There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Creating a Proto-language
From: Patrick Dunn
1b. Re: Creating a Proto-language
From: Hugo Cesar de Castro Carneiro
1c. Re: Creating a Proto-language
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
1d. Re: Creating a Proto-language
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
1e. Re: Creating a Proto-language
From: Daniel Burgener
1f. Re: Creating a Proto-language
From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
1g. Re: Creating a Proto-language
From: Alex Fink
1h. Re: Creating a Proto-language
From: BPJ
2.1. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
From: Padraic Brown
2.2. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
From: Alex Fink
2.3. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
From: Roger Mills
2.4. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
2.5. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
From: H. S. Teoh
2.6. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
From: Dustfinger Batailleur
3a. Re: Is there an inverse relationship between lexical richness and gr
From: Gary Shannon
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Creating a Proto-language
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 6:47 am ((PDT))
You don't *need* to have a protolanguage. A lot of us like to do that
because we find figuring out the sound changes to be fun, but if you think
it's a chore, skip it.
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
[email protected]> wrote:
> So, I was wong, and do need to create the language. Any name ideas?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
> Behalf Of Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones
> Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 5:47 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Creating a Proto-language
>
> You need to devise a series of sound shifts by which Yardish derived from
> the proto-language, but in reverse. For example, if Yardish has /j/, you
> could derive it from /g/ before a front vowel, (possibly via /dzh/, which
> would give you an allophone of /g/; then you could posit the loss of front
> vowels after /j/, which would result in /g/ being a different phoneme from
> /j/. To make it more realistic, you also need to devise a phonology for the
> proto-language from which derive the sound-changed which lead to Yardish,
> possibly along with lexical, morphological and syntactic differences.
>
> Jeff
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 21 Mar 2013, at 15:38, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > I haven't gotten to the section where I need this info, but when I do,
> how
> > do I create a proto-language for Yardish to borrow from? Can I have
> Yardish
> > borrow from itself? I think we may have discussed this awhile back. I
> took
> a
> > read through the lesson, but it's written as if I was taking the course
> with
> > colleagues. I don't need to create that language, just be able to borrow
> > words from it, and translate them into Yardish, and tell their original
> > form.
>
--
Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
order from Finishing Line
Press<http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
and
Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2>.
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Creating a Proto-language
Posted by: "Hugo Cesar de Castro Carneiro" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 6:56 am ((PDT))
It is also possible, and very fun, to create an "a priori proto-language",
i.e. creating a new language and calling it the proto-language of a group
of languages and creating the evidences that would support this new conlang
to be the proto-language of all those languages. This evidences should
include a lot of uncommon sound changes that would only happen in a few
words.
Afterwards, trying to create an "a posteriori proto-language" from the
original conlangs. This "a posteriori proto-language" will be different
from the "a priori proto-language" and you could state that the real
proto-language is the a priori one, but the a posteriori one is the one
found by the scholars of your conworld.
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 10:47 AM, Patrick Dunn <[email protected]> wrote:
> You don't *need* to have a protolanguage. A lot of us like to do that
> because we find figuring out the sound changes to be fun, but if you think
> it's a chore, skip it.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
> > So, I was wong, and do need to create the language. Any name ideas?
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
> > Behalf Of Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones
> > Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 5:47 AM
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: Re: Creating a Proto-language
> >
> > You need to devise a series of sound shifts by which Yardish derived from
> > the proto-language, but in reverse. For example, if Yardish has /j/, you
> > could derive it from /g/ before a front vowel, (possibly via /dzh/, which
> > would give you an allophone of /g/; then you could posit the loss of
> front
> > vowels after /j/, which would result in /g/ being a different phoneme
> from
> > /j/. To make it more realistic, you also need to devise a phonology for
> the
> > proto-language from which derive the sound-changed which lead to Yardish,
> > possibly along with lexical, morphological and syntactic differences.
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> > On 21 Mar 2013, at 15:38, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
> > <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > > I haven't gotten to the section where I need this info, but when I do,
> > how
> > > do I create a proto-language for Yardish to borrow from? Can I have
> > Yardish
> > > borrow from itself? I think we may have discussed this awhile back. I
> > took
> > a
> > > read through the lesson, but it's written as if I was taking the course
> > with
> > > colleagues. I don't need to create that language, just be able to
> borrow
> > > words from it, and translate them into Yardish, and tell their original
> > > form.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
> order from Finishing Line
> Press<
> http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
> and
> Amazon<
> http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2
> >.
>
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Creating a Proto-language
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 7:36 am ((PDT))
The Yemorans live in a dragon culture, but they're insectoid humans. So I'd
thought of calling the proto-language silknish. I don't mind creating the
silknish lexicon. I'm thinking the word ordr won't change. Does Silknish
need a language bore that? I have the ifo I need for Yardish's lexicon, I
just started re-ordering them yesterday. I won't do the phonetic
traqnscriptions, though. I'm thinking Silknish died out, and Yardish became
its replacement, so I'm guessing it would have a short lexicon.
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Hugo Cesar de Castro Carneiro
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 6:56 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Creating a Proto-language
It is also possible, and very fun, to create an "a priori proto-language",
i.e. creating a new language and calling it the proto-language of a group
of languages and creating the evidences that would support this new conlang
to be the proto-language of all those languages. This evidences should
include a lot of uncommon sound changes that would only happen in a few
words.
Afterwards, trying to create an "a posteriori proto-language" from the
original conlangs. This "a posteriori proto-language" will be different
from the "a priori proto-language" and you could state that the real
proto-language is the a priori one, but the a posteriori one is the one
found by the scholars of your conworld.
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 10:47 AM, Patrick Dunn <[email protected]> wrote:
> You don't *need* to have a protolanguage. A lot of us like to do that
> because we find figuring out the sound changes to be fun, but if you think
> it's a chore, skip it.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
> > So, I was wong, and do need to create the language. Any name ideas?
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
> > Behalf Of Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones
> > Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 5:47 AM
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: Re: Creating a Proto-language
> >
> > You need to devise a series of sound shifts by which Yardish derived
from
> > the proto-language, but in reverse. For example, if Yardish has /j/, you
> > could derive it from /g/ before a front vowel, (possibly via /dzh/,
which
> > would give you an allophone of /g/; then you could posit the loss of
> front
> > vowels after /j/, which would result in /g/ being a different phoneme
> from
> > /j/. To make it more realistic, you also need to devise a phonology for
> the
> > proto-language from which derive the sound-changed which lead to
Yardish,
> > possibly along with lexical, morphological and syntactic differences.
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> > On 21 Mar 2013, at 15:38, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
> > <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > > I haven't gotten to the section where I need this info, but when I do,
> > how
> > > do I create a proto-language for Yardish to borrow from? Can I have
> > Yardish
> > > borrow from itself? I think we may have discussed this awhile back. I
> > took
> > a
> > > read through the lesson, but it's written as if I was taking the
course
> > with
> > > colleagues. I don't need to create that language, just be able to
> borrow
> > > words from it, and translate them into Yardish, and tell their
original
> > > form.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
> order from Finishing Line
> Press<
> http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
> and
> Amazon<
>
http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie
=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2
> >.
>
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Creating a Proto-language
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 7:52 am ((PDT))
I'm also thinking Yardish has kept some silknish conventions, like not
adding a K to its vocabulary. I did come up consonants to replace the letter
K. Patrick, I'm curious to know why you said I didn't need to create a
proto-language. I did think it would be a lot of work, until I figured if
Yardish kept some conventions, then it wouldn't be as much work, as it
would, if the two languages were independent of each other. Is that even
possible for a proto-language not to depend on its replacement language?
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: Creating a Proto-language
Posted by: "Daniel Burgener" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 8:20 am ((PDT))
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 1:51 PM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm also thinking Yardish has kept some silknish conventions, like not
> adding a K to its vocabulary. I did come up consonants to replace the
> letter
> K. Patrick, I'm curious to know why you said I didn't need to create a
> proto-language. I did think it would be a lot of work, until I figured if
> Yardish kept some conventions, then it wouldn't be as much work, as it
> would, if the two languages were independent of each other. Is that even
> possible for a proto-language not to depend on its replacement language?
>
You may be misunderstanding the term "proto-language". As I understand it
(I'm not a linguist, so I hope I'm not making in mistakes here, but I think
this is all accurate) a "proto-language" is specifically the parent of one
or more modern languages in terms of development. If you had a language
spoken by a people a long time ago and then they started speaking a new
language (which would need a reason to happen, involving some kind of
contact with the speakers of that language), then that language wouldn't be
a proto-language.
As an example, in America, people used to speak many different languages,
such as Navajo etc. Then Europeans came over and conquered the continent,
bringing English with them. As a result most people living in the US today
speak English. Navajo isn't a proto-language for English, because English
didn't descend from Navajo - it replaced it in a geographical sense.
You don't need a proto-language any more than you need to design the
culture of a country that your characters will never visit. If it's not
going in your novel, why bother creating it? Some people like to because
it gives more depth to their world-building, or because they enjoy the
process. However, designing one language is a big enough task, adding in a
proto-language means more work and as a result less time you can spend on
the language you're actually designing.
-Daniel
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
1f. Re: Creating a Proto-language
Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 8:30 am ((PDT))
Hmm. So sounds like Silknish isn't a proto-language. What does that make it,
other than an endangered language. If Yardish borrows from it, does that
mean Yemora has two languages? I could have someone speak Silknish in my
work, maybe someone at the healing community.
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Daniel Burgener
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 8:20 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Creating a Proto-language
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 1:51 PM, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <
[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm also thinking Yardish has kept some silknish conventions, like not
> adding a K to its vocabulary. I did come up consonants to replace the
> letter
> K. Patrick, I'm curious to know why you said I didn't need to create a
> proto-language. I did think it would be a lot of work, until I figured if
> Yardish kept some conventions, then it wouldn't be as much work, as it
> would, if the two languages were independent of each other. Is that even
> possible for a proto-language not to depend on its replacement language?
>
You may be misunderstanding the term "proto-language". As I understand it
(I'm not a linguist, so I hope I'm not making in mistakes here, but I think
this is all accurate) a "proto-language" is specifically the parent of one
or more modern languages in terms of development. If you had a language
spoken by a people a long time ago and then they started speaking a new
language (which would need a reason to happen, involving some kind of
contact with the speakers of that language), then that language wouldn't be
a proto-language.
As an example, in America, people used to speak many different languages,
such as Navajo etc. Then Europeans came over and conquered the continent,
bringing English with them. As a result most people living in the US today
speak English. Navajo isn't a proto-language for English, because English
didn't descend from Navajo - it replaced it in a geographical sense.
You don't need a proto-language any more than you need to design the
culture of a country that your characters will never visit. If it's not
going in your novel, why bother creating it? Some people like to because
it gives more depth to their world-building, or because they enjoy the
process. However, designing one language is a big enough task, adding in a
proto-language means more work and as a result less time you can spend on
the language you're actually designing.
-Daniel
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
1g. Re: Creating a Proto-language
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 8:40 am ((PDT))
On Thu, 21 Mar 2013 08:38:06 -0700, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
<[email protected]> wrote:
>I haven't gotten to the section where I need this info, but when I do, how
>do I create a proto-language for Yardish to borrow from? Can I have Yardish
>borrow from itself? I think we may have discussed this awhile back. I took a
>read through the lesson, but it's written as if I was taking the course with
>colleagues. I don't need to create that language, just be able to borrow
>words from it, and translate them into Yardish, and tell their original
>form.
I don't think you should bother making a proto-language for this purpose, if
you think it would be a hassle. Let me try to explain why *not* doing so is
perfectly realistic.
The modern Romance languages, French and Spanish and so on, display a
phenomenon where they have Latin words in them in two different ways.
(1) French is one of the languages that Latin evolved into with the passage of
time. Therefore, Latin words evolved into French words, although their sounds
changed along the way. For instance, Latin AQUA 'water' turned into French
"eau" 'water'; Latin
CAPILLI 'hair(s)' turned into French "cheveux" 'hairs'.
(2) Latin was the language of high learning across Europe during the
Renaissance, and on account of this, the European languages borrowed lots of
learned, scientific words from Latin. Some of these actually came from the
same Latin sources as in point (1). For example, Latin AQUATICUS 'water-ish'
was borrowed as French "aquatique" 'aquatic; living in water, of an organism
(etc.)', and Latin CAPILLARIS 'hair-like' was borrowed as French "capillarie"
'a kind of small hair-like blood vessel'.
But there is a coincidence in the above. The coincidence is that the language
from which French took all its scientific borrowings happened to be the
ancestor of French! That isn't always the way it happens. For example, in
Japanese, the analogous scientific borrowings come not from Proto-Japanese, but
from Chinese, which is unrelated to Japanese.
If Yardish was like Japanese and not like French, here, then you don't have to
worry about proto-languages at all to generate your borrowings. Just make up
any old words and claim they're from some unrelated second language.
Alex
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
1h. Re: Creating a Proto-language
Posted by: "BPJ" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 9:44 am ((PDT))
On 2013-03-21 19:29, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews wrote:
> Hmm. So sounds like Silknish isn't a proto-language. What does that make it,
> other than an endangered language. If Yardish borrows from it, does that
> mean Yemora has two languages? I could have someone speak Silknish in my
> work, maybe someone at the healing community.
It might be a dead language which is also a culture
language, like Latin in our world: nobody learns it as
their first language anymore -- which is the definition
of a dead language --, but it was once the language of
a culturally and politically influential empire, and
has persisted as an official and ceremonial language in
some contexts, so that at least some people still learn
it from books. Last but not least it is extensively
used as a source of loanwords, especially for speaking
fancy. Of course in our world there are some languages
which are descended from Latin, and when those
languages borrow from Latin they kind of borrow from
themselves, but there are also other languages not
descended from Latin which borrow just as much or more
from Latin -- English I'm looking at you! ;-)
You absolutely don't need to construct the whole
language, just such vocabulary as you would need to
form credible families of loanwords. Lots of people in
our world recognise enough Latin roots and derivational
morphology (prefixes and endings used to form new
words) to coin new technical terms, but they can't read
a Latin text or inflect Latin nouns or verbs if their
life depended on it! Thus you are free to create just
a vocabulary -- as small or extensive as you need --
without a grammar, or with just a more or less partial
grammar to show up in some borrowed expressions, like
_habeas corpus_ which just happens to begin with a finite
verb form!
/bpj
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2.1. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 7:30 am ((PDT))
--- On Thu, 3/21/13, Douglas Koller <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > > learn (learn) < O.E. leornian "to get knowledge"
> > > > learn (teach) < O.E. læran "to teach"
>
> Prior to today's little etymological lesson, I did not know
> this (and apparently George didn't either).
I'd already know about it, which is why I even mentioned it. Learn = teach
isn't part of my usual lect, though I'm familiar with it from cartoons,
where twas usually "larn".
> Which means that some (at least two) of us *are* analyzing it (or, if
> etymology awareness *does* affect our speech, *have*
> analyzed it) as a substitution. Given that French
> "apprendre" can be used legitimately for "learn" and "teach"
> in various contexts, which is what *I* assumed was going on
> in English as well, that's not a big reach. That said,
> "learn" to mean "teach" sounds rather Appalachian folksy to
> my ear ("I'm gonna learn 'em how to skin and boil them there
> possums.").
Exactly. My guess is simply that people (in general, not necessarly just
Appalachains) have simply kept on using the "other" learn, long after
the grammarians and dictionary writers had decided that it ain't good form.
And now, the modern word "learn" is so far removed from all memory of there
ever having been two words that we end up analyzing it as a substitution
when in reality it probably is not.
> So I just assumed it was probably some sort of
> Shax-era usage that had been preserved in the more remote,
> conservative, quaint dialects of the hill people before
> prescriptivists back in Merry Ol' got their mitts on it. The
> prescriptivists did get their mitts on *me* -- I would never
> use "learn" this way, except jocularly, though recognizing
> that it's out there (in French, too, no less), makes it it
> somehow less prescriptively jarring than (see below).
I ain't been bit by prescriptivitis, but am well enough aware of "good"
English style to know when dialect and archaism is okay and when it's not.
> > Could be, though there's still the fact that we've got
> two very similar
> > sounding OE verbs... But I'm no historical linguist!
> Either way, whatever
> > is going on with learn still isn't the same thing as
> what's going on with
> > *only* lend/borrow.
>
> > > "could you borrow me a pencil?"
>
> This, prescriptively, is fingernails down a blackboard. I
> *know* it's out there. I've heard it. I *know* about
> Chinese. I *understand* the principle intellectually. But
> while I can be safely and condescendingly amused by "I'll
> learn him how to drive.", "borrow me a pencil" sounds
> perfectly ghastly -- I just can't get past it. *However*, if
> someone says:
This one also isn't part of my usual lect, though I've heard it often enough
and am not phazed by it at all. I know it's not correct according
to the prescriptivists, but them again, what really is? ;)
> > Really? I would interpret it as the speaker asking the listener to
> > borrow a pencil on the speaker's behalf.
>
> That sounds like a grammar school teacher deliberately
> throwing out the pragmatics and gettin' all literal on you
> just to be annoying, à la:
>
> Pupil: (raising hand) Can I go to the bathroom?
> Teacher: I don't know. *Can* you?
> Pupil: (grabbing nearest available brick) SMASH!!! "I'm
> going to the *&%$#@! bathroom!"
Quite
> Kou
Padraic
Messages in this topic (33)
________________________________________________________________________
2.2. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 8:03 am ((PDT))
On Thu, 21 Mar 2013 01:35:32 -0400, Douglas Koller <[email protected]>
wrote:
>> > On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:16:34 -0700,
>> > Padraic Brown <[email protected]>
>> > wrote:
>> > > learn (learn) < O.E. leornian "to get knowledge"
>> > > learn (teach) < O.E. læran "to teach"
>
>Prior to today's little etymological lesson, I did not know this (and
>apparently George didn't either). Which means that some (at least two) of us
>*are* analyzing it (or, if etymology awareness *does* affect our speech,
>*have* analyzed it) as a substitution. Given that French "apprendre" can be
>used legitimately for "learn" and "teach" in various contexts, which is what
>*I* assumed was going on in English as well, that's not a big reach.
I'll bow out after this, but my pedantry is running high ATM. Your analysis
may well be that this situation could be a purely internal development from a
modern "learn" which used to only mean 'acquire knowledge of'. That's a very
reasonable theory, especially if you don't have first-millennium texts to read.
But why call that a "substitution"? Calling it a substitution seems to be not
engaging with this dialect on its own terms, but rather implicitly subscribing
to the paradigm that dialects are _deviations_ from the standard. It seems to
be saying 'well, standard English uses "teach" for 'impart knowledge to',
therefore every English underlyingly uses "teach" there, even if the speakers
don't know it and invariably replace the "teach" by their own peculiar thing.'
Also, the point I meant to make by commenting further on the etymology of the
"two words" was that they're not *very* two, they're not very *separate*.
"Teach" and "instruct", those would be two words. What we have here is a pair
more like "rise" and "raise" -- different, sure, and different by a process
that's not productive anymore, but still you'd be blind to miss their kinship.
And indeed people didn't miss their kinship: _læran_ was close enough to "just
a different use of _leornian_" that at a later date it indeed fell back in and
coalesced, and lost its absence of /n/.
That is, the etymological angle is less at variance from the naive angle above
than "two words" might lead you to think.
Alex
Messages in this topic (33)
________________________________________________________________________
2.3. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 9:02 am ((PDT))
--- On Wed, 3/20/13, H. S. Teoh <[email protected]> wrote:
(re "borrow me a pencil")
Really? Where is this, North America?
RM Mostly, I suspect, but I think we've heard from people in GB too........
T ... because I heard this *all* the time in Malaysia where I grew up. I
thought this was due to the Chinese influence (Chinese only has one word
for borrow/lend), but I'm quite surprised to hear that it's happening
spontaneously in a purely English-speaking environment.
RM That could be Malay influence as well-- "pinjam" means 'borrow', derivs.
pinjam/i and pinjam/kan mean 'to lend'-- both are sort of causatives. With
pinjami, a person is the DO., pinjamkan the object borrowed is the DO--
(Indonesian)
Pak Harto me/minjam $5 dari saya "Mr. Harto borrowed $5 from me"
Saya me/minjami Pak Harto $5 "I lent Mr. Harto $5"
Saya me/minjamkan $5 kepada Pak Harto "I lent $5 to Mr. Harto"
As I recall, the cognate form is polysemous in other AN languages as well.
Same with _bawa_ 'carry; bring; take' == I grew up with kids who confused
Bring and Take as well as learn/study vs. /teach (also the same base in Ml/Indo
_ajar_) and borrow/lend...and of course can vs. may, the bane of our
teachers.......
I love these little distinctions that depend on the speaker's or narrative's
focus.....
Messages in this topic (33)
________________________________________________________________________
2.4. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 9:18 am ((PDT))
On 21 March 2013 03:24, Herman Miller <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 3/20/2013 2:12 PM, George Corley wrote:
>
>
>> This is really not an unusual shift. Chinese has the same word for both,
>> and many English dialects have "learn" taking on the meaning of "teach" as
>> well as "learn". There just seems to be something about these kinds of
>> terms that lets this sort of consolidation occur. Maybe it's just that
>> it's so clear from context who is the "giver" and "reciever" that you
>> really only need one term.
>>
>
> That's the case in Jarda, where the "giver" and "receiver" are
> respectively in the ergative and dative cases, so the same verb is used for
> both meanings without confusion.
Same in Moten, where the verbs _ja|zi|n_ and _joplej_ both mean anything
from "to give", "to receive", "to take", "to bring", "to get", "to put",
"to transfer", etc. depending on the participants in the clause (whether
mentioned explicitly or implied by context). There are still two verbs, but
the difference between them has to do with the general "direction" of the
transfer rather than the role of the participants. _Ja|zi|n_ implies a
transfer towards the speaker, i.e. from the listener to the speaker, or
from a third party to the listener or the speaker, or from a third party to
another third party, but the speaker feels that this transfer is somehow
advantageous to them. _Joplej_ is the opposite, indicating a transfer away
from the speaker, i.e. from speaker to listener or third party, from
listener to third party, and from third party to third party if that
transfer is neutral or disadvantageous to the speaker.
Moten speakers seem to have a lot of fun with those verbs :P .
> Similarly "teach" vs. "learn", "buy" vs. "sell".
>
> siv "teach, learn"
> źum "give, receive"
> Åêm "borrow, lend"
> zul "buy, sell"
>
In Moten, _ivajagi_ means both "to learn, to study" and "to teach" (in both
cases, the object is the subject taught or studied). The distinction
between those two senses surfaces mostly in actor nouns derived from this
verb: a student is _vajagzif_, literally "learner", while a teacher is
_vajagnon_, literally "teaching artist/craftsman" (in Moten, teaching is
considered a _bel_, i.e. an art or craft).
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (33)
________________________________________________________________________
2.5. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 9:36 am ((PDT))
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 09:02:29AM -0700, Roger Mills wrote:
> --- On Wed, 3/20/13, H. S. Teoh <[email protected]> wrote:
> (re "borrow me a pencil")
> > Really? Where is this, North America?
>
> RM Mostly, I suspect, but I think we've heard from people in GB
> too........
Interesting.
> > T ... because I heard this *all* the time in Malaysia where I grew
> > up. I thought this was due to the Chinese influence (Chinese only
> > has one word for borrow/lend), but I'm quite surprised to hear that
> > it's happening spontaneously in a purely English-speaking
> > environment.
>
> RM That could be Malay influence as well-- "pinjam" means 'borrow',
> derivs. pinjam/i and pinjam/kan mean 'to lend'-- both are sort of
> causatives. With pinjami, a person is the DO., pinjamkan the object
> borrowed is the DO--
True. Or maybe both. :)
> (Indonesian)
> Pak Harto me/minjam $5 dari saya "Mr. Harto borrowed $5 from me"
> Saya me/minjami Pak Harto $5 "I lent Mr. Harto $5"
> Saya me/minjamkan $5 kepada Pak Harto "I lent $5 to Mr. Harto"
>
> As I recall, the cognate form is polysemous in other AN languages as
> well.
>
> Same with _bawa_ 'carry; bring; take' == I grew up with kids who
> confused Bring and Take as well as learn/study vs. /teach (also the
> same base in Ml/Indo _ajar_) and borrow/lend...and of course can vs.
> may, the bane of our teachers.......
Not to mention that in Russian, go and come are expressed by the same
verb (in fact, many verbs of motion don't indicate direction), so you
often hear Russian speakers confuse go/come. I've also heard Spanish
speakers mix them up.
Teach/learn in Russian is also another example that uses the same verb
(ÑÑиÑÑÑÑ). The meaning depends on which noun cases are used. I have to
admit, embarrassingly enough, that after all these years of learning
Russian I still can't get the distinction straight without looking it
up. Context usually makes it clear, though.
> I love these little distinctions that depend on the speaker's or
> narrative's focus.....
They are cool from a linguistic (and conlangy) POV, but really
frustrating when you're trying to *learn* the language. :)
T
--
People say I'm indecisive, but I'm not sure about that. -- YHL, CONLANG
Messages in this topic (33)
________________________________________________________________________
2.6. Re: CHAT: Does etymology awareness affect your speech?
Posted by: "Dustfinger Batailleur" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 10:07 am ((PDT))
Russian uses aspect prefixes often to distinguish these. However, ÑÑиÑÑ is
the verb for "teach", and with the reflexive suffix -ÑÑ it becomes "learn"
(i.e. teach yourself).
On 21 March 2013 12:34, H. S. Teoh <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 09:02:29AM -0700, Roger Mills wrote:
> > --- On Wed, 3/20/13, H. S. Teoh <[email protected]> wrote:
> > (re "borrow me a pencil")
> > > Really? Where is this, North America?
> >
> > RM Mostly, I suspect, but I think we've heard from people in GB
> > too........
>
> Interesting.
>
>
> > > T ... because I heard this *all* the time in Malaysia where I grew
> > > up. I thought this was due to the Chinese influence (Chinese only
> > > has one word for borrow/lend), but I'm quite surprised to hear that
> > > it's happening spontaneously in a purely English-speaking
> > > environment.
> >
> > RM That could be Malay influence as well-- "pinjam" means 'borrow',
> > derivs. pinjam/i and pinjam/kan mean 'to lend'-- both are sort of
> > causatives. With pinjami, a person is the DO., pinjamkan the object
> > borrowed is the DO--
>
> True. Or maybe both. :)
>
>
> > (Indonesian)
> > Pak Harto me/minjam $5 dari saya "Mr. Harto borrowed $5 from me"
> > Saya me/minjami Pak Harto $5 "I lent Mr. Harto $5"
> > Saya me/minjamkan $5 kepada Pak Harto "I lent $5 to Mr. Harto"
> >
> > As I recall, the cognate form is polysemous in other AN languages as
> > well.
> >
> > Same with _bawa_ 'carry; bring; take' == I grew up with kids who
> > confused Bring and Take as well as learn/study vs. /teach (also the
> > same base in Ml/Indo _ajar_) and borrow/lend...and of course can vs.
> > may, the bane of our teachers.......
>
> Not to mention that in Russian, go and come are expressed by the same
> verb (in fact, many verbs of motion don't indicate direction), so you
> often hear Russian speakers confuse go/come. I've also heard Spanish
> speakers mix them up.
>
> Teach/learn in Russian is also another example that uses the same verb
> (ÑÑиÑÑÑÑ). The meaning depends on which noun cases are used. I have to
> admit, embarrassingly enough, that after all these years of learning
> Russian I still can't get the distinction straight without looking it
> up. Context usually makes it clear, though.
>
>
> > I love these little distinctions that depend on the speaker's or
> > narrative's focus.....
>
> They are cool from a linguistic (and conlangy) POV, but really
> frustrating when you're trying to *learn* the language. :)
>
>
> T
>
> --
> People say I'm indecisive, but I'm not sure about that. -- YHL, CONLANG
>
Messages in this topic (33)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Re: Is there an inverse relationship between lexical richness and gr
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Thu Mar 21, 2013 10:06 am ((PDT))
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 5:02 AM, taliesin the storyteller
<[email protected]> wrote:
> On 03/20/2013 09:14 PM, Gary Shannon wrote:
---
>
>> I'm speaking from the point of view of a software engineer. Uncle
>> Claude said that if the information is there it's encoded somehow,
>> otherwise it isn't really there.
>
>
> *That* Claude Shannon?
Yes, except he's not really an "uncle" I'm not familiar with
applicable consanguinity terms, but he's a cousin (or maybe second
cousin) to my dad, and they were born in the same town in Michigan
about four years apart. I never actually met him.
> The problem isn't the string of tokens, the problem is that the sender and
> recipient do not and cannot have the same hardware. An identical string
> *will* be treated differently by different people. Encoding doesn't apply.
---
> .. and there are those that consider true communication between humans
> impossible, as a received attempt at communication is run through the
> emphatic system meaning that the receiver uses the string of tokens as input
> to run a simulation of the reality of the sender in order to guess at what
> the sender is attempting to convey. It's "monkey see, moneky (mentally) do"
> all the way down.
>
>
> t.
What I mean by the phrase "point of view of an engineer" is that I am
unconcerned with theoretical nuances and consider only practical
application. It doesn't bother me that "communication between humans"
is "impossible", as long as I can say "where's the restroom" to a
stranger and receive a reply that I can put to immediate practical
use.
If a translation of "See the boy." into a language that lacks a
definite article fails to covey that sense of "the boy", then that
language is at least mildly deficient in that it cannot convey such
meanings. The shorter word count results from an imperfect
translation, not from an inherent conciseness of the language.
Similarly, having no distinction between the inclusive "we" and the
exclusive "we" makes English mildly deficient in that specific sense.
In spite of those deficiencies, however, it is still possible to
communicate clearly and completely enough to build bridges, buy and
sell cabbages, and sing love songs. That is all that matters to an
engineer. The rest is theoretical ivory tower stuff of no _practical_
value.
--gary
Messages in this topic (16)
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