Some people can't understand their neighbours
Ruud Harmsen
http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/a-reclassification-of-the-dutch-language/
on the Dutch language. It got me so annoyed that I spontaneouly posted
a long list of rants in Dutch group nl.taal, but in Dutch, so they are
not accessible to all. Subject name of these messages is:
"Is "Dutch" 16 different languages?"
http://groups.google.nl/group/nl.taal/browse_thread/thread/27cdb4051751e269/7c8ebb773372a531
One obvious mistake I found I think is worth mentioning here too:
Bob Lindsay wrote:
===
However, �Limburgs� is composed of at least two languages. Bergish is
a separate language, not intelligible to Aachen (60% intelligibility),
South Guelderish, or to Dutch Limburgs. The dialects of Aix la
Chapelle (SE Limburgs/Low Dietsch) and Aachen are not mutually
intelligible.
/===
and also:
===
Aachen Germanis a SE Limburgs language spoken in this same general
region in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia on the border with Belgium.
It is similar to the Ripuarian Franconian spoken in Eschweiler
(Eschweiler German) and Stolberg (Stolberg German), but
intelligibility data is lacking.
Aachen German has 60% intelligibility with Bergisch, the form of
Limburgs spoken across the border (Harms 2009).
Aix La Chapelle German, spoken in Aix La Chapelle, Germany, is
reportedly not intelligible with the Aachen German spoken nearby. Both
are varieties of SE Limburgs.
/===
Bob, here's the secret: "Aix La Chapelle, Germany", doesn't exist.
Aix-la-Chapelle is simply the French name for the city that in German
is called Aachen, and Aken in Dutch. So what you are saying here,
twice, is that dialect A is mutually INcomprensible with that very
same dialect A.
To me this is proof that you write, in a very authoritative tone,
about subjects you really don't know or understand anything about.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aix-la-Chapelle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aachen
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aachen
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aken_(stad)
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com
Panu
> Aix La Chapelle German, spoken in Aix La Chapelle, Germany, is
> reportedly not intelligible with the Aachen German spoken nearby. Both
> are varieties of SE Limburgs.
LOL!
Is the poor thing so linguistically naive that he does not even
recognize Aix la Chapelle as a distinctly non-German name?
Peter T. Daniels
Or never hheard of Charlemagne?
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>Or never hheard of Charlemagne?
I must admit I learnt that name only about 10 years ago. In school
(primary school, age 10 or so!) "Karel de Grote" was amply taught
about, but nobody ever mentioned that in other languages he might have
another name. Until then I'd have called him "Charles the Great" and
be surprised it wasn't understood.
Helmut Wollmersdorfer
> I just read part of Robert Lindsay's article
> http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/a-reclassification-of-the-dutch-language/
> on the Dutch language. It got me so annoyed that I spontaneouly posted
> a long list of rants in Dutch group nl.taal, but in Dutch, so they are
> not accessible to all. Subject name of these messages is:
> "Is "Dutch" 16 different languages?"
Oh, the same 'Bob' who reclassifies German into ~150 languages.
I always wonder a little bit about 'experts' sitting wide apart
(California?) ignoring local scientists, i.e. German Germanists and
researchers in the many German organizations exploring dialects.
[...]
> Bob, here's the secret: "Aix La Chapelle, Germany", doesn't exist.
> Aix-la-Chapelle is simply the French name for the city that in German
> is called Aachen, and Aken in Dutch. So what you are saying here,
> twice, is that dialect A is mutually INcomprensible with that very
> same dialect A.
LOL
Helmut Wollmersdorfer
Harlan Messinger
> I just read part of Robert Lindsay's article
> http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/a-reclassification-of-the-dutch-language/
> and also:
>
> ===
> Aachen Germanis a SE Limburgs language spoken in this same general
> region in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia on the border with Belgium.
> It is similar to the Ripuarian Franconian spoken in Eschweiler
> (Eschweiler German) and Stolberg (Stolberg German), but
> intelligibility data is lacking.
>
> Aachen German has 60% intelligibility with Bergisch, the form of
> Limburgs spoken across the border (Harms 2009).
>
> Aix La Chapelle German, spoken in Aix La Chapelle, Germany, is
> reportedly not intelligible with the Aachen German spoken nearby. Both
> are varieties of SE Limburgs.
> /===
>
> Bob, here's the secret: "Aix La Chapelle, Germany", doesn't exist.
> Aix-la-Chapelle is simply the French name for the city that in German
> is called Aachen, and Aken in Dutch. So what you are saying here,
> twice, is that dialect A is mutually INcomprensible with that very
> same dialect A.
>
> To me this is proof that you write, in a very authoritative tone,
> about subjects you really don't know or understand anything about.
If that's what his article said, then he has covered his tracks, because
neither the word "aix" nor the word "chapelle" appears in that article now.
Ruud Harmsen
<hmessinger...@comcast.net>: in sci.lang:
>Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>> I just read part of Robert Lindsay's article
>> http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/a-reclassification-of-the-dutch-language/
>> To me this is proof that you write, in a very authoritative tone,
>> about subjects you really don't know or understand anything about.
>
>If that's what his article said, then he has covered his tracks, because
>neither the word "aix" nor the word "chapelle" appears in that article now.
So he has quickly corrected it. Only for the better.
Harlan Messinger
He may have thought it was it was the Aixlachapellian name.
António Marques
Wrong. For the worse. By putting some lipstick on the pig, the pig will
actually be less instantly recognisable - not that many are versed on
farm animals.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> > I just read part of Robert Lindsay's article
> > on the Dutch language. It got me so annoyed that I spontaneouly posted
> > a long list of rants in Dutch group nl.taal, but in Dutch, so they are
> > not accessible to all. Subject name of these messages is:
> > "Is "Dutch" 16 different languages?"
>
> Oh, the same 'Bob' who reclassifies German into ~150 languages.
>
> I always wonder a little bit about 'experts' sitting wide apart
> (California?) ignoring local scientists, i.e. German Germanists and
> researchers in the many German organizations exploring dialects.
He claimed that (unnamed) "German professors" have supported him.
Bob
> On Jan 23, 8:07 am, Helmut Wollmersdorfer <hel...@wollmersdorfer.at>
> wrote:
>
> > Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> > > I just read part of Robert Lindsay's article
> > >http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/a-reclassification-of-t...
> > > on the Dutch language. It got me so annoyed that I spontaneouly posted
> > > a long list of rants in Dutch group nl.taal, but in Dutch, so they are
> > > not accessible to all. Subject name of these messages is:
> > > "Is "Dutch" 16 different languages?"
>
> > Oh, the same 'Bob' who reclassifies German into ~150 languages.
>
> > I always wonder a little bit about 'experts' sitting wide apart
> > (California?) ignoring local scientists, i.e. German Germanists and
> > researchers in the many German organizations exploring dialects.
>
> He claimed that (unnamed) "German professors" have supported him.
A professor of Linguistics (PhD) in the Netherlands. He specializes in
Dutch and German linguistics. He's referred to as a Germanist. Seeing
the way you folks treat people, of course I won't name him and subject
him your abuse.
And he supported it (tentatively) at around 70 languages, not 150. As
a hypothesis.
Bob
More accurate to say that he wasn't opposed to the classification, at
70 languages or so. He was more interested in what I was putting into
Macro-Dutch and what I was putting into Macro-German.
He wanted Dutch Low Saxon into Macro-Dutch, if I'm not mistaken. He
said one or the other, put it into Macro-Dutch or Macro-German. That's
a position that Rude boy (Ruud) says makes no sense, as Dutch Low
Saxon belongs in neither.
Harlan Messinger
Oh, that's rich. That's just priceless. You're obviously *such* a
serious academic.
Bob
believe. A scholar who doesn't is just an independent scholar.
Yeah, he's a real nice guy too, unlike just about everyone on this
board. Shame on all of you.
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>> A professor of Linguistics (PhD) in the Netherlands. He specializes in
>> Dutch and German linguistics. He's referred to as a Germanist. Seeing
>> the way you folks treat people, of course I won't name him and subject
>> him your abuse.
>>
>> And he supported it (tentatively) at around 70 languages, not 150. As
>> a hypothesis.
>
>More accurate to say that he wasn't opposed to the classification, at
>70 languages or so. He was more interested in what I was putting into
>Macro-Dutch and what I was putting into Macro-German.
>
>He wanted Dutch Low Saxon into Macro-Dutch, if I'm not mistaken.
They are when counting loanwords. They're not when looking at cognates
and grammar.
If the Low Saxon dialects of the Netherlands belong to the group of
Dutch dialects (which is what I prefer to call Macro-Dutch), then
English is a Romance language.
If the Low Saxon dialects of Germany belong to the group of German
dialects (which is what I prefer to call Macro-German), then English
is a Romance language.
If the Low Saxon dialects in the Netherlands AND Germany belong to a
dialect group "Low Saxon" (Nedersaksisch, Nedder-Sassisch, etc.), then
English is a Germanic language.
>He said one or the other, put it into Macro-Dutch or Macro-German.
In my opinion ...
>That's
>a position that Rude boy (Ruud) says makes no sense, as Dutch Low
>Saxon belongs in neither.
Right, that's what I say.
I learnt that (but not by studying) from linguist Ron Hahn. For more
info see:
http://www.lowlands-l.net/neddersassisch.php
http://www.lowlands-l.net/english.php
Here is a very long list of offline references:
http://www.lowlands-l.net/rummage/nds.php
PaulJK
> Sat, 23 Jan 2010 04:16:42 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>
>> Or never hheard of Charlemagne?
>
> I must admit I learnt that name only about 10 years ago. In school
> (primary school, age 10 or so!) "Karel de Grote"
Ah, I know, you mean Karel Velik�, don't you? :-)
pjk
Ruud Harmsen
<paul....@paradise.net.nz>: in sci.lang:
>Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>> Sat, 23 Jan 2010 04:16:42 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>>
>>> Or never hheard of Charlemagne?
>>
>> I must admit I learnt that name only about 10 years ago. In school
>> (primary school, age 10 or so!) "Karel de Grote"
>
>Ah, I know, you mean Karel Velik�, don't you? :-)
Never heard of him, nor of "Ich, Karl"
http://mn.wikipedia.org/wiki/??_????
>> was amply taught
>> about, but nobody ever mentioned that in other languages he might have
>> another name. Until then I'd have called him "Charles the Great" and
>> be surprised it wasn't understood.
Panu
> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> > Sat, 23 Jan 2010 04:16:42 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >> Or never hheard of Charlemagne?
>
> > I must admit I learnt that name only about 10 years ago. In school
> > (primary school, age 10 or so!) "Karel de Grote"
>
> pjk
Kaarle Suuri, as we call him up here.
Panu
> On Jan 23, 2:22 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jan 23, 8:07 am, Helmut Wollmersdorfer <hel...@wollmersdorfer.at>
> > wrote:
>
> > > Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> > > > I just read part of Robert Lindsay's article
> > > >http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/a-reclassification-of-t...
> > > > on the Dutch language. It got me so annoyed that I spontaneouly posted
> > > > a long list of rants in Dutch group nl.taal, but in Dutch, so they are
> > > > not accessible to all. Subject name of these messages is:
> > > > "Is "Dutch" 16 different languages?"
>
> > > Oh, the same 'Bob' who reclassifies German into ~150 languages.
>
> > > I always wonder a little bit about 'experts' sitting wide apart
> > > (California?) ignoring local scientists, i.e. German Germanists and
> > > researchers in the many German organizations exploring dialects.
>
> > He claimed that (unnamed) "German professors" have supported him.
>
> A professor of Linguistics (PhD) in the Netherlands. He specializes in
> Dutch and German linguistics.
A professor of linguistics told you the people of Aix-la-Chapelle
didn't understand those of Aachen?
Bob
Having reading comprehension problems again?
Panu
Answer my question, boyo.
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>> > > I always wonder a little bit about 'experts' sitting wide apart
>> > > (California?) ignoring local scientists, i.e. German Germanists and
>> > > researchers in the many German organizations exploring dialects.
>>
>> > He claimed that (unnamed) "German professors" have supported him.
>>
>> A professor of Linguistics (PhD) in the Netherlands. He specializes in
>> Dutch and German linguistics.
>
>A professor of linguistics told you the people of Aix-la-Chapelle
>didn't understand those of Aachen?
That was a mistake and Bob meanwhile corrected it. So why go on about
it? It remains interesting though, which of the many references in the
bottom of the page that info came from.
Harlan Messinger
So you're going to continue to make this about you (and your friend)
rather than about addressing the challenges made to your (and his)
claims. Oh, by the way, what IS your response to the debunking of your
(and his?) impression that Aix-la-Chapelle is something different from
Aachen?
Harlan Messinger
What part of "Aix La Chapelle German, spoken in Aix La Chapelle,
Germany, is reportedly not intelligible with the Aachen German spoken
nearby" do you think anyone here doesn't understand?
Panu
> Sun, 24 Jan 2010 04:41:07 -0800 (PST): Panu <craoibhi...@gmail.com>:
> in sci.lang:
>
> >> > > I always wonder a little bit about 'experts' sitting wide apart
> >> > > (California?) ignoring local scientists, i.e. German Germanists and
> >> > > researchers in the many German organizations exploring dialects.
>
> >> > He claimed that (unnamed) "German professors" have supported him.
>
> >> A professor of Linguistics (PhD) in the Netherlands. He specializes in
> >> Dutch and German linguistics.
>
> >A professor of linguistics told you the people of Aix-la-Chapelle
> >didn't understand those of Aachen?
>
> That was a mistake and Bob meanwhile corrected it. So why go on about
> it? It remains interesting though, which of the many references in the
> bottom of the page that info came from.
You are being way too nice to him.
Ruud Harmsen
<hmessinger...@comcast.net>: in sci.lang:
>claims. Oh, by the way, what IS your response to the debunking of your
>(and his?) impression that Aix-la-Chapelle is something different from
>Aachen?
He corrected the mistake, as was stated here at least three times
before this one.
Nobody's perfect, are we?
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>> That was a mistake and Bob meanwhile corrected it. So why go on about
>> it? It remains interesting though, which of the many references in the
>> bottom of the page that info came from.
>
>You are being way too nice to him.
Even racists and homophobics deserve fair treatment.
Harlan Messinger
I understand he corrected it. I pointed out that he had done so. That
doesn't alter the fact that I haven't seen him explain it, in the
context of how credible his research can be, prima facie, when it
included such obvious nonsense as that until someone pointed out to him
what obvious nonsense it was.
Harlan Messinger
Because the fact that he corrected it doesn't alter the fact that he was
capable of making such a telling, *obvious*, mistake, not a simple
mistake, but a big fat one that should have been impossible for anyone
doing sound research to make.
Peter T. Daniels
> Sun, 24 Jan 2010 07:37:37 -0800 (PST): Panu <craoibhi...@gmail.com>:
> in sci.lang:
>
> >> That was a mistake and Bob meanwhile corrected it. So why go on about
> >> it? It remains interesting though, which of the many references in the
> >> bottom of the page that info came from.
>
> >You are being way too nice to him.
>
> Even racists and homophobics deserve fair treatment.
So you have no problem with Cheney and Giuliani going around saying
"there were no attacks on this country from September 12, 2001, on"?
António Marques
What's next? Should I pontificate on Dutch politics, let slip by an
impression that the communist party is right wing, and be expected to be
taken seriously if I 'corrected' the 'mistake'?
You can correect mistakes. You can't correct ignarrogance so easily.
António Marques
> Sun, 24 Jan 2010 04:41:07 -0800 (PST): Panu <craoi...@gmail.com>:
> in sci.lang:
>
> >> > > I always wonder a little bit about 'experts' sitting wide apart
> >> > > (California?) ignoring local scientists, i.e. German Germanists
> > > > > and
> >> > > researchers in the many German organizations exploring
> > > > > dialects.
> >>
> >> > He claimed that (unnamed) "German professors" have supported him.
> >>
> >> A professor of Linguistics (PhD) in the Netherlands. He specializes
> > > in
> >> Dutch and German linguistics.
> >
> >A professor of linguistics told you the people of Aix-la-Chapelle
> >didn't understand those of Aachen?
>
> That was a mistake and Bob meanwhile corrected it.
That wasn't a mistake, Ruud. A mistake is when you get one thing wrong
in the middle of an otgerwise correct reasoning. Here, what we have is a
dead giveaway that the whole of his reasoning is worthless. You've got
the hard part and the soft part. You can't judge the soft part because
it's all subjective anyway and you're ready to concede that someone
who's looked at more hard parts than you have may come up with a soft
part that is legitimate even though it may appear outlandish to you.
Then you notice that his presentation of the hard facts exhibits sheer
ignorance of the part you're acquainted with. What's the justified
inference?
Bob
> Sun, 24 Jan 2010 04:41:07 -0800 (PST): Panu <craoibhi...@gmail.com>:
> in sci.lang:
>
> >> > > I always wonder a little bit about 'experts' sitting wide apart
> >> > > (California?) ignoring local scientists, i.e. German Germanists and
> >> > > researchers in the many German organizations exploring dialects.
>
> >> > He claimed that (unnamed) "German professors" have supported him.
>
> >> A professor of Linguistics (PhD) in the Netherlands. He specializes in
> >> Dutch and German linguistics.
>
> >A professor of linguistics told you the people of Aix-la-Chapelle
> >didn't understand those of Aachen?
>
> That was a mistake and Bob meanwhile corrected it. So why go on about
> it? It remains interesting though, which of the many references in the
> bottom of the page that info came from.
>
It came from an old travelogue on the Web. I forgot to link it (or
even add it my notes!) and thought I just memorized what it said. I
thought it said that between Aachen and Aix la Chapelle the language
changes and becomes unintelligible. Now I think it said between Aachen
or Aix la Chapelle (and Liege) the languages change and become
unintelligible with each other. That makes more sense now. So the
travelogue was saying that Aachen German and Liege Limburgs are not
intelligible with each other, which I suspect to be true, as I analyze
SE Limburgs and Limburgs as a separate language.
Moral: add everything to your notes and link the sources.
Panu
> > in sci.lang:
>
> > >> > > I always wonder a little bit about 'experts' sitting wide apart
> > >> > > (California?) ignoring local scientists, i.e. German Germanists
> > > > > > and
> > >> > > researchers in the many German organizations exploring
> > > > > > dialects.
>
> > >> > He claimed that (unnamed) "German professors" have supported him.
>
> > >> A professor of Linguistics (PhD) in the Netherlands. He specializes
> > > > in
> > >> Dutch and German linguistics.
>
> > >A professor of linguistics told you the people of Aix-la-Chapelle
> > >didn't understand those of Aachen?
>
> > That was a mistake and Bob meanwhile corrected it.
>
> That wasn't a mistake, Ruud. A mistake is when you get one thing wrong
> in the middle of an otgerwise correct reasoning. Here, what we have is a
> dead giveaway that the whole of his reasoning is worthless.
You said it.
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
Well, I could imagine myself writing some superficial impressions
about native American languages, and then mixing up some names of
Apache or Comanche tribes or bands (whatever that is), overlooking the
fact that two names actually refer to the same group of people, or
that some Apaches were called that by some but really weren't. Or
didn't call themselves that with good reasons.
(See Wikipedia, I was reading a bit on that this afternoon, Apache,
Navajo, but also Delaware, and Pidgin Delaware
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenape and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware_languages
etc. etc. )
(Don't tell me they're from a different language family than Apache,
because I know.)
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>> He corrected the mistake, as was stated here at least three times
>> before this one.
>>
>> Nobody's perfect, are we?
>
>What's next? Should I pontificate on Dutch politics, let slip by an
>impression that the communist party is right wing,
Well, actually, .... , don't get me started.
>and be expected to be
>taken seriously if I 'corrected' the 'mistake'?
>You can correect mistakes. You can't correct ignarrogance so easily.
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
I cannot comment on that, I don't know enough about this issue.
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>That wasn't a mistake, Ruud. A mistake is when you get one thing wrong
>in the middle of an otgerwise correct reasoning. Here, what we have is a
>dead giveaway that the whole of his reasoning is worthless. You've got
>the hard part and the soft part. You can't judge the soft part because
>it's all subjective anyway and you're ready to concede that someone
>who's looked at more hard parts than you have may come up with a soft
>part that is legitimate even though it may appear outlandish to you.
One of my objections in my Dutch list of rants was that "mutual
intelligeability" isn't clearly defined. But Robert Lindsay actually
has a list of references at the end of his article, often referring to
online PDFs, that detail scientific studies on that. They probably
contain clear definitions, so I should check these before uttering any
more criticisms. I didn't yet. Did you?
See
http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/a-reclassification-of-the-dutch-language/
The often mentioned "Gooskens" is Charlotte Gooskens.
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>That wasn't a mistake, Ruud. A mistake is when you get one thing wrong
>in the middle of an otgerwise correct reasoning. Here, what we have is a
>dead giveaway that the whole of his reasoning is worthless.
How does that related to someone like J.C. Wells, a universally
recognized scholar, who almost 10 years after being told about it (5
May 2000) STILL hasn't corrected (or had someone correct; he himself
is retired) a simple mistake:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/index.html
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/portug.htm
T�m should be tem. It's that simple. But he refused to correct it,
because "the page was of course compiled by native speakers of
Portuguese". And (although he didn't give that as a reason, but I
suspect it is), the mistake was pointed out to him by a somewhat
impolite and too direct amateur on the subject (which I was then and
still am).
I don't know what I'd rather have: an amateur claiming to have studied
linguistics, who quickly corrects errors when they are pointed out; or
a recognized scholar who leaves obvious mistakes in place, out of
arrogance or sloppiness or both.
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>It came from an old travelogue on the Web. I forgot to link it (or
>even add it my notes!) and thought I just memorized what it said. I
>thought it said that between Aachen and Aix la Chapelle the language
>changes and becomes unintelligible. Now I think it said between Aachen
>or Aix la Chapelle (and Liege) the languages change and become
>unintelligible with each other.
Li�ge (in Dutch: Luik; German: L�ttich) is French-speaking, and some
there speak a rather deviant Wallon dialect in addition to standard
(Belgian) French. Both have nothing to do with any Germanic dialects
or languages spoken around Aachen.
(Other than that all of them belong to the Indo-European language
family.)
Li�ge and Aachen are not very far apart geographically, that much is
true. Well, over 66 kilometers, Google tells me:
http://tinyurl.com/yzdphcb
>That makes more sense now. So the
>travelogue was saying that Aachen German and Liege Limburgs are not
>intelligible with each other, which I suspect to be true, as I analyze
>SE Limburgs and Limburgs as a separate language.
No Limburgs is spoken in Li�ge. But slightly to the north, in the
Voerstreek, south of the part of Limburg that is now part of the
Netherlands, I think a dialect called Platt was once spoken (now
dying out) which is related to Limburgisch.
>Moral: add everything to your notes and link the sources.
And remember, reality is always more complicated than you think
(especially where the notorious case of Luik is concerned,
linguistically AND trafficwise.)
Peter T. Daniels
> Sun, 24 Jan 2010 09:13:54 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
> >On Jan 24, 10:47 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
> >> Sun, 24 Jan 2010 07:37:37 -0800 (PST): Panu <craoibhi...@gmail.com>:
> >> in sci.lang:
>
> >> >> That was a mistake and Bob meanwhile corrected it. So why go on about
> >> >> it? It remains interesting though, which of the many references in the
> >> >> bottom of the page that info came from.
>
> >> >You are being way too nice to him.
>
> >> Even racists and homophobics deserve fair treatment.
>
> >So you have no problem with Cheney and Giuliani going around saying
> >"there were no attacks on this country from September 12, 2001, on"?
>
> I cannot comment on that, I don't know enough about this issue.
There's nothing to know -- other than that Cheney was bush's vice
president (but was de facto in charge); he has spent the past year
insisting that Obama's policies are making the US less safe from
terrorists. Giulliani, who was mayor of New York on 9/11 (and couldn't
have been elected dogcatcher, as the saying goes -- does anyone
anywhere actually elect dogcatchers?, on 9/10) and briefly ran for
president in 08 with a campaign consisting of nothing but repeating
"9/11"; he made news last week by asserting somewhere that there were
_no_ terrorist attacks during the bush administration (referring to
the Christmas Day underpants non-bomber).
Peter T. Daniels
No. The point is simply that it's general knowledge that "Aix-la-
Chapelle" is the French name for the German city Aachen (or vice
versa, presumably, depending on which way the border regions happen to
fall at the moment).
Bob
> Sun, 24 Jan 2010 11:07:40 -0800 (PST): Bob <lindsay.rob...@gmail.com>:
> in sci.lang:
>
> >It came from an old travelogue on the Web. I forgot to link it (or
> >even add it my notes!) and thought I just memorized what it said. I
> >thought it said that between Aachen and Aix la Chapelle the language
> >changes and becomes unintelligible. Now I think it said between Aachen
> >or Aix la Chapelle (and Liege) the languages change and become
> >unintelligible with each other.
>
> there speak a rather deviant Wallon dialect in addition to standard
> (Belgian) French. Both have nothing to do with any Germanic dialects
> or languages spoken around Aachen.
> (Other than that all of them belong to the Indo-European language
> family.)
>
> true. Well, over 66 kilometers, Google tells me:http://tinyurl.com/yzdphcb
>
> >That makes more sense now. So the
> >travelogue was saying that Aachen German and Liege Limburgs are not
> >intelligible with each other, which I suspect to be true, as I analyze
> >SE Limburgs and Limburgs as a separate language.
>
> Voerstreek, south of the part of Limburg that is now part of the
> Netherlands, I think a dialect called Platt
I think that you refer to "Low Dietsch."
was once spoken (now
> dying out) which is related to Limburgisch.
That's part of SE Limburgs. One thing I did was marry Aachen, Low
Dietsch and Aachen German into one language, SE Limburgs.
I think the Low Dietsch is spoken around Tongeren and Genk in Brabant.
And within Aachen, you have Eilendorff, Stolberg and Eupen. But then I
had to start moving stuff from Macro-German to Macro-Dutch, because I
had all those in German Ripuarian before. I also moved the far west
end of Ripuarian, Kerkrade, to SE Limburgs and Macro-Dutch. In that
area, where Macro-German ends and Macro-Dutch begins is really
confusing!
Also, Heerlen Dutch doesn't really speak Limburgs, more an AN dialect
that's probably intelligible to Dutch. They started out speaking
Limburgs, but then 150 years ago immigrants moved in from all over to
work on the mines, and all of these lects got married with the Heerlen
Limburgs, and it created a dialect that is sort of a "creole," a
Limburgs-Dutch mixed language that's probably pretty understandable to
a Dutch person.
>
> >Moral: add everything to your notes and link the sources.
>
> And remember, reality is always more complicated than you think
> (especially where the notorious case of Luik is concerned,
> linguistically AND trafficwise.)
I split Venlo off altogether because I had informants who told me that
Venlo's only understandable right around the city of Venlo.
Also in that area, you have the Flanders phenomenon of the city lects
differentiating often greatly from the lects of the surrounding
villages. There seem to be sociological reasons for that, as the city
people try to differentiate themselves from the surrounding
countryside. In some cases, the city lect is more conservative than
the surrounding villages!
PaulJK
> Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:11:58 +1300: "PaulJK"
> <paul....@paradise.net.nz>: in sci.lang:
>
>> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>>> Sat, 23 Jan 2010 04:16:42 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>>> <gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>>>
>>>> Or never hheard of Charlemagne?
>>>
>>> I must admit I learnt that name only about 10 years ago. In school
>>> (primary school, age 10 or so!) "Karel de Grote"
>>
>> Ah, I know, you mean Karel Velik�, don't you? :-)
>
> Never heard of him, nor of "Ich, Karl"
> http://mn.wikipedia.org/wiki/??_????
??? your post probably needs utf8
>>> was amply taught
>>> about, but nobody ever mentioned that in other languages he might have
>>> another name. Until then I'd have called him "Charles the Great" and
>>> be surprised it wasn't understood.
Ruud Harmsen
<paul....@paradise.net.nz>: in sci.lang:
>> Never heard of him, nor of "Ich, Karl"
>> http://mn.wikipedia.org/wiki/??_????
>
>??? your post probably needs utf8
Yes. It's Mongolian in Cyrrilic script.
Reachable by clicking on Mongol from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>It came from an old travelogue on the Web. I forgot to link it (or
>even add it my notes!) and thought I just memorized what it said. I
>thought it said that between Aachen and Aix la Chapelle the language
>changes and becomes unintelligible. Now I think it said between Aachen
>or Aix la Chapelle (and Liege) the languages change and become
>unintelligible with each other. That makes more sense now. So the
>travelogue was saying that Aachen German and Liege Limburgs are not
>intelligible with each other, which I suspect to be true, as I analyze
>SE Limburgs and Limburgs as a separate language.
Around the year 750, Germanic dialects were still spoken in and around
Li�ge as well, if we are no believe this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne#Language
Bob
>
> >> Never heard of him, nor of "Ich, Karl"
> >>http://mn.wikipedia.org/wiki/??_????
>
> >??? your post probably needs utf8
>
> Yes. It's Mongolian in Cyrrilic script.
> Reachable by clicking on Mongol fromhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne
> --
> Ruud Harmsen,http://rudhar.com
Hello Ruud.
Responding to some of your criticisms from the Dutch newsgroup (I read
it in Dutch).
The part about Dutch-Flemish language conflict has been removed and
the part about Dutch society's language views has been amended to be
more favorable to the Dutch. The main complaint I have is refusal to
recognize Veluws, but that is right in step with everyone else in
Europe.
Re: Brabants in Arnhem Land, yes it exists, or it did anyway, but at
any rate, it may be so marginal that I removed the reference.
All Veluws is a separate language for now. All dialects.
90% is where SIL seems to cut them off. Others advocate 80%. Below 90%
and you have a hard time discussing technical or complex matters.
Below 80% and you have a serious crimp in communication. However, to
me, "we have a really hard time understanding these people" or worse
usually indicates marginal (around 90%) or less intelligibility. Above
90% and you don't hear those sorts of comments. At worst, you hear,
"We can pretty much understand them." It's impressionistic, sure, but
does anyone have a better system?
Cultural critique is not racism, as "Dutch" is not a race. Cultural
critique has a long history on the Left, now tragically lost with the
insane Identity Politics all cultures are equal crap. It's true: some
cultures, some of the time, they do suck. For sure. Culture is
changeable, so it's not racism to criticize culture. The gross
overinflation of the word racism is really lamentable.
Dutch have 59% intelligibility of Bremen Low German is from a study in
the references by Gooskens.
All Macro-Dutch spoken in Belgium, other than AN, is either Brabants,
Limburgs, SE Limburgs or some type of Flemish.
Flemish = every Macro Dutch Belgium not Brabants, SE Limburgs,
Limburgs or AN.
Intelligibility is for spoken, not written, in the studies.
"A nonsensical answer to an absurd question." Whether to put Dutch Low
Saxon in Macro German is not a nonsensical answer to an absurd
question. Linguists have been grappling with this for decades now. You
have your view, fine, but it's not consensus.
Dutch Low Saxon is confusing because it is hard to classify.
If you can pick up the language less than a week of close contact, I
figure dialect, not language. More time than that, I figure language
not dialect. It's impressionistic, but no one is offering anything
better. Dutch speakers widely acknowledge a hard time understanding
Dutch Low Saxon.
Dutch people have varying intelligibility of Limburgs, possibly due to
definitional problems. The hard Limburgs is really hard to hear. The
Limburgs-Dutch mixed stuff you hear more often is easier to
understand.
The Limburgs Wikipedia article originally said dialect, not language,
when I did my notes. More recently, it got changed by Limburgs
advocates. Seems like Dutch still don't want to say it's a language
though.
Europeans often have completely false conceptions of dialects in the
US. We have *accents*, you have *dialects*. Here in the US, *I almost
never* meet an American native English speaker who I have a hard time
understanding. Very rarely, you hear one on the radio or on TV. We are
talking about once every five years! There are a very few dialects
that are indeed quite hard to hear, but you almost never meet someone
who speaks one of them. The vast majority of US English dialects are
intelligible all the way.
I hope this answers most of your criticisms.
Richard Herring
<r...@rudhar.eu> writes
>Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:30:02 -0500: Harlan Messinger
><hmessinger...@comcast.net>: in sci.lang:
>
>>Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>>> I just read part of Robert Lindsay's article
>>>
>>>e-dutch-language/
>>> To me this is proof that you write, in a very authoritative tone,
>>> about subjects you really don't know or understand anything about.
>>
>>If that's what his article said, then he has covered his tracks, because
>>neither the word "aix" nor the word "chapelle" appears in that article now.
>
>So he has quickly corrected it. Only for the better.
Which still leaves plenty. The discussion of Thai is still almost
entirely about the *writing system*, which anyone with a linguistics
degree ought to know is not the same thing as the *language*.
Even there, though I see one of the more egregious errors has been
(over-) corrected (the "over 100 symbols" claim is down to 75, which is
now too small ;-) there's still evidence of confusion. For instance:
"Consonant pronunciations vary depending on the location of the syllable
in the word – for instance, s can change to t." No, they vary
depending on the location of the (written) consonant in the syllable.
And of course, that's a comment on the writing system: a phonotactic
description of the language would look somewhat different.
--
Richard Herring
Peter T. Daniels
Why should "we have a really hard time understanding these people" be
assigned the number 90%, rather than the more intuitive "50%," which
would indicate "We can understand them half the time"?
> Cultural critique is not racism, as "Dutch" is not a race. Cultural
The language has moved on. Biologically there's no such thing as
"race," and the term "racism" is a convenient one to use for any such
ethnic discrimiation/aversion/....
> critique has a long history on the Left, now tragically lost with the
> insane Identity Politics all cultures are equal crap. It's true: some
> cultures, some of the time, they do suck. For sure. Culture is
> changeable, so it's not racism to criticize culture. The gross
> overinflation of the word racism is really lamentable.
>
> Dutch have 59% intelligibility of Bremen Low German is from a study in
> the references by Gooskens.
>
> All Macro-Dutch spoken in Belgium, other than AN, is either Brabants,
> Limburgs, SE Limburgs or some type of Flemish.
>
> Flemish = every Macro Dutch Belgium not Brabants, SE Limburgs,
> Limburgs or AN.
>
> Intelligibility is for spoken, not written, in the studies.
>
> "A nonsensical answer to an absurd question." Whether to put Dutch Low
> Saxon in Macro German is not a nonsensical answer to an absurd
> question. Linguists have been grappling with this for decades now. You
> have your view, fine, but it's not consensus.
>
> Dutch Low Saxon is confusing because it is hard to classify.
>
> If you can pick up the language less than a week of close contact, I
> figure dialect, not language. More time than that, I figure language
> not dialect. It's impressionistic, but no one is offering anything
> better. Dutch speakers widely acknowledge a hard time understanding
> Dutch Low Saxon.
Have you not heard of the West African notion of "one-day language,"
"two-day language," etc.?
> Dutch people have varying intelligibility of Limburgs, possibly due to
> definitional problems. The hard Limburgs is really hard to hear. The
> Limburgs-Dutch mixed stuff you hear more often is easier to
> understand.
>
> The Limburgs Wikipedia article originally said dialect, not language,
> when I did my notes. More recently, it got changed by Limburgs
> advocates. Seems like Dutch still don't want to say it's a language
> though.
Proving, YET AGAIN, that "language" vs. "dialect" is NOT a linguistic
notion, but a political one.
> Europeans often have completely false conceptions of dialects in the
> US. We have *accents*, you have *dialects*. Here in the US, *I almost
> never* meet an American native English speaker who I have a hard time
> understanding. Very rarely, you hear one on the radio or on TV. We are
> talking about once every five years! There are a very few dialects
> that are indeed quite hard to hear, but you almost never meet someone
> who speaks one of them. The vast majority of US English dialects are
> intelligible all the way.
>
> I hope this answers most of your criticisms.
Maybe you should have a look at Walt Wolframs half-hour documentaries
on the varieties of English across the state of North Carolina, from
Okracoke on the offshore islands to the Appalachains.
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>Responding to some of your criticisms from the Dutch newsgroup (I read
>it in Dutch).
OK!
>Re: Brabants in Arnhem Land, yes it exists, or it did anyway, but at
>any rate, it may be so marginal that I removed the reference.
Do you mean the area in Australia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnhem_Land
Arnhem in the Netherlands is a city and municipality. I lived there
for two years, went to school there for 11 years and learned to drive
a car there. Later on worked there for 2 years. So I know the city
pretty well. I've never heard of any Brabantish influences there.
>All Veluws is a separate language for now. All dialects.
>
>90% is where SIL seems to cut them off. Others advocate 80%. Below 90%
>and you have a hard time discussing technical or complex matters.
>Below 80% and you have a serious crimp in communication. However, to
>me, "we have a really hard time understanding these people" or worse
>usually indicates marginal (around 90%) or less intelligibility.
It depends so much on the subject. If I listen to BBC News, and an
hour later to an Albanian station with international news, I can
understand 80% of Albanian (i.e. I know what the bulletins are about)
although I know really zero words of the language.
>Europeans often have completely false conceptions of
>dialects in the US. We have *accents*, you have *dialects*.
>Here in the US, *I almost never* meet an American native
>English speaker who I have a hard time understanding.
Doesn't surprise me, exactly what I'd expect.
jimbo...@gmail.com
"Nor are Frisian and Dutch intelligible,"
(I promise you there's no restrictive phrase following anywhere)
Quite right. No one understands a word of either! And yes I know
what
is meant but see no reason to be indulgent.
> Now I think it said between Aachen
> or Aix la Chapelle (and Liege) the languages change and become
> unintelligible with each other .
This is certainly true! In Liege they speak Luiks after all...
Ruud Harmsen
<jimbo...@gmail.com>: in sci.lang:
>I quite like this fragment
>
>"Nor are Frisian and Dutch intelligible,"
>
>(I promise you there's no restrictive phrase following anywhere)
>
>Quite right. No one understands a word of either!
Not true. I often watch Frisian regional TV (the only one that isn't
in Dutch! all the other regional station avoid dialects), and I
understand quite a lot, although it isn't easy.
>This is certainly true! In Liege they speak Luiks after all...
No they don't. Or if they do, it's a Wallon dialect, not Germanic but
Romance. But it's very different from French:
http://wa.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walonreye
http://wa.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidje
(the picture there show Brussels rather than Li�ge!)
Bob
> On Jan 25, 5:13 am, Bob <lindsay.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jan 25, 1:00 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
> > > Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:44:46 +1300: "PaulJK"
> > > <paul.kr...@paradise.net.nz>: in sci.lang:
> > > >> Never heard of him, nor of "Ich, Karl"
> > > >>http://mn.wikipedia.org/wiki/??_????
>
> > > >??? your post probably needs utf8
>
> > > Yes. It's Mongolian in Cyrrilic script.
> > > Reachable by clicking on Mongol fromhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne
> > > --
> > > Ruud Harmsen,http://rudhar.com
>
> > Hello Ruud.
>
> > Responding to some of your criticisms from the Dutch newsgroup (I read
> > it in Dutch).
Below 90%
> > and you have a hard time discussing technical or complex matters.
> > Below 80% and you have a serious crimp in communication. However, to
> > me, "we have a really hard time understanding these people" or worse
> > usually indicates marginal (around 90%) or less intelligibility. Above
> > 90% and you don't hear those sorts of comments. At worst, you hear,
> > "We can pretty much understand them." It's impressionistic, sure, but
> > does anyone have a better system?
>
> Why should "we have a really hard time understanding these people" be
> assigned the number 90%, rather than the more intuitive "50%," which
> would indicate "We can understand them half the time"?
It means 90% or lower. Could be much lower. But when it gets a lot
lower than 90%, you start hearing stuff like, "I can't understand that
at all." "I can't get one word." "That's unintelligible." Stuff like
that...
>
> > If you can pick up the language less than a week of close contact, I
> > figure dialect, not language. More time than that, I figure language
> > not dialect. It's impressionistic, but no one is offering anything
> > better. Dutch speakers widely acknowledge a hard time understanding
> > Dutch Low Saxon.
>
> Have you not heard of the West African notion of "one-day language,"
> "two-day language," etc.?
I refer to that. That's got to be a dialect, to me anyway.
>
> > The Limburgs Wikipedia article originally said dialect, not language,
> > when I did my notes. More recently, it got changed by Limburgs
> > advocates. Seems like Dutch still don't want to say it's a language
> > though.
>
> Proving, YET AGAIN, that "language" vs. "dialect" is NOT a linguistic
> notion, but a political one.
I am sorry, but I think this is simply insane. Linguists should decide
on some even fuzzy linguistic definition, and stick with it, and let
the political idiots do what they will.
Anyway, this guy disagrees with you.
http://www.cs.chalmers.se/%7Eharald2/count.pdf
Hammarström, H. 2008. Counting Languages in Dialect Continua Using the
Criterion of Mutual Intelligibility. Journal of Quantitative
Linguistics 15:1, pp. 36-45.
He also references the question here in his Ethnologue review, which
shows that the accusation of them being insane splitters is false:
Hammarström, H. 2005. Review of the Ethnologue, 15th Ed., Raymond J.
Gordon (ed.), SIL International, Dallas, 2005. LINGUIST LIST 16.2637
12 Sept 2005.
What's strange is that if you look through the specialist literature
in Linguistics, linguists are always making this determination: X is
really just a dialect of Y, A is really a separate language
altogether, not a dialect of B. Considering that they have no basis to
do so, linguists seem to make this false decision all the time.
>
The vast majority of US English dialects are
> > intelligible all the way.
>
> > I hope this answers most of your criticisms.
>
> Maybe you should have a look at Walt Wolfram's half-hour documentaries
> on the varieties of English across the state of North Carolina, from
> Okracoke on the offshore islands to the Appalachains.
There is an Indian tribe called "Monacans" in Appalachian Virginia. I
heard them on the radio. It was VERY hard to understand.
The only native English dialect I heard in meatspace that was hard to
hear was AAVE. I lived in a tourist area for 16 years and we got
Americans from all over the US. None were hard to hear.
Nathan Sanders
Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
> Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:25:58 -0800 (PST): "jimbo...@gmail.com"
> <jimbo...@gmail.com>: in sci.lang:
>
> >I quite like this fragment
> >
> >"Nor are Frisian and Dutch intelligible,"
> >
> >(I promise you there's no restrictive phrase following anywhere)
> >
> >Quite right. No one understands a word of either!
>
> Not true. I often watch Frisian regional TV (the only one that isn't
> in Dutch! all the other regional station avoid dialects), and I
> understand quite a lot, although it isn't easy.
You've added a "mutually" that isn't in the original!
Nathan
--
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program
Williams College
http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/
Peter T. Daniels
> Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:25:58 -0800 (PST): "jimbo.ty...@gmail.com"
> <jimbo.ty...@gmail.com>: in sci.lang:
>
> >I quite like this fragment
>
> >"Nor are Frisian and Dutch intelligible,"
>
> >(I promise you there's no restrictive phrase following anywhere)
>
> >Quite right. No one understands a word of either!
>
> Not true. I often watch Frisian regional TV (the only one that isn't
> in Dutch! all the other regional station avoid dialects), and I
> understand quite a lot, although it isn't easy.
Whoooosh!!!
Peter T. Daniels
How does that explain why "just barely can manage to understand each
other" counts as 90% rather than 50% -- or any other figure?
> > > If you can pick up the language less than a week of close contact, I
> > > figure dialect, not language. More time than that, I figure language
> > > not dialect. It's impressionistic, but no one is offering anything
> > > better. Dutch speakers widely acknowledge a hard time understanding
> > > Dutch Low Saxon.
>
> > Have you not heard of the West African notion of "one-day language,"
> > "two-day language," etc.?
>
> I refer to that. That's got to be a dialect, to me anyway.
It doesn't matter what it is TO YOU. The only thing that matters is
what ITS SPEAKERS think.
> > > The Limburgs Wikipedia article originally said dialect, not language,
> > > when I did my notes. More recently, it got changed by Limburgs
> > > advocates. Seems like Dutch still don't want to say it's a language
> > > though.
>
> > Proving, YET AGAIN, that "language" vs. "dialect" is NOT a linguistic
> > notion, but a political one.
>
> I am sorry, but I think this is simply insane. Linguists should decide
> on some even fuzzy linguistic definition, and stick with it, and let
> the political idiots do what they will.
Please go to Former Yugoslavia and proclaim your peculiar beliefs.
At least then we won't ever hear from you again.
> Anyway, this guy disagrees with you.
>
> http://www.cs.chalmers.se/%7Eharald2/count.pdf
>
> Hammarström, H. 2008. Counting Languages in Dialect Continua Using the
> Criterion of Mutual Intelligibility. Journal of Quantitative
> Linguistics 15:1, pp. 36-45.
Why should "mutual intelligibility" be the criterion?
He starts off by begging the question: "This paper shows how it is
possible to count languages vs. dialects if, for every pair of
varieties, we are given whether they are mutually intelligible or
not."
That may be fascinating to "computer scientists," but it is utterly
useless in linguistics.
> He also references the question here in his Ethnologue review, which
> shows that the accusation of them being insane splitters is false:
>
> Hammarström, H. 2005. Review of the Ethnologue, 15th Ed., Raymond J.
> Gordon (ed.), SIL International, Dallas, 2005. LINGUIST LIST 16.2637
> 12 Sept 2005.
When did anyone call them insane?
They have a religiously motivated reason to count as many languages as
possible.
> What's strange is that if you look through the specialist literature
> in Linguistics, linguists are always making this determination: X is
> really just a dialect of Y, A is really a separate language
> altogether, not a dialect of B. Considering that they have no basis to
> do so, linguists seem to make this false decision all the time.
Give us some examples in "the specialist literature" using such
emotive terminology.
> The vast majority of US English dialects are
>
> > > intelligible all the way.
>
> > > I hope this answers most of your criticisms.
>
> > Maybe you should have a look at Walt Wolfram's half-hour documentaries
> > on the varieties of English across the state of North Carolina, from
> > Okracoke on the offshore islands to the Appalachains.
One was shown and several were excerpted at the LSA meeting. (One of
the scheduled plenary speakers got sick and couldn't come, so they
gave the time to Wolfram.)
> There is an Indian tribe called "Monacans" in Appalachian Virginia. I
> heard them on the radio. It was VERY hard to understand.
I doubt you've got the name right. What does their being "an Indian
tribe" have to do with their variety of English?
> The only native English dialect I heard in meatspace that was hard to
> hear was AAVE. I lived in a tourist area for 16 years and we got
> Americans from all over the US. None were hard to hear.-
So the only people you've been exposed to were the ones who could
afford vacations in a tourist area?
Harlan Messinger
You doubt that because why?
http://indians.vipnet.org/tribes/monacan.cfm
Would that have been too tough to check before declaring yourself doubtful?
jimbo...@gmail.com
> Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:25:58 -0800 (PST): "jimbo.ty...@gmail.com"
> <jimbo.ty...@gmail.com>: in sci.lang:
>
> >I quite like this fragment
>
> >"Nor are Frisian and Dutch intelligible,"
>
> >(I promise you there's no restrictive phrase following anywhere)
>
> >Quite right. No one understands a word of either!
>
> Not true. I often watch Frisian regional TV (the only one that isn't
> in Dutch! all the other regional station avoid dialects), and I
> understand quite a lot, although it isn't easy.
>
> >This is certainly true! In Liege they speak Luiks after all...
>
> No they don't. Or if they do, it's a Wallon dialect, not Germanic but
> (the picture there show Brussels rather than Liège!)
> --
> Ruud Harmsen,http://rudhar.com
Ruud, I realise I used no irony mark but the fact that there is no
"Luiks" but rather a
Liegeois was my point. I know from amused experience that no variety
of Dutch is
anything like common in Luik.
Jim
benl...@ihug.co.nz
Here's their own home page:
Another "tri-racial isolate group" (Amerindian-African-European),
apparently recognized by the state of Virginia but not by the US
gummint.
Ross Clark
Panu
> On Jan 24, 7:29 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
>
> > Sun, 24 Jan 2010 04:41:07 -0800 (PST): Panu <craoibhi...@gmail.com>:
> > in sci.lang:
>
> > >> > > I always wonder a little bit about 'experts' sitting wide apart
> > >> > > (California?) ignoring local scientists, i.e. German Germanists and
> > >> > > researchers in the many German organizations exploring dialects.
>
> > >> > He claimed that (unnamed) "German professors" have supported him.
>
> > >> A professor of Linguistics (PhD) in the Netherlands. He specializes in
> > >> Dutch and German linguistics.
>
> > >A professor of linguistics told you the people of Aix-la-Chapelle
> > >didn't understand those of Aachen?
>
> > That was a mistake and Bob meanwhile corrected it. So why go on about
> > it? It remains interesting though, which of the many references in the
> > bottom of the page that info came from.
>
> None.
>
> even add it my notes!) and thought I just memorized what it said. I
> thought it said that between Aachen and Aix la Chapelle the language
> or Aix la Chapelle (and Liege) the languages change and become
> travelogue was saying that Aachen German and Liege Limburgs are not
> intelligible with each other, which I suspect to be true, as I analyze
> SE Limburgs and Limburgs as a separate language.
>
It has of course never even occurred to you to learn some of the
languages involved in order to draw your own conclusions. As both
Dutch, German and Frisian are rather closely related to your native
language, you really had no reason not to.
Bob
Well, we also have people moving here from all over the US. This is
California, and people move here from all over the country. Most other
Americans tell me the same thing: they never meet an American native
English speaker they can't understand.
Just for arguments sake, there ARE some English dialects that are hard
to follow:
Monacan Virginian (some strange Appalachian dialect?)
Rural West Virginia "coal hollers" (coal hollows) dialect
AAVE of course
Hard New York dialect, especially say Queens. It's mostly gone, but
sometimes you hear it, often from an Italian or Irish-American.
Mississippi Delta dialect. Usually the kind spoken by very poor Blacks
there.
There's 5, but I've never encountered them in real life, except AAVE.
Bob
> On Jan 25, 1:47 pm, Bob <lindsay.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jan 25, 4:53 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > On Jan 25, 5:13 am, Bob <lindsay.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > On Jan 25, 1:00 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
> > > > > Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:44:46 +1300: "PaulJK"
> > > > > <paul.kr...@paradise.net.nz>: in sci.lang:
> > > > > >> Never heard of him, nor of "Ich, Karl"
> > > > > >>http://mn.wikipedia.org/wiki/??_????
>
> > in Linguistics, linguists are always making this determination: X is
> > really just a dialect of Y, A is really a separate language
> > altogether, not a dialect of B. Considering that they have no basis to
> > do so, linguists seem to make this false decision all the time.
>
> Give us some examples in "the specialist literature" using such
> emotive terminology.
Hammarström, H. 2005. Review of the Ethnologue, 15th Ed., Raymond J.
Gordon (ed.), SIL International, Dallas, 2005. LINGUIST LIST 16.2637
12 Sept 2005.
http://www.cs.chalmers.se/%7Eharald2/ethnologue.pdf
He gives many examples in that review.
Peter T. Daniels
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Jan 25, 1:47 pm, Bob <lindsay.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> There is an Indian tribe called "Monacans" in Appalachian Virginia. I
> >> heard them on the radio. It was VERY hard to understand.
>
> > I doubt you've got the name right.
>
> You doubt that because why?
Um, have you not been following the discussion of Bob's
"contributions"?
Peter T. Daniels
>
> He gives many examples in that review.-
I scrolled through every one of the 26 pages of TeX and found not one
example of emotive terminology.
Was that published anywhere? Does it have any audience in mind? Why is
its style so similar to yours?
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>Just for arguments sake, there ARE some English dialects that are hard
>to follow:
[,,,]
>AAVE of course
[,,,]
>There's 5, but I've never encountered them in real life, except AAVE.
Q: What is AAVE?
A: African American Vernacular English
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_English
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>> Moral: add everything to your notes and link the sources.
>
>It has of course never even occurred to you to learn some of the
>languages involved in order to draw your own conclusions. As both
>Dutch, German and Frisian are rather closely related to your native
>language, you really had no reason not to.
It isn't necessary to learn a language in order to study it.
Bob
Having reading comprehension problems again?
From p. 5 and there are many others.
Lauje [law] should be split in two (Himmelmann 2001, p. 21) .. both
Lauje and Ampibabo-Lauje speakers do not consider their speech
varieties mutually intelligible.
Lenca is (or was) two languages and Xinca was more like four
languages (Campbell 1997, p. 166-167).
Kilii Boni may be split from Boni (Heine 1982, p. 12).
Kamona may be split from Bijogo (Segerer 2002, p. 7) as Ethnologue
admits.
Befang could be split into Bangui and Modele (Boum 1981, p. 19) on
decent grounds.
Bade [bde] could be split following Schuh: Bade is dialectally
diverse, with some dialects differing enough from each other that one
is tempted to call the distinct languages (Schuh 2005, p. 1).
5
Panoan Katuk´ina and Shanenawa are better treated as separate
languages (Vieira Candido 2004, p. 13).
Lemiting was distinct from Kiput (Blust 2003, p. 1).
Mambila could be split into more than 2 (Connell 2000, p. 202).
Tetun [tet] consists of two .. virtually mutually untelligible (van
Engelehoven and van Klinken 2005, p. 735) dialects. See also (van
Klinken 1999; Williams-van Klinken, Hajek, and Nordlinger 2002, p. 3,
6) and section 1.1 of (Williams-van Klinken, Hajek, and Nordlinger
2001).
All of those quoted in parentheses made determinations about what is a
language and what is a dialect.
>
> Was that published anywhere? Does it have any audience in mind?
It appeared on the Linguist List
Why is its style so similar to yours?
Good God you're weird. His name is Harald Hammarström. My name is
Robert Lindsay.
http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~harald2/
There's his photo. Mine's on my webpage. He doesn't even look like me.
Now you think I'm impersonating other human beings. Are you mentally
ok? Why don't you go see a therapist. You can easily afford it on your
income. There's nothing to be ashamed of.
Bob
> Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:32:23 -0800 (PST): Panu <craoibhi...@gmail.com>:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7p4J1jHy9o
Hey Ruud. Check out this over the top Flemish dialect. I think it is
some Flemish Brabants spoken in the West of Vlaams Brabant on the
border with East Flanders. There are Dutch and even Flemish speakers
all over the Net saying they can't understand this guy, lol.
Funny video too.
Ruud Harmsen
>> > Gordon (ed.), SIL International, Dallas, 2005. LINGUIST LIST 16.2637
>> > 12 Sept 2005.
>> > http://www.cs.chalmers.se/%7Eharald2/ethnologue.pdf
>>
>> > He gives many examples in that review.-
>On Jan 25, 8:28�pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> I scrolled through every one of the 26 pages of TeX and found not one
>> example of emotive terminology.
TeX? You mean you don't have a PDF-reader on your computer system? You
get to see PDFs as TeX?
Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:22:28 -0800 (PST): Bob <lindsay...@gmail.com>:
in sci.lang:
>Having reading comprehension problems again?
>
>From p. 5 and there are many others.
>
>Lauje [law] should be split in two (Himmelmann 2001, p. 21) .. both
>Lauje and Ampibabo-Lauje speakers do not consider their speech
>varieties mutually intelligible.
<snip>
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7p4J1jHy9o
>
>Hey Ruud. Check out this over the top Flemish dialect. I think it is
>some Flemish Brabants spoken in the West of Vlaams Brabant on the
>border with East Flanders. There are Dutch and even Flemish speakers
>all over the Net saying they can't understand this guy, lol.
>
>Funny video too.
I've seen it on television a few days ago too.
I wouldn't know what dialect it is. As I understand it, Limburgish,
Brabants, and Flemish dialects are rather distinct groups. This is
Brabants or Flemish, but I wouldn't even know which of the two.
It is difficult to understand without the subtitles. The part about
the doors, starting at 0:45 is easier. With the subtitles, and after
getting used to the sound mappings and unusual choice of words, it
becomes so much easier.
The voice-over speaks standard Dutch, with a Belgian accent.
Interestingly, the subtitles are in Dutch but in a different variety
than ours: when a door is closed, for us it is "dicht", not "toe".
And "zetel" is a word we use for seats in parliament, not for
household objects called "chair". We call these "stoel". Etc. etc.
The Vlaams-Nederlands woordenboek lists such lexical differences and
it is some 3 centimeters thick.
Helmut Wollmersdorfer
> And "zetel" is a word we use for seats in parliament, not for
> household objects called "chair". We call these "stoel". Etc. etc.
The same in German: "Sessel" is preferred in the south, "Stuhl" in the
north. In old dictionaries "Sessel" is defined as 'chair with arms', a
"Stuhl" is without arms.
Helmut Wollmersdorfer
Ruud Harmsen
<hel...@wollmersdorfer.at>: in sci.lang:
That reminds me, I always wondered:
Why is Stuhl (/Stu:l/) CTYL in Russian and not IIITYL (i.e. /stul/ not
/Stul/)? Did they get it from Dutch? Lower Saxon? Or an original
Slavic cognate?
And why is table stol?
Peter T. Daniels
That was not the question. You claimed that linguists made value
judgments using emotive language to denigrate "dialects" and praise
"languages" with expressions like "just" and "really."
> > Was that published anywhere? Does it have any audience in mind?
>
> It appeared on the Linguist List
Then why didn't you cite the published version?
> Why is its style so similar to yours?
>
> Good God you're weird. His name is Harald Hammarström. My name is
> Robert Lindsay.
>
> http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~harald2/
>
> There's his photo. Mine's on my webpage. He doesn't even look like me.
>
> Now you think I'm impersonating other human beings. Are you mentally
> ok? Why don't you go see a therapist. You can easily afford it on your
> income. There's nothing to be ashamed of.-
Jeez, you're paranoid!
It doesn't occur to you that someone might suppose you translated his
Swedish original, or edited his English, because he seems to be a
kindred spirit?
Peter T. Daniels
> >> On Jan 25, 8:19 pm, Bob <lindsay.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > Gordon (ed.), SIL International, Dallas, 2005. LINGUIST LIST 16.2637
> >> > 12 Sept 2005.
> >> >http://www.cs.chalmers.se/%7Eharald2/ethnologue.pdf
>
> >> > He gives many examples in that review.-
> >On Jan 25, 8:28 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >> I scrolled through every one of the 26 pages of TeX and found not one
> >> example of emotive terminology.
>
> TeX? You mean you don't have a PDF-reader on your computer system? You
> get to see PDFs as TeX?
No, I had to suffer through about 20 pages of "Computer Modern" (some
of it is in something Courier-like) because he doesn't have the wit to
use a legible typeface.
Ruud Harmsen
<gram...@verizon.net>: in sci.lang:
>On Jan 26, 3:13�am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
>> >> On Jan 25, 8:19�pm, Bob <lindsay.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> > Hammarstr�m, H. 2005. Review of the Ethnologue, 15th Ed., Raymond J.
>> >> > Gordon (ed.), SIL International, Dallas, 2005. LINGUIST LIST 16.2637
>> >> > 12 Sept 2005.
>> >> >http://www.cs.chalmers.se/%7Eharald2/ethnologue.pdf
>>
>> >> > He gives many examples in that review.-
>> >On Jan 25, 8:28�pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> >> I scrolled through every one of the 26 pages of TeX and found not one
>> >> example of emotive terminology.
>>
>> TeX? You mean you don't have a PDF-reader on your computer system? You
>> get to see PDFs as TeX?
>
>No, I had to suffer through about 20 pages of "Computer Modern" (some
>of it is in something Courier-like) because he doesn't have the wit to
>use a legible typeface.
Looks OK on my screen. Isn't it Century Schoolbook or something like
that?
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com
Yok! Ger�ekten t�rk don't speak!
Peter T. Daniels
> Tue, 26 Jan 2010 04:50:18 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Jan 26, 3:13 am, Ruud Harmsen <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote:
> >> >> On Jan 25, 8:19 pm, Bob <lindsay.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >> > Gordon (ed.), SIL International, Dallas, 2005. LINGUIST LIST 16.2637
> >> >> > 12 Sept 2005.
> >> >> >http://www.cs.chalmers.se/%7Eharald2/ethnologue.pdf
>
> >> >> > He gives many examples in that review.-
> >> >On Jan 25, 8:28 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >> >> I scrolled through every one of the 26 pages of TeX and found not one
> >> >> example of emotive terminology.
>
> >> TeX? You mean you don't have a PDF-reader on your computer system? You
> >> get to see PDFs as TeX?
>
> >No, I had to suffer through about 20 pages of "Computer Modern" (some
> >of it is in something Courier-like) because he doesn't have the wit to
> >use a legible typeface.
>
> Looks OK on my screen. Isn't it Century Schoolbook or something like
> that?
I'm not a fan of Century Schoolbook, either (it was used for
elementary readers and is very much "of its time"), but this is
Computer Modern straight out of the box. Or with the default leading
reduced a bit.
Bob
Good God, you're bonkers. Why would I do a bizarre and insane thing
like that? Why would I translate another man's writing and say it's my
own or God forbid edit his writing? You're really crazy man. I don't
do weird things like that. That's pretty sleazy. Sounds like something
you maniacs might do. I'm a decent person.
Bob
Why should I? He has the pdf and the Linguist List copies both on his
site, and the pdf was linked in a recent article I wrote. I don't have
to run around accommodating you and all of your strange demands. I
have better things to do.
>
> > Why is its style so similar to yours?
What a flat out, weird, bizarre and somewhat disturbed comment. You
think I forge this guy's prose or impostor people. Good God, man.
http://uit.no/scandiasyn/alvdalen2009abstracts/
Here's another one. This guy does something you say that no reputable
linguist ever does, as you have never read anywhere in all of the
special literature where any reputable linguist attempted to make a
dialect/language distinction. But this guy does it right here:
"Lars Steensland (Lund University):
Is there a vocative case in the Övdalian language?
With a short introduction to the situation and the structure of
Övdalian
Northern Dalecarlia is culturally one of the most conservative regions
of Sweden. The most conservative phenomenon in the parish Älvdalen is
the language. The Övdalian language is traditionally - but in my
opinion wrongly - considered a Swedish dialect. Its closest relative
is Swedish, but it shares some traits with Norwegian. Övdalian has
attracted the attention and interest of scholars and laymen for
centuries. The first text of some length is a comedy, written almost
400 years ago, where the acting peasants speak Övdalian."
Lars Steensland is a linguist at Lars University. Why is saying that
Dalecarlian is a language, not a dialect, if no proper linguist would
ever do such a thing?
Richard Herring
<b67b0233-9869-4d31...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>, Bob
<lindsay...@gmail.com> writes
>http://uit.no/scandiasyn/alvdalen2009abstracts/
>Here's another one. This guy does something you say that no reputable
>linguist ever does, as you have never read anywhere in all of the
>special literature where any reputable linguist attempted to make a
>dialect/language distinction. But this guy does it right here:
>
>"Lars Steensland (Lund University):
>With a short introduction to the situation and the structure of
>
>Northern Dalecarlia is culturally one of the most conservative regions
>the language. The �vdalian language is traditionally - but in my
>opinion wrongly - considered a Swedish dialect. Its closest relative
>attracted the attention and interest of scholars and laymen for
>centuries. The first text of some length is a comedy, written almost
>
>Lars Steensland is a linguist at Lars
Lund?
>University. Why is saying that
>Dalecarlian is a language, not a dialect, if no proper linguist would
>ever do such a thing?
Where does he say that? Not in the above extract, where his point is
that since it has some Norwegian traits, not just Swedish, it's wrong to
call it simply "a Swedish dialect". IOW the question he's addressing is
not "language vs. dialect" but "where is it located on the
Swedish<->Norwegian continuum".
--
Richard Herring
Peter T. Daniels
> you maniacs might do. I'm a decent person.-
You really are paranoid.
People are _paid_ to edit or translate works all the time.
Where did anyone suggest that you "say it's your own"?
Harlan Messinger
> On Jan 25, 3:38 pm, Harlan Messinger
> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Jan 25, 1:47 pm, Bob <lindsay.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> There is an Indian tribe called "Monacans" in Appalachian Virginia. I
>>>> heard them on the radio. It was VERY hard to understand.
>>> I doubt you've got the name right.
>> You doubt that because why?
>
> Um, have you not been following the discussion of Bob's
> "contributions"?
I didn't realize that your intent was to insult him rather than to
indicate that you found the name suspicious.
Harlan Messinger
Or before it became /S/ in German?
Brian M. Scott
<r...@rudhar.eu> wrote in
<news:f6mtl59dpql9kfoi2...@4ax.com> in
sci.lang:
[...]
> Why is Stuhl (/Stu:l/) CTYL in Russian and not IIITYL
> (i.e. /stul/ not /Stul/)? Did they get it from Dutch?
> Lower Saxon? Or an original Slavic cognate?
A borrowing, but I'm not sure that the precise source is
known. It could conceivably be one of the rare borrowings
from ON, in this case <st�ll>; ON <kr�kr> was borrowed as
<krjuk>.
> And why is table stol?
The word is common Slavic and also found in Lith. (st�las)
and OPruss. (stalis); Derksen reconstructs PBS *stolos < PIE
*sth2-lo-.
Brian
Peter T. Daniels
It does rather look like "Mohicans," doesn't it? After all, the boy
doesn't know the (non)difference between Aachen and Aix.
I wonder (and don't care) whether their website tells us where they
plucked their name from.
Bright's Dictionary thinks it "might" be related to Manakin or
Manokin, which might mean 'he will dig up'.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
> On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:00:30 +0100, Ruud Harmsen
> <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote in
> <news:f6mtl59dpql9kfoi2...@4ax.com> in
> sci.lang:
>
> [...]
>
> > Why is Stuhl (/Stu:l/) CTYL in Russian and not IIITYL
> > (i.e. /stul/ not /Stul/)? Did they get it from Dutch?
> > Lower Saxon? Or an original Slavic cognate?
>
> A borrowing, but I'm not sure that the precise source is
> known. It could conceivably be one of the rare borrowings
> <krjuk>.
>
> > And why is table stol?
>
> and OPruss. (stalis); Derksen reconstructs PBS *stolos < PIE
> *sth2-lo-.
>
> Brian
...raising the possibility that /S/ -> /s/ in /stul/ under the
influence of /stol/?
Ross Clark
Bob
> In message
> <b67b0233-9869-4d31-b3c7-715249f20...@k19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>, Bob
> <lindsay.rob...@gmail.com> writes
>
>
>
> >http://uit.no/scandiasyn/alvdalen2009abstracts/
> >Here's another one. This guy does something you say that no reputable
> >linguist ever does, as you have never read anywhere in all of the
> >special literature where any reputable linguist attempted to make a
> >dialect/language distinction. But this guy does it right here:
>
> >"Lars Steensland (Lund University):
> >With a short introduction to the situation and the structure of
>
> >Northern Dalecarlia is culturally one of the most conservative regions
> >opinion wrongly - considered a Swedish dialect. Its closest relative
> >attracted the attention and interest of scholars and laymen for
> >centuries. The first text of some length is a comedy, written almost
>
> >Lars Steensland is a linguist at Lars
>
> Lund?
>
> >University. Why is saying that
> >Dalecarlian is a language, not a dialect, if no proper linguist would
> >ever do such a thing?
>
> Where does he say that? Not in the above extract, where his point is
> that since it has some Norwegian traits, not just Swedish, it's wrong to
> call it simply "a Swedish dialect". IOW the question he's addressing is
> not "language vs. dialect" but "where is it located on the
> Swedish<->Norwegian continuum".
>
> --
> Richard Herring
Having reading comprehension problems again?
He says it's not a Swedish dialect, it's a separate language
altogether. Then he goes on to refer to it as the Övdalian language,
as opposed to the Övdalian dialect. A separate language, which is most
closely related to Swedish.
Linguists make these determinations all the time. A Sinologist told me
that a Chinese lect that he worked with in Fujian in the 80's "as
definitely a separate language at the time" (apparently because the
market language could not understand it. He wasn't sure if it was
still a lanuage now, as opposed to a dialect. IOW, it may have
undergone dialect leveling and may now be understandable with the big
market language.
A linguist I know, an expert on Yokuts, told me that he thinks that
the 60 Yokuts dialects are best analyzed as 6-8 separate languages,
with the rest dialects of those languages.
Where do you guys get off saying that linguists never make the
language/dialect assessment?
Bob
Why does he need anyone to translate his stuff? He writes his articles
(submitted to peer reviewed journals) in English.
Peter T. Daniels
How would I know that?
Many Europeans write in "English" which is only comprehensible if you
read it with a heavy accent and you know the author's native language.
Peter T. Daniels
On Jan 26, 9:23 am, Bob <lindsay.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 26, 4:48 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On Jan 26, 2:22 am, Bob <lindsay.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > All of those quoted in parentheses made determinations about what is a
> > > language and what is a dialect.
>
> > That was not the question. You claimed that linguists made value
> > judgments using emotive language to denigrate "dialects" and praise
> > "languages" with expressions like "just" and "really."
Why do you ignore this point and continue to pretend that I said that
linguists don't label things as languages or dialects?
> > > > Was that published anywhere? Does it have any audience in mind?
>
> > > It appeared on the Linguist List
>
> > Then why didn't you cite the published version?
>
> Why should I? He has the pdf and the Linguist List copies both on his
> site, and the pdf was linked in a recent article I wrote. I don't have
> to run around accommodating you and all of your strange demands. I
> have better things to do.
If something has been published, it is normal to cite the published
version, and not a perhaps preliminary version (as this one likely is,
since it carries no mention of the fact it was published). I obviously
did not "demand" such a thing a priori, not having been aware it was
published on LINGUIST List.
> > > Why is its style so similar to yours?
>
> What a flat out, weird, bizarre and somewhat disturbed comment. You
> think I forge this guy's prose or impostor people. Good God, man.
Did you forget that you already commented on this? Note the three
chevrons. You even took the trouble to delete your previous comment.
> http://uit.no/scandiasyn/alvdalen2009abstracts/
> Here's another one. This guy does something you say that no reputable
> linguist ever does, as you have never read anywhere in all of the
> special literature where any reputable linguist attempted to make a
> dialect/language distinction. But this guy does it right here:
>
> "Lars Steensland (Lund University):
> Is there a vocative case in the Övdalian language?
> With a short introduction to the situation and the structure of
> Övdalian
>
> Northern Dalecarlia is culturally one of the most conservative regions
> of Sweden. The most conservative phenomenon in the parish Älvdalen is
> the language. The Övdalian language is traditionally - but in my
> opinion wrongly - considered a Swedish dialect. Its closest relative
> is Swedish, but it shares some traits with Norwegian. Övdalian has
> attracted the attention and interest of scholars and laymen for
> centuries. The first text of some length is a comedy, written almost
> 400 years ago, where the acting peasants speak Övdalian."
>
> Lars Steensland is a linguist at Lars University. Why is saying that
> Dalecarlian is a language, not a dialect, if no proper linguist would
> ever do such a thing?-
(a) Richard has explained what Steensland actually did (viz., not make
a language/dialect distinction).
(b) Steensland did not, as you claimed that linguists do all the time,
use "dialect" to denigrate a particular speech variety.
Peter T. Daniels
When did anyone ever say such a thing?
Linguists recognize that it is a political, not a linguistic,
distinction.
Why do you refuse to acknowledge that the problem we have with your
claim is that you impute to linguists _value judgments_ about lects?
Joachim Pense
True, but I doubt that many will prepare a version in their native language
first and translate it into English afterwards.
--
My favourite # 6: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9FZeNOouMM>
My favourite # 51: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKX3U5Pnf5Q>
PaulJK
I used to think it was a strange old borrowing but Vasmer changed
my mind. It seems to be a Slavic cognate which would explain
the strange non-correspondences with Germanic languages.
In Czech it survives suffixed with -ice as "stolice" with several
meanings:
a royal chair (královská stolice),
a chair of justice (soudní stolice), and
a polite medical expression for bowel movement (stolice).
> And why is table stol?
Hmmm. In Czech table is "stůl" (diminutive is "stolek").
In old Czech it had a true diphthong "stuol".
"Writing table" is "psací stul" (psát = write).
pjk
P.S.
Vasmer says:
<quote>
WORD: стол
GENERAL: род. п. -а́, укр. стiл, род. п. -á, др.-русск. столъ "стол, престол, сидение",
ст.-слав. столъ σκαμνίον, θρόνος (Остром., Супр.), болг. стол "стул, трон, кресло", сербохорв. сто̑,
род. п. сто̀ла "стул, кресло, стол", словен. stòl, род. п. stólа "стул,
кресло, стол", "кровельные стропила", чеш. stůl, род. п. stolu "стол", слвц. stôl "стол",
польск. stóɫ, род. п. stoɫu "стол", в.-луж., н.-луж. stoɫ "стул, стол, престол".
ORIGIN: Сравнивают с лит. stãlas "стол", др.-прусск. stalis, вин. п. stallan, лит. ùžstalis м.
"место за столом", pastõlai мн. "помост", др.-прусск. stallit "стоять", гот. stōls м. "стул",
др.-исл. borþstóll "станина стола", далее сюда же *stati, *stojǫ "стоять". С др. стороны,
напрашивается толкование из формы, связанной чередованием гласных со steljǫ,
stьlati (см. стелю́), а также сравнение с др.-инд. sthálam ср. р., sthalī ж. "возвышение,
холм, материк" (Мейе, Ét. 420; Траутман, ВSW 284; Арr. Sprd. 435; Уленбек, Aind.
Wb. 346; Торп 488; Розвадовский, Маt. i Рr. 2, 353).
TRUBACHEV: [Существует также мнение, что окситонированное ударение род. п. ед. ч.
стола́ указывает на то, что это живое производное от стелю́; см. Курилович, JР, 33,
стр. 69; Славский, JР, 38, 1958, стр. 229. -- Т.]
<unquote>
Brian M. Scott
"benl...@ihug.co.nz" <benl...@ihug.co.nz> wrote in
<news:d0aea5d7-b096-41a6...@c29g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang:
> On Jan 27, 6:33�am, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>> On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:00:30 +0100, Ruud Harmsen
>> <r...@rudhar.eu> wrote in
>> <news:f6mtl59dpql9kfoi2...@4ax.com> in
>> sci.lang:
>> [...]
>>> Why is Stuhl (/Stu:l/) CTYL in Russian and not IIITYL
>>> (i.e. /stul/ not /Stul/)? Did they get it from Dutch?
>>> Lower Saxon? Or an original Slavic cognate?
>> A borrowing, but I'm not sure that the precise source is
>> known. �It could conceivably be one of the rare borrowings
>> from ON, in this case <st�ll>; ON <kr�kr> was borrowed as
>> <krjuk>.
>>> And why is table stol?
>> The word is common Slavic and also found in Lith. (st�las)
>> and OPruss. (stalis); Derksen reconstructs PBS *stolos < PIE
>> *sth2-lo-.
> ...raising the possibility that /S/ -> /s/ in /stul/ under the
> influence of /stol/?
Sounds like another reasonable possibility, especially if
the borrowing is old enough that OHG/MHG /s/, while somewhat
palatalized, hadn't shifted all the way to [S].
Brian
Bob
I know this is the party line in the field, but I consider it to be
start raving bonkers.
Let's look at Spanish and French. Are they languages or dialects? Of
course they are languages! Every linguist on Earth says so. We could
say, no, they are dialects of a language called "Romance," which there
are at least the 41 dialects listed here. Romanian, Italian, Romansch,
Ladin, Friulian, Occitan, Portuguese, Catalan, French, Portuguese,
Sardinian? All dialects of one languages, called the Romance language.
How insane can we get?
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=2-16
Let's go even crazier. There's one language, called Indo-European. It
has the following 439 dialects spoken here:
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=2-16
How about Limburgs. There are 850 dialects of Limburgs. Let's go
insane and say there are really 850 Limburgs languages, and list them
all. How wacky is that?
Just because something is dogma is this ridiculously SOFT SCIENCE
field called Linguistics doesn't mean it's the best scientific
explanation of the facts, especially in light of Occam's Razor.
Getting down to brass tacks, why should linguists be so sleazy as to
allow politicians, the scum of the Earth, to make this dialect/
language determination. Especially when so many of them are out and
out fascists, or even genocidal fascists? We defer to these scum? Why?
>
> Why do you refuse to acknowledge that the problem we have with your
> claim is that you impute to linguists _value judgments_ about lects?
I'm sorry. I misunderstood the nature of your argument. You are
correct. I suppose that linguists typically do not make value
judgments about lects, denigrating dialects and elevating languages.
Do you think that everything that is part line PC dogma in this most
soft science of fields is somehow true for all time? Various fields
hold dogmas, later determined to be incorrect, all the time. In these
fields, party line dogma is like peer pressure in teenagers. The party
line comes and goes and changes with the wind. I think most linguists
just go along with whatever the party line of the day is because those
who disagree are attacked in the most ruthless and sickening way, just
like a teenager who won't go along with the crowd.
Bob
> Peter T. Daniels (in sci.lang):
>
> > On Jan 26, 6:38 pm, Bob <lindsay.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Why does he need anyone to translate his stuff? He writes his articles
> >> (submitted to peer reviewed journals) in English.-
>
> > How would I know that?
>
> > Many Europeans write in "English" which is only comprehensible if you
> > read it with a heavy accent and you know the author's native language.
>
> True, but I doubt that many will prepare a version in their native language
> first and translate it into English afterwards.
>
scholar who submit pieces to peer reviewed journals almost always
write the most immaculate English? Is their English really that good,
or did a native speaker give it a go over?
Brian M. Scott
<lindsay...@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:dafb464a-0994-44dd...@v25g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang:
[...]
> How come these non-native speaking scholar who submit
> pieces to peer reviewed journals almost always write the
> most immaculate English?
They don't. Many write impeccable academic English, but
certainly not almost all, and sometimes the 'accents' are
very noticeable.
> Is their English really that good, or did a native speaker
> give it a go over?
Both occur.
Brian M. Scott
<paul....@paradise.net.nz> wrote in
<news:hjolre$9is$1...@news.eternal-september.org> in sci.lang:
> Ruud Harmsen wrote:
[...]
>> Why is Stuhl (/Stu:l/) CTYL in Russian and not IIITYL
>> (i.e. /stul/ not /Stul/)? Did they get it from Dutch?
>> Lower Saxon? Or an original Slavic cognate?
> I used to think it was a strange old borrowing but Vasmer
> changed my mind. It seems to be a Slavic cognate which
> would explain the strange non-correspondences with
> Germanic languages.
How so? So far as I can tell, Vasmer doesn't have an entry
for <стул>.
[...]
Brian
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>Let's look at Spanish and French. Are they languages or dialects? Of
>course they are languages! Every linguist on Earth says so. We could
>say, no, they are dialects of a language called "Romance," which there
>are at least the 41 dialects listed here. Romanian, Italian, Romansch,
>Ladin, Friulian, Occitan, Portuguese, Catalan, French, Portuguese,
>Sardinian? All dialects of one languages, called the Romance language.
>How insane can we get?
Arabic and Chinese are treated that way. One important difference is
though, that most of these Romance "dialects" have a written tradition
of their own, and are used as linguae francae in countries.
Ruud Harmsen
in sci.lang:
>http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=2-16
>
>Let's go even crazier. There's one language, called Indo-European. It
>has the following 439 dialects spoken here:
>
>http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=2-16
>
>How about Limburgs. There are 850 dialects of Limburgs. Let's go
>insane and say there are really 850 Limburgs languages, and list them
>all. How wacky is that?
>Just because something is dogma is this ridiculously SOFT SCIENCE
>field called Linguistics doesn't mean it's the best scientific
>explanation of the facts, especially in light of Occam's Razor.
That Limburgs is not a language, and not 850 languages, but just a
group (no, several groups!) of dialects, is not a dogma of
linguistics, but relies on the rol these dialects play in daily life,
in society. In other words: politics, sociology. Not linguistics.
Helmut Wollmersdorfer
> Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:42:42 +0100: Helmut Wollmersdorfer
> <hel...@wollmersdorfer.at>: in sci.lang:
>> The same in German: "Sessel" is preferred in the south, "Stuhl" in the
>> north. In old dictionaries "Sessel" is defined as 'chair with arms', a
>> "Stuhl" is without arms.
> That reminds me, I always wondered:
> Why is Stuhl (/Stu:l/) CTYL in Russian and not IIITYL (i.e. /stul/ not
> /Stul/)? Did they get it from Dutch? Lower Saxon? Or an original
> Slavic cognate?
> And why is table stol?
The original meaning of German "Stuhl" was "Gestell", see "Dachstuhl"
(EN: roof truss).
Helmut Wollmersdorfer