Should probably not butt in here, but could you
guys stop with the "flame" references? It just
confuses us, because what you guys are both
involved in right now could be best described -
by American standards - as a rather mild
sauna...

--- �skar Gu�laugsson <hr_oskar@...>
wrote:

> 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
>
>

=====
Kindest Regards,
- DeepStream
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