Musings: Pop Culture
rufus
in the last three years, I have drawn the following conclusions:
1. Justin Timberlake is boring. He's not in the slightest bit attractive.
I would probably fail to see him if he walked past me by himself in the
Mall.
2. Christina Aguilera can actually sing. And I admire her unabashed
pop-tartiness. She's having a good time, and more power to her.
3. Apparently Robin Leach (or someone who sounds a hell of lot like him)
has taken employment with VH1 to narrate their "The Fabulous Life of . .
." series, in which every facet of a celebrities existance is brought
before the camera, and we find out how much it costs and who made it for
them.
4. VH1 has also apparently expanded upon their "Behind the Music" format
with "Driven". in which we talk to family members, etc., of major stars,
and see charming home movies of them belting out songs as, like, 8 year
olds, or whatever, and learn how hard they tried all the time.
5. There's a certain amount of crossover between "Driven" and "The
Fabulous Life Of . . .", which at times makes for interesting
juxtaposition, for example, Christina Aguilera as the wealthy, spoiled,
designer-clad and mildly slutty pop diva contrasted with Christina
Aguilera, struggling on her way to stardom and all the while with that
astonishing voice. (Which, in the home movies where she really is 8 and
belting out like a diva, really *is* astonishing, and not a little
unnerving, truth be told.)
6. I have a distinct fondness for a good number of probably very bad club
hits. I know this from the commercial for the CD of them that I have seen
many times now.
7. Clay Aiken is not nearly as annoying as I thought he was going to be. I
still have yet to watch the program that spawned him, but I saw an
interview and he seemed to actually be kind of charming.
8. Whatever *did* happen to Rick Astley?
rufus
--
rufus AT bway DOT net | rufus.livejournal.com
"Jack, you have debauched my sloth!" -- Stephen Maturin (Patrick O'Brian)
Jennie
> 1. Justin Timberlake is boring. He's not in the slightest bit attractive.
> I would probably fail to see him if he walked past me by himself in the Mall.
Isn't that the case with most such stars? A teenaged heart throb
is supposed to look as bland as possible so that fans can project their
desires upon him. The important thing is not that he be beautiful, but
that, at all costs, he avoid being ugly. And the type of features which
create true beauty are always distinctive enough to be off-putting to some.
Anyway, I've probably seen images of Justin Timberlake from time
to time, but I have no idea what he looks like, so there you go.
> 8. Whatever *did* happen to Rick Astley?
Seaside cabaret?
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
Edward Scissorhands
> Isn't that the case with most such stars? A teenaged heart throb
>is supposed to look as bland as possible so that fans can project their
>desires upon him. The important thing is not that he be beautiful, but
>that, at all costs, he avoid being ugly. And the type of features which
>create true beauty are always distinctive enough to be off-putting to some.
> Anyway, I've probably seen images of Justin Timberlake from time
>to time, but I have no idea what he looks like, so there you go.
Indescribable. Sort of bland. White suit in the last video where he
grabs his crotch.
> Seaside cabaret?
Siani is stalking Rick Astley. She's he's biggest, and probably only,
fan. She gets all pleased when "Never gonna give you up" is on VH1's 80s
compilations, and even dances.
Thing is, he's probably rich and famous still, but elsewhere.
Oh good god. He's still in the 'music' industry, tormenting us with
Banjo albums and "One True Voice"...
http://www.rickastley.co.uk/html/home/news.htm
Google, why must you torment us so...
EdwardS
--
EdwardS - Romero crossed with Teletubbies.
What kind of Zombies like Living Flesh?
Fat zombies, skinny zombies, zombies who climb on rocks
Tough zombies, sissy zombies, even zombies with the pox love living flesh...
50 Ft Queenie
"rufus" <ru...@bNOSPAMway.net> wrote in message
news:rufus-08020...@24-229-183-186.msns.snh.ptd.net...
> Having now spent more time watching TV in the last three
weeks than I have
> in the last three years, I have drawn the following
conclusions:
>
> 1. Justin Timberlake is boring. He's not in the slightest
bit attractive.
> I would probably fail to see him if he walked past me by
himself in the
> Mall.
Thank you! Everytime I see picture of him, I wonder what on
earth anyone sees in him.
Now, back in *my* day, teen idols were a thing of beauty.
*sigh* John Taylor *sigh*
>
> 2. Christina Aguilera can actually sing. And I admire her
unabashed
> pop-tartiness. She's having a good time, and more power to
her.
I kinda feel like that about Courtney Love. I like her
balls-out attitude, and yeah, her songs kick as too.
>
> 8. Whatever *did* happen to Rick Astley?
>
Las Vegas? A guest spot on Hollywood Squares?
Steph
--
"deliver me unto punk rock shows and the
company of freaks and intellectual pursuit"
- electrolyte
Joseph Brenner
Jennie <jen...@penelope.triffid.demon.co.uk> writes:
> Anyway, I've probably seen images of Justin Timberlake from time
> to time, but I have no idea what he looks like, so there you go.
I have that problem all the time with pop culture. Like,
Christina Aguilera? I know I've heard something by her.
What does she sound like again?
siani evans
>
> So, like, in <slrnc2f0ic...@penelope.triffid.demon.co.uk>, the
> most excellent dude Jennie <jen...@penelope.triffid.demon.co.uk> said:
> > Seaside cabaret?
>
> Siani is stalking Rick Astley. She's he's biggest, and probably only,
> fan. She gets all pleased when "Never gonna give you up" is on VH1's 80s
> compilations, and even dances.
it's true. i do the rick astley retard hand waving. and i wobble my
head. and dance like a 12 yr old white girl. and sing along. i've
discovered that it ***really*** irritates folks. i used to do this at
tree planting where "get incredibly annoying stuff in people's heads"
was a very popular game. you could stop working for a second and belt
out "never gonna give you up" and hear several people scream.
i am also highly amused by Tiffany.
>
> Thing is, he's probably rich and famous still, but elsewhere.
>
> Oh good god. He's still in the 'music' industry, tormenting us with
> Banjo albums and "One True Voice"...
>
> http://www.rickastley.co.uk/html/home/news.htm
>
> Google, why must you torment us so...
hahahahaha!!!! aging minor pop stars are hilarious.
siani
--
\\||//
- oo -
-|--|- (hedgehog)
Edward Scissorhands
Joseph Brenner <do...@kzsu.stanford.edu> said:
>I have that problem all the time with pop culture. Like,
>Christina Aguilera? I know I've heard something by her.
>What does she sound like again?
You know the sound chalk makes when it screeches on a blackboard?
Or that horrid noise that sometimes comes out of old people's throats
when they can't breathe?
Or the sound of cats being tortured?
Or a baby about to do that cry that just can't be stopped?
Or most of the CDs in my 80s collection?
Worse.
Tiny Human Ferret
> Edward Scissorhands wrote:
>
>>So, like, in <slrnc2f0ic...@penelope.triffid.demon.co.uk>, the
>>most excellent dude Jennie <jen...@penelope.triffid.demon.co.uk> said:
>
>
>>> Seaside cabaret?
>>
>>Siani is stalking Rick Astley. She's he's biggest, and probably only,
>>fan. She gets all pleased when "Never gonna give you up" is on VH1's 80s
>>compilations, and even dances.
>
>
> it's true. i do the rick astley retard hand waving. and i wobble my
> head. and dance like a 12 yr old white girl. and sing along. i've
> discovered that it ***really*** irritates folks. i used to do this at
> tree planting where "get incredibly annoying stuff in people's heads"
> was a very popular game. you could stop working for a second and belt
> out "never gonna give you up" and hear several people scream.
>
> i am also highly amused by Tiffany.
Woohoo! Let's hear it for Tiffany! Tell us more!
--
The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may
often assume the appearance, and produce the effects,
of a treasonable correspondence with the public enemy.
--Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"
Tiny Human Ferret
> So, like, in <m3ad3s9...@crack.nonagon.org>, the most excellent dude
> Joseph Brenner <do...@kzsu.stanford.edu> said:
>
>> I have that problem all the time with pop culture. Like,
>> Christina Aguilera? I know I've heard something by her.
>> What does she sound like again?
>
>
> You know the sound chalk makes when it screeches on a blackboard?
> Or that horrid noise that sometimes comes out of old people's throats
> when they can't breathe?
> Or the sound of cats being tortured?
> Or a baby about to do that cry that just can't be stopped?
> Or most of the CDs in my 80s collection?
>
> Worse.
Well... he didn't want that sort of explanation, so I'll give it a shot.
Remember back in the late 1970s when you used to have really really good
guitarists with really really good equipment, and they used to get
really really stoned and do these album-long instrumental leads that
they tended to call "progressive jazz" or whatever, and if you were on
enough drugs it sounded all artistic and wonderful and if you weren't on
enough drugs it sounded like someone playing a whole lot of overly
intricate elaborations and breakdowns of practicing their scales?
Also known as "noodling"?
Christina Aguillera is the vocal-talent equivalent of that.
The cardinal sin of exceptional talent is to use it overly. And dmn does
she do a lot of sinnin'.
Edward Scissorhands
>The cardinal sin of exceptional talent is to use it overly. And dmn
>does she do a lot of sinnin'.
That implies she has talent. Which she doesn't; nothing in there an
Antares ATR-1 and some good programming/production can't get out of any
semi-able teenager.
Jennie
> So, like, in <slrnc2f0ic...@penelope.triffid.demon.co.uk>, the
> most excellent dude Jennie <jen...@penelope.triffid.demon.co.uk> said:
>> Anyway, I've probably seen images of Justin Timberlake from time
>>to time, but I have no idea what he looks like, so there you go.
> Indescribable. Sort of bland. White suit in the last video where he
> grabs his crotch.
Oh dear. Is that supposed to be shocking?
Isn't he, ultimately, famous because of some bint other people
hoped in vain to shag whom he got to not shag first?
Jennie
> i am also highly amused by Tiffany.
I've probably mentioned here before that Donald was once in a
thrash band dedicated to Tiffany.
rufus
<Edw...@dmc12.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> So, like, in <4027F816...@earthops.net>, the most excellent dude
> Tiny Human Ferret <ixnayamsp...@earthops.net> said:
> >The cardinal sin of exceptional talent is to use it overly. And dmn
> >does she do a lot of sinnin'.
>
> That implies she has talent. Which she doesn't; nothing in there an
> Antares ATR-1 and some good programming/production can't get out of any
> semi-able teenager.
Pssht, Edward, I'm really not sure about that at all. While she may not be
*as good* raw as she is once recorded and re-processed -- talent she does
have.
I mean, I *hate* _Beautiful_. I hate that song deeply and ferociously.
But she does have a powerful, fluid voice.
(dear god, what have we come to, discussing the merits of Christina
Aguilera. And I know I brought it up, too.)
rufus
<jen...@penelope.triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <Uac9uDBy...@btinternet.com>, Edward Scissorhands wrote:
> > So, like, in <slrnc2f0ic...@penelope.triffid.demon.co.uk>, the
> > most excellent dude Jennie <jen...@penelope.triffid.demon.co.uk> said:
> >> Anyway, I've probably seen images of Justin Timberlake from time
> >>to time, but I have no idea what he looks like, so there you go.
>
> > Indescribable. Sort of bland. White suit in the last video where he
> > grabs his crotch.
>
> Oh dear. Is that supposed to be shocking?
> Isn't he, ultimately, famous because of some bint other people
> hoped in vain to shag whom he got to not shag first?
heehee. Yes. Although I think she allowed as he had, in fact, shagged her
first, recently.
rufus
<jen...@penelope.triffid.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <rufus-08020...@24-229-183-186.msns.snh.ptd.net>,
> rufus wrote:
> > 1. Justin Timberlake is boring. He's not in the slightest bit attractive.
> > I would probably fail to see him if he walked past me by himself in
the Mall.
>
> Isn't that the case with most such stars? A teenaged heart throb
> is supposed to look as bland as possible so that fans can project their
> desires upon him. The important thing is not that he be beautiful, but
> that, at all costs, he avoid being ugly. And the type of features which
> create true beauty are always distinctive enough to be off-putting to some.
This is true, but -- he's *really* boring. Most of the people the Teen
Beat crowd are usually slavering over do have a kind of generic
prettiness, whereas, he's just . . . dull.
> Anyway, I've probably seen images of Justin Timberlake from time
> to time, but I have no idea what he looks like, so there you go.
Tallish, blond, blue eyes, poor choice of facial hair, dresses something
like an up-market sanitized for your pre-teen's viewing Eminem. Frequently
photographed with Cameron Diaz.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> I would probably fail to see him if he walked past me by himself in the
> Mall.
(Composed for another thread, but since the subject came up. . .)
What I remember mostly is when I got my first radio. It had tubes, and it
could DX. And at night I used to turn it on, and look for something like the
Doors, or Airplane, with Grace Slick's voice sounding like it came out of
the end of a long, dark tunnel.
What impressed me then was how dark and impressive it all was. I remember
listening to something that in retrospect I believe was a live set by
Steppenwolf. It was all blues boogie, with growled, low vocals and wailing
guitar solos in minor keys. It seemed seriously spooky to me at the time. It
freaked me out when I was nine years old. It sounded like the end of the
world.
Then Donovan came on, singing about how Atlantis would rise again when
California fell into the sea. Not sure where I heard that one, schoolyard
legends no doubt. That was one of my favourite songs. Then there was the
Crazy World of Arthur Brown. . . .
I wonder, though, where in the current morass of Disney Channel pop-tarts,
hip-hop drilling, and Justin Timberlakes (has there *ever* been a pop star
with less charisma?) --- where are kids today going to plug into this sweet
apocalyptic vibe? Will they find something that impressed me like I was
impressed by the music of 1967 back then?
--
Solum semel vitam percurris; ergo maximo gusto fruere, tanto quo potes.
--- Seneca
Joseph Brenner
Tiny Human Ferret <ixnayamsp...@earthops.net> writes:
> Edward Scissorhands wrote:
> > Joseph Brenner <do...@kzsu.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >
> >> I have that problem all the time with pop culture. Like,
> >> Christina Aguilera? I know I've heard something by her.
> >> What does she sound like again?
> > You know the sound chalk makes when it screeches on a
> > blackboard?
[...]
> > Worse.
>
> Well... he didn't want that sort of explanation, so I'll give it a shot.
To tell you the truth, I didn't want any kind of explanation
at all. Rhetorical question. Don't mind me.
Joseph Brenner
(rufus) writes:
> (dear god, what have we come to, discussing the merits of Christina
> Aguilera. And I know I brought it up, too.)
That's okay, just as long as we stay of of the latest
non-troversy, which I'm happy to see has not popped up here,
(except from some cross-posted trolling, which doesn't count).
Tiny Human Ferret
> In article <4027E65F...@velvet.net>, siani evans wrote:
>
>>i am also highly amused by Tiffany.
>
>
> I've probably mentioned here before that Donald was once in a
> thrash band dedicated to Tiffany.
Now that's some twisted justice! Anyone got any MP3s?
Panurge
> I wonder, though, where in the current morass of Disney Channel pop-tarts,
> hip-hop drilling, and Justin Timberlakes (has there *ever* been a pop star
> with less charisma?) --- where are kids today going to plug into this sweet
> apocalyptic vibe? Will they find something that impressed me like I was
> impressed by the music of 1967 back then?
Well, we may be in a time where we don't want (or act like we don't
want) that sort of thing; Marilyn Manson seems to have been the last
mainstream figure to have made a stab at it, though like most others
today, he's too in hock to punk's musical value system to summon the
chutzpah to do it right. (You have to be willing to go over the edge to
do it right, and punk, musically, is all about classical virtues, not
Romantic ones.)
OTOH, the U.S. was at war in the late '60s, and I mean REAL WAR, with
more than a dozen U.S. soldiers and scores, sometimes hundreds, of
Vietnamese dying every *day* on average. By now, the apocalyptic vibe
seems to have been split apart into heaviness on one end and a sort of
lethargic drugginess on the other.
But try this:
Kayo Dot is an outgrowth of an earlier band called maudlin of the Well.
(sic) They have about a dozen "participants" if you include the brass
section, speaker, and lyricist.
I've only heard one (very long) piece by them, "The Manifold Curiosity",
once on college radio, but imagine a smart, wide-ranging death-metal
band with an indie-rock background going psychedelic.
And definitely try this:
http://www.SleepytimeGorillaMuseum.com/
Two complete songs from their sole studio album, *Grand Opening And
Closing*, are available here, but they're the most obviously heavy and
relatively accessible ones. Better would be the more expansive
"Sleepytime" and "Ablutions", which you'll have to buy the CD to get.
Two cuts from a live album (including "Bring Back The Apocalypse", oddly
enough) are also available.
Speaking of which, you might even try Mr. Bungle's last album,
*California*. If David Lynch were a working musician...
Still, it might just be that we've reached a state of (planned?)
obsolescence here, where That Apocalyptic Vibe gets re-defined as "Dad's
thing"; witness Manson's normal treatment in the media, which may
actually be a way of defusing him (which would actually speak well for
That Apocalyptic Vibe's continued resonance).
--
"Composers tend to think most people really care a lot about music.
Well, most people don't." --Aaron Copland
siani evans
>
> In article <4027E65F...@velvet.net>, siani evans wrote:
> > i am also highly amused by Tiffany.
>
> I've probably mentioned here before that Donald was once in a
> thrash band dedicated to Tiffany.
this confirms my suspicions that Donald rocks my world. :)
siani evans
> Woohoo! Let's hear it for Tiffany! Tell us more!
tiffany made her name at 14 by launching a tour of the malls of
america. she played shopping centers in all the non-major towns. she
played at the pembroke mall.
Nyx
news:slrnc2g5fk...@penelope.triffid.demon.co.uk:
> In article <4027E65F...@velvet.net>, siani evans wrote:
>> i am also highly amused by Tiffany.
>
> I've probably mentioned here before that Donald was once in a
> thrash band dedicated to Tiffany.
Didn't Tiffany do a couple of shows with Sonic Youth? Or was that Debbie
Gibson?
Nyx
erithromycin
>rufus writes:
I was quite amused to see DeMask NY complain that the quality of their
garments had been misrepresented. I was even more amused by the notion that
Viacom might get their license revoked. The fact that it's been used to
stick a delay on the Oscars (no more firing up the orchestra to hurry people
up, I suppose, nor little bits of politics), and another on the Grammies is
really entertaining too. Though I was impressed by the fact that there
wasn't a delay on the superbowl, an even that, I'd have thought, someone
might have thought was a terrorist target. I mean, closing Hobby and
sticking a no-fly for two hours either side is one thing, but risking
exposing all those people to the carnage of a successful attack, ooh. No
controversy there then, eh?
Meanwhile, what the fuck is going on with the French? Are they all mad?
--
erith - .sig
Tiny Human Ferret
If true, in either case, in an alternative present with a history of
them having gone on to the top of the heap of stardom and affluence, I'm
sure the world's a much better place.
Tiny Human Ferret
<snips>
> Meanwhile, what the fuck is going on with the French? Are they all mad?
What, did they ban the Jacksons from entering the country or something?
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> Meanwhile, what the fuck is going on with the French? Are they all mad?
D'y mean the business about banning the _hijab_ in schools? Sounds to me
like it's about time. France, due to her colonial past, has acquired so
many radical Muslims that in certain areas women are being harassed for
dressing like Frenchwomen. Islamic neighbourhoods seek to impose Islamic
modesty by harassment. There's even an organisation over there called,
IIRC, "Ni Putes Ni Soumises," that was formed to combat this. The French
have apparently chosen to strike back at this horseshit, and it seems a good
idea.
Nyx
@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:
> France, due to her colonial past,
Gasp! You mean they aren't the touchy-feely politically correct love-
muffins that some people think they are? You mean they might have done
things like, OMG, fought a war in Vietnam? You mean the recent condemnation
of the US might have been economically motivated and not because of their
superior morality?
Nyx
Tiny Human Ferret
You're getting out of practice. Detecting your sarcasm was far too easy!
I just ran across an interesting little tidbit of history, while
researching geneology and necessarily history as background.
It seem that the French are actually Germans. Well, the Franks are,
anyways. And the Spanish are Goths. The Germans aren't actually Germans,
but are Alemanni and Suebi. The Italians evidently mostly aren't Italian
except for the Sicilians who are actually half Moorish. To make
matters even more strange, Hebrew and Arabic are most closely related to
the language groups from all along the northern coast of Africa and it
appears to be more the case of a migration out of Africa rather than
into it. The Turks are Russian, the Russians are Serbs, except for the
northern Russians who are Danes. In case it matters, the Uzbeks and many
Pashtun Afghans are related to literally everyone in the Western
Hemisphere.
But to directly answer your question, even the French sometimes get
tired of being Invaded.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> Gasp! You mean they aren't the touchy-feely politically correct love-
> muffins that some people think they are? You mean they might have done
> things like, OMG, fought a war in Vietnam? You mean the recent
condemnation
> of the US might have been economically motivated and not because of their
> superior morality?
More to the point, the French fought a war against Muslims in Algeria that
made their own war in Vietnam look like a cakewalk. Moreover, the French,
wiser and more realistic than us, have a Foreign Legion of mercenaries to
enable them to engage in foreign military adventures at substantially
smaller political cost. Still, they've gotten used to spending less of
their GNP on these things.
(Though his Tet Offensive didn't quite turn out to be the military success
he had hoped, General Giap's campaign at Dien Bien Phu makes him a candidate
for the top ten tactical geniuses in the history of human warfare. He
belongs on the same shelf as Bonaparte, Lee, and Alexander.)
Nyx
> (Though his Tet Offensive didn't quite turn out to be the military
> success he had hoped, General Giap's campaign at Dien Bien Phu makes
> him a candidate for the top ten tactical geniuses in the history of
> human warfare. He belongs on the same shelf as Bonaparte, Lee, and
> Alexander.)
Actually it was everything he wanted it to be. Tet caused US troops to
withdraw into the cities leaving the countryside undefended and under his
control. This freedom of movement gave his troops more forage and also
allowed the peasants in the small villages to be indoctrinated more
thoroughly into the communist society. Tet is why he won that war.
Oh, and the Foreign Legion got shafted in that war. If they had been
given proper supplies they could have won it. Instead they were just
dropped into the country with not enough food, troops or ammo, as always.
Nyx
Jennie
> Jennie wrote:
>> I've probably mentioned here before that Donald was once in a
>> thrash band dedicated to Tiffany.
> Now that's some twisted justice! Anyone got any MP3s?
Ach, it was before that sort of thing, I'm afraid. One of his old
friends might have recordings, but I'm not sure how we'd contact them.
Donald was always being asked to be in bands, as a teenager,
because he was the only person around who could sing like Andrew Eldritch
without using pedals. Two of his notes are below the average range of
human hearing, but one can _feel_ them.
Jennie
> D'y mean the business about banning the _hijab_ in schools? Sounds to me
> like it's about time. France, due to her colonial past, has acquired so
> many radical Muslims that in certain areas women are being harassed for
> dressing like Frenchwomen.
You're quite right, and that needs to be tackled, but I'm not
convinced this is the best way to go about it. It seems more likely to
result in Muslim girls being kept away from school - even those whose
families were not especially political beforehand.
Goths will be sent home for wearing crucifixes. If I were at
school there, in that situation, I'd wear the hijab myself, and encourage
all the boys to do the same.
Endymion
> More to the point, the French fought a war against Muslims in Algeria
that
> made their own war in Vietnam look like a cakewalk.
And, more than anything that happened in Israel, created the institution
of Arab terrorism as we know it today, because the Arab world saw that
terrorism succeeded in Algeria where conventional tactics failed against
Israel.
> Moreover, the French,
> wiser and more realistic than us, have a Foreign Legion of mercenaries
to
> enable them to engage in foreign military adventures at substantially
> smaller political cost.
And being the pragmatists the French have always been, they hired the
very best, the former members of the Waffen SS, to fight their dirty
wars post-WW2. Which helps explain why they were so popular.
> (Though his Tet Offensive didn't quite turn out to be the military
success
> he had hoped, General Giap's campaign at Dien Bien Phu makes him a
candidate
> for the top ten tactical geniuses in the history of human warfare. He
> belongs on the same shelf as Bonaparte, Lee, and Alexander.)
And what's even more amazing, unlike Bonaparte and Lee, he won the war,
and unlike Hannibal, Stilicho, Belisarius, Wallenstein, Marlborough, and
most other successful communist generals, he survived (politically as
well as physically) the postwar purges!
--
Endymion
disinte...@mindspring.com
Endymion
> It seem that the French are actually Germans. Well, the Franks are,
> anyways.
The Franks were, and they imposed their rule, name, and to a limited
extent their political culture on Gaul, but the French are not the
Franks. The vast majority of the people were the original inhabitants,
ruled by a a thin veneer made up of Frankish warriors intermixed with
what little remained of the Romanized upper classes. If the upper
classes had been entirely Frank and the culture "Frankified", the French
language would not be a Romance one.
> And the Spanish are Goths.
Again.
> The Germans aren't actually Germans, but are Alemanni and Suebi.
"Germania" was always a somewhat artificial term encompassing the whole
ethnic group rather than any specific people. Alemanni and Suebi
(Swabians) were some of the peoples remaining within the borders of
present-day Germany; others included Thuringians, Saxones (*lots* of
Saxones, whom Charlemagne later subjugated), Ripuarian Franks, some
Goths, and Marcomanni (later Baiuoarii or Bavarians). All of these would
also have included remnants and relatives of groups which had migrated
earlier. The whole lot would be included in what Tacitus referred to as
"Germanii".
> The Italians evidently mostly aren't Italian
> except for the Sicilians who are actually half Moorish.
> To make
> matters even more strange, Hebrew and Arabic are most closely related
to
> the language groups from all along the northern coast of Africa
Of *living* languages, almost, but not quite - you left out Syriac,
which is a dialect of Aramaic more closely related to Hebrew than
anything else, and Amharic, a South Semitic language somewhat related to
Arabic and spoken in Ethiopia.
In any case the lack of more close relatives, and thus the fact that the
Hamitic languages of North Africa (such as Coptic and various Berber
languages) are among the closest living relatives of Hebrew and Arabic,
is mostly because the Semitic languages to which they are more closely
related, like Aramaic, Phoenician, Akkadian, classical Ethiopian, or
Moabite, are largely extinct. It would be as if English someday replaced
every other modern European language, and Hindi replaced every other
Indo-European language currently spoken from Iran to Bangladesh. English
and Hindi would then become each others' closest remaining relatives,
but this would give a deceptive picture.
> and it
> appears to be more the case of a migration out of Africa rather than
> into it.
That is one theory. The migration would have to have been *very*
ancient, long before recorded history, and there would have to be a
reverse migration since then as well. Another theory is that The
Hamito-Semitic or Afroasiatic languages arose around the shores of the
Red Sea.
> The Turks are Russian,
Rather, the Turks originally came out of a part of Central Asia which
was later subjugated by Russia.
> the Russians are Serbs,
Now you've got me here. The Russians are East Slavs and the Serbs are
South Slavs, linguistically. The arisal of the Slav ethnic and
linguistic identity is still, as I understand it, something of a
mystery. They simply weren't there one minute and were there the next.
And from that time they've had an astounding cultural persistence and
continuity.
--
Endymion
disinte...@mindspring.com
siani evans
me too. i think i might also start trying to test the boundaries on
what was an overt religious symbol...
Tiny Human Ferret
> "Tiny Human Ferret" <ixnayamsp...@earthops.net> wrote
>
>
>>It seem that the French are actually Germans. Well, the Franks are,
>>anyways.
>
>
> The Franks were, and they imposed their rule, name, and to a limited
> extent their political culture on Gaul, but the French are not the
> Franks. The vast majority of the people were the original inhabitants,
> ruled by a a thin veneer made up of Frankish warriors intermixed with
> what little remained of the Romanized upper classes. If the upper
> classes had been entirely Frank and the culture "Frankified", the French
> language would not be a Romance one.
I'm not entirely sure I buy your conclusory logic; one might
alternatively propose that since the language held in common by the
Franks and "Gauls" (largely Celtic IIRC) and the romanized classes was
Latin, that would have been how everyone intercommunicated. It might
well be that both the Latin and the local dialects simply passed so many
loan words from side to side that the emergent single language would
have been unavoidably a Romance language, regardless of the ethnicity or
language of either the natives or the invaders.
In some ways, despite it being decidedly a Germanic language in origins,
English could be considered a Romance language, if only because of the
huge number of Latin loan-words.
>
>
>>And the Spanish are Goths.
>
>
> Again.
And again I respond, as above.
Heh, the high Castellans were largely Germanic, then again, so has been
most of Royalty in Europe for quite some time now. I personally think
it's terribly ironic that HRH the Queen of England is in fact German.
Sheds a rather odd light on the wars of the early Twentieth Century,
does it not?
Anyways, I've heard that one of the best arguments as to the "germanity"
of the Spanish are the surnames, and furthermore the particular
pronunciation of the "g" as used in proper names as opposed to elsewhere
in the common dialect.
>>The Germans aren't actually Germans, but are Alemanni and Suebi.
>
>
> "Germania" was always a somewhat artificial term encompassing the whole
> ethnic group rather than any specific people. Alemanni and Suebi
> (Swabians)
Pronounced "svabi"... heh.
> were some of the peoples remaining within the borders of
> present-day Germany; others included Thuringians, Saxones (*lots* of
> Saxones, whom Charlemagne later subjugated), Ripuarian Franks, some
> Goths, and Marcomanni (later Baiuoarii or Bavarians). All of these would
> also have included remnants and relatives of groups which had migrated
> earlier. The whole lot would be included in what Tacitus referred to as
> "Germanii".
<snips, good info, thanks>
>>The Turks are Russian,
>
>
> Rather, the Turks originally came out of a part of Central Asia which
> was later subjugated by Russia.
>
>
>>the Russians are Serbs,
>
>
> Now you've got me here. The Russians are East Slavs and the Serbs are
> South Slavs, linguistically. The arisal of the Slav ethnic and
> linguistic identity is still, as I understand it, something of a
> mystery. They simply weren't there one minute and were there the next.
> And from that time they've had an astounding cultural persistence and
> continuity.
Well, historically they're thought to have come out of Kosova, which
IIRC was "Pannonia" (aka "the two pannonias"). I've seen it stated
authoritatively that the general area was for quite some time reserved
to be issued as agricultural pension awards of land for a lifetime of
service in the militaries of Rome, which were of course drawn from
nearly everywhere. I've also seen it stated authoritatively, though with
far less supporting documentation, that the very word "Slav" was from
the same roots as "slave" but it doesn't seem all that likely.
My own theory, for the moment, is that possibly a lot of the later
pensioned military might have taken those agricultural pension lands.
Since in the Empire after the Gothic sack, increasingly the policy was
the "barbarize the military" stationed in the provinces -- drawing
personnel largely from the province on the theory that they'd fight best
for their homelands -- and considering that possibly most of the
close-to-Italy action and major defensive works were in the general area
of the Danube in Pannonia, a fairly large and consistent stream of
various tribesmen would be discharged from service onto pension lands
which were appointed to them, rather than selected by the pensioner.
This might have tended to produce a rather uniform breed over time (not
unlike the average german-scots-irish American breed), and mixing of the
various languages might have given rise to the Slavic tongues. After the
near collapse of the Empire in the East, such peoples might have tended
to migrate away from the Empire and into the interior of Ukraine and
Russiya.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> You're quite right, and that needs to be tackled, but I'm not
> convinced this is the best way to go about it. It seems more likely to
> result in Muslim girls being kept away from school - even those whose
> families were not especially political beforehand.
It may well be counterproductive --- I understand that argument --- but I'm
inclined to be favourably disposed to it for other reasons. Campaigns
conducted by whispers, bullying, or family pressure are hard to cope with by
government regulation. I would establish state-supported refuges for young
French women from Islamic backgrounds where they can escape their families
and their neighbourhoods, or offer them scholarships to non-Islamic boarding
schools.
As an American with some familiarity with French history, I cannot help but
envy the French for their admirable tradition of anti-clericalism, something
the USA desperately needs. It seems this tradition remains a lively
nationalist sentiment, and has turned from a bone of political contention to
a value system agreed on by the vast majority of the French. This makes me
smile inside.
Endymion
> Endymion wrote:
> > The Franks were, and they imposed their rule, name, and to a limited
> > extent their political culture on Gaul, but the French are not the
> > Franks. The vast majority of the people were the original
inhabitants,
> > ruled by a a thin veneer made up of Frankish warriors intermixed
with
> > what little remained of the Romanized upper classes. If the upper
> > classes had been entirely Frank and the culture "Frankified", the
French
> > language would not be a Romance one.
>
> I'm not entirely sure I buy your conclusory logic;
It isn't conclusory logic, it's conclusive history, with a possible
alternate offered based on what *did* happen across the channel in
Britannia and next door in Brittany.
> one might
> alternatively propose that since the language held in common by the
> Franks and "Gauls" (largely Celtic IIRC) and the romanized classes was
> Latin, that would have been how everyone intercommunicated.
Perhaps, but by "language in common" you imply that it was not the
primary language of the Gauls. They were Celtic in ancestry, but by all
indications had been thoroughly Romanized down to the lower classes.
This was less true in Britannia, where Roman civilization was more of an
upper-class veneer resting on an essentially Celtic society. There, as
elsewhere Latin was still nothing but an artifically imposed language
spoken only by a tiny elite, it disappeared when that elite lost power.
> It might
> well be that both the Latin and the local dialects simply passed so
many
> loan words from side to side that the emergent single language would
> have been unavoidably a Romance language, regardless of the ethnicity
or
> language of either the natives or the invaders.
Ethnicity has nothing to do with it, and that did not occur in areas
where the locals didn't speak Latin, such as the above-mentioned areas,
or the Greek-speaking East.
> In some ways, despite it being decidedly a Germanic language in
origins,
> English could be considered a Romance language, if only because of the
> huge number of Latin loan-words.
Those words came in much, much later, either as French words with the
Norman conquest or through scholarship conducted in Latin. Old English
presumably had virtually no words of Latin origin as of about 600 A.D.
> Heh, the high Castellans were largely Germanic, then again, so has
been
> most of Royalty in Europe for quite some time now. I personally think
> it's terribly ironic that HRH the Queen of England is in fact German.
The Queen is German in her patrilineal descent because the Royal family
married into the House of Hanover in the late 17th century and the House
of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in the mid-19th, not because the line of English
kings is a Germanic one. As for that line, it depends on what you define
as "German". A lot of it is Norman, which is German*ic*, but not really
German, unless Norwegians settled in France are Germans; some of it is
Scottish, and I'm not sure exactly where that descends from, some (the
Tudor descent) is Welsh, the rest is mixed in from every royal house in
Europe at some time or another, except the Spanish.
> Sheds a rather odd light on the wars of the early Twentieth Century,
> does it not?
They certainly thought so in 1916 or whenever it was they invented the
dynastic name "Windsor".
> I've also seen it stated authoritatively, though with
> far less supporting documentation, that the very word "Slav" was from
> the same roots as "slave" but it doesn't seem all that likely.
I've seen that too, but it is unlikely, since the word "slave" isn't
documented back that far. It's a medieval word.
> My own theory, for the moment, is that possibly a lot of the later
> pensioned military might have taken those agricultural pension lands.
(snip the theory)
Interesting theory. I don't know enough about the early Slav migrations
to comment.
As I said, the amazing thing is that a culture that came into being like
that would be so incredibly durable - that, for instance, Bulgaria,
conquered by Turkic-speaking nomads, would remain so thoroughly Slavic
that the only surviving cultural artifacts of that conquest are the name
and its independence from the surrounding countries. You'd think that if
the Slavic identity started as nothing but a polyglot mix of former
Roman legionaries, it wouldn't last long once the backing civilization
collapsed, and they'd just adopt the ways of whatever people they ended
up living near. It makes me think there must be something more to it -
that the culture had another origin that is hidden from us, and the
legionary veterans may have just been the vehicle who adopted that
culture and ensured its survival and spread. You could see how tough
bastards like that would keep it from being wiped out even in hard times
like the Dark Ages, though.
--
Endymion
disinte...@mindspring.com
Albatross
"IHCOYC XPICTOC" <ihcoyc...@aye.net> wrote in message
news:pgfXb.32648
> As an American with some familiarity with French history, I
cannot help but
> envy the French for their admirable tradition of
anti-clericalism, something
> the USA desperately needs.
Prefer 'non-clericalism.'
st Albatross
PS. nice distinction between 'anti-smoking' and 'non-smoking',
btw. It helped solve a disagreement Olivia and I had been having
for the last few weeks.
Tiny Human Ferret
This isn't very much in agreement with something I've been reading, _The
Climax of Rome_ (Grant, Michael, 1968, Brown, Little). In his chapter
"Culture of the Novel", he details the widespread literacy in the
Empire, but notes that while the literacy was widespread, it was what
we'd call a low-brow or middle-brow literacy in almost all cases and
really very few ever made it to their equivalent of university studies,
so more or less the average person got the equivalent of a sixth-grade
education at best. Further, while there are some Latin novelists after
the time of Aureleus, most of them are writing rather rarified works
which apparently didn't get much circulation. However, this widespread
low-brow education was generally in both Latin and _Greek_ and in the
later Empire there was a rather flourishing trade in Greek-language
romantic potboilers. Grant makes the case that in fact the popular
romantic trashy novel was the signature literary form of the later
Empire. Latin was primarily reserved for administration and law, and
indeed to the degree it survived in places such as Britain, it survived
as a legal basis (including ecclesiastical administation etc). In any
case, speaking of Britain as opposed to the Continent, it might be
rather less of the case that an elite disappeared and with them the
language, and more the case that the invasions and conquests from about
500AD onwards added a flavouring of germanic tongues, while no such
thing really occurred in the parts of the Continent where they now speak
Romance languages.
>>It might
>>well be that both the Latin and the local dialects simply passed so many
>>loan words from side to side that the emergent single language would
>>have been unavoidably a Romance language, regardless of the ethnicity or
>>language of either the natives or the invaders.
>
>
> Ethnicity has nothing to do with it, and that did not occur in areas
> where the locals didn't speak Latin, such as the above-mentioned areas,
> or the Greek-speaking East.
>
>
>>In some ways, despite it being decidedly a Germanic language in origins,
>>English could be considered a Romance language, if only because of the
>>huge number of Latin loan-words.
>
>
> Those words came in much, much later, either as French words with the
> Norman conquest or through scholarship conducted in Latin. Old English
> presumably had virtually no words of Latin origin as of about 600 A.D.
I should guess not, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes had just come straight
from the Germanies, right? But what of the speech of the ur-men of Britain?
>
>
>>Heh, the high Castellans were largely Germanic, then again, so has been
>>most of Royalty in Europe for quite some time now. I personally think
>>it's terribly ironic that HRH the Queen of England is in fact German.
>
>
> The Queen is German in her patrilineal descent because the Royal family
> married into the House of Hanover in the late 17th century and the House
> of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in the mid-19th, not because the line of English
> kings is a Germanic one. As for that line, it depends on what you define
> as "German". A lot of it is Norman, which is German*ic*, but not really
> German, unless Norwegians settled in France are Germans; some of it is
> Scottish, and I'm not sure exactly where that descends from, some (the
> Tudor descent) is Welsh, the rest is mixed in from every royal house in
> Europe at some time or another, except the Spanish.
And take a look at the Royals from the Continent. German! Even many of
the Spanish royals were German in origin.
Well, I think you will find your clues, if you really wish, in the
migrations of the original Greeks. Note that Greece is a terribly
mountainous country, for the most part, and the Greek civilizations of
antiquity were centered around aspects of the maritime. But the Greeks
of today are not the Greeks of antiquity. Where did those Greeks go? I
will again theorize: the Greeks of antiquity couldn't have been limited
to the cities on the shores, although those are the Greeks whose writing
come down to us. Greek culture was doubtless spread throughout all of
Greece, and doubtless extended far into the Balkans, probably among
related tribes. Note, if you will, that when the Kosovar Albanians were
expelled by the Serbs, they headed south to a land called Makedoniya.
This isn't geographically the same as historic Macedonia, but why choose
that name when the choice of a name became an option? Serbs claim Kosovo
as their land of origins, and Serbia lies to the east of Slavonia and
Slovenia. Yet all lie south of the Danube, historically the firm
northern boundary of the Roman Empire, yet for probably most of the
recorded history of civilization, they would likely speak some variant
of Greek as a trade language, if not the language of the hearth and
home. So perhaps the Slavs were, so to speak, the "backwoods Greeks" and
while successive waves of invasion and conquest broke over Greece
itself, much of the original culture remained until, displaced by the
Magyars and the Croats and the Huns and many others, elements of the
culture migrated northwards and mixed with the residents to become the
"white Russians" while some stayed close to the ancestral homelands of
the lower Danube.
erithromycin
>erithromycin wrote:
>>Meanwhile, what the fuck is going on with the French? Are they all mad?
>D'y mean the business about banning the _hijab_ in schools?
I did, yes.
>Sounds to me like it's about time. France, due to her colonial past, has
>acquired so many radical Muslims that in certain areas women are being
>harassed for dressing like Frenchwomen. Islamic neighbourhoods seek to
>impose Islamic modesty by harassment. There's even an organisation over
>there called, IIRC, "Ni Putes Ni Soumises," that was formed to combat
>this. The French have apparently chosen to strike back at this horseshit,
>and it seems a good idea.
I'm torn, on this one - I appreciate france's very long tradition of
non-clericalism, and can see how and why the decision was reached. Yet
freedom of religious expression is one of those important things in my
experience. Though you've got to draw the line between personal choice and
imposition, I suppose, and this does seem to be leaning closer to
imposition. Though adding 'large crucifixes' and the yarmulke seems like
pegging things in to even the situation, and the Sikh's challenge over the
nonreligious nature of the turban is, well, interesting.
--
erith - .sig
erithromycin
>IX!
>>France, due to her colonial past,
>Gasp! You mean they aren't the touchy-feely politically correct love-
>muffins that some people think they are? You mean they might have done
>things like, OMG, fought a war in Vietnam? You mean the recent
>condemnation of the US might have been economically motivated and not
>because of their superior morality?
Fighting a war to preserve the economic stranglehold you had over another
country is somewhat different to fighting a war to attain an economic
stranglehold over another. Anyway, they lost.
--
erith - .sig
erithromycin
>klaatu:
>>Heh, the high Castellans were largely Germanic, then again, so has
>>been most of Royalty in Europe for quite some time now. I personally
>>think it's terribly ironic that HRH the Queen of England is in fact
>>German.
>The Queen is German in her patrilineal descent because the Royal family
>married into the House of Hanover in the late 17th century and the House
>of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in the mid-19th, not because the line of English
>kings is a Germanic one.
I think the abdication confused the situation a little too.
>As for that line, it depends on what you define
>as "German". A lot of it is Norman, which is German*ic*, but not really
>German, unless Norwegians settled in France are Germans; some of it is
>Scottish, and I'm not sure exactly where that descends from, some (the
>Tudor descent) is Welsh, the rest is mixed in from every royal house in
>Europe at some time or another, except the Spanish.
Well, when you consider that 'Germany' is a relatively modern concept, and,
as you said, the fact that the world's Royal families are quite intricately
(oo incestuously) connected, nationality ceases to matter - as far as I can
tell they're practically a seperate species.
>>Sheds a rather odd light on the wars of the early Twentieth Century,
>>does it not?
>They certainly thought so in 1916 or whenever it was they invented the
>dynastic name "Windsor".
Well, arguably the last war to be started by a Royal was WWI, though whether
you take Kaiser Bill to task or blame the death of Archduke Ferdinand, I'm
unsure. They're not really that important politically anymore. Though
florists seem quite eager to keep them around to die.
--
erith - .sig
erithromycin
>As an American with some familiarity with French history, I cannot help
>but envy the French for their admirable tradition of anti-clericalism,
>something the USA desperately needs. It seems this tradition remains a
>lively nationalist sentiment, and has turned from a bone of political
>contention to a value system agreed on by the vast majority of the >French.
This makes me smile inside.
Certainly it's interesting to contrast the influence of religious
organisations in each country - though I wonder if, had France had a
religious right like that in the US, it would have had the same troubles
with unions and communists.
--
erith - .sig
erithromycin
>IHCOYC XPICTOC wrote:
>>D'y mean the business about banning the _hijab_ in schools? Sounds to me
>>like it's about time. France, due to her colonial past, has acquired so
>>many radical Muslims that in certain areas women are being harassed for
>>dressing like Frenchwomen.
> You're quite right, and that needs to be tackled, but I'm not
>convinced this is the best way to go about it. It seems more likely to
>result in Muslim girls being kept away from school - even those whose
>families were not especially political beforehand.
This is always the difficulty in solving things with legislation. It's a
really big club for quite a delicate issue.
> Goths will be sent home for wearing crucifixes.
No, no - ones that are large or ostentatious, if I remember correctly.
>If I were at
>school there, in that situation, I'd wear the hijab myself, and encourage
>all the boys to do the same.
Yes, but you're a troublemaker. 1968 was a long time ago.
--
erith - .sig
Jennie
> It may well be counterproductive --- I understand that argument --- but I'm
> inclined to be favourably disposed to it for other reasons. Campaigns
> conducted by whispers, bullying, or family pressure are hard to cope with by
> government regulation. I would establish state-supported refuges for young
> French women from Islamic backgrounds where they can escape their families
> and their neighbourhoods, or offer them scholarships to non-Islamic boarding
> schools.
The problem I see with this is that you'd be saying to
teenagers, who are almost universally dissatisfied with their family
situations, 'here is a way to leave home early and do your own thing'. It
would be a situation wide open to abuse by kids who figured it would make
it easier for them to misbehave, as it's always harder to control kids in
groups than in families, and some measure of control is important at that
age; it would put awful pressure on parents to avoid chastising their
children over anything (including things quite unrelated to religion).
Also, once such a thing was established, it would be difficult to avoid
extending it to teenagers from different religious oo ethnic backgrounds,
and the whole thing could easily spiral out of control.
Jennie
> Jennie:
>>If I were at school there, in that situation, I'd wear the hijab myself,
>>and encourage all the boys to do the same.
> Yes, but you're a troublemaker.
I'm looking for cultural solutions rather than legislative ones.
What do you think trouble is _for_?
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> Actually it was everything he wanted it to be. Tet caused US troops to
> withdraw into the cities leaving the countryside undefended and under his
> control. This freedom of movement gave his troops more forage and also
> allowed the peasants in the small villages to be indoctrinated more
> thoroughly into the communist society. Tet is why he won that war.
My understanding is that Giap considered Tet a failure, but it was a failure
for imposed, political reasons. Communist ideology told them that as a
result of the Tet offensive, the "working classes" of South Vietnam would
join a massive uprising that would bring down the government. This failed
to materialize, because most of the people whose life situations allowed
them to join a Communist uprising were already in the Viet Cong.
> Oh, and the Foreign Legion got shafted in that war. If they had been
> given proper supplies they could have won it. Instead they were just
> dropped into the country with not enough food, troops or ammo, as always.
This is one of the hazards of being a foreign mercenary. . . .
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> Certainly it's interesting to contrast the influence of religious
> organisations in each country - though I wonder if, had France had a
> religious right like that in the US, it would have had the same troubles
> with unions and communists.
The religious right is similar to a communist party. Here and there they
give the lower middle classes a cause and a moral vision that explains
everything, and which can be stated in a few short paragraphs and summarized
in even shorter slogans. For their members, they also serve the purpose of
being an alternative social safety net --- something non-churchgoers may
lose sight of.
The religious right, moreover, has a far, far superior tradition of folk
music.
Nyx
$afc3...@news.ukonline.co.uk:
> Fighting a war to preserve the economic stranglehold you had over another
> country is somewhat different to fighting a war to attain an economic
> stranglehold over another. Anyway, they lost.
Yeah? Is that what you told Argentina?
Nyx
The Emperor Penguin
>
> > Actually it was everything he wanted it to be. Tet caused US troops to
> > withdraw into the cities leaving the countryside undefended and under his
> > control. This freedom of movement gave his troops more forage and also
> > allowed the peasants in the small villages to be indoctrinated more
> > thoroughly into the communist society. Tet is why he won that war.
>
> My understanding is that Giap considered Tet a failure, but it was a failure
> for imposed, political reasons. Communist ideology told them that as a
> result of the Tet offensive, the "working classes" of South Vietnam would
> join a massive uprising that would bring down the government. This failed
> to materialize, because most of the people whose life situations allowed
> them to join a Communist uprising were already in the Viet Cong.
My understanding was that the Tet offensive of 1968(?) had two
distinct objectives. One was principally military and is outlined
above. The other, however, was principally one of propaganda.
Giap and Ho wanted to make the US look like liars. The official line
(in no particular order) was that the VC uprising wasn't really a
popular movement, that the war was being fought cleanly, that the VC
and NVA were incapable of mounting any more than a guerilla war, that
the war, sorry, police action, was ultimately "winable", etc. The Tet
offensive sought to disprove each of these as publicly as possible so
as to undermine support in the South's government and the US among the
VietNamese, to bolster the anti-war movement in the US and
internationally and to make the North seem like it might be worth
supporting - plucky underdog gamely fighting back and all that. As a
propaganda exercise it was a complete success.
Militarily the VC/NVA forces were soundly, convincingly beaten in
almost all engagements (with a few notable exceptions) with vast
losses. "Back in the world", however, it didn't quite play that way.
Politically, it was the beginning of the end for US involvement. A
classic case of losing a battle to win a war.
Which is not to say they (Giap & Ho) wouldn't have liked to win the
battle too...
~~~
The Emperor Penguin
The Emperor Penguin
> Endymion wrote:
> > "Tiny Human Ferret" <ixnayamsp...@earthops.net> wrote
> >
> >
> >>Endymion wrote:
> >>>The Franks were, and they imposed their rule, name, and to a limited
> >>>extent their political culture on Gaul, but the French are not the
> >>>Franks. The vast majority of the people were the original inhabitants,
> >>>ruled by a a thin veneer made up of Frankish warriors intermixed with
> >>>what little remained of the Romanized upper classes. If the upper
> >>>classes had been entirely Frank and the culture "Frankified", the French
> >>>language would not be a Romance one.
> >>
> >>I'm not entirely sure I buy your conclusory logic;
> >
> > It isn't conclusory logic, it's conclusive history, with a possible
> > alternate offered based on what *did* happen across the channel in
> > Britannia and next door in Brittany.
> >
<much snippage, and addressing of both side's arguments
simultaneously>
Britain (and I use the term loosely) provides the two classic models
for linguistic change in a population. Plus a couple of extras. No
doubt other equally good examples can be found, e.g. around the
Pirennes (basque/burgund/langue d'oc/french(langue du
nord)/gascon/catalan/etc./etc) but I'm not so familiar with them.
The first is the "bottom up" conquest as seen by the adoption of
germanic tongues in the post-empire days. Placename and DNA evidence
(controversies over the underpinning science aside) suggests the
native brithonic speakers were actively disposessed by conquest and
subsequent mass migration leaving a genitically and linguistically
germanic populace.
The second is the "top down" model seen after the Norman invasion,
where the invaders merely took over the running of the country, with
no major population movements, resulting in vast accretions to the
language without substantive change to its underlying structure (or
the population's genetics).
[aside: Scotland presents an interesting counter-example, as here,
the Normans came, saw, conquered and were quietly assimilated over the
next few generations, by which time they were speaking Auld Scots, and
fighting to retain independence for Scotland from English kings who
still spoke french, and would continue to do so for a while yet.]
As to latin being the language of literature - well of course it was.
The celtic tradition, while absolutely devoted to the power of
language, was a verbal one; there was no written celtic language. If
you wanted to write something, you wrote in latin or greek. Thus it
becomes the language of law and of commerce, because these are the
fields where records must be kept. By definition, they must also be
the language of books, so of course they become the language of The
Book.
Then there's the suggestion that only the ruling elite used latin, and
it disappeared with the empire. This is not borne out by the
archaeology. Latin was used on a day-to-day basis by anyone who might
need to scribble something down, from the most humble craftsman or
artisan on up. Also, the evidence would tend to suggest that by the
end of the imperial period, the population is best described as
romano-british, a long way from being a subject people kept under the
imperial thumb. As is often the way of such things, many must have
considered themselves to be "more roman than the romans", given that
direct imperial rule ended when the native born governor took his
loyal, locally raised legions to Rome to (successfully) seize power in
the face of perceived weakness on the part of the reigning caesar in
his dealings with the barbarian threat.
Latin did disappear with its speakers, but that happened when the bi-
or tri-lingual native peoples were kicked out by the incoming Angles,
Saxons, Jutes, etc. who had been left to gaurd the province, not
simply because direct rule ceased.
Parting shot: latin reappeared in Britain with the advent of
Christianity, which was imported to the germanic holdings largely via
the celtic peoples which remained. Is it a coincidence that the
religion of The Book should reappear first and spread from among those
who had previously been the most romanized, and hence, latinized?
~~~
The Emperor Penguin
The Emperor Penguin
> As I said, the amazing thing is that a culture that came into being like
> that would be so incredibly durable - that, for instance, Bulgaria,
> conquered by Turkic-speaking nomads, would remain so thoroughly Slavic
> that the only surviving cultural artifacts of that conquest are the name
> and its independence from the surrounding countries.
My recollection of Slav history is that they essentially came into
being in response to the occupation of their lands by Turks, Ottomans,
whoever. By 1914, the Slavs had spent to all intents and purposes the
entirity of the previous 1100 years as a subject nation of someone or
another. Given that they were always treated as such, with no
attempts to actually integrate them into the fold as the romans always
strove for, I can't think of a set of curcumstances more likely to
breed a fierce sense of national identity.
See also: America, United States of...
~~~
The Emperor Penguin
Tiny Human Ferret
Hear hear! But I'm still all for it. And to that end, we should start
looking into developing Amish Refuges so that the kids who've taken a
few years to go running around in the world of 'the english' can
experience a supportive environment where they can attend school and do
homework and enjoy a good DSL connection to the InterNet instead of
having to live in run-down trailers in the middle of nowhere building
second-rate mobile-homes and getting addicted to meth.
Whisky-Dave
"erithromycin" <erithr...@ananzi.co.za> wrote in message
news:402fcc3e$0$4773$afc3...@news.ukonline.co.uk...
> Jennie:
> >IHCOYC XPICTOC wrote:
>
> > Goths will be sent home for wearing crucifixes.
>
> No, no - ones that are large or ostentatious, if I remember correctly.
>
Well that;s charming isn't it, they aren't content with pushing the
health and obesity issues now the 'large' Goth isn't even allowed to wear
their crucifixes. ;-)
Endymion
> "Endymion" <disinte...@mindspring.com> wrote
>
> > As I said, the amazing thing is that a culture that came into being
like
> > that would be so incredibly durable - that, for instance, Bulgaria,
> > conquered by Turkic-speaking nomads, would remain so thoroughly
Slavic
> > that the only surviving cultural artifacts of that conquest are the
name
> > and its independence from the surrounding countries.
>
> My recollection of Slav history is that they essentially came into
> being in response to the occupation of their lands by Turks, Ottomans,
> whoever.
That is one of the three main influences on their modern character (the
first and foremost being the Orthodox Church, except in the case of the
Poles and Croats), but they existed as nations long before then, and the
memory of the glories of that time is another major influence.
Most Slavic nations dominated their neighbors and had imperial
pretensions at one time or another, and most of them look to that time
as the natural order of things, the Golden Age to which they strive to
return. For the Russians it was the mid 19th and 20th centuries, for the
Poles the 15th and 16th; for the Bulgarians, IIRC, the 9th or 10th
century, when they dominated the Balkans and made even the Byzantines
tremble, and for the Serbs, the 13th and 14th centuries, when they ruled
most of the Balkans between the Hungarians and Greece.
The Ottomans ended all that in 1378 and extinguished all independent
Christendom south of Kiev and southeast of Budapest in 1453, and that
was the beginning of the period of Slavic bondage under foreign
domination that lasted until modern times, but it wasn't the first - the
Slavs first emerged into history as the former subjects of the Goths and
Huns in southeastern Europe, which is why some scholars thought the term
Slav and slave (from the medieval Latin sclavus, eq. to servus, serf or
slave) must be related.
--
Endymion
disinte...@mindspring.com
Endymion
> The religious right, moreover, has a far, far superior tradition of
folk
> music.
I think you mean "had". Have you listened to the crap they've been
playing lately? Tammy Sue Bakker is among the more talented.
And the commies may not have had much of a folk tradition, but they had
John Lennon. Just check Hoover's files.
--
Endymion
disinte...@mindspring.com
Tiny Human Ferret
Well, what if the Goths aren't large, but just ostentatious? Will they
still be permitted to be worn to school?
Jennie
Nyx, are you once again making the assumption that everyone in
the UK supports everything its rulers do because if they didn't they'd
prove it by holding an armed uprising? I don't know Erith's position on
that one, but you should understand that the war with Argentina was
unpopular with a lot of people here - maybe not the majority, but a
significant minority.
HRH Fascinet
>
> > The Germans aren't actually Germans, but are Alemanni and Suebi.
>
>
> "Germania" was always a somewhat artificial term encompassing the whole
> ethnic group rather than any specific people. Alemanni and Suebi
> present-day Germany; others included Thuringians, Saxones (*lots* of
> Saxones, whom Charlemagne later subjugated), Ripuarian Franks, some
> Goths, and Marcomanni (later Baiuoarii or Bavarians). All of these would
> also have included remnants and relatives of groups which had migrated
> earlier. The whole lot would be included in what Tacitus referred to as
> "Germanii".
>
And the English, which is to say the Angles, who were Saxons, and
therefore Germans, reinvaded Germany and formed Saxony.
Rule 2 of History: people are paripatetic.
Especially when they own swords.
-F
Tiny Human Ferret
Ah, looking through that same history book (Gardner, "Climax of Rome"),
I didn't find any mention in the text, but looking at the maps, I see
that Bulgaria was known as "Dacia" and you may wish to research the
Dacian tribes. However, more interesting was the denotation of the
tribes to the north and northeast of Dacia a being the Sauromatae or
Sarmatians; further, the map indicated the modern-day Kosovo as also
being controlled by the Sarmatians, the Jrgyzes (sp?). This might be a
likely origin of the Slavs, certainly the Sarmatians are the historic
occupants of the Ukraine and western modern-day Russia.
Panurge
> *sigh* John Taylor *sigh*
Have you seen Frank Zappa's film *Baby Snakes* yet? If you sigh over
John Taylor, you'll die over Terry Bozzio! (Oh, and Warren Cucurullo
makes an appearance, too.)
--
"Composers tend to think most people really care a lot about music.
Well, most people don't." --Aaron Copland
Nyx
news:slrnc32ea2...@penelope.triffid.demon.co.uk:
> Nyx, are you once again making the assumption that everyone in
> the UK supports everything its rulers do because if they didn't they'd
> prove it by holding an armed uprising? I don't know Erith's position on
> that one, but you should understand that the war with Argentina was
> unpopular with a lot of people here - maybe not the majority, but a
> significant minority.
Strange how Brits can only seem to point out the problems of Americans
but never seem to see the same problems in their own country.
The majority of Americans were against Vietnam, even those who served
thought it was pointless at best. But, yet, Erith tars all of us with the
same brush.
Nyx
Jennie
> Strange how Brits can only seem to point out the problems of Americans
> but never seem to see the same problems in their own country.
I don't know about this 'never'. It's an awfully big
generalisation, especially on a newsgroup many of whose UK posters are
actively involved in political campaigning of one sort or another
(including pointing out to our government that it makes mistakes).
> The majority of Americans were against Vietnam, even those who served
> thought it was pointless at best.
I think most people here are quite aware of that. Whenever the
topic of Vietnam comes up on news programmes or documentaries or in
newspapers or magazines, it's usual to see the protests against it
mentioned, often with photographs. We see the same films about the war,
its aftermath, and its veterans that you do. I really don't think
perceptions are very different.
Endymion
> The majority of Americans were against Vietnam,
Nixon said it wasn't so!
Anyway, the protests were like Woodstock - half a million people went,
only 35 years later somehow it was 50 million. Maybe a majority were
against it, but if they were, the most they did about it was bitching
about it while watching TV, then voting for Nixon and his secret plan
for "peace with honor" in '68.
And Thatcher's popularity went *up* following the Falklands War - the
Tories won a landslide victory with 397 seats the following year running
partly on the war (where the economy and privatisation had been the
defining issues in 1979). The people who opposed the war were a vocal
minority - but the supporters were that much more vocal! When I was at
Cambridge in '92 one of my professors was still boasting about it and
reminiscing about Iron Maggie's heyday.
See
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/F/falklands/intobattle.html
for a little political background and an amusing picture of enthusiastic
Brit patriots of 1982.
--
Endymion
disinte...@mindspring.com
Endymion
> > Perhaps, but by "language in common" you imply that it was not the
> > primary language of the Gauls. They were Celtic in ancestry, but by
all
> > indications had been thoroughly Romanized down to the lower classes.
> > This was less true in Britannia, where Roman civilization was more
of an
> > upper-class veneer resting on an essentially Celtic society. There,
as
> > elsewhere Latin was still nothing but an artifically imposed
language
> > spoken only by a tiny elite, it disappeared when that elite lost
power.
>
> This isn't very much in agreement with something I've been reading,
_The
> Climax of Rome_ (Grant, Michael, 1968, Brown, Little).
Sorry, I mistyped the last sentence. It should have read "...as
elsewhere *when* Latin was still nothing but..." How much the process of
Latinization or Hellenization penetrated society varied greatly from
region to region, and thus the effect on the culture after the collapse
varied as well.
(snip)
> However, this widespread
> low-brow education was generally in both Latin and _Greek_ and in the
> later Empire there was a rather flourishing trade in Greek-language
> romantic potboilers.
Yes, that's very true, however it was also geographically based. For the
most part the Greek-speaking and reading areas were in the East, the
Latin-reading and speaking in the West. Some areas in the West, for
instance southern Italy and the area around Marseilles, were partly
Greek-speaking in the time of the Republic (they had Greek city-states
with Latin colonies interspersed among them), but this gradually eroded
during the 400+ years of imperial rule. How much was left of this
linguistic heritage by the time the Byzantines returned to southern
Italy in the mid-500's I'm not sure, but I don't think very much. AFAIK
none of it remained in Marseilles, which was pretty thoroughly absorbed
into the (Romance) Langued'oc or Occitan-speaking region of southern
France.
> In any
> case, speaking of Britain as opposed to the Continent, it might be
> rather less of the case that an elite disappeared and with them the
> language,
It is absolutely such a case. For reasons no one is entirely sure of,
Latin began disappearing from Britain with the legions in 410 and the
British (Celtic, but not Gaelic - essentially ancient Welsh) language
made a resurgence, which didn't happen in Gaul. It may have been
something of a nationalist movement, and some historians think that the
earliest Arthurian legends may reflect a division between pro-British
(Vortigern, a kingly title rather than a name) and pro-Romanized
(Ambrosius) factions within the rulers.
> and more the case that the invasions and conquests from about
> 500AD onwards added a flavouring of germanic tongues, while no such
> thing really occurred in the parts of the Continent where they now
speak
> Romance languages.
It's not a flavoring, it's an absolute annihilation. As I said, almost
without exception every Latin element in English came in much later,
through medieval or later scholarship or through Norman French. Old
English had none of these words. And it had virtually no Celtic
borrowing either - in all of Old English, aside from a few place-names,
there were no more than about half a dozen words of Celtic origin, all
of which referred to types of terrain not normally found in the
Anglo-Saxons' homeland (crag, glen, tarn, etc. English has since
borrowed more words from Irish and Scots Gaelic, like bard, clan,
hooligan, and whisky.)
> > Those words came in much, much later, either as French words with
the
> > Norman conquest or through scholarship conducted in Latin. Old
English
> > presumably had virtually no words of Latin origin as of about 600
A.D.
>
> I should guess not, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes had just come
straight
> from the Germanies, right? But what of the speech of the ur-men of
Britain?
See above - The Anglo-Saxons didn't learn a word of it. They adopted
some place names, but the curious thing (noted and copied by Tolkien in
his novel) is that the invaders were so ignorant of the local lingo that
they often appended the literal meaning of the word, in English, to the
name: thus, Bree-Hill (hill-hill), Chetwood (wood-wood).
Another curious thing is that this was once taken as an indiication that
the invaders had either slaughtered the previous inhabitants en masse or
driven them bodily into Wales or Scotland and settled the lands
themselves. Modern archaeology and genetic studies have thoroughly
refuted this notion: the modern English are the descendants of the
pre-Roman British - the invaders never came in numbers large enough to
populate the whole country; like most others, they were warrior bands
with a few dependents, who settled on estates and took the best lands,
and forced the inhabitants to either work for them or pay tribute. And
they intermarried. But unlike the Normans or the Franks, they succeeded
in forcing their language on their subjects with an unprecedented
thoroughness. AFAIK no one has yet been able to explain this.
(Oh, and they weren't ur-men either. Read your mythology! The
leprechauns and hollow-hill-people are modern versions of ancient Celtic
myths about the people from whom they took possession of the British
Isles in prehistory, among whom are the ones who more than likely raised
Stonehenge.)
> So perhaps the Slavs were, so to speak, the "backwoods Greeks" and
> while successive waves of invasion and conquest broke over Greece
> itself, much of the original culture remained until, displaced by the
> Magyars and the Croats and the Huns and many others, elements of the
> culture migrated northwards and mixed with the residents to become the
> "white Russians" while some stayed close to the ancestral homelands of
> the lower Danube.
Wouldn't they speak something more closely related to Greek then?
--
Endymion
disinte...@mindspring.com
Endymion
> The first is the "bottom up" conquest as seen by the adoption of
> germanic tongues in the post-empire days. Placename and DNA evidence
> (controversies over the underpinning science aside) suggests the
> native brithonic speakers were actively disposessed by conquest and
> subsequent mass migration leaving a genitically and linguistically
> germanic populace.
See my other post on this - name and linguistic evidence always argued
this, and that was the overwhelming view forever until the last ten or
fifteen years, but DNA and archaeological evidence is now thought to
point the other way. here were no mass slaughters, there's no evidence
of a mass migration, the people couldn't possibly have all lived in
Wales anyway and there's no evidence of mass starvation there in the 6th
century, there's evidence of new agricultural methods brought by the
Anglo-Saxons being used alongside of those older ones practiced by the
British, and DNA evidence seems to indicate substantial intermarriage.
> As to latin being the language of literature - well of course it was.
> The celtic tradition, while absolutely devoted to the power of
> language, was a verbal one; there was no written celtic language.
Good point.
> Then there's the suggestion that only the ruling elite used latin, and
> it disappeared with the empire. This is not borne out by the
> archaeology. Latin was used on a day-to-day basis by anyone who might
> need to scribble something down, from the most humble craftsman or
> artisan on up. Also, the evidence would tend to suggest that by the
> end of the imperial period, the population is best described as
> romano-british, a long way from being a subject people kept under the
> imperial thumb.
All true, but for whatever reason, the culture just didn't seem to take
in Britain - when the legions left, the culture apparently reverted to a
Celtic one very quickly, and, like most of Europe, left literacy to the
upper classes and the Church.
> Latin did disappear with its speakers, but that happened when the bi-
> or tri-lingual native peoples were kicked out by the incoming Angles,
> Saxons, Jutes, etc.
Indications are that it disappeared from daily use before that. It was
of course still used for official documents and histories (such as
Gildas) until those ceased in the 6th century. But it left no trace of
itself in the country except for the names of a few cities.
> Parting shot: latin reappeared in Britain with the advent of
> Christianity, which was imported to the germanic holdings largely via
> the celtic peoples which remained. Is it a coincidence that the
> religion of The Book should reappear first and spread from among those
> who had previously been the most romanized, and hence, latinized?
It's a bit more complex that that. Christianity was introduced from
several sources. The Irish Church was founded from the Romanized British
Church, but with the fall of Britain it was cut of from Rome and began
to develop more or less independently for some years. It had a Latin
liturgy but much of its literature was from Greek sources, which was
unusual in the West, and it differed from Rome in some respects (most
famously over clerical celibacy, the role of women, the form of
monasticism, and calculation of the date of Easter).
The Irish Church was responsible for founding the Scottish Church and
was the first to begin converting the Angles, but the Roman Church under
Pope Gregory the Great sent a separate mission under Augustine to
Canterbury to convert the English and bring them into the Roman fold,
and it was that Church that the English kingdoms ended up converting to.
Bede described the Synod of Whitby at which they tried to resolve the
differences between the two churches. What the bands were, how much
alcohol was consumed, who had the Nicest Boots, and who snogged whom is
not, alas, recorded.
--
Endymion
disinte...@mindspring.com
Tiny Human Ferret
<snip snip, this is good and I'll try to get back to you on it>
>>So perhaps the Slavs were, so to speak, the "backwoods Greeks" and
>>while successive waves of invasion and conquest broke over Greece
>>itself, much of the original culture remained until, displaced by the
>>Magyars and the Croats and the Huns and many others, elements of the
>>culture migrated northwards and mixed with the residents to become the
>>"white Russians" while some stayed close to the ancestral homelands of
>>the lower Danube.
>
>
> Wouldn't they speak something more closely related to Greek then?
Actually, I cannot speak for the sounds of the ancient Greek language,
but sometimes when I turn on the Foreign Only Cable Station, I'll hear
something and ask myself "now, is that Russki or what?" and I have to
look at the station-ID overlay to see. The Greeks use their own
alphabet, and the Russiyans use Cyrillic. Other than that, the languages
sound very similar to me, though as I don't know any modern Greek (other
than things like "skatala" or "malaka", heh) I couldn't say whether or
not the grammars were similar enough to suspect relatedness. Anyway,
ISTR that St Cyril went on his mission to the Slavs because as a certain
type of Greek, he would have the best luck learning the language well
enough to preach. But of course I might be totally mistaken in this.
Nyx
news:slrnc36j19...@penelope.triffid.demon.co.uk:
> I don't know about this 'never'. It's an awfully big
> generalisation, especially on a newsgroup many of whose UK posters are
> actively involved in political campaigning of one sort or another
> (including pointing out to our government that it makes mistakes).
Ok, then, show me the threads about that on google. Point them out to me.
Nyx
Nyx
@mailgate2.lexis-nexis.com:
>> The majority of Americans were against Vietnam,
>
> Nixon said it wasn't so!
The majority may not have been out protesting but they certainly didn't
think it was a war as justifiable as WW2. Most people who lived through
the era didn't like, the war, but they didn't go out marching in the
streets, either.
It was a different time. Most people were content to follow the lead of
government and do what they told them to do.
It wasn't until after Nixon managed to lose their trust that people
started doubting everything that came out of Washington.
Nyx
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> The first is the "bottom up" conquest as seen by the adoption of
> germanic tongues in the post-empire days. Placename and DNA evidence
> (controversies over the underpinning science aside) suggests the
> native brithonic speakers were actively disposessed by conquest and
> subsequent mass migration leaving a genitically and linguistically
> germanic populace.
Conquest and dislocation or subjugation seldom produces language change.
What changes the language a people speak is when they become bilingual in a
second language that -does- more. Eventually, their children will tend to
speak the learned language rather than their parents' birth language at
home; parents, wanting wider opportunity, will not resist the change, and
the old language dies.
> Then there's the suggestion that only the ruling elite used latin, and
> it disappeared with the empire. This is not borne out by the
> archaeology. Latin was used on a day-to-day basis by anyone who might
> need to scribble something down, from the most humble craftsman or
> artisan on up. Also, the evidence would tend to suggest that by the
> end of the imperial period, the population is best described as
> romano-british, a long way from being a subject people kept under the
> imperial thumb.
This is why it took more than six hundred years for vernacular literatures
to appear in "French", "Italian," and the other Romance vernaculars. For
all of that period, if you wrote something in your native language and it
was -spelled- right, it came out Latin.
English speakers do not appreciate that the awkward and irrational spellings
they use every day, and the unnatural grammar they use in writing as opposed
to speaking, mean that they are writing in what is in essence a dead
language. The writing system fossilizes Late Middle English of the chancery
court and Caxton's era. It once was reasonably phonetic; it was not
invented by raving madmen. Drastic sound changes have reshuffled most of
the vowels in the intervening years. The grammar is conservative (and
simplified) because writing communicates different from speaking. When
English loses its cachet and breaks down into local languages, and new
orthographies are devised for its descendants, it will seem from the written
evidence as if long centuries of gradual change happened all at once.
> Latin did disappear with its speakers, but that happened when the bi-
> or tri-lingual native peoples were kicked out by the incoming Angles,
> Saxons, Jutes, etc. who had been left to gaurd the province, not
> simply because direct rule ceased.
It is likely that there were speakers of Vulgar Latin in Britain until the
Saxons got there. Most of them probably lived in the larger Roman cities
like Bath, London, and Colchester; these were areas that were easily overrun
Endymion
> This is why it took more than six hundred years for vernacular
literatures
> to appear in "French", "Italian," and the other Romance vernaculars.
For
> all of that period, if you wrote something in your native language and
it
> was -spelled- right, it came out Latin.
I don't think so. Look at this text from the 11th century:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8716/alexis.html#french1
This obviously shows a French language in which the process of
separation from Latin is already far along, almost as far as it is in
modern French, not one that is only beginning to emerge as a separate
language. And 200 years before that the Council of Tours had to issue a
proclamation that sermons be preached in the vernacular rather than
Church Latin; they'd have had no need to do so if the
vernacular-speaking peasants could understand the Latin sermons
sufficiently.
This 9th century text is a lot closer to Latin:
http://www.restena.lu/cul/BABEL/T_CANTILENE.html#EDIT
But the differences are still quite a bit more than spelling. Definite
articles, the case system has already been simplified and replaced by
word order, some of the vocabulary has already shifted (por/pour?), as
have many of the vowel-sounds (ciel?) and verb forms (faire?). Caesar,
or even Constantine, would have shaken their heads and tapped their ears
trying to figure out what the barbarians were trying to say.
The reason for the lack of vernacular literature was more who was doing
the writing and why. Most, really all, of the literate were churchmen,
and writing for each other. Anything they had to say, they had to say to
other scholars, all of whom could be relied upon to read Latin. What
would be the point of writing in French or Italian when you'd only be
restricting your audience, not expanding it? That, and a good dose of
snobbery, held true for those 600 years.
--
Endymion
disinte...@mindspring.com
Jodi
>This 9th century text is a lot closer to Latin:
>
>http://www.restena.lu/cul/BABEL/T_CANTILENE.html#EDIT
>
>But the differences are still quite a bit more than spelling. Definite
>articles, the case system has already been simplified and replaced by
>word order, some of the vocabulary has already shifted (por/pour?), as
>have many of the vowel-sounds (ciel?) and verb forms (faire?). Caesar,
>or even Constantine, would have shaken their heads and tapped their ears
>trying to figure out what the barbarians were trying to say.
Dark Ages Latin is a bitch, because the languages are starting to break
up into the Romance languages, but nobody realized it yet. Also, the
decline in learning was such that people might not have "proper" Latin
to refer to.
Isadore of Seville (7th or 8th century) is a good example.
By the 11th and 12th centuries, if people are writing in the vernacular,
they are doing it more consciously, because there had been a bit of a
renaissance in "proper" Latin culture.
Anglo-Saxon and the other Germanic languages are of course a different
case. They deliberately borrowed the Latin alphabet to write their own
language.
Jodi
I am angry I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking
- Magazine, "A Song from Under the Floorboards"
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> I don't think so. Look at this text from the 11th century:
>
> http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8716/alexis.html#french1
>
> This obviously shows a French language in which the process of
> separation from Latin is already far along, almost as far as it is in
> modern French, not one that is only beginning to emerge as a separate
> language. And 200 years before that the Council of Tours had to issue a
> proclamation that sermons be preached in the vernacular rather than
> Church Latin; they'd have had no need to do so if the
> vernacular-speaking peasants could understand the Latin sermons
> sufficiently.
First, consider the time frame. The cantilene is indeed about 600 years out
from the effective end of the Western Empire. (Old French is one of the
oldest Romance literatures.) The decree of the Council of Tours
illustrates, not only that Latin was unintelligible to the uneducated, but
that the educated were still capable of extemporizing in something they
thought, at least in their own minds, was Latin. The Council's decree comes
after the Carolingian mini-renaissance, which also improved standards in
Latin education, and the more classicalized people's Latin became, the less
likely it was to be intelligible.
> The reason for the lack of vernacular literature was more who was doing
> the writing and why. Most, really all, of the literate were churchmen,
> and writing for each other. Anything they had to say, they had to say to
> other scholars, all of whom could be relied upon to read Latin. What
> would be the point of writing in French or Italian when you'd only be
> restricting your audience, not expanding it? That, and a good dose of
> snobbery, held true for those 600 years.
Again, we have the same sort of thing going on in English. Mastering the
cumbersome and irrational system of leftover spellings is an achievement.
Those who have mastered it take some pride from their accomplishment, and
belittle those who haven't. If we suddenly demanded and got a new
orthography that matched the way we actually speak, and it replaced the old
one, the written texts would look like an entirely different language had
replaced the one formerly used to write in.
Tiny Human Ferret
> Endymion wrote:
<snip snip>
>>The reason for the lack of vernacular literature was more who was doing
>>the writing and why. Most, really all, of the literate were churchmen,
>>and writing for each other. Anything they had to say, they had to say to
>>other scholars, all of whom could be relied upon to read Latin. What
>>would be the point of writing in French or Italian when you'd only be
>>restricting your audience, not expanding it? That, and a good dose of
>>snobbery, held true for those 600 years.
>
>
> Again, we have the same sort of thing going on in English. Mastering the
> cumbersome and irrational system of leftover spellings is an achievement.
> Those who have mastered it take some pride from their accomplishment, and
> belittle those who haven't. If we suddenly demanded and got a new
> orthography that matched the way we actually speak, and it replaced the old
> one, the written texts would look like an entirely different language had
> replaced the one formerly used to write in.
So, are we to start using the Korean Han Gul for our notations, then, or
perhaps some variant?
I'm all in favor of sticking to the current orthography, however,
outmoded or "drifted" from the original usages, simply so that one
wouldn't (in the future) have to learn the cumbersome old methods just
to read the older literature.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> So, are we to start using the Korean Han Gul for our notations, then, or
> perhaps some variant?
I'd recommend a variant on the Devanagari or one of the South Asian
semi-syllabic alphabets for English, if I were starting over from scratch.
They have enough consonant characters, and since the vowels are mostly
diacriticals it would be easy to add in the three or four needed to make the
complete set. The Devanagari is also set up to handle consonant clusters
like -nstr- in a fairly simple and transparent way.
> I'm all in favor of sticking to the current orthography, however,
> outmoded or "drifted" from the original usages, simply so that one
> wouldn't (in the future) have to learn the cumbersome old methods just
> to read the older literature.
This is what keeps people writing in an "obsolete" language, of course. The
prestige and tradition of the past would be discarded if the system were
reformed.
Joseph Brenner
"IHCOYC XPICTOC" <ihcoyc...@aye.net> writes:
> Again, we have the same sort of thing going on in English. Mastering the
> cumbersome and irrational system of leftover spellings is an achievement.
> Those who have mastered it take some pride from their accomplishment, and
> belittle those who haven't. If we suddenly demanded and got a new
> orthography that matched the way we actually speak, and it replaced the old
> one, the written texts would look like an entirely different language had
> replaced the one formerly used to write in.
The way *who* actually speaks? When Jimi Hendrix sang
"With the power of soul/anything is possible", that's a
rhyming couplet. It wouldn't be if I sang it.
There's no guarantee that if you put, say, me, Nyx, and
Erith in a room that we'd be able to understand each other
without a lot of work.
Endymion
> There's no guarantee that if you put, say, me, Nyx, and
> Erith in a room that we'd be able to understand each other
> without a lot of work.
Sure, but that's true of your posts as well!
--
Endymion
disinte...@mindspring.com
Tiny Human Ferret
I'd almost pay money to see that. Um I guess if I went to Convergence, I
_would_ be paying money to see that.
I wound up having a RL meet with a fellow from the UK, Uni of Edinburg
IIRC, we understood each other perfectly in correspondence but it
certainly took a bit of effort -- about an hour of tuning our ears -- to
be comprehensible to each other.
Tetsab
> There's no guarantee that if you put, say, me, Nyx, and
> Erith in a room that we'd be able to understand each other
> without a lot of work.
It was suggested by Nyx, post-C6, that he and I have... [oh,
blast! I can't think of the exact words now. Hrm. Something
to the effect of opposite accents but I don't think that's
quite right. Ah well. It was 4 years ago].
Still, this was what was said after the fact:
"And you should have seen me and Tetsab at convergence. Between
her scottish/canadian accent and my southern accent I don't
think we understood a damn word each other said. I'm usually
good at accents, but for some reaon scottish and american
mississippi delta southern seem to be completely incompatible."
[On a happier note (though I suspect close to everyone would say
it's a sad one...) 'e should be able to understand me now as my
accent is pretty much dead (tho I never tire of saying that it
makes Uninvited Guest Appearances in cases of Booze, Anger, and
Nervousness)]
Tetsab.
>^..^<
Joseph Brenner
"Endymion" <disinte...@mindspring.com> writes:
> "Joseph Brenner" <do...@kzsu.stanford.edu> wrote
>
> > There's no guarantee that if you put, say, me, Nyx, and
> > Erith in a room that we'd be able to understand each other
> > without a lot of work.
>
> Sure, but that's true of your posts as well!
With my posts, there's a guarantee of the opposite, but
that's not what I was getting at.
(I dunno why I brought Erith into this... I think I was
reaching for a member of the Scottish contingent, and I
temporarily forgot he was originally from Huston.)
Joseph Brenner
Tiny Human Ferret <ixnayamsp...@earthops.net> writes:
> Joseph Brenner wrote:
> > "IHCOYC XPICTOC" <ihcoyc...@aye.net> writes:
> >>Again, we have the same sort of thing going on in English. Mastering the
> >>cumbersome and irrational system of leftover spellings is an achievement.
> >>Those who have mastered it take some pride from their accomplishment, and
> >>belittle those who haven't. If we suddenly demanded and got a new
> >>orthography that matched the way we actually speak, and it replaced the old
> >>one, the written texts would look like an entirely different language had
> >>replaced the one formerly used to write in.
> > The way *who* actually speaks? When Jimi Hendrix sang
> > "With the power of soul/anything is possible", that's a
> > rhyming couplet. It wouldn't be if I sang it. There's no
> > guarantee that if you put, say, me, Nyx, and
> > Erith in a room that we'd be able to understand each other
> > without a lot of work.
> I'd almost pay money to see that. Um I guess if I went to
> Convergence, I _would_ be paying money to see that.
You don't *really* want to hear me do Jimi Hendrix songs,
do you?
Tiny Human Ferret
Jennie
> (I dunno why I brought Erith into this... I think I was
> reaching for a member of the Scottish contingent, and I
> temporarily forgot he was originally from Huston.)
He's not originally from there, he just lived there for a few
years. He still has traces of that accent mixed in with quite a soft
Scottish accent, mind, and he can switch back to it completely when
required to.
Jennie
> I'd almost pay money to see that. Um I guess if I went to Convergence, I
> _would_ be paying money to see that.
Dude, it would be very cool if you did.
This seems likely to be the last Covergence to occur in quite
this form. It would be nice if we could assemble some of a.g.'s
longer-term residents there. I, for one, would buy you beer.
Tiny Human Ferret
> In article <403E2712...@earthops.net>, Tiny Human Ferret wrote:
>
>>I'd almost pay money to see that. Um I guess if I went to Convergence, I
>>_would_ be paying money to see that.
>
>
> Dude, it would be very cool if you did.
Hey, I'm too old to go to goth bars, ya know. Going to a Convergence
would be more of the same, squared and cubed. Besides, I am increasingly
tired these days. Alcohol overuse is taking its toll as well as aging.
In a lot of ways I am beginning to not care about a whole lot of things,
even things that were previously incredibly important to me.
> This seems likely to be the last Covergence to occur in quite
> this form. It would be nice if we could assemble some of a.g.'s
> longer-term residents there. I, for one, would buy you beer.
That's quite kind of you, but at this point, I can't afford enough food
in the month without giving up one of my major recurrent expenses,
InterNet. I certainly can't afford to go lark about to a big party full
of people with good taste in music.
erithromycin
>Endymion:
>>Joe Brenner:
>>>There's no guarantee that if you put, say, me, Nyx, and
>>>Erith in a room that we'd be able to understand each other
>>>without a lot of work.
>>Sure, but that's true of your posts as well!
>With my posts, there's a guarantee of the opposite, but
>that's not what I was getting at.
>(I dunno why I brought Erith into this... I think I was
>reaching for a member of the Scottish contingent, and I
>temporarily forgot he was originally from Huston.)
Ah, but that's wrong, see - I lived in Houston, for three and a half years,
but was born in Scotland, lived there for ten years, and have lived here
again for another ten years. Oh my god. I've just realised that. Anyway,
nobody understands me. Woe, etc.
--
erith - .sig
erithromycin
>Jennie:
>> Nyx, are you once again making the assumption that everyone in
>>the UK supports everything its rulers do because if they didn't they'd
>>prove it by holding an armed uprising? I don't know Erith's position on
>>that one, but you should understand that the war with Argentina was
>>unpopular with a lot of people here - maybe not the majority, but a
>>significant minority.
>Strange how Brits can only seem to point out the problems of Americans
>but never seem to see the same problems in their own country.
Pardon?
>The majority of Americans were against Vietnam, even those who served
>thought it was pointless at best. But, yet, Erith tars all of us with the
>same brush.
I don't remember tarring anyone with any brush. I did, however, point out
that in our perhaps ill-advised quasi-colonial venture, we won. I think that
the 95 odd years of violence in Northern Island can probably be called a
score-draw. Was that what you meant?
--
erith - .sgi
Nyx
news:40464f5e$0$21484$afc3...@news.ukonline.co.uk:
> I don't remember tarring anyone with any brush. I did, however, point
> out that in our perhaps ill-advised quasi-colonial venture, we won. I
> think that the 95 odd years of violence in Northern Island can
> probably be called a score-draw. Was that what you meant?
Excuse me, but am I discussing this with you or Jennie? Are you her puppet
or is she yours? Because it's confusing me when the two of you answer for
each other.
Nyx
Joseph Brenner
Nyx <taom...@yahoo.com> writes:
> "erithromycin" <erithr...@ananzi.co.za> wrote:
> > I don't remember tarring anyone with any brush. I did, however, point
> > out that in our perhaps ill-advised quasi-colonial venture, we won. I
> > think that the 95 odd years of violence in Northern Island can
> > probably be called a score-draw. Was that what you meant?
>
> Excuse me, but am I discussing this with you or Jennie? Are you her puppet
> or is she yours? Because it's confusing me when the two of you answer for
> each other.
It's usenet, man. Anyone talks who wants to talk. Sometimes
people gang up on you unfairly, sometimes it's because
you're being a nut, and there's often no obvious way to tell
which is which.
-- the audodidactic sockpuppet
Nyx
news:m38yiff...@crack.nonagon.org:
> It's usenet, man. Anyone talks who wants to talk. Sometimes
> people gang up on you unfairly, sometimes it's because
> you're being a nut, and there's often no obvious way to tell
> which is which.
That's fine, but I can't keep track of who I'm talking to because they
answer for each other. It's no way to have a conversation.
Nyx
Panurge
> This seems likely to be the last Covergence to occur in quite
> this form. It would be nice if we could assemble some of a.g.'s
> longer-term residents there.
? Any particular reason why? Something up with the standing committee?
Oh, and Atlanta would probably abscond with it if no one else was doing
it, anyway. Still, at least there's Whitby.
--
"Composers tend to think most people really care a lot about music.
Well, most people don't." --Aaron Copland
erithromycin
>erith:
>>I don't remember tarring anyone with any brush. I did, however, point
>>out that in our perhaps ill-advised quasi-colonial venture, we won. I
>>think that the 95 odd years of violence in Northern Island can
>>probably be called a score-draw. Was that what you meant?
>Excuse me, but am I discussing this with you or Jennie? Are you her puppet
>or is she yours?
I only have two puppets - a three eyed purple alien, and a little blue
wizard. They are finger puppets.
Jennie has a mermaid, two pirates (maybe three, actually), a zombie, a
wolfman, and an octopus called Ivan. They are finger puppets. I think she
may have other puppets, but I don't know what they are.
>Because it's confusing me when the two of you answer for each other.
It's quite confusing for us too.
--
erith - .sig
erithromycin
>erith:
>>It's usenet, man. Anyone talks who wants to talk. Sometimes
>>people gang up on you unfairly, sometimes it's because
>>you're being a nut, and there's often no obvious way to tell
>>which is which.
>That's fine, but I can't keep track of who I'm talking to because they
>answer for each other. It's no way to have a conversation.
We do disagree, you know, on a bunch of stuff. Anyway, aren't the writing
styles clue enough?
--
erith - not to mention the .sigs and attributions and headers...