language contact: 2006 Archives

it's that time of year again... I went home last weekend and grandma had made some 粽 [tsʊŋ²⁵]. I brought some back, gave one to Kevin (he's one of the few people in the house who can really appreciate it), and I had one this morning. I've seen it in a restaurant once listed as "Chinese tamale", and then Lauren told me about the pache that she had in Guatemala, which are pretty much the same thing--they're rice wrapped in banana leaves with stuff inside, and there's a dessert kind and a savory kind, and the dessert kind has chicken and a cherry in it, apparently. She'd actually told me about it in September or something, but I forgot. In Guatemala it's a Christmas treat, but she got sick of them because she was forced to eat the dessert kind every day for days on end. Anyway, Lauren surmised that paches must have been a post-Columbian exchange era thing, because they're made with rice, not corn.

Here's more proof I have (or had) a three-vowel /r/-colored vowel space: Just now, David said he couldn't clean his keyboard because he didn't have an airblaster. I thought he said he didn't have an "earblaster", and then realized that couldn't possibly be right.