this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
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Mildly Interesting

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This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.

This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?

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[–] Perspectivist@feddit.uk 50 points 1 week ago (2 children)

In Finnish "pili" means a small dick.

Isn't a dikdik a type of deer?

[–] beejboytyson@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Is that the literal translation? Asking for a friend....

[–] Perspectivist@feddit.uk 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's more of a slang word. I think it's a variation of the word "pippeli" which means the same thing.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

You guys sure have a lot of words for small dicks.

[–] Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I guess you need that if you're neighbors with Russia.

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

nazis often have small dicks

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Those are basically the same word though, and the one that people generally use if you have to talk to children/around children about penises. (So the implication of it being small comes more from the connotation of the penis being that of a child's, so if you had one as an adult...)

It's like how in English "Richard" is somehow the longer form of "Dick", or "Chuck" short for "Charles".

[–] lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So a big penis a called "Richard" and everyone who calls theirs "Dick" has a small one?

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Idk that it works like that in English. Let me give it a whirl.

"Hey babe, come over, I'm gonna richard your brains out"

Mmm... I'm gonna need to digest this a bit

[–] lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If this doesn't roll over your tongue easily, maybe that says more about the size of your penis than about the English language. Or maybe it doesn't. I'm not a native speaker

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

It's not really about the ease-of-use as much it's about the connotations.

"Richard" meaning big..?

Eeh..

So does English.

[–] trinsec@piefed.social 49 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Dutch, French, and German?

[–] crandlecan@mander.xyz 47 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] crandlecan@mander.xyz 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That was uncalled for 🥺

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] crandlecan@mander.xyz 5 points 1 week ago

Leave Belgium alone!! 😭😭

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Germans always pop upp somewhere univited

[–] blackris@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.cafe 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Suprised no ones attacked you for calling Flemish Dutch ahhaha.

(They lowkey are the same language but many people in Flanders hate it being called dutch ahhaha)

[–] lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There is a saying in linguistics attributed to every smart person who ever worked in that field: A language is a dialect with a navi and an army.

Basically saying it's a political idea to separate dialects into distinct languages. Historically, it was the formation of nation states and it's part of the national identity to speak a common language.

TLDR Sure, Flemish and Dutch form a dialect continuum but so does Dutch and German (and obviously Luxembourgish)

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.cafe 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Yes. This is often true. But Flemish and Dutch are far far closer in linguistic distance than dutch and german.

And they are completely mutually intelligeble. Unlike Dutch and German, (which I prefer to call hochdeutsch, since german is a nationalist contruct that erases many other languages spoken by peoples living in Germany-Switzerland-Austria.)

Like here we get a distance between Flemish and Dutch of 5.6, that’s the lowest I’ve ever seen with this tool.

While 13.5 with Dutch and German.

Compare that to French and Occitan, Occitan is a Romance language in southern France, which got erased and often claimed it’s just “part of french”. The distance between them is 20.

Edit: Playing round a bit more with the tool, Your point is proven. The distance between Dutch and Afrikaans is lower. Only 2. Yet that’s considered different languages.

[–] Hagdos@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Edit: Playing round a bit more with the tool, Your point is proven. The distance between Dutch and Afrikaans is lower. Only 2. Yet that’s considered different languages.

That doesn't make sense to me. I'm a native Dutch speaker, I have little issue understanding Flemish. Afrikaans is clearly closely related too, but definitely harder to understand.

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.cafe 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The tool measures distance with vocabulary. Afrikaans may be closer in vocabulary but pronounced very differently (since there’s way less cross talking since it’s so isolated), which would make it harder to understand to a Dutch speaker?

[–] Hagdos@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Partially, but even written Afrikaans has much more loanwords from African languages and English, and words that evolved independently, compared to Flemish.

[–] lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

(which I prefer to call hochdeutsch, since german is a nationalist contruct that erases many other languages spoken by peoples living in Germany-Switzerland-Austria.)

Quite a bit to unpack here.

  1. "Hochdeutsch" isn't the term usually used in linguistics for two reasons: First, Hochdeutsch (or High German) refers to something else which is the upper and middle dialect groups (Ober- und Mitteldeutsch) combined, basically everything except lower German (Niederdeutsch aka Plattdeutsch). Second, "hoch" sounds like a value statement. As if it was the higher form of the language witch it is not. It's the standardized form, hence Standard German (Standarddeutsch).
  2. Which other languages are you talking about? Romani? Sorbian? Migrant languages? Because most if not all others are German dialects. Source: They have no army of their own.

And that's basically my point: Someone from Oldenburg will have a much easier time understanding someone from Groningen than someone from Vienna, despite the fact that both speak German dialects and not Dutch. Now you can argue that Low German (Plattdeutsch) is its own language in its own right but, again, someone from Cologne will get along with someone from Duisburg (linguistically at least) while Duisburg is Low German and Cologne is Middle German. Where ever you draw the lines and how many lines you might draw, they are always arbitrary.

Now it makes more sense to me to speak of dialect groups where neighboring groups are mutually intelligible. This model comes much closer to the real dialect continuum that continental western Germanic languages form (it's called "continental western Germanic dialect continuum" or in German "Kontinentalwestgerrmanisches Dialektkontinuum" and I had a linguistics docent who really loved this term). You can't group these dialect groups to languages because each time you try, you will end up with neighboring groups in different languages. It's better to just abolish the very concept of distinct languages as a nationalist idea. #nobordernonation

And sorry for the cliff hanger if you happened to read the comment before the edit. I hit "send" by accident.

[–] Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It's mutually understandable but there are quite some differences. I would name them separately.

[–] knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Both are just lower german with extra steps

[–] Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago

The more drunk we get the more it sounds like English.

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[–] otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] kunegis@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's the brand. Just a random brand of spices available in Belgium

[–] otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago

How apropos 🤌🏼

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

And the joke is it's more accurate to say piripiri

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What kind of pepper is this? I have never heard of it in English. And what Portland is it from?

[–] Drusas@fedia.io 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] kunegis@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago

Cheap brand from Lidl

[–] oji@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago
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