Re: The usefulness of a language

--- In cybalist@..., x99lynx@... wrote:

> Torsten wrote:
> <But which situation are we talking about here? The average Anglo-
> Saxon is not likely to correct his Norman lord and master by

pointing

> out that he is using a dative for an accusative or a masculine for

a

> feminine. Nor is he likely to try to browbeat him by using fancy
> prestigious Anglo-Saxon words. That won't get him anywhere, at

least

> not anywhere nice. Better use a Norman French word that you have
> picked up somewhere and which you know your boss will understand.>
>
> Some observations:
> Norman French is not the source of most of the French loans in

English. Its

> main contribution was as a legal language and it was not spoken by

the Norman

> lords themselves for very long. The way Norman words entered and

travelled

> in English might be seen in the word "cattle." The original word

derived

> from Latin, still recognizable in the legal term of art, "chattel

and chose",

> and referred to an interest in property aside from that held in the

land. In

> law, this is the difference between "personal" and "real"

property. Since

> the most valuable part of an interest in such property was often

livestock,

> "chattel" entered common English as a reference to livestock of any

kind, but

> probably mainly among the propertied classes. It was used mainly

in wills

> and legislation and could refer to pigs and chickens as well as

oxen. And it

> was still being used that way in American English in the early

1800's.

> However, local American courts in the West began to use "cattle"

exclusively

> to refer to cows, interpreting the intention of certain "form"

contracts

> being written at the time and certain holdings began to be

described commonly

> as "cattle ranches." It appears that the use of cattle exclusively

for cows

> caught on in the pulp fiction of the time and moved East and spread

in usage

> in such expressions as "cattle drive", "cattle baron" and "cattle

rustlers."

> So this Norman word was introduced and re-introduced by lawyers and

made

> common English by pulp fiction writers.
>
> Norman lords were involved in the big, mega-historical sense, but

really they

> had nothing to do with the everyday way the word came into common

use.

>
> Jorge Luis Borges wrote a piece called "On the Modesty of

History." It is

> about how the little things had a lot more to do with how things

turn out

> than big notions, like prestige.
>

Thank you for the story. I must be confused. I don't understand what
you are trying to say. Is it that the words in English that look
exactly as if they were Norman French actually aren't, but were
introduced into the English Language by pulp fiction writers?

> <<Words are borrowed with a slightly different sense and the old

word

> dies out. And?>>
>
> What superficially looks like a slightly different sense might have

reflected

> an important difference in people's lives. My point is that

borrowed words

> and lost words don't often come from anything as abstract and

shallow as

> "prestige." Look at these words in context and it is often almost

impossible

> to see how "prestige" had anything to do with their comings and

goings.

>

Nothing comes from "prestige". What goes by the name of "prestige"
ultimately is based on a threat of the use of physical force. And
that is sufficient to change what words people use.

> <<That is a very good example. Now all you need is some quotes from
> those physicists, eg. Einstein and Bohr, who have actually tried to
> formulate a modern physical theory in such nakedly Germanic

languages

> as German and Danish, to the effect that such languages are

unsuited

> for that purpose.>>
>
> How nakedly Germanic is German physics? At least I recognize the

Greek and

> Latin in "Die Relativitätstheorie von Albert Einstein, deutsch-

amerikanischer

> Physiker." There is some heavy clothing already going on there.
> (Amerikanischer, by the way, had its origins in the name of 15th
>Century
> Italian sailor. Who'd a thunk it?

Anybody who had read Reader's Digest's "Expand your vocabulary".

I would have thought it would have meant

> something like "shining glory," "the flowing ones" or "the

prestigious

> children of Amer" or something. )

Chinese mei-guo "America", actually means "beautiful contry".

>

> My favorite is this regard is from the dinosaur science e-list,

where a

> debate raged over dropping traditional designations. When it was

suggested

> that the naming committee change "edentulous'' to "toothless'', a

Dutch

> biologist objected and argued that Latin and Greek terms should be

retained

> because "Not all of us speak your very difficult language.''
>

He must have been speaking tongue in cheek. The Dutch for <tooth-
less> is <tand-los>.

> S. Long

Torsten