That headline was a wild ride.

I would probably use cultural activist. You could probably also use advocate or preservationist.

Activist has a little bit more active connotation, like your out in the streets or organizing in some way to maintain the culture. Advocate is good, but a little vague. Preservationist would be more like documenting or conserving existing examples of the minority culture, and is maybe a little dry or academic of a term.

So for your example Cantonese cultural/language activist would probably fit best.

;-)

This blog and the Wikipedia are good starting points. I don’t speak Japanese, but I do speak Chinese and have a background in linguistics so am peripherally aware of what’s going on so take that with as much salt as you need.

It’s useful to note that there were multiple attempts to go the “Oops! All kana” route or use romaji, but for a variety of reasons cultural, political, and linguistic, those didn’t pan out. Writing systems are deeply informed by a specific historical and social context, and what at first seems like irregularity or unneeded complexity, are often actually the traces of that history marked on the language.

As for issues like why katakana is used for non-foreign words too, I thinks it’s best to think of language feature less as strict rule followers and more like a species in its ecological niche. Katakana is very good at rendering foreign words in Japanese, but if it finds some unfilled gap that isn’t being better filled by some other feature people will use it to to fill that gap too. When the semicolon was developed in English no one imagined at the time we’d use it to do this ;-) but here we are.

Seconded! Amazing app. I noted in my own comment you might have to go somewhere else for discovery since there’s no in-app search, but as a reader it’s near perfect.

Yes! It really is a gem, especially since iOS has so many fewer open source options in general.

This is the feed xml I use for NYT Breaking News. I get the usual text preview but if I choose to expand the full article it’s always there. This is true on NetNewsWire and Inoreader which I previously used.

I’ve been loving RSS for awhile now not only because it’s private but because it seems to be unpaywalled as well? Maybe someone can answer this, but how is it I can subscribe to the NYT RSS feed and can get completely free articles to my reader?

PS shoutout to NetNewsWire on iOS which is open source and the developer seems like a great guy. It’s not great for discovery as you have to paste in the web url manually, but if you already know what you want to read it’s a great RSS reader app.

I didn’t know about these and found one in my city. Thanks for the tip!

Aw hell yeah. Happened on thursday but in honor of these baby crocs wishing everyone an extra special flat fuck friday.

Wow, crazy. I was looking up some context and found this Reuters article which says it’s the 8th West/Central African coup in three years.

It makes it even worse that people clearly have no problem addressing Dr. Pepper by their proper title. You’re Dr. Root_beer in my book.

I was about to say this. Downside is you have to get a PhD first…

I Have No Bowl, and I Must Scream.

Kachow 👍

Alex Hall, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic science at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that dry and wet weather events have been made worse, or “juiced,” by climate change.
“The net effect is we do have much deeper extremes,” Dr. Hall said. “It’s boomier and bustier. People have used the word ‘whiplash’ before.”

When your climate change-induced natural disasters cancel each other out.

Trump: Haha jk jk… unless??

Slaps the hood of Baldur’s Gate 3 this bad boy can fit so many wildly exceeded expectations for a complete AAA-title at launch in 2023

I’m a bit of a news junkie, but I always pay attention to the link being shared. Is it a reliable source? Is it paywalled? Is it a tabloid just spreading rumors and disinfo? You’re right that a link aggregator is only as good as the links being shared.

Hello, neighbor!