what indians should know about comp ling
anal...@hotmail.com
anitiquity.....sprung form a common source" is quoted countless times.
But whats not often quoted, from the same speech:
"nor can we reasonably doubt, how degenerate and abased so ever the
Hindus may now appear, that in some early age they were splendid in
art and arms, happy in government, wise in legislation, and eminent in
various knowledge".
...............
the pure Hindi, whether of Tartarian or Chaldean origin, was primeval
in Upper India, into which Sanskrit was introduced by conquerors from
other kingdoms in some very remote age
end quote.
This quote can be found in Lehmann's reader in nineteenth century Indo-
European linguistics.
So here it is black and white - India was splendid once, it got one of
its classical languages from conquerors, but has now degenerated.
Although Jones doesn't seem to say that the people who gave India
Sanskrit (but he does know it wasn't theirs to start with, it was
given to them by outside conqerors)were white, but what else are we to
make out of "sprung from the same source as Latin, Greek, Gothic and
Celtic "?
So comp ling and AIT are "sprung from the same source" and in fact, to
the present day, the linguistic evidence is presented as the mainstay
of the AIT of both the hard (conquest) and soft (immigration) variety,
and all the alleged places of origin of the people who gave India
Sanskrit are in Europe.
David Duke also accepts that Indians (at least the upper classes) were
white people once who became degenerate through miscegenation.
Harlan Messinger
[snip]
All that can be concluded from what you wrote are:
1. William Jones was a dope.
2. David Duke is a dope.
3. You continue to mischaracterize stuff you don't understand even after
it's already been properly explained to you, entirely because of a sense
of spite and nationalistic fervor that take precedence over logic and
knowledge and everything else. And what does that make you? (Hint: see 1
and 2.)
Franz Gnaedinger
Seven killratings for this message in sci.lang! You make me
envious. Not even my messages are that massively killrated.
As for Sanskrit: already one Stephens and one Sassetti found
parallels of Sanskrit with European languages, in the late sixteenth
century. Would you deny them? Jones was apparently a racist,
but so were many others, and his above comment doesn't invalidate
his insight.
Here is my view of Sanskrit. Homo sapiens sapiens conquered
the warm zones of Asia Minor and of Asia a long time ago,
and then, some 42,000 years ago, ventured into Ice Age Europe.
The new, cold and challening surroundings triggered a technical
revolution that went along with one in language, and gave rise
to a new form of language whose fully developed stage may have
been achieved in the Magdalenian, so I call it Magdalenian.
This language was widespread, also spoken in Willensdorf,
Austria, and Malta, Siberia. With the end of the Magdalenian,
it spread eastward, reached Goebekli Tepe in southeast
Anatolia, and spread further from there, meeting the languages
of the warm, southern zones in Asia Minor, in Asia, and in
Egypt. This meeting of new and old languages, ideas,
technologies, and so on, was most fertile and made the
high cultures emanate we admire now in all these zones:
ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India.
Before I go on - could you agree on such a scenario?
anal...@hotmail.com
Man, these crybabies have shot my usenet GPA to shit.
> As for Sanskrit: already one Stephens and one Sassetti found
> parallels of Sanskrit with European languages, in the late sixteenth
> century. Would you deny them? Jones was apparently a racist,
> but so were many others, and his above comment doesn't invalidate
> his insight.
True. He probbaly was only as racist as average Englishmen were in
his age.
>
> Here is my view of Sanskrit. Homo sapiens sapiens conquered
> the warm zones of Asia Minor and of Asia a long time ago,
> and then, some 42,000 years ago, ventured into Ice Age Europe.
> The new, cold and challening surroundings triggered a technical
> revolution that went along with one in language, and gave rise
> to a new form of language whose fully developed stage may have
> been achieved in the Magdalenian, so I call it Magdalenian.
> This language was widespread, also spoken in Willensdorf,
> Austria, and Malta, Siberia. With the end of the Magdalenian,
> it spread eastward, reached Goebekli Tepe in southeast
> Anatolia, and spread further from there, meeting the languages
> of the warm, southern zones in Asia Minor, in Asia, and in
> Egypt. This meeting of new and old languages, ideas,
> technologies, and so on, was most fertile and made the
> high cultures emanate we admire now in all these zones:
> ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India.
>
> Before I go on - could you agree on such a scenario?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Sounds possible, although the notion that cold climate necessitated
innovation is anthropology 101 - seems to be an oversimplification.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> > Here is my view of Sanskrit. Homo sapiens sapiens conquered
> > the warm zones of Asia Minor and of Asia a long time ago,
> > and then, some 42,000 years ago, ventured into Ice Age Europe.
> > The new, cold and challening surroundings triggered a technical
> > revolution that went along with one in language, and gave rise
> > to a new form of language whose fully developed stage may have
> > been achieved in the Magdalenian, so I call it Magdalenian.
> > This language was widespread, also spoken in Willensdorf,
> > Austria, and Malta, Siberia. With the end of the Magdalenian,
> > it spread eastward, reached Goebekli Tepe in southeast
> > Anatolia, and spread further from there, meeting the languages
> > of the warm, southern zones in Asia Minor, in Asia, and in
> > Egypt. This meeting of new and old languages, ideas,
> > technologies, and so on, was most fertile and made the
> > high cultures emanate we admire now in all these zones:
> > ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India.
>
> > Before I go on - could you agree on such a scenario?- Hide quoted text -
>
> innovation is anthropology 101 - seems to be an oversimplification.
Look at the history of the USA. In the Civil War the North fought
the South. Which of them was the industrialized party?
anal...@hotmail.com
>
> - Show quoted text -
You show me the research and I'll tell you if I believe it. Weather
as a determinant of human development is too reductionistic - and is
particularly abhorrent to Indians who are supposed to have been
debilitated by India's "heat and dust" and also their alleged fatalism
is ascribed to being dependent on the fickle monsoons.
Peter T. Daniels
> the South. Which of them was the industrialized party?-
Do you not know?
What does that have to do with the causes of the Civil War?
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> What does that have to do with the causes of the Civil War?- Hide quoted text -
The Civil War was the war of the industrialized North
against the agricultural South. We had a similar war
in Sitzerland: the mostly protestant industrialized
North against the mostly catholic agricultural central
cantons. Luckily, this war, called secession war,
lasted only three weeks, and caused about two hundred
lives, owing to the integrity of general Dufour, leader
of the winning party. He said to his soldiers. our
adversaries are not our enemies, they are Swiss like
us. The war was quickly over, and resulted in the
modern Swiss federation that was celebrated in
the National Exhibition at Zurich: united we can
achieve a lot!, and in the subsequent National Museum
which I interpreted last summer: it represents Old
Switzerland, while the park, divided in a geometric
French park and an English natural park, represents
modern Siwtzerland (French revolution, Napoleon
divided our country into reasonable cantons, English
industrialization). The museum goes as far as to
incorporate ancient measures and the modern meter,
introduced by the French. Readers in German may
look up my page www.seshat.ch/home/lmu.htm
Unfortunately, the idea behind this museum is not
understood, and the park and the idea of the museum
is about to get ruined courtesy our socialdemocratic
mayor Dr. Elmar Ledergerber.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> Willian Jones's "The sanskrit language, whatever be its
> anitiquity.....sprung form a common source" is quoted countless times.
>
> But whats not often quoted, from the same speech:
> "nor can we reasonably doubt, how degenerate and abased so ever the
> Hindus may now appear, that in some early age they were splendid in
> art and arms, happy in government, wise in legislation, and eminent in
> various knowledge".
This would not be often quoted by linguists since this content (and
its correctness or lack thereof) is irrelevant to linguistics.
> the pure Hindi, whether of Tartarian or Chaldean origin, was primeval
> in Upper India, into which Sanskrit was introduced by conquerors from
> other kingdoms in some very remote age
> end quote.
>
> This quote can be found in Lehmann's reader in nineteenth century Indo-
> European linguistics.
Does he say 20th/21st century IE linguists agree with everything 19th
century IE linguists had to say?
> So here it is black and white - India was splendid once, it got one of
> its classical languages from conquerors, but has now degenerated.
If people who bring languages are necessarily conquerors, then both of
India's classical languages are brought by conquerors if
protoDravidian didn't originate in south India and both of Europe's
classical languages are brought by conquerors too if PIE didn't
originate in either Greece or Italy.
> Although Jones doesn't seem to say that the people who gave India
> Sanskrit (but he does know it wasn't theirs to start with, it was
> given to them by outside conqerors)were white, but what else are we to
> make out of "sprung from the same source as Latin, Greek, Gothic and
> Celtic "?
>
> So comp ling and AIT are "sprung from the same source"
By your reasoning, Newton's laws and Newton's Biblical studies too are
sprung from the same source (Newton) and therefore, if one disagrees
with Newton's Biblical notions, one must also disagree with Newton's
laws!
> and in fact, to
> the present day, the linguistic evidence is presented as the mainstay
> of the AIT of both the hard (conquest) and soft (immigration) variety,
> and all the alleged places of origin of the people who gave India
> Sanskrit are in Europe.
Would you say that all the alleged places of origin of the people who
gave Indian Tamil are outside* South India?
* "Would you say this is alleged", that is, not "would you agree with
this allegation".
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
If necessity is the mother of invention, wouldn't lack of necessity
stifle invention? Inhospitable weather would tend to enhance
development at least to the extent that people have to devise ways to
survive the weather. If the weather is so clement that a population
has no lack of food and needs no clothes or shelter, that would tend
to inhibit development.
Peter T. Daniels
So you're telling us that you _don't_ in fact know why we had a Civil
War, and as a result your tale of a Swiss internecine religious
conflict has not the slightest relevance to whatever your reason for
mentioning it may have been.
Peter T. Daniels
Not _inhibit_ development, so much as not provide any particular
stimulus _for_ development.
M. Ranjit Mathews
Right; the stimuli would have to be sources other than the weather.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> So you're telling us that you _don't_ in fact know why we had a Civil
> War, and as a result your tale of a Swiss internecine religious
> conflict has not the slightest relevance to whatever your reason for
Agriculture reached Switzerland some 6,000 years ago,
coming from the Balkans in the warm south, industrialization
reached Switzerland some 200 years ago; coming from
England in the cold north. Also religion is determined by
the climate. The reformation took place in Wittenberg,
Germany (Luther), in Zurich, Switzerland (Zwingli), and
in Geneva, Switzerland (Calvin), north of the alpine barrier.
Protestantism was the religion that prepared the ground
for the industrialization. Apart from that, wars are always
led out of a couple of reasons, and at least one reason
is needed to make war acceptable. In the case of the
American Civil War it was Abolishment, but it wasn't
the main cause of the war. It was mainly a war of the
industrialized north against the agricultural south.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> You show me the research and I'll tell you if I believe it. Weather
> as a determinant of human development is too reductionistic - and is
> particularly abhorrent to Indians who are supposed to have been
> debilitated by India's "heat and dust" and also their alleged fatalism
> is ascribed to being dependent on the fickle monsoons.
Geography is fate - who said that? My point is: the new
ideas, technical skills, and the language of the Ice Age
met with the human resources and the vitality of the
southern areas, and together produced the amazing
civilizations of Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India.
The legacy of the Ice Age was the sourdough, while those
southern people were the dough. With dough alone you
can bake chapatti, with dough and sourdough you can
bake bread, with sourdough alone you can't bake anything.
The homeland of Indo-European was most likely the region
of the Andronovo culture east of the Caspian Sea, according
to a contribution to the Annual UCLA Indo-European
Conference, and according to a reasoning of mine: IE
arose with the casting of bronze, Anatolia was rich in
copper, tin came from Central Asia, so we can expect
the IE homeland somewhere in between. Now what is left
in those steppes? Little, almost nothing when compared
to the amazing ruins of the Nile Valley, Mesomotamia,
and the Indus Valley. And the wonders of ancient Greece
and Rome wouldn't have been possible without the
wonders of those ancient civilizations - ex oriente lux.
You have a place in all this, claim it.
Douglas G. Kilday
> "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
>
> > So you're telling us that you _don't_ in fact know why we had a Civil
> > War, and as a result your tale of a Swiss internecine religious
> > conflict has not the slightest relevance to whatever your reason for
> > mentioning it may have been.
>
> coming from the Balkans in the warm south, industrialization
> reached Switzerland some 200 years ago; coming from
> England in the cold north. Also religion is determined by
> the climate. The reformation took place in Wittenberg,
> Germany (Luther), in Zurich, Switzerland (Zwingli), and
> in Geneva, Switzerland (Calvin), north of the alpine barrier.
> Protestantism was the religion that prepared the ground
> for the industrialization. Apart from that, wars are always
> led out of a couple of reasons, and at least one reason
> is needed to make war acceptable. In the case of the
> American Civil War it was Abolishment, but it wasn't
> the main cause of the war. It was mainly a war of the
> industrialized north against the agricultural south.
But if the U.S. had been bounded on the west by the Mississippi River,
it is doubtful that the Civil War would have arisen at all. The real
dispute was about the extension of slavery to new states west of the
Mississippi, and the actual fighting started in bleeding Kansas and
Missouri. No such conditions of expansion prevailed in Switzerland
during your War of Secession. If I am not mistaken, the last Swiss
leader with expansionist ambitions was Orgetorix.
The economic aspect of the Protestant Reformation is often
overlooked. Indulgences had been sold for a long time before Leo X.
The problem was that Leo was using proceeds from indulgences in
Northern Europe to fund megalomaniacal projects like St. Peter's
Basilica, an edifice that hardly any Northern European could ever
expect to see. This bleeding of wealth from the North was the real
scandal, not theological quibbling over the propriety of indulgences.
Luther is the historical successor to Arminius, a servant of the Roman
authorities who turned against them in order to place a limit on Roman
power. One can almost see Odin and Thor standing behind Luther,
scowling icily across the Alps at the Pope in his Mediterranean
fastness.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> But if the U.S. had been bounded on the west by the Mississippi River,
> it is doubtful that the Civil War would have arisen at all. The real
> dispute was about the extension of slavery to new states west of the
> Mississippi, and the actual fighting started in bleeding Kansas and
> Missouri. No such conditions of expansion prevailed in Switzerland
> during your War of Secession. If I am not mistaken, the last Swiss
> leader with expansionist ambitions was Orgetorix.
The question was: who will have the say in the west?
the agricultural south or the industrialized north? Slave
power couldn't hold with machine power, so machine
power won. The problem of slavery was secondary.
Certainly not for the people involved, but I am looking
at history from above - as if I were a student of earth
history at the University of Lagany on Mars in the
year 7 129 AD. From this perspective, the Civil War
was mainly the war of the industrialized north against
the agricultural south. The same is true for the separation
war in Switzerland.
> The economic aspect of the Protestant Reformation is often
> overlooked. Indulgences had been sold for a long time before Leo X.
> The problem was that Leo was using proceeds from indulgences in
> Northern Europe to fund megalomaniacal projects like St. Peter's
> Basilica, an edifice that hardly any Northern European could ever
> expect to see. This bleeding of wealth from the North was the real
> scandal, not theological quibbling over the propriety of indulgences.
> Luther is the historical successor to Arminius, a servant of the Roman
> authorities who turned against them in order to place a limit on Roman
> power. One can almost see Odin and Thor standing behind Luther,
> scowling icily across the Alps at the Pope in his Mediterranean
> fastness.
Seen "from above" you can find a pattern. Every
high culture has colonies in the south (in the case
of Rome it was northern Africa) and colonies in the
north (Gallia, exploited for gold and other metals),
more exactly; it has colonies in a warm and densely
populated region with a low degree of technological
saturation, and colonies in a cold, thinly populated
region with a high degree of technological saturation.
In the case of the USA this would be South America
and the Alaska of the eskimos (Inuit is a racist word,
as it means human being - I am no Inuit, therefore
no human being?). Alaska is the candidate for the
new devolepment of the USA, for future leaps in
technology, and for new lifestyles that go along
with new technologies. The Russian equivalent
is Siberia, only that Lenin and Stalin etc. liquidated
the Russian intelligence, so there was nobody who
could make use of the fantastic resources of Russia.
If you wish to do a favor to your children and
grandchildren: buy land in Alaska.
Peter T. Daniels
The "actual fighting" started with the firing on Fort Sumter, South
Carolina.
The _nominal_ dispute was about the perpetuation of slavery (Lincoln
saw it as the preservation of the Union), but there were _also_
economic factors.
Douglas G. Kilday
"Fort Sumter" is indeed the correct answer to the question "Where were
the first shots of the Civil War fired?" on pop quizzes in high-school
history classes. However, this is an adult newsgroup, and the fact
remains that actual fighting, using actual weapons, went on for
several years in Kansas and Missouri before the siege at Fort Sumter.
Note that John Brown is not portrayed with a Bible in one hand and a
feather-duster in the other.
> The _nominal_ dispute was about the perpetuation of slavery (Lincoln
> saw it as the preservation of the Union), but there were _also_
> economic factors.
Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Whatever reasons might
have been offered by politicians and their "intellectual" claque, the
_real_ basis for the Civil War was economic. Northern industrialists
and Southern plantationists both saw opportunities for making huge
profits in the Western states, and the West wasn't big enough for both
of them. I think Franz understands the situation quite well, and my
only objection is to his comparison with a Swiss war that involved no
geographical expansion.
But all this big-picture Toynbee stuff makes me tired.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Whatever reasons might
> have been offered by politicians and their "intellectual" claque, the
> _real_ basis for the Civil War was economic. Northern industrialists
> and Southern plantationists both saw opportunities for making huge
> profits in the Western states, and the West wasn't big enough for both
> of them. I think Franz understands the situation quite well, and my
> only objection is to his comparison with a Swiss war that involved no
> geographical expansion.
Switzerland is a very small country. Most Americans
confound it with Sweden that is a large country in
comparison. Our country is real small. It began with
a confederation in the mountains, and then expanded
to the present size in the subsequent centuries. There
was no expansion in the time of the secession war
(1948), but in Switzerland we expand inward, in the
fractal way, if you know what I mean. An Hungarian
resident poet (Zsuzsanna Gahse) said it very well:
Switzerland is very big, only so well folded up ...
Americans who come to live at Zurich (for example
Google employees) are always amazed: It's so tiny,
but you get everywhere and find everything you need
within a couple of minutes. Our way of expansion is
gaining influence in this fractal labyrinth, a fractal
expansion. Comparable to the evolution of computer
chips: they don't get bigger, but you can pack ever
more into ever small circuits ... Our small secession
war was over within three weeks, and followed by
the foundation of modern Switzerland. Some fourty
years later, the new confederation on the basis of
the US American constitution was firmly established,
and a National Exhibition was held in this park:
www.seshat.ch/home/lmu26.JPG It has the shape
of a boat, and the half circle of trees somewhat
reminds of the wheel of a Mississippi steam boat.
The river Limmat was used for shipping cotton from
the south of the USA, and there stood mills all along
the river. On the right side you can see a tall smoking
chimney. That is where I live (the mill having disappeared
a long time ago).
Peter T. Daniels
> On Dec 1, 2:07 am, "Douglas G. Kilday" <fufl...@chorus.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Whatever reasons might
> > have been offered by politicians and their "intellectual" claque, the
> > _real_ basis for the Civil War was economic. Northern industrialists
> > and Southern plantationists both saw opportunities for making huge
> > profits in the Western states, and the West wasn't big enough for both
> > of them. I think Franz understands the situation quite well, and my
> > only objection is to his comparison with a Swiss war that involved no
> > geographical expansion.
>
> Switzerland is a very small country. Most Americans
> confound it with Sweden that is a large country in
You know even less about "most Americans" than you do about
lingustics. For "most Americans," Sweden is the land of Nobel Prizes
and Switzerland is the land of cuckoo clocks, chocolate, and hidden
Nazi gold. (Which country do you think comes out on top in that
comparison?)
> comparison. Our country is real small. It began with
> a confederation in the mountains, and then expanded
> to the present size in the subsequent centuries. There
> was no expansion in the time of the secession war
> (1948), but in Switzerland we expand inward, in the
> fractal way, if you know what I mean. An Hungarian
> resident poet (Zsuzsanna Gahse) said it very well:
> Switzerland is very big, only so well folded up ...
> Americans who come to live at Zurich (for example
> Google employees) are always amazed: It's so tiny,
> but you get everywhere and find everything you need
> within a couple of minutes. Our way of expansion is
> gaining influence in this fractal labyrinth, a fractal
> expansion. Comparable to the evolution of computer
> chips: they don't get bigger, but you can pack ever
> more into ever small circuits ... Our small secession
> war was over within three weeks, and followed by
> the foundation of modern Switzerland. Some fourty
> years later, the new confederation on the basis of
> the US American constitution was firmly established,
> and a National Exhibition was held in this park:www.seshat.ch/home/lmu26.JPGIt has the shape
Harlan Messinger
> On Dec 1, 4:54 am, Franz Gnaedinger <f...@bluemail.ch> wrote:
>> On Dec 1, 2:07 am, "Douglas G. Kilday" <fufl...@chorus.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Whatever reasons might
>>> have been offered by politicians and their "intellectual" claque, the
>>> _real_ basis for the Civil War was economic. Northern industrialists
>>> and Southern plantationists both saw opportunities for making huge
>>> profits in the Western states, and the West wasn't big enough for both
>>> of them. I think Franz understands the situation quite well, and my
>>> only objection is to his comparison with a Swiss war that involved no
>>> geographical expansion.
>> Switzerland is a very small country. Most Americans
>> confound it with Sweden that is a large country in
>
> You know even less about "most Americans" than you do about
> lingustics. For "most Americans," Sweden is the land of Nobel Prizes
And beautiful blonds/blondes and free sex and meatballs and Ikea.
Peter T. Daniels
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Dec 1, 4:54 am, Franz Gnaedinger <f...@bluemail.ch> wrote:
> >> On Dec 1, 2:07 am, "Douglas G. Kilday" <fufl...@chorus.net> wrote:
>
> >>> Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Whatever reasons might
> >>> have been offered by politicians and their "intellectual" claque, the
> >>> _real_ basis for the Civil War was economic. Northern industrialists
> >>> and Southern plantationists both saw opportunities for making huge
> >>> profits in the Western states, and the West wasn't big enough for both
> >>> of them. I think Franz understands the situation quite well, and my
> >>> only objection is to his comparison with a Swiss war that involved no
> >>> geographical expansion.
> >> Switzerland is a very small country. Most Americans
> >> confound it with Sweden that is a large country in
>
> > You know even less about "most Americans" than you do about
> > lingustics. For "most Americans," Sweden is the land of Nobel Prizes
>
> And beautiful blonds/blondes and free sex and meatballs and Ikea.
Howcome Ikea and Nokia don't come from the same country? (NB Ikea
isn't found in most of the US yet.)
And Saabs and Volvos, the two most boring cars there are.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> You know even less about "most Americans" than you do about
> lingustics. For "most Americans," Sweden is the land of Nobel Prizes
> and Switzerland is the land of cuckoo clocks, chocolate, and hidden
> Nazi gold. (Which country do you think comes out on top in that
> comparison?)
What about 'your' sympathies for the Nazi regime and
ideology? Some time ago I recommended the latest
novel by Philip Roth to you, have you read it in the
meantime? What about your magnats who financed
Hitler, thus enabling him to wage war on Europe?
Why didn't you bomb the railways to Auschwitz?
A Swiss diplomat informed you about the horrors
of the concentration camps early on into the war,
why didn't you believe him? did someone hold up
his reports, thinking the self-destruction of Europe
will accelerate your rise to the leading power in
the world? The large majority of the Swiss population
was against Hitler and Mussolini and Franco, some
risked their life and position helping Jews over the
boarder into Sitzwerland and hiding them for years.
Switzerland was surrounded by Nazis and facists:
Germany in the north, Austria in the west, Italy in
the south, occupied France in the West - enemy
land all around us, 360 degrees, across every inch
of our boarder. How could we possibly survive?
In May 1940 the Wehrmacht lay behind the Jura
mountain range, ready to invade Switzerland.
Hereupon our General Guisan concentrated his
troops in and around the cities of Basel and Zurich,
thus telling Hitler: Come, invade us, we shall fight
to death. You will have us within a couple of weeks,
but what will you gain? The value of Switzerland is
our well functioning infra-structure. You will have
to bomb Basel and Zurich, our banks, universities,
laboratories, plants, hospitals, and kill the well
schooled men and specialists who serve in our
militia army, all those men who keep our splendid
infra-structure working. Switzerland resembles one
of our famous watches: tiny, well organized, well
functioning. Stomp on it, break it, and it will be
utterly useless ... Hitler understood, the Wehrmacht
left, singing: "Die Schweiz das kleine Stachelschwein
/ Nehmen wir im Rückzug ein" - we shall take over
that little porcupine Switzerland in the end, when we
conquered all of Europe, and we shall have it alive
and well, with a functioning infra-structure, that is.
That is why we survived (my interpretation from
1979). Sadly we had to offer some of our services
to the Nazis, while we worked undercover for you.
Why didn't you believe the Swiss diplomat who
informed you early on into the war about the horrors
of the concentration camps? why didn't you publish
his reports in one of your big newspapers, for the
whole free world to take notice and then action?
Peter T. Daniels
> On Dec 1, 2:09 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > You know even less about "most Americans" than you do about
> > lingustics. For "most Americans," Sweden is the land of Nobel Prizes
> > and Switzerland is the land of cuckoo clocks, chocolate, and hidden
> > Nazi gold. (Which country do you think comes out on top in that
> > comparison?)
>
> What about 'your' sympathies for the Nazi regime and
> ideology? Some time ago I recommended the latest
> novel by Philip Roth to you, have you read it in the
> meantime?
I doubt it. Philip Roth is very prolific. What's the title?
I recently read my second Roth novel (the first, of course, was
Portnoy's Complaint) because it got lots of publicity: he imagined
Charles Lindbergh being elected president and cooperating with Hitler.
A highly implausible scenario to start with, and an absurd resolution.
David Damrosch's description of The Great American Novel (about a
baseball player called Gil Gamesh) suggests I wouldn't care for that
one either.
So smug self-satisfaction remains a Swiss trait.
Get off it. You didn't experience any of that, and neither did I. I
was born a year and a half after you.
anal...@hotmail.com
anal...@hotmail.com
I got this from alt.language.latin
"Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus"
(Horace)
The mountains are in labour; a little mouse will be born.
Hindi has pretty much the same proverb.
contact?
coincidence because it is a natural way to express the underlying
idea ?
Peter T. Daniels
How far back does it go in Hindi?
It's extremely well known in English, so why is it unlikely that it
was introduced with Classical education by the Brits?
phog...@abo.fi
wrote:
Why should they? The name Ikea is an acronym from Ingvar Kamprad
(founder of the company), Elmtaryd (the exact place where he is from),
and Agunnaryd (the neighbouring village). If you knew Scandinavian
languages, you would know that that -ryd shows he was from Southern
Sweden (Småland, to be exact). Nokia, however, is a town in Finland -
near Tampere. And the company took its name from the town (the
etymology of the name is obscure, it might be related to an old word
meaning a sable or a pine marten - modern Finnish words for those are
"soopeli" and "näätä" respectively - or it might have something to do
with "noki"; soot).
When I was a child, the corporation called Nokia was mostly known for
rubber boots. Actually, the association with rubber was so strong that
in my youthful years, a rubber truncheon was in Finnish slang known as
"Nokian nuoriso-ohjaaja", i.e. "the youth counsellor from Nokia".
Peter T. Daniels
> On Dec 1 2007, 5:04 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Dec 1, 9:09 am, Harlan Messinger
>
> > <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > > Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > > On Dec 1, 4:54 am, Franz Gnaedinger <f...@bluemail.ch> wrote:
> > > >> On Dec 1, 2:07 am, "Douglas G. Kilday" <fufl...@chorus.net> wrote:
>
> > > >>> Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Whatever reasons might
> > > >>> have been offered by politicians and their "intellectual" claque, the
> > > >>> _real_ basis for the Civil War was economic. Northern industrialists
> > > >>> and Southern plantationists both saw opportunities for making huge
> > > >>> profits in the Western states, and the West wasn't big enough for both
> > > >>> of them. I think Franz understands the situation quite well, and my
> > > >>> only objection is to his comparison with a Swiss war that involved no
> > > >>> geographical expansion.
> > > >> Switzerland is a very small country. Most Americans
> > > >> confound it with Sweden that is a large country in
>
> > > > You know even less about "most Americans" than you do about
> > > > lingustics. For "most Americans," Sweden is the land of Nobel Prizes
>
> > > And beautiful blonds/blondes and free sex and meatballs and Ikea.
>
> > Howcome Ikea and Nokia don't come from the same country? (NB Ikea
> > isn't found in most of the US yet.)
>
> Why should they?
Because they rhyme and they both come from Scandinavia.
Why are you answering month-old messages?
> The name Ikea is an acronym from Ingvar Kamprad
> (founder of the company), Elmtaryd (the exact place where he is from),
> and Agunnaryd (the neighbouring village). If you knew Scandinavian
> languages, you would know that that -ryd shows he was from Southern
> Sweden (Småland, to be exact). Nokia, however, is a town in Finland -
> near Tampere. And the company took its name from the town (the
> etymology of the name is obscure, it might be related to an old word
> meaning a sable or a pine marten - modern Finnish words for those are
> "soopeli" and "näätä" respectively - or it might have something to do
> with "noki"; soot).
>
> When I was a child, the corporation called Nokia was mostly known for
> rubber boots. Actually, the association with rubber was so strong that
> in my youthful years, a rubber truncheon was in Finnish slang known as
> "Nokian nuoriso-ohjaaja", i.e. "the youth counsellor from Nokia".-
phog...@abo.fi
They certainly do not rhyme in the original languages. IKEA is AFAIK
pronounced in Swedish as [i'kea], with stress on the E, while Nokia is
pronounced with initial stress, as are all Finnish words.
> Why are you answering month-old messages?
Because they are there to be answered.
Peter T. Daniels
We are not talking about Swedish or Finnish.
> > Why are you answering month-old messages?
>
> Because they are there to be answered.-
Then we'll soon be seeing your answers to M.I.5 persecution, Jai
Maharlal, and the nonsense-generator?
phog...@abo.fi
Would you do me the favour of mentioning the name of the kingdom of
which you are the sovereign ruler?
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
[no:kj@]?
> as are all Finnish words.
Does that mean non-initial vowels are destressed like in English where
the vowels in "graphic" get reduced when it's at the end of an
agglutination like "photographic"?
mb
...
> > > Howcome Ikea and Nokia don't come from the same country? (NB Ikea
> > > isn't found in most of the US yet.)
>
> > Why should they?
>
> Because they rhyme and they both come from Scandinavia.
Nokia is not in Scandinavia, as far as I can figure out.
phog...@abo.fi
<ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jan 2, 8:55 am, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
>
> > Nokia is
> > pronounced with initial stress,
>
> [no:kj@]?
Certainly not. ['no ki a], three short unreduced vowels, three
syllables.
>
> > as are all Finnish words.
>
> Does that mean non-initial vowels are destressed like in English where
> the vowels in "graphic" get reduced when it's at the end of an
> agglutination like "photographic"?
No reduction. Finnish vowels are usually not reduced, but final -i can
be dropped after a consonant in rapid speech: kaksi "two" -> [kaks].
phog...@abo.fi
wrote:
> On Dec 2, 2:56 am, Franz Gnaedinger <f...@bluemail.ch> wrote:
>
> > On Dec 1, 2:09 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > You know even less about "most Americans" than you do about
> > > lingustics. For "most Americans," Sweden is the land of Nobel Prizes
> > > and Switzerland is the land of cuckoo clocks, chocolate, and hidden
> > > Nazi gold. (Which country do you think comes out on top in that
> > > comparison?)
>
> > What about 'your' sympathies for the Nazi regime and
> > ideology? Some time ago I recommended the latest
> > novel by Philip Roth to you, have you read it in the
> > meantime?
>
> I doubt it. Philip Roth is very prolific. What's the title?
Probably "Everyman".
M. Ranjit Mathews
> On Jan 3, 5:52 am, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
>
> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On Jan 2, 8:55 am, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
>
> > > Nokia is
> > > pronounced with initial stress,
>
> > [no:kj@]?
>
> Certainly not. ['no ki a], three short unreduced vowels, three
> syllables.
Then, how does the stress affect the [no]?
phog...@abo.fi
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
Does that just make it louder?
Trond Engen
(Panu seems to have left the building.)
Finnish -- Finnic -- stress is marked with high tone, consistently
word-initial and independent of syllable length. The same is true for
its neighbour Latvian. AFAIK, this is seen as a result of Finnic
influence. Possibly an areal thing, though, since also Germanic used to
have these features.
--
Trond Engen
- although largely limited to "mansikkakakku", my Finnish is
considerably better than my Latvian.
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
> ranjit_math...@yahoo.com skreiv:
>
>
>
> > On Jan 3, 4:42 am, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
>
> >> On Jan 3, 1:48 pm, "M. Ranjit Mathews" <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com>
> >> wrote:
>
> >>> On Jan 3, 3:37 am, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
>
> >>> On Jan 3, 5:52 am, "ranjit_math...@yahoo.com"
> >>>> <ranjit_math...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >>>>> On Jan 2, 8:55 am, phogl...@abo.fi wrote:
>
> >>>>>> Nokia is pronounced with initial stress,
>
> >>>>> [no:kj@]?
>
> >>>> Certainly not. ['no ki a], three short unreduced vowels, three
> >>>> syllables.
>
> >>> Then, how does the stress affect the [no]?
>
> >> By stressing it.
>
> > Does that just make it louder?
>
> (Panu seems to have left the building.)
>
> Finnish -- Finnic -- stress is marked with high tone, consistently
> word-initial and independent of syllable length.
Ah!
> The same is true for
> its neighbour Latvian. AFAIK, this is seen as a result of Finnic
> influence.
... or Livonian influence.