Hong Kongean, Hong Konger, or HK people?
Pine Plux
Hong Kongean, Hong Konger, or just Hong Kong people?
People use all these words, but many English-speakers and even
people in Hong Kong do not know which one is correct.
Is there any adjective form of Hong Kong such as American, European, etc.?
Bun Mui
> Hong Kongean, Hong Konger, or HK people?
Asian.
Bun Mui
Spehro Pefhany
> What is the proper term refering to Hong Kong people?
> Hong Kongean, Hong Konger, or just Hong Kong people?
If you want to be offensive, "Hongkie" might work. I generally say
"Hong Kong people" to refer to people of various ethnic backgrounds
that have permanent right of abode in the SAR.
Best regards,
--
Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
sp...@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
9-11 United we Stand
Bob Stahl
>Pine Plux:
> >What is the proper term refering to Hong Kong people?
> >Hong Kongean, Hong Konger, or just Hong Kong people?
> >
> >People use all these words, but many English-speakers and even
> >people in Hong Kong do not know which one is correct.
> >
> >Is there any adjective form of Hong Kong such as American, European,
etc.?
>
> Asian.
Perfect.
--
Bob Stahl
Spehro Pefhany
> Bun Mui: Asian.
> Perfect.
What about Hong Kong people of wholly European blood? You'd refer to
them as Asians?
Bob Stahl
> What about Hong Kong people of wholly European blood? You'd refer to
> them as Asians?
Why not?
What is "European blood" in English usage?
--
Bob Stahl
Spehro Pefhany
> What is "European blood" in English usage?
It is similar to dai bai ("big-nose") in Chinese usage.
john smith
> <...>
> Is there any adjective form of Hong Kong such as American, European, etc.?
The traditional term is "Honkwegian", although some prefer
"Honkpudlian."
\\P. Schultz
Spehro Pefhany
> The traditional term is "Honkwegian", although some prefer
> "Honkpudlian."
Excellent! Both offensive-sounding and arcane, so it should confuse or
infuriate virtually everybody.
Simon R. Hughes
> The renowned Bob Stahl <urbul...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> > Bun Mui: Asian.
> > Perfect.
>
> What about Hong Kong people of wholly European blood? You'd refer to
> them as Asians?
Would you refer to Steve Hayes as African? I would.
--
Simon R. Hughes -- http://www.geocities.com/a57998/subconscious/
<!-- Lots to write; nothing to say. -->
Fabian
"Spehro Pefhany" <sp...@interlog.com> wrote in message
news:b_gi8.78561$aFN....@news1.bloor.is...
> The renowned Pine Plux <pine...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > What is the proper term refering to Hong Kong people?
> > Hong Kongean, Hong Konger, or just Hong Kong people?
>
> If you want to be offensive, "Hongkie" might work. I generally say
> "Hong Kong people" to refer to people of various ethnic backgrounds
> that have permanent right of abode in the SAR.
Wouldn't work here. Honky is slang for a white person around here.
--
--
Fabian
Ikun li dik il-kitba tpatti it-tieba ta' qalb ta' patruni tieghi.
Ikun li ttaffi ugigh tal-Mitlufin u tal-Indannati.
Ikun li ilkoll li jaqraw il-kitba, qalbhom ihobbu is-Sewwa u l-Unur.
U b'dak l'ghamil, nithallas tax-xoghol iebes.
Spehro Pefhany
> Would you refer to Steve Hayes as African? I would.
South African (referring the country), yes. Simply "African", without
qualification, I don't think so, assuming I wanted to be understood. But,
for some reason, that's a closer thing.
Spehro Pefhany
>
> Wouldn't work here. Honky is slang for a white person around here.
I have a really hard time imagining a likely situation where that would
cause much confusion, except perhaps in onlookers.
AWILLIS957
>If you want to be offensive, "Hongkie" might work.
My friend comes from Dingwall. To her a "hongkie" is something you blow your
nose in.
Albert Peasemarch.
Charles Riggs
<shu...@tromso.online.no> wrote:
>Thus Spake Spehro Pefhany:
>> The renowned Bob Stahl <urbul...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> > Bun Mui: Asian.
>> > Perfect.
>>
>> What about Hong Kong people of wholly European blood? You'd refer to
>> them as Asians?
>
>Would you refer to Steve Hayes as African? I would.
Of course you *wouldn't*: no more than you'd call an Egyptian or
Libyan an African. Steve is a South African.
Charles Riggs
john smith
> <...>
> Of course you *wouldn't*: no more than you'd call an Egyptian or
I'd call an Egyptian an African. I'd also call an Italian a European.
\\P. Schultz
Simon R. Hughes
My words are up there. If you wish to put words in my mouth, it
would be more effective to remove what I have actually said first.
Steve is South African, and all South Africans are Africans. All
Libyans are Aficans, too, as are all Egyptians. Location, location,
location.
Simon R. Hughes
I'd even refer to Poles and Hungarians as Europeans, but then
qualify which Europe I was talking about.
john smith
>
> Thus Spake john smith:
> > Charles Riggs wrote:
> > > <...>
> > > Of course you *wouldn't*: no more than you'd call an Egyptian or
> > > Libyan an African. <...>
> >
> > I'd call an Egyptian an African. I'd also call an Italian a European.
>
> I'd even refer to Poles and Hungarians as Europeans, but then
> qualify which Europe I was talking about.
I'd call them Europeans too, but I wouldn't make the further
qualification since maps are generally available for those who don't
know where Poland and Hungary are.
\\P. Schultz
Simon R. Hughes
Do you ignore the fact that "Europe" is becoming a synonym for "The
European Union"?
--
Simon R. Hughes
Donna Richoux
Doesn't any rational person? Just the fact that some people have banded
together to call themselves something, doesn't nullify the older senses
of the word. Are you going to teach people that Switzerland isn't part
of Europe, or that someone who is Swiss is not a European?
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Simon R. Hughes
> Simon R. Hughes <shu...@tromso.online.no> wrote:
>
> > Thus Spake john smith:
> > > "Simon R. Hughes" wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Thus Spake john smith:
> > > > > Charles Riggs wrote:
> > > > > > <...>
> > > > > > Of course you *wouldn't*: no more than you'd call an Egyptian or
> > > > > > Libyan an African. <...>
> > > > >
> > > > > I'd call an Egyptian an African. I'd also call an Italian a European.
> > > >
> > > > I'd even refer to Poles and Hungarians as Europeans, but then
> > > > qualify which Europe I was talking about.
> > >
> > > I'd call them Europeans too, but I wouldn't make the further
> > > qualification since maps are generally available for those who don't
> > > know where Poland and Hungary are.
> >
> > Do you ignore the fact that "Europe" is becoming a synonym for "The
> > European Union"?
>
> Doesn't any rational person?
No. A rational person takes the new usage into account and adjusts
accordingly, wanting to communicate rather than to cause unnecessary
confusion.
> Just the fact that some people have banded
> together to call themselves something, doesn't nullify the older senses
> of the word.
I haven't said it does. But there are several different Europes now,
and in many cases, it would be useful to qualify further which one
is intended -- to avoid confusion on the part of the audience.
> Are you going to teach people that Switzerland isn't part
> of Europe, or that someone who is Swiss is not a European?
I don't usually use Europe as a synonym for the European Union, but
there are many people who do. I would not be surprised to hear
someone claiming that Switzerland is not part of Europe. I have
heard a number of people lamenting the fact that Norway is not a
part of Europe. But it is, as is Switzerland. It's just that parts
of Europe do not belong to Europe.
--
Simon R. Hughes
john smith
But that has nothing to do with whether Poles and Hungarians are
Europeans, does it? They are, no matter what someone has decided that
"Europe" is becoming a synonym for.
\\P. Schultz
Charles Riggs
<shu...@tromso.online.no> wrote:
>Thus Spake Charles Riggs:
>> Of course you *wouldn't*: no more than you'd call an Egyptian or
>> Libyan an African. Steve is a South African.
>
>My words are up there. If you wish to put words in my mouth, it
>would be more effective to remove what I have actually said first.
Well, Simon, much as I would have liked to on many occasions, I see no
way of doing this.
>Steve is South African, and all South Africans are Africans. All
>Libyans are Aficans, too, as are all Egyptians.
Technically speaking, of course this is so. But English, as well as
people's customs when speaking in other languages, doesn't follow
technical rules.
> Location, location,
>location.
Are you selling me a house or are we talking about English vernacular?
Charles Riggs
Spehro Pefhany
> Steve is South African, and all South Africans are Africans. All
> Libyans are Aficans, too, as are all Egyptians. Location, location,
> location.
I say it is often ethnicity, ethnicity, ethnicity. In which case, your
Libyan (or Eritrean) may well be an Italian.
AlbertPeasemarch
before Malaysia came into being? I have a bit-part character like that
who lives in the Philippines - a hotelier. He is definitely not a
Filipino, even though he is a citizen of the Philippines. For the
moment, I am calling him "Malaysian". But should he be a Malayan, or
even a Malay? The answer would be useful to me.
Out of interest, I'd also like to ask for your views about the word
"Argentine", pronounced with a long i. There is a country called
Argentina, but why is it also often called "The Argentine"? And if
that is a correct alternative name for the country, as "The
Netherlands" is for Holland, why do football commentators also use it
to describe individual players? They say "the Argentine" much more
often than they say "The Argentinian". Funnily enough, though
commentators call the players "Argentines", they never call the team
"The Argentine". What are the correct terms?
Albert Peasemarch.
chy...@ludens.elte.hu
> Thus Spake john smith:
>> Charles Riggs wrote:
>> > <...>
>> > Of course you *wouldn't*: no more than you'd call an Egyptian or
>> > Libyan an African. <...>
>>
>> I'd call an Egyptian an African. I'd also call an Italian a European.
>
> I'd even refer to Poles and Hungarians as Europeans, but then
> qualify which Europe I was talking about.
*blink*
We certainly refer to _ourselves_ as Europeans. Where else would
you plan on categorizing us?
The big (and rather laughable, in my opinion) debate in Hungary
is this: are we in the eastern part of Central Europe, or the
western-central part of Eastern Europe?
Hungary is very European, though, both geographically and in
mentality. Well, we're working on the mentality part.
Chyron
--
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his
heart he dreams himself your master." -- Commissioner Pravin Lal
"People who think they have a right not to be offended are trouble."
-- Alsee
dcw
AlbertPeasemarch <willis...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>Out of interest, I'd also like to ask for your views about the word
>"Argentine", pronounced with a long i. There is a country called
>Argentina, but why is it also often called "The Argentine"?
That's an English version of its name, now rather old fashioned:
[Something something] and a line
Of steamers to the Argentine.
> And if
>that is a correct alternative name for the country, as "The
>Netherlands" is for Holland, why do football commentators also use it
>to describe individual players? They say "the Argentine" much more
>often than they say "The Argentinian".
It's shorter? But you're talking about sport-speak, which is pretty
far from normal English.
> Funnily enough, though
>commentators call the players "Argentines", they never call the team
>"The Argentine". What are the correct terms?
A similar problem arises with "Afghan", "Afghani", "Afghanistani",
and (for all I know) "Afghanistanian".
In this respect, the adjective "Argentine" works like "American" or
"German", not like "English" or "French".
David
R H Draney
(AlbertPeasemarch) wrote:
I can't seem to find it via Google, but there's a nice list of the
terms used to describe people of different nationalities...I think
it's in one of my dead-trees almanacs at the office..."Argentine" is,
as far as I'm aware, correct term for both columns of the chart: the
first for a native of that country, and the second as an adjective
describing anything relating to that country (e.g. "Argentine fiscal
policy")....
Most of the entries are dull and uninspiring, but some--"Burkinabe"
and "Monagesque", to name just two--are interesting...of special
interest are the not-quite-identical words relating to Niger and
Nigeria (among cities, Genoa and Geneva have similar issues)....r
Spehro Pefhany
> What do you call someone of Malayan origin whose family left Malaya
> before Malaysia came into being? I have a bit-part character like that
> who lives in the Philippines - a hotelier. He is definitely not a
> Filipino, even though he is a citizen of the Philippines. For the
> moment, I am calling him "Malaysian". But should he be a Malayan, or
> even a Malay? The answer would be useful to me.
If you know the region, the most likely answer is "Chinese". But if he is
actually a Malay, I'd call him that. "Indian" is another possibility.
Donna Richoux
>
> I can't seem to find it via Google, but there's a nice list of the
> terms used to describe people of different nationalities...
I think you mean:
http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/language/placename.html
R H Draney
throng:
Thanks...I *have* seen this one before, but the list I had in mind turned out to
be in the "Universal Almanac", distributed as data items under each country's
heading in the "Nations of the World" section....
The online version does confirm "Argentine" and the "Nigerien" vs "Nigerian"
issue...there's no entry for Burkina Faso, and they list only "Monacan" for the
Grimaldis' subjects (I said "Monagesque" earlier when it should have been
"Monegasque"; Google led me astray on that point because I failed to check both
spellings)....r
Arcadian Rises
>>I think you mean:
>>
>>http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/language/placename.html
>
Of course, the list cannot possible be exhaustive. Many of the new nations are
missing. For example, I was looking for the people of the Republic of Moldova,
how do you call them in English, Moldovans or Moldavians?
R H Draney
Actually, it *is* listed in the hardcopy source, albeit under the separate
heading of "New Nations from the Former Soviet Union", establishing that even a
1993 almanac can still be useful....
Says they're "Moldovian(s)"....
(Others in the same section are: "Armenian(s)", "Azerbaijani(s)" or "Azeri(s)",
"Belarussian(s)", "Kazakh(s)", "Kirghiz" ("Kyrgyz"), "Russian(s)" (well duh!),
"Tajik(s)", "Turkmen", "Ukrainian(s)" and "Uzbek(s)"...the Baltics have their
own subsection, as does the "Other Former Soviet Republic" and its
"Georgian(s)"....
(Wonder how it feels being the only one filed under "miscellaneous")....r
Spehro Pefhany
> Actually, it *is* listed in the hardcopy source, albeit under the separate
> heading of "New Nations from the Former Soviet Union", establishing that even a
> 1993 almanac can still be useful....
>
> Says they're "Moldovian(s)"....
So, Moldavians would be residents of the Romanian province of Moldavia?
This is probably an important issue for residents of the entire
Transnistrian region.
john smith
R H Draney quoted:
> <...> "Azerbaijani(s)" or "Azeri(s)" <...>
I would think that "Azeri" would refer to that ethnic group or language,
while "Azerbaijani" would indicate any citizen of the country, whether
ethnically Russian, Armenian, Shawnee, etc.
\\P. Schultz
Alan Walker
> What is the proper term refering to Hong Kong people?
> Hong Kongean, Hong Konger, or just Hong Kong people?
>
> People use all these words, but many English-speakers and even
> people in Hong Kong do not know which one is correct.
>
> Is there any adjective form of Hong Kong such as American, European, etc.?
In Australia, it is common to refer to people from Hong Kong as "Hong
Kongers". This usage grates me and I usually say "people from Hong
Kong" or "the people of Hong Kong". There are many concepts for which
English does not have a single word.
By the way, the place is often referred to as "Honkers" and Singapore
as "Sinkers". Neither term is pejorative. They are just
light-hearted slang. Are these nick-names used elsewhere?
Alan Walker, from Bendigo, which is often called "Benders".
R H Draney
That makes sense, but a closer reading of other entries reveals that the "Ethnic
groups" comprised, in 1993, "82.7% Azerbaijani, 5.6% Armenian, 5.6% Russian,
Lezhi, Avar, Ukranian, Tatar, Jewish"...the "Languages" include "Azerbaijani,
Russian, ethnic languages"; I'm having trouble figuring out what could be meant
by a *non*-ethnic language (Fortran?)...the term "Azeri" *only* appears as a
descriptive term for the citizenry....
ObWhatAmIDoingInAzerbaijan: Shawnee?...r
Simon R. Hughes
> In article <MPG.16f5643a4...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>, Simon R. Hughes <shu...@tromso.online.no> writes:
> > Thus Spake john smith:
> >> Charles Riggs wrote:
> >> > <...>
> >> > Of course you *wouldn't*: no more than you'd call an Egyptian or
> >> > Libyan an African. <...>
> >>
> >> I'd call an Egyptian an African. I'd also call an Italian a European.
> >
> > I'd even refer to Poles and Hungarians as Europeans, but then
> > qualify which Europe I was talking about.
>
> *blink*
>
> We certainly refer to _ourselves_ as Europeans. Where else would
> you plan on categorizing us?
Nowhere. You are European, but not from the European Union (yet).
"European" is sometimes used to refer to either.
> The big (and rather laughable, in my opinion) debate in Hungary
> is this: are we in the eastern part of Central Europe, or the
> western-central part of Eastern Europe?
>
> Hungary is very European, though, both geographically and in
> mentality. Well, we're working on the mentality part.
--
Simon R. Hughes
Robert Bannister
> In article <MPG.16f5643a4...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>, Simon R. Hughes <shu...@tromso.online.no> writes:
> > Thus Spake john smith:
> >> Charles Riggs wrote:
> >> > <...>
> >> > Of course you *wouldn't*: no more than you'd call an Egyptian or
> >> > Libyan an African. <...>
> >>
> >> I'd call an Egyptian an African. I'd also call an Italian a European.
> >
> > I'd even refer to Poles and Hungarians as Europeans, but then
> > qualify which Europe I was talking about.
>
> *blink*
>
> We certainly refer to _ourselves_ as Europeans. Where else would
> you plan on categorizing us?
>
> The big (and rather laughable, in my opinion) debate in Hungary
> is this: are we in the eastern part of Central Europe, or the
> western-central part of Eastern Europe?
>
> Hungary is very European, though, both geographically and in
> mentality. Well, we're working on the mentality part.
Imagine what it's like in Australia when we describe ourselves as belonging to the Western world.
--
Rob Bannister
Mike Barnes
>What do you call someone of Malayan origin whose family left Malaya
>before Malaysia came into being? I have a bit-part character like that
>who lives in the Philippines - a hotelier. He is definitely not a
>Filipino, even though he is a citizen of the Philippines. For the
>moment, I am calling him "Malaysian". But should he be a Malayan, or
>even a Malay? The answer would be useful to me.
I think you might be making life more difficult than it need be by
insisting on a one-word answer. You already said he was "of Malayan
origin". That seems pretty clear.
I'd be tempted to quit while the going was good.
--
Mike Barnes
AlbertPeasemarch
> >even a Malay? The answer would be useful to me.
>
> I think you might be making life more difficult than it need be by
> insisting on a one-word answer. You already said he was "of Malayan
> origin". That seems pretty clear.
>
> I'd be tempted to quit while the going was good.
I know what you mean, but it's all about loyalties. The islands of the
southern Philippines mingle with those of Sabah, which is in Malaysia,
and the people there largely support independence from the
Philippines, not only on religious grounds - they are Muslim - but on
ethnic ones. My hotelier is hosting Westerners in Sulu, and I need his
loyalties to be more complex than they might be if he was Filipino, or
Chinese, or indigenous to Sulu.
Albert Peasemarch.
AlbertPeasemarch
Fancy calling an Italian city "Florence".
And what are "naples"?
Is there really a place in the low countries called "Flushing"?
And why is Greece called Greece?
I don't know what Turkey is really called, but surely it isn't called
"Turkey". I doubt that it is named after any item of poultry at all.
Do people in other countries call English-speaking places by absurd
names too? Do Hungarians call London "Cabbage", for example?
Albert Peasemarch.
dcw
>
>Fancy calling an Italian city "Florence".
Ask the French about that. But it's probably nearer to the original
name than the modern Italian version.
>And what are "naples"?
See above.
>Is there really a place in the low countries called "Flushing"?
Yes, but that's not its real name.
>And why is Greece called Greece?
Dunno -- it's too late to ask the Romans.
>I don't know what Turkey is really called, but surely it isn't called
>"Turkey". I doubt that it is named after any item of poultry at all.
The Turkish name for Turkey is pretty close to "Turkey", I believe.
The bird is named after the place, for some strange reason.
>Do people in other countries call English-speaking places by absurd
>names too? Do Hungarians call London "Cabbage", for example?
Yes, and (probably) no.
David
Mickwick
[...]
>Out of interest, I'd also like to ask for your views about the word
>"Argentine", pronounced with a long i. There is a country called
>Argentina, but why is it also often called "The Argentine"? And if
>that is a correct alternative name for the country, as "The
>Netherlands" is for Holland, why do football commentators also use it
>to describe individual players? They say "the Argentine" much more
>often than they say "The Argentinian". Funnily enough, though
>commentators call the players "Argentines", they never call the team
>"The Argentine". What are the correct terms?
Place: Argentina or The Argentine (Republic).
People: Argentines.
The Sun newspaper discovered Argentina a week or two before the
Falklands War and, either through ignorance of current practice or, more
likely, not wishing to confuse its readership, it called Argentina's
people 'Argentineans' (also 'Argies'). This popularised the 'incorrect'
form, indeed stigmatised the 'correct' form - for a while, 'Argentines'
was considered insufferably posh.
--
Mickwick
Donna Richoux
> Some of the names we call foreign countries sound daft to me.
>
> Fancy calling an Italian city "Florence".
>
> And what are "naples"?
I'm not so interested in calling various placenames "daft" and so on,
but the fact that different proper names have arisen for the same place
is fascinating to me. The US is not an old enough country, or
multi-lingual enough, for that to have happened very often. Almost all
of our cities have a single name (with some variation in pronunciation).
I would say "all," but a few have officially changed their names.
I will pass on some good URLs on placenames here. I've looked for years
and found very few. There is no single, great "entry-point" on
placenames on the Web, not that I've ever found.
>
> Is there really a place in the low countries called "Flushing"?
It's called "Vlissingen" now, but, according to the Getty Thesaurus of
Placenames
http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/tgn/index.html
it was once called "Flushing" by somebody.
There really is a village in Austria called "Fucking," though. You can
go on at great and hilarious length about all the foreign words and
names that sound funny to people who speak other languages. I don't
recommend that path.
>
> And why is Greece called Greece?
Although it is possible to track down origins of place names on the
Internet with great enough persistence, I have found that a low-cost
paperbound reference book called "Brewer's Dictionary of Names" is
faster and more satisfying.
It says the country was named for the people who lived there, called
"Greeks." They first lived in one corner and then expanded. It
speculates that "Greek" might have derived from the Indo-european "gra-"
meaning "venerable.""Hellas" was those people's own name for their
country.
>
> I don't know what Turkey is really called, but surely it isn't called
> "Turkey".
What countries call themselves is pretty easy to establish on the Web.
The CIA World Factbook is one place:
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
At the country article, scroll to the "Government" section:
Country name:
conventional long form: Republic of Turkey
conventional short form: Turkey
local long form: Turkiye Cumhuriyeti
local short form: Turkiye
>I doubt that it is named after any item of poultry at all.
Well, of course, but the bird might have been named for the country.
Merriam-Webster would tell you that.
>
> Do people in other countries call English-speaking places by absurd
> names too? Do Hungarians call London "Cabbage", for example?
There are so many hundreds of languages, and so many hundreds of
thousands of placenames, you're not going to find any easy source that
cross-references all the possible things that a place may be called
anywhere by anyone. You would have to track down the place and the
language you are most interested in.
Another world-wide database of placenames, which I haven't used very
much, is:
KNAB, Place Names Database of EKI: Foreign names
http://www.eki.ee/knab/p_mm_en.htm
--
Best wishes -- Donna Richoux
Spehro Pefhany
>
> Why is that most likely? Chinese are a minority in Malaysia.
They run many of the businesses, as in many other places in South
East Asia. The fact that they are a visible minority with a culture
(usually including language as well as religion) distinct from the
majority aggravates tensions and has lead to much destruction and many
deaths. In general the non-Chinese feel they are exploited by the Chinese.
The Chinese work hard, stick together, save their money and complain about
the laziness and other supposed bad habits of their employees.
The riots in Malaysia in the sixties and in Indonesia a few years ago are
symptoms of the resentment of the "locals". The tensions still exist in
Malaysia despite government policies designed to tilt the playing field
against the ethnic Chinese and despite government propaganda.
I've not been to the Phillipines yet, but I understand that a majority of
the businessmen there are ethnic Chinese. In the scenario presented, it
seems most likely to me that our immigrant hotelier would be an ethnic
Chinese, with a family history of running hotels.
Fabian
"Robert Bannister" <rob...@it.net.au> wrote in message
> Imagine what it's like in Australia when we describe ourselves as
belonging to the Western world.
The Times (of London) recently referred to Kyrgyzstan as being in Europe
in an article about some tobacco company gaining a ctitical European
market in a corporate takeover.
--
--
Fabian
Ikun li dik il-kitba tpatti it-tieba ta' qalb ta' patruni tieghi.
Ikun li ttaffi ugigh tal-Mitlufin u tal-Indannati.
Ikun li ilkoll li jaqraw il-kitba, qalbhom ihobbu is-Sewwa u l-Unur.
U b'dak l'ghamil, nithallas tax-xoghol iebes.
R H Draney
wrote:
>AlbertPeasemarch <willis...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Some of the names we call foreign countries sound daft to me.
Maybe US place names haven't been *changed* very often, but we've
managed to do a thriving business in corrupting names either from the
original inhabitants or from earlier settlers....
"Smackover" (from, and don't ask me how, "Chemin Couvert") was always
one of my favorites in this category....
>> Is there really a place in the low countries called "Flushing"?
>
>It's called "Vlissingen" now, but, according to the Getty Thesaurus of
>Placenames
> http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/tgn/index.html
>
>it was once called "Flushing" by somebody.
ObSillyJoke: "Flushing Meadows", in New York, is occasionally
misremembered by British tourists as "WC Fields"....
>> And why is Greece called Greece?
>
>Although it is possible to track down origins of place names on the
>Internet with great enough persistence, I have found that a low-cost
>paperbound reference book called "Brewer's Dictionary of Names" is
>faster and more satisfying.
>
>It says the country was named for the people who lived there, called
>"Greeks." They first lived in one corner and then expanded. It
>speculates that "Greek" might have derived from the Indo-european "gra-"
>meaning "venerable.""Hellas" was those people's own name for their
>country.
This is perhaps a more promising tack than simply calling names
"daft"...why do some countries have multiple names that appear utterly
unrelated?..."Suisse/Svizzera/Schweiz" at least makes etymological
sense, but for the life of me I can't tease out a connection among
"Deutschland/Germany/Allemande/Tedesco"....r
Donna Richoux
> On Tue, 12 Mar 2002 14:42:28 GMT, "Spehro Pefhany"
> <sp...@interlog.com> wrote:
>
> >I've not been to the Phillipines yet, but I understand that a majority of
> >the businessmen there are ethnic Chinese. In the scenario presented, it
> >seems most likely to me that our immigrant hotelier would be an ethnic
> >Chinese, with a family history of running hotels.
>
> You might be thinking of the Philippines ...
That is such a tough spell. Does anyone have a clever mnemonic for one L
and two Ps?
I have a friend named Philippe, spelled the same way, but that doesn't
help because I can never get his name right, either.
--
Best - Donna Richoux
Richard Fontana
> >It's called "Vlissingen" now, but, according to the Getty Thesaurus of
> >Placenames
> > http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/tgn/index.html
> >
> >it was once called "Flushing" by somebody.
>
> ObSillyJoke: "Flushing Meadows", in New York, is occasionally
> misremembered by British tourists as "WC Fields"....
That is silly, since W.C. Fields lived in nearby Bayside for a while
but I don't think he ever lived in Flushing.
Interestingly, Flushing (Queens, New York) was founded by English
settlers.
Donna Richoux
> This is perhaps a more promising tack than simply calling names
> "daft"...why do some countries have multiple names that appear utterly
> unrelated?..."Suisse/Svizzera/Schweiz" at least makes etymological
> sense, but for the life of me I can't tease out a connection among
> "Deutschland/Germany/Allemande/Tedesco"....r
The quick answer: "Deutsch" and "Tedesco" and "Teutonic" and "Dutch" and
so on, all the T and D variants, come from the same root. Allemande
comes from Alemanni, what the ancient Romans called (some of) the
people, based on what they called themselves at the time... "German" is
a mystery, Brewer's Names runs through about five possible origins. It
might be the Celtic name for that tribe.
I would guess the question of variety of names (Germans) versus
uniformity (Swiss) has something to do with how long the people had a
cohesive sense of identity. The Swiss Confederation has been around
since 1251, and Schwyz was the name of one of the regions, before that.
Although the Germanic people, languages, and culture have been around
for millennia, the country we call Germany wasn't organized until
1870... By that time, all its neighbors had already fixed on their own
names...
Now you're getting me dotty...
--
Best ... Donna Richoux...
Joe Manfre
>This is perhaps a more promising tack than simply calling names
>"daft"...why do some countries have multiple names that appear
>utterly unrelated?..."Suisse/Svizzera/Schweiz" at least makes
>etymological sense, but for the life of me I can't tease out a
>connection among "Deutschland/Germany/Allemande/Tedesco"....r
Cecil Adams writ some stuff on the various names for Germany some time
ago. You can probably find it in the Straight Dope archives.
JM
Spehro Pefhany
> You might be thinking of the Philippines ...
You might be right. I'm usually confused by the "F"/"P" thing, too.
Filipino, Philipino or Pilipino? Are Malaysian affairs much discussed in
Singapore? You're only a taxi ride away from Johor Bahru, but is it a
situation like Tijuana and San Diego?
Simon R. Hughes
> Craig Welch <cr...@pacific.net.sg> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 12 Mar 2002 14:42:28 GMT, "Spehro Pefhany"
> > <sp...@interlog.com> wrote:
> >
> > >I've not been to the Phillipines yet, but I understand that a majority of
> > >the businessmen there are ethnic Chinese. In the scenario presented, it
> > >seems most likely to me that our immigrant hotelier would be an ethnic
> > >Chinese, with a family history of running hotels.
> >
> > You might be thinking of the Philippines ...
>
> That is such a tough spell. Does anyone have a clever mnemonic for one L
> and two Ps?
The Philippines is one L of a way to go 2 P.
> I have a friend named Philippe, spelled the same way, but that doesn't
> help because I can never get his name right, either.
>
>
--
Simon R. Hughes
Spehro Pefhany
> The Philippines is one L of a way to go 2 P.
Argh. I'll have to try some variation of that silly mnemonic, I see I
missed the 2Ps, again. Philippines. Philippines.
google Philipines 27,800
Phillipines 170,000
Philippines 5,100,000
but
Filipino 669,000
Filippino 17,000
Philippino 7,850
Philipino 16,100
Pilipino 61,100
Pilippino 68
When I've heard native Tagalog speakers say the name of the country, I
don't hear the "F" or "Ph" sound, it's more of the explosive "P" sound
suggested by the last two spellings above.
Fabian
"AlbertPeasemarch" <willis...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
> Do people in other countries call English-speaking places by absurd
> names too? Do Hungarians call London "Cabbage", for example?
The English are quite content to give ludicrous place names to English
towns and villages. Take Great Snoring for instance.
Donna Richoux
> "AlbertPeasemarch" <willis...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>
> > Do people in other countries call English-speaking places by absurd
> > names too? Do Hungarians call London "Cabbage", for example?
>
> The English are quite content to give ludicrous place names to English
> towns and villages. Take Great Snoring for instance.
The meaning of which follows the same pattern as 90% of all placenames
in England. "Settlement of the family or followers of a man called
'Snear,' an Old English personal name." In the Domesday Book of 1086, it
was Snaringes. (From the Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names.)
Whereas M-W dates "to snore" only as far back as the 15th century.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Donna Richoux
> This is perhaps a more promising tack than simply calling names
> "daft"...why do some countries have multiple names that appear utterly
> unrelated?..."Suisse/Svizzera/Schweiz" at least makes etymological
> sense, but for the life of me I can't tease out a connection among
> "Deutschland/Germany/Allemande/Tedesco"....r
Out of curiosity, I entered "Deutschland" into the KNAB Place Names
database
http://www.eki.ee/knab/p_mm_en.htm
and I got a long list of synonyms. At first it tried substituting a
variety of symbols for the foreign characters, then it translated them
into question marks. Now when I paste them into here, it's gone back
into funny characters that my newsreader will probably refuse to post...
True, it refuses. So you'll have to go to that site to see them -- about
seventy bizarre-looking names for Germany.
Then, to tackle Albert's question of whether anyone calls London
"Cabbage," I entered "London". These variants are fewer, so I will
manually take out the forbidden characters and put in a placeholder:
name variants: Lundun; Lond--n; Llundain; Caerludd;
Lond--no(n) / --------------- ; Londres; Lontoo; Londain;
Lunnainn; Lund--naborg; Lund--nir; Londra; Rondon; La--d--an;
Londinium; Lan--t--an; Landanmyo; La--d--an; La--dan; ------------;
Lan--t--an; La--d--an; Lu--n-----n; eLandani
No "Cabbage," but a "Caerludd." I also don't see the "Londen" of
Nederlands (Dutch). They did include the Dutch name for Germany in the
first list.
It looks to me as if this KNAB site, which is in Estonia, is making a
serious effort to be multilingual.
Skitt
"Spehro Pefhany" <sp...@interlog.com> wrote in message
news:ZPqj8.3826$_L....@news1.bloor.is...
> The renowned Simon R. Hughes <shu...@tromso.online.no> wrote:
>
> > The Philippines is one L of a way to go 2 P.
>
> Argh. I'll have to try some variation of that silly mnemonic, I see I
> missed the 2Ps, again. Philippines. Philippines.
>
> google Philipines 27,800
> Phillipines 170,000
> Philippines 5,100,000
>
> but
>
> Filipino 669,000
> Filippino 17,000
> Philippino 7,850
> Philipino 16,100
> Pilipino 61,100
> Pilippino 68
>
> When I've heard native Tagalog speakers say the name of the country, I
> don't hear the "F" or "Ph" sound, it's more of the explosive "P" sound
> suggested by the last two spellings above.
Yes, in Tagalog it is spelled with a P. The country is Pilipinas.
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://www.geocities.com/opus731/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel (Fawlty Towers)
Robert Bannister
The French for Malaysia (Malaisie) always seems ill-at-ease to me.
--
Rob Bannister
Bob Cunningham
>What is the proper term refering to Hong Kong people?
>Hong Kongean, Hong Konger, or just Hong Kong people?
Honger Kongers?
Bun Mui
> Re: Hong Kongean, Hong Konger, or HK people?
>
> From: Charles Riggs <chr...@gofree.indigo.ie>
> Reply to: [1]Charles Riggs
> Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 02:49:21 +0000
> Newsgroups:
> [2]alt.usage.english
> Followup to: [3]newsgroup
> References:
> [4]<a6ard7$c40$1...@justice.csc.cuhk.edu.hk>
> [5]<cogi8.288$5m3....@news1.mts.net>
> [6]<0ghi8.1299$3O5.84...@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>
> [7]<XLhi8.79535$aFN....@news1.bloor.is>
> [8]<MPG.16f405fb6...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>
>On Sat, 9 Mar 2002 18:52:02 +0100, Simon R. Hughes
><shu...@tromso.online.no> wrote:
>
>>Thus Spake Spehro Pefhany:
>>> The renowned Bob Stahl <urbul...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>> > Bun Mui: Asian.
>>> > Perfect.
>>>
>>> What about Hong Kong people of wholly European blood? You'd refer to
>>> them as Asians?
Gewhy lo.
Bun Mui
>>
>>Would you refer to Steve Hayes as African? I would.
>
>Of course you *wouldn't*: no more than you'd call an Egyptian or
>Libyan an African. Steve is a South African.
>
>Charles Riggs
john smith
>
> chy...@ludens.elte.hu wrote:
> > <...>
> > We certainly refer to _ourselves_ as Europeans. Where else would
> > you plan on categorizing us?
>
> Nowhere. You are European, but not from the European Union (yet).
> "European" is sometimes used to refer to either.
And the capital of Oregon is Salem.
Whatever various things people may say that they mean when they say
European, it is irrelevant to the issue and has absolutely nothing to do
with whether Hungary is European or not. Nothing.
\\P. Schultz
john smith
> <...> for the life of me I can't tease out a connection among
> "Deutschland/Germany/Allemande/Tedesco"....
And the Slavs call them "nyemtsy". The Germans appeared to have been
perceived by many various surrounding peoples who each came up with a
separate name instead of comparing notes with one another.
The Arabs call Austria "namsa", which is from the above-mentioned Slavic
name for Germans (which means "dumb", incidentally), which the Arabs got
from the Turks, who got it from Balkan Slavs, who applied it to the
German-speaking entity (Austria) that they were confronting.
The Arabs call Germany "almaniya", but they call the Teutons
"al-jarmân".
\\P. Schultz
Spehro Pefhany
>>>> What about Hong Kong people of wholly European blood? You'd refer to
>>>> them as Asians?
>
> Gewhy lo.
Women are people too, Bun.
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
> R H Draney wrote:
> > <...> for the life of me I can't tease out a connection among
> > "Deutschland/Germany/Allemande/Tedesco"....
> And the Slavs call them "nyemtsy".
*Some* Slavs do. Other Slavs call them "niemiecki" or ... or ... or
..., because not all Slavs speak Russian.
> The Germans appeared to have been
> perceived by many various surrounding peoples who each came up with
> a separate name instead of comparing notes with one another.
>
> The Arabs call Austria "namsa", which is from the above-mentioned Slavic
> name for Germans (which means "dumb", incidentally),
That's "dumb" as in "deaf & dumb" (i.e., mute; unable to speak), not in
the sense of "stupid." To translate the Slavic words for "German" as
"dumb" is stupid.
> which the Arabs got from the Turks,
> who got it from Balkan Slavs, who applied it to the
> German-speaking entity (Austria) that they were confronting.
>
> The Arabs call Germany "almaniya", but they call the Teutons
> "al-jarmân".
--
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
[...]
> ...why do some countries have multiple names that appear utterly
> unrelated?... "Suisse/Svizzera/Schweiz" at least makes etymological
> sense, but for the life of me I can't tease out a connection among
> "Deutschland/Germany/Allemande/Tedesco"....r
Well, R.H., as a minor point, you're mixing words for the country and
the people/adjective, so I'll first clean up that mess and add more
languages (some diacritics are missing):
GERMANY GERMAN (masc.)
German: Deutschland deutsch
Dutch: Duitsland Duits
Yiddish: daytshland daytsh
Japanese: Doitsu
Swedisch: Tyskland tysk
Norwegian: Tyskland tysk
Icelandic: THyskaland thyzkur (no thorn available)
French: Allemagne allemand
Spanish: Alemania alemán
Portuguese: Alemanha alemão
Turkish: Almanya Alman
English: Germany German
Greek: Germanía germanós, germanikós
Italian: Germania tedesco (!) see below
Rumanian: Germania nemteste (!) see below
Polish: Niemcy niemiecki
Czech: Nemecko nemecky
Slovak: Nemecko nemecky
Hungarian: Németország német
Finnish: Saksa saksalainen
As you can see, there are five groups of names that are
etymologically unrelated. The first group (deutsch, duits, tedesco,
tysk) goes back to a Germanic root meaning "people."
The "allemand, alemán" group is derived from the Alemanni, a German
tribe living just east of the French, across the Rhine and in northern
and western Switzerland. The Turks and many other ethnic groups adopted
the French word for Germans and Germany.
The "German" group is derived from Latin _Germania_, perhaps via a
Celtic word meaning "people, race, clan."
The "niemiecky, német" group is from Slavic words meaning "mute";
"unable to speak" (that is, a human, civilized language like Russian or
Polish or Czech). To derogate other peoples' languages as nonhuman,
barbaric stammering and mere primitive sounds is common. The Slavs
mocked their German-speaking neighboring tribes; in India some groups
call other neighboring languages "the rattling of coconuts" or "the
chattering of monkeys"; and the ancient Greeks considered their eastern
neighbors incapable of speaking a civilized language like their own --
those Barbarians who just stammered words that sounded like "bar-bar."
From Greek _barbaros_, "non-Greek, foreign, rude," ultimately meaning
"to speak incomprehensibly, unarticulatedly."
Finally, the Finns named all Germans after their closest Germanic
neighboring tribes, the Saxons in the north, and their country, "Saksa."
There are languages that have still other names for German and Germany
which are also based on the ancient German tribes they came in contact
with, such as the Franks, Swabians, and Bavarians.
It's interesting to note that most languages name the country and its
people (and the adjective) with words from the same root. Two
exceptions are the Romance languages Italian and Rumanian: both use the
Latin-based "Germania" for the country (instead of a version of
"Alemania"), and the Italians use the Germanic "people" root (tedesco),
while the Rumanians use the Slavic "mute" root (nemteste) for the people
and as the adjective.
--
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
M A L E D I C T A
P.O. Box 14123
Santa Rosa, CA 95402, USA
http://www.sonic.net/maledicta/
Simon R. Hughes
Dear me. Of course Hungary is European, but once in a while, if you
listen to that kind of conversation, you will hear people referring
to countries that are not members of the European Union as not
belonging to Europe.
By way of analogy, we might insist that a Canadian is an American.
Of course: all Canadians are Americans, but not in general usage (as
the citizens of the United States of America vehemently insist once
a year or so in this very newsgroup). The same kind of thing is
beginning to happen to the term "European".
--
Simon R. Hughes
Richard Fontana
Also, ISTR that "Alemanni" comes from the Germanic roots for
"all" and "man/men". A variation on the idea of naming a tribe
"the people", I assume.
Mickwick
>Also, ISTR that "Alemanni" comes from the Germanic roots for
>"all" and "man/men". A variation on the idea of naming a tribe
>"the people", I assume.
Not quite. The Alemanni were originally a federation of smaller tribes.
From Gibbon's _Decline And Fall..._, chapter 10:
===
In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an innumerable swarm of Suevi [a
group of tribes originating in Upper Saxony] appeared on the banks of
the Main, and in the neighbourhood of the Roman provinces, in quest
either of food, or plunder, or of glory. The hasty army of volunteers
gradually coalesced into a great and permanent nation, and as it was
composed from so many different tribes, assumed the name Alemanni, or
*All-men*; to denote at once their various lineage and their common
bravery. The latter was soon felt by the Romans in many a hostile
inroad.
===
--
Mickwick
Spehro Pefhany
>>You're only a taxi ride away from Johor Bahru, but is it a
>>situation like Tijuana and San Diego?
>
> Although I've been to Tijuana and San Diego, I don't follow the
> analogy. What is the situation like there?
My perception is that there's some news coverage of cross-border issues
such as pollution, border traffic and so on, especially as it affects
the economy or quality of life in San Diego but only a minority know much
or care to know much about Mexico, Mexicans or the government in Mexico
City. It's just not very relevant compared even to minor goings-on
domestically. I suspect the Mexicans are much more aware of US affairs.
It is probably similar wherever there is a large difference in standard of
living and a reasonably open border.
AlbertPeasemarch
> I've not been to the Phillipines yet, but I understand that a majority of
> the businessmen there are ethnic Chinese. In the scenario presented, it
> seems most likely to me that our immigrant hotelier would be an ethnic
> Chinese, with a family history of running hotels.
That is true, but many Chinese have left the Southern Philippines in
recent years, particularly Chinese Christians.
Albert Peasemarch.
Skitt
"Reinhold (Rey) Aman" <am...@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:3C8F19...@sonic.net...
[...]
> There are languages that have still other names for German and Germany
> which are also based on the ancient German tribes they came in contact
> with, such as the Franks, Swabians, and Bavarians.
The Latvian words for Germany and German (the masc. adj.) are Vācija and
Vācisks. The word for a German (masc.) is Vācietis. I used "ā" to
represent an "a" with a macron.
I have no idea of the origin of the words.
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
> "Reinhold (Rey) Aman" wrote:
>
> [...]
> > There are languages that have still other names for German and Germany
> > which are also based on the ancient German tribes they came in contact
> > with, such as the Franks, Swabians, and Bavarians.
> The Latvian words for Germany and German (the masc. adj.) are Vācija and
> Vācisks. The word for a German (masc.) is Vācietis. I used "ā" to
> represent an "a" with a macron.
>
> I have no idea of the origin of the words.
Bummer. The related Lithuanian language has "Vokietija" for 'Germany.'
Lithuanian "vok-" and Latvian "vāc-" are of course related, but the
elementary online dictionaries show no words to help figure out their
meaning. Also, I can't think of a Germanic tribe named something like
"Vok-" or "Vāc-." Bummer.
--
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
Robert Bannister
> The "niemiecky, német" group is from Slavic words meaning "mute";
> "unable to speak" (that is, a human, civilized language like Russian or
> Polish or Czech). To derogate other peoples' languages as nonhuman,
> barbaric stammering and mere primitive sounds is common. The Slavs
> mocked their German-speaking neighboring tribes; in India some groups
> call other neighboring languages "the rattling of coconuts" or "the
> chattering of monkeys"; and the ancient Greeks considered their eastern
> neighbors incapable of speaking a civilized language like their own --
> those Barbarians who just stammered words that sounded like "bar-bar."
> From Greek _barbaros_, "non-Greek, foreign, rude," ultimately meaning
> "to speak incomprehensibly, unarticulatedly."
Another interesting word is 'Welsh' or 'Welsch', although I don't know how
this word came to mean, in German at least, something akin to double-Dutch.
--
Rob Bannister
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
In the Middle Ages, German "welsch" simply meant "French" and "Italian"
and other Romance languages, which were incomprehensible to speakers of
German. Today, "welsch" in Switzerland refers to the French-speaking
areas of that country and is not derogatory.
In German, though, "welsch" and related words have become derogatory.
_Kauderwelsch_ (mumbo-jumbo, gibberish) is German that's hard to
understand or not at all because (1) it's a mixture of languages (such
as German and English), or (2) it contains too much professional jargon,
e.g., legal or technical terms, or (3) it's very fractured or broken
German spoken by, say, a recent Russian, Turkish or Moroccan immigrant.
Then there's _Rotwelsch_ (thieves' cant), the underworld argot of
criminals, thieves, beggars, whores, bums and the like that contains
many Gypsy and Yiddish words and expressions and thus is also
incomprehensible to the average German-speaking person.
--
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
Donna Richoux
This will be very vague, Rey, so please don't jump on me, but I remember
some linguist concluding that there likely was an early Germanic group
(proto-Germanic?) that called themselves the "Volk" because that word
for "people" shows up in all the Germanic languages. A sort of missing
link in tribal evolution. Sorry I don't know who it was or whether the
idea caught on.
AlbertPeasemarch
> Bummer. The related Lithuanian language has "Vokietija" for 'Germany.'
> Lithuanian "vok-" and Latvian "vāc-" are of course related, but the
> elementary online dictionaries show no words to help figure out their
> meaning. Also, I can't think of a Germanic tribe named something like
> "Vok-" or "Vāc-." Bummer.
"Volk"?
Albert Peasemarch (paddling even further out of his depth than usual.)
Skitt
> "Reinhold (Rey) Aman" <am...@sonic.net> wrote in message
>
> > Bummer. The related Lithuanian language has "Vokietija" for 'Germany.'
> > Lithuanian "vok-" and Latvian "vāc-" are of course related, but the
> > elementary online dictionaries show no words to help figure out their
> > meaning. Also, I can't think of a Germanic tribe named something like
> > "Vok-" or "Vāc-." Bummer.
>
> "Volk"?
Not very likely, as that is pronounced with an "f", and the Latvian word has
a distinct "v".
Richard Fontana
>
> "AlbertPeasemarch" <willis...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:42b35aa5.0203...@posting.google.com...
> > "Reinhold (Rey) Aman" <am...@sonic.net> wrote in message
> >
> > > Bummer. The related Lithuanian language has "Vokietija" for 'Germany.'
> > > Lithuanian "vok-" and Latvian "vāc-" are of course related, but the
> > > elementary online dictionaries show no words to help figure out their
> > > meaning. Also, I can't think of a Germanic tribe named something like
> > > "Vok-" or "Vāc-." Bummer.
> >
> > "Volk"?
>
> Not very likely, as that is pronounced with an "f", and the Latvian word has
> a distinct "v".
Also, the Proto-Germanic word from which English "folk" and German
"Volk" are derived had an initial [f] sound, presumably, since the
reconstructed word is *folkam (it is from one of those initial p-
Proto-Indo-European roots, and is related to "[hoi] polloi" and
"plebs" among other words). AHD has the Old High German ancestor
of _Volk_ written as _folc_. The Latvian and Lithuanian words would,
I'd guess, date from a time when the word was closer to *folkam. So
any modern written similarity is probably just coincidence.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On Thu, 14 Mar 2002, Skitt wrote:
>
> >
> > "AlbertPeasemarch" <willis...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:42b35aa5.0203...@posting.google.com...
> > > > Also, I can't think of a Germanic tribe named something like
> > > > "Vok-" or "Vāc-." Bummer.
> > >
> > > "Volk"?
> >
> > Not very likely, as that is pronounced with an "f", and the
> > Latvian word has a distinct "v".
>
> Also, the Proto-Germanic word from which English "folk" and German
> "Volk" are derived had an initial [f] sound, presumably, since the
> reconstructed word is *folkam (it is from one of those initial p-
> Proto-Indo-European roots, and is related to "[hoi] polloi" and
> "plebs" among other words). AHD has the Old High German ancestor
> of _Volk_ written as _folc_. The Latvian and Lithuanian words would,
> I'd guess, date from a time when the word was closer to *folkam. So
> any modern written similarity is probably just coincidence.
I wouldn't dismiss the notion out of hand. An in-group word that
means "people" would seem to be a quite likely candidate for a foreign
name for a group. What was Latvian like at the time the word was
borrowed? How (un)likely is it that Old High German /f/ would have
been heard by contemporary Latvian speakers as whatever they used then
that turned into /v/?
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |To express oneself
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |In seventeen syllables
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| Tony Finch
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(650)857-7572
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
Donna Richoux wrote:
> Reinhold (Rey) Aman <am...@sonic.net> wrote:
> > Skitt wrote:
> > > "Reinhold (Rey) Aman" wrote:
> > >
> > > [...]
> > > > There are languages that have still other names for German and
> > > > Germany which are also based on the ancient German tribes they
> > > > came in contact with, such as the Franks, Swabians, and Bavarians.
> > > The Latvian words for Germany and German (the masc. adj.) are
> > > Vācija and Vācisks. The word for a German (masc.) is Vācietis. I
> > > used "ā" to represent an "a" with a macron.
> > >
> > > I have no idea of the origin of the words.
> > Bummer. The related Lithuanian language has "Vokietija" for 'Germany.'
> > Lithuanian "vok-" and Latvian "vāc-" are of course related, but the
> > elementary online dictionaries show no words to help figure out their
> > meaning. Also, I can't think of a Germanic tribe named something like
> > "Vok-" or "Vāc-." Bummer.
> This will be very vague, Rey, so please don't jump on me,
Oh, come on, dear Donna. I wouldn't jump on you. I've been nice to you
since 1998! I *like* you.
> but I remember
> some linguist concluding that there likely was an early Germanic group
> (proto-Germanic?) that called themselves the "Volk" because that word
> for "people" shows up in all the Germanic languages. A sort of missing
> link in tribal evolution. Sorry I don't know who it was or whether the
> idea caught on.
I've thought of course of "Volk" as the source for the Baltic languages'
names for Germans and Germany but rejected it for reasons given below.
I know too little about Latvian and Lithuanian to discuss this seriously
and just guess intelligently.
======================================
Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
> Richard Fontana writes:
> > Skitt wrote:
> > > "AlbertPeasemarch" wrote:
[R.A. wrote:]
> > > > > Also, I can't think of a Germanic tribe named something like
> > > > > "Vok-" or "Vāc-." Bummer.
> > > > "Volk"?
> > > Not very likely, as that is pronounced with an "f", and the
> > > Latvian word has a distinct "v".
The Lithuanian word starts with "Vok-" /vok/ and the Latvian with "Vāc-"
/va:ts/. Now, these initial /v/ sounds and the /f/ of German "Volk"
/folk/ are closely related: the former are voiced fricatives, the latter
is their unvoiced counterpart. Most German words written with a "V-"
are pronounced with an "F-": Vater, Vogel, viel. So, the /v/ vs /f/ is
not the problem.
The two problems I see are the Germanic /k/, which in Lithuanian is also
a /k/ but in Latvian is a /ts/, and the missing /l/.
There may be a correspondence between Germanic /k/ and Latvian /ts/
(spelled "C"). That is, other German(ic) words with a /k/ also become
"C" /ts/ in Latvian. If that were the case, that problem No. 2 would be
solved, but I lack the knowledge of such Latvian words.
The /k/ is an unvoiced plosive; the /ts/ is an unvoiced affricate
(plosive + fricative). Correspondences or relationships between
plosives and fricatives and affricates exist, such as in the English
cognates "KirK" (plosives) and "CHurCH" /tsh/ (affricates). So, the
Latvian /ts/ equivalent/corresponding sound of the Germanic /k/ can be
explained and may well exist.
This leaves one more problem, namely the absence of the Germanic "L" of
"Volk" or "folc" or "folkam" in the Baltic words "Vācija" and
"Vokietija." Where did the /l/ go? Sounds don't just disappear. When
they do, there are reasons or even predictable linguistic laws. An
example of such a law and disappearance of a sound is the loss of the
nasal /n/ (German: "Nasalschwund") with compensatory lengthening of the
following vowel. When in certain German words with "N" this nasal is
absent in its English cognate, the vowel must be long. Examples:
German: Gans fünf
English: goose five
Remember that the English words used to be pronounced differently,
something like /go:se/ and /fi:ve/, where you can see that the "N" is
missing and that the /o:/ and /i:/ are lengthened.
Is there such a linguistic law in both Baltic languages that would
explain the disappearance of the Germanic "L"? I don't know. If there
were such a predictable change, then "Volk" and their earlier forms
"folc," etc., would indeed be the sources for the Baltic terms for
German(y).
> > Also, the Proto-Germanic word from which English "folk" and German
> > "Volk" are derived had an initial [f] sound, presumably, since the
> > reconstructed word is *folkam (it is from one of those initial p-
> > Proto-Indo-European roots, and is related to "[hoi] polloi" and
> > "plebs" among other words). AHD has the Old High German ancestor
> > of _Volk_ written as _folc_. The Latvian and Lithuanian words would,
> > I'd guess, date from a time when the word was closer to *folkam.
The "F" vs "V" isn't the problem, as discussed above. The question is:
what happened to the Germanic "K" and especially the "L"?
> > So any modern written similarity is probably just coincidence.
Yes, written (and also sound) similarities can be dismissed in many
cases. It's amateurs and folk-etymologists who use such primitive and
"obvious" similarities as proof for relationships.
> I wouldn't dismiss the notion out of hand. An in-group word that
> means "people" would seem to be a quite likely candidate for a foreign
> name for a group. What was Latvian like at the time the word was
> borrowed?
I don't know.
> How (un)likely is it that Old High German /f/ would have
> been heard by contemporary Latvian speakers as whatever they used then
> that turned into /v/?
Wow, I just discovered something fantastic (at 3:30 a.m.): Lithuanian
did not have the letter "F" or the sound /f/, only its voiced
counterpart /v/. Which means they were unable to pronounce or write the
voiceless /f/ sound of the Germanic /folk-/ and thus substituted for it
the closest sound in their inventory, namely /v/ -- which explains the
"V-" in their word for Germany, "Vokietija." (The missing "L" is still
a puzzle for me.)
The dozen or two words with "F" in Modern Lithuanian are *all*
loanwords! Examples: _fabrikas_ ('factory,' from German "Fabrik"),
_fantazija_, _fizika_, and _forele_ ('trout,' also from German,
"Forelle").
Now, Latvian has both the /f/ and /v/ sounds and letters. Why is their
word for Germany "Vācija" instead of "Fācija" (if it's derived from
"Volk" or "folc")? Either Old Latvian also did not have the /f/ sound
(but the dictionary shows many words with "F", so it's unlikely) or the
Latvians borrowed the word for Germans and Germany from their southern
Lithuanian neighbors (who were closer to Germanic tribes and probably
had earlier contact with them than the Latvians).
--
Reinhold (Rey) Aman
Skitt
"Reinhold (Rey) Aman" <am...@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:3C91E9...@sonic.net...
> [Three or four replies in one]
[...]
> Wow, I just discovered something fantastic (at 3:30 a.m.): Lithuanian
> did not have the letter "F" or the sound /f/, only its voiced
> counterpart /v/. Which means they were unable to pronounce or write the
> voiceless /f/ sound of the Germanic /folk-/ and thus substituted for it
> the closest sound in their inventory, namely /v/ -- which explains the
> "V-" in their word for Germany, "Vokietija." (The missing "L" is still
> a puzzle for me.)
>
> The dozen or two words with "F" in Modern Lithuanian are *all*
> loanwords! Examples: _fabrikas_ ('factory,' from German "Fabrik"),
> _fantazija_, _fizika_, and _forele_ ('trout,' also from German,
> "Forelle").
>
> Now, Latvian has both the /f/ and /v/ sounds and letters. Why is their
> word for Germany "Vācija" instead of "Fācija" (if it's derived from
> "Volk" or "folc")? Either Old Latvian also did not have the /f/ sound
> (but the dictionary shows many words with "F", so it's unlikely) or the
> Latvians borrowed the word for Germans and Germany from their southern
> Lithuanian neighbors (who were closer to Germanic tribes and probably
> had earlier contact with them than the Latvians).
Rey, I am fairly sure that the "f" (but not the "v") in Latvian is also a
latecomer, and the words you see with it are loanwords. The words
containing the "o" that is pronounced as in "nose", or its shorter version
(as in the German "Volk"), are also loanwords. The "h" too was missing in
old Latvian. There is still no "q", "w", "x", and "y". The "y" is present
in one dialect's writing, though.
Charles Riggs
<am...@sonic.net> wrote:
>Donna Richoux wrote:
>> This will be very vague, Rey, so please don't jump on me,
>
>Oh, come on, dear Donna. I wouldn't jump on you. I've been nice to you
>since 1998! I *like* you.
I would have thought you'd be among the first to jump on women you
*did* like.
Charles Riggs