Re: [lace-chat] Re: Language Evolution
Martha wrote: The Latin alphabet had characters that fit very, very well with Latin phonology. The Greek alphabet matched Greek phonology too. The problem came when the Latin alphabet began to be used for languages like Anglo-Saxon (Old English) and others which had sounds that Latin didn't have - like th (both varieties) and gh (still pronounced) or ich (used to be in English, still is in German). I like this explanation - thanks, Martha. Isn't (aren't?) linguistics fascinating? BFN, Margery. [EMAIL PROTECTED] in North Herts, UK To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace-chat] Re: Language Evolution
On Sep 8, 2005, at 11:40, Joy Beeson wrote: At 02:22 PM 9/6/05 -0700, Weronika Patena wrote: . . . I think for a long time nobody even thought of coming up with standardized spelling. In English, there is a date on the idea: -- James Boswell (Discussing Samuel Johnson's invention of the dictionary) Dr Sam in England, Voltaire and Diderot in France. 18th century (Enlightment/Oswiecenie) in both cases. So, Weronika's claim (for a long time nobody even thought of [...] ) stands - it *was* a long way to Tipperarry :) Mid-to-late 18th c was full of novel ideas (and not all of them as bloody as the French Revoluton g), including Jacquard's loom which, so far as I know, was the very first precursor of the older versions of the 'puter, with its punch cards... General, linguistic, not a propos of anything musing... I wonder if the conservatives' dislike of evolution has anything to do with the fact that evolution and revolution share the root (to everything - turn, turn,turn; there is a season - turn, turn, turn) and too much sudden turning makes one a tad queasy? Of course, the currently popular - at least in US - hatred of all things liberal, while extolling freedom (and thinking that the two are incompatible) is simply due to lack of classical education g -- Tamara P Duvallhttp://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Language Evolution
Depends on how fluently you require the speaking. English, Spanish, French (give me a couple of weeks to get unrusty), Italian (ditto), Middle English to some extent, but I don't guarantee dialectal purity on ME. Can read a few more, again depending on how well you insist one know it before counting it, and have studied more than that off and on. -- -- Martha Krieg [EMAIL PROTECTED] in Michigan MA PhD in Romance Linguistics, AMLS in Library Science, MS in computer science (the only thing that got me a paying job...) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Language Evolution
How many languages do you speak? Cheers, Yvonne. - Original Message - From: Tamara P Duvall [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linguistics is fun... As fascinatiing as lace g -- Tamara P Duvallhttp://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Language Evolution/texting
. Texting is, at least, clean (since there are no rules, none can be broken). And it's innovative. And it's fun. At its best, it's like a puzzle, full of subtexts and innuendoes, just like lace is. For all I know, it may be the future of English :) Trouble is DH makes up his own text language which is almost impossible to decipher. He can understand it so he can't see what the fuss is aboutLOL Cheers, Yvonne. To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Language Evolution
Tamara wrote: But grammar is something else. The only firm change I can think of within the past 50 yrs is the usage of shall and will not only as being a difference in degree of intention but also something to do with person (singular, plural, first second, etc). Can't remember any of that circus because I never encountered it again. We were taught (in SCOTLAND, in the 50s) as follows: For normal use: I shall, you will, he/she/it will; we shall, you (pl) will, they will. For emphasis: I will, you shall, he/she/it shall; we will, you (pl) shall, they shall. But (we were taught) this is the exact opposite of ENGLISH rules. Circus is about right - let's just abbreviate to I'll go and do that now. There's that iffy mode - can't even remember its proper name now - where you say if I were you; that's not used a whole lot though it's still taught. That'd be the conditional case. I still use it if I need to sound well-educated G but mostly people don't seem to mind one way or the other. Texting is a separate system of spelling on its own I ignore all the teenage text abbreviations, and also the helpful (not) predictive texting which guesses (wrongly) what I want to say. I just enter in full the words I want to use. Slow, maybe, but clear and readable. And Weronika said: Latin, by inventing their own alphabet; English, by just giving each word a randomly chosen Latin alphabet spelling in no way related to pronounciation... G I often wonder: languages must have begun as spoken sounds and words, long before alphabets and spelling came along. So, once alphabets turned up, who applied the letters (and combinations) to the sounds? And did each scribe choose their own rules? Was that why it took centuries for spelling to settle down? And why did the spelling rules turn out so different in different countries? For instance, when I learned conversational German, our lovely teacher first taught us the German spelling/sounds correspondence so we could read signs out loud, before trying to learn the words; once we could hear the sounds, the words might sound like English words and that helped us to pick up some meaning. It was really useful. End of ramble G, Margery. [EMAIL PROTECTED] in North Herts, UK To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace-chat] Re: Language Evolution
On Sep 2, 2005, at 3:32, Jean Nathan wrote: The BBC had a series of programmes last week or so on the English language in the UK. It showed that language, especially among the young is changing very rapidly. If I listen to a conversation between 15 year-olds, I've got no idea what they're talking about - they use words I've not heard before and reverse the meaning of some of the words I thought I knew. That's why I specifically said that English hadn't changed much in the area of grammar. Vocabulary, especially slang words - as used by in-groups (be it teenagers, prisoners, or phusicists) - does change, frequently. But those words disappear as frequently, since, their purpose is not to communicate with the world at large, but with the specific in-group. I remember my parents not understanding half of what I said to my peers. By the time they began to get the drift and started to use some of those words, we changed them again, just to make them feel out of it :) But grammar is something else. The only firm change I can think of within the past 50 yrs is the usage of shall and will not only as being a difference in degree of intention but also something to do with person (singular, plural, first second, etc). Can't remember any of that circus because I never encountered it again. There's that iffy mode - can't even remember its proper name now - where you say if I were you; that's not used a whole lot though it's still taught. Another thing that's still taught (at least in the Brit textbooks for ESL) is reported speech (with its attendant change of tense). It used to be drummed into me for *years*, but I've not heard it much used here; when something someone said is reported, usually the direct quote is used. So you might say those are also on their way out, in the effort to streamline English further, make it easier for many people to use it, especially now that it's become the international language in the age of communication. What's long gone are cases (the only vestiges left are in personal pronouns and then only 4 cases are left. In some instances, not all), gender indicators (again, except for personal pronouns and an occasional noun) and number indicators. English didn't always have just the singular and plural, the way it does now. It used to have dual number and group number as well. Vestiges of group number are left in nouns like sheep, and, even more clearly, in fish - you have two different ways of expressing plurality of fish (fishes, as in bread and fishes and fish as in we saw a lot of different fish). Of dual number there's not a trace left, though one of the wits in my theoretical linguistics class at the U claimed that trousers was a case - singular up top, plural at the bottom, resulting in a plural ending to a single unit... :) Polish, OTOH, still happily uses dual number (if in very few instances) and group number, baffling foreigners who attempt to learn it... Which is why Polish'll never become the international language of communication :) Of course, the plethora of little do-dads - over the letters, under the letters - doesn't help either; one wonders how come both Latin and English managed to escape those altogehter :) Texting is a separate system of spelling on its own I wish I had enough brain cells left to follow the development of texting - it looks fascinating. But, when my son tried to give me an example (granted, texting is almost allien to him too, since he's 28 g), it left me totally baffled. All I'd want to learn how to text is: duh? -- Tamara P Duvallhttp://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [lace-chat] Re: Language Evolution
On Fri, Sep 02, 2005 at 07:34:12PM -0400, Tamara P. Duvall wrote: Polish, OTOH, still happily uses dual number (if in very few instances) and group number, baffling foreigners who attempt to learn it... Which is why Polish'll never become the international language of communication :) Dual and group number, really? I can't think of any examples... Of course, the plethora of little do-dads - over the letters, under the letters - doesn't help either; one wonders how come both Latin and English managed to escape those altogehter :) Latin, by inventing their own alphabet; English, by just giving each word a randomly chosen Latin alphabet spelling in no way related to pronounciation... G Texting is a separate system of spelling on its own I wish I had enough brain cells left to follow the development of texting - it looks fascinating. But, when my son tried to give me an example (granted, texting is almost allien to him too, since he's 28 g), it left me totally baffled. All I'd want to learn how to text is: duh? What is texting? Weronika -- Weronika Patena Stanford, CA, USA http://vole.stanford.edu/weronika To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[lace-chat] Re: Language Evolution/Polish
On Sep 2, 2005, at 19:38, Weronika Patena wrote: Dual and group number, really? I can't think of any examples... For the edification of everyone who doesn't speak Polish (but is burning to learn its intricacies), and you... :) Dual number: Oko (eye, singular) oczy (eyes,dual; used only in reference to eyes on living creatures who, usually, have two) oka (eyes, plural; used when referring to eyes in things like a fishing net) Ditto ucho-uszy-ucha (ears - as on a creature, or as on a jug or mug) Plecy (back) is a vestige - dual number form, no proper singular, no proper plural left. For group number... This one's really fun, because it's quite common, yet few people even realise they're using it g Most of your family and a lot of everything else uses that format. Singular is one ending, group (2-4) is another, plural (5 or more) *yet another* : (jedna - one) siostra (sister) - singular (dwie, trzy, cztery - 2, 3, 4) siostry - group (piec, szesc, itd -5, 6, etc) siostr (slash over the o) - plural mother, father, brother, aunt, uncle, tree, table, chair... There's one, then there's the in group of no more than 4, then you take a deep breath and start counting according to a uniform pattern; 5 and 555 will have the same ending... :) The eyes and the ears, BTW have *both* the dual *and* the group number, but, since the dual is reserved strictly for one purpose (living creatures), the group number in the inanimate objects escapes notice even more g What is texting? Messaging over the cell-phone -- Tamara P Duvallhttp://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
