taught
that a noun could be masculīnus, feminīnus or neuter (literally ne-uter ‘not either’).
Neuter nouns abound across the traditional groupings of Latin nouns, known as its
declensions. Students today must learn that there can be neuters of the second
declension like bellum ‘war’ or templum ‘temple’, of the third declension like nōmen
‘name’ and tempus ‘time’, and of the fourth declension like cornū ‘horn’ and genū
‘knee’.
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However, the Latin that has survived until today reflects only a fraction of the life of
the language, and that fraction is for the most part the prestigious Latin of the Roman
elite. The power of prestige cannot be underestimated; the norms of standard Latin
would have had enormous influence on all of society, acting like a brake on the speed
of change – at least in the written language, if not the spoken language too. Our
sources for ‘sub-elite’ Latin are rare and offer little more than glimpses into linguistic
phenomena outside the villas and senate houses. Graffiti, such as the inscriptions of
Pompeii, and quotations in prose texts are therefore treasured for their vulgarity (in all
senses of the word) and are subject to much analysis.
Latins Unknown
To trace the decline of the neuter, we can begin with a theoretical principle: the
process must have begun early, at a time when Latin was still a unified language. If we
do not accept this as a first premise, it becomes very difficult to explain why the neuter
is absent from the whole Romance family – why its decline was so uniform. This is not
to say that the neuter had died completely when Romance languages first emerged,
only that the seeds had already been sown and the die already cast.
The limited evidence seems to back this up. An oft-mentioned example of the change
is found in the Satyricon, a wonderful and quite unique piece of fiction written by
Petronius in the first century AD (a date comfortably within the era of Classical Latin).
Perhaps the most famous scene in the story is Trimalchio’s dinner, a lavish party
hosted by the freedman Trimalchio.
Because of the guests’ backgrounds and the idiosyncrasies in their speech, the
evening’s conversation is thought to include authentic features typical of sub-elite
Latin. For example, Dama, one of the guests, says:
“Et mundum frīgus habuimus. Vix mē balneus calfēcit. Tamen calda

pōtiō vestiārius est.“
And we’ve been having a real cold spell. My bath has barely warmed
me. A hot drink though is as good as a wardrobe. (Satyricon 41)
This piece of small talk includes the word balneus ‘bath’. Here the ending -us identifies
the noun balneus as masculine in gender, yet the word is typically found as balneum, a
neuter noun ending in -um. In brief, a neuter noun has become masculine.
25 \ dwadzieścia pięć
This piece of small talk includes the word balneus ‘bath’. Here the ending -us
identifies the noun balneus as masculine in gender, yet the word is typically found as
balneum, a neuter noun ending in -um. In brief, a neuter noun has become masculine.
The fact that this early and rare example of the change was included in the low-
register, colloquial speech of Trimalchio’s guests’ conversation is telling. Who knows
how common it was to say balneus at this time? It’s hard to say with any certainty, but
Petronius, who wrote this scene with all the necessary reflection and deliberation of an
author, must have thought that the choice of word sent the right message.
A Roman soirée. Image taken from here.
Other examples of this un-neutering have been proposed and argued over in various
sources for Classical Latin. Some even gained popular use in the prestige language; the
word opera is seen used not as a neuter plural noun (meaning ‘works’), but as a
singular feminine noun in this line by Cicero:
“quīdam nimis magnum studium multamque operam in rēs obscūrās

atque difficilēs cōnferunt“
Some apply too much study and too much work to obscure and
difficult matters. (de Officiis I.19)
This reanalysis of opera is worth noting, because it offers us a chance to consider how
effortless and reasonable a change in a word’s gender might be. The ending -a is found
not only at the end of neuter nouns, but also in countless feminine nouns in Latin,
such as fēmina ‘woman’ or tabula ‘table’. If its meaning also permits it, there is nothing
in the shape of the word to stop opera transforming from a neuter third-declension
noun into a feminine first-declension noun. It is likely that there was much more
variation than we presume, with some alternative forms gaining widespread and long-
term success, while others remained limited to smaller areas. After all, Latin was a
living language like any other.
26 \ dwadzieścia sześć
Moreover, the loss of the neuter gender coincided with the equally important and slow
loss of Latin’s grammatical cases and the different endings that expressed them. As
cases and endings merged and faded away, there was even less to distinguish a neuter
noun from those of another gender. For example, the Latin noun dōnum ‘gift’ feels
strong in its neuter gender as long as the final -m is present and clear enough to mark
the word as categorially different from a masculine noun like ventus ‘wind’. However,
if the -s, -m and other case endings of these words became muddled and faded away,
we would be left with ‘donu‘ and ‘ventu‘, which we would then reasonably group
together under the same gender. This is indeed what happened to Latin dōnum and
ventus; they became masculine don and vent in French, masculine don and viento in
Spanish and masculine dono and vento in Italian.
The re-gendering of neuter nouns had wholesale effect. A fair few plural neuters
became singular feminine nouns by means of their common ending -a. We see this in
Latin mālum ‘apple’, the plural of which is māla; it was māla that became a feminine
noun in its own right, giving Italian its word for ‘apple’, mela. However, the majority
became masculine; as we can see in the example of ventus and dōnum, second-
declension neuter nouns changed into masculine nouns, thanks to the vowel in their
final syllables that they had in common.
This vowel went on to become the defining feature of masculine singular nouns in
Romance languages like Spanish; the Spanish words libro ‘book’, hermano ‘brother’,
cielo ‘sky’ and negocio ‘deal’ all end in -o and are now all masculine, even though two
come from Latin neuter nouns that once ended in -um. Neuter nouns of other shapes
and declensions also joined this new and improved o-group of the Romance two-
gender system. For example, Latin tempus ‘time’ and corpus ‘body’ (neuter nouns of
the third declension) gave way to the new system and became Italian tempo and corpo,
both masculine.
The Romance languages of Europe.
27 \ dwadzieścia siedem
Dying… But Not Dead?
So, end of story? Neuter nouns were shared out between the masculine and the
feminine, and the neuter gender died out as a grammatical category?
That’s the general idea, but it’s by no means the whole truth. Traces of the neuter
gender can still be found across the Romance family today – grammatical ghosts that
can go unnoticed or undiscussed. Specifically, the traces to be herein discussed find
themselves in Romanian, Italian, Asturian and Romance languages of southern Italy
like Neapolitan. With each one, we will see the ways in which the Latin neuter gender
still has an effect on the language, but also how these effects do not in fact
demonstrate its continued existence.
Lovers of Romance may have noticed, perhaps with some concern, that Romanian has
not yet been mentioned. Romanian is also a member of the Romance family and seems
at first glance to buck the gender trend. It is traditionally said that Romanian has three
genders, like Latin. On one level, this is true, as all Romanian nouns do indeed
conform to one of three patterns. Nouns of the ‘neuter’ gender also preserve much of
the status and appearance of the original Latin neuter. For example,
bărbat (‘man’) is masculine. Its plural is bărbați.

casă (‘house’) is feminine. Its plural is case.
măr (‘apple’) is neuter. Its plural is mere, and it comes from the Latin neuter noun
mālum.
However, although three categories of noun can be identified in Romanian and

labelled with the same three terms used for Latin, the status of the Romanian neuter is
disputed. The issue is that these nouns do not behave like a fully-fledged gender.
Importantly, there are no dedicated neuter endings for adjectives; instead, when a
Romanian ‘neuter’ noun combines with an adjective, that adjective will be either
masculine or feminine
un bărbat frumos (‘a beautiful man’) – the adjective has a masculine ending to
match the noun
o casă frumoasă (‘a beautiful house’) – the adjective is feminine
un măr frumos (‘a beautiful apple’) – the noun is neuter, but the adjective and
indefinite article associated with it are masculine, as with bărbat
To be precise, Romanian neuters take masculine adjectives when they are singular, but
feminine adjectives when they are plural. Compare case and mere here:
28 \ dwadzieścia osiem
doi bărbați frumoși (‘two beautiful men’)

două case frumoase (‘two beautiful houses’)
două mere frumoase (‘two beautiful apples’)
The fact that these nouns must use masculine and feminine adjectives goes against the
independence of the neuter gender. As Hockett (1958) says, “genders are classes of
nouns reflected in the behaviour of associated words”; without dependent words that
are similarly neuter, Romanian ‘neuter’ nouns present only the illusion of a separate
category. Because of their use of both feminine and masculine adjectives, linguists
refer to these nouns as ‘ambigenous’ – that is, they belong to both of the two genders.
This view may surprise some people, seeming contradictory to what has traditionally
been taught about Romanian. So, allow me to put it another way: if Romanian neuter
nouns do not effect the gender of their associated words, and are only identified as
neuter because of their own inflected forms, surely this is only a matter of noun
declension, not of a separate grammatical gender?
Thus, in Romanian, yet again, the neuter seems to have died out.
Ambigenous nouns can also be spotted across the Romance languages of Italy,
including a handful in Standard Italian. As in Romanian, most of these nouns inherit
their special status from the Latin neuter gender and again show a division according
to whether they are singular or plural. For example, the Italian nouns uovo ‘egg’, labbro
‘lip’ and braccio ‘arm’ do look and indeed are masculine – when they are singular.
While the majority of masculine nouns have plural forms ending in -i (e.g. orso ‘bear’,
orsi ‘bears’), uovo, labbro and braccio have the plural forms uova ‘eggs’, labbra ‘lips’ and
braccia ‘arms’. These are now treated as feminine by Italian, but really it was the
neuter gender that provided their plural -a ending. Compare the modern words with
their Latin ancestors: ōvum, lābrum and bracchium (in the plural: ōva, lābra and
bracchia). For example, ‘I eat a delicious egg’ in Italian is:
mangio un uovo delizioso
In this, uovo and all its associated words are masculine. If you want to express that you
eat a multitude of tasty eggs, all those words become feminine in gender:
mangio molte uova deliziose
29 \ dwadzieścia dziewięć
The third and final challenge to the death of the Latin neuter comes from the Romance
languages of the south of Italy and north of Spain. Distinct but unofficial Romance
languages like Neapolitan (spoken in and around Naples) and Asturian (spoken in
Asturias, a part of Spain) seem to have definite articles (equivalent to English the) for
three genders, not two. Asturian has el for masculine nouns, la for feminine and lo for
those nouns termed ‘neuter’. In Neapolitan and similar varieties of that part of Italy,
we can find neuter definite articles like ‘o, lo, u and ru that stand alongside the articles
for masculine and feminine nouns.
As an aside, it’s important and interesting to qualify that in modern-day Neapolitan,

while there are seemingly only two definite articles, namely ‘o and ‘a, we find that ‘o
sometimes triggers raddoppiamento sintattico on the noun that follows it. This is a
fascinating phenomenon, a hallmark of south Italian Romance. Essentially,
‘raddoppiamento sintattico‘ means that the first consonant of the noun is doubled for
some grammatical reason. For example, in some contexts, Roma ‘Rome’ will be
pronounced Rroma in Neapolitan; to go ‘to Rome’ is to go a Rroma, with a doubled or
‘geminated’ consonant. If you’re interested, this wonderful thingcan in fact be found
in what is probably the most famous example of the Neapolitan language: the song ‘O
sole mio (‘My sunshine’), specifically in the words “‘e llastre d”a fenesta toia” (which
rather prosaically translates to ‘your window panes’).
Since the definite article ‘o causes raddoppiamento on only a limited group of nouns,
this is taken to be the continuation of a distinct neuter definite article and gender. For
example,
‘o libro (‘the book’ ) – masculine in gender

‘a casa (‘the house’) – feminine
‘o ffierro (‘the iron’) – neuter, with raddoppiamento, from the Latin neuter noun
ferrum.
What I find most interesting is that this doubling of consonants seems to be the way
that the language compensated for the loss of another consonant. This idea goes back
to the Latin word ille, which meant ‘that’ and is the origin of definite articles like
French le, Spanish el and Neapolitan ‘o. The neuter form of ille was illud, and when the
final -d of illud disappeared, this gave rise to the double consonants in Neapolitan
neuters like ‘o ffierro.
30 \ trzydzieści
I digress. The key question is whether these supposed neuter definite articles
demonstrate the existence of a neuter gender. Again, sadly, the answer is no. These
definite articles and the nouns they are used with (no matter what their origins) seem
not to constitute a neuter gender, but rather to signify that the noun is something
abstract or a physical mass – that is, an indivisible substance, like water or gold. It’s
not uncommon for mass nouns to have their own specific grammatical features; for an
English example, it’s unnatural to combine them with the indefinite article and say
things like a water or a gold. Because Neapolitan ‘o ffierro ‘the iron’ and Asturian lo
lleche ‘the milk’ refer to a metallic and a liquid substance, they are marked as such by
the ‘neuter’ definite article.
Why does this contradict the existence of a neuter gender? Because we find this “mass
gender” (Harmon 2007) used with nouns that were not neuter in Latin, and because
nouns in these languages can appear both with and without the feature, according to
whether they have a mass meaning or not. This is therefore not a grammatical feature
on the same level as the masculine and feminine genders; instead, the mass gender is
a feature of nouns determined by semantics – to what sort of thing the noun refers.
In Neapolitan, we can find both ‘o pane ‘the loaf’ (masculine) and ‘o ppane ‘the bread’
(neuter, with raddoppiamento), in which the neuter noun refers to a general substance
and the masculine to an individual thing. The noun itself comes from Latin pānis,
originally a masculine word, and so has joined this group of Neapolitan mass nouns
through the new semantic function of the neuter. Likewise, the difference between
Asturian el pelu (masculine) and lo pelo (neuter) is that one concerns a single hair,
while the other, the neuter, refers to hair in general.
To Conclude
It does seem that the neuter gender of Latin is indeed dead. As the Romance family
emerged in the early medieval period, some of the new languages thoroughly divided
up the neuter between the masculine and the feminine. This is the case with French,
Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. Other languages, most notably Italian and Romanian,
preserved the illusion of a third category for some of their nouns, but really these are
ambigenous – caught between two genders and changing according to quantity.
Lastly, languages like Neapolitan and Asturian have transformed the Latin neuter into
something new. For them, it has come to work alongside grammatical gender,
distinguishing countable nouns from uncountable.
There is more that could be mentioned, but I think this is enough to demonstrate the
variety of the Romance family and the many phenomena that can emerge from the
dissolution of something as big as a grammatical gender. The Latin neuter may be
dead, but it didn’t go out without a fight.
31 \ trzydzieści jeden
References
Carretero Garcia, P. 2017. Agreement in Asturian. In: Butt, M., & King, T. H. (eds.):
Proceedings of the LFG’17 Conference. University of Konstanz. 188–208. Stanford, CA:
CSLI Publications.
Colacino, C. 1999. Neapolitan: An Introductory Course. Available here:
http://www.duesicilie.org/OLDSITE/Neapolitan5.html
Harmon, S. E. 2007. Gender in the Romance Languages: An Evolutionary Approach.
The University of Texas.
Hockett, C. F. 1958. A course in modern linguistics. New York: Macmillan
Many thanks to Arnold Platon (@Arnold_Platon) for his help with the Romanian
examples.
32 \ trzydzieści dwa
Expletive
Infixation
A FANF***INGTASTIC EDUCATION
By Catherine Muxworthy
Photo by Dollar Gill on Unsplash

33 \ trzydzieści trzy
Etmesis,
xpletive Infixation is similar to the idea of
which literally means ‘to cut’ and is a
This rule of where to place to expletive does not
always ring true, however. It is insufficient to
linguistic model in which a word or phrase is explain examples such as infixing an expletive
separated in two and another word is put within the word unbelievable. When examining
between them. For example, a-whole-nother the word unbelievable in the context of
(whole inserted into the word ‘another’). expletive infixation it becomes clear that there
Expletive Infixation, however, is slightly are some exceptions to the previously
different from tmesis because the words are not mentioned syllable break rule. In some cases,
necessarily compounds, as they are in tmesis. morpheme boundaries – the smallest
meaningful unit within language as words, in
When an expletive or profanity is inserted into the case of unbelievable the morpheme is ‘un’ –
another word, this is known as expletive takes precedence over the rule of syllable
infixation. The use of this linguistic tool is boundaries. Therefore, the popular expletive
usually a way of intensifying or over- infixation for unbelievable is un-fucking-
exaggerating the statement. Examples of believable.
expletive infixation can be found in many
English speaker’s everyday vocabulary such as; However, it is not uncommon to hear the
abso-bloody-lutely or fan-fucking-tastic. expletive infixation for unbelievable to follow
Despite the fact that these words and phrases the primary rule, breaking at the stressed
are most often used in informal settings, there syllable, creating unbe-fucking-lievable, which
are some unique linguistics rules that govern still flows and sounds correct to speakers. It is
how expletive infixation is used and how the more common though to hear to morpheme
words are created. boundary version of this expletive infixation.
Since most children are shielded from swearing In even rarer examples, some expletive
and profanity, expletive infixation is not infixations one letter from a word and create
something most speakers are introduced to two sounds from it. If we look at the word
until after childhood. Despite this late start exactly, the first letter ‘e’ becomes an ‘eg’ sound
with the linguistic feature, most English when a swear word is inserted within it. The
speakers can form new examples of expletive result of this expletive infixation is eg-fucking-
infixation in their own speech pretty easily once zactly rather than e-fucking-xactly or ex-
they’ve been introduced to the concept. This fucking-actly.
suggests that rules and patterns of expletive
infixation are not arbitrary but do derive from Another theory of how expletive infixation
fundamental aspects of English phonology such should work and sound in the English language
as tmesis. comes from linguist, John McCarthy.
McCarthy’s ideas are based on the idea of
The first simple rule for making expletive prosody, a linguistic feature which is concerned
infixation work governs where the inserted with the elements of speech that are not
word should go within the other word. The individual phonetic segments (vowels and
expletive infixation should occur at the syllable consonants). Instead, prosody focuses
boundary. Usually, the word is, therefore, linguistics functions including syllables,
placed just before the primary stressed syllable. intonation, stress, tone, and rhythm of speech.
For example, when inserting an expletive into These elements are also known as
the word absolutely, there is a syllable break suprasegmentals.
after ‘abso’ and ‘lut’ is the stressed syllable so the
expletive goes in between ‘abso’ and ‘lutely’, McCarthy explains his theory of expletive
making the correct expletive infixation abso- infixation stating that "the metrical stress tree
freaking-lutely rather than ab-freaking- of the host is minimally restructured to
solutely, which to English speakers sounds accommodate the stress tree of the infix". The
instinctively wrong. best example to showcase McCathy’s idea is if
34 \ trzydzieści cztery
we take a look at the word unbelievable again

and compare it with the word irresponsible.
Both of these words have identical syllable
stress patterns and for both words, the first
syllable is a separate morpheme. Despite how
similar these words seem, their preferred
insertions points for profanity are different.
We have already seen how in the case of
unbelievable, the infixation comes after the
morpheme ‘un’ but the same cannot be done
with irresponsible. McCarthy explains that this
anomaly is due to the fact that both words have
different prosodic structures. The infix cannot
therefore fall after the morpheme ‘ir’ as it does
with ‘un’ in unbelievable before ‘irre’ at the
beginning of word for a single prosodic foot.
Thus, if you infix an expletive in irresponsible
the result is irre-bloody-reponsible.
The placement of the infixation is not the only
rule that this linguistic feature follows either.
You will likely notice that when it comes to
expletive infixation, some swear words work,
while others don’t or are lesser used. The most
commonly interested expletives in English are
adjectival, either adjectives such as ‘bloody’ or
participles such as fucking, freaking, blooming
or bleeding. Nouns on the other hand (such as
arsehole or bastard) are not used as they make
bad examples that don’t roll of the tongue in the
same jocular way as the earlier examples.
The English language is full of these strange
unofficial rules that dictate how we speak and
create new examples of linguistic features such
as expletive infixation and the way that English
speakers tend to learn them is not through
grammar lessons but just because a phrase or
word sounds right to us.
35 \ trzydzieści pięć
BY JOANA ATANASOVA
First to
Speak
Howlongagohaveweactually
startedtocommunicatewith
eachotherverbally
Photo by Mihai Surdu on Unsplash

36 \ trzydzieści sześć
M y husband and I walked into a busy gas Let’s start by asking ourselves why is
station last weekend. Long queue ensured, he speaking a unique characteristic for homo
got in line to save us a spot and I scoured the sapiens exclusively? Put your fingers against
station for drinks and snacks. I had to ask him your throat and speak out loud, feel that
what he wanted, but since he was in line and I vibration? That’s your voice box, also called
was at the other side of the station holding the “larynx”, which is the organ responsible for
refrigerator door open, there was no way to speech. Scientists believe that speech can’t
even mouth my question since we were have physically happened before 200,000
wearing masks, and all the noise ensured he years ago, because that’s when we’ve
wouldn’t hear me even if I yelled. So I mimed evolved our voice boxes and muscle control in
this elaborate routine until he finally our throats to actually be able to produce
understood me, mimed back and I got what words, without them it would have been
he needed. This whole interpretative gas grunts and sounds. Interestingly enough
station dancing really got me thinking — were though, Homo Erectus, our direct
humans always able to speak? At what point predecessors, whose evidence is found to
in evolution did we stop ooga-booga-ing, and have existed around 1.9 million years ago, are
actually started to communicate? Were considered to have not evolved a voice box
Neanderthals capable of verbal yet, based on anthropological evidence,
communication? however prof. Daniel Everett has evidence
this might not be the case.
The origin of language and whether or not our
ancestors like the Neanderthals or Homo The case is simple — Homo Erectus were our
Erectus were even able to speak is a big, big first fully standing ancestor, they originated in
mystery. If we track our own species’ steps, East Africa and have hence forth spread their
Homo sapiens, we have evidence that dates territory, including to the Island of Flores (the
back to around 200,000 years that says that, recently discovered Homo floresiensis is proof
well, we existed, and since speaking is for that voyage), which is in Indonesia. You
considered to be our unique characteristic, we can imagine they didn’t do this by foot, but
can assume that spoken language existed rather — they sailed there. This suggests that
since around that timeline. So how did their they needed a form of transportation to
speech, their language sound like? Obviously actually get there via water, which in itself
Sumerian didn’t just fall from the sky around suggests that this couldn’t have been done
3100 BCE in Mesopotamia (the first written without any form of communication as it
evidence of language), that’s just our first requires a large amount of organization.
written evidence of language ever, hence Which is just enough evidence to suggest that
there must have been plenty of evolving some form of language might have existed
before it reached the point where someone before Homo sapiens, perhaps being the
said “Hey, maybe we should write this down?” catalyser for the evolution of such an

37 \ trzydzieści siedem
appendage as the larynx, which is solely used Max Müller published a series of theories,
for speech. concerning the origin of language and what
the first men might have used to communicate
We already covered the fact that nobody with:
before Homo Sapiens had a larynx and
therefore couldn’t speak at all, but we also First one is the “Bow-wow”. The bow-wow or
have evidence to suggest that Homo Erectus cuckoo theory, which Müller attributed to the
physically needed some form of German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder,
communication in order to have the saw early words as imitations of the cries of
organization to cover new land and reach an beasts and birds, what that means — early
actual island across a body of water. How in humans saw animals around them and
the world did they communicate then? It was attempted to imitate them.
so far back that there are absolutely no
historical traces whatsoever, there are no Second one, and ignore the provocative name
comparable circumstances either, so all we for it, is “Pooh-pooh”. The pooh-pooh theory
can do is assume at this point. An interesting saw the first words as emotional interjections
case that suggests that it’s not just speech and exclamations triggered by pain, pleasure,
that makes language is the case of surprise, etc, which is very close to what
Nicaraguan Sign Language — this is a case toddlers that are just beginning to develop
where a sign language was developed by language skills do if you haven’t noticed, but
accident by deaf kids in a number of schools it’s logical if you think about it when there is
in Nicaragua. The case is from the 1980s, as no actual language available to use. The
before that there was no officially developed pooh-pooh theory suggests that the early
sign language and deaf people were generally humans’ first needs to communicate were to
isolated using pointing and mimics to interact express themselves — yelling when in pain,
with family members and siblings. Until a laughing when happy, ooh-ing and ahh-ing
program for deaf kids gathered around fifty when surprised.
pupils and they ended up developing their
own sign language spontaneously. This is an Next theory that Müller had is “Ding-dong”.
important example, because it gives an Müller suggested what he called the ding-
insight to modern linguistics about how dong theory, which states that all things have
languages might have been formed hundreds a vibrating natural resonance, echoed
of thousands of years ago. somehow by man in his earliest words.
Imagine an African grey parrot, repeating
But let’s focus on the first forms of spoken everything and anything they hear — it’s kind
language, and Homo sapiens in particular. As of like that. Imagine an early human hearing
we have no actual, physical evidence of what thunder for the first time and having to explain
or how they might have spoken, we’ll have to it to the others, or wind blowing, or water
assume. In 1861 a historical linguist named running in the river, but having no word for it.

38 \ trzydzieści osiem
Similar to hearing a sound at night and trying hundreds of thousands of years later — the
to repeat it to your spouse so they listen for urge to speak, understand, and communicate
the same exact thing. with one another. And isn’t it remarkable? We
look back to our great- great- great- great-
“Yo-he-ho”. The yo-he-ho theory claims grandfathers and grandmothers, some
language emerged from collective rhythmic 200,000 years ago, trying to understand them
labor, the attempt to synchronize muscular and learn their ways, seeking to know where
effort resulting in sounds such as heave our own language came to be what we use
alternating with sounds such as ho. In other, today, we come up with theories and wonder
non sciency words — like chants from the how they spoke and what sounds they made.
grunts of heavy labor, as early humans didn’t At least one thing never changes, no matter
just exist and eat berries, they had to actually the time — we’ve always been humans, doing
work for their survival. The yo-he-ho theory is typically human things like whistling when
work-centric, as most of the daytime was imitating wind.
spent in some kind of labor — hunting,
skinning, cooking animals, gathering, making
fire etc, suggesting that the origins of
language was indeed there.
And last but not least — “Ta-ta”. This did not

feature in Max Müller's list, having been
proposed in 1930 by Sir Richard Paget.
According to the ta-ta theory, humans made
the earliest words by tongue movements that
mimicked manual gestures, rendering them
audible. Assuming this is plausible, would
explain very specific languages and dialects
like the Khoisan “clicking” language in Africa
that still exists today — it relies solely on the
different movements, rather than the air
coming out from the larynx.
Maybe it was just one of these theories,

maybe it was a combination of all the
theories, who knows? We can only assume,
but whether we needed a larynx to
communicate or not — even early humans
shared a trait with us, their descendants,

39 \ trzydzieści dziewięć
IT'S... SUPERNAME!
IT’S A BIRD... IT’S A PLANE?
By Joana Bourlon
“Do you know what that bird is? It’s a brown throated thrush; but
in Portuguese it’s a ...., in Italian a …,” he says “in Chinese it’s a …,
in Japanese a ….,” etcetera. “Now,” he says, “you can know in all
the languages you want to know what the name of that bird is
and when you’ve finished with all that,” he says, “you’ll know
absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You’ll only know
about humans in different places and what they call the bird.”
It is true that knowing the name for something (or someone) in a

bunch of different languages does not provide any technical
details or a profound knowledge on the subject at hand.
However, it is still worthwhile to know the name (mostly for
practical reasons) and study how names are formed (mostly for
fun and also in order to understand, or at least get a glimpse of
the origin, the history and possibly the future of a word).
Can you imagine a world with no names?

A world like this exists today. Well, at least in terms of surnames.
There are many cultures in the world where people are
addressed by a single name. It is not uncommon for some people
in parts of Afghanistan or Indonesia to go by a mononym.
40 \ czterdzieści
On the other hand, there are many cultures in the world where family names are
used. Surnames started to be implemented relatively late in human history. It is
believed that surnames were first introduced in China around 3000 BC and that it
was originally the mother’s (and not the father’s) name that was adopted.
Surnames sprouted at different times in different cultures. For instance, in Japan
and Korea they weren’t introduced until the beginning of the 20th century.
Turkey made surnames mandatory from 1935 onwards. In France, surnames
spread around the 12th century, although with the Roman conquest, the Gauls had
to add the gentilice (clan name) and the cognomen (family name). That practice
died out with the Germanic conquests. In England, last names were introduced by
Norman barons after 1066.
So, what’s a surname? It’s a super name2, the one shared between family members.
A surname can be a useful tool: it can help you find information about the past of
your ancestors. In some cases, a surname alone can reveal some personal details
as we shall see below.
Let’s have a quick journey around a couple of European countries and explore the
similarities and the differences between the conventions surrounding family
names.
In general, the origins of family names in Europe can be divided into at least five
categories. Surnames derived mostly from the father’s or an ancestor’s name
(examples would be Richards, Stevenson or Marie); from occupations (such as
Boucher or Smith), from locations (for instance Atwood probably derived as a
family name for someone living near the woods), nick-names (for example
Armstrong or Petit), and in some cases animals (like Cheval, meaning horse) or
objects (such as Bivouac).
In most parts of Europe surnames are written after the first name. This is probably
why family names are also called last names in English. In France however it’s not
uncommon to see the surname of a person written before their first name,
especially in formal and bureaucratic contexts.
But what kind of personal information can a family name reveal?
In most Slavic countries, Latvia and Lithuania, family names are commonly
2
Surname comes from the prefix sur that comes from the Latin super and it means over or above.
41 \ czterdzieści jeden
gendered and thus have a female and a male form (and in most cases, a plural
version as well).
For example, in Czech, a common surname is Svoboda (literally meaning freedom).
The female version is Svobodová. In recent years a debate erupted in Czechia
around the female version of the surnames and the right of a woman to choose
the suffix of her own family name. Those in favor of having the option of dropping
the -ová say that it’s discriminatory for a woman to be able to choose the version
of her name only in a very limited number of circumstances. It is fairly possible
that soon Czech women may be able to choose the form of their own family
names. Some of those opposed to the change provide grammatical arguments.
Czech language having genders and cases, the reasoning goes that dropping the
-ová would cause an inability to express the case and the gender and thus lead to
some discrepancies in communication.
Contrariwise, in French law, if a child with a French citizenship is born to a parent

that has a surname with a female or male form, the child would be obliged to get
the name of the parent unchanged unless foreign citizenship can be proven: for
example if today Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin were to be born in France (as a French
citizen) and were to take his mother’s name, his family name would be Onegina (the
female form of the family name). If the same faith were to fall upon the female
protagonist in the poem, she would be named Tatyana Larin, (after the unchanged
name of her father: Larin, instead of the female version that is Larina). In Russian,
it’s highly unusual to see a male first-name with a female last-name and vice-versa.
We can find another interesting example of gendered surnames in Lithuania. In

Lithuanian, there is one male and two female forms of a family name, depending on
the woman’s marital status. The suffixes vary. Mascule surnames may for instance
end on -is or -as. The equivalents for single women may for example end on -ytė,
- utė or -aitė and the ones of married women commonly end on -ienė or -uvienė.
For instance, let’s take the (male) surname Paulauskas. The equivalent form for a
married woman (or a widow) is Paulauskienė and for a single woman is
Paulauskaitė. Since 2003 women have been legally allowed to use a short form,
ending on é, that does not disclose their marital status. Thus, with our example we
would get the female marital-status-neutral form Paulauské. Given the relative
recentness of the law, traditional versions remain predominant and the most
common Lithaunian female surnames are those of married women.
But why is it that certain languages have masculine and feminine forms of the
42 \ czterdzieści dwa
surnames, while others don’t? Could it be because of the existence of genders in

that language? On the one hand, it makes sense: after all, English has only
pronominal gender and thus no surnames based on gender. On the other hand,
this condition does not seem to apply to many other languages: French or German
3
have genders but have no gender-based surnames . And Hungarian has no
genders but has gender-based surnames (if you’d like to go further on the
subject of Hungarian family names, this Wikipedia article is pretty comprehensive).
From a linguistic point of view, the masculine and feminine forms can be mostly
explained by three types of grammatical reasons:
1. In the case of adjective-based surnames, the family name needs to be

harmonised with the first name in case, gender and number. This is a typical case
in Russian and other Slavic languages. Let’s take the family name Chernev (that
comes from the word cherno, meaning black) :
Female version Male version Plural version
Cherneva Chernev Chernevi
Here, we can see that after the root (cherno), we put the suffix ev that is accorded
in terms of number and gender.
Yet, let us remember that these kinds of grammatical accords depend on the
culture and the conventions applied in the country that the language is spoken in.
For example, in French (at least the French spoken in France), the family name
Lenoir (meaning the black) does not decline into a female form (the sister,
daughter, mother or wife of Mr. Lenoir would not be called Madame Lanoire). It’s
not impossible that in French family names don’t have a gendered-version as this
could result in a completely different family name and not only a change in suffix.
2. If the name is derived from a noun, a harmonisation as the one above is needed
in order to allow for the name to express its cases and genders (again, this is
typically the case in most Slavic languages).
3
At least, not nowadays: in some German-speaking regions there was a female-form of the surname that would
end on ‘in’. And in French, in some local languages, such as Alscaian or in some regions in the south of the
country, surname female-forms were not uncommon in the past.
43 \ czterdzieści trzy
3. In certain languages, such as Greek, some family names that are inherently
masculine need to be put in a genitive form (the case that expresses possession).
It’s noteworthy that this does not seem to be the case with the majority of Greek
names.
As an example, let’s take the name of one of Greece’s most important

archaeologists, Semni Karouzou. She took her husband’s name upon marriage: his
name was Christos Karouzos (Karouzos is a masculine form, and by using the
genitive, the female form is derived by paraphrasing the name into a more neutral
form: Karouzou loosely means ‘from Karouzos’).
It’s noteworthy that some speak of the role of the patriarchy in the family names
and see it more as a cultural than a grammatical rule: after all, in Greece (as in most
places today), when a woman is born she takes her father’s name and if she gets
married, it’s not uncommon to take the husband’s name. The genitive case seems
to be adding more fuel to the metaphorical fire of the opponents of gender-
based surnames. What's more, even some literary works are inspired by these
rules: let’s not forget that in The Handmaid’s Tale, the protagonist’s name Offred,
is derived from her master's name Fred.
It still holds that if you want to truly understand something (or someone), it’s best
not to limit yourself to knowing only their name. Yet, as we’ve seen, it turns out
that something as trivial as family names can tell a complex story comprising
culture, grammar, past and future. It can also inspire some interesting societal
discussions, debates, and even change in conventions.
Thanks for reading
Silly Lingistics
issue #39
We h !
ope you enjoyed it
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magazine@sillylinguistics.com,
Or see our twitter: @magazine_silly.
Do also get in touch if you fancy writing for us!
Check out Steve the Vagabond on Facebook at:

facebook.com/stevethevagabond,
also check out Silly Linguistics online at: Sillylinguistics.com
Silly Linguistics Magazine was brought to you by, Silly Linguistics Pty Ltd.
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SILLY LINGUISTICS THE MAGAZINE FOR LANGUAGE LOVERS

A Good Sign Byelingualism

THE MAGAZINE FOR LANGUAGE LOVERS : ISSUE #39 : AUGUST 2021

03 The Etymological Corner

07 The Last Word

11 A Good Sign: Visual Languages in Australia

22 The Decline and Fall of the Latin Neuter

39 It’s a bird... It’s a plane? It's... Supername!

Holiday, Urlaub, odmor, wakacje… I’m not work ing today!

If you want to know more…

…about another usage of a Latin term vacātiō – ‘Vacatio Legis Institution’ –

Joshua Blackburn, creator of League of the Lexicon, is on a mission to

What is League of the Lexicon?

Are you a linguist?

How do you play?

How did you write the questions?

As much as possible, we try to double- and triple-check our ‘facts’, and if

This led me to something I’ve come to appreciate more while working on

One thing that makes League really special is the involvement of

When can we expect to see the game?

2020: the year everyone vowed to try a new skill in

Because there is so much to say about the many sign

THE EMERGENCE OF AUSLAN PRIMARY SIGN LANGUAGES

CREATING MEANING IN AUSLAN

The manual sign for ‘how are you’ and ‘I am well

The sign for ‘Sydney'

The sign for ‘Auslan’

The sign for ‘thankyou’

The sign for ‘Australia’

A new sign for ‘Australia’

In many Facebook posts from Steve the Vagabond or

It plays on the following idea: when you learn a

This phenomenon happened to every language

We've said it earlier, this word consists in a mix of "bye" and

Why do we forget? In an article from 2013 on allodocteurs.fr

Personal examples of "byelingualism"

I happen to have lived a good number of byelingual situations, so

First, it comes with a very common problem in language learning:

Another version of it is more surprising. Forgetting words in a

is different. Native tongue is the one you've grown up with, and

It's pretty disturbing because I have (and I think many people

This is my version of byelingualism. And I hope I've told stories

I hope you enjoyed this article. Feel free to write to me for

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE

There are many significant

Latin has three genders for its

Pre-Latin and Posh Latin

“Et mundum frīgus habuimus. Vix mē balneus calfēcit. Tamen calda

A Roman soirée. Image taken from here.

“quīdam nimis magnum studium multamque operam in rēs obscūrās

The Romance languages of Europe.

Dying… But Not Dead?

bărbat (‘man’) is masculine. Its plural is bărbați.

However, although three categories of noun can be identified in Romanian and

doi bărbați frumoși (‘two beautiful men’)

mangio un uovo delizioso

mangio molte uova deliziose

As an aside, it’s important and interesting to qualify that in modern-day Neapolitan,

‘o libro (‘the book’ ) – masculine in gender

Photo by Dollar Gill on Unsplash

we take a look at the word unbelievable again

Photo by Mihai Surdu on Unsplash

Photo by Mihai Surdu on Unsplash

Photo by Mihai Surdu on Unsplash