I wish books on linguistics were sold anywhere around here, but they're not... every time anyone mentions any book that sounds interesting, I get annoyed knowing that I'll never be able to read it. Ordering stuff online is something literally nobody I know does or even knows how to do, so that's not an option either; at least as far as I know, you need a physical credit card or whatever that you have to pay crazy taxes or something for owning; that was the reason it wasn't worth it to get one at least in the early 2010's, but I'm not sure if it's true anymore. Fuck, why is Finland such a backwards shithole when it comes to this one thing when it's one of the most advanced countries in just about every other thing...Frislander wrote: ↑12 Dec 2017 16:40Actually according to Trudgill's Sociolinguistic Typology, there are actually both complexifying and simplifying tendencies, and which ones are active depends on both the size and complexity of the speakerbase as well as the amount of contact a language is under. So high-contact societies with large speakerbases (e.g. English) tend towards simplification, high-contact societies with small speakersbases tend towards complexification by the addition of categories (e.g. Tariana gaining evidentials from Tucanoan contact) while low-contact languages tend towards more complex and irregular exponence of existing categories. The book goes into more detail as to why, and also assesses the repercussions of these ideas. It's a book I'd really recommend taking a look at, it's very readable and isn't soaked through with heavy abstract theory.Dormouse559 wrote: ↑12 Dec 2017 05:23I'd dispute the idea that languages have a tendency to become more "messy". Certainly, sound changes and other alterations can cause older systems to break down, but new systems develop all the time because of processes like analogy.
...but really, the bigger thing that annoys me is that linguistic research and other scientific stuff is not published for free for everyone to read online. I guess I'm too much of a leftist idiot to realise that it wouldn't work in practice, because for some reason nobody would have any motivation to do any kind of research or anything if they weren't paid for it, because apparently nobody actually cares about anything except money. Almost every day, I run into paywalls or student walls or other bullshit online when I try to find resources for learning languages, or anything else like history books, etc. and even though there are freely available resources, they always cite payshit.
It's so frustrating that "educated" and "uneducated" are categories that want to be upheld by academia and whatnot, and to get access to lots of interesting information one would have to go to a university or something. I barely made it through primary school for fuck's sake, but everyone tells me I should apply for some higher education if I actually am interested in linguistics or history or anything. Like, how does that even make sense? It's not possible to just walk into a school and be like "yo, give me books" no matter how "privileged" you are, let alone if you couldn't even TRY to get into any fucking school because you were too unintelligent... yet Americans sometimes tell me that I'm so privileged I have no right to complain, as if my social anxiety and learning difficulties were my fault (but I don't have any learning disability, so I can't even pull that card... I'm just stupid). Fucking hell, all this ranting over a mention of a book... I'm seriously pathetic, and not in the cool way that would get me victim points...
Anyway, I just wish there was a change in global society so that self-study would be encouraged and made possible. The only reason for that, though, is honestly that I'm selfish, like every spoiled leftist brat. I'd like to think I'm at least one little bit more mature than the majority of spoiled leftist brats since I can admit that it's all about being selfish rather than the greater good or some other bullshit like that, but according to just about everyone that makes me even more immature because apparently for literally nobody else is it about wanting free stuff on any level. Oh well.
...but really, I guess I'm ranting because I am privileged; I mean, only people in the first world even have computers and internet access and know English so that they could rant about this pointless shit. Out there, in some African countries and whatnot, a lot of people don't even have electricity. They probably don't even know that such a thing as linguistics exists, and in North Korea many people most likely don't even know that other languages exist. And if anyone in non-first world countries found out that conlanging is a thing, they'd probably be extremely offended. But I still complain as if I had problems, and I'm officially retired for my social anxiety and depression and shit, meaning my life is literally the easiest existence anyone on this planet has... the only thing I lack is shit tons of money to buy cool shit that I don't even deserve to have, but I still complain. Fuck.