Linguaphiles

Not a single mention of kiki and bouba. I'm impressed, or something.

I ordered a Lingthusiasm IPA mug and got an update email a few hours ago telling me it was shipped. Soon, when I ask myself "how does gazpacho sound tonight?" as I do nightly, I'll have a handy reference to help me answer.

As I understand, the Portuguese names for Monday to Friday basically mean "second" to "sixth". Modern Greek does the same, but only up to Thursday/"fifth". I'm curious what went on here, if you know. (Language contact is a possibility. As I recall, the Greek and Portuguese names for codfish are striking similar.) But if that's the reason, in which direction did it go, and why the dropped/added day?

In (at least some) English-speaking countries, it's said to make you go blind. In France (and maybe in other French-speaking countries), it's said to make you go deaf. What about other countries or languages?

How would a language like Tamarian (central plot point spoiler) (from ST:TNG episode Darmok (spoilers ahoy) work?

It seems to be isolated (metaphorical) concepts-nouns and nothing but. There's no apparent way to express identity between two things or concepts no one has compared before, or describe one in terms of the other if no one has described things or concepts that way already. A Tamarian might be able to express that the sky on their home planet is whatever color it's supposed to be, maybe by saying "ancestors outside, looking up", but put one on Vulcan and they'd have no way that I can think of to tell others about the sky color there once back home.

Similarly but on a larger scale, "Banach and Tarski, their heads together" would say nothing about the ability to assemble two spheres using carefully shaped pieces of one, because any proof of a new theorem in mathematics is connecting concepts and logical relationships between them in a way no one has connected them before. No mathematics means no science and no engineering, thus no space travel.

Also, even if a child managed to learn a basic vocabulary from their parents (and nothing beyond a vocabulary, because there is nothing else in their language), they'd be unable to go beyond that by looking into a dictionary, because dictionaries can't exist. Likewise, no textbooks, hence no public education with one teacher instructing multiple students (even if you reduce teachers to walking, talking dictionaries, which is unrealistic, I think). One-on-one instruction by example, even if theoretically possible, doesn't scale.

Last, communicating new insights to others doesn't seem possible either. "Archimedes, running naked in the streets" might convey you had a stroke of insight about something previously unknown, but good luck sharing the specifics of your insight with others. So discussion and exchange of new ideas would seem to be out. I don't see how a language, a culture, and a society of sentient people can exist with those constraints on exchanging thoughts. That may work for a society of bees, but not for a society of sentient, self-aware beings capable of original thoughts and having to share them widely.

So what's going on there?

I was wondering about the differences, if any, about the concepts of topic and comment (which IIRC are what Japanese and ASL, among others, use in that order) and those of news and point of departure (which the Tagalog learning website I'm using says Tagalog uses in that order, although it also mentions they're sometimes called comment and topic), and while DDGing for clues I came across theme and rheme, and now I'm very confused because I have 3 sets of concepts to puzzle out instead of 2 and I'm not any closer to an answer to my initial question. Help?

ETA1: https://learningtagalog.com/articles/tagalog_focus.html says news and point of departure match comment and topic as linguists use them, but not as the general public would (which I can accept, for all that it confused me). Still trying to understand how topic and comment differ from theme and rheme.

There are (that I'm aware of) two languages or major language dialects in which football isn't called "football" or a phonetic rendering.

One is el_GR, which uses the calque ποδοσφέρί.

The other is en_US, which uses "soccer", but https://www.etymonline.com/word/soccer#etymonline_v_23809 hints this meaning originated in the UK. I'm not sure (if that's right) when and how it was displaced by "football" everywhere but the US (and maybe Canada).

My mind balks at compound words using roots from different languages. I got mostly used to "automobile" or "television" by dint of prolonged exposure, but I still find them slightly awkward. I find coinages like "dyscalculia" jarring, for all that the referrent exists and the word thus fills a glaring need. Is it just me, or do others experience this?

With some digging, I was able to trace the origin of "Tennessee windage" and "Kentucky windage" to the early rifles of the same names. However, I'm unable to find a similar origin for "Arkansas elevation". DuckDuckGo (correctly but uselessly in this case) points me to contour maps and GIS products for Arkansas. Does anyone know?

Why is it *checks toothpaste tube label* -ide in English, Dutch, and Spanish, but -ure/-uro in French and Italian? (At least for fluoride, but chloride uses the -ure suffix in French at least.)