aphanon_meme | part 353 whalers on the moon

part 353 whalers on the moon

We've been here over a year now! I can hardly believe it! Dreamwidth's been pretty good, I'd say, with almost no downtime to speak of and all that! Anyway... how is your spring going? Or I guess it's almost summer, isn't it? Hopefully it's been well! I've been catching up on work and new movies, all very exciting stuff, I'm sure.

Enjoy part 353!

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buhyooooo

He looked pretty sexy in that fashionable waiter outfit Himaruya drew him and Romano in sometime back.

/sa

lol oops that was kinda a useless comment i'm sorry but you make italy sound so precious ;3;

Ah, I forgot.

He also looks quite sexy sucking cock.

He never got drawn in a waiter outfit, though! If he had...yeah, can't deny that would have been pretty hot.

...I guess "not wearing underwear" could fall under "doing something he likes to do a lot".

oohh, this is all very interesting but I'm too dead inside to really respond in depth. I actually pronounce caught/cot the same unless I really focus on saying them differently and I grew up in NJ/NY for most of my life. But I'm a rule bender bc I have phonetic issues anyhow. I think if we're just talking about how nations pronounce words, i can't imagine if I was an immortal being, I would bother to change my pronunciation just to suit the place I was in. I wonder if someone of them just have a funny way of pronouncing some things some times. Maybe all nations have quirks that kinda give their timelessness away.

BUT THIS is all over my head too but definitely some food for thought. I do think they'd be capable of fluidity with it. It's really a tricky thing to attach human limitations to nations, especially since they all seem to fuck reality and understand each other regardless of language differences...unless they all pick a sole language to speak in but idek. CONFUSING CANON THINGS THAT WILL NEVER HAVE A CLEAR ANSWER

I like the idea of them having a dormant ability to return to languages/dialects that have gone into retirement, but I do also really really love the idea of them having trouble speaking to their little selves and being rusty and having to get back into the swing of things and then getting all confused over it and mixing things up. TORN TORN TORN but interesting, shit will keep you up at night.

The Germans when they go out for a FKK camping trip.

Thank you! He's really got his moments, even when he's being a bit of a little shit.

Do you mean the "naked" waiter outfits? There was an early sketch of him and Germany in one here: http://i.imgur.com/PKS9dqd.gif

But I meant the regular waiter outfit! I think the sketch had France and Italy and Romano in it and it had a bit of a green hue to it. They were wearing proper vests and fancy clothes and everything. I'll see if I can find it.

Found it: http://i.imgur.com/UuMGWCO.jpg! It didn't have a green hue to it, though. Perhaps I was confusing that for fanart of the sketch.

Phonology and sound inventories are considered the most important criteria when talking about language change so that's why I'm focusing on that, but really it's combination of pronunciation and grammar, then with vocab being like the least important thing because of how volatile it is (think slang) but can still make a difference if there's enough permanent ones (think regionalisms).

To massively simplify, imagine language change is a color scale from red to purple to blue, where each generation is a little less red and a little more blue. A person who speaks red language (say Old English for example) would have kids who speak red with just a speck of blue. The parents wouldn't adopt that speck of blue though, everyone understands them and that's just kids these days rabble rabble! Then those kids have kids who speak red with two specks of blue, and so on and so forth. If we look at one language over its lifetime we might say pure red is Old English, pure purple is Middle English, and pure blue is Modern English (with blue-violet being Shakespeare) but how to classify the gradients and how to say when exactly one language became the other is something linguists fight about all the time.

As you say the natural thing is to not change your own speech (beyond slang usually, within one dialect anyway) just because there's a new generation, everyone around you can understand you after all!! But with an immortal being like the nations, the question is at what point in the gradient do they give in and learn the change? And is it like learning slang or do they hold out so long it's like learning a new language? To what degree do they remember the old versions the further they get away from them?

I handwave canon with nation language just so I can think more in-depth about them with human limits but obviously that's because I love this shit lmao

BUT YES I'M OF TWO MINDS ABOUT IT TOO I love the fact that all Ludwigs I've ever played with figure out who Julchen is by 'dat German' and I like Teuton being lost about all the things, but on the other hand I always assume they can talk to Germania fine oops. this keeps me up so often you don't even know sob

- when he's smirking (see icon)
- when he's in anything but casual at-home clothing (even then, his casual clothing is subjective too)
- when he's in a maid dress especially
- when he's wearing glasses
- when he's a naked waiter
- when he's undressing
- when he's fighting
- when he's dancing
- when he's determined
- when he surprisingly takes the initiative
- probably more etc. etc...

(ha, captcha gave me: "the color of a red rice is?")

Edited 2014-06-27 23:33 (UTC)

:|

Jesus, what poor sportsmanship.

And I'd somehow thought soccer fans would be less crass than certain other sports because there are fewer of them (in this country), but nope, always go for the trashy low blow.

Yep.

Either that or Denmark has some kinks that he doesn't want to own up to. ~~Very possible~~.

Silliness aside, I actually think Nor probably looks best when he's relaxed and dressed down. Though that's less in a sexy way, more in a cuddly way, I suppose... unless one's into Norwegian sweataers.

fappy the dolphin

fappy the dolphin

i laughed, i lost

[Crap goddamnit sonova-]

Shut up, will you.

[Jabs at him again]

Let's see you do better.

WHAT A GREAT EXAMPLE. I think Language is a living thing and maybe it just depends on the nation how long they hold out to the old?? I can imagine there's not much resistance to change, though. I think it's just within a nation's nature to just adjust constantly, to play all roles and speak all tongues. Even within human limitations, the brain has amazing capability for language. We're built to communicate and modern trends probably sneak into their lexicon without an issue. If it's all on a range of colors, then nations must be an equal gradient of red and blue, right? I think it's something they probably have a lot more awareness about than we do and a longer memory for older versions. They have to remember an eternity of events, why not a lifetime of languages too? with degrees of rustiness though...but YEAH it's realy hard to even pick at this topic because it can go either way.

FOR GERMANIA THOUGH, since in canon, he and Rome sit around in heaven watching the living world and apparently watching TV, I like to think he adjusts his language to the kids, but the more angry he is, the more archaic he gets until he's 99% incomprehensible to his children. Interesting though /pats your passionate head and gives you a sticker

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/27/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Oh yes totally, my absolute favorite thing is language as a living thing with its own behavior, adaptions, changes, history, routines, etc etc I'm such a nerd when it comes to this. Linguists are a lot like language biologists!!

It's also interesting how having a Standard language effects their adaptions, because that's relatively new for all of them as well. Especially our precious baby who is probably so thrilled Hochdeutsch is basically Hannover German /sarcasm

I AM DYING IMAGINING GERMANIA RANTING AT PRUSSIA IN OLD GERMAN AND PRUSSIA JUST LIKE IN MUTE HORROR BECAUSE ONLY EVERY FIFTH WORD MAKES SENSE AND THE REST SOUNDS LIKE DRUNK TONGUES AND ffffff /sticks sticker on forehead =3=

China writes in simplified Chinese whereas Taiwan and Hong Kong still uses traditional. I don't understand why because the traditional characters are so much harder to write, it's not quite as simple as adding a "u" to color.

Granted, it looks ~prettier~ and makes more sense if you break down the word to their meaning but 關 has so much strokes instead of 关 when they're essentially the same word. /lazy

This is a minor pet peeve of mine but I find it weird as hell that whenever they have characters speak "Chinese" in American tv shows, it's usually some funny mangled Cantonese instead. Or even better, one speaks Mandarin while the other speaks in Cantonese and they can miraculously understand each other. I can imagine the Asians watching these shows and getting snarky at these scenes.

Oh and when Cantonese is written out, it looks like an alien language to native mandarin users. It's really interesting because they tend to use standard Chinese for their newspapers and most official stuff instead.

when he's bathing, too

ah yes, I forgot

though to me he mostly seems "cute" that way rather than "sexy" but

ah, perhaps, if he was bathing in an obviously "sensual" way..... yeah

Edited 2014-06-28 01:28 (UTC)

I don't think I remembered seeing that! Thanks, anon!

He can really pull those off, yeah.

posting late because i typed this on the train with no wifi orz

I like to think they can (if they wish to) hang on to past languages for a good long while, even while it comes to feel like a distinct language from the modern one, like speaking multiple foreign languages. I don't have any doubt that England could still use some form of ME easily, considering how modern speakers can still pick it up! I tend to assume he can still also do some form of Old English. And he must have been able to clearly pick out the Romance elements when those started becoming part of English... If you assume the nations aren't ridiculously mobile or at least maintain something that feels like an area of residence for a solid chunk of years, then I think 'it works the same as for people' reasonably well solves the problem of which they pick up of the hundreds+ regional dialects each constantly changing in tiny ways- they persist or transition to new ones about the same way any person would, and just live long enough to rack up a lot (being more likely to do a shift/switch when they make a big physical or political move?). This is my linguistic version of 'let's make it happy OT3+ and everyone wins everything', and I seem to have added infinite language memory/facility in as part of the immortal nationhood thing, for which I can make no apologies.

I don't know how to define a good backwards stopping point; Proto-Indo-European seems way too much of a stretch, but I don't know how many Scandi nations would use Old Norse vs something else they might have like Old Swedish (which looks fucking weird, in my completely unnecessary opinion, so if he wants to troll...). Iceland absolutely has to still be totally proficient in the saga language though, and for Norway-- perhaps there are some languages where he has reading knowledge of a centuries-old form but really doesn't speak the present language. Old books and all that.

Also the only good answer I can come up with for phonology is a) it's at least not impossible for adult language learners to acquire/merge new phonetic contrasts and b) I want one of them to speak something from 600+ years ago so we can hear it, oh please, but what an unproductive thought. Well, it would be kind of funny if sometimes their pronunciation shifted unconsciously over the centuries based on influence from their current language's phonetic inventory and the lack of any other speakers of the old one to maintain with, just written sources, so they don't realise they're talking any differently, but...

I hope this works out for them. They're going to need all the economic help they can get.

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part 353 whalers on the moon

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Ukraine signs EU deal that sparked months of upheaval; extends cease-fire

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