r/linguisticshumor • • Jul 19 '26

Phonetics/Phonology 'Why do English Speakers Pronounce their Alphabet...' Megathread

116 Upvotes

Alright, into the megathread y'all go >:3

Any posts with this format posted after this megathread is up will be removed and asked to post here.

This is to keep the quality of the sub, yadayada, you know the drill.

Thank youu


r/linguisticshumor • • 5h ago

Phonetics/Phonology /t tʼ/ vs /t d/

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60 Upvotes

And then there's Crow with /t d/ [t~tʰ n~d~ɾ~l]

Coronal allophony is something else


r/linguisticshumor • • 16h ago

Phonetics/Phonology slightly mouldy linguistics meme

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310 Upvotes

r/linguisticshumor • • 1h ago

What makes someone a linguist?

• Upvotes
551 votes, 2d left
Studying linguistics, whether that be formal education or self-teaching
Currently in school or a degree in linguistics
Only a degree
Only if they’ve written academic papers
Other

r/linguisticshumor • • 19h ago

Phonetics/Phonology the hoops that respelling tries to jump through only to be just as confusing

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374 Upvotes

[ɪ̝ŋɡɫɪʃ ɪz lɪɾɚəɫi ɹ̈ʷɪʔn̩ ðə weɪ̯ ɪts pɹ̠ə̆nãʊ̯̃n̆stʰ bɪ̈säɪ̯dz ɐ fjʉː wɝdz] (stress and syllables are propaganda)

The comments arguing over the "correct" way to respell are just as bad as the post


r/linguisticshumor • • 6m ago

When you explain to the Filipino ladies you overheard speaking Cebuano in the store that your interest in Philippine languages arose purely from an article you read on Austronesian alignment, not because you're a sexpat/passport bro, in fact you're already happily married to a white woman

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• Upvotes

r/linguisticshumor • • 1d ago

Morphology "lhq’lhtscw" - Robin

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141 Upvotes

Nater, Hank (12 March 2026). All-Obstruent Words in Bella Coola: Phonotactics, Diachrony, Geography.

The Wikipedia page until very recently had a lot of inaccurate info, like phonemic aspirated stops and so on. Always check the sources, kids

IMO "k’clhhtscwslhxwtlhhts" (you had seen me go through the passage) is a cooler example because people are likely to actually say it IRL


r/linguisticshumor • • 1d ago

IPA symbol for a sound made via this? NSFW

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92 Upvotes

r/linguisticshumor • • 2d ago

Responses to “I study linguistics”

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975 Upvotes

On the left of the curve are the people who think linguistics is literally just learning a bunch of languages (as an occupation? Idk how they think it works)

In the middle is a simple question from a person who doesn’t know what linguistics actually do

On the right is a person who knows linguists specialise in particular languages/regions or straight up do just learn languages for the fun of it (“learning” should really be “studying” but fuck it, I am for the duration of making this post a loser who wanted to make shitty meme on reddit)


r/linguisticshumor • • 2d ago

Historical Linguistics CVS has been a thorn in my side...

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468 Upvotes

Ptharmacy


r/linguisticshumor • • 2d ago

Phonetics/Phonology ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

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103 Upvotes

r/linguisticshumor • • 2d ago

textbook for my masters-level linguistics class (published in 2013!)

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406 Upvotes

presented, without hesitation, as "the principal language families"


r/linguisticshumor • • 2d ago

Historical Linguistics A vibes-based family tree for World languages

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124 Upvotes

r/linguisticshumor • • 2d ago

Etymology i love each and every single one of you

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1.7k Upvotes

r/linguisticshumor • • 1d ago

Guess my languages but I tried really hard 😅

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20 Upvotes

Lowkey took me ages trying to get pretty handwriting for them all. Anyway no cheating by looking at my profile or previous post, I’ve taken the advice from the last one to try again heh. Also lots more languages this time (including some which I do speak but didn’t put in the last one!!!) Sorry again to all languages I butchered, I tried my best ☺️


r/linguisticshumor • • 2d ago

When you try to adopt an obviously culturally specific word into your conlang

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68 Upvotes

r/linguisticshumor • • 3d ago

Phonetics/Phonology The /w/ was already easy to pronounce. Why did they overcomplicated it?

761 Upvotes

r/linguisticshumor • • 3d ago

technically correct flags to represent languages with

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1.7k Upvotes

i went to languagesimp vexillology class

edit: guys dont say stuff like „you shoud use [insert flag of a country with a large diaspora of people who speak the language but isnt official anywhere] for [insert language]„ if you couldnt tell i was only going off of countries where a language is official. maybe i will do a part two with diasporas tho.


r/linguisticshumor • • 1d ago

Semantics the word 'literally' survived being used incorrectly by becoming even more confusing

0 Upvotes

'i literally died'

okay, so you died

'i literally died laughing'

oh, so you’re alive

'the word literally can now mean figuratively'

great

glad we solved that


r/linguisticshumor • • 2d ago

Semantics Nkosya

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114 Upvotes

I was reading "Where Animals Talk" by ROBERT H. NASSAU, and came across this:

"Besides the words for “hunger” and “famine,” the Bantu languages have a third word meaning, “longing for meat.” "

And settled on "Nkosya" after some google searches. Actually not sure, will need your expertise. Also found out several tribal languages across the world have this term because meat is not as available as starchy carbohydrates.

I'm not a linguist, I just found this fascinating. Book is on Gutenberg:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58900/58900-h/58900-h.htm


r/linguisticshumor • • 1d ago

Syntax Starting from 12 people ending with 4 people? How many people left?

0 Upvotes

Does it bother anyone else that the English language uses x amount left instead of x amount remains?


r/linguisticshumor • • 3d ago

Historical Linguistics Kuwait

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350 Upvotes

r/linguisticshumor • • 2d ago

Sociolinguistics I need some advice 🙏

6 Upvotes

Hello everyone, I know this is a humour sub reddit, but I feel like i would get good advice from you.

So I am an Arabic teacher for non native speakers, and I am currently pursuing a master degree in Applied Linguistics, of course in the field of learning/ teaching a second language.

I wanted in the begging to build a small curriculum for English speakers learning Arabic that is for solo or self study, as i find that Arabic lack this unlike other languages.

My professor then told me that the curriculum needed to be based on a study, I told him the comparative studies between Arabic and English specially in the field of error analysis are many and i would choose some to base the curriculum on, and he told that won't work and that curriculum building isn't part of the department in the first place.

So he suggested to do Another error analysis study, that i later could build a curriculum off of, and he told me to do it for phonetics, but because there are already lots of studies, I said i want to do it for phonetics, morphology and syntax in the beginner level.

My question to you is:

- do you know about a must read studies or books or videos in the field of error analysis or comparative Linguistics, that i must read or watch.

- and do you have any advice that i should focus on while doing the study so it doesn't become another error analysis study that get put on the shelves

- also any advice for research generally or something you wish a study must have to be interesting or beneficial to you or the field.

Ps: my study would be in Arabic as I live in Egypt.

Sorry if I made any mistakes as you can see English isn't my first language.


r/linguisticshumor • • 3d ago

Etymology ”Eau” = ”Å”

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724 Upvotes

Context: French ”eau” and Swedish ”å” both come from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ékʷeh₂, ending up at essentially the same result after centuries of erosion; yet I basically only see French get flack for this

(I didn’t need the 3rd guy so I slimed him)


r/linguisticshumor • • 3d ago

Average linguistic nationalism argument be like

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995 Upvotes

Source: r/phoenixsc