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SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CLXV, Number 4; October 2012, MANAGING EDITOR Trey Jones SENIOR EDITOR Keith Slater EDITOR EMERITUS Tim Pulju Speculative Grammarian, Vol CLXV, No 4 CONSULTING EDITORS David J. Peterson Bill Spruiell, ASSOCIATE EDITORS Madalena Cruz-Ferreira Daniela Müller Mikael Thompson, EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES Cem Bozsahin Florian Breit Jonathan Downie Adam Graham Tel Monks Mary Pearce Callum Robson Mary Shapiro Sheri Wells-Jensen, COMPTROLLER GENERAL Joey Whitford Stop Voicing Now! ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Merchandise. Introduction. In order to lend a hand to our good friends and steadfast supporters over at the Linguist List during their 2006 fund drive, we prepared a small selection of limited edition SpecGram merchandise, including T-shirts, stickers and magnets. Originally these items were only available as prizes awarded as part of the Linguist List fund drive. In 2012, several of the SpecGram editors suffered from a rare form of collective frontal lobe damage, which made it seem like a good idea to put together a SpecGram book. The result in 2013 was The Speculative Grammarian Essential Guide to Linguistics. In 2014, Editor Mikael Thompson entered a deep fugue ... [ more ]

SpecGram Archives. A word from our Senior Archivist, Holger Delbrück: While bringing aging media to the web and hence the world is truly a labor of love, SpecGram tries the passion of even the most ardent admirer. Needless to say, we’ve fallen behind schedule. At every turn, the authors found in the pages of this hallowed journal stretch credibility with their gratuitous font mongering—first it was the IPA, then a few non-standard transcription systems, then Greek, and not just the alphabet, but the entire diacritical mess, and now I’ve got some god-forsaken Old Church Slavonic glyph sitting on my desk that no one can even name, and which would give the Unicode Consortium ... [ more ]

New speech disorder linguists contracted discovered!. An apparently new speech disorder a linguistics department our correspondent visited was affected by has appeared. Those affected our correspondent a local grad student called could hardly understand apparently still speak fluently. The cause experts the LSA sent investigate remains elusive. Frighteningly, linguists linguists linguists sent examined are highly contagious. Physicians neurologists psychologists other linguists called for help called for help called for help didn’t help either. The disorder experts reporters SpecGram sent consulted investigated apparently is a case of pathological center embedding. Yreka Bakery (Egello College). ... [ more ]

The SpecGram Ministry of Propaganda. Welcome to the SpecGram Ministry of Propaganda. The SpecGram Archive Elves™ have undertaken a project to digitize and share a sheaf of early 20th century SpecGram propaganda posters, which were used during the Great Linguistic War and the Second Linguistic War to encourage linguists everywhere to keep a stiff upper lip and a sense of humor during those trying times. We provide the digitized posters here for you to enjoy, retrospect on, and share. Select a poster to see a higher quality image, and for links to share on social media, to email friends, and to view or download the highest quality version of the image. ... Read SpecGram Every Month! ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian and SpecGram.com. Our Story. The august journal Speculative Grammarian has a long, rich, and varied history, weaving an intricate and subtle tapestry from disparate strands of linguistics, philology, history, politics, science, technology, botany, pharmacokinetics, computer science, the mathematics of humor, basket weaving, archery, glass blowing, roller coaster design, and bowling, among numerous other, less obvious fields. SpecGram, as it is known to devotees and sworn enemies alike, has for centuries sought to bring together the greatest yet least understood minds of the time, embedding itself firmly in the cultural and psychological matrix of the global society while ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXVIII, Number 4 ... Trey Jones, Managing Editor, Keith Slater, Senior Editor, Bill Spruiell, Consulting Editor, Tim Pulju, Editor Emeritus; Associate Editors: Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Mikael Thompson, Sheri Wells-Jensen; Editorial Associates: Kenny Baclawski, Pete Bleackley, Virginia Bouchard, Florian Breit, Bethany Carlson, Jonathan Caws-Elwitt, Jonathan Downie, Tel Monks, Daniela Müller, Tuuli Mustasydän, Cathal Peelo, David J. Peterson, Callum Robson, Zac Smith, Tangent Wong; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Now with 40% fewer adverbs!; December 2013 ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXXII, Number 3 ... Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Associate Editors: Pete Bleackley, Jonathan Downie, Mikael Thompson; Assistant Editors: Virginia Bouchard, Mark Mandel, Yuval Wigderson; Editorial Associates: Florian Breit, Bethany Carlson, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Emily Davis, Vincent Fish, Deak Kirkham, Tel Monks, Cathal Peelo, Mary Shapiro, Bill Spruiell, Steve Straight, Isabelle Tellier, Sheri Wells-Jensen; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; “Inconceivable” Merely Indicates, a Failure of Imagination; September 2018 ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXVI, Number 4 ... Trey Jones, Managing Editor, Keith Slater, Senior Editor, Bill Spruiell, Consulting Editor, Tim Pulju, Editor Emeritus; Associate Editors: Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Mikael Thompson, Sheri Wells-Jensen; Editorial Associates: Pete Bleackley, Kathleen Brady, Florian Breit, Sam Crusemire, Jonathan Downie, Adam Graham, Daniela Müller, Chris Niswander, David J. Peterson, Callum Robson, Mary Shapiro; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Must Be “This Smart” to Enter; March 2013 ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXV, Number 1 Sēsquiplicātus स्टफ Ἡμι-Demi-Семи- Μέγα Issue ... Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Bill Spruiell, Senior Editor, Sheri Wells-Jensen, Consulting Editor; Associate Editors: Pete Bleackley, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jonathan Downie, Mikael Thompson; Assistant Editors: Virginia Bouchard, Florian Breit, Mark Mandel, Yuval Wigderson; Editorial Associates: Adam Baker, Bethany Carlson, Peter Carrillo, Tel Monks, Davis Prickett, Laura Ryals, Brock Schardin, Mary Shapiro, Isabelle Tellier, Anna Weingarten; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; I love a good creole. It’s got that ... [ more ]

Psammeticus Press www.specgram.com/psammeticuspress/, BOOKS, SERIES, and MORE The following valuable volumes, spectacular series, and interesting items have been released with pride by Psammeticus Press, an academic publishing house founded in honor of the first and purest of linguistic inquirers: one might criticize his methods, but who could quibble with his results? Follow the links below to learn more about these fabulous books and excellent series, each destined to become a classic in the field. Retractions, Rejections and Reconstructions: The Multiply Integrated Lives of Linguistics Texts by Speculative Grammarian Retextualization Editor Reid Rafft Published 2025. 2,328 pages When it comes to texts ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXVIII, Number 1 ... Trey Jones, Managing Editor, Keith Slater, Senior Editor, Bill Spruiell, Consulting Editor, Tim Pulju, Editor Emeritus; Associate Editors: Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Mikael Thompson, Sheri Wells-Jensen; Editorial Associates: Pete Bleackley, Don Boozer, Virginia Bouchard, Florian Breit, Bethany Carlson, Jonathan Caws-Elwitt, Jonathan Downie, T.B. Geller, Brianne Hughes, Tel Monks, Daniela Müller, Cathal Peelo, David J. Peterson, Veronika Richtarcikova, Callum Robson, Jessie Sams; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Hortatives Gonna Hortate; September 2013 ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXXIII, Number 1 ... Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Bill Spruiell, Senior Editor, Sheri Wells-Jensen, Consulting Editor; Associate Editors: Pete Bleackley, Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jonathan Downie, Mikael Thompson; Assistant Editors: Virginia Bouchard, Florian Breit, Mark Mandel, Yuval Wigderson; Editorial Associates: James Campbell, Bethany Carlson, Rick Keys, Tel Monks, Laura Ryals, Zac Smith; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; Generative Grammar Considered Harmful; May 2015 ... [ more ]

Speculative Grammarian Volume CLXIX, Number 3 ... Trey Jones, Editor-in-Chief; Keith Slater, Executive Editor; Bill Spruiell, Senior Editor, Sheri Wells-Jensen, Consulting Editor; Associate Editors: Madalena Cruz-Ferreira, Jonathan Downie, Mikael Thompson; Assistant Editors: Pete Bleackley, Virginia Bouchard, Florian Breit, Callum Robson; Editorial Associates: Kenny Baclawski, Bethany Carlson, Sophie Elsässer, Katerina Kandylaki, Stephanie Leser, Jouni Maho, Tel Monks, Daniela Müller, Tuuli Mustasydän, Cathal Peelo, David J. Peterson, Jona Sassenhagen, Lea Schäfer, Megan Smith, Zac Smith, Le Anne Lucia Spino, Tangent Wong; Joey Whitford, Comptroller General; The Most Interesting Manner, Adverbial in the World; March ... [ more ]

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CLXV, Number 3; September 2012, MANAGING EDITOR Trey Jones SENIOR EDITOR Keith Slater EDITOR EMERITUS Tim Pulju Speculative Grammarian, Vol CLXV, No 3 CONSULTING EDITORS David J. Peterson Bill Spruiell, ASSOCIATE EDITORS Madalena Cruz-Ferreira Daniela Müller Mikael Thompson, EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES Cem Bozsahin Jonathan Downie Mary Pearce Mary Shapiro Sheri Wells-Jensen, COMPTROLLER GENERAL Joey Whitford Currently Seeking New Readers! ... [ more ]

Cartoon Theories of Linguistics, Part B—Ergativity. Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D. Unintentional University of Lghtnbrgstn. As set forth in the previous installment (on non-configurational languages), our goal is to illustrate important concepts in linguistics via cartoons. (And, as mentioned last time, in so doing perhaps illustrate our own mastery of the material!) For our next foray into the Cartoon Theory of Linguistics, I present the following visual explanation of ergativity: ... Next time, we’ll look at morphological typology. References, Anderson, Stephen R. (1985). Inflectional morphology. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description: Grammatical categories and the ... [ more ]

ADVERTISEMENT Conlangers Anonymous. Consider the following woeful tale: Last weekend, I was sitting in my kitchen, idly doodling a series of small circles, and I suddenly imagined the loops running together, like words, and the next thing I know I’ve blacked out. When I come to 14 hours later, there’s a 600+ character syllabary scrawled on nearly a ream of paper strewn across the table. It’s 90% systematic, but every thirteenth character has an irregular shape, and there are unpredictable ligatures for the most common bigrams, trigrams, and quintgrams (but not for quadgrams, for complex reasons related to the religion of the speakers)... oh, Zamenhof forgive me... the ligatures! Under the pile of papers ... [ more ]

SPECULATIVE GRAMMARIAN, Volume CLIII, Number 2; November 2007, Speculative Grammarian, Vol CLIII, No 2, IM IN UR JURNAL, SPEKULATIN’ UR GRAMMERZ, MANAGING EDITOR, Trey Jones, SENIOR EDITOR, Keith Slater, EDITOR EMERITUS, Tim Pulju, ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Adam Baker, Martin Hilpert, Kean Kaufmann, Ken Miner, David J. Peterson, Freya Shipley, Bill Spruiell, Mikael Thompson, Joey Whitford, ... [ more ]

Linguimericks, Book ९०. Differential Accusative case In the animals’ ‘speech’ has no place. When advancing the claim “Human codes are supreme” DOM’s my preferred coup de grâce —Morris Swadesh III, In Boulogne in 1905 This thing ‘Esperanto’ came alive. A century later This question’s now weightier: Just how will the movement survive? —Nine Teens of Fife, Boulogne?! Boulogne-sur-Mer! You must keep the last two terms there. It’s not the accusative— Optionally usative: If you leave that off, no-one will care —Ike Yooza-Tivv(on), If I happen to have a tough week And I find I can’t drop off to sleep Then ... [ more ]

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