How many languages don't have "until"
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
meeting stone).
Let us run until we are tired.
There's no way to literally translate these to Hindi. To accomplish
literal translation while retaining semantics, these would have to
first be reworded as:
As long as the ground is soft, let's drive the tractor forward.
As long as we're not tired, let us run.
Jacek Pudlo
<ranjit_...@yahoo.com> skrev i meddelandet
news:6f77b17f-1954-49e2...@j18g2000yql.googlegroups.com...
What about जब तक?
alan
"Jacek Pudlo" <ja...@jacek.jacek> wrote in message
news:L7qdnXk619rXh6XX...@giganews.com...
"जब तक" is usually translated into English as "as long as" ---
e.g. " जब तक मैं काम कर सकता" = "As long as I can work".
I think Ranjit is correct in saying that there is no way to say "Until I
can't work" . . .
--
alan
LEE Sau Dan
ranjit> Let us plow until we hit hard ground (until we hear the
ranjit> sound of metal meeting stone). Let us run until we are
ranjit> tired.
ranjit> There's no way to literally translate these to Hindi. To
ranjit> accomplish literal translation while retaining semantics,
ranjit> these would have to first be reworded as: As long as the
ranjit> ground is soft, let's drive the tractor forward. As long as
ranjit> we're not tired, let us run.
Does German count?
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
Harlan Messinger
"As long as" = "until not"; "until" = "as long as not", "while not yet".
What difference does it make? When you say "literally", do you mean that
English (at least, the way most people speak it) doesn't have a
"literal" way to translate French "devant" because we say "in front of",
while French doesn't have a "literal" way to translate "beyond" because
they write "au-del� de"?
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> skrev i meddelandetnews:6f77b17f-1954-49e2...@j18g2000yql.googlegroups.com...
jab tak ham thak nahi~ hae~ ham dauDenge" means "for as long as we are
not tired, we will run".
tab tak cannot be used to say "until we are tired, we will run".
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> ranjit_math...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > Let us plow until we hit hard ground (until we hear the sound of metal
> > meeting stone).
> > Let us run until we are tired.
>
> > There's no way to literally translate these to Hindi. To accomplish
> > literal translation while retaining semantics, these would have to
> > first be reworded as:
> > As long as the ground is soft, let's drive the tractor forward.
> > As long as we're not tired, let us run.
>
> "As long as" = "until not"; "until" = "as long as not", "while not yet".
> What difference does it make?
The difference it makes is that Hindi ESL speakers seem to have
trouble using until in English. They say things like "until we have
life". It would be useful to see how this is addressed in
instructional materials for ESL speakers with some other native
language with no "until". Such materials are not necessary for them as
long as they are in India since their meaning of "until" is part of
their dialect of Indian English and it's a well understood dialect of
Indian English.
> When you say "literally", do you mean that
> English (at least, the way most people speak it) doesn't have a
> "literal" way to translate French "devant" because we say "in front of",
> while French doesn't have a "literal" way to translate "beyond" because
> they write "au-delà de"?
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> >>>>> "ranjit" == ranjit mathews@yahoo com <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> ranjit> Let us plow until we hit hard ground (until we hear the
> ranjit> sound of metal meeting stone). Let us run until we are
> ranjit> tired.
>
> ranjit> There's no way to literally translate these to Hindi. To
> ranjit> accomplish literal translation while retaining semantics,
> ranjit> these would have to first be reworded as: As long as the
> ranjit> ground is soft, let's drive the tractor forward. As long as
> ranjit> we're not tired, let us run.
>
> Does German count?
Sure. Can you give an example?
alan
"Harlan Messinger" <hmessinger...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:79qt5eF...@mid.individual.net...
I think that Ranjit is pointing out that there is no equivalent word or
phrase in Hindi which neatly substitutes for the English word "until" (with
the meaning of "to the point at which"). To get at the notion of "until" in
Hindi, one apparently must make changes in the other elements of the
sentence. While there is a neat substitution possible of "devant" for "in
front of" and of "au-del� de" for "beyond", there is no such neat
substitution for "until" in Hindi . . .
Ekkehard Dengler
Actually, Germ. "bis" can be used just like "until": "bis wir m�de sind"
(lit. "until we tired are"). What German does lack is a distinction like
that between the prepositions "until" and "by"; "bis" can mean either. Used
as a conjunction, it can also mean "by the time", but not "as long as".
Regards,
Ekkehard
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> "Harlan Messinger" <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>
> news:79qt5eF...@mid.individual.net...
>
>
>
> > ranjit_math...@yahoo.com wrote:
> >> Let us plow until we hit hard ground (until we hear the sound of metal
> >> meeting stone).
> >> Let us run until we are tired.
>
> >> There's no way to literally translate these to Hindi. To accomplish
> >> literal translation while retaining semantics, these would have to
> >> first be reworded as:
> >> As long as the ground is soft, let's drive the tractor forward.
> >> As long as we're not tired, let us run.
>
> > "As long as" = "until not"; "until" = "as long as not", "while not yet".
> > What difference does it make? When you say "literally", do you mean that
> > English (at least, the way most people speak it) doesn't have a "literal"
> > way to translate French "devant" because we say "in front of", while
> > French doesn't have a "literal" way to translate "beyond" because they
>
> I think that Ranjit is pointing out that there is no equivalent word or
> phrase in Hindi which neatly substitutes for the English word "until" (with
> the meaning of "to the point at which").
Hindi is but an example. A whole bunch of Indian languages, including
many dialects of Indian English, have the same problem.
> To get at the notion of "until" in
> Hindi, one apparently must make changes in the other elements of the
> sentence. While there is a neat substitution possible of "devant" for "in
> front of" and of "au-delà de" for "beyond", there is no such neat
> substitution for "until" in Hindi . . .
My concern is not about how to express "until" in Hindi since those
who know Hindi well can express themselves well without using "until".
My concern is about how to teach speakers of Hindi and other languages
the use of "until" and "as long as" in English. I come across people
with a decade and a half of English instruction who get "until" wrong
when speaking English and are not aware of such a thing as "as long
as". So, my question is: is this a problem in languages outside India
too and if so, what do pedagogic materials such as ESL textbooks in
the rest of the world teach about how to use "until" and "as long as"
in English?
Harlan Messinger
> On Jun 16, 9:32 pm, "alan" <in_flagra...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> "Harlan Messinger" <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>>
>> news:79qt5eF...@mid.individual.net...
>>
>>
>>
>>> ranjit_math...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>>> Let us plow until we hit hard ground (until we hear the sound of metal
>>>> meeting stone).
>>>> Let us run until we are tired.
>>>> There's no way to literally translate these to Hindi. To accomplish
>>>> literal translation while retaining semantics, these would have to
>>>> first be reworded as:
>>>> As long as the ground is soft, let's drive the tractor forward.
>>>> As long as we're not tired, let us run.
>>> "As long as" = "until not"; "until" = "as long as not", "while not yet".
>>> What difference does it make? When you say "literally", do you mean that
>>> English (at least, the way most people speak it) doesn't have a "literal"
>>> way to translate French "devant" because we say "in front of", while
>>> French doesn't have a "literal" way to translate "beyond" because they
>> I think that Ranjit is pointing out that there is no equivalent word or
>> phrase in Hindi which neatly substitutes for the English word "until" (with
>> the meaning of "to the point at which").
>
> Hindi is but an example. A whole bunch of Indian languages, including
> many dialects of Indian English, have the same problem.
>
>> To get at the notion of "until" in
>> Hindi, one apparently must make changes in the other elements of the
>> sentence. While there is a neat substitution possible of "devant" for "in
>> substitution for "until" in Hindi . . .
>
> My concern is not about how to express "until" in Hindi since those
> who know Hindi well can express themselves well without using "until".
> My concern is about how to teach speakers of Hindi and other languages
> the use of "until" and "as long as" in English. I come across people
> with a decade and a half of English instruction who get "until" wrong
> when speaking English and are not aware of such a thing as "as long
> as". So, my question is: is this a problem in languages outside India
> too and if so, what do pedagogic materials such as ESL textbooks in
> the rest of the world teach about how to use "until" and "as long as"
> in English?
You appear to making this out to be a special problem as opposed to a
single instance of a thoroughly pervasive phenomenon, which is that
languages can't be translated into each other word for word. Spanish and
French lack a word for "to drop" and the constructions they use instead
are different from each other. Portuguese uses "gostar" to mean "to
like", "to be pleased by" while Spanish uses "gustar" to mean "to be
pleasing to", etc. These quirks all call for careful attention by
learners of these languages. So, likewise, "until" and "as long as" need
special explanation for Hindi speakers. But you seem to feel that this
is different from all the other obstacles to the acquisition of a new
language.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> ranjit_math...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > On Jun 16, 9:32 pm, "alan" <in_flagra...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> "Harlan Messinger" <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>
> >>news:79qt5eF...@mid.individual.net...
>
> >>> ranjit_math...@yahoo.com wrote:
> >>>> Let us plow until we hit hard ground (until we hear the sound of metal
> >>>> meeting stone).
> >>>> Let us run until we are tired.
> >>>> There's no way to literally translate these to Hindi. To accomplish
> >>>> literal translation while retaining semantics, these would have to
> >>>> first be reworded as:
> >>>> As long as the ground is soft, let's drive the tractor forward.
> >>>> As long as we're not tired, let us run.
> >>> "As long as" = "until not"; "until" = "as long as not", "while not yet".
> >>> What difference does it make? When you say "literally", do you mean that
> >>> English (at least, the way most people speak it) doesn't have a "literal"
> >>> way to translate French "devant" because we say "in front of", while
> >>> French doesn't have a "literal" way to translate "beyond" because they
> >> I think that Ranjit is pointing out that there is no equivalent word or
> >> phrase in Hindi which neatly substitutes for the English word "until" (with
> >> the meaning of "to the point at which").
>
> > Hindi is but an example. A whole bunch of Indian languages, including
> > many dialects of Indian English, have the same problem.
>
> >> To get at the notion of "until" in
> >> Hindi, one apparently must make changes in the other elements of the
> >> sentence. While there is a neat substitution possible of "devant" for "in
> >> substitution for "until" in Hindi . . .
>
> > My concern is not about how to express "until" in Hindi since those
> > who know Hindi well can express themselves well without using "until".
> > My concern is about how to teach speakers of Hindi and other languages
> > the use of "until" and "as long as" in English. I come across people
> > with a decade and a half of English instruction who get "until" wrong
> > when speaking English and are not aware of such a thing as "as long
> > as". So, my question is: is this a problem in languages outside India
> > too and if so, what do pedagogic materials such as ESL textbooks in
> > the rest of the world teach about how to use "until" and "as long as"
> > in English?
>
> You appear to making this out to be a special problem as opposed to a
> single instance of a thoroughly pervasive phenomenon, which is that
> languages can't be translated into each other word for word. Spanish and
> French lack a word for "to drop" and the constructions they use instead
> are different from each other. Portuguese uses "gostar" to mean "to
> like", "to be pleased by" while Spanish uses "gustar" to mean "to be
> pleasing to", etc. These quirks all call for careful attention by
> learners of these languages. So, likewise, "until" and "as long as" need
> special explanation for Hindi speakers.
Exactly. What I was trying to find out is: what are the explanations
that are commonly used?
> But you seem to feel that this
> is different from all the other obstacles to the acquisition of a new
> language.
Ah, but English is not a new language to these speakers. I got rid of
my most glaring Indianisms in one semester with a teacher who
graduated from a college in England when it wasn't a new language to
me.
Harlan Messinger
I certainly have no knowledge about explanations that are commonly used
to teach Indian speakers of Indian English, but can't you just say:
until X happens = for some continuous period of time before X happens;
as long as X hasn't happened yet
as long as X is happening = for some continuous period of timing during
which X is happening; until X stops happening
Or draw a time line showing the time from the perspective of which a
speaker is speaking, and with boundaries marking certain occurrences
(meals of the day, the ascent of particular Indian prime ministers,
etc.) and use arrows to indicate different spans of time with respect to
the speaker's perspective and the occurrences, labeled with phrases like
"until dinner" or "as long as Vajpayee was prime minister".
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> ranjit_math...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > On Jun 16, 10:43 pm, Harlan Messinger
> > <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> You appear to making this out to be a special problem as opposed to a
> >> single instance of a thoroughly pervasive phenomenon, which is that
> >> languages can't be translated into each other word for word. Spanish and
> >> French lack a word for "to drop" and the constructions they use instead
> >> are different from each other. Portuguese uses "gostar" to mean "to
> >> like", "to be pleased by" while Spanish uses "gustar" to mean "to be
> >> pleasing to", etc. These quirks all call for careful attention by
> >> learners of these languages. So, likewise, "until" and "as long as" need
> >> special explanation for Hindi speakers.
>
> > Exactly. What I was trying to find out is: what are the explanations
> > that are commonly used?
>
> I certainly have no knowledge about explanations that are commonly used
> to teach Indian speakers of Indian English, but can't you just say:
> until X happens = for some continuous period of time before X happens;
> as long as X hasn't happened yet
>
> as long as X is happening = for some continuous period of timing during
> which X is happening; until X stops happening
That hasn't been too successful. Someone once explained "you have to
think in English to do that; I think in my language and then speak in
English." Racking the brain some more, this seems to be one way to
think of it in Hindi before speaking it in English:
Think using the negative nahi~:
jab tak ham thak nahi~ hae tab tak ham dauDenge.
(As long as we are not tired, let us run.)
Say, making sure to drop the negative:
Until we are tired, let us run.
> Or draw a time line showing the time from the perspective of which a
> speaker is speaking, and with boundaries marking certain occurrences
> (meals of the day, the ascent of particular Indian prime ministers,
> etc.) and use arrows to indicate different spans of time with respect to
> the speaker's perspective and the occurrences, labeled with phrases like
> "until dinner" or "as long as Vajpayee was prime minister".
Drawing and such ideally need a classroom and are not suitable for
extemporaneous instruction. What is ideally suitable for
extemporaneous use is some kind of cheat sheet.
Harlan Messinger
Whatever terms you need to explain it in, it should be explicable.
Certainly you can come up with a sentence in Indian English that means,
in English English, "blah blah until X" and another that means, in
English English, "as long as X, blah blah", and present those
equivalences. It seems odd to me that it would be harder than it is to
explain to an American that "rubber" and "fag" and "knock someone up"
mean something different in England, or than it is to explain to a
Brazilian that instead of saying "estou falando" when he's in Portugal,
he should say, "estou a falar". (Or is it the reverse--Antonio?)
>> Or draw a time line showing the time from the perspective of which a
>> speaker is speaking, and with boundaries marking certain occurrences
>> (meals of the day, the ascent of particular Indian prime ministers,
>> etc.) and use arrows to indicate different spans of time with respect to
>> the speaker's perspective and the occurrences, labeled with phrases like
>> "until dinner" or "as long as Vajpayee was prime minister".
>
> Drawing and such ideally need a classroom and are not suitable for
> extemporaneous instruction. What is ideally suitable for
> extemporaneous use is some kind of cheat sheet.
Is that your situation? Maybe the reason you're having difficulty
getting these concepts across is that the total strangers you're
accosting and interrupting in mid-sentence to correct them are too
wrapped up in their dismay to be paying close attention to them. :-)
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
It has to be explained in such a way that it can be assimilated
quickly and retained for a long time.
> >> Or draw a time line showing the time from the perspective of which a
> >> speaker is speaking, and with boundaries marking certain occurrences
> >> (meals of the day, the ascent of particular Indian prime ministers,
> >> etc.) and use arrows to indicate different spans of time with respect to
> >> the speaker's perspective and the occurrences, labeled with phrases like
> >> "until dinner" or "as long as Vajpayee was prime minister".
>
> > Drawing and such ideally need a classroom and are not suitable for
> > extemporaneous instruction. What is ideally suitable for
> > extemporaneous use is some kind of cheat sheet.
>
> Is that your situation? Maybe the reason you're having difficulty
> getting these concepts across is that the total strangers you're
> accosting and interrupting in mid-sentence to correct them are too
> wrapped up in their dismay to be paying close attention to them. :-)
They are never total strangers. Some corrections are easy. My cousin
met his wife for the first time at their wedding in Bombay (it's
unusual in this age to not meet before marrying but that's the way he
wanted it and she presumably fell in line with what he wanted). She, a
physician, duly moved to the US and was saying "I have to give an
exam". So, I asked how that was said in Marathi or Hindi. The answer
was "pari:ksha de:na:" literally meaning "to give an exam". People
like that are not sorry to be corrected; it helps them settle in to be
able to speak others' lingo and even if she was abashed, social
protocol in our culture didn't allow her to take offense at her
husband's elder cousin or even show that she's offended.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
Once, a diplomat's son was telling me that his servant was calling a
cucumber a [kUkUmb@r.] and didn't seem to want to be corrected.
He wasn't American, so I couldn't suggest that he learn the correct
pronunciation of Cuba from the servant.
Do Americans say "Cuba" correctly after hearing the native
pronunciation?
Do Englishmen say Managua correctly after hearing the native
pronunciation?
grammatim
<ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Do Americans say "Cuba" correctly after hearing the native
> pronunciation?
The correct English pronunciation of "Cuba" is /kyuwb@/, which is not
the Spanish version /kuba/. When Obama pronounces "Pakistan"
"correctly," people think he's putting on airs.
The people only notice the /a/s instead of /&/s, but it's also the
unaspirated /p/.
> Do Englishmen say Managua correctly after hearing the native
> pronunciation?-
I believe the pronunciation of <gu> in American Spanish is quite
variable.
António Marques
> ... or than it is to explain to a
> Brazilian that instead of saying "estou falando" when he's in Portugal,
> he should say, "estou a falar". (Or is it the reverse--Antonio?)
:)
It doesn't really matter because both forms are
--
António Marques
António Marques
> ... or than it is to explain to a Brazilian that instead of saying
> "estou falando" when he's in Portugal, he should say, "estou a
> falar". (Or is it the reverse--Antonio?)
:)
It doesn't really matter because both forms are used. The gerund is the
usual one in Brazil and the Alentejo, the other pretty much everywhere
else (I think).
More important is the fact that _falar_ (usually 'talk') can mean 'tell'
in Brazil, whereas elsewhere you use _dizer_ (usually 'say'). But I
think you can use _falar em_ to mean 'mention' everywhere:
br1 Eu falei isso para ela I told/said her that
br2 Eu lhe falei isso I said her/him that
pt1 Eu disse-lhe isso I told/said her/him that
pt2 Eu disse isso a ela I said that to her
pt3 Eu disse-lhe isso, a ela I said her that, to her
pt4 Eu falei-lhe nisso I mentioned that to her/him
So with all these subleties, I think the answer to Ranjit is that indian
english just operates differently from common english. If people don't
master the nuances of common english even after years of exposure, it
can't be laziness or imperfect acquisition, it's just that the kind of
english that their community uses in real life is different and no
amount of training will correct the masses.
--
António Marques
António Marques
> When Obama pronounces "Pakistan" "correctly," people think he's
> putting on airs.
>
> The people only notice the /a/s instead of /&/s, but it's also the
> unaspirated /p/.
Could Obama be the first polyglot american president?
--
António Marques
Brian M. Scott
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:8665933c-48d6-4924...@q2g2000vbr.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang:
> On Jun 17, 3:57�pm, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
[...]
> When Obama pronounces "Pakistan" "correctly," people think
> he's putting on airs.
> The people only notice the /a/s instead of /&/s, but it's
> also the unaspirated /p/.
Pronunciations with /a/ are certainly less common in U.S.
English than pronunciations with /�/, but they're common
enough to be recognized by both MW and AHD (and quite
familiar). I've not heard his pronunciation, but if it's
actual 'correct', it isn't the /a/s themselves that are the
genuinely unusual features, but rather their length and the
unaspirated /p/.
>> Do Englishmen say Managua correctly after hearing the
>> native pronunciation?-
> I believe the pronunciation of <gu> in American Spanish is
> quite variable.
He may be thinking that they mangle it along the lines of
the traditional conventional BBC pronunciation of
<Nicaragua> as [,nIk@'r�gju@], though I'm not at all sure
that this is actually the case.
Brian
wugi
> ranjit_...@yahoo.com wrote:
>> Let us plow until we hit hard ground (until we hear the sound of
>> metal meeting stone).
>> Let us run until we are tired.
>>
>> There's no way to literally translate these to Hindi. To accomplish
>> literal translation while retaining semantics, these would have to
>> first be reworded as:
>> As long as the ground is soft, let's drive the tractor forward.
>> As long as we're not tired, let us run.
>
> "As long as" = "until not"; "until" = "as long as not", "while not
> yet". What difference does it make?
Spanish kinda messes up the meanings of "until" vs. "while" (hasta vs.
mientras) in a double negation construction (with a redundant "no") :
No lo har� hasta que (no) vengas,
I won't do it until you come ; I won't do it while you don't come.
With the extra "no" this sounds like
I won't do it until you don't come,
ie as if hasta/until came to mean mientras/while.
Maybe to do with the Arab origin (and its meaning) of hasta .
wugi
> Maybe to do with the Arab origin (and its meaning) of hasta .
>
> More at
> http://www.wikilengua.org/index.php/hasta_que_no...
You really need the last three dots within the link. Yet another case of
casual link formation...
guido "wugi"
http://home.scarlet.be/~pin12499
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
Right; it's because it isn't acquired from Anglos. Indian English is
not one language; it's a collection of creoles although they have many
of their grammatical and lexical innovations in common. Someone was
wondering how to say in Anglo English "It's a funda(adj) funda(noun)"
which would be understood in most of India. It would be something like
"It is (or seems like) a fundamentally great concept/idea/innovation/
approach-to-science". There's no all-Indian antonym to funda(adj). In
Bombay, if people or ideas are considered dross/ excrescential, they
are called faltu(adj). What is equivalent in American idiom? Calling
people scum and ideas garbage or even calling them worthless is ruder
than calling them faltu in Bombay English or dross and excrescential
in British English.
Harlan Messinger
Many Americans certainly know how "Cuba" is pronounced in Spanish, but
we all continue to say /kju b@/ (except for the New Englanders who
pronounced it like "cuber").
> Do Englishmen say Managua correctly after hearing the native
> pronunciation?
I don't know. I imagine they continue to rhyme it with "jaguar" /dZ& gju @/.
Harlan Messinger
I suspect it doesn't because French has a similar feature called the
"expletive ne".
Harlan Messinger
Oh, there we go: the article calls it the "no expletivo".
Oliver Cromm
> ranjit_...@yahoo.com wrote:
>> On Jun 16, 10:43 pm, Harlan Messinger
>> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>> You appear to making this out to be a special problem as opposed to a
>>> single instance of a thoroughly pervasive phenomenon, which is that
>>> languages can't be translated into each other word for word. Spanish and
>>> French lack a word for "to drop" and the constructions they use instead
>>> are different from each other. Portuguese uses "gostar" to mean "to
>>> like", "to be pleased by" while Spanish uses "gustar" to mean "to be
>>> pleasing to", etc. These quirks all call for careful attention by
>>> learners of these languages. So, likewise, "until" and "as long as" need
>>> special explanation for Hindi speakers.
>>
>> Exactly. What I was trying to find out is: what are the explanations
>> that are commonly used?
>
> I certainly have no knowledge about explanations that are commonly used
> to teach Indian speakers of Indian English, but can't you just say:
>
> until X happens = for some continuous period of time before X happens;
> as long as X hasn't happened yet
>
> as long as X is happening = for some continuous period of timing during
> which X is happening; until X stops happening
I suggest this simple rule of thumb to get the difference:
- until something changes
- as long as it stays the same
Learning the standard English usage of "until" doesn't look nearly as
hard as learning the modal constructions in Japanese was for me, where
the sentence patterns for "must", "can", "should", "want" are quite
different from each other. How many languages don't have modal verbs?
But then, maybe it's more confusing, like the free use of negation in
standard French vs. rigid rules in standard English and German in cases
like:
He is afraid that the dog will *not bite him.
Il a peur que le chien [ne] le morde.
But then, similar differences exists between standard German and
regional German, and maybe in English as well.
--
Press any key to continue or any other key to quit.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
Spoken Anglo Englishes have their oddities too:
Since as long as instead of For as long as:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22since+as+long+as%22&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
Since instead of As long as
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22since+i%27ve+been%22&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10
grammatim
D'ya remember Thomas Jefferson? He lived in France for several years
and had an extensive library.
wugi
> wugi wrote:
>> Spanish kinda messes up the meanings of "until" vs. "while" (hasta
>> vs. mientras) in a double negation construction (with a redundant
>> "no") : No lo har� hasta que (no) vengas,
>> I won't do it until you come ; I won't do it while you don't come.
>> With the extra "no" this sounds like
>> I won't do it until you don't come,
>> ie as if hasta/until came to mean mientras/while.
>> Maybe to do with the Arab origin (and its meaning) of hasta .
>
> I suspect it doesn't because French has a similar feature called the
> "expletive ne".
But this applies to a whole class of phrases with similar semantics. The "no
expletivo" here works only with "hasta" (besides within main clauses such as
"no he visto a nadie"), eg not with "mientras":
no lo har� mientras * te estoy esperando,
no expletive *no possible.
guido
Harlan Messinger
That may be so, but I was just suggesting that since French also has the
feature (which even has the same name, regardless of whether Spanish has
it to the same extent), my first guess wouldn't be that it was one of
the features of Arabic that found their way into Spanish and Portuguese
during the Moorish occupation.
António Marques
> wugi wrote:
>> Harlan Messinger wrote:
>>> wugi wrote:
>>
>>>> Spanish kinda messes up the meanings of "until" vs. "while" (hasta
>>>> vs. mientras) in a double negation construction (with a redundant
>>>> I won't do it until you come ; I won't do it while you don't come.
>>>> With the extra "no" this sounds like
>>>> I won't do it until you don't come,
>>>> ie as if hasta/until came to mean mientras/while.
>>>> Maybe to do with the Arab origin (and its meaning) of hasta .
>>> I suspect it doesn't because French has a similar feature called the
>>> "expletive ne".
>>
>> But this applies to a whole class of phrases with similar semantics.
>> The "no
>> expletivo" here works only with "hasta" (besides within main clauses
>> such as
>> "no he visto a nadie"), eg not with "mientras":
>> no expletive *no possible.
>
> That may be so, but I was just suggesting that since French also has the
> feature (which even has the same name, regardless of whether Spanish has
> it to the same extent), my first guess wouldn't be that it was one of
> the features of Arabic that found their way into Spanish and Portuguese
> during the Moorish occupation.
Especially since portuguese doesn't have that double negative: *'não ...
até que não ...' is impossible. You can only have:
(não) X enquanto Y (not) X while Y
(não) X enquanto não Y (not) X while not Y
X até que não Y X until not Y
X até que Y X until Y
não Y até X not Y until X
And italian does it the wrong way: 'finché non X' is not the expected
'until not X' but 'until X', and 'ammeno che non X' is 'unless X'.
--
António Marques
Adam Funk
Jefferson was fluent in French (and could read Latin and Greek).
(Technically, Jefferson wasn't the 2nd president of the USA, but the
second under the Constitution. No-one ever mentions what went on
under the Articles of Confederation.)
Wilson got a PhD in the late C19; I expect there was a foreign
language requirement for that, although it might have only been for
reading.
(Those are just off the top of my head.)
--
I spend almost as much time figuring out what's wrong with my computer
as I do actually using it. Networked software, especially, requires
frequent updates and maintenance, all of which gets in the way of
doing routine work. (Stoll 1995)
grammatim
> On 2009-06-17, António Marques wrote:
>
> > grammatim wrote:
> >> When Obama pronounces "Pakistan" "correctly," people think he's
> >> putting on airs.
>
> >> The people only notice the /a/s instead of /&/s, but it's also the
> >> unaspirated /p/.
>
> > Could Obama be the first polyglot american president?
>
> Jefferson was fluent in French (and could read Latin and Greek).
> (Technically, Jefferson wasn't the 2nd president of the USA, but the
> second under the Constitution. No-one ever mentions what went on
> under the Articles of Confederation.)
What was John Adams, chopped liver?
Why do you think anyone thinks Jefferson was #2?
> Wilson got a PhD in the late C19; I expect there was a foreign
> language requirement for that, although it might have only been for
> reading.
>
> (Those are just off the top of my head.)
There were foreign language requirements everywhere until ca. 1970,
when they started falling. Why would that suggest that any college
graduate was "polyglot"?
Adam Funk
> Jefferson was fluent in French (and could read Latin and Greek).
> (Technically, Jefferson wasn't the 2nd president of the USA, but the
> second under the Constitution. No-one ever mentions what went on
> under the Articles of Confederation.)
That should be "3rd" for "2nd" of course. I can't explain how I got
the "r" and "n" mixed up, though.
--
And remember, while you're out there risking your life and limb
through shot and shell, we'll be in be in here thinking what a
sucker you are. [Rufus T. Firefly]
Adam Funk
> On Jun 18, 7:03 am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>> Jefferson was fluent in French (and could read Latin and Greek).
>> (Technically, Jefferson wasn't the 2nd president of the USA, but the
>> second under the Constitution. No-one ever mentions what went on
>> under the Articles of Confederation.)
>
> What was John Adams, chopped liver?
>
> Why do you think anyone thinks Jefferson was #2?
Strange typing error --- see previous correction.
>> Wilson got a PhD in the late C19; I expect there was a foreign
>> language requirement for that, although it might have only been for
>> reading.
>>
>> (Those are just off the top of my head.)
>
> There were foreign language requirements everywhere until ca. 1970,
> when they started falling. Why would that suggest that any college
> graduate was "polyglot"?
Note that I did qualify it. I imagine standards for a PhD in C19 were
higher than for an undergraduate degree in the 1960s, though.
--
Take it? I can't even parse it! [Kibo]
grammatim
Name the US universities that awarded a Ph.D. (or equivalent) in the
19th century.
IIRC the history of the University of Chicago (I wrote some articles
about William Rainey Harper, its founding president, some 35 years
ago), the first German-style university in the US was Clark, in
Worcester, Mass., established quite a while after the Civil War, and
Harper, using Rockefeller's money, was able to lure a lot of its
professors to Chicago (in 1892).
grammatim
> On 2009-06-18, Adam Funk wrote:
>
> > Jefferson was fluent in French (and could read Latin and Greek).
> > (Technically, Jefferson wasn't the 2nd president of the USA, but the
> > second under the Constitution. No-one ever mentions what went on
> > under the Articles of Confederation.)
>
> That should be "3rd" for "2nd" of course. I can't explain how I got
> the "r" and "n" mixed up, though.
"second" is not a typo for "third".
And there was a (series of?) commemorative postal card(s) for the
presidents of the Confederation at the time of its bicentennial. (Was
there more than one over the four years?) Not many people see
commemorative postal cards.
The late historian of linguistics R. H. Robins noted in one of his
biographical sketches of Peter Stephen Duponceau that he was Deputy
Foreign Secretary in 1783 -- "in the first George Washington
administration." He was better at the history of linguistics than at
the history of the United States.
Which reminds me of an astounding coffee-table book I saw in the
Borders bargain books section just once, a couple months ago -- a
British-produced work by a Professor of American Studies entitled *The
Presidents of America*.
Horace LaBadie
<1eb54af6-c817-4b42...@r13g2000vbr.googlegroups.com>,
grammatim <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Jun 18, 8:15�am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> > On 2009-06-18, Adam Funk wrote:
> >
> > > Jefferson was fluent in French (and could read Latin and Greek).
> > > (Technically, Jefferson wasn't the 2nd president of the USA, but the
> > > second under the Constitution. �No-one ever mentions what went on
> > > under the Articles of Confederation.)
> >
> > That should be "3rd" for "2nd" of course. �I can't explain how I got
> > the "r" and "n" mixed up, though.
>
> "second" is not a typo for "third".
>
> And there was a (series of?) commemorative postal card(s) for the
> presidents of the Confederation at the time of its bicentennial. (Was
> there more than one over the four years?) Not many people see
> commemorative postal cards.
The Articles of Confederation preceded the Constitution as the
fundamental law of the US. The chief executive was President of the
United States in Congress Assembled. There were ten men who held the
office. One or two didn't even bother to show up after being elected.
Entirely a different kettle of fish from the Confederacy of rebel states.
Adam Funk
> On Jun 18, 8:15 am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>> On 2009-06-18, Adam Funk wrote:
>>
>> > Jefferson was fluent in French (and could read Latin and Greek).
>> > (Technically, Jefferson wasn't the 2nd president of the USA, but the
>> > second under the Constitution. No-one ever mentions what went on
>> > under the Articles of Confederation.)
>>
>> That should be "3rd" for "2nd" of course. I can't explain how I got
>> the "r" and "n" mixed up, though.
>
> "second" is not a typo for "third".
It was a bizarre error, as I've already acknowledged.
> And there was a (series of?) commemorative postal card(s) for the
> presidents of the Confederation at the time of its bicentennial. (Was
> there more than one over the four years?) Not many people see
> commemorative postal cards.
Interesting. I don't remember those.
Fourteen different people over 16 terms held the post of "President of
the Continental Congress", but only 8 were elected under the Articles
of Confederation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_Continental_Congress#List_of_presidents
Until I looked it up, I had no idea there were so many over such a
short period. In my experience, American history classes used to skip
it except for a brief bit about the Federalist Papers and the
ratification of the Constitution.
--
In the 1970s, people began receiving utility bills for
-£999,999,996.32 and it became harder to sustain the
myth of the infallible electronic brain. (Stob 2001)
Adam Funk
> Name the US universities that awarded a Ph.D. (or equivalent) in the
> 19th century.
Johns Hopkins awarded a PhD to Woodrow Wilson in 1886. I have no idea
how many others awarded doctoral degrees at that time.
--
It is probable that television drama of high caliber and produced by
first-rate artists will materially raise the level of dramatic taste
of the nation. (David Sarnoff, CEO of RCA, 1939; in Stoll 1995)
grammatim
> On 2009-06-18, grammatim wrote:
> > On Jun 18, 8:15 am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> >> On 2009-06-18, Adam Funk wrote:
>
> >> > Jefferson was fluent in French (and could read Latin and Greek).
> >> > (Technically, Jefferson wasn't the 2nd president of the USA, but the
> >> > second under the Constitution. No-one ever mentions what went on
> >> > under the Articles of Confederation.)
>
> >> That should be "3rd" for "2nd" of course. I can't explain how I got
> >> the "r" and "n" mixed up, though.
>
> > "second" is not a typo for "third".
>
> It was a bizarre error, as I've already acknowledged.
>
> > And there was a (series of?) commemorative postal card(s) for the
> > presidents of the Confederation at the time of its bicentennial. (Was
> > there more than one over the four years?) Not many people see
> > commemorative postal cards.
>
> Interesting. I don't remember those.
>
> Fourteen different people over 16 terms held the post of "President of
> the Continental Congress", but only 8 were elected under the Articles
> of Confederation.
>
>
> Until I looked it up, I had no idea there were so many over such a
> short period. In my experience, American history classes used to skip
> it except for a brief bit about the Federalist Papers and the
> ratification of the Constitution.
Hanson is the one who got the postal card. His successor, Elias
Boudinot, was a linguist.
Adam Funk
Do you mean the publisher of the first Cherokee newspaper? He wasn't
the same person, but Boudinot (the president) sponsored his studies
and let him take his name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_Boudinot_(disambiguation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_Boudinot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_Boudinot_(Cherokee)
(Some interesting stories there. Also, the symbols used for the
syllabary illustrate quite well your point that writing systems of
very different types can have most of their glyphs in common.)
--
Classical Greek lent itself to the promulgation of a rich culture,
indeed, to Western civilization. Computer languages bring us
doorbells that chime with thirty-two tunes, alt.sex.bestiality, and
Tetris clones. (Stoll 1995)
grammatim
> On 2009-06-18, grammatim wrote:
> > On Jun 18, 2:11 pm, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
> >> Until I looked it up, I had no idea there were so many over such a
> >> short period. In my experience, American history classes used to skip
> >> it except for a brief bit about the Federalist Papers and the
> >> ratification of the Constitution.
>
> > Hanson is the one who got the postal card. His successor, Elias
> > Boudinot, was a linguist.
>
> Do you mean the publisher of the first Cherokee newspaper? He wasn't
> the same person, but Boudinot (the president) sponsored his studies
> and let him take his name.
Interesting.
>
> (Some interesting stories there. Also, the symbols used for the
> syllabary illustrate quite well your point that writing systems of
> very different types can have most of their glyphs in common.)
Which is because when Boudinot went to print Cherokee, he used sorts
that already existed in his variety of fonts, rather than cutting new
shapes resembling those Sequoyah had devised. Sequoyah approved the
substitutes.
PaulJK
> On 2009-06-17, António Marques wrote:
>
>> grammatim wrote:
>>> When Obama pronounces "Pakistan" "correctly," people think he's
>>> putting on airs.
>>>
>>> The people only notice the /a/s instead of /&/s, but it's also the
>>> unaspirated /p/.
>>
>> Could Obama be the first polyglot american president?
>
>
> Jefferson was fluent in French (and could read Latin and Greek).
> (Technically, Jefferson wasn't the 2nd president of the USA, but the
> second under the Constitution. No-one ever mentions what went on
> under the Articles of Confederation.)
>
> Wilson got a PhD in the late C19; I expect there was a foreign
> language requirement for that, although it might have only been for
> reading.
>
> (Those are just off the top of my head.)
And then there was the Berliner polyglot. :-)
(Off the top of my bumpy head)
pjk
Peter T. Daniels
He had a Harvard B.A. Presumably he had studied French and Latin in
high school (didn't he attend Boston Latin?) but no higher degree
AFAIK (Bobby was the lawyer); *While England Slept* was his senior
honors thesis.
Oliver Cromm
> On 2009-06-18, grammatim wrote:
>
>> On Jun 18, 8:15�am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>>> On 2009-06-18, Adam Funk wrote:
>>>
>>> > Jefferson was fluent in French (and could read Latin and Greek).
>>> > (Technically, Jefferson wasn't the 2nd president of the USA, but the
>>> > second under the Constitution. �No-one ever mentions what went on
>>> > under the Articles of Confederation.)
>>>
>>> That should be "3rd" for "2nd" of course. �I can't explain how I got
>>> the "r" and "n" mixed up, though.
>>
>> "second" is not a typo for "third".
>
> It was a bizarre error, as I've already acknowledged.
I find the American obsession with numbering their presidents bizarre in
itself.
--
OliverC
Peter T. Daniels
We don't "number" our presidents. There had to be a way to distinguish
bush from Bush, because he is not George H. W. Bush, Jr.
Many people know that Lincoln was the 16th president, everyone knows
that Washington was first.
A while back, the Library of Congress or the National Archives or
someone made the official decision to count Grover Cleveland twice
(since he was the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms),
but you won't find many people knowing what numbers he was assigned.
Karl Reinhardt
What about Henry the Eighth, Louis Quinze, Charles Quint (=Carlos Quinto),
John the 23rd, Elizabeth II, Napoleon the First, and so it goes. None
American. The only difference is that none of those people I have listed
were Presidents.
Perhaps some explanation of what "obsession" is being referred to is called
for.
Karl Reinhardt
"Oliver Cromm" <lispa...@yahoo.de> wrote in message
news:1737slpw...@mid.crommatograph.info...
Harlan Messinger
>
> "Oliver Cromm" <lispa...@yahoo.de> wrote in message
> news:1737slpw...@mid.crommatograph.info...
>> * Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 2009-06-18, grammatim wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Jun 18, 8:15 am, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:
>>>>> On 2009-06-18, Adam Funk wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Jefferson was fluent in French (and could read Latin and Greek).
>>>>>> (Technically, Jefferson wasn't the 2nd president of the USA, but the
>>>>>> second under the Constitution. No-one ever mentions what went on
>>>>>> under the Articles of Confederation.)
>>>>> That should be "3rd" for "2nd" of course. I can't explain how I got
>>>>> the "r" and "n" mixed up, though.
>>>> "second" is not a typo for "third".
>>> It was a bizarre error, as I've already acknowledged.
>> I find the American obsession with numbering their presidents bizarre in
>> itself.
>
> What about Henry the Eighth, Louis Quinze, Charles Quint (=Carlos
Quinto),
> John the 23rd, Elizabeth II, Napoleon the First, and so it goes. None
> American. The only difference is that none of those people I have
listed
> were Presidents.
>
what's used to distinguish them from others of the same name, in
contrast to American presidents, for whom we use the last name for that
purpose. I don't think many people can tell you off the top of their
heads how many kings there were from Charles le Chauve to Louis XIV.
António Marques
(The numbering of Pope Johns and England's Edwards is amusing, btw.)
--
António Marques
anal...@hotmail.com
> On Jun 17, 3:57 pm, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
>
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Do Americans say "Cuba" correctly after hearing the native
> > pronunciation?
>
> The correct English pronunciation of "Cuba" is /kyuwb@/, which is not
> the Spanish version /kuba/. When Obama pronounces "Pakistan"
> "correctly," people think he's putting on airs.
>
> The people only notice the /a/s instead of /&/s, but it's also the
> unaspirated /p/.
>
Only linguists seem to be aware of the mild (not always consistent in
my observation - the same speaker may aspirate the same word more or
less or not at all in diferent instances) aspiration of p,t,k under a
complicated set of conditions by native AmE and BrE speakers - the
written pronunciation guide at Merriam Webster doesn't differentiate
the 'p' in 'pin' and 'spin' for example (the audio does show that only
'pin' is aspirated).
I'll bet this is a recent phenomenon along with glottal stops. Are
there theories why these sound changes are happening in English?
Mok-Kong Shen
> Let us plow until we hit hard ground (until we hear the sound of metal
> meeting stone).
> Let us run until we are tired.
>
> There's no way to literally translate these to Hindi. To accomplish
> literal translation while retaining semantics, these would have to
> first be reworded as:
> As long as the ground is soft, let's drive the tractor forward.
> As long as we're not tired, let us run.
Are you asking whether in other languages there is one single word,
instead of a phrase, that could be translated to "until". I don't
think that this sort of 1-1 correspondence is of much significance,
as long as the same concept can be expressed and is commonly expressed
practically (see e.g. the English please and the French s'il vou
plait).
M. K. Shen
Peter T. Daniels
> On Jun 17, 4:05 pm, grammatim <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > On Jun 17, 3:57 pm, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
>
> > <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > Do Americans say "Cuba" correctly after hearing the native
> > > pronunciation?
>
> > The correct English pronunciation of "Cuba" is /kyuwb@/, which is not
> > the Spanish version /kuba/. When Obama pronounces "Pakistan"
> > "correctly," people think he's putting on airs.
>
> > The people only notice the /a/s instead of /&/s, but it's also the
> > unaspirated /p/.
>
> Only linguists seem to be aware
Obviously. It's not phonemic.
> of the mild (not always consistent in
> my observation - the same speaker may aspirate the same word more or
> less or not at all in diferent instances) aspiration of p,t,k under a
> complicated set of conditions by native AmE and BrE speakers - the
> written pronunciation guide at Merriam Webster doesn't differentiate
> the 'p' in 'pin' and 'spin' for example (the audio does show that only
> 'pin' is aspirated).
>
> I'll bet this is a recent phenomenon along with glottal stops. Are
> there theories why these sound changes are happening in English?
Don't make stupid bets. What sound changes?
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
Even if it is not a problem, I want to know which languages* are like
Hindi, in this respect.
* non-Indic & non-Dravidian languages, that is.
anal...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
At least the English glottal stop (certainly its increased usage)
appears to be a post 20th century phenomenon (check out the thread
"big brother Br E" at aue).
Are you saying that p,t,k, have always been aspirated in English in
exactly the same environments as they are today?
If yes - proof?
If not - there have been sound changes.
Hans Aberg
>>> my observation - the same speaker may aspirate the same word more or
>>> less or not at all in diferent instances) aspiration of p,t,k under a
>>> complicated set of conditions by native AmE and BrE speakers - the
>>> written pronunciation guide at Merriam Webster doesn't differentiate
>>> the 'p' in 'pin' and 'spin' for example (the audio does show that only
>>> 'pin' is aspirated).
>>> I'll bet this is a recent phenomenon along with glottal stops. Are
>>> there theories why these sound changes are happening in English?
>> Don't make stupid bets. What sound changes?
> At least the English glottal stop (certainly its increased usage)
> appears to be a post 20th century phenomenon (check out the thread
> "big brother Br E" at aue).
>
> Are you saying that p,t,k, have always been aspirated in English in
> exactly the same environments as they are today?
They are in Swedish - same as in your "pin"-"spin" example. So if it is
an influence from Old Norse, it is indeed old. Then languages in the
same area influence each other. For example, Norwegian and
Sweden-Swedish are tonal accent languages, but Finland-Swedish is not,
an influence from Finnish, not a closely related language. So if
aspiration is dropped in the US, one theory might perhaps be that it is
an influence from other languages in that area. US English has fewer
vowels than UK English, so it might be a US preference for simplifications.
Hans
Peter T. Daniels
But until recent decades, English in the US hasn't been exposed to any
sort of substrate or adstrate beyond immigrant languages in very
restricted areas (or Dutch in Manhattan and Brooklyn). Nowadays, it's
possible that something characteristic of Spanish might wander into
English -- except there are so many varieties of American Spanish, and
Hispanophone-Americans come from so many different places, that
effects aren't likely to be uniform.
anal...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
Everything points to it being a sound change. Th English "k(h)" that
appears in some complicatedly defined environments isn't the same
sound as the Sanskrit "kh" which occurs freely and is phonemic to
boot. Most reconstructions of "PIE" include the stop "kh" in its
sound inventory - and the British in India were mostly deaf to the
"kh" in North Indian languages -and further, using the Grimm's law
analogy of the voiced aspirates - we can safely conclude that Germanic/
Romance lost ALL aspirate stops at one time. Thats why I think it
needs to be explained why a mild non-phonemic aspiration (which is not
uniformly exhibited by all native speakers and the same speaker might
show significant variation of this phenomenon in his speech) has come
back in English but not in French.
Your Swedish data is interesting, but it would be interesting to know
if German has it and also any notions of how far back this phenomenon
has been attested, given that at least in English there cannot be
orthographic evidence for it.
Mok-Kong Shen
> Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
>> ranjit_math...@yahoo.com wrote:
[snip]
>> Are you asking whether in other languages there is one single word,
>> instead of a phrase, that could be translated to "until". I don't
>> think that this sort of 1-1 correspondence is of much significance,
>> as long as the same concept can be expressed and is commonly expressed
>> practically (see e.g. the English please and the French s'il vou
>> plait).
>
> Even if it is not a problem, I want to know which languages* are like
> Hindi, in this respect.
> * non-Indic & non-Dravidian languages, that is.
Then, if I don't err, in Chinese (at least in the modern form)
one needs more than one ideograms to express "until", similar
to the French analogy given above.
BTW, there are, I suppose, more significant aspects of differences
in languages. I heard that there is at least one language where there
is no recursion. This in my view means that one is sort of forced
to think differently while conversing than people in languages with
recursion. (Evidence of Sapir-Whorf hypothese?)
M. K. Shen
Harlan Messinger
According to the spiel about Recursion on Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursion#Recursion_in_language), the
language in question is Pirah�. I'd swear, I'm starting to think that
Pirah� is a myth or at least a context for folkloric fabrications. It's
like the Chelm or the Paul Bunyan or the Till Eulenspiegel of linguistics.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
Quite! According to Grimm's laws and Verner's law, Germanic had lost
all IE aspirates:
http://www.tutorpal.com/Our_English/germanic/consonant_shift.html
> Thats why I think it
> needs to be explained why a mild non-phonemic aspiration (which is not
> uniformly exhibited by all native speakers and the same speaker might
> show significant variation of this phenomenon in his speech) has come
> back in English but not in French.
There need not always be a reason for different languages to undergo
different changes. In a chain shift, when g becomes k, k tends to
become kh but that's not necessarily what happened in Germanic.
<<Germanic seems to have added aspiration to Germanic _ptk_
(presumably to heighten the contrast between ptk and bdg).
Gothic is thought to have had aspiration, though the evidence is
indirect at best. Most Germanic varieties have aspiration,
including isolated and conservative Icelandic.>>
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0103C&L=lowlands-l&F=P&P=2113
> Your Swedish data is interesting, but it would be interesting to know
> if German has it and also any notions of how far back this phenomenon
> has been attested, given that at least in English there cannot be
> orthographic evidence for it.
Lack of an orthographic record must be what makes it difficult to
study.
<<European orthographies don't generally indicate aspiration
(except ancient Greek), so it's not easy to demonstrate
conclusively how aspiration developed in Germanic>>
Trond Engen
> Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
>
>> BTW, there are, I suppose, more significant aspects of differences
>> in languages. I heard that there is at least one language where
>> there is no recursion. This in my view means that one is sort of
>> forced to think differently while conversing than people in
>> languages with recursion. (Evidence of Sapir-Whorf hypothese?)
>
> According to the spiel about Recursion on Wikipedia
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursion#Recursion_in_language), the
> language in question is Pirah�. I'd swear, I'm starting to think that
> Pirah� is a myth or at least a context for folkloric fabrications.
> It's like the Chelm or the Paul Bunyan or the Till Eulenspiegel of
> linguistics.
Agreed. It's my impression that after the first burst of interest Pirah�
is more and more being treated as an anomaly, and the oddities are
questioned every time the language is mentioned. If nothing else, the
case shows how vulnerable descriptive linguistics is to the quality of
the fieldwork. Independent field studies are rare, but without one
there's no way to sort out the facts.
--
Trond Engen
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> needs to be explained why a mild non-phonemic aspiration (which is not
> uniformly exhibited by all native speakers and the same speaker might
> show significant variation of this phenomenon in his speech) has come
> back in English but not in French.
It might have something to do with stress. French is syllabically
timed; English is stress timed. Stressing [b] might have increased its
VOT causing an increase in the VOT of [p] too (or to put it another
way, causing a push shift of [p] to [p<h>]).
* Voice/Voicing Onset Time
Peter T. Daniels
> ranjit_math...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
> >> ranjit_math...@yahoo.com wrote:
> [snip]
> >> Are you asking whether in other languages there is one single word,
> >> instead of a phrase, that could be translated to "until". I don't
> >> think that this sort of 1-1 correspondence is of much significance,
> >> as long as the same concept can be expressed and is commonly expressed
> >> practically (see e.g. the English please and the French s'il vou
> >> plait).
>
> > Even if it is not a problem, I want to know which languages* are like
> > Hindi, in this respect.
> > * non-Indic & non-Dravidian languages, that is.
>
> Then, if I don't err, in Chinese (at least in the modern form)
> one needs more than one ideograms to express "until", similar
> to the French analogy given above.
There are no "ideograms" in Chinese. The Chinese word equivalent to
"until," therefore, is composed of two (or more????) morphemes, each
written with a character.
> BTW, there are, I suppose, more significant aspects of differences
> in languages. I heard that there is at least one language where there
> is no recursion.
You heard wrong.
> This in my view means that one is sort of forced
> to think differently while conversing than people in languages with
> recursion. (Evidence of Sapir-Whorf hypothese?)
No.
Peter T. Daniels
> Pirahã is a myth or at least a context for folkloric fabrications. It's
> like the Chelm or the Paul Bunyan or the Till Eulenspiegel of linguistics.-
Daniel Everett is either a complete charlatan or incredibly stupid.
He claims that he and his wife and infant child lived among the
Piraha for a couple of years straight. The child must therefore be a
perfect bilingual. Why doesn't he just ask the kid to translate?
Peter T. Daniels
> Everything points to it being a sound change.
Since you refuse to learn anything about either descriptive or
historical linguistics, what qualifies you to refer to "everything"?
> Th English "k(h)" that
> appears in some complicatedly defined environments
What on earth are you talking about?
> isn't the same
> sound as the Sanskrit "kh"
Who suggested it is, and why should it be?
> which occurs freely and is phonemic to
> boot. Most reconstructions of "PIE" include the stop "kh" in its
> sound inventory -
You must have a strange definition of "most."
> and the British in India were mostly deaf to the
> "kh" in North Indian languages -
Because they were not trained in phonetics (which didn't exist yet),
and it's not phonemic in their language. What does that have to do
with the price of tea in China?
> and further, using the Grimm's law
> analogy of the voiced aspirates - we can safely conclude that Germanic/
> Romance lost ALL aspirate stops at one time.
What the bloody hell does Grimm's Law have to do with Romance, and why
would Romance even be mentioned?
> Thats why I think it
> needs to be explained why a mild non-phonemic aspiration (which is not
> uniformly exhibited by all native speakers
Eh? "All native speakers" (whom you have _no_ possibility of having
interviewed) would sound mighty strange if they didn't follow the
allophonic distribution of aspiration in their native language --
indeed, they'd sound like they had a foreign accent.
> and the same speaker might
> show significant variation of this phenomenon in his speech) has come
> back in English but not in French.
It has not "come back."
> Your Swedish data is interesting, but it would be interesting to know
> if German has it and also any notions of how far back this phenomenon
> has been attested, given that at least in English there cannot be
> orthographic evidence for it.-
Has it occurred to you to look at a description of the phonetics of
German to learn whether German "has it"?
anal...@hotmail.com
Do you know th eenvironments where this aspiration occurs?
> German to learn whether German "has it"?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
The main thing I want to see addressed is - how far back is this
known to have been happening and any reasons why.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> The main thing I want to see addressed is - how far back is this
> known to have been happening and any reasons why.
These seem to suggest that it was not merely as far back as AngloSaxon
but furter back:
1) <<Unvoiced p, t, k are aspirated before a stressed vowel.>>
http://indoeuro.bizland.com/tree/germ/frisian.html
2) A claim I've seen that predecessors of Dutch had aspiration before
they were ruled by those who also ruled Romance speakers.
3) This claim that all non-Dutch Germanic languages aspirate fortis
consonants.
"The fact that almost all other Germanic languages have aspiration of
fortis consonants makes it pretty likely that it was Romance to Dutch
influence rather than the other way around. "
http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t9124-30.htm
To look into it further, you might want to try to verify that some
ancient variety of Dutch had aspiration, look into the presence or
absence of aspiration in Old Saxon, verify that all non-Dutch
languages really aspirate fortis consonants, etc.
Mok-Kong Shen
> According to the spiel about Recursion on Wikipedia
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursion#Recursion_in_language), the
> language in question is Pirah�. I'd swear, I'm starting to think that
> Pirah� is a myth or at least a context for folkloric fabrications. It's
> like the Chelm or the Paul Bunyan or the Till Eulenspiegel of linguistics.
On the other hand, it seems to be certainly possible to avoid
recursion, if one wants to. If so, why do all other languages
have recursion? For getting better efficiency or for other reasons?
Thanks.
M. K. Shen
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> Harlan Messinger wrote:
> > According to the spiel about Recursion on Wikipedia
> > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursion#Recursion_in_language), the
> > Pirahã is a myth or at least a context for folkloric fabrications. It's
> > like the Chelm or the Paul Bunyan or the Till Eulenspiegel of linguistics.
>
> On the other hand, it seems to be certainly possible to avoid
> recursion, if one wants to. If so, why do all other languages
> have recursion? For getting better efficiency or for other reasons?
Do all other languages (or does even English) have unlimited recursion
to unlimited degree)? Can you show how my response below can be worded
as a single sentence in a language other than English?
Ivanhoe wrote:
> I have noticed that (especially on the 'Net), Chinese (especially
> those from Hong Kong) have a severe tendency to rape the English
> language by deliberately distorting its grammar structure and
> blatantly add end-of-sentence particles (which is present in most
> Chinese dialects and Japanese), which does not belong in Western
> languages. Who do they think they are? Dr. Esperanto? Fuck it.
> Is it justifiable to create Chinglish this way?
M. Ranjit Mathews wrote:
Perish the profane blighters, ye exalted spawn of Sir Walter Scott,
for no man, be it within his ken to wield a mighty pen in the tongue
of his forebears, can presume to wield it thus in the Royal tongue
lest he fall afoul of many a savant who has earned his pride of place
by dint of perseverence and quotidian a sobering rebuke under the able
tutelage of most didactic a caviling martinet at aught a select
academy with hallowed hallway graced by many a portrait of the bluest
of blood that ever composed a missive in King's English never so
solicitously with nary a solecism and few a slip betwixt the pen and
the pad lest his escutcheon be besmirched, nay his noble lineage of
many a peer of the realm on which the sun never set.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.lang/browse_frm/thread/9074e4041bdaec86/1e0b06a2ca10d9b1?lnk=gst&q=perish+profane#1e0b06a2ca10d9b1
> Thanks.
> M. K. Shen
Mok-Kong Shen
> Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
>> Harlan Messinger wrote:
>>> According to the spiel about Recursion on Wikipedia
>>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursion#Recursion_in_language), the
>>> Pirah� is a myth or at least a context for folkloric fabrications. It's
>>> like the Chelm or the Paul Bunyan or the Till Eulenspiegel of linguistics.
>> On the other hand, it seems to be certainly possible to avoid
>> recursion, if one wants to. If so, why do all other languages
>> have recursion? For getting better efficiency or for other reasons?
>
> Do all other languages (or does even English) have unlimited recursion
> to unlimited degree)? Can you show how my response below can be worded
> as a single sentence in a language other than English?
> Perish the profane blighters, ye exalted spawn of Sir Walter Scott,
> for no man, be it within his ken to wield a mighty pen in the tongue
> of his forebears, can presume to wield it thus in the Royal tongue
> lest he fall afoul of many a savant who has earned his pride of place
> by dint of perseverence and quotidian a sobering rebuke under the able
> tutelage of most didactic a caviling martinet at aught a select
> academy with hallowed hallway graced by many a portrait of the bluest
> of blood that ever composed a missive in King's English never so
> solicitously with nary a solecism and few a slip betwixt the pen and
> the pad lest his escutcheon be besmirched, nay his noble lineage of
> many a peer of the realm on which the sun never set.
> http://groups.google.com/group/sci.lang/browse_frm/thread/9074e4041bdaec86/1e0b06a2ca10d9b1?lnk=gst&q=perish+profane#1e0b06a2ca10d9b1
I am not sure that your questions are directed at me, for I said
only about the possibility of 'avoiding' recursion and didn't say
recursion could always be applied. In practice there may be recursion
to a few levels but certainly no sensible author would employ
anything like 10 levels (let alone 'infinite' levels), I would think.
As a side, I read not long ago an article saying that songs of
birds can contain recursions and hence recursion is not a unique
feature of human languages.
M. K. Shen
Peter T. Daniels
> > On Jun 20, 9:12 pm, analys...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > > Everything points to it being a sound change.
>
> > Since you refuse to learn anything about either descriptive or
> > historical linguistics, what qualifies you to refer to "everything"?
>
> > > Th English "k(h)" that
> > > appears in some complicatedly defined environments
>
> > What on earth are you talking about?
>
> Do you know th eenvironments where this aspiration occurs?
Of course. Syllable-initially.
anal...@hotmail.com
Perhaps that fully describes when aspiration occurs in your idiolect.
But thats not useful information for most people.
Adam Funk
> According to the spiel about Recursion on Wikipedia
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursion#Recursion_in_language), the
> language in question is Pirahã. I'd swear, I'm starting to think that
> Pirahã is a myth or at least a context for folkloric fabrications. It's
> like the Chelm or the Paul Bunyan or the Till Eulenspiegel of linguistics.
I was trying to think of a joke about Daniel Everett's merry pranks,
but I kept thinking of Everett McGill.
According to _Don't Sleep, There are Snakes_, Pirahã really does lack
recursion --- not just embedded clauses, but even the
Nbar -> AdjP Nbar
kind, so NPs are limited to one adjective.
--
Oh, I do most of my quality thinking on the old sandbox. [Bucky Katt]
Hans Aberg
>>> Are you saying that p,t,k, have always been aspirated in English in
>>> exactly the same environments as they are today?
>> They are in Swedish - same as in your "pin"-"spin" example. So if it is
>> an influence from Old Norse, it is indeed old.
> Your Swedish data is interesting, but it would be interesting to know
> if German has it and also any notions of how far back this phenomenon
> has been attested, given that at least in English there cannot be
> orthographic evidence for it.
It might be good if some of the German speaker tuned in. One might take
a common word, such as German "Papier", English "paper" ("papper" in
Swedish). My preliminary guess is that German might have it less than
Swedish and English. Such things can vary with dialects, also in Swedish.
Hans
Joachim Pense
P, t, k are aspirated in German in most positions. (In some middle- and
south-German dialects less so). Germans need special training to pronounce
the unaspirated voiceless plosives of e.g., French. Telling the 4 types of
Indian plosives apart (voiced/voiceless aspirated/unaspirated) is a serious
challenge for Germans.
Joachim
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
less can mean shorter duration of aspiration or lower intensity of
aspiration
English and Swedish have short duration of aspiration as does high
register Malayalam.
Danish has long duration of aspiration as does Hindi.
All the languages mentioned above have lower intensity of aspiration
than Hindi.
I don't know that any European language has aspirated long consonants
like in Hindi.
[pat:<h>ar.] = stone
OTOH, I don't know that any language in India has terminal geminate
consonants like in Swedish
Peter T. Daniels
> But thats not useful information for most people.-
It's a basic fact about English phonetics, which you will find in any
introductory linguistics textbook. What do you think is inadequate
about that description, and why?
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> P, t, k are aspirated in German in most positions. (In some middle- and
> south-German dialects less so). Germans need special training to pronounce
> the unaspirated voiceless plosives of e.g., French. Telling the 4 types of
> Indian plosives apart (voiced/voiceless aspirated/unaspirated) is a serious
> challenge for Germans.
If you're bilinguial in French, you can articulate 3 of them. Then,
would learning the 4th any more of a challenge than the 3rd was?
anal...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
You are leaving out stress as a conditioning factor. Would you
aspirate the "t" in "after"?
Shouldn't there also be an analogue of Grassman's law (dissimilation
of successive aspirates )?
John Atkinson
[...]
>
>> The main thing I want to see addressed is - how far back is [aspirated
>> p, t, k in Germanic] known to have been happening and any reasons why.
>
> These seem to suggest that it was not merely as far back as AngloSaxon
> but furter back:
>
> 1) <<Unvoiced p, t, k are aspirated before a stressed vowel.>>
> http://indoeuro.bizland.com/tree/germ/frisian.html
>
> 2) A claim I've seen that predecessors of Dutch had aspiration before
> they were ruled by those who also ruled Romance speakers.
>
> 3) This claim that all non-Dutch Germanic languages aspirate fortis
> consonants.
> "The fact that almost all other Germanic languages have aspiration of
> fortis consonants makes it pretty likely that it was Romance to Dutch
> influence rather than the other way around. "
> http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t9124-30.htm
>
> To look into it further, you might want to try to verify that some
> ancient variety of Dutch had aspiration, look into the presence or
> absence of aspiration in Old Saxon, verify that all non-Dutch
> languages really aspirate fortis consonants, etc.
Yiddish doesn't. There may be a few other German dialects/descendents that
don't too, but I don't know.
Afrikaans doesn't, but that's to be expected since it derives from a variety
of Dutch.
John.
Peter T. Daniels
> On Jun 21, 7:30 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jun 21, 3:41 pm, analys...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > > On Jun 21, 1:17 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > > On Jun 21, 9:24 am, analys...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > > > > On Jun 21, 8:54 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > > > > On Jun 20, 9:12 pm, analys...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > > > > > > Everything points to it being a sound change.
>
> > > > > > Since you refuse to learn anything about either descriptive or
> > > > > > historical linguistics, what qualifies you to refer to "everything"?
>
> > > > > > > Th English "k(h)" that
> > > > > > > appears in some complicatedly defined environments
>
> > > > > > What on earth are you talking about?
>
> > > > > Do you know th eenvironments where this aspiration occurs?
>
> > > > Of course. Syllable-initially.
>
> > > Perhaps that fully describes when aspiration occurs in your idiolect.
> > > But thats not useful information for most people.-
>
> > It's a basic fact about English phonetics, which you will find in any
> > introductory linguistics textbook. What do you think is inadequate
> You are leaving out stress as a conditioning factor. Would you
> aspirate the "t" in "after"?
Yes.
> Shouldn't there also be an analogue of Grassman's law (dissimilation
> of successive aspirates )?-
No. Sanskrit is not the model for all languages.
(And since aspiration is not significant in English, it wouldn't be
noticed anyway.)
Joachim Pense
Articulating and differentiating phonemically are two different things.
I think I can (not reliably) articulate voiceless unaspirated plosives (I
think of producing a voiced plosive and try to omit the voice), but
aspirated voiced plosives are beyond me.
Joachim
Hans Aberg
> I don't know that any European language has aspirated long consonants
> like in Hindi.
> [pat:<h>ar.] = stone
> OTOH, I don't know that any language in India has terminal geminate
> consonants like in Swedish
I don't think consonant length has any bearing on semantics in Swedish,
except that one can lengthen the last sound in words for clarity or
emphasis. My impression is that the rules are mostly to pronounce close
sounds in similar positions in the mouth. For example, (using long
vowels) "-ka-" is pronounced [kɑː] with the rule that "a" is hard, for a
"soft" vowel "e", "ke" is pronounced [ɕeː]. It seems me that the hard
vowels are in the back of the mouth, and the soft ones in the front, and
one is choosing consonants to match. The rules are different in Danish -
I do not think they have it, at least some Danish tourists here
mispronounced Swedish street names that way.
Dialects may do it differently. For example, in the south parts (Skåne),
one is using burring "r" - an import from France. There is an
interesting method to learn saying rolling "r": Say t-d or te-de
quickly, then pass to rolling "r". So it strikes me that the rolling "r"
might have arisen as a simplification of the "td" combination.
Hans
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> ranjit_math...@yahoo.com (in sci.lang):
You could instead try pronouncing "pop in" with no hiatus between the
words, and drop the po. Alternatively, start with "paw pin" and keep
changing it till it gets like "pop in".
> but aspirated voiced plosives are beyond me.
For trying to aspirate voiced plosives, try aspirating BOO and BOOM.
PaulJK
Or start with "Hund" and make it into "Bhund".
pjk
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> ranjit_math...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > I don't know that any European language has aspirated long consonants
> > like in Hindi.
> > [pat:<h>ar.] = stone
> > OTOH, I don't know that any language in India has terminal geminate
> > consonants like in Swedish
>
> I don't think consonant length has any bearing on semantics in Swedish,
Yes, it does - because lengthening a consonant also shortens a vowel.
This includes terminal contexts - for example, vän [vEn:]
Dravidian languages have long voiceless terminal consonants; never
voiced ones like the above.
> except that one can lengthen the last sound in words for clarity or
> emphasis. My impression is that the rules are mostly to pronounce close
> sounds in similar positions in the mouth. For example, (using long
> vowels) "-ka-" is pronounced [kɑː] with the rule that "a" is hard,
... and noticeably more open and centralized than in British English.
> for a "soft" vowel "e", "ke" is pronounced [ɕeː].
Yes; that is confusing. It's even more confusing for it not to be [k]
at the end of a word with an adjacent back vowel and no adjacent front
vowel, like in språk (speech).
> It seems me that the hard
> vowels are in the back of the mouth, and the soft ones in the front, and
> one is choosing consonants to match.
It doesn't match in the above word.
> The rules are different in Danish -
> I do not think they have it,
They mark palatalization by adding j (kj or skj).
> at least some Danish tourists here
> mispronounced Swedish street names that way.
Stands to reason. In other languages, <k> is used to indicate a lack
of palatalization.
> Dialects may do it differently. For example, in the south parts (Skåne),
> one is using burring "r" - an import from France. There is an
> interesting method to learn saying rolling "r": Say t-d or te-de
> quickly, then pass to rolling "r".
That wouldn't work for French and Spanish speakers; they have the
wrong kind of t & d - especially the Spanish. The latter already have
a rolling r but it is longer and more strident.
> So it strikes me that the rolling "r"
> might have arisen as a simplification of the "td" combination.
I can't imagine hurra with a <td> combination; it would need several
td's. (I haven't seen it spelt)
Then again, I can't imagine dumschnut not having sch either even
though I'm sure it doesn't. (I haven't seen this spelt either)
Peter T. Daniels
They're often realized as "creaky voice."
Peter T. Daniels
<ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jun 22, 3:53 am, Hans Aberg <haberg_20080...@math.su.se> wrote:
>
> > ranjit_math...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > > I don't know that any European language has aspirated long consonants
> > > like in Hindi.
> > > [pat:<h>ar.] = stone
> > > OTOH, I don't know that any language in India has terminal geminate
> > > consonants like in Swedish
>
> > I don't think consonant length has any bearing on semantics in Swedish,
>
> Yes, it does - because lengthening a consonant also shortens a vowel.
> This includes terminal contexts - for example, vän [vEn:]
> Dravidian languages have long voiceless terminal consonants; never
> voiced ones like the above.
Swedish is not Dravidian. If a native speaker of Swedish tells you
that consonant length is not phonemic in Swedish, then it is not
phonemic.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> If a native speaker of Swedish tells you
> that consonant length is not phonemic in Swedish, then it is not
> phonemic.
What is the phonemic difference between [ho:la] and [hol:a]? Is it the
long o or the long l? Or can it be analyzed either way?
Hans Aberg
>> I don't think consonant length has any bearing on semantics in Swedish,
>
> Yes, it does - because lengthening a consonant also shortens a vowel.
> This includes terminal contexts - for example, vän [vEn:]
No, because even if you shorten the "n" in your example, it will be the
same word "vän". - If I try to shorten the "n" to the length of the one
used at the beginning of words, it may sound harder to hear the word,
but it is the same word. So the way I think of it is not that its length
as such is what causes the vowel before to be shortened. Vowels and
consonants are not contracted over each to the extent in English, and
and adjacent vowels are pronounced separated, not as diphthongs (which
you sure know - that reasoning aloud).
>> for a "soft" vowel "e", "ke" is pronounced [ɕeː].
>
> Yes; that is confusing. It's even more confusing for it not to be [k]
> at the end of a word with an adjacent back vowel and no adjacent front
> vowel, like in språk (speech).
>
>> It seems me that the hard
>> vowels are in the back of the mouth, and the soft ones in the front, and
>> one is choosing consonants to match.
>
> It doesn't match in the above word.
The rule, as I have learned it a long time ago, is that the consonants
are influenced by the immediately following vowel, but not by what comes
before.
>> Dialects may do it differently. For example, in the south parts (Skåne),
>> one is using burring "r" - an import from France. There is an
>> interesting method to learn saying rolling "r": Say t-d or te-de
>> quickly, then pass to rolling "r".
>
> That wouldn't work for French and Spanish speakers; they have the
> wrong kind of t & d - especially the Spanish. The latter already have
> a rolling r but it is longer and more strident.
The method was given by a Swedish linguist for Swedes. Hmm, one must get
the "d" in the right position.
>> So it strikes me that the rolling "r"
>> might have arisen as a simplification of the "td" combination.
>
> I can't imagine hurra with a <td> combination; it would need several
> td's. (I haven't seen it spelt)
It would then be evolutionary - one discovers "r" through "td", and then
it can get other uses.
> Then again, I can't imagine dumschnut not having sch either even
> though I'm sure it doesn't. (I haven't seen this spelt either)
Ahh. The use of "sch" made me think it was German word. You probably
mean "dumsnut", Swedish for "dumbass", my dictionary (the one now posted
online, in fact - see below) also gives "silly idiot", "nitwit" and
"dope". It is built up by "dum", English "dumb", "stupid", and "snut".
As for the latter, if I check at
http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/saob/
it suggests it is the same word as English "snout", and Merriam-Webster
also gives that etymology.
As for the pronunciation, I would (would I use it, as it is rather rude)
use "s" not "sch", think of it as a compound word "dum-snut".
"Dumschnut" would be more like drunken language, or an emulation thereof.
If you want to check more Swedish words, there is now an online
dictionary at
http://www.norstedtsord.se/oversattning/engelska/
It even has a pronunciation of "dumsnut", which you can save as a mp3.
Hans
Richard Herring
<KarlR...@sbcglobal.net> writes
>"Oliver Cromm" <lispa...@yahoo.de> wrote in message
>news:1737slpw...@mid.crommatograph.info...
>> I find the American obsession with numbering their presidents bizarre in
>> itself.
>>
>"Obsession"?
>
>What about Henry the Eighth, Louis Quinze, Charles Quint (=Carlos Quinto),
>John the 23rd, Elizabeth II, Napoleon the First, and so it goes. None
>American. The only difference is that none of those people I have listed
>were Presidents.
Hardly. By that argument, Americans would refer to Bush I and Bush II,
Roosevelts I and II, and what would they do with Cleveland?
>
>Perhaps some explanation of what "obsession" is being referred to is called
>for.
The consecutive numbering of unrelated individuals?
--
Richard Herring
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
The aspirated p in the following minimal pair in Malayalam isn't more
strongly aspirated than in English; yet, the difference is noticeable
and significant.
Malayalam [pal@] (several) vs. [p<h>al@] (resultant), more formally
[p<h>al@mAj@]