Banning of languages
Ilya Talev
expressed very strong opinions on the existence
of a Macedonian language throughout the centuries.
I tried to explain, in vain, that there was no
Macedonian language until the fall of 1944,
when it was created by a State Decree.
Bulgarian books were banned in the Macedonian
Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, while the
people who tried to speak Bulgarian or to
teach their childeren Bulgarian language were
severely persecuted.
Well, here is a small news item from the wires:
"Bulgarian Books Unbanned in Macedonia".
I have a question to you all:
Have you ever heard, not just in modern times,
but ever! of a language being banned?
Books being confiscated and destroyed not
because of their authors' origin or beliefs,
but because of the language in which they are
writen?
* * * * * * *
End of book ban ignites debate in Macedonia
09:06 a.m. Jul 08, 1999 Eastern
By Dina Kyriakidou
SKOPJE, July 8 (Reuters) - Macedonia this week lifted a ban on
Bulgarian books in the latest chapter of a bizarre language dispute
with its Balkan neighbour, but the move triggered a political storm of
opposition protest.
The country's main opposition party, the formerly communist Social
Democratic Alliance (SDA), pressed on Thursday for a censure motion
in parliament against Culture Minister Dimitar Dimitrov, calling the
decision tantamount to treason.
``The book ban should not have been lifted,'' SDA spokesman Vlado
Buckovski told Reuters. ``The Bulgarisation of our culture is the
biggest issue for Macedonia and we want parliament to debate it.''
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.
maf
Ilya Talev wrote:
> Some time ago, some writers in this newsgroup
> expressed very strong opinions on the existence
> of a Macedonian language throughout the centuries.
>
> I tried to explain, in vain, that there was no
> Macedonian language until the fall of 1944,
> when it was created by a State Decree.
What Macedonians didn't speak before 1944?
I know what you mean (I think) that "Macedonian" and "Bulgarian" were
considered basically the same thing (separate dialects of the same
language) or that Macedonians spoke their own way among themselves and
wrote using Bulgarian and maybe used somehting more like standard Bulgarian
in "official" contexts.
This seems to be a historical trend in most Slavic-speaking areas with the
partial exceptions of Russian and Polish, namely the identification of
language with the smallest possible ethnic group instead of the largest and
the artificial creation of standard languages as a way of creating
nationalism in subsets of the same language area (as in Czech and Slovak or
in another case Serbian, Croation, now Bosnian).
> Have you ever heard, not just in modern times,
> but ever! of a language being banned?
> Books being confiscated and destroyed not
> because of their authors' origin or beliefs,
> but because of the language in which they are
> writen?
I think Israeli Hebrew was banned in the Soviet Union (the ban was
unofficial but very real).Also I remember reading that a number of American
Indian groups in the 19th century began reading and writing in their own
languages. In Oklahomah, the Cherokees and Choctaws especially were
creating autonomous written and publishing traditions that were suppressed
(printing presses destroyed etc) as Oklahomah entered the Union.
I'm sure there were other instances as well. The sad fact that linguistic
oppression is as common as dirt (and about as attractive).
maf
qu...@chaos.ao.net
[...]
>Have you ever heard, not just in modern times,
>but ever! of a language being banned?
>Books being confiscated and destroyed not
>because of their authors' origin or beliefs,
>but because of the language in which they are
>writen?
Yes- I can think of two right off--- Basque and Irish gaelic...
D.M.Falk...
--
Quozl Mephit in 2000: Because skunks are so damn cute! :)
dmitri mosier
>
>[...]
>
>>Have you ever heard, not just in modern times,
>>but ever! of a language being banned?
>>Books being confiscated and destroyed not
>>because of their authors' origin or beliefs,
>>but because of the language in which they are
>>writen?
>
>Yes- I can think of two right off--- Basque and Irish gaelic...
>
>D.M.Falk...
number of Native American languages native to what is now the United States.
Tehre have been reports to the effect that children were beaten for speaking
their native language off the reservatin or in school.......
dmitri
Learn Esperanto, the international language that really works! For some free
information and lesson one of a free ten lesson postal course, email
in...@esperanto-usa.org. For a brief introduction, go to
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/1197.
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
dmitri mosier <plen...@aol.comnospam> wrote:
>>Ilya Talev <ta...@ibm.net> wrote:
>>
>>[...]
>>
>>>Have you ever heard, not just in modern times,
>>>but ever! of a language being banned?
>>>Books being confiscated and destroyed not
>>>because of their authors' origin or beliefs,
>>>but because of the language in which they are
>>>writen?
>>
>>Yes- I can think of two right off--- Basque and Irish gaelic...
>>
>>D.M.Falk...
>not to mention Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Catalan, Breton, Provençal, and any
>number of Native American languages native to what is now the United States.
>Tehre have been reports to the effect that children were beaten for speaking
>their native language off the reservatin or in school.......
All this is true, but it's not quite what Mr Talev was talking about. Was
writing in Gaelic (Scots or Irish), Welsh, and Provenc,al ever banned? I
think that may be the case for Breton post-WWII and I know it was for the
minority languages of Spain under Franco. (The Catalans got around this
by publishing in Andorra.) I'm also fairly sure minority languages
(Armenian, Kurdish, Greek, Circassian, etc.) are banned from the media in
Turkey.
Anyways, the Macedonian case clearly isn't as exceptional as he may have
thought.
--
Daniel "Da" von Brighoff /\ Dilettanten
(de...@midway.uchicago.edu) /__\ erhebt Euch
/____\ gegen die Kunst!
Ras William I
>>>
>>>D.M.Falk...
>>not to mention Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Catalan, Breton, Provençal, and any
>>number of Native American languages native to what is now the United States.
>
>>Tehre have been reports to the effect that children were beaten for speaking
>>their native language off the reservatin or in school.......
>
>All this is true, but it's not quite what Mr Talev was talking about. Was
>writing in Gaelic (Scots or Irish), Welsh, and Provenc,al ever banned? I
>think that may be the case for Breton post-WWII and I know it was for the
>minority languages of Spain under Franco. (The Catalans got around this
>by publishing in Andorra.) I'm also fairly sure minority languages
>(Armenian, Kurdish, Greek, Circassian, etc.) are banned from the media in
>Turkey.
I have heard that Kurds have been banned and punished for speaking or singing
in Kurdish, by the Turk government.
Don't forget all the West African languages that were suppressed during
slavery. Especially Twi, Yoruba and Mende.
Aba Selama
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
>Maori was unofficially banned in New Zealand school until the late
>seventies. Nowadays, they spend millions trying to promote it!
There's an important distinction in the Macedonian case that is getting
lost in the follow-ups: Banning from education vs. banning from the
media/public life. No small number of languages have been banned from
educational institutions--even English in the United States! But I think
there's an important distinction between that (reprehensible as it may be)
and trying to forbid all public use of a language. The latter is, thank-
fully, rarer and more often done for strictly political reasons, as
opposed to (misguided) paedogogical ones.
Ilya Talev
Ras William I wrote:
>
> I have heard that Kurds have been banned and punished for speaking or singing
> in Kurdish, by the Turk government.
>
> Don't forget all the West African languages that were suppressed during
> slavery. Especially Twi, Yoruba and Mende.
>
> Aba Selama
So, you are sying in effect that the Yugoslav past of Macedonia was
slavery. I fully agree with such a statement.
As for the Kurds in Turkey, I am not sure the KKP propaganda in
the West reflects the situation in the country. I have been in Turkey
a few times and have heard, many times, people speaking Kurdish
language. There are about 12 million Kurds living in the latrgest
Turkish cities; how do you prevent them from speaking Kurdish?
Although it is true and very regretable that the Turkish rulers supress
the very elementary right of every human being of using his native
tongue to the fullest extend possible.
IT
Harlan Messinger
>Some time ago, some writers in this newsgroup
>expressed very strong opinions on the existence
>of a Macedonian language throughout the centuries.
>
>I tried to explain, in vain, that there was no
>Macedonian language until the fall of 1944,
>when it was created by a State Decree.
>Bulgarian books were banned in the Macedonian
>Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, while the
>people who tried to speak Bulgarian or to
>teach their childeren Bulgarian language were
>severely persecuted.
If "Macedonian" is just Bulgarian, and the government banned
Bulgarian, did the residents just become mute and illiterate, since by
speaking or reading Macedonian they would automatically also have been
speaking or reading Bulgarian?
--
Harlan Messinger
There are no Zs in my actual e-mail address.
Ras William I
I forgot to mention that even English was virtually banned in England for a
few hundred years under the Norman Kings... (sorry, it's sweltering hot here)
Aba Selama
Harlan Messinger
>
>
>Ras William I wrote:
>
>>
>> I have heard that Kurds have been banned and punished for speaking or singing
>> in Kurdish, by the Turk government.
>>
>> Don't forget all the West African languages that were suppressed during
>> slavery. Especially Twi, Yoruba and Mende.
>>
>> Aba Selama
>
>So, you are sying in effect that the Yugoslav past of Macedonia was
>slavery. I fully agree with such a statement.
He said that those languages were suppressed during slavery. He did
not say that slavery is defined by the suppression of languages, and
he did not say anything about slavery in Yugoslavia. So, no, he is not
saying, in effect or any other way, what you have just claimed him to
be saying. What kind of convoluted logic are you using?
Ben
> All this is true, but it's not quite what Mr Talev was talking about. Was
> writing in Gaelic (Scots or Irish), Welsh, and Provenc,al ever banned?
In Great Britain children were punished for speaking even a word of any
Celtic or Gaelic language in school.
Pete
seventies. Nowadays, they spend millions trying to promote it!
qu...@chaos.ao.net wrote:
>
> On Fri, 09 Jul 1999 08:00:19 -0400, Ilya Talev <ta...@ibm.net> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >Have you ever heard, not just in modern times,
> >but ever! of a language being banned?
> >Books being confiscated and destroyed not
> >because of their authors' origin or beliefs,
> >but because of the language in which they are
> >writen?
>
> Yes- I can think of two right off--- Basque and Irish gaelic...
>
> D.M.Falk...
>
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
Ras William I <abas...@aol.com.really> wrote:
>
>I forgot to mention that even English was virtually banned in England for a
>few hundred years under the Norman Kings... (sorry, it's sweltering hot here)
Nonsense! Can you show proof of any Norman attempt to supress it as the
language of the common folk? Excluding it from the chancelery doesn't
mean that much when 90+% of the population isn't even literate.
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
Ben <bwe...@simons-rock.edu> wrote:
>
>> All this is true, but it's not quite what Mr Talev was talking about. Was
>> writing in Gaelic (Scots or Irish), Welsh, and Provenc,al ever banned?
>In Great Britain children were punished for speaking even a word of any
^^^^^^^^
>Celtic or Gaelic language in school.
Let's try this once more: Could you possibly answer the question that I
asked rather than the one I acknowledged has been adequately answered?
eidea...@hotmail.com
Ilya Talev <ta...@ibm.net> wrote:
> Have you ever heard, not just in modern times,
> but ever! of a language being banned?
> Books being confiscated and destroyed not
> because of their authors' origin or beliefs,
> but because of the language in which they are
> writen?
All six Celtic languages at one time or another. Breton is still not
much favoured by the French state, and was much persecuted after World
War Two. This was supposedly because many of the Breton leaders were
"Nazi collaborators" (which was rubbish in fact).
German in Sud Tyrol, Alsatz; Australian Aboriginal tongues; Romany;
Ainu; Coptic etc etc
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Ilya Talev
Harlan Messinger wrote:
>
> If "Macedonian" is just Bulgarian, and the government banned
> Bulgarian, did the residents just become mute and illiterate, since by
> speaking or reading Macedonian they would automatically also have been
> speaking or reading Bulgarian?
Very smart, isn't it?
"Macedonian" is a Creole type of a language: Bulgarian grammar
with Serbian vocabulary, or as its inventor, Blazhe Koneski called
it "an analytical Serb language".
IT
Peter T. Daniels
> German in Sud Tyrol, Alsatz;
Someplace other than Alsace (Fr.)/Elsaß (Ger)?
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@worldnet.att.net
dmitri mosier
>>> writing in Gaelic (Scots or Irish), Welsh, and Provenc,al ever banned?
> ^^^^^^^
>
>>In Great Britain children were punished for speaking even a word of any
> ^^^^^^^^
>>Celtic or Gaelic language in school.
>
>Let's try this once more: Could you possibly answer the question that I
>asked rather than the one I acknowledged has been adequately answered?
Well, Friend "Da".....can we not assume that if *speaking* a language is an
offense, then *writing* in it would equally be an offense?
dmitri mosier
>
>"Macedonian" is a Creole type of a language: Bulgarian grammar
>with Serbian vocabulary, or as its inventor, Blazhe Koneski called
>it "an analytical Serb language".
>
What is it with thee and this hatred of this language? Did thee get beaten for
speaking it as a child, and therefore thee feels a compulsion to hit back?
Can thee give us statistics as to how much of the vocabulary is Serb and how
much is Bulgarian and how much is other (i.e. Turk, Greek, etc)?
dmitri mosier
And thee should really look up "Creole" in the dictionary.....it denotes those
languages which started as pidgin (simplified form of one language (usually a
"conquering" one) with the grammer of the native, "conquered" language) that
have become the native language of a younger generation.
So is thee saying that Serbian (the vocab: ref English vocab in Tok Pisin,
i.e. the "conquering" language) was victor over Bulgarian (the grammer: ref the
Papuan grammer of the native, "conquered" language)??
Sounds as if thee doesn't much like the language thee clams Macedonian really
is, either!
One would think that such an eminent "language scientist" as thee claimed to be
a couple months ago would know what a Creole is........if Macedonian is indeed
some kind of hybrid of Serb vocab and Bulgarian grammer, then the closest
analogy would be English.......
Ras William I
><abas...@aol.com.really> wrote:
>>
>>I forgot to mention that even English was virtually banned in England for a
>>few hundred years under the Norman Kings... (sorry, it's sweltering hot
>here)
>
>Nonsense! Can you show proof of any Norman attempt to supress it as the
>language of the common folk? Excluding it from the chancelery doesn't
>mean that much when 90+% of the population isn't even literate.
If Higden is any authority to go by, we may surmise that all schoolchildren in
England were taught to read and write only in French during his day (1st hlf of
14th C.) English was not taught in school before 1349 (sc. Trevisa's updated
trans.) and it is reasonable to suppose that students speaking English were
punished in schools before then. Of course it wasn't a full ban on the common
people using English at home, but it was almost certainly excluded from all
Government and Education for a long time, in favor of French.
Aba Selama
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
Ras William I <abas...@aol.com.really> wrote:
>
>><abas...@aol.com.really> wrote:
>>>
>>>I forgot to mention that even English was virtually banned in England for a
>>>few hundred years under the Norman Kings... (sorry, it's sweltering hot
>>here)
>>
>>Nonsense! Can you show proof of any Norman attempt to supress it as the
>>language of the common folk? Excluding it from the chancelery doesn't
>>mean that much when 90+% of the population isn't even literate.
>
>If Higden is any authority to go by, we may surmise that all schoolchildren in
>England were taught to read and write only in French during his day (1st hlf of
>14th C.)
What percentage of the population attended school in those days, half a
milennium before the concept of "universal public education"?
>English was not taught in school before 1349 (sc. Trevisa's updated
>trans.) and it is reasonable to suppose that students speaking English were
>punished in schools before then.
Is it? Certainly, some teachers might've tried to ban all speaking of
English, but can you establish this was the deliberate policy of the Nor-
mans generally?
>Of course it wasn't a full ban on the common
>people using English at home, but it was almost certainly excluded from all
>Government and Education for a long time, in favor of French.
And Latin was what? A patois of the clergy?
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
dmitri mosier <plen...@aol.comnospam> wrote:
>>All this is true, but it's not quite what Mr Talev was talking about. Was
>>>> writing in Gaelic (Scots or Irish), Welsh, and Provenc,al ever banned?
>> ^^^^^^^
>>
>>>In Great Britain children were punished for speaking even a word of any
>> ^^^^^^^^
>>>Celtic or Gaelic language in school.
>>
>>Let's try this once more: Could you possibly answer the question that I
>>asked rather than the one I acknowledged has been adequately answered?
>
>Well, Friend "Da".....can we not assume that if *speaking* a language is an
>offense, then *writing* in it would equally be an offense?
No, we can't, especially when speaking was only banned *in certain narrow
contexts*, such as the schoolroom. During the period in question (19th
century, the advent of universal public education) hundreds if not thou-
sands of books were legally published in Gaelic and Welsh, many of them in
London itself. It's an odd notion of "banning" that would allow that ex-
ception.
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
Peter T. Daniels <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>eidea...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>> German in Sud Tyrol, Alsatz;
>
>Someplace other than Alsace (Fr.)/Elsaß (Ger)?
If you're so interested in nitpicking, Peter, why ignore "Sud Tyrol"?
Argouarch
In fact breton is illegal since 1539, when just after annexing Brittany in
1488, the King of France decided that only the french language will be the
official language of the kingdom.
During the french revolution, breton was again banned and persecuted
"supertitions and federalism speaks breton" said Barrere a Paris
parliament representative.
After 1901, when public school in french became mandatory on all french
territories including colonies, breton language was systematically
extirpated from breton children mouth with physical and psychological
punishements. This is the time of the infamous poster "Interdit de cracher
par terre et de parler breton" (It is forbidden to spit and speak breton).
Just after the war in 1945-47 you could be arrested just to speak breton!
The author of the breton grammar, Roparzh Hemon was himself thrown in jail
as the french state made use of the collaboration of few to discredit the
whole cultural and political breton movement. It is said that the french
police seized member lists of breton magazines (some of them just plain
cultural newsletters) and went to the homes of all subscribers to arrest
them. Thousands were put in detention camps. They were few dozen
sentences. Most were released after a british commission report and an
official protest from the British goverment.
Then in 1992, the french constitution was amended again with article 2
that says that french is the only language of the republic.
Last week president Chirac refused to initiate a constitutionel change in
order to ammend the European Charter for minority languages.
And it goes on and on.
The drama is that most foreigners have no ideas of this and get this false
image of a democratic France when in fact cultural and linguitic freedoms
are barely above Serbia and Turquia. Dont forget that all french
televisions channels are based in Paris and that the government only 10-15
years ago had a total control on them.
Philippe
Antonio
>>> German in Sud Tyrol, Alsatz;
>>
>> Someplace other than Alsace (Fr.)/Elsaß (Ger)?
>
> If you're so interested in nitpicking, Peter, why ignore "Sud
> Tyrol"?
And it's Elsa*ss* now, unless I'm mistaken, which would cause no
great commotion anyway. But as Alwyn told us once, Alsasish and
Lorrainian aren't German and so it isn't quite the same type of
banning. Also, aside from vandalising tombstones, the French haven't
done anything very serious as of late. They don't need to.
And I haven't heard that there was linguistic repression in 'Sud
Tyrol'.
--
@NtOnju mArkS
Plant Systematics & Life History
Antonio
> There's an important distinction in the Macedonian case that is
> getting lost in the follow-ups: Banning from education vs.
> banning from the media/public life. No small number of languages
> have been banned from educational institutions--even English in
> the United States! But I think there's an important distinction
> between that (reprehensible as it may be) and trying to forbid
> all public use of a language. The latter is, thankfully, rarer
> and more often done for strictly political reasons, as opposed
> to (misguided) paedogogical ones.
And to a certain extent, becoming impossible. Within the limits
imposed by the spanish (democratic) constitution, portuguese is
banned in Galicia. Notice that 'portuguese' can mean any galician
text written with <lh> or <-m> (anstatt ll, -n). The ban is
effective, even if the democratic nature of the state implies that
no very open coercive measures may be taken. I mean, books aren't
burnt in front of Compostille's cathedral, nor are people arrested
or fired just for being seen writing c-cedillas (other pretexts are
often sought but seldomly, one must say, used). The whoile thing can
be at one time very subtle and very brutal, though. As friend
Gabriel Tojo put it quite a time ago, the adoption of portuguese
spelling will never be possible, 'not without bloodshed'. He was
joking, of course, but one never knows where jokes end and
seriousness begins. The main problem with the partisans of the
spanish problem is their reasoning: Galician is a different language
from portuguese, so it must be written with a different spelling;
and it cannot be written with the same spelling because then... one
will not be able to tell it apart from portuguese!
Which is wrong, btw; there is a large number of galician usages that
promptly identify it, and those aren't reflected in the spelling.
The only purpose of the current official spanish spelling is making
portuguese less accessible to galicians.
Antonio
> Although it is true and very regretable that the Turkish rulers
> supress the very elementary right of every human being of using
> his native tongue to the fullest extend possible.
So do the French and somehow France is held as the land of freedom,
culture, etc.
Harlan Messinger
>
>
>Harlan Messinger wrote:
>
>>
>> If "Macedonian" is just Bulgarian, and the government banned
>> Bulgarian, did the residents just become mute and illiterate, since by
>> speaking or reading Macedonian they would automatically also have been
>> speaking or reading Bulgarian?
>
>Very smart, isn't it?
>
>"Macedonian" is a Creole type of a language: Bulgarian grammar
>with Serbian vocabulary, or as its inventor, Blazhe Koneski called
>it "an analytical Serb language".
>
Well, that's funny. The usual attack on "Macedonian" is that it's a
fiction because it's just Bulgarian as spoken by the residents of the
Republic of Macedonia. I would think that the people who so loathe the
notion of the Macedonian language would at least agree on what the
thing is that they mutually detest.
By what mechanism was it possible to make an entire population
immediately adopt a new language of the sort you have described, when
the language had only just been defined as a theoretical construct and
the details of its syntax and vocabulary couldn't possibly have worked
out in a short time frame? I can't imagine how a bunch of English
speakers would, on command, suddenly know how to talk to each other
using Dutch vocabulary and English syntax.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> >
> >> German in Sud Tyrol, Alsatz;
> >
> >Someplace other than Alsace (Fr.)/Elsaß (Ger)?
>
> If you're so interested in nitpicking, Peter, why ignore "Sud Tyrol"?
Pick your own nits. The phrase "Sud Tyrol" means nothing to me.
Peter T. Daniels
> And it's Elsa*ss* now, unless I'm mistaken, which would cause no
> great commotion anyway. But as Alwyn told us once, Alsasish and
> Lorrainian aren't German and so it isn't quite the same type of
> banning. Also, aside from vandalising tombstones, the French haven't
> done anything very serious as of late. They don't need to.
> And I haven't heard that there was linguistic repression in 'Sud
> Tyrol'.
Don't tell me *furriners* are expected to use the "Reförmchen" too???
mb
Ilya Talev wrote in message <37867CEA...@ibm.net>...
>As for the Kurds in Turkey, I am not sure the KKP propaganda in
>the West reflects the situation in the country. I have been in Turkey
>a few times and have heard, many times, people speaking Kurdish
>language. There are about 12 million Kurds living in the latrgest
>Turkish cities; how do you prevent them from speaking Kurdish?
>the very elementary right of every human being of using his native
>tongue to the fullest extend possible.
>
There is no propaganda in it. Even though you will here Kurdish used in
private conversation, the people using it are likely to end up beaten or
worse if so-called law enforcement is around. Also, the use of the language
in any media including conversation has been illegal during most of the
so-called Republic's lifetime and punished with extreme harshness. This for
the legal side. In addition, hundreds of people have been ostracized, fired,
lynched, arrested, tortured, etc. for using other minority languages in
public, possession of books in Kurdish, Armenian, Greek, or even Turkish in
the old script. Also for possession of any publication in Cyrillic script -
until recently.
Ras William I
><abas...@aol.com.really> wrote:
>>Daniel wrote:
>>><abas...@aol.com.really> wrote:
>>>>I forgot to mention that even English was virtually banned in England for
>a
>>>>few hundred years under the Norman Kings... (sorry, it's sweltering hot
>>>here)
>>>Nonsense! Can you show proof of any Norman attempt to supress it as the
>>>language of the common folk? Excluding it from the chancelery doesn't
>>>mean that much when 90+% of the population isn't even literate.
>>If Higden is any authority to go by, we may surmise that all schoolchildren
>in
>>England were taught to read and write only in French during his day (1st hlf
>of
>>14th C.)
>What percentage of the population attended school in those days, half a
>milennium before the concept of "universal public education"?
I don't know, but probably more than you think.
>>English was not taught in school before 1349 (sc. Trevisa's updated
>>trans.) and it is reasonable to suppose that students speaking English were
>>punished in schools before then.
>Is it? Certainly, some teachers might've tried to ban all speaking of
>English, but can you establish this was the deliberate policy of the Nor-
>mans generally?
Yes I can. I already named my source. Now, here is the actual quote:
This apeyryng of the burthtonge ys bycause of twey thinges. On ys, for chydern
in scole, agenes the usage and manere of al other nacions, buth compelled for
to leve here oune longage and for to construe here lessons and here thinges a
Freynsch, and habbeth suththe the Normans come furst into Engelond. Also
gentilmen children buth ytaugt for to speke Freynsch fram tyme that a buth
yrokked in here cradel, and conneth speke and playe with a child hys brouch;
and oplondysch men wol lykne hamsylf to gentilmen, and fondeth with gret
bysynes for to speke Freynsch for to be more ytold of.
So reads Trevisa in his translation of the _Polychronicon_. Below this,
Trevisa provides his own 'update' on the situation as changed since Higden
first wrote the above in Latin:
Thys manere was moche yused tofore the furste moreyn, and ys seththe somdel
ychaunged. For Iohan Cornwal, a mayster of gramere, chayngede the lore in
gramerscole and construccion of Freynsch into Englysch; and Richard Pencrych
lurnede that manere techyng of hym, and other men of Pencrych, so that now, the
ger of oure Lord a thousond thre hondred foure score and fyve, of the secunde
Kyng Richard after the conquest nyne, in al the gramerscoles of Engelond
childern leveth Frensch and construeth and lurneth an Englysch, and habbeth
therby avauntage in on syde and desavauntage yn another. Here avauntage ys,
that a lurneth here gramer yn lasse tyme than childern wer ywoned to do;
disavauntage ys, that now childern of gramerscole conneth no more Frensch than
can here lift heele, and that ys harm for ham and a scholle passe the se and
travayle in strange londes, and in meny caas also. Also gentilmen habbeth now
moche yleft for to teche here childern Frensch.
>>Of course it wasn't a full ban on the common
>>people using English at home, but it was almost certainly excluded from all
>>Government and Education for a long time, in favor of French.
>
>And Latin was what? A patois of the clergy?
Pretty much. But then you already knew that, didn't you?
With regards,
Aba Selama
Ilya Talev
Harlan Messinger wrote:
> By what mechanism was it possible to make an entire population
> immediately adopt a new language of the sort you have described, when
> the language had only just been defined as a theoretical construct and
> the details of its syntax and vocabulary couldn't possibly have worked
> out in a short time frame?
Well, I never studied the "new maath" at school. But the
"old math" I studied tells me that the time span between
1945 and 1999 is about 54 years, or in anthropological
terms, almost THREE generations.
IT
Ilya Talev
languages they would rather want to see FORGOTTEN.
IT
Ilya Talev
mb wrote:
I am not an authority on the languages you mentioned except Bulgarian,
written in Cyrillic script. I can assure you, the best Bulgarian newspapers
published before the modern Bulgarian state was established as a result of
the Russo-Turkish War (1876-78) were published in Istanbul. Your library
might have copies of newspaper "Makedonia".
IT
Peter T. Daniels
> I am not an authority on the languages you mentioned except Bulgarian,
> written in Cyrillic script. I can assure you, the best Bulgarian newspapers
> published before the modern Bulgarian state was established as a result of
> the Russo-Turkish War (1876-78) were published in Istanbul. Your library
> might have copies of newspaper "Makedonia".
And what's that got to do with the Turkish Republic?
Harlan Messinger
>Harlan Messinger wrote:
>
>> By what mechanism was it possible to make an entire population
>> immediately adopt a new language of the sort you have described, when
>> the language had only just been defined as a theoretical construct and
>> the details of its syntax and vocabulary couldn't possibly have worked
>> out in a short time frame?
>
>Well, I never studied the "new maath" at school. But the
>"old math" I studied tells me that the time span between
>1945 and 1999 is about 54 years, or in anthropological
>terms, almost THREE generations.
Where did either 1945 or 1999 come from? According to you, in the
posting that begin this thread:
>I tried to explain, in vain, that there was no
>Macedonian language until the fall of 1944,
>when it was created by a State Decree.
>Bulgarian books were banned in the Macedonian
>Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, while the
>people who tried to speak Bulgarian or to
>teach their childeren Bulgarian language were
>severely persecuted.
Thus, according to you, the Macedonian language was created in 1944
and, at the same time--in 1944--the use of Bulgarian was banned. The
math you studied should tell you that the time span between 1944 and
1944 is 0 (zero) years.
I return to my previous question: By what mechanism was it possible to
make an entire population immediately adopt a new language of the sort
you have described, when the language had only just been defined as a
theoretical construct and the details of its syntax and vocabulary
couldn't possibly have worked out in a short time frame?
--
Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton
You can claim to be "furriners" from Schleswig-Holstein, then you
don't have to :). (Though I heard rumours that S-H is planning to go
back to using the reformed orthography.)
Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <nospam...@gmx.net>
Johan Vandewalle
Harlan Messinger schreef:
> Thus, according to you, the Macedonian language was created in 1944
> and, at the same time--in 1944--the use of Bulgarian was banned. The
> math you studied should tell you that the time span between 1944 and
> 1944 is 0 (zero) years.
>
> I return to my previous question: By what mechanism was it possible to
> make an entire population immediately adopt a new language of the sort
> you have described, when the language had only just been defined as a
> theoretical construct and the details of its syntax and vocabulary
> couldn't possibly have worked out in a short time frame?
I think it has never been possible to make an entire population *immediately*
adopt a new language. The only thing a government can do in this respect is
preventing the population from further "input" in the old language, thus
prohibiting its use in education, in the media, in the administration and -
most difficult - in public... and at the same time they have to promote the
new language with all possible means. At least two or three generations will
pass until the population will actually be using the new language in their
daily life (i.e. will have forgotten the old language). Look at the language
change from Ottoman Turkish to current Modern Turkish. It all officially
started in 1928 with the alphabet reform and the process of language
purification led by the Türk Dil Kurumu (created in 1932). But it took more
than sixty years of heavy polemics between OsmanlIcacIlar and O"zTu"rkçeciler
for stability to return into the language. Even in 1990 at the "1st Assembly
of the Turkish Language" in Ankara I met (aged) professors still taking notes
in Arabic script and refusing to accept useful neologisms created for
concepts that didn't exist in Ottoman. But nowadays we can say that eg all
Turkish newspapers and television stations, whether they are leftist or
rightist, laically or religiously oriented, are using the same new purified
Turkish, which is also the language of the professionally active young
generation.
Colin Fine
>
>Have you ever heard, not just in modern times,
>but ever! of a language being banned?
>Books being confiscated and destroyed not
>because of their authors' origin or beliefs,
>but because of the language in which they are
>writen?
In the 80's I had a colleague who was an Azeri from Iran. As I recall
from what he said, publishing in his mother tongue was forbidden under
the Shah's goverment - he was not literate in it, and would write to his
mother in Farsi. He was fascinated when I bought in a poem in
Azerbaijani from a colletion of Soviet verse and read it to him as best
I could, (guessing the Cyrillic letters peculiar to Azerbaijani). when
the Shah fell, there was briefly some publishing in Azeri - he managed
to get hold of a photocopy of a grammar, written in Farsi, with the
Azeri text in Roman script.
Then the Revolutionary government closed the doors again, and Azeri
publishing was again no more.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Colin Fine 66 High Ash, Shipley, W Yorks. BD18 1NE, UK |
| Tel: 01274 592696/0976 635354 e-mail: co...@kindness.demon.co.uk |
| "Don't just do something! Stand there!" |
| - from 'Behold the Spirit' (workshop) |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Colin Fine
>All of this confirm the notion that governments "ban"
>languages they would rather want to see FORGOTTEN.
>
Yes. Or no.
Governments do what governments do. Some governments, at some times,
value things they call national unity or national identity, to the
degree that they persecute those who are seen as threatening that unity
or identity.
Language is a potent symbol of national unity or its absence. So is
religion.
What has this (and most especially the scare quotes and pointless
capitalisation) got to do with sci.lang?
Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton
<co...@kindness.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In the 80's I had a colleague who was an Azeri from Iran. As I recall
>from what he said, publishing in his mother tongue was forbidden under
>the Shah's goverment - he was not literate in it, and would write to his
>mother in Farsi.
I knew an Azeri from Iran as well -- met him in Cyprus in 1996. He
would have been about late 20's, early 30's. He told me that he had
spoken Azerbaijani at school (apparently they were in a part of the
country where that was tolerated?), and learned Farsi from television
(at first his older brother had to translate all the films for him...
which bugged him no end :) ). I once asked him to write some things
(he wrote in the Arabic script of Farsi) and it appeared to me that he
was making up his own spelling (for example, making do with written
Arabic's three vowels to represent things such as ü and ö) rather than
using a standardised orthography. But then, I couldn't really tell.
Ilya Talev
Harlan Messinger wrote:
>
>
> I return to my previous question: By what mechanism was it possible to
> make an entire population immediately adopt a new language of the sort
> you have described, when the language had only just been defined as a
> theoretical construct and the details of its syntax and vocabulary
> couldn't possibly have worked out in a short time frame?
The mechanism was very simple: 29,000 teachers and priests killed.
The rest of the population scared to death; Bulgarian became a word
that can send you to one of Tito's Concentration camps.
The place has been under Serb occupation since 1913: therefore,
most of thge people knew some Serbian langauge - they have gone
to the Serbian schools for at least 4 years.
Under the circumstances, it wasn't that difficult to "creolize" the
language with Serb vocabulary.
IT
OpenTV Support
>
> Have you ever heard, not just in modern times,
> but ever! of a language being banned?
<<Soyez propres, parlez français>>
<<Il est interdit de cracher par terre et de parler breton>>
In every French school end of 19th century-beginning of 20th century to
root out Breton, Occitan, Catalan, etc.
Gianni
Paris
OpenTV Support
> > but ever! of a language being banned?
> German in Sud Tyrol
I hope you mean 'in the past', because to-day German is much favoured in
South Tyrol. One can spend his whole life in S. Tyrol without the need
to speak Italian since schools, courts, university etc. all use German.
I wish it were the same in France....
Gianni
Paris
Harlan Messinger
Do you realize how unlikely this sounds? How successfully would you,
even under pain of death, be able suddenly to speak, from now on, only
in a previously unspoken language with Bulgarian syntax and English
vocabulary? And why would Tito not simply have required the people to
speak Serbian?
Gerrit Potoms
% I can't imagine how a bunch of English
% speakers would, on command, suddenly know how to talk to each other
% using Dutch vocabulary and English syntax.
De andere weg rond zoun't zijn dat moeilijk altezamen, ik raad.
Nochtans ik ben benieuwd of daar zou zijn eniglichaam achtergelaten
wie zou verstaan dit particuliere mengsel. Juist mijn twee
penningen.
G.
Paul Sampson
> Harlan Messinger wrote:
Ik kan voor Harlan (Haarlem?) niet spreken, maar ik weet niet
genoeg van de vocabulaire te sens maaken uit de middel beetje.
Maar de eerste en de laatste wordengruppen OK (nb niet 'ook')
zijn. Hoe wilt u met deze kleuterschoolse nederlands doen?
--
| /\ /\|\ | /\|\ ||\ / HeadLands = NTdom & ~.com
|/\|/ _|| || _|| \ || |\ pauldotsampsonatonyxdotnet home&play
| /\_|_\|/ \_|_\| \||/ / Newcastle upon Tyne, United? Kingdom
Unless explicitly indicated, views, opinions, etc are personal
Gerrit Potoms
% Hoe wilt u met deze kleuterschoolse nederlands doen?
Oh, nothing in particular. Just an attempt to concoct a text
having both Dutch vocabulary and English grammar, as
mentioned in Harlan's message. If I have some spare time, I'll
try and write a translitteration for the humorly impaired. ;-)
(No, not you, Paul)
G.
mb
contributions received, how about pooling systematically the knowledge on
banned languages? It would be a worthwile contribution to
knowledge -assuming that there is no such publication. Or, if there is, I'd
like to know the reference. Fact is, no bib or net searches I've done came
up with a comprehensive publication.
Larisa Migachyov
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
>>
>> If you're so interested in nitpicking, Peter, why ignore "Sud Tyrol"?
>
>Pick your own nits.
I've no interest in picking any, at least not in Eideannach's posting. I
found it perfectly understandable without any editing, but you felt com-
pelled to (rather archly) point out his misspelling of "Alsace". Well, if
it's important to you to play copy editor here, why ignore the equally e-
gregiously erroneous "Sud Tyrol"?
>The phrase "Sud Tyrol" means nothing to me.
Now I seriously can't tell if you're reprising the disingenuousness you
displayed above or if you're really that ignorant of European geography.
--
Daniel "Da" von Brighoff /\ Dilettanten
(de...@midway.uchicago.edu) /__\ erhebt Euch
/____\ gegen die Kunst!
Ben
>
Antonio
>> And it's Elsa*ss* now, unless I'm mistaken, which would cause
>> no great commotion anyway. But as Alwyn told us once, Alsasish >
>
> Don't tell me *furriners* are expected to use the "Reförmchen"
> too???
So it's furriners and you say Chicago is vowel-deprived?
My english does have a lot of vowels, but then they are seldom the
same each time I utter a word... but it's ['fO:r(I)n@s], singular
['fOr@n] most of the times.
--
@NtOnju mArkS
Plant Systematics & Life History
mb
Larisa Migachyov wrote in message <7mdh9s$428$9...@nntp.Stanford.EDU>...
>mb wrote:
>> Looking at the strong emotional load of the question and the many
>> contributions received, how about pooling systematically the knowledge
on
>> banned languages? It would be a worthwile contribution to
>
A good number, and some are listed in this thread. Also, the question is not
just the currently banned languages. To understand the phenomenon we need
some solid historical perspective.
mb
toon...@my-deja.com wrote in message <7me93f$6ba$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>
>Is it still against the law in Turkey to hold possession of books in
>Turkish that are written in the Arabic Alphabet?
>
>That was a long time ago. I think very few Turks know how to write
>Turkish in the Arabic script. I heard that a Turk wrote Turkish in the
>Arabic Alphabet. He told me that spelling in the old script is far much
>more regular than that of English Spelling.
Holding possession is not illegal, publishing definitely is (except for
facsimiles of historic documents).
As for the regularity of spelling in the old script, whoever told you that
was not basing his estimate on the real situation. In fact, it's one of the
most "disconnected" orthographic systems, combining use of archaic sounds
(final -k for the genitive, -n in mediaeval and modern Standard T),
appropriate and inappropriate use of letters specific to Arabic, use of
emphatic consonants for some lenes and lenes for others, etc. etc. If you
first learned Turkish with the modern alphabet, learning the old one is a
major pain, even if you are fluent in Persian and Arabic. Given the
realtively short median life expectation and the extent of analphabetism in
the twenties, the statement about "very few people" may be correct. However,
the survivors still prefer writing in the old system because it's much
faster - better stenography than Pitman.
toon...@my-deja.com
> There is no propaganda in it. Even though you will here Kurdish used
in
> private conversation, the people using it are likely to end up beaten
or
> worse if so-called law enforcement is around. Also, the use of the
language
> in any media including conversation has been illegal during most of
the
> so-called Republic's lifetime and punished with extreme harshness.
This for
> the legal side. In addition, hundreds of people have been ostracized,
fired,
> lynched, arrested, tortured, etc. for using other minority languages
in
> public, possession of books in Kurdish, Armenian, Greek, or even
Turkish in
> the old script. Also for possession of any publication in Cyrillic
script -
> until recently.
Is it still against the law in Turkey to hold possession of books in
Turkish that are written in the Arabic Alphabet?
That was a long time ago. I think very few Turks know how to write
Turkish in the Arabic script. I heard that a Turk wrote Turkish in the
Arabic Alphabet. He told me that spelling in the old script is far much
more regular than that of English Spelling.
Harlan Messinger
>Harlan Messinger wrote:
>
>% I can't imagine how a bunch of English
>% speakers would, on command, suddenly know how to talk to each other
>% using Dutch vocabulary and English syntax.
>
>De andere weg rond zoun't zijn dat moeilijk altezamen, ik raad.
>Nochtans ik ben benieuwd of daar zou zijn eniglichaam achtergelaten
>wie zou verstaan dit particuliere mengsel. Juist mijn twee
>penningen.
>
Fijn, maar kan je doen het in levende konversatie?
Ilya Talev
Harlan Messinger wrote:
> Do you realize how unlikely this sounds? How successfully would you,
> even under pain of death, be able suddenly to speak, from now on, only
> in a previously unspoken language with Bulgarian syntax and English
> vocabulary? And why would Tito not simply have required the people to
> speak Serbian?
They tried and they failed. Between 1913 and 1944 the dialects
in Vardar Macedonia were called "South Serbian dialects", and the
compulsory state school system tought the kids Serb language,
exclusively.
There is a purely linguistics problem here: people who speeak an
analytical language (like English for instance) have great trouble
switching to a language with 6 cases and no article. I have studied
Russian all my (long) life, and often find myself wondering what would
be the correct grammatical case In Russian in a given phrase.
So, the people in the street spoke already some kind of a mixture of
Bulgarian and Serbian, Imagine the following situation: the state
of Texas becomes part of Mexico. All legal, administrative, military,
legal terms become Mexican (Spanish). It is not "birth certificate"
any more, it is not "marriage licence", not a "city hall", "police
presinct", etc. The reality forces people to mix vocabulary in everyday
speech.
IT
Brian M. Scott
wrote:
>Daniel wrote:
>><abas...@aol.com.really> wrote:
>>>I forgot to mention that even English was virtually banned in England for a
>>>few hundred years under the Norman Kings... (sorry, it's sweltering hot
>>here)
>>Nonsense! Can you show proof of any Norman attempt to supress it as the
>>language of the common folk? Excluding it from the chancelery doesn't
>>mean that much when 90+% of the population isn't even literate.
>If Higden is any authority to go by, we may surmise that all schoolchildren in
>England were taught to read and write only in French during his day (1st hlf of
>14th C.) English was not taught in school before 1349 (sc. Trevisa's updated
>trans.) and it is reasonable to suppose that students speaking English were
>punished in schools before then.
Why? I see nothing in Higdon that would lead to such a conclusion.
> Of course it wasn't a full ban on the common
>people using English at home, but it was almost certainly excluded from all
>Government and Education for a long time, in favor of French.
One need only look at the names recorded in official documents of the
12th - 14th c. The early ones are pretty thoroughly Latinized, and
then French -- 'a sort of ignoble substitute for Latin' (Legge) -- was
used to enhance formality, but from an early period one finds many
bynames recorded in Middle English even in formal records. It became
increasingly rare to Latinize them, or even to substitute French
equivalents. It's likely that by the mid-13th c. few officials had
French as a first language: there is good evidence that by then (at
the latest) even the gentry were thinking primarily in English terms
(as witness a manual for teaching their children French whose
organization clearly presupposes a tutor whose first language is
English). In fact, there's evidence that by c.1200 people of
part-Norman descent were speaking English indistinguishable from that
of the natives (Dialogus de Scaccario, 1170s). It seems clear that
there was no attempt to suppress English. (Note too that there are
very few French elements in the street-names of even such cosmopolitan
towns as London, Canterbury, and Winchester.)
As far as education goes, I suspect that you're reading more into
Higden than is actually there. I could be wrong, but I suspect that
he's talking about schools beyond the level of the primary schooling
in the church porch, where a child first learnt his letters. I'd be
surprised if primary schooling was conducted wholly in French.
French was obviously a prestige language, used (beside Latin) for
official purposes, but by the 14th c. it had long been a second
language for virtually all Englishmen. Since within a few generations
of the Conquest even the children of the gentry had to learn French as
a second language, talk of Norman suppression of English seems greatly
exaggerated.
Brian M. Scott
Paul Sampson
>> Harlan Messinger wrote:
>>% I can't imagine how a bunch of English
>>% speakers would, on command, suddenly know how to talk to each other
>>% using Dutch vocabulary and English syntax.
>> De andere weg rond zoun't zijn dat moeilijk altezamen, ik raad.
>> Nochtans ik ben benieuwd of daar zou zijn eniglichaam achtergelaten
>> wie zou verstaan dit particuliere mengsel. Juist mijn twee
>> penningen.
> Fijn, maar kan je doen het in levende konversatie?
Depending upon one's command of the vocabulary, I think you
might have a fair whack at it. There probably would be a tendency
to drift into the syntax of the vocabulary-bearer language but
if all you knew were the words (probably an unusual situation
admittedly) and weren't trained in the grammar ...?
I was at a meeting in an Amsterdam hotel with Germans, French
and English where a hotel waiter popped his head round the door
to ask about our lunch arrangements. What he asked was "Lunch at
Ein o'clock, si?"
Paul Davidson
--
Paul Davidson
mb <mmb...@concentric.net> wrote in message
news:7mek8k$n...@chronicle.concentric.net...
Vassil Karloukovski
>Looking at the strong emotional load of the question and the many
>contributions received, how about pooling systematically the knowledge on
>banned languages?
what about the language policies in the Soviet Union and especially
the Moldovan case? As far as I know, in Soviet Moldavia the sale/
import of Romanian books was banned as well. ...Although the Moldovan
intelligentsia found the way around by going to Moscow - apparently
all countries from the Eastern block were allowed to have its
bookstore(s) there as so did Romania!? :-)) (I do remember visiting
a Bulgarian one in Moscow twenty years ago.)
Also, what about the Soviet Turkestan republics, the establishment
of the new national literary languages (Uzbek, Turkmen, Kazakh...)
and the ban (?) on the previous common literary
VK
It would be a worthwile contribution to
Peter T. Daniels
> Is it still against the law in Turkey to hold possession of books in
> Turkish that are written in the Arabic Alphabet?
>
> That was a long time ago. I think very few Turks know how to write
> Turkish in the Arabic script. I heard that a Turk wrote Turkish in the
> Arabic Alphabet. He told me that spelling in the old script is far much
> more regular than that of English Spelling.
You went away for a while, and now you've come back with this "I heard"
business again??
Very few Turks were ever literate in the Arabic script, which is one
reason it wasn't too hard to switch to the roman in 1928.
Of course script is regular when it isn't in continual popular use for
many centuries! If all they're writing is a high-style, classical
language learned in school, of course the language isn't changing!
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@worldnet.att.net
Johan Vandewalle
Harlan Messinger schreef:
> Gerrit Potoms <pot...@esat.kuleuven.ac.be> wrote:
>
> >Harlan Messinger wrote:
> >
> >% I can't imagine how a bunch of English
> >% speakers would, on command, suddenly know how to talk to each other
> >% using Dutch vocabulary and English syntax.
> >
> >De andere weg rond zoun't zijn dat moeilijk altezamen, ik raad.
> >Nochtans ik ben benieuwd of daar zou zijn eniglichaam achtergelaten
> >wie zou verstaan dit particuliere mengsel. Juist mijn twee
> >penningen.
> >
>
> Fijn, maar kan je doen het in levende konversatie?
I understand this is a joke, but linguistically it doesn't seem that
correct to me. I consider all kinds of pronouns, prepositions,
conjunctions, auxiliary and modal verbs, etc to be part of the grammar.
Therefore they shouldn't be changed, when you preserve the grammar. An
example of Dutch grammar with English vocabulary:
"Je mag die files niet deleten voordat je er een back-up van gemaakt
hebt."
The same in English grammar with Dutch vocabulary:
"You shouldn't wis these bestands before you have made a reservekopie of
them."
It doesn't sound that weird, does it?
This kind of mixed language is extremely common between Dutch speaking
computer programmers.
Correction of Gerrit's statement: The other weg round wouldn't be that
moeilijk altogether, I raad (or better: vermoed). Nevertheless I'm
benieuwd if there would be anybody achterlaated who would versta this
particulier mengsel.
Johan Vandewalle
Gerrit Potoms
% Gerrit Potoms <pot...@esat.kuleuven.ac.be> wrote:
%
% >Harlan Messinger wrote:
% >
% >% I can't imagine how a bunch of English
% >% speakers would, on command, suddenly know how to talk to each other
% >% using Dutch vocabulary and English syntax.
% >
% >De andere weg rond zoun't zijn dat moeilijk altezamen, ik raad.
% >Nochtans ik ben benieuwd of daar zou zijn eniglichaam achtergelaten
% >wie zou verstaan dit particuliere mengsel. Juist mijn twee
% >penningen.
% >
%
% Fijn, maar kan je doen het in levende konversatie?
Erm, let's see. It took me more than ninety seconds to come up
with these three sentences. I guess I could claim that I could,
but then I would be lying to you.
G.
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
Paul Davidson <tin...@direct.ca> wrote:
>If English were banned, the world would be a much more interesting place! :)
It would be a different place. I don't see how it would be one whit more
interesting.
Robert Brady
>>Macedonian" is a Creole type of a language:
>And thee should really look up "Creole" in the dictionary.....it denotes those
thou
>languages which started as pidgin (simplified form of one language (usually a
>"conquering" one) with the grammer of the native, "conquered" language) that
>have become the native language of a younger generation.
> So is thee saying that Serbian (the vocab: ref English vocab in Tok Pisin,
art thou
>i.e. the "conquering" language) was victor over Bulgarian (the grammer: ref the
>Papuan grammer of the native, "conquered" language)??
>Sounds as if thee doesn't much like the language thee clams Macedonian really
thou doth not
>is, either!
>One would think that such an eminent "language scientist" as thee claimed to be
thou
>a couple months ago would know what a Creole is........if Macedonian is indeed
>some kind of hybrid of Serb vocab and Bulgarian grammer, then the closest
>analogy would be English.......
--
Robert
Christopher Schmidt
"Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton" schrieb:
> On Sat, 10 Jul 1999 19:53:33 -0400, "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >Antonio wrote:
> >
> >> And it's Elsa*ss* now, unless I'm mistaken, which would cause no
> >> great commotion anyway. But as Alwyn told us once, Alsasish and
> >> Lorrainian aren't German and so it isn't quite the same type of
> >> banning. Also, aside from vandalising tombstones, the French haven't
> >> done anything very serious as of late. They don't need to.
> >> And I haven't heard that there was linguistic repression in 'Sud
> >> Tyrol'.
> >
> >Don't tell me *furriners* are expected to use the "Reförmchen" too???
>
> You can claim to be "furriners" from Schleswig-Holstein, then you
> don't have to :). (Though I heard rumours that S-H is planning to go
> back to using the reformed orthography.)
>
Yes, this really is a pity (in the referendum I was among the 56% or so to
vote against the Rechtschreibreform). But now the Landtag is considering
repealing the referendum by a simple law next year.
But since the RSR has caused so much confusion, we have no clearly defined
rules here. Several dictionaries differ in interpretation of the new rules;
everyone can use his own orthography. And I'll stick to the old ortography
and would recommend to any "furriner" just to keep writing German as he
learnt it; it is a rather unusual situation for the average German that now
there is *no* standard any more (the rule of the Duden has come to an end
finally!)
Chris
>
> Cheers,
> Philip
> --
> Philip Newton <nospam...@gmx.net>
Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton
wrote:
>dmitri mosier <plen...@aol.comnospam> wrote:
>>Sounds as if thee doesn't much like the language thee clams Macedonian really
> thou doth not
Christopher Schmidt
> Looking at the strong emotional load of the question and the many
> contributions received, how about pooling systematically the knowledge on
> banned languages? It would be a worthwile contribution to
> knowledge -assuming that there is no such publication. Or, if there is, I'd
> like to know the reference. Fact is, no bib or net searches I've done came
> up with a comprehensive publication.
You should consider starting a mailing-list (onelist.com, coolist.com or
whatever). Then you could promote this list here and everyone interested
would subscribe and they could all post to that list and exchange their
opinions and collect their data etc. Then you could even start to send
out newsletters on this topic.
Chris
Ras William I
>This apeyryng of the burthtonge ys bycause of twey thinges. On ys, for
>chydern
>in scole, agenes the usage and manere of al other nacions, buth compelled for
>to leve here oune longage and for to construe here lessons and here thinges a
>Freynsch, and habbeth suththe the Normans come furst into Engelond. Also
>gentilmen children buth ytaugt for to speke Freynsch fram tyme that a buth
>yrokked in here cradel, and conneth speke and playe with a child hys brouch;
>and oplondysch men wol lykne hamsylf to gentilmen, and fondeth with gret
>bysynes for to speke Freynsch for to be more ytold of
I owe it to you to modernise Trevisa's text.
"This impairing of the birthtongue is because of two things. One is, for
children in school, against the usage and manner of all other nations, are
compelled to leave their own language and construe their lessons and their
things in French, and have since the Normans came first into England. Also
gentlemen children are taught to speak French from the time that they are
rocked in their cradle, and can speak and play with a child's brooch; and
uplandish men will liken themselves to gentlemen, and try with great busyness
to speak French to be more told of."
Aba Selama
Colin Fine
<rwb...@ecs.soton.ac.uk> writes
>dmitri mosier <plen...@aol.comnospam> wrote:
>>>Macedonian" is a Creole type of a language:
>
>>And thee should really look up "Creole" in the dictionary.....it denotes those
> thou
>
>>languages which started as pidgin (simplified form of one language (usually a
>>"conquering" one) with the grammer of the native, "conquered" language) that
>>have become the native language of a younger generation.
>
>> So is thee saying that Serbian (the vocab: ref English vocab in Tok Pisin,
> art thou
>
etc.
i.e. Robert Brady took it upon himself to 'correct' a text written in a
well-established English dialect, on the assumption that it was actually
written in a pseudo-archaic standard dialect.
I confess it is not clear to me why it was written in that unusual
dialect, but 'correcting' [the scare quotes are deliberate] is not
generatlly welcome on sci.lang even when well-conceived.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Colin Fine 66 High Ash, Shipley, W Yorks. BD18 1NE, UK |
| Tel: 01274 592696/0976 635354 e-mail: co...@kindness.demon.co.uk |
| "Don't just do something! Stand there!" |
| - from 'Behold the Spirit' (workshop) |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Kalaninui
that's as far as it went. However, because of that "American" mentality,
the language was nearly lost. By the late 60's early 70's the only
speakers of Hawaiian were the older people. My grandmother was one of
those who would receive a "slap" on their hand if they spoke it in school.
By the 70's they began to bring it back. Today the number of speakers have
slowly increased and today Hawaiian is an official language of Hawaii along
with English. I'm just glad I am one of those who do speak the language.
Kalani Mondoy
Ilya Talev wrote:
> Some time ago, some writers in this newsgroup
> expressed very strong opinions on the existence
> of a Macedonian language throughout the centuries.
>
> I tried to explain, in vain, that there was no
> Macedonian language until the fall of 1944,
> when it was created by a State Decree.
> Bulgarian books were banned in the Macedonian
> Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, while the
> people who tried to speak Bulgarian or to
> teach their childeren Bulgarian language were
> severely persecuted.
>
> Well, here is a small news item from the wires:
>
> "Bulgarian Books Unbanned in Macedonia".
>
> I have a question to you all:
>
> Have you ever heard, not just in modern times,
> but ever! of a language being banned?
> Books being confiscated and destroyed not
> because of their authors' origin or beliefs,
> but because of the language in which they are
> writen?
>
> * * * * * * *
>
> End of book ban ignites debate in Macedonia
> 09:06 a.m. Jul 08, 1999 Eastern
>
> By Dina Kyriakidou
>
> SKOPJE, July 8 (Reuters) - Macedonia this week lifted a ban on
> Bulgarian books in the latest chapter of a bizarre language dispute
> with its Balkan neighbour, but the move triggered a political storm of
> opposition protest.
>
> The country's main opposition party, the formerly communist Social
> Democratic Alliance (SDA), pressed on Thursday for a censure motion
> in parliament against Culture Minister Dimitar Dimitrov, calling the
> decision tantamount to treason.
>
> ``The book ban should not have been lifted,'' SDA spokesman Vlado
> Buckovski told Reuters. ``The Bulgarisation of our culture is the
> biggest issue for Macedonia and we want parliament to debate it.''
>
> Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.
Coby (Jacob) Lubliner
Kalaninui <motu...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>The Hawaiian at one time was banned from being spoken in the schools. But
>that's as far as it went. However, because of that "American" mentality,
>the language was nearly lost.
What is "American" about it? Were the British school authorities
"American" when they banned Welsh from being spoken in the schools
of Wales (read "How Green Was My Valley"), or the French with
Breton, Occitan etc.?
The intolerance for the use of minority or regional languages in
school was characteristic of a certain tendency in educational theory
and practice throughout the Western and Western-influenced world.
In the West it has waned since the 1960s, but it's still strong in
such places as Turkey.
Coby
Ben
or "western". having the omphalos syndrome, we tend to forget that our
culture is more European than it is really American
Coby (Jacob) Lubliner <co...@newton.berkeley.edu> wrote in message
news:7n2b5j$78a$1...@agate.berkeley.edu...
dmitri mosier
>I confess it is not clear to me why it was written in that unusual
>dialect, but 'correcting' [the scare quotes are deliberate] is not
>generatlly welcome on sci.lang even when well-conceived.
>--
Colin,
I am a member of the Old Order Brethren church. We have adopted "plain speech"
(a la the Quakers of the last century) as the normal mode, and THAT is the
reason behind the usage in my post.
cheers,
dmitri
Kalaninui
"Coby (Jacob) Lubliner" wrote:
>
>
> What is "American" about it? Were the British school authorities
> "American" when they banned Welsh from being spoken in the schools
> of Wales (read "How Green Was My Valley"), or the French with
> Breton, Occitan etc.?
>
>
I meant what Ben said. Meaning WESTERNIZATION. But since the U.S. took over
and annexed Hawaii, along with the strong American Sugar Companies there
bringing in labor workers from foreign countries, you don't think it's an
American mentality? Give me a break! Because of the strong westernization and
the United States expansion in that time, AMERICANIZATION would be the proper
term. How stupid to say that the banning of Welsh would be American when they
weren't even heading towards that part of the globe. HELLO!!! Wake up!
Kalaninui
and annexed Hawaii, along with the strong American Sugar Companies there
bringing in labor workers from foreign countries, you don't think it's an
American mentality? Give me a break! Because of the strong westernization and
the United States expansion in that time, AMERICANIZATION would be the proper
term. How stupid to say that the banning of Welsh would be American when they
weren't even heading towards that part of the globe. HELLO!!! Wake up!
"Coby (Jacob) Lubliner" wrote:
> In article <379146EE...@earthlink.net>,
> Kalaninui <motu...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >The Hawaiian at one time was banned from being spoken in the schools. But
> >that's as far as it went. However, because of that "American" mentality,
> >the language was nearly lost.
>
> What is "American" about it? Were the British school authorities
> "American" when they banned Welsh from being spoken in the schools
> of Wales (read "How Green Was My Valley"), or the French with
> Breton, Occitan etc.?
>
wugi
>
> Paul Sampson wrote:
>
> % Hoe wilt u met deze kleuterschoolse nederlands doen?
>
> Oh, nothing in particular. Just an attempt to concoct a text
> having both Dutch vocabulary and English grammar, as
> mentioned in Harlan's message. If I have some spare time, I'll
> try and write a translitteration for the humorly impaired. ;-)
> (No, not you, Paul)
How about the opposite, er, against-over-put:
I would there no fishbones in see if you the answer guilty would remain.
But if there went you a light upon would-I look it through the fingers.
How find you my Triple Dutch exercises ?^)
(under: http://www.ping.be/wugi/taalzaak.htm#Opperlandspeeltjes )
Guido
Paul Sampson
> Gerrit Potoms wrote:
>> Paul Sampson wrote:
>>> % Hoe wilt u met deze kleuterschoolse nederlands doen?
>> ... If I have some spare time, I'll
>> try and write a translitteration for the humorly impaired. ;-)
>> (No, not you, Paul)
> How about the opposite, er, against-over-put:
> I would there no fishbones in see if you the answer guilty would remain.
> But if there went you a light upon would-I look it through the fingers.
Gulp.
Ik wou daar geen visbeenen in zien alst u de antwoort ...
Er. I give up. What's that all about?
--
Tom Wier
> In the US, people have a tendency to say "American" when they mean "white"
> or "western". having the omphalos syndrome, we tend to forget that our
> culture is more European than it is really American
But does that have any meaning? I'd suggest that you read Mark Rosenfelder's
page on what American culture is like, and you might think twice about that
statement. Unlike some intellectuals I've met, he doesn't make the mistake
of equating "culture" with "the culture of the bourgeoisie".
<http://www.zompist.com/amercult.html>
===========================================
Tom Wier <arta...@mail.utexas.edu>
AIM: Deuterotom ICQ: 4315704
<http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
"Things just ain't the way they used to was."
- a man on the subway
===========================================
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
Tom Wier <arta...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>Ben wrote:
>
>> In the US, people have a tendency to say "American" when they mean "white"
>> or "western". having the omphalos syndrome, we tend to forget that our
>> culture is more European than it is really American
>
>But does that have any meaning? I'd suggest that you read Mark Rosenfelder's
>page on what American culture is like, and you might think twice about that
>statement. Unlike some intellectuals I've met, he doesn't make the mistake
>of equating "culture" with "the culture of the bourgeoisie".
>
><http://www.zompist.com/amercult.html>
Nice way to indirectly plug your own work, Tom!
(A question on your etymology of the state's name: Isn't the original
spelling with an <x>? So both modern names are corruptions (as far as
pronunciation goes) but the Mexicans have changed the spelling to match,
whereas we didn't have to since ours is a spelling pronunciation anyway.)
wugi
> > How about the opposite, er, against-over-put:
=: het tegenovergestelde
> > I would there no fishbones in see if you the answer guilty would remain.
> > But if there went you a light upon would-I look it through the fingers.
>
> Gulp.
>
> Ik wou daar geen visbeenen in zien alst u de antwoort ...
>
> Er. I give up. What's that all about?
Ik zie er geen graten in =
"I see there no fishbones in" = I don't mind;
Je blijft het antwoord schuldig =
"You remain/stay the answer due/guilty" = You stay (with) the answer
due;
Er gaat je een licht op =
"there goes (to) you a light up(on)" = a light dawns upon you;
Ik zie het door de vingers =
"I see it through the fingers" = I turn a blind eye on it.
"Triple Dutch" (comes after "single" and double Dutch) therefore is
turning the exercise pointed to in this thread into fun, by applying it
to colloquial expressions.
It's a way of mine and friends, of indulging in "Opperlands"
(Upperlandish, toying with Netherlandish).
"Triple Dutch", under:
http://www.ping.be/wugi/taalzaak.htm#Opperlandspeeltjes
Thanks for trying,
Guido
Tom Wier
> In article <37A59F24...@mail.utexas.edu>,
> Tom Wier <arta...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> >Ben wrote:
> >
> >> In the US, people have a tendency to say "American" when they mean "white"
> >> or "western". having the omphalos syndrome, we tend to forget that our
> >> culture is more European than it is really American
> >
> >But does that have any meaning? I'd suggest that you read Mark Rosenfelder's
> >page on what American culture is like, and you might think twice about that
> >statement. Unlike some intellectuals I've met, he doesn't make the mistake
> >of equating "culture" with "the culture of the bourgeoisie".
> >
> ><http://www.zompist.com/amercult.html>
>
> Nice way to indirectly plug your own work, Tom!
Actually, I did a double-take on that when I remembered that he had put
a link to my own analysis of Texana on his page. I didn't like the idea of
everyone thinking I was doing exactly that: trying to get people to come to
my page. But I thought it couldn't hurt, so I did it anyway.
> (A question on your etymology of the state's name: Isn't the original
> spelling with an <x>? So both modern names are corruptions (as far as
> pronunciation goes) but the Mexicans have changed the spelling to match,
> whereas we didn't have to since ours is a spelling pronunciation anyway.)
Right... I'll note that. It was very, very late at night when I wrote that, and
I was probably confusing earlier references to Tejano/Hispanic culture and
the name itself. <sigh>
Mike Wright
So "Tejas" was not the original spelling? Lots of Texans don't know that, if the
3200 hits on HotBot mean anything. One of my favorite books as a kid was _Little
Tejas_--sort of like _Little House on the Prairie_ with rattlesnakes. I didn't
even know the name "Hasinai". We were taught to call them "the Tejas Indians".
--
Mike Wright
http://www.mbay.net/~darwin/language.html
_____________________________________________________
"China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese."
-- Charles de Gaulle
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
I'll look for a reference. It only makes sense, since <x> was formally
pronounced /S/ in Spanish. It began shifting to /x/ in the 17th century
in Spain (which makes it likely that the /S/ pronunciation held on longer
in the New World), but didn't begin to be regularly spelled <j> until cen-
turies later. Otherwise, I don't know how to explain the <Texas>
spelling.
Paul Sampson
> Paul Sampson wrote:
Guido:
>> > I would there no fishbones in see if you the answer guilty would remain.
>> > But if there went you a light upon would-I look it through the fingers.
Paul:
>> Gulp.
>> Ik wou daar geen visbeenen in zien alst u de antwoort ...
>> Er. I give up. What's that all about?
Guido:
> Ik zie er geen graten in =
'Graten', oddly enough, I knew about. Much in the same way
as knowing about spoorwegovergang (!?) But I thought visbeenen
more in the spirit of the exercise. :-)
> "I see there no fishbones in" = I don't mind;
Es ist mir wurst.
> Je blijft het antwoord schuldig =
> "You remain/stay the answer due/guilty" = You stay (with) the answer due;
> Er gaat je een licht op =
> "there goes (to) you a light up(on)" = a light dawns upon you;
> Ik zie het door de vingers =
> "I see it through the fingers" = I turn a blind eye on it.
Mmm. Is that *quite* the same thing? After all, you can see a
little bit through your fingers. Or is the dutch expression
just that little bit more 'knowing' in that it admits that
when *we* turn 'a blind eye' we know rather more than we're
admitting?
> "Triple Dutch" (comes after "single" and double Dutch) therefore is
> turning the exercise pointed to in this thread into fun, by applying it
> to colloquial expressions.
> It's a way of mine and friends, of indulging in "Opperlands"
> (Upperlandish, toying with Netherlandish).
>
>"Triple Dutch", under:
>http://www.ping.be/wugi/taalzaak.htm#Opperlandspeeltjes
> Thanks for trying,
You might have a go at some latin and french 'translations' of
english sayings:
Edepol! Ad pedem nostrum scalarum ibo.
J'ai une grenouille dans ma gorge.
Je sais quel co^t/e mon pain est beurr/e.
(Or not, as you wish!)
Perique des Palottes
>
> >
> > So "Tejas" was not the original spelling? Lots of Texans don't know that, if the
> > 3200 hits on HotBot mean anything. One of my favorite books as a kid was _Little
> > Tejas_--sort of like _Little House on the Prairie_ with rattlesnakes. I didn't
> > even know the name "Hasinai". We were taught to call them "the Tejas Indians".
>
> I'll look for a reference. It only makes sense, since <x> was formally
> pronounced /S/ in Spanish. It began shifting to /x/ in the 17th century
> in Spain (which makes it likely that the /S/ pronunciation held on longer
> in the New World), but didn't begin to be regularly spelled <j> until cen-
> turies later. Otherwise, I don't know how to explain the <Texas>
> spelling.
If I remember correctly, the medieval Spanish "x" /S/ and
"j,ge,gi" /Z/ had already merged into /x/ by the end of XVI c.,
pressumably neutralising first into voiceless /S/, and then
moving backward to the velar order. (first "Quixote"'s title
was still printed using "x").
The current orthographical convention of "j,ge,gi" for /x/ dates
from 178x or 179x, and was fixed by the newly created Real Academia.
Notice that independence of former Spanish American colonies
is only some decades afterwards that: Mexico (with [x] sound)
refused to change its spelling ever after, leading to (incorrect)
reinterpretations of those written forms like "Mexico" or "Texas"
as [ks] according to modern Spanish spelling rules.
So, what was really the original "Indian" form of the "Mexicas",
the tribe that originated the name of Mexico, [S], [Ç], [x], [h]??
Anyone?
--
There are three kinds of people: those who can count
and those who can't.
soc.culture.catalan faq at: http://www.gea.cesca.es/~ipa/SCC/
Tom Wier
> > > (A question on your etymology of the state's name: Isn't the original
> > > spelling with an <x>? So both modern names are corruptions (as far as
> > > pronunciation goes) but the Mexicans have changed the spelling to match,
> > > whereas we didn't have to since ours is a spelling pronunciation anyway.)
> >
> > Right... I'll note that. It was very, very late at night when I wrote that, and
> > I was probably confusing earlier references to Tejano/Hispanic culture and
> > the name itself. <sigh>
>
> So "Tejas" was not the original spelling? Lots of Texans don't know that, if the
> 3200 hits on HotBot mean anything. One of my favorite books as a kid was _Little
> Tejas_--sort of like _Little House on the Prairie_ with rattlesnakes. I didn't
> even know the name "Hasinai". We were taught to call them "the Tejas Indians".
No, I didn't either until about a year or two ago. We were always told about
the Caddo confederacy, of which the Hasinai were a member, in school. Of course,
now, there *are* no more Caddos. All gone. Unless the Alambama-Coushatta
are are a far-flung member... ;-(
MKGF
Perique des Palottes wrote:
> So, what was really the original "Indian" form of the "Mexicas",
> the tribe that originated the name of Mexico, [S], [Ç], [x], [h]??
> Anyone?
>
[sh], actually. Very much in the way "Mexico" is pronounced in modern Portuguese.
Guillermina Fehér
D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff
I'm afraid you don't understand the notation. Have a look at one of the
IPA for ASCII schemes (see the sci.lang FAQ at www.zompist.com for more
info). [S] =~ English <sh> =~ French <ch> =~ Portuguese/Catalan/Ligurian
<x>, etc.
mith...@indiana.edu
Perique des Palottes wrote:
> D. Edward Gund v. Brighoff wrote:
>
> > I'll look for a reference. It only makes sense, since <x> was formally
> > pronounced /S/ in Spanish. It began shifting to /x/ in the 17th century
> > in Spain (which makes it likely that the /S/ pronunciation held on longer
> > in the New World), but didn't begin to be regularly spelled <j> until cen-
> > turies later. Otherwise, I don't know how to explain the <Texas>
> > spelling.
>
> If I remember correctly, the medieval Spanish "x" /S/ and
> "j,ge,gi" /Z/ had already merged into /x/ by the end of XVI c.,
> pressumably neutralising first into voiceless /S/, and then
> moving backward to the velar order. (first "Quixote"'s title
> was still printed using "x").
>
> The current orthographical convention of "j,ge,gi" for /x/ dates
> from 178x or 179x, and was fixed by the newly created Real Academia.
> Notice that independence of former Spanish American colonies
> is only some decades afterwards that: Mexico (with [x] sound)
> refused to change its spelling ever after, leading to (incorrect)
> reinterpretations of those written forms like "Mexico" or "Texas"
> as [ks] according to modern Spanish spelling rules.
To supplement what you have said, here's this:
"During the 16th and following centuries, when Spanish underwent a great deal of
phonological change, the older letter values, such as [S] for <x>, were for the most
part retained in Nahuatl writing, though, as we shall see, 18th-century Nahuatl
orthography followed Spanish changes as to <s> and made adjustments related to changes
in Spanish <ll>." (Frances Karttunen and James Lockhart, _Nahuatl in the Middle Years:
Language Contact Phenomena in Texts of the Colonial Period_, 1).
"The situation with the pronunciation and writing of sibilants in mid-16th century
Spanish is complex and in any case not established beyond possibility of disagreement.
Let us take the view that at the time Nahuatl orthography was devised, Spanish had a
series that had through process of lenition and devoicing been reduced to dental [s],
written <c,> and <z>, retroflex [s.], written <s>, and palatal [S], written <x>, of
which the latter was itself yielding to the velar sound written today as <j>. Nahuatl's
comparable series consisted, according to most descriptions, of only two sounds, [s] and
[S]. And as one would expect, 16th-century Nahuatl orthography primarily adopted <c,>
and <z> for [s], and <x> for [S] in native words....
"This system of <c,>/<z> for [s], <x> and <s> for [S], remained stable until the
mid-17th century. Then there is a fifty- or sixty-year period of mixed conventions,
after which the letter <s> represents [s] in native vocabulary, and <x> becomes the sole
representation of [S]. The change in the Nahuatl system responds to a parallel change
in Spanish orthography and phonology; retroflex [s.] had been lost in Mexican Spanish by
the 18th century, having merged with dental [s], and the letter <s> was freely used by
writers to represent [s].
"As to <j>, and <g> before front vowels, many Spanish words containing these were for
some reason not often written with substitutions...
"Still, there is reason to think that these letters at least in the early period
represented [S] for Nahuatl speakers, and this may have been a close phonetic
interpretation. If earlier Spanish [Z], which those letters represented, devoiced at
some time prior to velarization, there would have been a period when the letters did
indeed represent [S] in Spanish vocabulary. In a few texts writers put <g> where one
expects <x> [S] in a Nahuatl word, as in _anquinmo*g*elvizque_ (1598) 'you are to divide
it'. Also, a few examples appear of <x> and <s> (in the early time when <s> was still
used to represent [S]) replacing <g> and <j>: [Examples include <residor> (c. 1550) /
<rexitor> (1642) / <rexidor> (1658) for regidor 'councilman'] Both <j> and <g> appear
as substitutions for Spanish <s> at the time when we believe [S] to have been the usual
Nahuatl value. [Example: Soledad written 'Joledad' (1613)] <g> and <j> merge
directly on one occasion ['rejildo' for regidor (1795)]. Thus we suggest that <j>, and
<g> before front vowels, were pronounced the same in loanwords (the only place they
appear frequently), at first as [S] and in later loans perhaps as velar [x], though the
orthography hides any change." (ibid., 5-6).
(And in case Mike Wright wonders, the brackets are justified here since what matters is
the exact pronunciation; phonemic changes are unimportant in this discussion.)
> So, what was really the original "Indian" form of the "Mexicas",
> the tribe that originated the name of Mexico, [S], [Ç], [x], [h]??
> Anyone?
Aztecas is one name, from their legendary place of origin, Aztlan (on the Pacific
coast). Another name is Mexica, a word of uncertain origin:
"But what is the meaning of Mexico?...Others...find in the name of the town the root
_metztli_ [metz- in combination; MAT], the moon, and _xictli_ [xic- in combination], the
navel or centre. Mexico, according to them, means '(the town) in the middle (of the
lake) of the moon,' Metztliapan, the lake of the moon, being the lagoon's former name.
And this reading seems to be confirmed by the fact that the mexican's neighbors, the
Otomi, called the city by the double name _anbondo amedetza^na^_: now _bondo_ is the
Otomi for prickly-pear [cf. Tenoch-ti-tlan, 'at the prickly-pear'], and _amedetza^na^_
means 'in the middle of the moon.'" (Jacques Soustelle, _The Daily Life of the Aztecs
on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest_, pp. 1-2.) That is, it would come from
*metz-xic-ca, where the final element is a locative.
Mexico is one name for their city, and among Mesoamerican peoples at that time the
city-state was of basic importance. "Nahua" is the preferred term for speakers of the
Nahuatl language, which included the Aztecs (the inhabitants of Tenochtitlan-Mexica) as
well as such blood enemies of theirs as the Tlaxcalans. This name in turn means "clear
speech" and is related to the postposition -nahua-c 'near.' That is, -nahuac indicates
within hearing distance. (The final -c is an alternate form of the -ca in Mexica; the
final a occurs when the suffix is added to a consonant-final stem.) A place name with
this element is Cuauh-nahuac 'near the forest' [kwaw.'na.wak], which became Cuernavaca
in Spanish. For a closer discussion of the Nahua view of the structure of their
society, see the appropriate chapter in James lockhart's _Nahuas After the Conquest_.
Mikael Thompson
Mike Wright
[a bunch of stuff]
So, can you apply all that to the spelling of "Texas" as "Tejas" and the likely
original pronunciation in Hasinai?
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
>(Frances Karttunen and James Lockhart, _Nahuatl in the Middle Years:
>Language Contact Phenomena in Texts of the Colonial Period_, 1).
>
>"The situation with the pronunciation and writing of sibilants in mid-16th century
>Spanish is complex and in any case not established beyond possibility of disagreement.
>Let us take the view that at the time Nahuatl orthography was devised, Spanish had a
>series that had through process of lenition and devoicing been reduced to dental [s],
>written <c,> and <z>, retroflex [s.], written <s>, and palatal [S], written <x>, of
>which the latter was itself yielding to the velar sound written today as <j>.
"Retroflex [s.]" is somewhat confusing. The sound was (and in
Northern Spain, is) an apical alveolar [s'], opposed to laminal
alveolar [s_] (in Northern Spain, interdental [T]).
spelling Medieval 16th c. Northern Southern spelling
-s- [z'] [s']
s-, ss [s'] [s'] [s'] [s_] s
z [dz], [z_] [s_]
ç, c[ei] [ts], [s_] [s_] [T] [s_] z, c[ei]
j, g[ei] [dZ], [Z] [S],[x]
x [S] [S],[x] [x] [x], [h] j, g[ei]
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
m...@wxs.nl |_____________|||
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Ben
Tom Wier <arta...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote in message
news:37A59F24...@mail.utexas.edu...
> Ben wrote:
>
> > In the US, people have a tendency to say "American" when they mean
"white"
> > or "western". having the omphalos syndrome, we tend to forget that our
> > culture is more European than it is really American
>
> But does that have any meaning? I'd suggest that you read Mark
Rosenfelder's
> page on what American culture is like, and you might think twice about
that
> statement. Unlike some intellectuals I've met, he doesn't make the
mistake
> of equating "culture" with "the culture of the bourgeoisie".
>
> <http://www.zompist.com/amercult.html>
>
culture is like saying America has no language. Well no, we don't have a
very distinctive one, because we ripped it all of from Europeans. It
doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That page was mainly devoted to the
difference between "American" and European culture. but the very fact that
it included trivial stuff like the way we write the date proves how close
"American" and European cultures are.
The languages almost all of us speak orginated in Europe, the religions most
of us (well those that practice religions) practice were brought here by
Europeans, as well as our entire kinship system and the traditions
surrounding it (marriage, etc.). Most of our genetic material either came
here from Europe, or had its voyage "assisted" by Europeans. The basic
forms of the clothes we wear, the houses we live in, and most of the other
things in our lives were brought from Europe. Our political and judicial
system is European as well. Many of our food crops, and all of our domestic
animals came from Europe. Most of our scientific knowledge was either
brought from Europe, or built on foundations set by Europeans. The list
goes on....
Coby (Jacob) Lubliner
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <m...@wxs.nl> wrote:
>spelling Medieval 16th c. Northern Southern spelling
>
>-s- [z'] [s']
>s-, ss [s'] [s'] [s'] [s_] s
>
>z [dz], [z_] [s_]
>ç, c[ei] [ts], [s_] [s_] [T] [s_] z, c[ei]
Actually, it was quite common to write, well into the 17th century
(e.g. Teresa de Avila, Juan de la Cruz, Quevedo), ç even before e and
i.
Coby