Why linguists shouldn't have kids.

[maeveenroute]

Conversation today, walking back from Harvard Square -

Lovely Roommate (LR): I want to marry a bushman woman. And then our kids would be Irish-Cherokee-Khoisan. And we would speak to them only in Michif.
Yours Truly: Well, you would speak Michif. She'd speak to them only in Cornish.
LR: Oh, perfect. And to each other, we'd speak -
YT:

Comments

their names

[emilyzilch]

and their names will be (where [PN] = partner's surname)
1. schenectady marmoset johnson-[PN] (girl)
2. scheherezade süleyman johnson-[PN] (boy)

Re: their names

[emilyzilch]

and no, linguists should not have babies. they should be required to give them up at birth to Muggles.

Re: their names

[00_rachie_00]

NO BABIES FOR EITHER OF YOU.

that is all.

love and kisses,
a lezzer

Re: their names

[beowabbit]

And then if you break up and get custody, you’ll need to change the kids names to schenectady marmoset johnson-∅ and scheherezade süleyman johnson-∅.

[mypaganpoetry]

My friend who's the son of Classics professors is named Gaius Cesar. His sister is named Drucilla Livia.

drucilla

[emilyzilch]

is a sexy name. yay to joss whedon for going the distance when naming his vempires...

Re: drucilla

[emilyzilch]

also, does your classics prof's son sign his name CC?

[epeuthutebetes]

I think I planned something like that immediately after my first linguistics course. One analytic, one agglutinative, one fusional. Exposure to at least two different basic word orders, most likely SOV and SVO. No English.

Analytic was easily filled by Cantonese, since it's my native language (and my parents', so if they, like many Chinese parents, lived in their kids' homes, they could babysit and speak Chinese). I liked Michif, but I'm not sure about the practicality of that or whether it's more agglutinative or more fusional.

I'm thinking about Latin for fusional. Poor kids, though: they'll be like my cousin with English. They'll know all these hard words and not know simple words such as "cat" or "the".

YT: Well, you could raise each child in a different endangered language. They wouldn't be able to talk to each other, but think of the good you'll have done for humanity!
They can make new creoles to talk to each other!