There are 5 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Colloquial French resources
From: Wesley Parish
1b. Re: Colloquial French resources
From: Jonathan Beagley
1c. Re: Colloquial French resources
From: Eugene Oh
2a. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
From: R A Brown
2b. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
From: Roger Mills
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Wesley Parish" [email protected]
Date: Mon Sep 2, 2013 4:10 am ((PDT))
I've just been reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_French
and this:
"A notable difference in grammar which received considerable attention in
France during the 1990s is
the feminine form of many professions, which traditionally did not have a
feminine form.[16] In
Quebec, one writes nearly universally une chercheuse [17] "a researcher",
whereas in France, un
chercheur and, more recently, un chercheur and une chercheuse, are used."
came up. As a speaker of Australasian English, I'm reminded of the "softening"
of registers by the use
of the diminutive suffix: "bikkie" for biscuit, "hankie" for handkerchief, etc,
in Australasian English.
How prevalent is this "softening" of registers in language dialects that are
"seen" to be secondary?
Wesley Parish
Quoting Wesley Parish <[email protected]>:
> Ah, yes, the splintering of the French language into French languages,
> like the
> splintering of the English language into English languages, like the
> splintering
> of the Latin Language into the Romance languages, etc. That would be a
> fascinating study all in itself. What's annoying about the fixation on
> Classical
> Written French is that I've never heard of any studies on the spoken
> French of
> the colonial outposts like Algeria, Cochin-China, Francophone Africa,
> or
> Francophone America and Caribean. There's bound to be some around, but
> I've
> never heard of any. The only one I came close to in my earlier years was
> an
> article in a book on Indo-European languages discussing Haitian Kriol
> and its
> relation to Official French.
>
> I'm betting that the migrants' French would be perhaps one of the more
> reliable
> sources ( in the sense that they don't know enough Written French or
> have any
> major hangups about it ) of Spoken French dialects. Any Algerian or
> other
> African migrants wishing to make their academic name in French academia?
> It
> sounds like the market's wide open. :)
>
> Wesley Parish
>
> Quoting Jonathan Beagley <[email protected]>:
>
> > To get back on topic, however, you might want to look at French rap
> for
> > some examples of colloquial / slang French. The subject matter is
> often
> > quite uninteresting (unless you like reading about selling drugs,
> > womanizing and fast cars) and offensive, but you will certainly get
> > examples of slang. IRC (Internet Relay Chat) chatrooms are also a
> good
> > place to get examples of "spoken French." I actually based a paper on
> > future tense use in spoken French on an IRC-based corpus.
> >
> > Also, I assume you mean colloquial metropolitan French and not
> > colloquial
> > Québécois. The two are very different...
> >
> >
> > 2013/8/30 Aidan Grey <[email protected]>
> >
> > > Rather than just another Future English, I'm working on a future
> > French.
> > > Wassa is a polysynthetic French that's lost its nasals and its
> > > uvular/guttural R, and I'm still playing with the idea of tones,
> but
> > not
> > > sure it's going to happen just yet.
> > >
> > > To that end - are there any good resources out there on colloquial
> /
> > slang
> > > French? The French I know / read is very academic and literary, and
> I
> > need
> > > to learn more about the ways that it's already changing.
> > >
> > > I've done some looking, but haven't had very good luck so far.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Aidan
> > >
> >
>
Messages in this topic (25)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Jonathan Beagley" [email protected]
Date: Mon Sep 2, 2013 4:27 am ((PDT))
I don't believe this is a case of "softening." The article is not exactly
clear here, but I believe what they are referring to is the use of "une
chercheuse" when the researcher is, in fact, female. France hasn't had
nearly as much "feminization" of professions as Quebec (or the US, I can't
speak for the Commonwealth countries in particular), so even for a female
researcher, the French are likely to use "un chercheur," although this is
apparently changing. When writing a paper last year, I had a similar
problem when referring a female writer as my partner and I were not sure
whether we should use "un auteur" or "une auteure." Furthermore, what
happens to gender agreement? If you use "un auteur" to refer to a woman, do
you make the adjectives agree with her actual, physical gender or the
grammatical gender of the word? If I recall correctly, the professor told
use to use "une auteure" and agree with her physical gender, but as I
understand, many "purists" would be outraged by this sort of usage.
2013/9/2 Wesley Parish <[email protected]>
> I've just been reading
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_French
>
> and this:
> "A notable difference in grammar which received considerable attention in
> France during the 1990s is
> the feminine form of many professions, which traditionally did not have a
> feminine form.[16] In
> Quebec, one writes nearly universally une chercheuse [17] "a researcher",
> whereas in France, un
> chercheur and, more recently, un chercheur and une chercheuse, are used."
>
> came up. As a speaker of Australasian English, I'm reminded of the
> "softening" of registers by the use
> of the diminutive suffix: "bikkie" for biscuit, "hankie" for handkerchief,
> etc, in Australasian English.
>
> How prevalent is this "softening" of registers in language dialects that
> are "seen" to be secondary?
>
> Wesley Parish
>
> Quoting Wesley Parish <[email protected]>:
>
> > Ah, yes, the splintering of the French language into French languages,
> > like the
> > splintering of the English language into English languages, like the
> > splintering
> > of the Latin Language into the Romance languages, etc. That would be a
> > fascinating study all in itself. What's annoying about the fixation on
> > Classical
> > Written French is that I've never heard of any studies on the spoken
> > French of
> > the colonial outposts like Algeria, Cochin-China, Francophone Africa,
> > or
> > Francophone America and Caribean. There's bound to be some around, but
> > I've
> > never heard of any. The only one I came close to in my earlier years was
> > an
> > article in a book on Indo-European languages discussing Haitian Kriol
> > and its
> > relation to Official French.
> >
> > I'm betting that the migrants' French would be perhaps one of the more
> > reliable
> > sources ( in the sense that they don't know enough Written French or
> > have any
> > major hangups about it ) of Spoken French dialects. Any Algerian or
> > other
> > African migrants wishing to make their academic name in French academia?
> > It
> > sounds like the market's wide open. :)
> >
> > Wesley Parish
> >
> > Quoting Jonathan Beagley <[email protected]>:
> >
> > > To get back on topic, however, you might want to look at French rap
> > for
> > > some examples of colloquial / slang French. The subject matter is
> > often
> > > quite uninteresting (unless you like reading about selling drugs,
> > > womanizing and fast cars) and offensive, but you will certainly get
> > > examples of slang. IRC (Internet Relay Chat) chatrooms are also a
> > good
> > > place to get examples of "spoken French." I actually based a paper on
> > > future tense use in spoken French on an IRC-based corpus.
> > >
> > > Also, I assume you mean colloquial metropolitan French and not
> > > colloquial
> > > Québécois. The two are very different...
> > >
> > >
> > > 2013/8/30 Aidan Grey <[email protected]>
> > >
> > > > Rather than just another Future English, I'm working on a future
> > > French.
> > > > Wassa is a polysynthetic French that's lost its nasals and its
> > > > uvular/guttural R, and I'm still playing with the idea of tones,
> > but
> > > not
> > > > sure it's going to happen just yet.
> > > >
> > > > To that end - are there any good resources out there on colloquial
> > /
> > > slang
> > > > French? The French I know / read is very academic and literary, and
> > I
> > > need
> > > > to learn more about the ways that it's already changing.
> > > >
> > > > I've done some looking, but haven't had very good luck so far.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Aidan
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
Messages in this topic (25)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Eugene Oh" [email protected]
Date: Mon Sep 2, 2013 4:52 am ((PDT))
Une autrice?
Eugene
Sent from my iPhone
On 2 Sep 2013, at 12:27, Jonathan Beagley <[email protected]> wrote:
> I don't believe this is a case of "softening." The article is not exactly
> clear here, but I believe what they are referring to is the use of "une
> chercheuse" when the researcher is, in fact, female. France hasn't had
> nearly as much "feminization" of professions as Quebec (or the US, I can't
> speak for the Commonwealth countries in particular), so even for a female
> researcher, the French are likely to use "un chercheur," although this is
> apparently changing. When writing a paper last year, I had a similar
> problem when referring a female writer as my partner and I were not sure
> whether we should use "un auteur" or "une auteure." Furthermore, what
> happens to gender agreement? If you use "un auteur" to refer to a woman, do
> you make the adjectives agree with her actual, physical gender or the
> grammatical gender of the word? If I recall correctly, the professor told
> use to use "une auteure" and agree with her physical gender, but as I
> understand, many "purists" would be outraged by this sort of usage.
>
>
> 2013/9/2 Wesley Parish <[email protected]>
>
>> I've just been reading
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_French
>>
>> and this:
>> "A notable difference in grammar which received considerable attention in
>> France during the 1990s is
>> the feminine form of many professions, which traditionally did not have a
>> feminine form.[16] In
>> Quebec, one writes nearly universally une chercheuse [17] "a researcher",
>> whereas in France, un
>> chercheur and, more recently, un chercheur and une chercheuse, are used."
>>
>> came up. As a speaker of Australasian English, I'm reminded of the
>> "softening" of registers by the use
>> of the diminutive suffix: "bikkie" for biscuit, "hankie" for handkerchief,
>> etc, in Australasian English.
>>
>> How prevalent is this "softening" of registers in language dialects that
>> are "seen" to be secondary?
>>
>> Wesley Parish
>>
>> Quoting Wesley Parish <[email protected]>:
>>
>>> Ah, yes, the splintering of the French language into French languages,
>>> like the
>>> splintering of the English language into English languages, like the
>>> splintering
>>> of the Latin Language into the Romance languages, etc. That would be a
>>> fascinating study all in itself. What's annoying about the fixation on
>>> Classical
>>> Written French is that I've never heard of any studies on the spoken
>>> French of
>>> the colonial outposts like Algeria, Cochin-China, Francophone Africa,
>>> or
>>> Francophone America and Caribean. There's bound to be some around, but
>>> I've
>>> never heard of any. The only one I came close to in my earlier years was
>>> an
>>> article in a book on Indo-European languages discussing Haitian Kriol
>>> and its
>>> relation to Official French.
>>>
>>> I'm betting that the migrants' French would be perhaps one of the more
>>> reliable
>>> sources ( in the sense that they don't know enough Written French or
>>> have any
>>> major hangups about it ) of Spoken French dialects. Any Algerian or
>>> other
>>> African migrants wishing to make their academic name in French academia?
>>> It
>>> sounds like the market's wide open. :)
>>>
>>> Wesley Parish
>>>
>>> Quoting Jonathan Beagley <[email protected]>:
>>>
>>>> To get back on topic, however, you might want to look at French rap
>>> for
>>>> some examples of colloquial / slang French. The subject matter is
>>> often
>>>> quite uninteresting (unless you like reading about selling drugs,
>>>> womanizing and fast cars) and offensive, but you will certainly get
>>>> examples of slang. IRC (Internet Relay Chat) chatrooms are also a
>>> good
>>>> place to get examples of "spoken French." I actually based a paper on
>>>> future tense use in spoken French on an IRC-based corpus.
>>>>
>>>> Also, I assume you mean colloquial metropolitan French and not
>>>> colloquial
>>>> Qu¨¦b¨¦cois. The two are very different...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2013/8/30 Aidan Grey <[email protected]>
>>>>
>>>>> Rather than just another Future English, I'm working on a future
>>>> French.
>>>>> Wassa is a polysynthetic French that's lost its nasals and its
>>>>> uvular/guttural R, and I'm still playing with the idea of tones,
>>> but
>>>> not
>>>>> sure it's going to happen just yet.
>>>>>
>>>>> To that end - are there any good resources out there on colloquial
>>> /
>>>> slang
>>>>> French? The French I know / read is very academic and literary, and
>>> I
>>>> need
>>>>> to learn more about the ways that it's already changing.
>>>>>
>>>>> I've done some looking, but haven't had very good luck so far.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Aidan
>>
Messages in this topic (25)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
Posted by: "R A Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Sep 2, 2013 4:36 am ((PDT))
On 02/09/2013 08:25, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
>>
> Okay, before this nonsense gets spread even further,
Yes, it is nonsense, isn't it? That's why I added the
humorous "typical conlanger" bit at the end of my email.
[snip]
>> I suspect that if you looked only at people who didn't
>> have additional problems, you wouldn't find any
>> different between left-handers and right-handers.
I suspect this is so also.
[snip]
> On 2 September 2013 09:12, R A Brown wrote:
>
>> What about those people who are truly ambidextrous?
[snip]
> Yeah, like those "studies" of the past that proved beyond
> doubt that homosexuality was a disease, the studies
> around left-handedness tend to forget the existence of
> ambidextrous people of all kinds. Not only truly
> ambidextrous people like the prof you describe, but also
> people with different laterality depending on the
> activity.
Yep - I've met some of the latter during my time. The idea
that all humankind can be neatly divided into left-handers &
right-handers simply ain't true. Humans are an odder bunch
that that ;)
[snip]
>> But I thought it had been established on this list
>> many, many moons ago that the typical conlanger was
>> left-handed, gay, Catholic, Lithuanian and sported a
>> goatee beard :)
>>
>> Alas, I conform to only one of those epithets ;)
>>
> I didn't remember about the Catholic thing. Otherwise,
> for years I've conformed to three of those epithets.
> Nowadays only to two of them :P.
IIRC the 'Catholic' bit got there partly because of JRRT and
because there were (presumably still are) quite a few
Catholics among those who actively post to the list. Also
IIRC Fr Schleyer, the inventor of Volapük had something to
do with it. Coincidentally the inventor of the earliest
mixed-type conlang was that of the French Jesuit
priest, Philippe Labbé, published in 1663:
http://www.carolandray.plus.com/Outis/index.html
*But, let me stress, I am sure this is all _coincidental_*;
One could, for example, starting with Zamenhof make out just
as a good (or bad) a case for Jewishness. Personally, I
don't think religious commitment or otherwise has anything
to do with conlanging.
The 'gay' bit IIRC came in because quite a few of the active
posters to the list were open about their homosexuality.
Though, once again, I don't think a person's sexual
orientation has anything to do with conlanging.
I have never understood how the Lithuanian got in there!
The 'left-handed' and 'goatee beard' things go back into the
mists of time - nearly 20 years ago when I was dial-up once
a day to access conlang! Presumably it was something to do
with those posting at the time (tho I fit into neither
group), but I don't recall exactly.
I echo Christophe's sentiment with which this email started;
let's not let this nonsense spread further.
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"language ⦠began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
for individual beings and events."
[Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Mon Sep 2, 2013 5:49 am ((PDT))
Just a little side-note: years ago (still in grade school) I discovered that I
could write backwards in script with my left hand, and it was quite legible
(though I needed to use a mirror to read it, bah)-- much moreso than writing
backwards with my right hand. I thought that a little odd...... Haven't tried
it in years, however-- well, I just did, and it looked like a drunken chicken
had walked across the page.........
Messages in this topic (10)
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