Wtf does this mean
Basic Facts:
Yagán, also known as Yámana and Háusi Kúta, is a language isolate. It used to be spoken by the Yagan people on the Tierra de Fuego archipelago in Argentina and Chile. It currently has only one native speaker remaining, who is 90 years old and lives on Navarino Island in Chile.
Writing System:
Yagán is written using a modified Latin alphabet, using the letters and digraphs a, æ, ch, e, ö, f, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, rh, s, š, t, u, w, and x.
How does it sound?
Yagán has 7 vowels and 17 consonants. It includes the glottal stop and four separate approximants (alveolar, post-alveolar, palatal, and velar). You can hear it spoken in this video - it starts being spoken at around 1:25, but the entire video is really interesting so I suggest you watch the whole thing :)
Grammatical features:
Yagán has an extensive case system for nouns, and voice and aspect systems in verbs. Because of this, word order is relatively free. Pronouns are divided into three ‘persons’ that are different from the usual 1st, 2nd, and 3rd - Yagán has the proximal (in practice, this almost always corresponds to 1st person in English), the near distal, and the further distal. It exhibits verb serialization. Reduplication is not a productive process except in adverbs.
Resources to learn more:
https://www.ethnologue.com/18/language/yag/
https://ids.clld.org/contributions/315
http://web.uchile.cl/archivos/uchile/cultura/lenguas/yaganes/ (in Spanish)
https://books.google.com/books?id=4V1IAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false (in French)
Also in glottolog: https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/yama1264
Yagán (i used the name Yahgan in my dissertation) is one of only three languages that I found in a sample of 550+ languages that do not borrow verbs while allowing the lexical borrowing of other parts of speech — something believed to be far more common actually. I wish I had an explanation for this, but I love these three “rebels" nonetheless.
Swipe right for a little animation I made for a class. It was my first time animating a figure in space. Learned a lot and can’t wait to do more! 🎉 The piece literally draws out my routine when bored and procrastinating.
#animation #shortfilm #sketch #drawing #pencil #photoshop #aftereffects (at Bedok, Singapore)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BwHUVgAh8Tg/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1l76kxmo5ehn5
John Flaxman - Apollo Preceding Hector with His Aegis, and Dispersing the Greeks. N.d.
Alright so there are conflicting accounts of his death, but Pythagoreanism is wild and we were robbed when it never appeared at all in Odyssey.
“Κατθάνοισα δὲ κείσεαι πότα, κωὐ μναμοσύνα σέθεν ἔσσετ’ οὔτε τότ’ οὔτ’ ὔστερον· οὐ γὰρ πεδέχεις βρόδων τῶν ἐκ Πιερίας, ἀλλ’ ἀφάνης κἠν Ἀΐδα δόμοις φοιτάσεις πεδ’ ἀμαύρων νεκύων ἐκπεποταμένα.”
— But thou shalt ever lie dead, nor shall there be any remembrance of thee then or thereafter, for thou hast not of the roses of Pieria; but thou shalt wander obscure even in the house of Hades, flitting among the shadowy dead.
Sappho, fragment 65. Translated by H.T. Warton. (via darkshiney)
i have a hill to die on real quick
phrases like “you don’t owe anyone anything” and “relationships aren’t transactional” have the power to be used in ways that are very backwards and harmful
for example, no you don’t owe anyone anything in that if some creep is trying to get with you, you can block him without feeling bad. you don’t owe kindness to people who are transphobic or racist or bigoted.
but, you can’t use this as an excuse to fuck over people who have helped you. “you don’t owe anyone anything” isn’t an excuse to allow yourself to forget compassion and basic empathy, it isn’t an excuse for you to be an asshole just because you find it easier to be one
relationships aren’t transactional in that if your partner does something nice for you, you are indebted to them. they do these things because they love you; it is their choice to express love through these gestures
but they are transactional in that you both actively need to be putting time and care into the relationship. ignoring the dynamic of one person caring too much (and putting in excessive (emotional an literal) work and labor) while the other does nothing isn’t healthy. one person can’t solely take and the other person can’t solely give- that’s dangerous, and you can’t put the bandaid of “this isn’t transactional” over a relationship that is draining you in all capacities
i’m tired of seeing these things being misconstrued and used as an excuse to hurt people, while framing it as a way of taking care of yourself
SOMEBODY SAID IT
Here’s a good starting point for those of you interested in learning more:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05707-8
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/technology-is-biased-too-how-do-we-fix-it/
Absolutely. The programmer must develop code to work within the expected
parameters. A less heated example is left vs right handed. Most hotkeys
are really geared towards right handed people. It is simply a byproduct
of not looking beyond your experience.
Software isn’t from God.
This is also true of language-centric and linguistic algorithms. From Siri not understanding AAVE, to the “helpers” all having feminine names (Siri, Alexa, Sophia, etc.), to what value is given to what modes of communication (is there support in indigenous languages? what about signed languages?) - AI is crafted by humans, humans have biases, and those creep in to the end product.
For more on AI and bias, check out @lewisandquark
