λ♥[love] (Linguistics Love Song)

Copyright Christine Collins, 2010-2011

Need to win the heart of a linguist? It's your lucky day! Here is a convenient, terminology-dropping, non-gender-specific love song for all your linguist-seducing needs.

Usual disclaimers: Audio quality's not great, it doesn't really end very nicely, my friend made me upload it, etc., etc.

Okay, now that part's over, lyrics:

let me have your heart and i will give you love
the denotation of my soul is the above
if there's anything i lack, it's you
as my double brackets, you make me mean things
i can't say enough

consider me your anaphor, i'm bound to you
there's no one else that i could be referring to
your features all attract me
we're such a perfect match, please agree with me
i need to be with you

well i don't know how to say exactly how i feel about you
'cuz it seems my broca's area stops working right around you
forgive me my disfluency, there's nothing i can do, you see
you speak to me, linguistically i'm yours

now i know you tend to isolate, and that's all right
like free morphemes you and i could lead our separate lives
but if we were to agglutinate
together we would do so great
and i'd hate to miss the words we could derive

well i don't know how to say exactly how i feel about you
'cuz it seems my broca's area stops working right around you
forgive me my disfluency, there's nothing i can do, you see
you speak to me, and linguistically i'm yours

so please don't be my allophone and disappear
really awkwardly whenever i start getting near
let's be a minimal pair
'cuz i'm totally cool with us both being there
my environment is better when you're here
my environment is better when you're here
my environment is better when you're here

Category:

Music

Tags:

• linguistics
• love

[mattbarros1]

Seriously, I'm on the planning committee for SALT 21 this year and me and a couple of other people are in charge of music for the dinner/dance party - it'd be great if we could play this.

[eastfarthing1420]

@mattbarros1 That would be totally okay with me. I'm going to try to have a downloadable version available sometime soon; I'll put a link to it in the video description when it's up.

[Nadezh79]

This is awesome. When I'm not listening to it over and over, I'm wandering around humming it.

Would you consider upping the audio quality and making it available as an mp3? I'd pay to download it.

[eastfarthing1420]

@Nadezh79 Unfortunately my audio editing skills are pretty close to nonexistent, so I don't know what I can do about the sound quality, but it's definitely something I can look into! Thanks for the kind words. XD

[choco6sugar]

This is too amazing. Can I put this up on my linguistics society's website?

[eastfarthing1420]

@choco6sugar If you credit me, yes, no problem! :)

[thevoluptuous]

I very much value the features of this song.

[Ladygrev]

This should be required listening for any intro to linguistics course.

[YOAnnetteYO]

лямбда!

[1Phoenixness]

Amazing, you left a linguist speechless... for about 10 minutes... :)

[theodorou123]

Fantastic song! Already spread it around to the other students. Sincerely, President of Linguistics Student Association at York University.

[potassiumchlorate]

Linguistics rules!

[ElGringoCastellano]

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously!

[xNaina]

Could we maybe see the chords? We want to perform the song on a small party for linguists :)

[mmstormbane]

Something something merge.

[sarieses]

Love it. Thanks for sharing this. Sincerely, Secretary of the Linguistics Student Association at San Diego State University.

[LesBellesParoles]

I am a linguistics major, and this is one of my favorite things ever. My other linguistics friends who I've sent it to love it as well. The lyrics are so clever, and your voice is perfect for it.... you c-commanded it! Thanks for posting. :)

[frankcharles511]

LET'S BE MINIMAL PAIRS!! SO SWEET!!