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A comment on First languages of N. America traced to two different Siberian language groups.

Re:First languages of N. America traced to two different Sib... by alsetmusic on Thursday April 11, 2024 @08:42PM (#40008308)
Seems a good time to recommend a book that I found incredibly interesting:

Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don't Rhyme and Other Oddities of the English Language

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55332395

Off the main topic, I know. But not enough opportunities arise where I can recommend this fantastic read. Turns out all the stupid aspects of English have very logical reasons for existing. It was mildly mind-blowing to have it all traced back so effectively. There was a great interview with the author on the 99% Invisible podcast, too.

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Re:First languages of N. America traced to two different Sib... by throwiforgtnlzy on Thursday April 11, 2024 @11:14PM (#40009083)
The 3-part documentary Do You Speak American? (2005) is also interesting on the evolution of English (and non-English) accents.
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Re:First languages of N. America traced to two different Sib... by Tagbert on Thursday April 11, 2024 @10:05PM (#40008758)
If you liked that, you should check out the History of English podcast. It is a great and long running podcast that looks at the history and other factors that gave us this language.

https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/

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Re:First languages of N. America traced to two different Sib... by HideousKojima on Thursday April 11, 2024 @10:24PM (#40008853)
I realize there are many, many factors that contribute to English spelling being so weird, but doesn't the Norman invasion account for the lion's share of them?
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Re:First languages of N. America traced to two different Sib... by Electricniko on Thursday April 11, 2024 @11:11PM (#40009055)
I recommend the Youtube channel RobWords for those kinds of explanations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j07f-cKWRtk

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Re:First languages of N. America traced to two different Sib... by thaumasiotes on Thursday April 11, 2024 @10:42PM (#40008929)
That would be strange, since the same phenomenon - linguistic drift away from ancient spellings - is observed in every language. The reason you see other languages as having spelling that is "less weird" than English is not that English is different from those other languages - it's that the spelling of those other languages is much more recent than the spelling of English is.

The Norman contribution to the split between tough, through, and dough, for example, is zero.

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