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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: vowels: are they necessary?
From: Stephen Mulraney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: vowels: are they necessary?
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. From Eburacon to York (Re: The Need for Debate)
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: USAGE: Speak-Say-Tell
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. CHAT "nominibus suis: (was: nomothete)
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: USAGE: Speak-Say-Tell
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: USAGE: Speak-Say-Tell
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Asha'ille site update
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Choton handwriting font
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: The Need for Debate
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: USAGE: Speak-Say-Tell
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Proto-Germanic
From: Stephen Mulraney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)
From: Stephen Mulraney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: Skälansk - History and Babel text
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: Devanagari handwriting?
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. HELP: Drawing Arcs
From: David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: CHAT: The Alex Charalabidis Guide to Souvlaki
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: vowels: are they necessary?
From: Dirk Elzinga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: Skälansk - History and Babel text
From: Keith Gaughan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 17:51:44 +0000
From: Stephen Mulraney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: vowels: are they necessary?
Steven Williams wrote:
> --- Stephen Mulraney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> skrev:
>>>Oh, quite a few. Russian comes to mind; 's' and 'v'
>>>are both legitimate words (I think they're prepositions).
>> Well, phonologically, they never stand alone (AFAIK).
>> Indeed, another consonental preposition is 'k'.
> Interesting. How are clusters like /s zdranat/ (I'm
> making up a Russian-sounding word here, because the
> only Russian I know comes from old spy movies)
> pronounced?
In these cases, _s_ becomes _so_. E.g. "so mnoy".
Similary with other prepostions (all these words
are prepositions). Indeed, even prepositions like _ob_
sometimes become _obo_. I can't seem to find the
situations in which the extra "o"s appear. I can
visualise the page of the grammar it appears on,
but I can't find it by paging through it...
>>Many languages have a syllabic 'r' or
>>>'l' (such as Czech, Slovak and Sanskrit).
>>Or English. (little /litl=/, better /betr=/)
> D'oh! Forgot about my own native language here!
Well, it's hidden by the orthography :)
s.
--
Stephen Mulraney [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Klein bottle for rent ... inquire within.
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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 10:00:30 -0800
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)
On Wed, 8 Dec 2004 10:11:10 +0100, Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Is there an English word for a "half" sandwich, which lacks the upper bread?
>
>
Well there's a term: "open face sandwich". Not seen so much these
days, but I guess they were popular decades ago :).
--
You can turn away from me
but there's nothing that'll keep me here you know
And you'll never be the city guy
Any more than I'll be hosting The Scooby Show
Scooby Show - Belle and Sebastian
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 3
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 18:02:35 +0000
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: vowels: are they necessary?
On Wednesday, December 8, 2004, at 12:48 , Stephen Mulraney wrote:
> Steven Williams wrote:
>> --- # 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[snip]
>>> continued as long we want. Is there any languages
>>> that has some words that are only consonants without
>>> vowels?
>
>
>> Oh, quite a few. Russian comes to mind; 's' and 'v'
>> are both legitimate words (I think they're
>> prepositions).
>
> Well, phonologically, they never stand alone (AFAIK).
> Indeed, another consonental preposition is 'k'.
No they don't stand alone. Although the are written with white space each
side, they are not 'words' in the fullest sense; they are essentially
proclitics.
>
> Many languages have a syllabic 'r' or
>> 'l' (such as Czech, Slovak and Sanskrit).
>
> Or English. (little /litl=/, better /betr=/)
Yes - syllabic /r/ and /l/ are not rare - and syllabic /m/ and /n/ are
common enough in English.
[snip]
>>> Generally, consonant always means that there is
>>> vowel pasted to, but why?
>
> I guess the question is, can a phonological segment (a "sound") act as
> a syllable peak? If so, surely it's operating as a vowel in the language
> in question.
Yes - it is important to distinguish between _phonetic_ and _phonological_
behavior, otherwise confusions sets in; and I think that is happening to
some extent in this thread.
>
>> Generally, most languages have syllabic constraints
>> that forbid isolated consonants without vowels. But
>> then again, many languages break those very same
>> rules; Mandarin, in certain interpretations, has
>> syllabic [s], [s`], [s\], [ts], [ts`], [ts\] and [r\].
>
> I don't think any rules is being broken here, simply because (say) [s]
> comes from the part of the IPA chart labelled "consonants".
Yep.
It is very important to keep phonetic & phonological distinctions separate.
For that reason the phonetician Kenneth Pike coined the terms _contoid_
and _vocoid_ in order to be able to distinguish between phonetic and
phonological notions of consonant and vowel. He used the former terms for
phonetic distinctions and the latter for phonological distinctions.
PHONETIC
_contoid_ = a a sound produced by complete closure of the vocal tract or
the narrowing of the tract to cause audible friction.
_vocoid_ = a sound lacking any closure or narrowing of of the vocal tract
sufficient to produce audible friction. This means that besides the
classic 'vowels', /r/, /l/, /w/ /j/ and other approximants are vocoids.
PHONOLOGICAL
_consonant_ = a sound which functions at the margins of a syllable.
Therefore, by definition, a (phonological) consonant must be "pasted" to a
vowel.
_vowel_ = a sound which functions as he center or peak of a syllable.
So a sound such as [l] is a vocoid (or 'phonetic vowel') but may be
phonologically either a consonant or a vowel, depending upon the phonology
of a given language.
[snip]
> ObConlang: I once had a conlang idea for a lang that had no "vowels". It
> had
> syllable peaks, of course, but these were mostly fricatives and sonorants.
Phonologically, they are vowels. And to answer the question in the subject
header: Yes, phonologically they are necessary (But those shown as
phonetic vowels on the IPA chart, are not neccessary :)
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 4
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 18:02:15 +0000
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: From Eburacon to York (Re: The Need for Debate)
On Tuesday, December 7, 2004, at 08:21 , John Cowan wrote:
> Steg Belsky scripsit:
>
>> York comes from Norse "Jorvik"? I thought it came from Latin
>> "Eboricum" or something like that...
>
> "Eboracum", yes, and before that from some Celtic name.
The old British name was _Eburacon_ /ebu'ra:kon/ which was latinized as
_Eburacum_ (with the same vowel quantities & stress as the British).
The best Classical Latin spellings was _Eburacum_; the spelling _Eboracum_
reflects the Vulgar Latin change of [U] --> [o] - but the stress remained
on the /a/ (in VL length had ceased to be phonemic). Some of the earlier
instances of Eboracum_ in Ptolemy may be 'corrections' by later copyists.
Both spellings were current in Britain and Bede, writing in the 8th cent,
has both spellings according to what source he is using when mentioning
the city.
The morpheme -aco- /a:ko/ denoted "place" and still survives in modern
Welsh as -og (earlier -awg), cf.
rhedynog "bracken-patch" <-- _rhedyn_ "bracken"
ceirchog "oat field" <-- ceirch "oats"
celynnog "holly thicket" <-- celyn "holly"
There is, however, debate as to the meaning of the root ebur(o)-. Some
people take it as being an old root meaning "yew" (apparently the Old
Irish _ibhar_ glossed as 'taxus'), and thus Eburacum = "place of yews".
But _Ebruros_ is attested as a personal name in Gaul, so some think it
meant: "Eburos' estate". On the balance the evidence seems to favor "place
of yews", but it is not certain.
The modern Eelsh name for the city is _Efrog_ ['e:vrQg]. If the
Romano-British name had been taken over by the English, then the modern
English (after Norman spelling 'deforms') would probably be: *Everock'
/'[EMAIL PROTECTED]/.
> But the Old English
> name was "Eoforwic", a case of folk etymology -- the meaningless Latin
> name
> was reinterpreted as "Wild-boar-town".
There is some evidence that the Romanized inhabitants of York understood
the name to contain a word for 'boar', presumably confusing VL /abr-/ ~
/aber-/ (Classical Latin _aper_, gen. _apris_) with Ebur- ~ Ebor-. In an
inscription of 237 CE found in Bordeaux, a boar appears as the 'canting
badge' of Eburacum. If this was common, it would have assisted the Old
English re-interpretation.
> If the name had descended unchanged,
> it would have come out Everwich, or something of the sort -- but when the
> Danes took over they simplified "Eofor-" to "Jor-" and replaced the ending
> with their cognate form "-vik". "York" is a further reduced descendant.
Yep - and is by good fortune that we do not have the city name spelled
"Yorwick" but pronounced "York"! Luckily saner counsels have prevailed
with this name.
========================================
On Wednesday, December 8, 2004, at 01:01 , And Rosta wrote:
Joe:
[snip]
> Eaverwich, capital of Eaverishire. Pronounced [i:[EMAIL PROTECTED],
> obviously.
>
> By your generation, yes. [i:v(@)rIdZ] by those of years less tender
> than yours...
Quite right. "Eaverwich"/"Everwich" would certainly be ['i:vridz] to us of
mature years, just as "Norwich" rhymes with 'porridge' in the old rhyme
about the Man in the Moon :)
================================================
There's quite a bit of material above for those who like alternative
worlds :)
PS - just to cheer up And, and let him know that this papist brother found
no offense in his "John II" mail. It seems to describe our List custodian
very well :)
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 5
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 10:09:03 -0800
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)
On Wed, 8 Dec 2004 18:42:09 +0300, Dan Sulani <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> is _food_! (I often have one for lunch!)
> Shawarma, OTOH, is what put the "junk" into "junk-food"! ;-)
> Seriously! IME, the "meat" that they press together into a cylinder
> is odds and ends that the meat producers couldn't get rid of any other way.
> It is usually somewhat tough and totally tasteless!
Meat odds and ends CAN be good..... like Mexican Chorizo which is made
with the leftovers but is oh so good with scrambled eggs and corn
tortillas.
>To remedy that,
> on top of the rotating cylinder of "meat", the schawarma vendors usually
> put a huge glob of fat (presumably beef or lamb). While the "meat"
> turns beside the vertical grill, the fat melts bit by bit and makes its way
> onto the stuff below, thus imparting any flavor one might taste!
> (Sometimes they add an onion to the fat on top so that it too can
> dribble down some flavor!)
I've heard in Mexico, taco vendors will do something like that...
chunk of meat on a vertical spit, but some put a pineapple on top so
it drips all over the meat. When I was there i never saw
that....usually the meat was already sliced thin and they'd keep it on
the grill to keep it hot.
> Regarding the other types of meat: my family doesn't usually eat
> kebabs. If we cook chopped meat, it's usually patties
> done American style rather than Middle-Eastern kebabs.
>
The last time I had kebab, I was at a friend's house and he skewered
it, but then took it off so we could eat it. It was lamb, and buffalo
meat (ground up, like Steg's experience with Kebab). The buffalo was
excellent... very much like beef. We called it "Buffaloaf". It was
served up with couscous and grilled vegetables.
Speaking of bready things, I don't know how common it is elsewhere,
but here in California, a typical meal is clam chowder in a sourdough
breadbowl. It's excellent. Other thick chowder like soups can be
placed into it (nothing too liquid.. it soaks through the bread).
There is also the ubiquitous at parties spinach dip in a bread bowl as
well. You need good quality sourdough, preferably made fresh.
--
You can turn away from me
but there's nothing that'll keep me here you know
And you'll never be the city guy
Any more than I'll be hosting The Scooby Show
Scooby Show - Belle and Sebastian
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Message: 6
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 10:08:14 -0800
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: USAGE: Speak-Say-Tell
On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 12:23:46PM -0500, Geoff Horswood wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was thinking about the English words "speak", "say", "tell" (and "talk"),
> and trying to quantify the exact difference between them.
>
> Specifically, I was wondering whether all the words were strictly necessary
> in a language, or whether you could postulate a language with only one word
> meaning speak, say, tell or talk, depending on context. How realistic is
> this?
[...]
> What about other natlangs?
[...]
In my L1, there's really only one word for all 4 meanings: _kong2_
(the 2 is the tone number [1]). By itself, _kong2_ means "to say". "To
speak" or "to talk" is _kong2 ua3_ [2], which is literally "to say
words". "To tell" is simply indicated by adding the person being told,
e.g.:
ka3 wa1 kong2
to me say
"Tell me"; lit., "speak to me".
ObConlang: Tatari Faran, unlike my L1, distinguishes between "speak"
and "talk":
_tsana ... aniin_ - to speak, to say, to tell; usually referring to a
specific instance of speaking.
_sisita ... isin_ - to talk, to chat, to gossip; usually referring to
background chatting in a crowd where the actual contents of the speech
are unknown or irrelevant.
[1] Tone 2 is pronounced as 35 (high rising) in my idiolect, but
elsewhere (such as in Taiwan) it is pronounced 52 (high falling). The
latter is more "authentic" in the sense that it's the original
pronunciation in Fuqian province.
[2] Tone 3 is 21 (low falling).
T
(PS. My sig-generator Perl script seems to have picked the keyword in
the recent thread, in a sudden bout of cognizance.)
--
English has the lovely word "defenestrate", meaning "to execute by throwing
someone out a window", or more recently "to remove Windows from a computer
and replace it with something useful". :-) -- John Cowan
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Message: 7
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 18:02:46 +0000
From: Ray Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: CHAT "nominibus suis: (was: nomothete)
On Tuesday, December 7, 2004, at 07:39 , Steg Belsky wrote:
> On Dec 7, 2004, at 8:46 PM, Ray Brown wrote:
>> I note Eco refers to "nominibus suis" which is in the Vulgate version
>> of
>> verse 20:
>> Appellavitque Adam nominibus suis cuncta animantia, et universa
>> volatilia
>> caeli, et omnes bestias terrae.
>> And Adam call all living things by their own names: both all the flying
>> creatures of the sky, and all the beasts of the earth.
>> But I notice the Septuagint has nothing corresponding to "nominibus":
>> Kai ekalesen Adam onomata pasi tois kthnesi, kai pasi tois peteinois
>> tou
>> ouranou, kai pasi tois qhriois tou agrou.
>> And Adam summoned names for all the domestic animals, and for all the
>> winged creatures of the sky, and for all wild beasts of the
>> country-side.
>> I wonder what the Hebrew has. Hopefully Steg or Isaac will enlighten
>> us.
>
> It says:
> Vayiqra ha'adam sheimot; lekhol habeheima ule`of hashamayim, ulekhol
> hhayat hasadeh
> "And [then] the human called names; for all of the domesticated animals
> and for the birds of the heavens, and for all of the wild animals of
> the field..."
Thank you - that is practically the same as the Septuagint.
Where the Vulgate & Septuagint differ, one often finds that it is a case
where Jerome has decided to follow the Hebrew text in preference to the
Septuagint. He certainly knew Hebrew and moved to Bethlehem to do his
revision, compilation & translation where he had access to Hebrew texts.
_animantia_ is however an odd word to use if he meant just "domesticated
animals" - the translation I give above would be the normal to understand
from the Latin. So where did the "nominibus suis" come from? It is likely
Jerome had access to manuscripts no longer available to us now.
Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 8
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 11:30:26 -0700
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: USAGE: Speak-Say-Tell
On Wed, 8 Dec 2004 12:23:46 -0500, Geoff Horswood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I was thinking about the English words "speak", "say", "tell" (and "talk"),
> and trying to quantify the exact difference between them.
You can _speak_ intransitively, indicating you're participating in the activity,
especially in senses like "speaking at the conference". You can also speak
in languages or manners "speak French", "speak coherently", and, transitively,
you can speak words.
You can't, normally, "say" intransitively, except in "say so", and sometimes
without "so" in the same sense: "does he like shoes?" "I don't know, he didn't
say". Transitively you can say words, but you can also say quoted or indirect
speech: "He said the magic words, he said 'Please, sir.', and I said I would
do it".
The object of "tell" is generally not what is said, but who is being spoken to:
"I told him [that I would]." But you can also tell tales or stories. Generally
"tell" isn't used with quoted speech, but indirect speech.
> Specifically, I was wondering whether all the words were strictly necessary
> in a language, or whether you could postulate a language with only one word
> meaning speak, say, tell or talk, depending on context. How realistic is
> this?
I think that most divisions of this semantic space could be plausible.
> (Kazakh has 3 words: /ajtu/ to speak or tell, /deu/ to say, and /s2jleu/ to
> talk, plus the compound /djep ajtu/.)
> What about other natlangs?
In Spanish the ordinary words seem to be "hablar" (speak) and "decir"
(say, tell).
*Muke!
--
website: http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt: http://kohath.deviantart.com/
FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/
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Message: 9
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 13:30:27 -0500
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: USAGE: Speak-Say-Tell
Joe scripsit:
> In my idiolect, only 'speak' can take a language as its direct object.
Huh. I have no trouble talking English, talking plain English, or talking
turkey.
--
A: "Spiro conjectures Ex-Lax." John Cowan
Q: "What does Pat Nixon frost her cakes with?" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--"Jeopardy" for generative semanticists http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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Message: 10
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 13:45:39 -0500
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)
Andreas Johansson scripsit:
> Quoting John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> > Finally, there is the term "Dagwood sandwich", referring to Blondie's
> > husband
> > in the long-running comic strip _Blondie_. I don't know if this is live
> > usage or just a kind of in-joke.
Googling shows that it's definitely live usage.
> Oversized sandwiches are sometimes called _dagobertmackor_ in Swedish, from
> _Dagobert_, the name of said character in the Swedish translation of the
> comic,
> and _macka_, an informal word for a sandwich (or simply a piece of bread with
> cheese or whatever on).
Interesting. Is "Dagobert" a common name, or a rare name, or an unheard-of
name in Sweden? "Dagwood" seems to absolutely not exist in English except
for direct or indirect reference to this character (sandwiches, delicatessens,
etc.)
> Is there an English word for a "half" sandwich, which lacks the upper bread?
An "open-faced" sandwich.
--
John Cowan www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
All "isms" should be "wasms". --Abbie
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Message: 11
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 10:43:50 -0800
From: "H. S. Teoh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Asha'ille site update
On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 01:58:38AM -0800, Arthaey Angosii wrote:
> Mostly I would appreciate more feedback on my dictionary format(s). My
> personal favorite is the verbose all-on-one-page version at
>
> http://arthaey.mine.nu:8080/~arthaey/conlang/lexicon/dictionary.html
I like this version too. The Tatari Faran lexicon page uses a similar
format (albeit with HTML tables to keep each element of the entry
distinct). :-)
> Other, shorter, formats (by popular demand ;) ) are linked from
>
> http://arthaey.mine.nu:8080/~arthaey/conlang/lexicon/
The concise dictionary format is nice. The tabular format doesn't show
up right on both Opera 7.54/Linux and Firefox 0.8/Linux; the right
column is too wide and extends past the right margin. (This could be a
side-effect of my stubborn and entirely irrational insistence that
browser windows be exactly 800 pixels wide, no more, no less. So feel
free to ignore me if you so choose. :-P)
> I've also finally started on putting a grammar up online, though as of
> now it's still limited. I'll be putting up the rest of it during
> winter break. The phonology is already there and can be found via
>
> http://arthaey.mine.nu:8080/~arthaey/conlang/grammar/
[...]
jhei. :-) I was hoping to find some page that describes how the Roman
orthography maps to the IPA sounds, though. I know I've seen it before
(or maybe you told me on IRC) but I can't seem to find it. Is it
linked from the main page?
Also, at the bottom of stress.html I see the message: [an error
occurred while processing this directive]. I don't think this is
intentional. :-)
PS. Whatever happened to the IRC server? It's been down the whole day
yesterday and still isn't back yet.
T
--
VI = Visual Irritation
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Message: 12
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 19:40:29 +0100
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Choton handwriting font
Thanks to Jonathyn Bet'nct, I have now a font for my Choton handwriting
script :D
You can now see the Babel text written with this font on the Babel page,
where you can also download the font:
http://www.choton.org/babel.html
http://www.choton.org/babel-de.html -> Deutsche Seite
--
Pascal A. Kramm, author of:
Choton: http://www.choton.org
Ichwara Prana: http://www.choton.org/ichwara/
Skälansk: http://www.choton.org/sk/
Advanced English: http://www.choton.org/ae/
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Message: 13
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 13:55:35 -0500
From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: The Need for Debate
Thomas R. Wier scripsit:
> Also interestingly,
> there never was a Pope John XX; people lost track sometime in the
> 11th century and misnumbered this one and the next (d. 1334).
In James Branch Cabell's 1919 picaresque fantasy _Jurgen_, the hero gets
into Heaven (by no means the last stop on his journey) by claiming to be
the missing John XX:
"Perhaps," says Jurgen, "I ought not to tell you who I am. But what
is life without confidence in one another? Besides, you appear a boy
of remarkable discretion. So I will confide in you that I am Pope
John the Twentieth, Heaven's regent upon Earth, now visiting this
place upon Celestial business which I am not at liberty to divulge
more particularly, for reasons that will at once occur to a young
man of your unusual cleverness."
"Oh, but I say! that is droll. Do you just wait a moment!" cried the
boy angel.
His bright face vanished, with a whisking of brown curls: and Jurgen
carefully re-read the cantrip of the Master Philologist. "Yes, I
have found, I think, the way to use such magic," observes Jurgen.
Presently the young angel re-appeared at the parapet. "I say, messire!
I looked on the Register--all popes are admitted here the moment they
die, without inquiring into their private affairs, you know, so as to
avoid any unfortunate scandal,--and we have twenty-three Pope Johns
listed. And sure enough, the mansion prepared for John the Twentieth
is vacant. He seems to be the only pope that is not in Heaven."
"Why, but of course not," says Jurgen, complacently, "inasmuch as
you see me, who was once Bishop of Rome and servant to the servants
of God, standing down here on this cinder-heap."
"Yes, but none of the others in your series appears to place you.
John the Nineteenth says he never heard of you, and not to bother
him in the middle of a harp lesson--"
"He died before my accession, naturally."
"--And John the Twenty-first says he thinks they lost count somehow,
and that there never was any Pope John the Twentieth. He says you
must be an impostor."
"Ah, professional jealousy!" sighed Jurgen: "dear me, this is very
sad, and gives one a poor opinion of human nature. Now, my boy, I
put it to you fairly, how could there have been a twenty-first
unless there had been a twentieth? And what becomes of the great
principle of papal infallibility when a pope admits to a mistake in
elementary arithmetic? Oh, but this is a very dangerous heresy, let
me tell you, an Inquisition matter, a consistory business! Yet,
luckily, upon his own contention, this Pedro Juliani--"
"And that was his name, too, for he told me! You evidently know all
about it, messire," said the young angel, visibly impressed.
"Of course, I know all about it. Well, I repeat, upon his own
contention this man is non-existent, and so, whatever he may say
amounts to nothing. For he tells you there was never any Pope John
the Twentieth: and either he is lying or he is telling you the
truth. If he is lying, you, of course, ought not to believe him:
yet, if he is telling you the truth, about there never having been
any Pope John the Twentieth, why then, quite plainly, there was
never any Pope John the Twenty-first, so that this man asserts his
own non-existence; and thus is talking nonsense, and you, of course,
ought not to believe in nonsense. Even did we grant his insane
contention that he is nobody, you are too well brought up, I am
sure, to dispute that nobody tells lies in Heaven: it follows that
in this case nobody is lying; and so, of course, I must be telling
the truth, and you have no choice save to believe me."
Full text available -- and recommended! at
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8jurg10.txt .
--
Knowledge studies others / Wisdom is self-known; John Cowan
Muscle masters brothers / Self-mastery is bone; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Content need never borrow / Ambition wanders blind; www.ccil.org/~cowan
Vitality cleaves to the marrow / Leaving death behind. --Tao 33 (Bynner)
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Message: 14
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 18:54:50 +0000
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: USAGE: Speak-Say-Tell
John Cowan wrote:
>Joe scripsit:
>
>
>
>>In my idiolect, only 'speak' can take a language as its direct object.
>>
>>
>
>Huh. I have no trouble talking English, talking plain English, or talking
>turkey.
>
>
That's true, I suppose. 'talk' implies a more instantaneous sense than
'speak'.
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Message: 15
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 18:53:48 +0000
From: Stephen Mulraney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Proto-Germanic
Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
>
>>> Are you Norwegian?
>>
>>
>>
>> No, I'm Canadian. I don't know exactly why it's sticking Norwegian ads
>> at the bottom of my email... it must have something to do with the fact
>> that at one point I switched my language to Norwegian because I heard
>> that it then doesn't stick any ads at the bottom of your emails at all.
>> It worked, at least when I first tried it, and I didn't check since.
>
>
> It must have something to do with Norwegian legislation
> against unsolicited advertisements.
But then (apart from the question of how they ended up on Estel's mails),
why would there even exist Norwegian versions of the advertisements? :-)
s.
--
Stephen Mulraney [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Klein bottle for rent ... inquire within.
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Message: 16
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 18:56:44 +0000
From: Stephen Mulraney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)
John Cowan wrote:
> Andreas Johansson scripsit:
>
>>Quoting John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Interesting. Is "Dagobert" a common name, or a rare name, or an unheard-of
> name in Sweden? "Dagwood" seems to absolutely not exist in English except
> for direct or indirect reference to this character (sandwiches, delicatessens,
> etc.)
>>Is there an English word for a "half" sandwich, which lacks the upper bread?
> An "open-faced" sandwich.
Really? I've heard of "open sandwiches", which I always assumed were these
"half-sandwiches".
Possibly a Pondian distinction?
s.
--
Stephen Mulraney [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Klein bottle for rent ... inquire within.
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Message: 17
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 14:05:12 -0500
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Skälansk - History and Babel text
On Tue, 7 Dec 2004 08:36:38 +0100, Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 19:14:07 -0500, Pascal A. Kramm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> There are some other nifty features, like VSO syntax (which is pretty rare),
>
>It's used in at least some Polynesian languages -- e.g. Niuean is
>arguably VSO (if you don't consider it ergative, in which case it's
>VAP).
I know, that's why I wrote "rare" and not "hardly used at all".
>> * It was decided to put the verb at the beginning, followed by subject
>> and object, since this structure was not found in any other known languages.
>
>I think OSV is the rarest word order, with few known natlangs using it.
Yes, but keep in mind that this decision was made in the late middle ages,
so it refers to their knowledge at that time.
--
Pascal A. Kramm, author of:
Choton: http://www.choton.org
Ichwara Prana: http://www.choton.org/ichwara/
Skälansk: http://www.choton.org/sk/
Advanced English: http://www.choton.org/ae/
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Message: 18
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 14:11:59 -0500
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Devanagari handwriting?
On Tue, 7 Dec 2004 20:36:15 +0100, Steven Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Since learning the Devanagari abugida, I've been
>curious as to how it's handwritten in everyday usage.
>The script is _very_ difficult to write out as it is
>printed, especially on account of the top bar. Do the
>users of this alphabet just grin and bear it, or do
>they have some form that they use in informal
>day-to-day communication?
They just bear it, same as with amny other over-complicated thing in
Sanskrit not found in most other languages (e.g. dual case).
Hmm... I think a Devanagari script optimized for handwriting could go nicely
with my Ichwara Prana lang. Now there's food for thought :D
--
Pascal A. Kramm, author of:
Choton: http://www.choton.org
Ichwara Prana: http://www.choton.org/ichwara/
Skälansk: http://www.choton.org/sk/
Advanced English: http://www.choton.org/ae/
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Message: 19
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 14:17:22 EST
From: David Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: HELP: Drawing Arcs
Huh. I typed "arc pair grammar" into Google, and the first hit
was a conlang message about how there should be an encyclopedia
entry for arc pair grammar. Guess that effort failed...?
Anyway, I'm creating a grammar for Kamakawi right now that's
borrowing bits from David Perlmutter and Paul Postal's work, as
well as a theory I was recently introduced to on discourse analysis.
In order to put it up somewhere, though, I have to be able to draw
arcs (preferably with arrows on the end). I've been fruitless in all
my endeavors. I can't do it with any of the drawing tools on my
word processor's painting program, and trying to find font pictures
of arcs has also proven useless (and time-consuming).
I've been trying to find a picture of one of the "trees" (I forget what
they're called) for RG, but haven't been able to find any on the web.
(I did find the notes to Andreas Kathol's last class at Berkeley, though,
which I attended. How bizarre...) I can find a few examples of what
I'm thinking of in this .pdf:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/nasslli/courses/as-cr-da/apbook-nasslli.pdf
Ahh! Perfect! I found a .gif of an explanation of RG, Chômeurs et
tous! Here's the link:
http://www1.elsevier.com/homepage/sal/ellei/images/grammar.gif
As you can see, these arrows are extremely malleable, yet they come out
looking nice and smooth. Does anyone know of a font that has arrows
like these, or how one can draw them aside from freehand? I'd be
extremely appreciative.
Thanks!
[Note: For my purposes, the arcs can be more like semi-circles that can
be interupted if they encounter a barrier, if that makes sense.]
-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
[This message contained attachments]
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Message: 20
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 21:30:42 +0200
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)
On Dec 8, 2004, at 5:42 PM, Dan Sulani wrote:
> Are you kidding, Steg??! Felafel is _food_! (I often have one for
> lunch!)
> Shawarma, OTOH, is what put the "junk" into "junk-food"! ;-)
> Seriously! IME, the "meat" that they press together into a cylinder
> is odds and ends that the meat producers couldn't get rid of any other
> way.
> It is usually somewhat tough and totally tasteless! To remedy that,
> on top of the rotating cylinder of "meat", the schawarma vendors
> usually
> put a huge glob of fat (presumably beef or lamb). While the "meat"
> turns beside the vertical grill, the fat melts bit by bit and makes
> its way
> onto the stuff below, thus imparting any flavor one might taste!
> (Sometimes they add an onion to the fat on top so that it too can
> dribble down some flavor!)
> In the past, I used to eat schawarma on occasion. I can't anymore!
> :-P
Hey, i never said anything about junk food ;) i just called them all
_fast_ food!
You're making me want to stop eating shawarma :P although i haven't
really had any for a while... there's a great place back in New York
though that's open very late where me and friends would go for
"midnight shawarma" on saturday night.
> Regarding the "salad" add-ons, Steg, IMHO you pretty much covered it.
> By "hharif" do you include the Yemmenite "sxug" (spelling?).
> If so, it's worth noting that there are two types: red and green.
> Contrary to what one might expect, the red one is only hot.
> The green stuff will kill you! ;-)
I might mean /sX\ug/, not sure... i've always heard it just refered to
as |hharif| in restaurants; i've only seen /sX\ug/ labled as such in
little containers in supermarkets.
> You also left out pickled hot peppers (the pale green ones).
> I love them in my felafels.
> Dan Sulani
That is hard-core! :P kol hakavod!
I can barely stand squeezing the juice out onto shawarma/felafel and
slowly nibbling away at one of those peppers! :)
-Stephen (Steg)
"Get into the Hanukah spirit everyone!
The spirit of guerrilla warfare!"
~ my brother, co-creator of the conlang ool-Nuziiferoi
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Message: 21
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 19:33:51 +0000
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)
Steg Belsky wrote:
>
>> You also left out pickled hot peppers (the pale green ones).
>> I love them in my felafels.
>> Dan Sulani
>
>
> That is hard-core! :P kol hakavod!
> I can barely stand squeezing the juice out onto shawarma/felafel and
> slowly nibbling away at one of those peppers! :)
I just eat them whole. Mm...pickled peppers.
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Message: 22
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 11:51:57 -0800
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CHAT Re: Souvlaki (was most looked-up words)
On Wed, 8 Dec 2004 21:30:42 +0200, Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> That is hard-core! :P kol hakavod!
> I can barely stand squeezing the juice out onto shawarma/felafel and
> slowly nibbling away at one of those peppers! :)
Eh, those things are at best mildly spicy to me :). I can eat an
entire jar of proper Korean Kimchi without feeling more than a nice
warming sensation.
--
You can turn away from me
but there's nothing that'll keep me here you know
And you'll never be the city guy
Any more than I'll be hosting The Scooby Show
Scooby Show - Belle and Sebastian
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Message: 23
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 14:56:11 -0500
From: "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: CHAT: The Alex Charalabidis Guide to Souvlaki
On Tue, 7 Dec 2004 23:01:58 -0500, John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>The Alex Charalabidis Guide to Souvlaki
<snip> Very interesting.
>10. The meat in the gyros is commonly a blend of pork and lamb (or mystery
> meat). Definitely not kosher. If you're Jewish or Muslim, you'll want
> to avoid it and go for the souvlaki, which is usually lamb (see 2.).
I can't stand lamb... what should I do to get a gyros that's definitely
pork-only?
> 12. Good tzatziki contains garlic - lots of it. Beware!
Garlic is clearly the most important ingredient!
--
Pascal A. Kramm, author of:
Choton: http://www.choton.org
Ichwara Prana: http://www.choton.org/ichwara/
Skälansk: http://www.choton.org/sk/
Advanced English: http://www.choton.org/ae/
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Message: 24
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 12:40:19 -0700
From: Dirk Elzinga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: vowels: are they necessary?
On Dec 8, 2004, at 10:29 AM, Paul Roser wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Dec 2004 18:25:19 -0500, # 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
>> I would like to know, </FONT></P>
>> When a consonant is fricative or trilled, it can be continued as long
>> we
>> want. Is there any languages that has some words that are only
>> consonants
>> without vowels? A little word that is only a rolled [r], a [s], a [v],
>> without the vowel releasing. It would be conceivable.
>
> A couple of languages that have been noted in the linguistic
> literature for
> their voweless words include the Berber languages, Tashilhayt &
> Tamazight
> (as elsewhere noted), Nez Perce, Bella Coola (AKA Nuxalk). The African
> language Lendu (AKA Balendru) also has words with syllable trills and
> sibilants, and there are numerous other examples of languages with
> syllabic
> consonants.
>
> Most widespread seem to be syllabic nasals, laterals and trills,
> followed
> by syllabic sibilants /s, z/, followed by other syllabic fricatives.
>
> I've read that Tamazight even has syllabic stops, but I've never heard
> the
> examples given, so I am suspicious at to whether they are released, in
> which case I suspect that there might be an ultra-short vowel or, if
> voiceless, an ultra-short voiceless vowel (similar to Shoshoni - or is
> it
> Comanche? I forget...)
Both languages have voiceless vowels (Comanche is what became of
Eastern varieties of Shoshoni after the introduction of the horse;
several Eastern Shoshoni bands rode off to the south plains in the
early 1600s). The debate in the 50s was whether voiceless vowels in
Comanche are phonemically voiceless or not; they appear to be
distinctive under strict Structuralist definitions of the phoneme, but
with a sufficiently abstract phonological analysis (historical or
generative), they can be made to be predictable.
Voiceless vowels in Shoshoni arise under the following conditions:
1. they are short
2. they are not part of a diphthong or in hiatus with another vowel
3. they are unstressed
Word-finally, vowels may be optionally devoiced if the above conditions
hold:
/t1pa/ ['t1Ba] ~ ['t1p\a_0] 'pine nut'
/punku/ ['pu~Ngu] ~ ['pu~Nku_0] 'horse; pet'
/t1as1n/ ['t1as1] ~ ['t1as1_0] 'also'
Before /h/, vowels are always devoiced if the above conditions hold:
/haints1h/ ['haiJtS1_0] 'friend'
/haints1h-n1:n/ ['haiJtS1_0h"n1:~] 'friend-PL'
/haints1h-a/ ['haiJtS1_0"ha] 'friend-ACC'
The voiceless vowel in 'friend' remains voiceless regardless of its
position within the word; it is never voiced (another word with similar
properties that I can think of off the top of my head is /nattahsun/
['nat:a_0"s:u] 'medicine'.
The voiceless vowels in Shoshoni give the appearance of being the
release phase of preceding voiceless consonants since the voicelessness
of the vowel has an assimilatory force on preceding consonants, and in
fact there are often no measurable formants for voiceless /1/ when it
appears word-finally following a voiceless stop, as in /pikapp1h/
['piGap1_0] ~ ['piGap_h] 'buckskin', which gives the appearance of this
vowel being merely aspiration. Weakening of formants is most evident
with /1/ and sometimes with /a/. Mid and round vowels do not show the
same degree of formant weakening.
Other Numic languages (Chemehuevi, for example) have lost these final
voiceless vowels altogether. I suspect that if Shoshoni survives
another 50 years, its final voiceless vowels will likewise disappear.
So. More than you wanted to know about voiceless vowels in Shoshoni :-).
Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie
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Message: 25
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 20:01:09 +0000
From: Keith Gaughan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Skälansk - History and Babel text
Pascal A. Kramm wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Dec 2004 08:36:38 +0100, Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 19:14:07 -0500, Pascal A. Kramm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>>There are some other nifty features, like VSO syntax (which is pretty rare),
>>
>>It's used in at least some Polynesian languages -- e.g. Niuean is
>>arguably VSO (if you don't consider it ergative, in which case it's
>>VAP).
>
> I know, that's why I wrote "rare" and not "hardly used at all".
I wouldn't say the third most widely used word order could be considered
"rare". Uncommon maybe, but not rare.
>>> * It was decided to put the verb at the beginning, followed by subject
>>>and object, since this structure was not found in any other known languages.
>>
>>I think OSV is the rarest word order, with few known natlangs using it.
>
> Yes, but keep in mind that this decision was made in the late middle ages,
> so it refers to their knowledge at that time.
Tsk, tsk! Quite the opposite! Languages with a VSO word order would have
been quite well-known. Ireland, for a start, was one of the centres of
learning during the Middle Ages, Gaelic and was one of the first
langauges with a written grammar. You can count all the other Celtic
languages in too.
K.
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