From: Deep Stream
Message: 217
Date: 2000-12-05
> Heill Keth,=====
>
> My friend, I don't want us to exchange flames.
> I mistakenly wrote a
> rather aggressive reply to your comments on
> various things today.
> It's not appropriate for me as a moderator in a
> group meant for the
> study of a specific subject, not of general
> linguistic discussion, to
> promote threads like this one. I thought that
> by my apology you would
> refrain from replying like you have done now.
>
> Let's cut it out, please :)
>
> (those who aren't interested in flaming
> linguistic discussion should
> stop reading now)
>
>
> > > > (btw "hail" in English can't be all that
> bad. At lest I grew up
> > > > singing "hail, hail rock 'n roll", and
> that was Chuck Berry, and
> > > > no one thought any "German" thoughts)
> > >
> > > No, English isn't all bad at all. In fact
> it's no worse than any
> > other
> > > language.
> >
> > Actually, I was talking about "the word hail
> in English"
>
> Hmm, I admit that I misread that. Sorry :)
>
>
> > > > I'd like to add that in my opinion German
> has a much better
> vowel
> > > system than
> > > > English, because the English vowels are
> really distorted, and
> > hardly
> > > > correspond to the signs used to describe
> them. In German, the
> > vowel
> > > signs
>
> > > I'm sure you know that, scientifically,
> there's no such thing as
> a
> > > "better" vowel system.
> >
> > I was talking about how well the "signs"
> (=letters)
> > used to describe the sounds fit the sound.
> > For historic reasons, English has kept a very
> old spelling
> > that is centuries behind the way words are
> actually
> > pronounced.
>
> Now you're being very slippery, mate. I'm so
> immersed in phonetics,
> remember, that "vowel system" and "vowels" mean
> to me, by default,
> the spoken sounds, not the writing. With any
> due respect to me, you
> should not accuse me of misreading this
> paragraph, because it really
> did make sense to read it as I did.
> But as to English spelling, that is, for the
> first, one subject I
> shall kindly ask you not to discuss here.
> Because it's a very
> flammable subject to discuss. And anyway,
> you're no better off this
> way, because saying that English spelling is
> centuries behind
> pronunciation is, IMHO, still offensive enough
> to the Anglophones on
> this list. It's just a different twig of the
> same branch I was
> arguing against.
>
> > It makes sense to describe diphtongs by TWO
> letters,
> > because that is what they are. Yet "I", which
> is
> > pronounced like "ai" (a diphtong) is
> represented
> > by only one sign or letter. Things like
> that..
>
> Why are you bringing this up? Do the people
> from all over the English
> speaking world who have shown our ancestral
> language the honour of
> wanting to learn it deserve from you to tell
> them that they don't
> make sense when they write? That's one
> off-topic subject we really
> don't need.
>
> > > Linguistics state that: "All languages
> > > enable their speakers to communicate any
> and all concepts that
> they
> > > have need or want to communicate" (my
> words); a language is fixed
> to
> > > the environment and society behind it. An
> African tribal language
> > may
> > > not have a word for 'transistor', but it
> will have a single short
> > word
> > > for a social concept too complex for the
> high and mighty European
> > > languages to explain except in a paragraph.
> Norwegian is the
> optimal
> > > language for Norwegians, Vietnamese is
> better for Vietnamese than
> > > "superior" French, Americans are best off
> speaking English
> > > (even if no other people spoke English).
> >
> > Don't know if it makes sense to speak about
> "optimal"
> > languages. Of course you simply can't switch
> > languages, because it takes time to reorient
> oneself.
> > And you'd have to be born again to know what
> it's like
> > to have a different mothers language. But
> presumably some
> > languages are better suited in certain
> environments.
> > Such as the eskimo language for Greenland.
> > But whether English or Russian is the best
> language for
> > technology, might actually be undecided.
> Maybe Russian
> > gives better chess players?
>
> I need to rephrase what I said to you:
>
> A people, living in a certain environment,
> having a certain way of
> life, a certain social pattern, a certain diet,
> etc, will as a rule
> be best served by the medium they have evolved
> over time to describe
> their reality. If all Norwegians were to speak
> Swahili from tomorrow
> onwards, they'd be having problems with certain
> Swahili words
> describing totally alien customs and concepts,
> and would be lacking
> Swahili words to describe their own culture and
> environment. It's
> bound to each generation of people in a
> community in a given point of
> time; right now, Norwegian is the most suitable
> language for you,
> because it contains all the vocabulary, all the
> nuances and
> shortcuts, that you need to optimally describe
> your local reality to
> other members of your community, though not
> necessarily to any others.
>
> Ponderings about which language is the best for
> love, chess,
> technology, philosophy, poetry, etc, may be
> entertaining at times but
> they are totally unscientific and often laid
> with chauvinism of some
> kind. That was not what I was talking about.
>
> > Sure, we could write it as �, �, � , � , � ,
> � , � , etc..
> > many possibilities.
> >
> > For me at least "�" is a "reserved sign" --
> it already
> > means something else (u-umlaut)
> >
> > I have seen that the Viking Society uses it
> in its
> > books, but for Scandinavians, Germans etc,
> this is
> > unnatural.
>
> I'll wait for other list members to complain
> about this problem. If
> they do, I will consider solutions, though I
> don't know right now
> what they might be.
>
> > I have heard Americans using German words,
> like
> > "eigenvalue", "zeitgeist", "gestalt", etc..
> > I thought "eingebuergert" was a word
> describing very well
> > what I was trying to say. I cannot see why
> you'd
> > see it as "arrogant". In reality it only
> reflects
> > the existence of other languages than
> English, where
> > the appropriate word is not always on the tip
> of the tongue.
> > "Eingebuergert", expressed my thought much
> more
> > accurately than for example "customary". In
> an international
> > forum you have to expect an occasional
> non-English word.
> > Non-native English speakers aren't as good at
> English as
> > those who were borne with it.
>
> Not much comment on this really. Occasional use
> of German words in
> English doesn't mean Americans can take on any
> German word. I only
> understood this word by context, and I consider
> myself an educated
> person. You choose the words to use for your
> audience, but often the
> most polite thing to do is to maintain the most
> standard and
> consistent code possible. It would save me a
> lot of words to just
> always explain everything in full linguistic
> terms here; I've read
> usage of linguistic terms in books, so why
> wouldn't the audience here
> know every single one of the terms?
>
> > The comment was written under the slash
> /Germans header.
>
> That's a point though, I'll give you that :)
>
> > >I (and I believe Haukur too) do not
> > > want any cross-Atlantic bias in this group
> (especially when we're
> > > in-between, hehe :)
> >
> > What gave you that idea?
> > I think it becomes more clear if German is
> used
> > as reference. At least for me it is more
> clear that way.
> > Those who know some German have a very great
> advantage
> > when studying Old Norse. The reason is that
> the grammatical
> > system is similar.
>
> :) :)
>
> Keth, now I'm starting to like you.
>
> But what if you were learning a language whose
> optimal reference
> language (in this case German) were unknown to
> you? Would you want
> your teacher or fellow students to say to you
> "well that's not our
> problem, you should know it, we don't care if
> you don't"? Most of the
> people here wanting to learn are *not* familiar
> with German. We can't
> just exclude them because they don't know it.
> They're grown up
> people, they don't have time for this.
>
> But this won't be a problem. As I said
> recently, we're going to
> have the Americans and Englishmen specific to
> Haukur, while I
> specifically service the rest. The rest, being
> all or most familiar
> with German, will thus get plenty of good
> reference to German vowels,
> orthography, grammar, and all you want.
> And that includes you, my friend :)
>
> > > Come to the voice chat, we'll demonstrate
> :)
> >
> > Sorry, I don't have the microphone.
> > Although think it is an excellent idea,
>
> You don't need the microphone :) You can still
> hear us speaking, so
> by all means come :)
>
> (and actually, mikes are really cheap, they're
> worth it)
>
>
> > English, German and Norwegian all have the
> "j".
> > Examples are jazz, just, john, jumbo, jack
> (English)
> > jawohl, juni, justiz, jener,
> jagd (German)
> > joda, j�ss, jul, juss, jass,
> jumper (Norwegian)
> > The English "j" differs. We say it is more
> like a "dzj".
> > I have however no idea at all whether Old
> Norse had "j".
> > And you say Icelandic does not have it?
> > In Norwegian is a separate sound.
>
>
> Er...Keth, you're being funny. Of course I know
> that, I'm not 4 years
> old :) And yes, Icelandic has the orthographic
> character "j", which
> represents the sound [j].
>
> > Latin probably did not have it originally.
> > Iulius, Iuno, etc
>
> It didn't, no probability involved. I told you
> that the character "j"
> is a later modification of "i", which
> originally represented both [i]
> and [j].
>
> Keth, let's not act like kids anymore. You will
> get your German
> approximations (in fact, you already have some
> of them). You won't
> have to look at the English approximations at
> all. If you don't like
> English orthography, by all means write to me
> in Norwegian (but only
> personally), and you'll get a reply in good
> Danish with references to
> good German. Haukur and I are in this to
> provide good service to both
> sides of the Atlantic, and I hope it doesn't
> bother you that the
> other sides also will get service :)
>
> �skar
>
>