Hilarious photographs
Eugene Holman
such as http://globalvoicesonline.org/wp-content/peace_duke.png �plastered
all over thr city that he had himself photographed next to a young lady
wearing a tee-shirt with the same image and inscription, e.g.
http://www.elcanche.com/weblog/archives/100505.jpg.
The devilishly ebullient smile on the young lady's face reveals how
difficult it is for her to restrain herself over the joke she is polling
on the hapless 'peace duke', literally mirny� gercog but pronounced in
Russian [pizdyuk] or "insignificant c*nthead".
For details, see
http://www.lowculture.com/archives/2005/05/lost_in_transat.html.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Dušan Vukotić
> When George W. Bush visited Riga in 2005, he was so pleased to see posters
> all over thr city that he had himself photographed next to a young lady
>
> The devilishly ebullient smile on the young lady's face reveals how
> difficult it is for her to restrain herself over the joke she is polling
> Russian [pizdyuk] or "insignificant c*nthead".
>
> For details, seehttp://www.lowculture.com/archives/2005/05/lost_in_transat.html.
>
> Regards,
> Eugene Holman
This is hilarious indeed!
Poor Peace-Duke Bush!
Russ. пиздюк (pizdjúk) 'cunthead'; from Slavic pizda 'vulva, vagine'
DV
Andrius
> When George W. Bush visited Riga in 2005, he was so pleased to see posters
> all over thr city that he had himself photographed next to a young lady
>
> The devilishly ebullient smile on the young lady's face reveals how
> difficult it is for her to restrain herself over the joke she is polling
> Russian [pizdyuk] or "insignificant c*nthead".
>
>
> Regards,
> Eugene Holman
Nu blia, Holman! Your linguistic knowledge will leave everybody in
excitement!
Regards,
Andrius
ranjit_...@yahoo.com
How were so many ordinary people able to bandy about so crass an
expression in public?
Eugene Holman
<5f18fb3e-426d-47a6...@e20g2000vbc.googlegroups.com>,
"ranjit_...@yahoo.com" <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jun 23, 6:27=C2=A0am, Du=C5=A1an Vukoti=C4=87 <dusan.vuko...@gmail.com> =
> wrote:
<deletions>
> >
> > Russ. =D0=BF=D0=B8=D0=B7=D0=B4=D1=8E=D0=BA (pizdj=C3=BAk) 'cunthead'; fro=
> m Slavic pizda 'vulva, vagine'
>
> How were so many ordinary people able to bandy about so crass an
> expression in public?
Because it takes some sophistication to figure out the pun. Peace Duke,
Duke of Peace, inititally seems like a perfectly reasonable description of
George Bush for people who believe that the Coalition of the Willing has
brought benefits to Iraq.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Tadas Blinda
> When George W. Bush visited Riga in 2005, he was so pleased to see posters
> all over thr city that he had himself photographed next to a young lady
>
> The devilishly ebullient smile on the young lady's face reveals how
> difficult it is for her to restrain herself over the joke she is polling
> Russian [pizdyuk] or "insignificant c*nthead".
>
>
> Regards,
> Eugene Holman
Is -uk commonly used to form diminutives in Russian? If not, it would
appear that Russian actually borrowed the word from Lithuanian
pyzdukas. I know that Russian chauvinists are reluctant to believe
that Russian has borrowed any words from Lithuanian, but indeed it
has. I saw a list of them once but wouldn't know where to look for it
now. Meanwhile, here is a list of Lithuanian/Latvian loanwords in
Estonian and Finnish.
Lithuanian Latvian Estonian Finnish
alus (beer) alus (beer) õlu (beer) olut (beer)
amatas (trade) amats (trade) amet (profession,trade) ammatti
(profession, trade)
avinas (ram) auns (ram) oinas (ram) oinas (ram)
bortas (side of a ship) borts (board) parras (side of a ship) parras
(side of a ship)
derva (tar) darva (tar) tõrv (tar) terva (tar)
dobilas (clover) ābolinš (clover) ristik (clover) apila (clover)
gabalas (piece, bit) gabals (piece, hunk) pala (piece) kappale (bit,
copy, piece)
geltonas (yellow color) dzeltens (yellow) kollane (yellow) keltainen
(yellow)
gyvas (live,living) dzīvs (lively) ?? kiivas (quick-tempered,anxious)
įgnybti (to pinch) kniebt (to pinch) näpistada (to pinch) nipistää (to
pinch)
irklas ? (oar) airis (oar) aer (oar) airo (oar)
kadagys (juniper) kadikis (juniper) kadakas (juniper) kataja (juniper)
kaklas (neck) kakls (neck) kael (neck) kaula (neck, front part only)
katilas (kettle) katls (kettle) katel (kettle) kattila (kettle)
kėglis (skittle) ķeglis (skittle) keegel (pin, tenpin) keila (pin,
tenpin)
kanopa (horse paw) kepa (paw) käpp (paw) käpälä (paw)
kylys (wedge) kīlis (wedge) kiil (wedge) kiila (wedge)
kriokti (to scream, yell) ķērkt (to scream, yell)?? kirkua (to scream)
kirvis (axe) cirvis (axe) kirves (axe) kirves (axe)
kurčias (deaf) kurls (deaf) kurt (deaf) kuuro (deaf)
kutenti (to tickle) kutinat (to tickle) kõdi(s)tama (tickle) kutina
(itch)
laibas (thin) slaids (thin) lahja (thin) laiha (thin)
laiguonas, svainis (brother-in-law) svainis (brother-in-law) lang
(relatives-in-law) lanko (brother-in-law)
laisvas (free, not busy) laisks (lazy) laisk (lazy) laiska (lazy)
lakti (to lap) lakt (to lap) lakkuda (to lap, to lick) latkia (to lap)
lapas (sheet) lapa (sheet) laba (plate) lapa (plate)
lašeti (to drop) lāsot (to drop) lasta (to let loose) laskea (to let
loose)
laukis (animal with a star on forehead) laucis (same) ?? laukki (white
stripe on horse's head)
lazda (stick) lazda (nut-tree) ?? lasta (sort of stick)
lepšis (nincompoop, pansy, wimp) lepns (proud)?? lepsu (lazy, wimp)
liekas (spare) lieks (superfluous, spare) liig (spare, overflow) liika
(spare, overflow)
liepa (lime tree) liepa (lime tree) lepp (alder tree) leppä (alder
tree)
liepsna (flame) liesma (flame) leek (flame) liekki,lieska (flame)
lietus (rain) lietus (rain) vihm (rain) liete (mud)
liulė, lopšys (cradle) ?? ?? lulla (cradle [rare])
maistas (food) maize (bread) maitsta (to taste) maistaa (to taste)
medis (tree) mežs (wood, forest) mets (forest) metsä (forest)
mes (we) mēs (we) me (we) me (we)
mokėti (to pay) maksāt (to pay) maksta (to pay) maksaa (to pay)
bamba (navel) naba (navel) naba (navel) napa (navel)
naras (diver) nirējs (diver) naara (anchor-like tool for searching
under water) naara (anchor-like tool for searching under water)
nerpa (ringed seal) ?? ?? norppa (ringed seal)
tinti (to swell) paisums (high tide) paisuda (to swell) paisua (to
swell)
paršas (pig) sivēns, cūcēns (pig) põrsas (young pig) porsas (young
pig)
poras (leek) puravs (leek) porrulauk (leek) purjo (leek)
puodas (pot) pods (pot) pada (pot) pata (pot)
putra (swill) putra (porridge,gruel) puder (porridge) puuro (porridge)
raitas (on a horse), greitas (fast) raits (brisk) kärmas raitis
(brisk)
ratas (wheel) rats (wheel) ratas (wheel) ratas (wheel [in mechanics])
rugys (rye) rudzi (rye) rukis (rye) ruis (rye)
grybas (mushroom) sēne (mushroom) seen (mushroom) sieni (mushroom)
silkė (herring) silke (herring) silk (herring) silakka (herring)
tamsus (dark) tumšs (dark) tume (dark) tumma (dark)
plienas (steel) tērauds (steel) teras (steel) teräs (steel)
teta (aunt) tante (aunt) tädi (aunt) täti (aunt)
tiesus (straight) taisns (straight) tee (road) tie (road)
tiltas (bridge) tilts (bridge) sild (bridge) silta (bridge)
vainoti (to abuse) vainot (to blame) vaen (hatred) vainota (to
persecute)
vargas (misery) vārgs (sickly) varas (thief) varas (thief)
varna (crow) vārna (crow) vares (crow) varis (crow)
vėl (again) vēl (still) veel (still) vielä (still,again)
Andrius
What a hell is that of copypaste? Again you about new treningai?
It is nothing strange if to understand environment where Blinda has
grow.
Regards,
Andrius
Dušan Vukotić
> Is -uk commonly used to form diminutives in Russian? If not, it would
> appear that Russian actually borrowed the word from Lithuanian
> pyzdukas. I know that Russian chauvinists are reluctant to believe
> that Russian has borrowed any words from Lithuanian, but indeed it
> has. I saw a list of them once but wouldn't know where to look for it
> now. Meanwhile, here is a list of Lithuanian/Latvian loanwords in
> Estonian and Finnish.
What's the chauvinism got to do with the science? Why would anyone
have anything against something what is (or might be) true? I think
that your (unprovoked) attack on some presupposed "Russian chauvinism"
is just a poor attempt to mask your (in)ability to substantiate your
"hypothesis" with a serious argumentation.
There are similar words in Serbian, all with the same meaning as
Russian 'pizdjuk':
pizdek
pizdekanja
pizdonja
pizdun
Would you say that South-Slavic pizdek is a loanword from Lithuanian?
Finally, is the word pizda (pussy, cunt; Russ. пизда) of the specific
Baltic origin (Lith/Latv. pyzda)? If you think so why don't you try to
prove it?
For the start, you should know that this word is widely spread among
the all IE and Indo-Iranian speakers.
DV
Andrius
We can you in Lithuanian pyzda quite easy.
Regards,
Andrius
P.S. F.e. One boy from the same yard was not able to pronounce word
"pyzda". Instead of that he used "shpizhda". And he got a nick from me
Spizhda. That nick still onto him.
Tadas Blinda
As a matter of fact, the Lithuanian verb "pisti" (pyz + ti) suggests
that the morpheme pyz- is long established in the Lithuanian
language. I'm not aware of any Slavic equivalents of "pisti" based on
the pyz- morpheme. The Lithuanian "gimti" means to be born, and the
Lithuanian "gimda" means womb, that is, a place associated with
"gimimas" (birth). In the same way, "pyzda" means a place associated
with copulation, i.e. "pisimas". Name a Slavic language that has this
set of correspondences.
Tadas Blinda
Influence of Lithuanian on the Other Languages Spoken in the Region
The "Byelorussian" dialects of the Vilnius region are amalgams or
Lithuanian and Polish patois, In the counties of Gardinas, Aрmena, and
Lyda, the "Byelorussians'' accentuate their words in the Dzūkian way.
The so-called "western" Byelorussian dialects are in all probability
tutejszy jargons and not true dialects of Polish or Byelorussian. As
an example of this hodgepodge one calls to mind the Pater Noster that
Rev. Aleksandras Burba recorded in the so-called Byelorussian dialect
of the Vilnius Province, to wit: "Vina Ojca i Sina ir Duka svižtago.
Omen. Jezau Kristau. Ojce nas, kuri jest niebik. senci imin Toje, boc
volik stoja, ajce niebik, tak ir žeme, kleba naрiaga pauрedniaga daj
nam dzisa i odpuрė naрa vinia, jak i mi adpuрėaem svoim inavaicam,
alia nas zbab oda vрago julago, Omen."
The Soviet historian V.Piиeta points out that the nucleus of the
Byelorussian nation was to be found in the provinces of Vitebsk and
Mogilev and that the Byelorussians who lived to the west called
themselves Lithuanians (litovcami, litvakami). (V. Piиeta, Belorussija
i Litva, Moscow, 1961, p. 70, 597). In his work Belorusskij jazyk, the
linguist T. Lomtov said that evidence points to the fact that the
Byelorussian language as a living language was formed at the beginning
of the 16th century. It was strongly influenced by the Church Slavonic
used by the chancellery and courts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as
well as by the liturgical language of the Orthodox Church (op. cit,
Moscow, 1951, p. 6). A number of Lithuanian terms entered the literary
Byelorussian language.
However, in the case of the Byelorussian speech in Vilnius and
Gardinas areas, the everyday speech of peasants contains corrupted
Lithuanian terms. Since both the Dzūkian dialect of Lithuanian as well
as Byelorussian use dzekanie and tsekanie in their phonetics, it was
not a difficult task for southern and eastern Dzūkians to assimilate
into the Byelorussian speech. The Lithuanian linguists point out that
there are several hundred words of Lithuanian origin in the western
dialects of Byelorussian, mostly dealing with agricultural implements.
The studies of prof. E. Karskij and Dr. M. Grinblat agree with this.
A partial list of Byelorussian words of Lithuanian origin with their
root-words are given below: arac (arklas), arud (aruodas), baric
(barti), bonda (banda), brinda (brindos), daubury (dauburys), djaklo
(duoklė), doilid (dailidė), donos (duona), dorob (darbas), degut
(degutas), dubas (daubus), galic (galėti), jandova (indauja), kankala
(kankalas), ketvirtajni (ketvirtainis), kletj (klėtis), klunja
(kluonas), kojmincy (kaimynas), kovр (kauрas), kul (kulys), kumpjak
(kumpis), kurpy (kurpė), lalynриiki (cf. Dzūkian lalauninkai), litovki
(long-handled scythes like those used by Lithuanians), litviny
(Lithuanian-type flail), margi (margas), mezlevo (mлzliava), milta
(miltai), nauda (nauda), otmet (atmata), pakule (pakulos), parрuk
(parрiukas), pelki (pelkės), primen (priemenė), raugenja (raugas),
rezginy (rezginys), rojtinik (raitininkas), rupic (rūpintis), sviron
(svirnas), terp (tarpas), valandaca (valanda), veldomyj (veldлti),
vencer (venteris), vilic (vylius), vorsa (varsa), zvir (žvyras),
žibint or žibintaj (žibintas).
These facts demonstrate that the Slavic (Polish and Byelorussian)
jargons of the people of the Vilnius and Gardinas Regions are
corruptions of Lithuanian dialects or replacements thereof, the
results of 19th century policies of Polonization and Russification.
Another language influenced by the Lithuanian speech of Vilnius
Province was Yiddssh. The so-called northeast European dialect of the
Yiddish language is popularly and scientifically referred to as
Lithuanian Yiddish. The historical split between the speech of Jews of
northeastern Europe and other parts of Eastern Europe began in the
16th century. The dividing line between Polish Yiddish and Lithuanian
Yiddish was the state boundary between the Kingdom of Poland and the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania after 1569.
Lithuanian Yiddish differs from the Yiddish spoken in Poland and
Volhynia mainly in the pronunciation of the vowels and in certain
dialects in the pronunciation of shin as sin or samekh. Three
grammatical changes are marked in Lithuanian Yiddish. First, the
distinction between the dative and accusative has collapsed. Second,
due to the influence of Lithuania , the historical neuter gender has
been abandoned and replaced by the masculine. And, third, Lithuanian
Yiddish has adopted inflected adjectives.
Dennis
>> What's the chauvinism got to do with the science? Why would anyone
>> have anything against something what is (or might be) true? I think
>> that your (unprovoked) attack on some presupposed "Russian chauvinism"
>> is just a poor attempt to mask your (in)ability to substantiate your
>> "hypothesis" with a serious argumentation.
>>
>> There are similar words in Serbian, all with the same meaning as
>> Russian 'pizdjuk':
>> pizdek
>> pizdekanja
>> pizdonja
>> pizdun
>>
>> Would you say that South-Slavic pizdek is a loanword from Lithuanian?
>
> We can you in Lithuanian pyzda quite easy.
No doubt!
I remember an early Cold War story about some American U2 pilots
captured in the Soviet Union. One said "Piss on the doctor!" (the doctor
was female) and his Russian captors thought he had said "Pizda doktor!" and
thus knew Russian.
> P.S. F.e. One boy from the same yard was not able to pronounce word
> "pyzda". Instead of that he used "shpizhda". And he got a nick from me
> Spizhda. That nick still onto him.
Some things are universal, I see.
J. Anderson
Well, I'm glad to see that we Esto-Finns didn't need a word of our own
for 'thief'. Still I find it hard to believe that we -- a typical Taiga
tribe if any -- would need to borrow a word for 'forest'. And knowing
that Finns, Esths and Livs have been seafarers since time immemorial
(contrary to Lithuanians and Letts), how come we would have got our
whole maritime vocabulary from the Balts?
Many of the loanwords in your list have most likely been borrowed from
Germanic (e.g. Gothic) or Norse languages (take purjo for example; it's
purjolök in Swedish). In those cases when the Lithuanian and Lettish
words are completely different (e.g. grybas/sēne/seen/sieni) the loan
has probably gone the other way: from Finnish/Estonian to Lettish.
Quite interesting, IMO, are those instances when the Lettish word
differs completely from the joint Lithuanian-Estonian-Finnish one:
raudonas (red) / sarkans (red) / raud (iron) / rauta (iron)
(lake iron is red, that's how we got our word for the metal)
Dušan Vukotić
Don't be ridiculous! Take off your euphoric national blinders Blinda!
It is possible that Lith. pisti 'fuck' is related to pyzda but it
proves nothing at all. There is the Serbian verb pizditi 'to anger, to
get annoyed' which is derived from the noun pizda 'vagina, cunt' (also
Serb. opizditi, ispizditi 'to hit, to beat, bash out'); but,
obviously, it would be crazy to claim that this words are those from
which pizda (vagina) originated.
DV
Dušan Vukotić
As for me, Latvian mežs (forest; Lithuanian miškas) doesn't sound
Balto-Slavic at all. With a great probability we can say that these
Baltic words are borrowed from Finnish metsä (forest; Est. mets).
Maybe this Finnish word is a cognate of Azeri meşə (forest; possible
Turkic - Ugro-Finnish relation).
DV
lorad
That's exactly the point..
Ugric speakers made it to the maritime very late.. something like
800ad.
This contrasts greatly with the Baltic culture settling in SW and W
Finland ca 2500bc.
> Many of the loanwords in your list have most likely been borrowed from
> Germanic (e.g. Gothic) or Norse languages (take purjo for example; it's
> purjolök in Swedish). In those cases when the Lithuanian and Lettish
> words are completely different (e.g. grybas/sēne/seen/sieni) the loan
> has probably gone the other way: from Finnish/Estonian to Lettish.
Sorry, but that's total bullshit.
> Quite interesting, IMO, are those instances when the Lettish word
> differs completely from the joint Lithuanian-Estonian-Finnish one:
>
> raudonas (red) / sarkans (red) / raud (iron) / rauta (iron)
> (lake iron is red, that's how we got our word for the metal)
Wrong. Latvian has that Indo European rootword too... 'rudvarsh' (red
brass) and Rudens (autumn).
lorad
> fromhttp://lethones.narod.ru/mem3.html
A nice little list as far as it goes.. even if it erroneously posits
Lithuanian as an external influence upon Latvian or even further
geographically distant Finnic languages.. a fact which makes that
suppostion most improbable. (narod.ru .. historia ex nihilis)
Tadas Blinda
Stick to the linguistic facts (structures, patterns) and forget the
insults.
Eugene Holman
<219c9bb6-a180-4a9c...@v2g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, lorad
<lora...@cs.com> wrote:
<deletions>
> A nice little list as far as it goes.. even if it erroneously posits
> Lithuanian as an external influence upon Latvian or even further
> geographically distant Finnic languages.. a fact which makes that
> suppostion most improbable. (narod.ru .. historia ex nihilis)
Having a list of Baltic loanwords in Finnic is a fine starting point, but
the words are evidence of interesting linguistic and cultural contacts in
the past.
These are some of the main points on these issues raised in a course that
I took many years ago from Professor Lauri Posti at the University of
Helsinki.
Some five thousand years ago, a small and sparsely distributed population
of peoples speaking various Finno-Ugric dialects that can be referred to
collectively as Pre-Finnic, and bearing a culture based on hunting and
gathering, inhabited what are now Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and
the adjacent parts of northwestern Russia, extending to what is now Moscow
and beyond to the Volga Basin.
Both Lithuanian and Latvian are the contemporary and localized forms of
Proto-Baltic, the cover name for the closely related Indo-European
dialects introduced to the Baltic area from the south-east by
agriculturalists some four thousand years ago.
Baltic toponyms and hydronyms in what are now Belarus anbd northwestern
Russia, as well as Baltic loanwords in Erzya, a Mordvinian (and
Finno-Ugric) language, indicate Proto-Baltic to have once been spoken in a
vast area to the south and east of present-day Lithuania and Latvia. Older
Finno-Ugric toponyms in the same area indicate the existence of a still
older Finno-Ugric speaking population that was completely absorbed into
the Proto-Baltic-speaking population.
In the area of the modern Baltic countries the River Daugava long
functioned as a natural border between speakers of Proto-Finnic to the
north and of Proto-Baltic to the south.
Eventially, speakers of Proto-Baltic managed to cross the Daugava,
spreading their agriculture-based culture and intermarrying with local
speakers of Proto-Finnic. Intermarriage is evidenced by the Baltic origin
of many Finnic terms for kinship and social relations, particularly for
females: (examples from Finnish) sisar 'sister', tyt�r 'daughter', morsian
"bride (with the typical dental assibilation *ti > si)", (note, however,
Latvian puika 'boy, lad', a loanword from Finnic, cf. Estonian poeg,
Finnish poika, Hungarian fi�) heimo 'extended family', kaima 'namesake',
seura 'company'. Widespread intrafamily bilingualism is indicated by
so-called intimate borrowings such as hammas 'tooth', reisi 'thigh', karva
'body hair', kaula 'neck', as well as in common everyday words such as
aina 'always', ahdas 'narrow', kelta- 'yellow', vai 'or' and viel� 'still
(adv.)'.
The northernmost dialects of Proto-Baltic evolved into the dialects of
Latvian. As all readers of soc.culture.baltic should know, one of the most
striking differences between modern Lithuanian and modern Latvian is that
Lithuanian retains the ancient mobile musical accent system of
Indo-European, while Latvian, like Finno-Ugric Estonian and Finnish, has a
dynamic accent system fixed on the initial syllable. Or to state it
simplistically, Latvian is Lithuanian spoken with an Estonian accent. The
further north one moves in Latvia, the more the local dialects show
substratum influence in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and
phraseology from the Finnic that was once more widely spoken there and
still survives as the almost extinct minority language Liv (or Livonian).
For its part, Liv is heavily Latvianized. Although its basic vocabulary
and phonology are clearly of Finnic origin, it nevertheless differs
radically from neighboring southern Estonian by having an essentially
Latvian phonology and grammatical system.
What was the reason behind the language shift from Proto-Finnic to
imperfect and incomplete (Latvia) or perfect and complete (Lithuania,
Prussia) Proto-Baltic in the southern part of the Baltic area? Evidence of
a cultural shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture can be seen in
the fact that virtually all of the basic agricultural terminology in the
Finnic languages is borrowed from Baltic: (examples from Finnish) siemen
'seed', hein� 'hay', herne 'pea'; ankerias 'eel', hanhi 'goose', harakka
'magpie', h�rk� 'ox', oinas 'wether', paimen 'shepherd', rastas 'thrush',
vuohi 'goat'; hihna 'sleeve', sein� 'wall', j�rvi 'lake', silta 'bridge',
torvi 'horn', tuohi 'birchbark', hanka 'fork of a branch', kirves 'ax',
keli 'road conditions', luuta 'broom', m�nt� 'piston', terva 'tar', olut
'beer', seiv�s 'pole', puuro 'porridge'.
The shift to a lifestyle based on agriculture enabled the area to sustain
a population estimated to be ten times larger than had been possible with
a lifestyle based on foraging. Thus it does not seem to have been forced
on the Finnic-speaking population, but embraced by them and reinforced by
the intermarriage and intrafamilial Baltic-Finnic bilingualism. Most of
the sound changes undergone by what Prof. Posti called Pre-Finnic in the
transition to early Proto-Finnic can be attributed to the phonology of
Proto-Baltic: sounds that pre-Finnic evidently had but Proto-Baltic lacked
were lost. In other words Proto-Baltic provided a Sprachbund filter or, to
put it more crudely, it became fashionable among speakers of pre-Finnic to
affect a Proto-Baltic accent, and this eventually became the norm. For
more on this subject, see Lauri Posti "From Pre-Finnic to Late
Proto-Finnic", From Pre-Finnic to Late Proto-Finnic. - Finnisch-Ugrische
Forschungen XXXI (1953), pgs. 1-91
The history is recapitulated by studying a map of the Baltic region and
its surroundings, especially to the south east. From Estonia in the north
west at least down to Saransk in the Volga Basin in Mordovia Finno-Ugric
languages were
spoken some five thousand years ago by a sparse but widespread population
of hunters and gatherers. Indo-European speakers entering the area from
the south introduced agriculture. The Mordvin languages, Erzya and Moksha,
still survive, but the territory between Mordovia and Lithuania, once
inhabited by now extinct Finno-Ugric peoples such as the Meryas,
Meshchers, Muroms, has been completely Indo-Europeanized, first by Baltic
speakers, subsequently, to a great extent, by Slavic speakers
(http://www.einst.ee/historic/society/finno_ugric_people.htm).
The only signs of the former Finnic presence in Lithuania, Belarus, and
the adjoining parts of norther-western Russia today are a few hydronyms,
toponyms, and the occasional borrowing.
In Latvia cultural Indo-Europeanization in the sense of switching to
agriculture took place completely, but linguistic Indo-Europeanization is
not complete, this being evidenced in the strong Finnic substratum in
Latvian as well as by the tenuous survival of the Livs, even if their
language is strongly Indo-Europeanized. The recently ended half century of
Soviet domination in Latvia also contributed to Indo-Eurpeanization,
particularly bearing in mind the fact that Soviet policy totally destroyed
the prerequisites for the Livs to continue their culture and use their
language in its traditional environment, thus contributing to their
Latvianization (and Indo-Europeanization).
Estonia has been the object of Indo-Europeanization for millennia, having
been colonized by the Danes, Germans, Swedes, Russians, and Soviets.
Culturally it has, like its neighbors to the south, accepted an
agriculture-based lifestyle, but it has held on to its Finno-Ugric
language tenaciously and against all odds.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Eugene Holman
In article
<219c9bb6-a180-4a9c...@v2g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, lorad
<lora...@cs.com> wrote:
<deletions>
> A nice little list as far as it goes.. even if it erroneously posits
> Lithuanian as an external influence upon Latvian or even further
> geographically distant Finnic languages.. a fact which makes that
> suppostion most improbable. (narod.ru .. historia ex nihilis)
Having a list of Baltic loanwords in Finnic is a fine starting point, but
the words are evidence of interesting linguistic and cultural contacts in
the past that are arguably even more interesting.
These are some of the main points on these issues raised in a course
called "the loanword strata in the Finnic languages" that I took many
years ago from Professor Lauri Posti at the University of Helsinki.
Some five thousand years ago, a small and sparsely distributed population
of peoples speaking various Finno-Ugric dialects that can be referred to
collectively as Pre-Finnic, and bearing a culture based on hunting and
gathering, inhabited what are now Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and
the adjacent parts of northwestern Russia, extending to what is now Moscow
(the word MOCKBA (Moscow) itself probably being of Finno-Ugric origin, see
http://www.north-moscow.ru/article/fact/origin-word/) and beyond to the
Volga Basin.
Both Lithuanian and Latvian are the contemporary and localized forms of
Proto-Baltic, the cover name for the closely related Indo-European
dialects introduced to the Baltic area from the south-east by
agriculturalists some four thousand years ago.
Baltic toponyms and hydronyms in what are now Belarus and northwestern
Russia, as well as Baltic loanwords in Erzya, a Mordvinian (and
Finno-Ugric) language, indicate Proto-Baltic to have once been spoken in a
vast area to the south and east of present-day Lithuania and Latvia. Older
Finno-Ugric toponyms in the same area indicate the existence of a still
older Finno-Ugric speaking population that was completely absorbed into
the Proto-Baltic-speaking population.
Restricting our attention to the area of the modern Baltic countries, we
see that the River Daugava long functioned as a natural linguistic and
cultural border between speakers of Proto-Finnic to the north and of
Proto-Baltic to the south.
Eventually, speakers of Proto-Baltic managed to cross the Daugava,
spreading their agriculture-based culture and intermarrying with local
speakers of Proto-Finnic. Intermarriage is evidenced by the Baltic origin
of many Finnic terms for kinship and social relations, particularly for
females: (examples from Finnish) sisar 'sister', tyt�r 'daughter', morsian
"bride (with the typical dental assibilation *ti > si)", (note, however,
Latvian puika 'boy, lad', a loanword from Finnic, cf. Estonian poeg,
Finnish poika, Hungarian fi�), heimo 'extended family', kaima 'namesake',
seura 'company'. Widespread intrafamily bilingualism is indicated by
so-called intimate borrowings such as hammas 'tooth', reisi 'thigh', karva
'body hair', kaula '(front of) neck', as well as in common everyday words
such as aina 'always', ahdas 'narrow', kelta- 'yellow', kuuro 'deaf', vai
'or' and viel� 'still (adv.)'.
The northernmost dialects of Proto-Baltic evolved into the dialects of
Latvian. As all readers of soc.culture.baltic should know, one of the most
striking differences between modern Lithuanian and modern Latvian is that
Lithuanian retains the ancient mobile musical accent system of
Indo-European, while Latvian, like Finno-Ugric Estonian and Finnish, has a
dynamic accent system with primary stress always falling on the initial
syllable. Or to state it simplistically, Latvian is what you get if you
speak Lithuanian with an Estonian accent for more than a hundred
generations. The
further northward one moves in Latvia, the more the local dialects show
substratum influence in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and
phraseology from the Finnic that was once more widely spoken there and
still survives as the almost extinct minority language Liv (or Livonian).
For its part, Liv is heavily Latvianized. Although its basic vocabulary
and phonology are clearly of Finnic origin, it nevertheless differs
radically from neighboring southern Estonian by having an essentially
Latvian phonetics and grammatical system.
What was the reason behind the language shift from Proto-Finnic to
imperfect and incomplete (Latvia) or perfect and complete (Lithuania,
Prussia) Proto-Baltic in the non-Estonian part of the Baltic area?
Evidence of a cultural shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture can
be seen in the fact that virtually all of the basic agricultural
terminology in the Finnic languages is borrowed from Baltic: (examples
from Finnish) siemen 'seed', hein� 'hay', herne 'pea'; ankerias 'eel',
hanhi 'goose', harakka
'magpie', h�rk� 'ox', oinas 'wether', paimen 'shepherd', rastas 'thrush',
vuohi 'goat'; hihna 'strap', sein� 'wall', j�rvi 'lake', silta 'bridge',
torvi 'horn', tuohi 'birchbark', hanka 'fork of a branch', kirves 'ax',
keli 'road conditions', luuta 'broom', m�nt� 'piston', terva 'tar', olut
'beer', seiv�s 'pole', puuro 'porridge'.
The shift to a lifestyle based on agriculture enabled the area to sustain
a population estimated to be ten times larger than had been possible with
a lifestyle based on foraging. Thus it does not seem to have been forced
on the Finnic-speaking population, but embraced by them and reinforced by
the intermarriage and intrafamily Baltic-Finnic bilingualism. Most of
the sound changes undergone by what Prof. Posti called Pre-Finnic in the
transition to early Proto-Finnic can be attributed to the phonology of
Proto-Baltic: sounds that pre-Finnic evidently had but Proto-Baltic lacked
were lost. In other words Proto-Baltic provided a Sprachbund filter or, to
put it more crudely, it became fashionable among speakers of pre-Finnic to
affect a Proto-Baltic accent, and this eventually became the norm. For
more on this subject, see Lauri Posti "From Pre-Finnic to Late
Proto-Finnic", From Pre-Finnic to Late Proto-Finnic. Finnisch-Ugrische
Forschungen XXXI (1953), pgs. 1-91
The history is recapitulated by studying a map of the Baltic region and
its surroundings, especially to the south east. From Estonia in the north
west at least down to Saransk in the Volga Basin in Mordovia, Finno-Ugric
dialects were spoken some five thousand years ago by a sparse but
widespread population of hunters and gatherers. Indo-European speakers
entering the area from the south introduced agriculture. The Mordvin
languages, Erzya and Moksha, still survive, but the territory between
Mordovia and Lithuania, once inhabited by now extinct Finno-Ugric peoples
such as the Meryas,
Meshchers, Muroms, has been completely Indo-Europeanized, first by Baltic
speakers, subsequently, to a great extent, by Slavic speakers
(http://www.einst.ee/historic/society/finno_ugric_people.htm).
The only signs of the former Finnic presence in Lithuania, Belarus, and
the adjoining parts of norther-western Russia today are a few hydronyms
(such as the evidently Finno-Ugric -va 'water' in Moskva 'Moscow'),
toponyms, and the occasional borrowing.
In Latvia cultural Indo-Europeanization in the sense of switching to
agriculture took place completely, but linguistic Indo-Europeanization is
not complete, this being evidenced in the strong Finnic substratum in
Latvian as well as by the tenuous survival of the Livs, even if their
language is strongly Indo-Europeanized. The recently ended half century of
Soviet domination in Latvia also contributed to Indo-Eurpeanization,
particularly bearing in mind the fact that Soviet policy totally destroyed
the prerequisites for the Livs to continue their fishing-based littoral
culture and use their language in its traditional environment, thus
contributing to their Latvianization (and Indo-Europeanization).
Estonia has been the object of Indo-Europeanization for millennia, having
been colonized by the Danes, Germans, Swedes, Russians, and Soviets.
Culturally it, like its neighbors to the south, long ago accepted an
agriculture-based lifestyle of Indo-European origin, but it has held on to
its Finno-Ugric language tenaciously and against all odds. The Finns and
the Finnish language, in turn, trace their immediate origin to culturally
Balticized (in the sense of being agriculturalists) migrants from northern
Estonia and Ingermanland starting some three to four thousand years ago,
mixing with the Saami, an older population that recent DNA evidence traces
to north-western Europe (hardly surprising, since the first inhabitants of
Scandinavia, the ancestors of the Saami, reached the area when much of it
was still glaciated along the Norwegian coast from the south), and later
with East Germanic ("Gothic"), North Germanic ("Scandinavian"), and East
Slavic admixtures.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Andrius
Ha ha, that is Blinda! Ask him about treningus. Very quickly he will
put another Kaunas' common "Lithuanian" words. Pizdinti: nupizdinti-to
steal; atpizdinti-to beat somebody; ispizdinti-to hit something, e.g.
doors; pizdink is cia-fuck of from here; pizdeti-to do nothing, to
talk nothing serious; to lay; pizdejimas-spoiling as personality;
ispizdejimas-spoiling as personality, stinking. That is Kaunas City
lang. Of course, "pure" Lithuanian, used by Kauno pizdukai
(piz'dyuks). And, no doubt, pisti for them could be only clear
Lithuanian word. They forget that for sexual interacting we have real
Lithuanian word - dulkintis (to dusty).
Regards,
Andrius
captain!
"Eugene Holman" <hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
news:holman-2306...@ke-hupnet246-27.hupnet.helsinki.fi...
lol. poor bush.
captain!
"Tadas Blinda" <tadas....@lycos.es> wrote in message
news:1a5205ba-f4fa-4c1b...@f16g2000vbf.googlegroups.com...
>Stick to the linguistic facts (structures, patterns) and forget the
insults.
/////////
huh? telling people to forget about insults? is this the bizzarro tadas or
something?
Tadas Blinda
> REPOSTING WITH AN IMPORTANT ERROR CORRECTED AND SOME ADDITIONS
>
> In article
>
> <lorad...@cs.com> wrote:
>
> <deletions>
>
> > A nice little list as far as it goes.. even if it erroneously posits
> > Lithuanian as an external influence upon Latvian or even further
> > geographically distant Finnic languages.. a fact which makes that
> > suppostion most improbable. (narod.ru .. historia ex nihilis)
>
> Having a list of Baltic loanwords in Finnic is a fine starting point, but
> the words are evidence of interesting linguistic and cultural contacts in
> the past that are arguably even more interesting.
>
> These are some of the main points on these issues raised in a course
> called "the loanword strata in the Finnic languages" that I took many
> years ago from Professor Lauri Posti at the University of Helsinki.
>
> Some five thousand years ago, a small and sparsely distributed population
> of peoples speaking various Finno-Ugric dialects that can be referred to
> collectively as Pre-Finnic, and bearing a culture based on hunting and
> gathering, inhabited what are now Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and
> the adjacent parts of northwestern Russia, extending to what is now Moscow
> Volga Basin.
>
> Both Lithuanian and Latvian are the contemporary and localized forms of
> Proto-Baltic, the cover name for the closely related Indo-European
> dialects introduced to the Baltic area from the south-east by
> agriculturalists some four thousand years ago.
>
> Baltic toponyms and hydronyms in what are now Belarus and northwestern
> Russia, as well as Baltic loanwords in Erzya, a Mordvinian (and
> Finno-Ugric) language, indicate Proto-Baltic to have once been spoken in a
> vast area to the south and east of present-day Lithuania and Latvia. Older
> Finno-Ugric toponyms in the same area indicate the existence of a still
> older Finno-Ugric speaking population that was completely absorbed into
> the Proto-Baltic-speaking population.
>
> Restricting our attention to the area of the modern Baltic countries, we
> see that the River Daugava long functioned as a natural linguistic and
> cultural border between speakers of Proto-Finnic to the north and of
> Proto-Baltic to the south.
>
> Eventually, speakers of Proto-Baltic managed to cross the Daugava,
> spreading their agriculture-based culture and intermarrying with local
> speakers of Proto-Finnic. Intermarriage is evidenced by the Baltic origin
> of many Finnic terms for kinship and social relations, particularly for
> "bride (with the typical dental assibilation *ti > si)", (note, however,
> Latvian puika 'boy, lad', a loanword from Finnic, cf. Estonian poeg,
> seura 'company'. Widespread intrafamily bilingualism is indicated by
> so-called intimate borrowings such as hammas 'tooth', reisi 'thigh', karva
> 'body hair', kaula '(front of) neck', as well as in common everyday words
> such as aina 'always', ahdas 'narrow', kelta- 'yellow', kuuro 'deaf', vai
>
> The northernmost dialects of Proto-Baltic evolved into the dialects of
> Latvian. As all readers of soc.culture.baltic should know, one of the most
> striking differences between modern Lithuanian and modern Latvian is that
> Lithuanian retains the ancient mobile musical accent system of
> Indo-European, while Latvian, like Finno-Ugric Estonian and Finnish, has a
> dynamic accent system with primary stress always falling on the initial
> syllable. Or to state it simplistically, Latvian is what you get if you
> speak Lithuanian with an Estonian accent for more than a hundred
> generations. The
> further northward one moves in Latvia, the more the local dialects show
> substratum influence in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and
> phraseology from the Finnic that was once more widely spoken there and
> still survives as the almost extinct minority language Liv (or Livonian).
> For its part, Liv is heavily Latvianized. Although its basic vocabulary
> and phonology are clearly of Finnic origin, it nevertheless differs
> radically from neighboring southern Estonian by having an essentially
> Latvian phonetics and grammatical system.
>
> What was the reason behind the language shift from Proto-Finnic to
> imperfect and incomplete (Latvia) or perfect and complete (Lithuania,
> Prussia) Proto-Baltic in the non-Estonian part of the Baltic area?
> Evidence of a cultural shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture can
> be seen in the fact that virtually all of the basic agricultural
> terminology in the Finnic languages is borrowed from Baltic: (examples
> hanhi 'goose', harakka
> 'magpie', härkä 'ox', oinas 'wether', paimen 'shepherd', rastas 'thrush',
> vuohi 'goat'; hihna 'strap', seinä 'wall', järvi 'lake', silta 'bridge',
> torvi 'horn', tuohi 'birchbark', hanka 'fork of a branch', kirves 'ax',
> 'beer', seiväs 'pole', puuro 'porridge'.
Thank you, very interesting.
Tadas Blinda
> > > As a matter of fact, the Lithuanian verb "pisti" (pyz + ti) suggests
> > > that the morpheme pyz- is long established in the Lithuanian
> > > language. I'm not aware of any Slavic equivalents of "pisti" based on
> > > the pyz- morpheme. The Lithuanian "gimti" means to be born, and the
> > > Lithuanian "gimda" means womb, that is, a place associated with
> > > "gimimas" (birth). In the same way, "pyzda" means a place associated
> > > with copulation, i.e. "pisimas". No Slavic language has this
> > > set of correspondences.
> They forget that for sexual interacting we have real
> Lithuanian word - dulkintis (to dusty).
You are so dumb that you think 'dulkinti' has something to do with
'dust'. It doesn't. The 'dulkės' in question here are 'pollen': to
fuck = to pollinate .
Tadas Blinda
> "Tadas Blinda" <tadas.bli...@lycos.es> wrote in message
What is your problem? I see you have flushed the facts right off the
page. By the way, ignoramus, there is no such word as 'bizzarro'. *
* bizarre — etymology
c.1648, from Fr. bizarre "odd, fantastic," from Basque bizarri =
bearded one, from bizar = "a beard" (the notion being of the strange
impression made on the Basques by the bearded Spanish soldiers)
captain!
///////////////////////
well well well... it took pop culture to finally linguistically stump you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World
let's just say that the "bizarro tadas" does everything opposite to the real
tadas. thus, the bizarro tadas hates insults and never tries to insult
anyone :)
Dušan Vukotić
Lithuanian stamen is kuokelis (loanword from Russian куколка/ kukolka;
related to cycle; i.e. circle, shell; cf. dolly; Serb. školjka
'shell'; Lith. kiaukutas <= kiakultas; Serb. okoliti from hokoliti
'surroung, encircle').
Lith. dulkinti 'bang, dust' might be related to English dust and
Slavic дъждь 'rain' (Serb. dažd, Russ. дождь, Cz. déšť); also related
to Lith. dusinti 'choke, suffocate' (Serb. gušiti or tušiti
'suffocate, choke'; Cz. dusit 'choke'; cf. Lith. dusulingas
'asthmatic').
On the other side, there is Serb. tući (beat, bush, strike, to cudgel;
wherefrom Serb. tučak 'pestle, pistil' (dial. Serb. tolčnik; Maz.
толчник); i.e. something what is being beaten, bashed, banged) and the
noun tuča (hail), which is obviously related to the above-mentioned
OSlav. дъждь 'rain'.
Of course, there is no need to explain that English 'pestel,
pistil' (from Lat. pistillum) is the same word as Slavic pizda and
Serb. opizditi 'to bash', opizdilo (exploded like a thunder); all of
these probably related to Serb. pucati/puknuti (shoot, burst, rift;
Cz. puknout; Pol. pękać; Lith. plyšti 'burst'); cf. Ser. puška
'rifle', pička 'pussy'; Lith. apiplėšti 'rifle'; Serb. pištati
'squeak, whistle'), piska 'shrieking sounds'.
In addition, we can analyze Serb. postelja (bed; Russ. постель; Cz.
postel) and posteljica 'placenta' - which also may be related to
pizda (vagina) - but it would demand a lot of time... In fact, all
these words are coming from the same "well-spring" *bel-gon or *gon-
bel-gon, and the main problem is how to explain the shifting of
meanings.
DV
Hans Aberg
> When George W. Bush visited Riga in 2005, he was so pleased to see posters
> such as http://globalvoicesonline.org/wp-content/peace_duke.png �plastered
> all over thr city that he had himself photographed next to a young lady
> wearing a tee-shirt with the same image and inscription, e.g.
> http://www.elcanche.com/weblog/archives/100505.jpg.
Amazing what a little photo-fakery can do
http://www.elcanche.com/weblog/archives/120505.jpg
As mentioned in the blog Thursday May 12, 2005
http://www.elcanche.com/weblog/archives/2005_05.html
the picture he posted on Tuesday, two days before, isn't real.
Hans
Panu
He can't. He's Dushan. He knows nothing about linguistics and
everything about insults.
Tadas Blinda
> > > > The Lithuanian verb "pisti" (pyz + ti) suggests
> > > > that the morpheme pyz- is long established in the Lithuanian
> > > > language. I'm not aware of any Slavic equivalents of "pisti" based on
> > > > the pyz- morpheme. The Lithuanian "gimti" means to be born, and the
> > > > Lithuanian "gimda" means womb, that is, a place associated with
> > > > "gimimas" (birth). In the same way, "pyzda" means a place associated
> > > > with copulation, i.e. "pisimas". No Slavic language has this
> > > > set of correspondences.
> > On Jun 24, 9:32 pm, Dušan Vukotić <dusan.vuko...@gmail.com> wrote:
[Nothing worth reading.]
Tadas Blinda <tadas.bli...@lycos.es> wrote:
> > Stick to the linguistic facts (structures, patterns) and forget the
> > insults.
Panu wrote:
> He can't. He's Dushan. He knows nothing about linguistics and
> everything about insults.
You can say that again. He thinks that all he needs to do is open a
dictionary and quote a list of (mostly irrelevant) words. He does not
postulate any patterns or structures or adduce any coherent evidence.
Dušan Vukotić
Blinda, it seems all you can say (repeat) are two words, "patern" and
"structure"...
What is your problem: masochistic imagination (corrupted by mass
media) that provoked echolalia, somnambulistic sleep-typing, or just a
benign (twitching) lack of confidence,...?
Are you watching commercials and "science for everyone" all they long?
Is your wife abusing you? If so, divorce her immediately! If you are
not married, masturbate regularly and it may mitigate your mental
sufferings?
DV
lorad
> In article
> <219c9bb6-a180-4a9c-ae6c-e01c392d7...@v2g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, lorad
> > Lithuanian as an external influence upon Latvian or even further
> > geographically distant Finnic languages.. a fact which makes that
> > suppostion most improbable. (narod.ru .. historia ex nihilis)
>
> Having a list of Baltic loanwords in Finnic is a fine starting point, but
> the words are evidence of interesting linguistic and cultural contacts in
> the past.
To be sure, tovarisch.
> These are some of the main points on these issues raised in a course that
> I took many years ago from Professor Lauri Posti at the University of
> Helsinki.
Bully for you.
> Some five thousand years ago, a small and sparsely distributed population
> of peoples speaking various Finno-Ugric dialects that can be referred to
> collectively as Pre-Finnic, and bearing a culture based on hunting and
> gathering, inhabited what are now Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and
> the adjacent parts of northwestern Russia, extending to what is now Moscow
> and beyond to the Volga Basin.
That's false, comrade Holman.
Your definitions need revision.
The term 'Finno Ugric' requires that Baltic first be present as a
prerequsite constituent of any 'Finnic' language.
And the earliest that could have happened in the Baltic Sea area,
would have been 2500bc - when Baltic culture settled in present day
Finland.
> Both Lithuanian and Latvian are the contemporary and localized forms of
> Proto-Baltic, the cover name for the closely related Indo-European
> dialects introduced to the Baltic area from the south-east by
> agriculturalists some four thousand years ago.
Wrong. No such thing as 'proto-baltic' ever existed.
And wrong... Baltic culture entered its present day borders at least
*five* thousand years ago.
> Baltic toponyms and hydronyms in what are now Belarus anbd northwestern
> Russia, as well as Baltic loanwords in Erzya, a Mordvinian (and
> Finno-Ugric) language, indicate Proto-Baltic to have once been spoken in a
> vast area to the south and east of present-day Lithuania and Latvia. Older
> Finno-Ugric toponyms in the same area indicate the existence of a still
> older Finno-Ugric speaking population that was completely absorbed into
> the Proto-Baltic-speaking population.
Baltic toponym lists are well known.
Your so-called Finno-Ugric toponyms are not well known to me.
Can you provide some sources or even examples?
I am sure that cultural assimilation goes both ways depending upon
local exigencies, after all.. former Baltic culture settlement areas
in Finland and Sweden were almost completely overlayed linguistically.
(and again, your 'older Finno-Ugric speaking population' never
existed)
> In the area of the modern Baltic countries the River Daugava long
> functioned as a natural border between speakers of Proto-Finnic to the
> north and of Proto-Baltic to the south.
Prove it.
Meanwhile back to reality... Baltic culture appears to have entered
present-day Latvia (and Lithuania) ca 3000bc and physical anthropology
detects no difference in culture north and south of the Daugava.
> Eventially, speakers of Proto-Baltic managed to cross the Daugava,
> spreading their agriculture-based culture and ...[snip]...
[if your premise is demonstrably false.. so must be the fantasies that
you base upon your premise. Try it again.. from the top]
> The history is recapitulated by studying a map of the Baltic region and
> its surroundings, especially to the south east. From Estonia in the north
> west at least down to Saransk in the Volga Basin in Mordovia Finno-Ugric
> languages were
> spoken some five thousand years ago by a sparse but widespread population
> of hunters and gatherers.
Your fantasy neo-history is supported by Maps?
You base your language assumptions upon maps?
Whose maps? Published where? 5,000 year old maps?
Here's the truth:
"The birthplace of the Finno-Ugric languages cannot be located with
certainty. Central and northern Russia west of the Ural mountains is
generally assumed to be the most likely spot, perhaps around the 3rd
millennium BC. This is suggested by the high intralinguistic family
diversity around the middle Volga River where three highly distinct
branches of the Uralic family, Mordvinic, Mari, and Permic are
located."
'Central russia'... not cirum Baltic.
> Indo-European speakers entering the area from
> the south introduced agriculture. The Mordvin languages, Erzya and Moksha,
> still survive, but the territory between Mordovia and Lithuania, once
> inhabited by now extinct Finno-Ugric peoples such as the Meryas,
> Meshchers, Muroms, has been completely Indo-Europeanized, first by Baltic
> speakers, subsequently, to a great extent, by Slavic speakers
> (http://www.einst.ee/historic/society/finno_ugric_people.htm).
Wrong. There is nothing to support your imaginings of geologic aged
Ugrics.
> The only signs of the former Finnic presence in Lithuania, Belarus, and
> the adjoining parts of norther-western Russia today are a few hydronyms,
> toponyms, and the occasional borrowing.
Which may, equally, be proof or their previous non-existence in those
areas.
> In Latvia cultural Indo-Europeanization in the sense of switching to
> agriculture took place completely, but linguistic Indo-Europeanization is
> not complete, this being evidenced in the strong Finnic substratum in
> Latvian as well as by the tenuous survival of the Livs, even if their
> language is strongly Indo-Europeanized.
There is no finnic sub-stratum in Latvian. Some loans words, yes... as
a result of millenia long Estonian border.
On the other hand there is, very necessarily, a Baltic sub-stratum in
Finnish and Swedish.
> The recently ended half century of
> Soviet domination in Latvia also contributed to Indo-Eurpeanization,
> particularly bearing in mind the fact that Soviet policy totally destroyed
> the prerequisites for the Livs to continue their culture and use their
> language in its traditional environment, thus contributing to their
> Latvianization (and Indo-Europeanization).
So.. write a complaint to Moskow, already.
lorad
> REPOSTING WITH AN IMPORTANT ERROR CORRECTED AND SOME ADDITIONS
>
>
> Regards,
> Eugene Holman
It would be more efficacious for you to list your corrections, rather
than have readers muddle through your fictional parochialism again.
lorad
Not interesting.
Traditional comrade Holman fantasy.. and traditional neophyte self-
flagellation by yourself...
Also not interesting.
Peteris Cedrins
Great to see you back, Hui! Though we get plenty of comedy even
without you -- you're my fave for ROTFL, as MTRP would say! The best
part here was the "millenia [sic] long Estonian border," I think!
Vysu lobu,
/P
lorad
Ok then, comrade peetey..polisher of 'dvinskian tanks'...
Bring on the comedy!
I await factual rebuttal.
Eugene Holman
<ce700ea0-c8b2-4110...@l31g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>, lorad
<lora...@cs.com> wrote:
> On Jun 25, 3:01=A0am, hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
<deletions>
>
> > Both Lithuanian and Latvian are the contemporary and localized forms of
> > Proto-Baltic, the cover name for the closely related Indo-European
> > dialects introduced to the Baltic area from the south-east by
> > agriculturalists some four thousand years ago.
>
> Wrong. No such thing as 'proto-baltic' ever existed.
Proto-Baltic is the language that gave rise to Lithuanian, Latvian, Old
Prussian, and other extinct Baltic dialects. One cannot compare Latvian
and Lituanian without seeing that a) Latvian is more linguistically
innovative than Lithuanian, b) the relationship between Latvian and
Lithuanian is not simply a matter of Latvian being derived from or a
local, partially Finnicized, variant of Lithuanian, but rather both of
them are modernized and localized versions of an older language that no
longer exists. This language is Proto-Baltic; their relation to
Proto-Baltic is analogous to the relation of French (= Latvian, both
colonial exports modified by substrate languages) and Italian (=
Lithuanian, linear continuations) to demotic ("vulgar") Latin, the
proto-language of all the Romance languages. For discussion, see
http://www.geocities.com/athens/ithaca/6623/proto.htm.
> And wrong... Baltic culture entered its present day borders at least
> *five* thousand years ago.
The precise date can be disputed, but that is of secondary importance
because cultural change takes generations and is seldom complete. Of
primary importance is the fact that the speakers of Proto-Baltic
introduced, non-violently, a lifestyle and culture that allowed at least
ten times the number of people to be sustained than had been possible with
hunting and gathering.
<deletions>
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Tadas Blinda
> > > Both Lithuanian and Latvian are the contemporary and localized forms of
> > > Proto-Baltic, the cover name for the closely related Indo-European
> > > dialects introduced to the Baltic area from the south-east by
> > > agriculturalists some four thousand years ago.
>
> Prussian, and other extinct Baltic dialects. One cannot compare Latvian
> and Lituanian without seeing that a) Latvian is more linguistically
> innovative than Lithuanian,
Nice way of not saying that Latvian is just more corrupted than
Lithuanian!
b) the relationship between Latvian and
> Lithuanian is not simply a matter of Latvian being derived from or a
> local, partially Finnicized, variant of Lithuanian, but rather both of
> them are modernized and localized versions of an older language that no
> longer exists. This language is Proto-Baltic; their relation to
> Proto-Baltic is analogous to the relation of French (= Latvian, both
> colonial exports modified by substrate languages) and Italian (=
> Lithuanian, linear continuations) to demotic ("vulgar") Latin, the
> proto-language of all the Romance languages.
Interesting analogy. The Franks certainly did violence to linguam
latinam.
For discussion, seehttp://www.geocities.com/athens/ithaca/6623/proto.htm.
>
> > And wrong... Baltic culture entered its present day borders at least
> > *five* thousand years ago.
>
> The precise date can be disputed, but that is of secondary importance
> because cultural change takes generations and is seldom complete. Of
> primary importance is the fact that the speakers of Proto-Baltic
> introduced, non-violently, a lifestyle and culture that allowed at least
> ten times the number of people to be sustained than had been possible with
> hunting and gathering.
And some of us Lithuanians still have BRh- blood as a legacy of the
ethnic sub-stratum.
Joachim Pense
>
> The precise date can be disputed, but that is of secondary importance
> because cultural change takes generations and is seldom complete. Of
> primary importance is the fact that the speakers of Proto-Baltic
> introduced, non-violently, a lifestyle and culture that allowed at least
> ten times the number of people to be sustained than had been possible with
> hunting and gathering.
>
What is the evidence for this?
Joachim
Peter T. Daniels
> On Jun 29, 11:37 am, hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
> > Proto-Baltic is the language that gave rise to Lithuanian, Latvian, Old
> > Prussian, and other extinct Baltic dialects. One cannot compare Latvian
> > and Lituanian without seeing that a) Latvian is more linguistically
> > innovative than Lithuanian,
>
> Nice way of not saying that Latvian is just more corrupted than
> Lithuanian!
> And some of us Lithuanians still have BRh- blood as a legacy of the
> ethnic sub-stratum.
You are posting to a linguistics newsgroup. There is no such thing as
"corrupted language."
Obviously the Latvian could retort that Lithuanian is hidebound and
backward. Is that what you want?
Eugene Holman
<440af6d3-ec6b-43d3...@k8g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>, "Peter
T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Jun 29, 5:01=A0am, Tadas Blinda <tadas.bli...@lycos.es> wrote:
> > On Jun 29, 11:37=A0am, hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
>
> > > Proto-Baltic is the language that gave rise to Lithuanian, Latvian, Old
> > > Prussian, and other extinct Baltic dialects. One cannot compare Latvian
> > > and Lituanian without seeing that a) Latvian is more linguistically
> > > innovative than Lithuanian,
> >
> > Nice way of not saying that Latvian is just more corrupted than
> > Lithuanian!
>
> > And some of us Lithuanians still have BRh- blood as a legacy of the
> > ethnic sub-stratum.
>
> You are posting to a linguistics newsgroup. There is no such thing as
> "corrupted language."
>
> Obviously the Latvian could retort that Lithuanian is hidebound and
> backward. Is that what you want?
Calling a language "corrupted" is of course, a value judgment. I think
that Tadas, who is a serious linguist, was being facetious.
In any case, a systematic comparison of Latvian and Lithuanian phonology
and morphology reveals Latvian to have undergone a considerable amount of
phonetic attrition and resultant grammatical restructuring due to changes
that took place in reduced or lost unstressed syllables. The standard
example is the tripartite root - thematic vowel - desinence structure of
nominals. Preserved in Lithuanian as it is in Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit,
with all of the possibiities offered for a morphological system based upon
the interaction between the two non-root elements, Latvian. like Gothic,
has lost the thematic vowel and thus has. like Gothic, a historically
simpler and typologically reduced type of nominal inflection:
PIE Greek (Attic) Latin Lithuanian Sanskrit vs. Latvian Gothic
*wlq-o-s lyk-o-s lup-u-s vilk-a-s vrk-a-h vilk-s wulf-s
There are numerous other examples that demonstrate to Latvian to be
"essentially" the result of centuries of replacing what was once mobile
pitch accentuation with dynamic accentuation fixed on the intitial
syllable, with historically unstressed syllables being allowed to atrophy
phonetically. In this sense, if viewed from the (admittedly unscientific
but nevertheless perceptive) perspective of the linguistically more
conservative Lithuanian, Latvian gives the impression of being "bad
Lithuanian spoken with a heavy Estonian (a language with a fixed inititial
dynamic accentuation) accent".
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Tadas Blinda
I couldn't have said it better myself! :-)
Eugene Holman
<ce700ea0-c8b2-4110...@l31g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>, lorad
<lora...@cs.com> wrote:
<deletions>
>
> There is no finnic sub-stratum in Latvian. Some loans words, yes... as
> a result of millenia long Estonian border.
See www.evolutsioon.ut.ee/MAIT/photos/.../AtlasSection3.pdf for a
different and well documented view.
> On the other hand there is, very necessarily, a Baltic sub-stratum in
> Finnish and Swedish.
No-one has ever disputed the existence of a Baltic stratum in Finnish, but
it is not a substratum, but rather a superstratum, i.e. the result of
influence by a superimposed language on the language already present in a
specific area. The standard work on this is Jalo Kalima,
*It�merensuomalaisten kielten balttilaiset
lainasanat* ['The Baltic Loanwords in the Baltic-Finnic [or 'Finnic']
languages'], 1936. The issue is discussed in detail in Lauri Posti's
article "From Pre-Finnic to Late Proto-Finnic", Finnisch-Ugrische
Forschungen XXXI, 1953, pgs. 1-91, well as in Raimo Anttila's *An
Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics', 2nd revises
edition, 1989.
As to Swedish, what evidence can you produce of a Baltic stratum, sub-,
super, or ad-? Do you still claim that Gothic was a Baltic language?
<deletions>
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Trond Engen
> In article
> <ce700ea0-c8b2-4110...@l31g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
> lorad <lora...@cs.com> wrote:
>
> <deletions>
>
>> There is no finnic sub-stratum in Latvian. Some loans words, yes...
>> as a result of millenia long Estonian border.
>
> See www.evolutsioon.ut.ee/MAIT/photos/.../AtlasSection3.pdf for a
> different and well documented view.
>
>> On the other hand there is, very necessarily, a Baltic sub-stratum
>> in Finnish and Swedish.
>
> No-one has ever disputed the existence of a Baltic stratum in
> Finnish, but it is not a substratum, but rather a superstratum, [...]
>
> As to Swedish, what evidence can you produce of a Baltic stratum,
> sub-, super, or ad-? Do you still claim that Gothic was a Baltic
> language?
And why only Finnish and Swedish this time? Doesn't lorad postulate that
all but everything is essentially Baltic?
--
Trond Engen
J. Anderson
Are you familiar with Tapani Lehtinen's book *Kielen vuosituhannet* (SKS
2007)? If so, any comments?
Christopher Culver
> Are you familiar with Tapani Lehtinen's book *Kielen vuosituhannet* (SKS
> 2007)? If so, any comments?
Lehtinen's book is a popular introduction to historical linguistics
for speakers of Finnish, often assigned reading for first-year
university classes on Uralic linguistics or the history of the Finnish
language. If you have some acquaintance with historical linguistics
already, whether formal or self-taught, you could probably just go
straight to _The Uralic Languages_ ed. Denis Sinor (Amsterdam: Brill,
1988).
J. Anderson
"Christopher Culver" <crcu...@christopherculver.com> wrote in message
news:87r5x0c...@christopherculver.com...
Yes, thank you, I was aware of that. Twenty years is a long time -- also in
linguistics; I'm looking for something a little more up to date than what
was published in 1988.
Eugene Holman
<ander...@inbox.lv> wrote:
Anttila's 1988 book is heavyweight, even if more than twenty years old.
Solidly based on Peircian semiotics rather than on then-popular theories
of linguistics, its strong point is the parallels it makes between the
history of English and that of Finnish.
More recent and perhaps the best serious introduction to the field today
is Lyle Campbell's *Historical Linguistics: an Introduction*, 2nd edition,
2004.
A book that covers much of the same territory that Lehtinen's covers, but
in greater depth, is *Estonian Language*, 2003, edited by Mati Erelt. It
is reviewed, in Finnish, at
www.kotikielenseura.fi/virittaja/hakemistot/jutut/2005_600.pdf.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Christopher Culver
> Yes, thank you, I was aware of that. Twenty years is a long time -- also in
> linguistics; I'm looking for something a little more up to date than what
> was published in 1988.
Very little in the field as a whole has changed since Sinor 1988, and
Sinor 1988 still forms the bulk of introductory readings for
Finno-Ugrianists at least at my department (University of Helsinki).
lorad
> Eugene Holman wrote:
> > When George W. Bush visited Riga in 2005, he was so pleased to see posters
> > all over thr city that he had himself photographed next to a young lady
> > wearing a tee-shirt with the same image and inscription, e.g.
> >http://www.elcanche.com/weblog/archives/100505.jpg.
>
> Amazing what a little photo-fakery can do
> http://www.elcanche.com/weblog/archives/120505.jpg
>
> As mentioned in the blog Thursday May 12, 2005
> http://www.elcanche.com/weblog/archives/2005_05.html
> the picture he posted on Tuesday, two days before, isn't real.
>
> Hans
Well.. there ya go.
That's the comrade Holman we always knew and disdained.
Thanks
lorad
> <lorad...@cs.com> wrote:
> <deletions>
>
> > There is no finnic sub-stratum in Latvian. Some loans words, yes... as
> > a result of millenia long Estonian border.
>
> different and well documented view.
>
> > On the other hand there is, very necessarily, a Baltic sub-stratum in
> > Finnish and Swedish.
>
> No-one has ever disputed the existence of a Baltic stratum in Finnish, but
> it is not a substratum, but rather a superstratum, i.e. the result of
> influence by a superimposed language on the language already present in a
> specific area.
How can you, in your studied autism, ignore the fact that Baltic
Culture was established in Finland and parts of Sweden *before* in-
migration by current Finno-Ugric speakers?
Logically, neither you nor your cited academicians can do that.
All evidence clearly proves their and your illogic.
"predate
Verb
[-dating, -dated]
1. to occur at an earlier date than "
Baltic Culture *predated* Ugric in Finland:
You previously (and erroneously) stated that 'scratch/comb ware'
indicated a Finno-Ugric autochthony.
You were *wrong*... again.
Let me now help you - by discounting this particular distortion of
your political propaganda:
"Some hybrid-like characteristics displayed by ceramics found in the
extreme south-east of Finland suggest that the amalgamation of local
pottery-making traditions and the Corded Ware tradition took place
already before
the emergence of Final Neolithic Kiukainen Ware."
http://www.kirj.ee/10519?id=14767&tpl=1061&c_tpl=1064
As you can see, it was a Baltic sub-stratum... not a Finno-Ugric one.
Just as I said.
> The standard work on this is Jalo Kalima,
> *It merensuomalaisten kielten balttilaiset
> lainasanat* ['The Baltic Loanwords in the Baltic-Finnic [or 'Finnic']
> languages'], 1936. The issue is discussed in detail in Lauri Posti's
> article "From Pre-Finnic to Late Proto-Finnic", Finnisch-Ugrische
> Forschungen XXXI, 1953, pgs. 1-91, well as in Raimo Anttila's *An
> Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics', 2nd revises
> edition, 1989.
I asked for a list of your alleged Finno-Ugric loans in Baltic.. not
the other way around.
But you did not do so.
(How about FU "Kantele" in Finnish?)
> As to Swedish, what evidence can you produce of a Baltic stratum, sub-,
> super, or ad-?
A comparison of Old Norse to Baltic was sufficient to convince me. A
Baltic sub-stratum predated 'germanic' (as well as FU)..
Additional physical evidence of Baltic Cultural settlement on the
eastern, southern, and western shores of present day Sweden and Norway
is well known and is accessible in archeological publications. This is
common knowledge; don't waste my time again.
A tiny sampling here:
http://oldtiden.natmus.dk/udstillingen/bondestenalderen/enkeltgravskulturen/stridsoeksekultur_paa_bornholm/language/uk/
http://www.indopedia.org/Battle-axe_people.html
Corded Ware Culture
http://www.kirj.ee/public/Archaeology/2008/issue_2/arch-2008-2-114-151.pdf
Corded Ware sweden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corded_Ware_culture
> Do you still claim that Gothic was a Baltic language?
I never did.
I believe that I claimed that Baltic was most likely the most
influential parent language of all east 'germanic' languages -
including Gothic.
Now, a few years later... I am certain of it.
lorad
> Eugene Holman skreiv:
>
>
>
>
>
> > In article
> > lorad <lorad...@cs.com> wrote:
>
> > <deletions>
>
> >> There is no finnic sub-stratum in Latvian. Some loans words, yes...
> >> as a result of millenia long Estonian border.
>
> > different and well documented view.
>
> >> On the other hand there is, very necessarily, a Baltic sub-stratum
> >> in Finnish and Swedish.
>
> > No-one has ever disputed the existence of a Baltic stratum in
> > Finnish, but it is not a substratum, but rather a superstratum, [...]
>
> > As to Swedish, what evidence can you produce of a Baltic stratum,
> > sub-, super, or ad-? Do you still claim that Gothic was a Baltic
> > language?
>
> And why only Finnish and Swedish this time? Doesn't lorad postulate that
> all but everything is essentially Baltic?
>
> --
> Trond Engen
Your long suffering mother too? Never.
lorad
> In article <mkK2m.19125$vi5.2...@uutiset.elisa.fi>, "J. Anderson"
>
>
>
>
>
> <anderso...@inbox.lv> wrote:
> > "Christopher Culver" <crcul...@christopherculver.com> wrote in message
> >news:87r5x0c...@christopherculver.com...
> > > "J. Anderson" <anderso...@inbox.lv> writes:
> > >> Are you familiar with Tapani Lehtinen's book *Kielen vuosituhannet* (SKS
> > >> 2007)? If so, any comments?
>
> > > Lehtinen's book is a popular introduction to historical linguistics
> > > for speakers of Finnish, often assigned reading for first-year
> > > university classes on Uralic linguistics or the history of the Finnish
> > > language. If you have some acquaintance with historical linguistics
> > > already, whether formal or self-taught, you could probably just go
> > > straight to _The Uralic Languages_ ed. Denis Sinor (Amsterdam: Brill,
> > > 1988).
>
> > Yes, thank you, I was aware of that. Twenty years is a long time -- also in
> > linguistics; I'm looking for something a little more up to date than what
> > was published in 1988.
>
> Anttila's 1988 book is heavyweight, even if more than twenty years old.
> Solidly based on Peircian semiotics rather than on then-popular theories
> of linguistics, its strong point is the parallels it makes between the
> history of English and that of Finnish.
>
> More recent and perhaps the best serious introduction to the field today
> is Lyle Campbell's *Historical Linguistics: an Introduction*, 2nd edition,
> 2004.
>
> A book that covers much of the same territory that Lehtinen's covers, but
> in greater depth, is *Estonian Language*, 2003, edited by Mati Erelt. It
> is reviewed, in Finnish, atwww.kotikielenseura.fi/virittaja/hakemistot/jutut/2005_600.pdf.
>
> Regards,
...
Piercian Semiotics???
"In the nineteenth century, Charles Sanders Peirce defined what he
termed "semiotic" (which he sometimes spelt as "semeiotic") as the
"quasi-necessary, or formal doctrine of signs", which abstracts "what
must be the characters of all signs used by...an intelligence capable
of learning by experience"[5], and which is philosophical logic
pursued in terms of signs and sign processes[6]. Charles Morris
followed Peirce in using the term "semiotic" and in extending the
discipline beyond human communication to animal learning and use of
signals."
When you return from your excursions in voodoo, do let us know.
Eugene Holman
<a75f67d7-a34d-4c30...@b14g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>, lorad
<lora...@cs.com> wrote:
> On Jul 1, 7:50=A0am, hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
> > In article <mkK2m.19125$vi5.2...@uutiset.elisa.fi>, "J. Anderson"
<deletions>
> > > Yes, thank you, I was aware of that. Twenty years is a long time -- als=
> o in
> > > linguistics; I'm looking for something a little more up to date than wh=
> at
> > > was published in 1988.
> >
> > Anttila's 1988 book is heavyweight, even if more than twenty years old.
> > Solidly based on Peircian semiotics rather than on then-popular theories
> > of linguistics, its strong point is the parallels it makes between the
> > history of English and that of Finnish.
<deletions>
> ...
> Piercian Semiotics???
No, "Peircian [sic] semiotics", this being an alternative to the
Saussurian doctrine of the essential arbitrariness of the signans, the
signatum, and the link between them. It focuses on the qualitatively
different types of links and dynamics between iconic, indexical, and
purely symbolic signs and their extra-linguistic referents.
>
> "In the nineteenth century, Charles Sanders Peirce defined what he
> termed "semiotic" (which he sometimes spelt as "semeiotic") as the
> "quasi-necessary, or formal doctrine of signs", which abstracts "what
> must be the characters of all signs used by...an intelligence capable
> of learning by experience"[5], and which is philosophical logic
> pursued in terms of signs and sign processes[6]. Charles Morris
> followed Peirce in using the term "semiotic" and in extending the
> discipline beyond human communication to animal learning and use of
> signals."
Saussurian, Bloomfieldian, and Chomskian linguistics are all based on the
premise that the link between linguistic signs and their referents is
arbutrary, this meaning that non-contact instigated linguistic change is
primarily a matter of one sign replacing another as a consequence of
random restructuring allowed by the redundancy inherent in linguistic
systems and, in the Chomskian world, by the rule re-ordering,
simplification, loss, and gains that take place consequent to
intergenerational transmission. Anttila works with a theory that involves
a dynamic driving iconic and indexical signs to become pure symbols, this
often facilitated by what he calls abductive reasoning: constructing ad
hoc theories of complexity that are not necessarily correct but produce
good enough results to produce a reasonable output.
> When you return from your excursions in voodoo, do let us know
You really shouldn't dismiss things that you are incapable of or unwilling
to understand as voodoo. That's a good lad.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
lorad
> In article
> <440af6d3-ec6b-43d3-af00-78f9115ce...@k8g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>, "Peter
> T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
> Calling a language "corrupted" is of course, a value judgment. I think
> that Tadas, who is a serious linguist, was being facetious.
As your facile appendage, 'Tadas' should be more closely reigned in.
> In any case, a systematic comparison of Latvian and Lithuanian phonology
> and morphology reveals Latvian to have undergone a considerable amount of
> phonetic attrition and resultant grammatical restructuring due to changes
> that took place in reduced or lost unstressed syllables.
Since when?
Since language standardization in 1922?
> The standard
> example is the tripartite root - thematic vowel - desinence structure of
> nominals. Preserved in Lithuanian as it is in Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit,
> with all of the possibiities offered for a morphological system based upon
> the interaction between the two non-root elements, Latvian. like Gothic,
> has lost the thematic vowel and thus has. like Gothic, a historically
> simpler and typologically reduced type of nominal inflection:
>
> PIE Greek (Attic) Latin Lithuanian Sanskrit vs. Latvian Gothic
> *wlq-o-s lyk-o-s lup-u-s vilk-a-s vrk-a-h vilk-s wulf-s
You are wrong, on multiple levels:
1) *PIE '*wlqos' is not an attested word. It's only an imaginary
posited construct. It is not valid for comparative purposes
2) Latvian has not suffered your alleged loss of 'structure of
nominals'. You have simply avoided the vast number of Latvian nominals
that do retain -'is' as a suffixed ending in favor of an exceptional
example - for the sake of your habitual obfuscation
Additionally, 'vilkis' would be acceptable in conversation. It's
simply a standardized contraction.
The following Latvian nominals, for example, all retain their supposed
original structure: 'shushanas', 'slanekis', 'slanis', 'slaukis',
'slavenibas' (fem), 'sledzis', 'slegis', 'slengis', etc etc. Clearly
you were ignorant of this fact - but chose to make false assertions
instead.
(If you were misinformed by your references and educators this easily,
you would do well to question their veracity anew.)
3) You claimed that Latvian was not related to Gothic. Why then do you
group Latvian as being most like Gothic? That's rather disingenuous of
you, isn't it?
One could almost think that you have (secretly) concured with my own
conclusions.
4) Of the languages you have listed above only Latvian has a
conservative enough vocabulary to have an analogue for the Latin
variant 'lupus'; which is Latvian 'lops' meaning 'beast'
> There are numerous other examples that demonstrate to Latvian to be
> "essentially" the result of centuries of replacing what was once mobile
> pitch accentuation with dynamic accentuation fixed on the intitial
> syllable, with historically unstressed syllables being allowed to atrophy
> phonetically.
Nothing of the sort.
Hypothesizing that your false claims constitute verification of
anything - let alone some sliding primal pitch accentuation is
ludicrous.
It would be better if you first returned to class for remedial
elucidation.
But, here, for comic value - I will let you repeat your final
concocted sociopathy..
> In this sense, if viewed from the (admittedly unscientific
> but nevertheless perceptive) perspective of the linguistically more
> conservative Lithuanian, Latvian gives the impression of being "bad
> Lithuanian spoken with a heavy Estonian (a language with a fixed inititial
> dynamic accentuation) accent".
> Regards,
> Eugene Holman
Tootles, comrade Holman
Tadas Blinda
> primarily a matter of one sign replacing another as a consequence of
> random restructuring allowed by the redundancy inherent in linguistic
> systems and, in the Chomskian world, by the rule re-ordering,
> simplification, loss, and gains that take place consequent to
> intergenerational transmission. Anttila works with a theory that involves
> a dynamic driving iconic and indexical signs to become pure symbols, this
> often facilitated by what he calls abductive reasoning: constructing ad
> hoc theories of complexity that are not necessarily correct but produce
> good enough results to produce a reasonable output.
>
> > When you return from your excursions in voodoo, do let us know
>
> You really shouldn't dismiss things that you are incapable of or unwilling
> to understand as voodoo. That's a good lad.
>
> Regards,
> Eugene Holman
All very well and I hate to quibble about one word, but — "non-contact
instigated linguistic change is primarily a matter of one sign
replacing another as a consequence of random restructuring".
Is there really such a thing as "random restructuring"? Everything
happens for a reason. For example, phonetic evolution is generally
consistent, and when a particular word appears to be "exempted", there
is a logical reason for that somehwere. As for evolution in
morphology and syntax, that's patchier, but "random" is not an
adjective that comes to my mind to describe it.
Of course sometimes the final shakedown is a mixed system, like the
formation of the comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives in
English. In general, only adjectives of Anglo-Saxon origin are
supposed to allow the addition of -er and -est, but we get words like
stupider and stupidest, nonetheless. But definitely not *redundanter
and *redundantest. Seems to be a question of how proletarianised the
particular adjective has become. It may appear "random", but it's
not. Some principle is in opeartion somewhere.
Eugene Holman
<5b1af227-6aff-4008...@l31g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>, lorad
<lora...@cs.com> wrote:
> On Jun 29, 5:29=A0am, hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
> > In article
<deletions>
> You are wrong, on multiple levels:
>
> 1) *PIE '*wlqos' is not an attested word. It's only an imaginary
> posited construct. It is not valid for comparative purposes
It is the result of comparative reconstruction. Although not valid for
comparative purposes, it is valid as the hypothetical starting point or
archetype from which the later attested variation developed. Comparative
reconstruction, rather than flaying for cognate candidates as you like to
do, is the methodological bedrock upon which historical linguistics was
established by the Neogrammarians more than a century ago.
> 2) Latvian has not suffered your alleged loss of 'structure of
> nominals'. You have simply avoided the vast number of Latvian nominals
> that do retain -'is' as a suffixed ending in favor of an exceptional
> example - for the sake of your habitual obfuscation
> Additionally, 'vilkis' would be acceptable in conversation. It's
> simply a standardized contraction.
O sancta simplicitas! I did not specify that I was discussing nouns of the
Indo-European -o- class because I thought that readers would understand
this. Latvian does indeed have lots of nouns ending in -is � a former
colleague of mine was the late Valdis Zeps at the University of Wisconsin
� but their -i- has nothing to do with the Indo-European thematic vowel.
> The following Latvian nominals, for example, all retain their supposed
> original structure: 'shushanas', 'slanekis', 'slanis', 'slaukis',
> 'slavenibas' (fem), 'sledzis', 'slegis', 'slengis', etc etc. Clearly
> you were ignorant of this fact - but chose to make false assertions
> instead.
No, we are talking about different things. The primary difference between
Latvian and Lithuanian nominal inflection, from an historical perspective,
is that Latvian has lost the thematic vowel, but Lithuanian, like Greek,
Latib, and Snaskrit, has retained it.
> (If you were misinformed by your references and educators this easily,
> you would do well to question their veracity anew.)
Not to worry, I wasn't.
> 3) You claimed that Latvian was not related to Gothic.
I have never made such a foolish statement in my life. You have claimed
several times in this forum that Gothic was a Baltic language. Gothic was
a Germanic language, the oldest one in which we have extensive texts. As a
Germanic language it is obviously related to Latvian, since both are
Indo-European languages, thus ultimately deriving from a common source.
> Why then do you
> group Latvian as being most like Gothic?
Because in this particular instance it is. Proto-Germanic, like
Lithuanian, had the thematic vowel: *wulfaz (vilkas), Latvian, like
Gothic, has retained the case marker but lost the tematic vowel: vilks
(wulfs). The changes evidently took place independently and are hardy
unexpected.
> That's rather disingenuous of
> you, isn't it?
No.
> One could almost think that you have (secretly) concured with my own
> conclusions.
That is something that I never do, almost as a matter of principle. Oh, by
the way, do you know what the lats-to-the dollar rate is today? It's
0.499746, that is to say, it takes half a lat, 50 santimi, to buy one
dollar.
> 4) Of the languages you have listed above only Latvian has a
> conservative enough vocabulary to have an analogue for the Latin
> variant 'lupus'; which is Latvian 'lops' meaning 'beast'
This is an example of your flaying for cognates. The two words have
nothing to do with one another except for having a chance resemblance.
> > There are numerous other examples that demonstrate to Latvian to be
> > "essentially" the result of centuries of replacing what was once mobile
> > pitch accentuation with dynamic accentuation fixed on the intitial
> > syllable, with historically unstressed syllables being allowed to atrophy
> > phonetically.
>
> Nothing of the sort.
> Hypothesizing that your false claims constitute verification of
> anything - let alone some sliding primal pitch accentuation is
> ludicrous.
Are you claiming that a century and half of scholarship in Indo-European
studies is false? For a more informed opinion, see e.g.
Winfred P. Lehman, "Proto-Indo-European Phonology",
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/books/piep00.html
Donald A. Ringe (2006). From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic. Oxford
University Press. ISBN 9780199284139.
Sergei Nikolaev (1989). "The Balto-Slavic Accentuation System and its
Indo-European Origins." (in Russian). Historical Accentology and the
Comparative Method (Moscow: Nauka): pp. 46-109.
http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/Nikolayev_Bsl.pdf.
> It would be better if you first returned to class for remedial
> elucidation.
>
> But, here, for comic value - I will let you repeat your final
> concocted sociopathy..
>
> > In this sense, if viewed from the (admittedly unscientific
> > but nevertheless perceptive) perspective of the linguistically more
> > conservative Lithuanian, Latvian gives the impression of being "bad
> > Lithuanian spoken with a heavy Estonian (a language with a fixed inititia=
> l
> > dynamic accentuation) accent".
Succinctly stated, that's about how it is.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Eugene Holman
<3a1d3f82-2767-4f70...@18g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>, Tadas
Blinda <tadas....@lycos.es> wrote:
<deletions>
> All very well and I hate to quibble about one word, but =97 "non-contact
> instigated linguistic change is primarily a matter of one sign
> replacing another as a consequence of random restructuring".
>
> Is there really such a thing as "random restructuring"?
Good point.
> Everything
> happens for a reason. For example, phonetic evolution is generally
> consistent, and when a particular word appears to be "exempted", there
> is a logical reason for that somehwere.
This is a philosophical problem, specifically the issue of causality vs.
post facto explanations.
Here are a few examples.
1. In semi-literate/baby talk English *asparagus* is often pronounced
*sparrow grass*. We can "explain" this change as being motivated by the
psychological association between grass and the fact that asparagus is
tall, thin, and green, somewhat like grass. An opaque word is replaced by
a composite motivated by a loose association and the desire to make sense
out of what seems to be nonsense.
2. In the history of Finnish a process of assibilation has taken place
whereby ti > si, e.g. (Proto-Baltic) *tiltas > silta 'bridge',
(Proto-Baltic) *martia- > morsian 'bride', *k�ti > k�si 'hand', *tieti >
tiesi 'knew 3sg'. For certain verbs the change has not taken place,
presumably because the word form that would result is already "occupied":
veti 'pulled 3sg', not *vesi, because vesi is 'water'; kuti 'spawned 3sg',
not *kusi, because kusi is 'piss'.
3. The Estonian word for 'taxi' is *takso*. The usual explanation is that
the word form taksi already exists and is, in fact, overloaded: it is the
genitive/partitive/illative singular of 1) taks 'dachshund', 2) taks
'rate'.
Although these explanations all seem plausible, they are hardly logical.
The language could have, and in the case of 'sparrow grass', does
function, without the change. Nevertheless, the 'sparrow grass' change
does occur frequently and can, according to Anttila at least, be regarded
as an example of abductive change; a random restructuring that produces a
plausible result. In this case an abnormally long tetrasyllabic morpheme
has been given an incorrect but easily motivated and remembered
replacement.
> As for evolution in
> morphology and syntax, that's patchier, but "random" is not an
> adjective that comes to my mind to describe it.
>
> Of course sometimes the final shakedown is a mixed system, like the
> formation of the comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives in
> English. In general, only adjectives of Anglo-Saxon origin are
> supposed to allow the addition of -er and -est, but we get words like
> stupider and stupidest, nonetheless. But definitely not *redundanter
> and *redundantest. Seems to be a question of how proletarianised the
> particular adjective has become. It may appear "random", but it's
> not. Some principle is in opeartion somewhere.
As far as I can tell, your "proletarianised" is a matter of frequency.
That means, of course, that fashion and technological change, which are
random in the sense of being unpredictable, could thrust some obscure
polysyllabic adjective of classical origin into the spotlight tomorrow,
thus making it a candidate for the Germanic method of comparison. By the
way, Google gives 68,700 hits for 'redundanter' and 2,470 for
'redundantest', so attempts have been made and attested in writing, even
if they have not (yet?) been accepted in the written standard.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr.
> On Jun 23, 12:20 pm, hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
>
> > When George W. Bush visited Riga in 2005, he was so pleased to see posters
> > all over thr city that he had himself photographed next to a young lady
> > wearing a tee-shirt with the same image and inscription, e.g.http://www.elcanche.com/weblog/archives/100505.jpg.
>
> > difficult it is for her to restrain herself over the joke she is polling
> > on the hapless 'peace duke', literally mirnyï gercog but pronounced in
> > Russian [pizdyuk] or "insignificant c*nthead".
>
> > For details, seehttp://www.lowculture.com/archives/2005/05/lost_in_transat.html.
>
> > Regards,
> > Eugene Holman
>
> Is -uk commonly used to form diminutives in Russian?
>
Yes, “-uk”, “-ak”, “-juk”, “-jak”, “-ik”, “-ek”, “-ok” and all other “-
k” suffices are very common in Russian. Only a real “govnjuk” would
not know that. :-)
>
> If not, it would
> appear that Russian actually borrowed the word from Lithuanian
> pyzdukas.
>
The word “pizda” (vulva) is a very ancient Russian word and, afaik, it
is also a very ancient word in other Slavic languages.
You would have to give some proof that this word originally came to
Slavs from Lithuanians, and not vise versa. Or maybe it came from the
common ancestors of Slavs and Balts?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balto-Slavic_languages
Balto-Slavic languages
The Balto-Slavic language group consists of the Baltic and Slavic
languages, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. Having
experienced a period of common development, Baltic and Slavic
languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-
European branch, which points to their close genetic relationship. A
hypothetical Proto-Balto-Slavic language is also reconstructable,
descending from Proto-Indo-European by means of well-defined sound
laws, and out of which modern Slavic and Baltic languages descended.
One particularly innovative dialect separated from the Balto-Slavic
dialect continuum and became ancestral to Proto-Slavic language, out
of which all other Slavic languages descended.
>
> I know that Russian chauvinists are reluctant to believe
> that Russian has borrowed any words from Lithuanian, but indeed it
> has.
>
Which word? “Pizda”? But you forgot to give us any proof.
>
> I saw a list of them once but wouldn't know where to look for it
> now. Meanwhile, here is a list of Lithuanian/Latvian loanwords in
> Estonian and Finnish.
>
Given that many of these Lithuanian words are similar to words in
Russian, German, Dutch, English and other Indo-European languages, how
do you know if the Finns got them from Lithuanians and not from those
other Indo-European languages or from ancestors thereof? For some
weird reason, you believe that all words in the Lithuanian language
(even words like “keglis” taken from German “keglen”) are of
Lithuanian and only of Lithuanian origin.
For example:
>
> alus (beer) alus (beer) õlu (beer) olut (beer)
>
English: ale (beer). This is cognate with Old Saxon alo, Old Norse öl,
Old Bulgarian olu cider, Slovenian ol, Old Prussian alu, Lithuanian
alus, Lettish allus (whence, Finnish olut).[2] These have been derived
from the Proto-Indo-European base *alu-, *alut-, connected to either
the concept of bitterness or intoxication
>
> avinas (ram) auns (ram) oinas (ram) oinas (ram)
>
Latin: ovis, Russian: oven, ovca
>
> bortas (side of a ship) borts (board) parras (side of a ship) parras
> (side of a ship)
>
Dutch: bort, Russian: bort, English: board
>
> derva (tar) darva (tar) tõrv (tar) terva (tar)
>
Russian: derevo (tree), trava (grass)
>
> geltonas (yellow color) dzeltens (yellow) kollane (yellow) keltainen
> (yellow)
>
Russian: zeltiy
>
> gyvas (live,living) dzīvs (lively) ?? kiivas (quick-tempered,anxious)
>
Russian: zhiv, zhisn (life)
>
> katilas (kettle) katls (kettle) katel (kettle) kattila (kettle)
>
English: kettle, Russian: kotel
>
> kėglis (skittle) ķeglis (skittle) keegel (pin, tenpin) keila (pin,
> tenpin)
>
German: kegeln, Russian: kegli
>
> kanopa (horse paw) kepa (paw) käpp (paw) käpälä (paw)
>
Russain: kopyto.
>
> kylys (wedge) kīlis (wedge) kiil (wedge) kiila (wedge)
>
Russian: klin
>
> kriokti (to scream, yell) ķērkt (to scream, yell)?? kirkua (to scream)
>
Russian: krichat
>
> lakti (to lap) lakt (to lap) lakkuda (to lap, to lick) latkia (to lap)
>
Russian: lakat’
>
> liepa (lime tree) liepa (lime tree) lepp (alder tree) leppä (alder
> tree)
>
Russian: lipa (linden tree)
>
> liulė, lopšys (cradle) ?? ?? lulla (cradle [rare])
>
Russian: liulia, liulka (cradle)
>
> mes (we) mēs (we) me (we) me (we)
>
Russian: mi (we)
>
> nerpa (ringed seal) ?? ?? norppa (ringed seal)
>
Russian: nerpa
>
> paršas (pig) sivēns, cūcēns (pig) põrsas (young pig) porsas (young
> pig)
>
English: pork. Russian: poros, porosenok.
>
> puodas (pot) pods (pot) pada (pot) pata (pot)
>
English: pot.
>
> putra (swill) putra (porridge,gruel) puder (porridge) puuro (porridge)
>
English: porridge
>
> ratas (wheel) rats (wheel) ratas (wheel) ratas (wheel [in mechanics])
>
German: rad (wheel). Latin: Radius
>
> rugys (rye) rudzi (rye) rukis (rye) ruis (rye)
>
Russian: rozh
>
> grybas (mushroom) sēne (mushroom) seen (mushroom) sieni (mushroom)
>
Russian: grib
>
> silkė (herring) silke (herring) silk (herring) silakka (herring)
>
Russian: salaka, seld (herring).
>
> tamsus (dark) tumšs (dark) tume (dark) tumma (dark)
>
Russian: temen (darkness)
>
> teta (aunt) tante (aunt) tädi (aunt) täti (aunt)
>
Russian: tetia, German: Tante
>
> varna (crow) vārna (crow) vares (crow) varis (crow)
>
Russian: vorona
---------------------------------------------------------
Did you once claim that you know both German and Russian better than
I?
Tadas Blinda
>
> Blinda <tadas.bli...@lycos.es> wrote:
>
> <deletions>
>
> > All very well and I hate to quibble about one word, but =97 "non-contact
> > instigated linguistic change is primarily a matter of one sign
> > replacing another as a consequence of random restructuring".
>
> > Is there really such a thing as "random restructuring"?
>
> Good point.
>
> > Everything
> > happens for a reason. For example, phonetic evolution is generally
> > consistent, and when a particular word appears to be "exempted", there
> > is a logical reason for that somehwere.
>
> This is a philosophical problem, specifically the issue of causality vs.
> post facto explanations.
>
> Here are a few examples.
>
> 1. In semi-literate/baby talk English *asparagus* is often pronounced
> *sparrow grass*. We can "explain" this change as being motivated by the
> psychological association between grass and the fact that asparagus is
> tall, thin, and green, somewhat like grass. An opaque word is replaced by
> a composite motivated by a loose association and the desire to make sense
> out of what seems to be nonsense.
>
> 2. In the history of Finnish a process of assibilation has taken place
> whereby ti > si, e.g. (Proto-Baltic) *tiltas > silta 'bridge',
Thanks for your interesting comments above. Re the last para — Google
is a boon to translators and linguists. Just as you did, I often use
the extent of Google hits as a test whether a certain linguistic form
really "exists" in a given language. I must say I am blown away by
the numbers in the case of 68,700 hits for 'redundanter' and 2,470
for
'redundantest' — which I was using as a truly 'random' (;-) example.
There are too many hits to examine. If there were fewer, I would look
at the websites they come from and try to ascertain whether they were
written by native English speakers or not. Particularly when checking
English usage, the latter aspect (whether the item was written by
native English speaker or not) is of crucial importance.
Peteris Cedrins
I agree with Karlamov for a change, loath a I am to do so.
/P
Eugene Holman
<2b302027-fb5d-44c0...@o6g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>, Tadas
Blinda <tadas....@lycos.es> wrote:
> On Jul 2, 3:17=A0pm, hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
<deletions>
> >
> > As far as I can tell, your "proletarianised" is a matter of frequency.
> > That means, of course, that fashion and technological change, which are
> > random in the sense of being unpredictable, could thrust some obscure
> > polysyllabic adjective of classical origin into the spotlight tomorrow,
> > thus making it a candidate for the Germanic method of comparison. By the
> > way, Google gives 68,700 hits for 'redundanter' and 2,470 for
> > 'redundantest', so attempts have been made and attested in writing, even
> > if they have not (yet?) been accepted in the written standard.
>
> Thanks for your interesting comments above. Re the last para =97 Google
> is a boon to translators and linguists. Just as you did, I often use
> the extent of Google hits as a test whether a certain linguistic form
> really "exists" in a given language. I must say I am blown away by
> the numbers in the case of 68,700 hits for 'redundanter' and 2,470
> for
> 'redundantest' =97 which I was using as a truly 'random' (;-) example.
> There are too many hits to examine.
I have to concede that I was, too.
> If there were fewer, I would look
> at the websites they come from and try to ascertain whether they were
> written by native English speakers or not. Particularly when checking
> English usage, the latter aspect (whether the item was written by
> native English speaker or not) is of crucial importance.
Actually, this is one of the research issues, "English as a lingua
franca", that is currently hot stuff at our Department of English at
Helsinki University. English, like Koin� Greek and Latin before it, is in
the unusual position of being a language, the majority of people using
which and producing texts in which, are *not* native speakers. We know
that Koin� Greek as used in the New Testament was a kind of Semiticized
foreigners' Greek with a grammatical structure, lexicon, and semantics
qite different from the Attic Greek of Plato and Aristotle, Similarly,
Latin became the language of a vast empire, used more by second language
speakers than natives of Latium, with linguistic features identified by
Roman rhetoricians as *rusticitas* 'rustic roughness', and *pregrinitas*
'foreigner's mistakes' eventually competing with and establishing
themselves within the norm, ousting features, particularly if they are
arbtrary, irregular, or unsystematic � shibboleths � considered to be
*urbanitas* 'usage characteristic of educated Romans'.
Even native speakers create and play with what Coseriu would have called
"innovative" form such as "reduntanter", "reduntantest". For English there
is no language academy or other bottleneck that has the authority to
prevent them from establishing themselves as forms ousting the established
"more redundant", "most redundant". The Google search reveals that the
battle has already been begun, even if it has not yet been won.
In a more general sense, we have an issue of system vs. the subset of
forms generated by the system that are accepted as norms at a certain
point in time by the subset of users that have traditionally been regarded
as norm-makers. Time works in favor of these innovations establishing
themselves, while it works against the folks at Oxfrd University Press and
other major printing houses being the ones that have the final say in what
is acceptable English.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Peter T. Daniels
> Blinda <tadas.bli...@lycos.es> wrote:
> > Thanks for your interesting comments above. Re the last para =97 Google
> > is a boon to translators and linguists. Just as you did, I often use
> > the extent of Google hits as a test whether a certain linguistic form
> > really "exists" in a given language. I must say I am blown away by
> > the numbers in the case of 68,700 hits for 'redundanter' and 2,470
> > for
> > 'redundantest' =97 which I was using as a truly 'random' (;-) example.
> > There are too many hits to examine.
>
> I have to concede that I was, too.
>
> > If there were fewer, I would look
> > at the websites they come from and try to ascertain whether they were
> > written by native English speakers or not. Particularly when checking
> > English usage, the latter aspect (whether the item was written by
> > native English speaker or not) is of crucial importance.
>
> Actually, this is one of the research issues, "English as a lingua
> franca", that is currently hot stuff at our Department of English at
> Helsinki University. English, like Koiné Greek and Latin before it, is in
> the unusual position of being a language, the majority of people using
> which and producing texts in which, are *not* native speakers. We know
> that Koiné Greek as used in the New Testament was a kind of Semiticized
> foreigners' Greek with a grammatical structure, lexicon, and semantics
> qite different from the Attic Greek of Plato and Aristotle, Similarly,
> Latin became the language of a vast empire, used more by second language
> speakers than natives of Latium, with linguistic features identified by
> Roman rhetoricians as *rusticitas* 'rustic roughness', and *pregrinitas*
> 'foreigner's mistakes' eventually competing with and establishing
> themselves within the norm, ousting features, particularly if they are
> arbtrary, irregular, or unsystematic shibboleths considered to be
> *urbanitas* 'usage characteristic of educated Romans'.
>
> Even native speakers create and play with what Coseriu would have called
> "innovative" form such as "reduntanter", "reduntantest". For English there
> is no language academy or other bottleneck that has the authority to
> prevent them from establishing themselves as forms ousting the established
> "more redundant", "most redundant". The Google search reveals that the
> battle has already been begun, even if it has not yet been won.
Except that -er and -est are not used on adectives of more than two
syllables (other than jocularly). It's a pretty robust rule.
> In a more general sense, we have an issue of system vs. the subset of
> forms generated by the system that are accepted as norms at a certain
> point in time by the subset of users that have traditionally been regarded
> as norm-makers. Time works in favor of these innovations establishing
> themselves, while it works against the folks at Oxfrd University Press and
> other major printing houses being the ones that have the final say in what
> is acceptable English.
It's not the "printing houses" (did you mean publishers?) that have
the final say, it's the admired writers. The most successful writers,
who become the most admired writers, incorporate the innovations of
the spoken language into the standard, written language.
Eugene Holman
<c7c847c2-f61e-402c...@a36g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
<deletions>
>
> It's not the "printing houses" (did you mean publishers?)
The publishers make the decisions, but the printing houses, nowadays often
in Hong Kong, Singapore, Calcutta, or some other place where English is
not native, implement them.
> that have
> the final say, it's the admired writers. The most successful writers,
> who become the most admired writers, incorporate the innovations of
> the spoken language into the standard, written language.
In today's semi-literate (or post-literate) world of soundbytes, texting,
internet, and English as a language used more by non-native speakers than
native speakers, admired and successful writers are not the ones who write
the esthetically best novels, short, stories, and plays. The place where
ad hoc norms are being created is filmscripts, pop song lyrics, talk
radio, txtng (sic), blogs, and newsgroups such as this.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Peter T. Daniels
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> <deletions>
>
>
>
> > It's not the "printing houses" (did you mean publishers?)
>
> The publishers make the decisions, but the printing houses, nowadays often
> in Hong Kong, Singapore, Calcutta, or some other place where English is
> not native, implement them.
So by "printing houses" you meant "typesetting firms"? Typesetting and
printing are separate callings.
> > that have
> > the final say, it's the admired writers. The most successful writers,
> > who become the most admired writers, incorporate the innovations of
> > the spoken language into the standard, written language.
>
> In today's semi-literate (or post-literate) world of soundbytes, texting,
"soundbyte" is a folk etymology. It doesn't refer to computerization.
Christopher Culver
> So by "printing houses" you meant "typesetting firms"? Typesetting and
> printing are separate callings.
With some academic publishers, typesetting and printing is now done by
the same cheap outsourced firm in, just as Prof Holman said, places
like Calcutta.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
Presumably by importing a Word file, not by rekeyboarding.
Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr.
> On Jun 23, 12:20 pm, hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
>
> > When George W. Bush visited Riga in 2005, he was so pleased to see posters
> > such ashttp://globalvoicesonline.org/wp-content/peace_duke.pngåplastered
> > all over thr city that he had himself photographed next to a young lady
> > wearing a tee-shirt with the same image and inscription, e.g.http://www.elcanche.com/weblog/archives/100505.jpg.
>
> > The devilishly ebullient smile on the young lady's face reveals how
> > difficult it is for her to restrain herself over the joke she is polling
> > on the hapless 'peace duke', literally mirnyï gercog but pronounced in
> > Russian [pizdyuk] or "insignificant c*nthead".
>
> > For details, seehttp://www.lowculture.com/archives/2005/05/lost_in_transat.html.
>
> > Regards,
> > Eugene Holman
>
> Is -uk commonly used to form diminutives in Russian?
>
Yes, “-uk”, “-ak”, “-juk”, “-jak”, “-ik”, “-ek”, “-ok” and all other “-
k” suffices are very common in Russian. Only a real “govnhjuk” would
not know that. :-)
>
> If not, it would
> appear that Russian actually borrowed the word from Lithuanian
> pyzdukas.
>
The word “pizda” is a very ancient Russian word and, afaik, it is also
Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr.
Tadas Blinda
"Ad hoc norms"? Interesting terminology.
" ... esthetically best novels" ? Frankly, I prefer the " ...
aesthetically best novels", :-)
But to help prove your point above, -ae- spellings are starting to
recede (internationally, if not in UK & Eire) like polar ice caps. I
suspect that "encyclopaedia" has gone the way of "whom" even in UK &
Eire, and I further suspect that the word/name "Wikipedia" being daily
on evryone's lips (or typing fingers) played no minor role in that
development.
Peter T. Daniels
<ostap_bender_1...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> You would have to give some proof that this word originally came to
> Slavs from Lithuanians, and not vise versa. Or maybe it came from the
> common ancestors of Slavs and Balts?
The fact that Balto-Slavic was a single language at some not terrribly
distant point in prehistory says nothing about any possible
relationships betwen the _peoples_ called "Balts" and "Slavs."
Tadas Blinda
> On Jul 3, 3:43 pm, hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
>
> > In article
> > <c7c847c2-f61e-402c-bfe1-277443cba...@a36g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > <deletions>
>
> > > It's not the "printing houses" (did you mean publishers?)
>
> > The publishers make the decisions, but the printing houses, nowadays often
> > in Hong Kong, Singapore, Calcutta, or some other place where English is
> > not native, implement them.
>
> So by "printing houses" you meant "typesetting firms"? Typesetting and
> printing are separate callings.
PETER T DANIELS = STERILE PEDANT
Mick.
Hoo he??
Tadas Blinda = Lad's a bandit.
Mick.
Mick.
Oh, I get it now. You are John F Kennedy!
Mick.
Eugene Holman
<08fae932-8243-4e13...@y17g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>, Tadas
Blinda <tadas....@lycos.es> wrote:
> On Jul 3, 10:43=A0pm, hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
> > In article
<deletions>
> > In today's semi-literate (or post-literate) world of soundbytes, texting,
> > internet, and English as a language used more by non-native speakers than
> > native speakers, admired and successful writers are not the ones who writ=
> e
> > the esthetically best novels, short, stories, and plays. The place where
> > ad hoc norms are being created is filmscripts, pop song lyrics, talk
> > radio, txtng (sic), blogs, and newsgroups such as this.
>
> "Ad hoc norms"? Interesting terminology.
Ad hoc norms are the essence of spontaneous, spoken language, where you
can use (as is done in some varieties of British English) forms such as
'I/you/we/they works)', but 'he work' � the mirror image of the standard
norm. Thinking of that, have you any idea of how and when Lithuanian lost
the morphological distinction between third person singular and plural in
verb paradigms? Do regional, social, and stylistic variants work in the
same way as the standard?
In Charles Hockett's bitter denunciation of Chomskian linguistics, *The
State of the Art* (1968), he likens the 'rules' of spoken language to a
game that he calls 'sandlot chess': people 'play' it according to implicit
but mutually agreed upon rules, and when an unexpected situation arises it
is resolved on the basis of such factors as real or claimed precedent
('Well, Old Charlie pulled this on me last week and got away with it,
sonit must be oka.y'), prestige, or the desire to allow the situation to
pass unchallanged because there are more important matters to attend to
such as continuing the discourse. A recent trend in historical
linguistics has been to use computerized corpora of texts written in
non-standardized English such as personal letters and court transcripts to
trace the dynamics of the competition between alternatives such as 'thou
art' and 'you are', and 'he hath' vs. 'he has' in Early Modern English.
The system allows both forms, but at any given time only one is regarded
as standard usage until its rival is, sometimes suddenly, sometimes
gradually, regarded as archaic, provincial, or simply wrong. Consider, for
example, American *dove* beside British *dived* or the different
distributions of irregular vs regular past tense/participle forms in
American and British for verbs such as *dream*, *spell*, and *fit*.
> " ... esthetically best novels" ? Frankly, I prefer the " ...
> aesthetically best novels", :-)
I was educated in the United States, where the e- forms have been the norm
for more than a century: esthetic, hemoglobin, medieval, etc. On the other
hand, the attempt by the Chicago Tribune to establish forms such as
'altho' and 'thru' never made it, despite a decades-long effort by the
newspaper, as standard forms, even though they are widely used in American
advertising ('Buy Rite', 'Hi-Fi') and street signs ('NO THRU TRAFFIC').
> But to help prove your point above, -ae- spellings are starting to
> recede (internationally, if not in UK & Eire) like polar ice caps.
A letter saved is a latter earned :-) It is claimed that when Russian
orthography was reformed after the Bolshevik Revolution, with the
superfluous word-final 'hard sign' ('tv�rdy� znak') deleted after
non-palatalized consonants, Tolstoy's novel *War and Peace* became
forty-four pages shorter. Think of the amount of ink and paper saved!
> I suspect that "encyclopaedia" has gone the way of "whom" even in UK &
> Eire, and I further suspect that the word/name "Wikipedia" being daily
> on evryone's lips (or typing fingers) played no minor role in that
> development.
I agree, although the -e forms, paticularly 'medieval', have been
gradually establishing themselves in British usage for quite a while.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr.
Absolutely nothing, eh? :-)
Ancient European peoples, who spoke the same language, were not
related to each other? How come they spoke the same language? By
"divine co-incidence"?
Are you sharing the Balt nationalist theory that Prussians, Latvians
and Lithuanians were Volga Finn peoples, later captured and
assimilated by Indo-European Slavs?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balts
Around 4,000-3,000 B.C. the area of Eastern Baltic experienced an
influx of Finno-Ugrian peoples and Comb Ceramic culture. They
inhabited area stretching from northern Finland to Central parts of
modern-day Lithuania.
The Y-chromosomal data has revealed a common Finno-Ugric ancestry for
the males of Finnic peoples and Baltic peoples. According to the
studies, Baltic males are most closely related to the Finno-Ugric-
speaking Volga Finns such as the Mari, rather than to Baltic Finns.[9]
The indicator of Finno-Ugric origin has been found to be more frequent
in Latvians (42%) and Lithuanians (43%) than in Estonians (34%). The
results suggest that the territories of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
have been settled by Finno-Ugric-speaking tribes since the early
Mesolithic period.[10]
They were waring with Slavs, and perhaps, were defeated and
assimilated some time in 11-13 centuries.
Summary of Baltic peoples and tribes
Eastern Balts
Eastern Galindians - Moscow region
Dniepr Balts - Dnieper basin
/////////////////////////////////////
So, when exactly did the Balts and Slavs speak the same language and
when exactly did the languages start to diverge? After the 13th
century? Then how come Balt languages diverged much further from
Slavic languges than did Polish from Russian, even though the latter
diverged much earlier?
I know Balt nationalists want to deny any relationship to other modern
Europeans, but these Volga Finn theories make no sense from the
linguistic history point of view.
Tadas Blinda
<ostap_bender_1...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> So, when exactly did the Balts and Slavs speak the same language
When they both spoke PIE.
> When exactly did the languages start to diverge?
The moment that PIE started to fragment into various groups. Some
linguists postulate that one of the groups at an early stage of PIE
fragmentation spoke a language that is the common ancestor not only of
Balts and Slavs, but also of the Germanic people. According to those
scholars, this language group split at a fairly early stage into a
Proto-Germanic group and a Proto-Baltic/Slavic group (don't ask me for
dates). Then the Proto-Baltic/Slavic group, if you accept this school
of thought, split into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic (again I don't
know when, presumably still BC).
> I know Balt nationalists want to deny any relationship to other modern
> Europeans
Where did you get that nonsense? You won't find a Lithuanian anywhere
who does anything other than revel in our language's membership of the
PIE family, especially since our language is the best preserved
specimen of a PIE descendant. ("Sterile Pedant" can butt out.)
Tadas Blinda
> Ad hoc norms are the essence of spontaneous, spoken language, where you
> can use (as is done in some varieties of British English) forms such as
> 'I/you/we/they works)', but 'he work' the mirror image of the standard
> norm. Thinking of that, have you any idea of how and when Lithuanian lost
> the morphological distinction between third person singular and plural in
> verb paradigms? Do regional, social, and stylistic variants work in the
> same way as the standard?
It must have been at a very early stage, because there does not appear
to be any trace of it either in the oldest texts nor in any regional
dialects or fossilised expressions. Especially when I was studying
Spanish, with its él trabaja / ellos trabajan distinction, I did
wonder a few times whether Lithuanian ever had jis dirba / jie
*dirban ; but I have never heard any mention of such a possibility.
Does Finnish have distinct third person singular and plural endings
for verbs? I have read – and it would be interesting to hear whether
you confirm or deny it – that the "k" in Lithuanian imperatives comes
from Finno-Ugric:
dirbti trabajar to work
dirbk! ¡trabaja! Work! (you – singular)
dirbkite! ¡trabajad! Work! (you – plural)
dirbkime! ¡trabajemos! Let us work! (1st person plural)
(I believe the earlier form of dirbk! was dirbki!)
Latvian doesn' have this: cf. ei! / eik! ; darî! / daryk!
Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr.
Then what moron wrote the Wiki Balts article, the quotes from which
you deleted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balts
Around 4,000-3,000 B.C. the area of Eastern Baltic experienced an
influx of Finno-Ugrian peoples and Comb Ceramic culture. They
inhabited area stretching from northern Finland to Central parts of
modern-day Lithuania.
The Y-chromosomal data has revealed a common Finno-Ugric ancestry for
the males of Finnic peoples and Baltic peoples. According to the
studies, Baltic males are most closely related to the Finno-Ugric-
speaking Volga Finns such as the Mari, rather than to Baltic Finns.
[9]
The indicator of Finno-Ugric origin has been found to be more
frequent
in Latvians (42%) and Lithuanians (43%) than in Estonians (34%). The
results suggest that the territories of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
have been settled by Finno-Ugric-speaking tribes since the early
Mesolithic period.[10]
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Tadas Blinda
Well, I guess what the author of the Wiki Balts articleis saying that
(whatever people may or may not have been in the area before them),
"Around 4,000-3,000 B.C. the area of Eastern Baltic experienced an
influx of Finno-Ugrian peoples and Comb Ceramic culture." H'es
telling when he thinks the F-Us first got there. Of course there were
no Balts there yet. From memory, the Balts only started to arrive
around 1500 BC.
It's well known that most of Belarus was settled by Balts before the
Slavs started to move in, and it is believed that some of the features
of the belaruski jezyk are due to the influence of the Baltic
substratum. If you have heard Russian being spoken with a Lithuanian
accent; thta, so I have read, is a bit what belaruski sounds like.
There are also some influences in vocab, syntax, and use of certain
expressions.
Especially when I was younger, I remember that Latvians seemed to me
like mutant Lithuanians, and to a certain extent, ditto the belaruski
(taking into account not just language but the appearance of the
people and cultural factors such as the appearance of the villages and
farms. And of course their landscape and natural environment
(forests, meadows, lakes, creeks) are very similar.
P.S. I think I just noticed a Lithuanianism in my English, or at
least the syntax or punctuation thereof. Instead of "forests,
meadows, lakes, creeks", I'm sure most moniolingual English speakers
would write "forests, meadows, lakes AND creeks".
Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr.
What about the Y-chromosome data and analysis in that Wiki article? it
claims that Latvians and Lithuanians are more Finno-Estonian than
Estonians themselves.
Tadas Blinda
<ostap_bender_1...@hotmail.com> wrote:
I found that rather surprising. First I wonder whether the author has
his facts right. If he does, then I'm not sure how to interpret
this. Maybe it means that the Estonians had a lot of influence (gene
input) from IE-speaking people (maybe Germanic Scandinavians?) from a
quite early stage.
Eugene Holman
<2ef29f6c-c30e-47c8...@c9g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>, Tadas
Blinda <tadas....@lycos.es> wrote:
> On Jul 4, 7:05=A0am, hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
>
<deletions>
> > Thinking of that, have you any idea of how and when Lithuanian lost
> > the morphological distinction between third person singular and plural in
> > verb paradigms? Do regional, social, and stylistic variants work in the
> > same way as the standard?
>
> It must have been at a very early stage, because there does not appear
> to be any trace of it either in the oldest texts nor in any regional
> dialects or fossilised expressions. Especially when I was studying
> Spanish, with its =E9l trabaja / ellos trabajan distinction, I did
> wonder a few times whether Lithuanian ever had jis dirba / jie
> *dirban
Or *dirbanti (?)
> ; but I have never heard any mention of such a possibility.
> Does Finnish have distinct third person singular and plural endings
> for verbs?
Standard Finnish does:
lintu laulaa 'the bird sings' linnud laulavat 'the birds sing'
lintu lauloi 'the bird sang' linnud lauloivat 'the birds sang'
Most regional dialects and Helsinki colloquial do not:
lintu laulaa 'the bird sings' linnut laulaa 'the birds sing'
lintu laulo 'the bird sang' linnud laulo 'the birds sang'
Standard Estonian has a halfway-house tpe of solution, with -vad (cf.
Finnish -vat) as the ending in the present, but -sid in the past tense:
lind laulab 'the bird sings' linnud laulavad 'the birds sing'
lind laulas 'the bird sang' linnud laulasid 'the birds sang'
Language historians say that this feature of Estonian reflects older
usage: the -vat/-vad ending was iriginally a present (or 'non-past') tense
marker that has been generalized by analogy in Finnish. Note, too, that
Finnish laulaa has developed from an older (and still attested in
dialects) laulavi < *laulapi, cf. Estonian laulab.
> I have read =96 and it would be interesting to hear whether
> you confirm or deny it =96 that the "k" in Lithuanian imperatives comes
> from Finno-Ugric:
>
> dirbti trabajar to work
> dirbk! =A1trabaja! Work! (you =96 singular)
> dirbkite! =A1trabajad! Work! (you =96 plural)
> dirbkime! =A1trabajemos! Let us work! (1st person plural)
I cant say if it dos or doesn't, but -k- is a very important element in
Finnic imperatives:
Imperative system of the verb *laulaa* 'to sing'
sg. pl.
1. ---- laulakaamme
2. laula (*laulak) laulakaa
3. laulakoon laulakoot
The second person singular form is of particular interest, since the -k-
is no longer pronounced when the form is pronounced in isolation, *laula*
['laula], but shows up as lengthening of the following sound if followed
by a consonant, *laula se* ['laulas se] 'sing it', *laula n�m�* ['laulan
n�m�] 'sing these'. It also closes a final syllable thus triggering
consonant gradation, a lenition process, in verbs having a stem with
gradating intersyllabic consobantism:
Imperative system of the verb *lukea* 'to read' (k > 0, qualitative gradation):
sg. pl.
1. ---- lukekaamme
2. lue (*luek) lukekaa
3. lukekoon lukekoot
*lue se* ['lues se] 'read it'
Imperative system of the verb *ottaa* 'to take' (k > 0, quantitative gradation):
sg. pl.
1. ---- ottakaamme
2. ota (*otak) ottakaa
3. ottakoon ottakoot
*ota se* ['otas se] 'take it'
> (I believe the earlier form of dirbk! was dirbki!)
>
> Latvian doesn' have this: cf. ei! / eik! ; dar=EE! / daryk!
The scenario of an imperative morpheme going from a low-status language to
a higher-status one, this being the sociolinguistic relationship between
foraging Finnic speakers and agriculturalist Baltic speakers when the
latter appeared on the scene, seems unlikely, but not inconceivable.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Eugene Holman
<68406ba2-ee68-4176...@b9g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>, Tadas
Blinda <tadas....@lycos.es> wrote:
> On Jul 4, 8:32=A0am, "Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr."
Contacts between the pre-Estonians, called here Finnic speakers, and
Germanic-speaking peoples begin during the last centuries of the first
pre-Christian millennium. Archeological evidence reveals an eastward
expansion of (East) Germanic speakers moving eastward after establishing
beachheads on the Estonian islands of Hiiumaa and Saaremaa. It appears to
be a consequence of an expansion of the North-Germanic speaking Svear into
the area of south-eastern Sweden inhabited by the "Goths", as indicated by
placenames such as G�taland and Gotland. The historical Goths, more
specfically the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, evolved out of the people who
crossed the Baltic, establishing a beachhead near the mouth of the
Vistula, cf. Polish placenames with gd-, such as Gdansk and Gdynia. There
was, however, also an expansion of East-Germanic speakers to the two
aforementioned large Estonian islands as well as along the shores of the
Gulf of Finland to the mouth of the Neva, already well known to
East-Germanic speakers as a trade route.
The linguistic result of all this is that Estonian, and its nortern
offshoot Finnish, have several dozen Germanic loanwords, many of them
phonologically both archaic and East Germanic. Here are a few examples,
with examples from Finnish, since Finnish phonologicall more conservative
than Estonian:
1. �iti 'mother, cf. Visigothic aithei 'mother'. The word for 'mother' in
the other Germanic languages derives from the same Indo-European root that
gives 'mother', Latin 'mater', German 'Mutter', etc. The Visigothic word
reflects the fact that ancient German culture developed a parallel set of
kinship terms reflecting legal obligations rather than family structure,
cf. German *Eidam* and *Tochtermann* 'son-in-law', with *Eidam* deriving
from the same root as *Eid* 'oath'. Presumably, the Indo-European root for
mother was used in some varieties of early Germanic to designate a woman
who had given birth, but a derivative based on the rot meaning 'oath'
designated a woman who had been able to have the father of her child swear
an oath that the child would be his heir, an important social guarantee in
such a warlike culture. The mater- rot is unattested in Visigothic, aithei
having taken over its meaning and function.
2. ruhtinas 'prince', cf. Old English dryhten 'lord' < PGmc *druxtinaz,
with a feminine suffix Swedish drottning 'queen'. Finnic does not allow
word initial consonant clusters, hence *dr > r, otherwise the word has
been preserved virtually perfectly. Similarly archaic is kuningas 'king' <
*kuningaz, cf. Visigothic kuniggs 'king' <gg> = /N/ ('eng').
3. kaunis 'beautiful', cf. Visigothic skauns, skaunei- 'beautiful', cf.
Swedish sk�n, Geran sch�n, English sheen. This is one of several
evaluative adjectives borrowed by Finnic from early Germani, cf. viisas
'wise', rikas 'rich', hurskas 'pious'.
4. mitata 'to measure', cf. Gothic mitan 'to measure'. The -i- in the root
syllable seems to indicate East Germanic origin, cf. Old High German
mezzan to measure'.
5. patja 'mattress', < *badja > Visigothic badi 'bed, couch', Old English
bedd 'bed', German Bett 'bed', Swedish b�dd 'bed'. Finnish retains the
full second syllable, which shows up phonologically reduced in Visigothic.
Additionally, the stem vowel of the Finnish and Gothic words is
unmodified, while the high front sound that triggered umlaut in the other
Germanic languages and was then lost, is present.
6. ja 'and', cf. Visigothic jah 'and'. Finno-Ugric tended to combine
phrases by means other than conjunctions, e.g. mies vaimoineen 'the man
and his wife, lit. man wife-with-his', sy�n seison 'I am eating and
standing, lit. I am eating standingly'.
7. lammas 'sheep', cf. Visigothic lamb 'sheep'. This Germanic root
designates the offspring of the adult animal in West and North Germanic,
Old English lamb, Old High German lamb, Old Norse lamb. Note that in
Gutnish, the Swedish dialect of Gotland (with an East Germanic
substratum), lamb means 'sheep', as in Visigothic and Finnic.
8. kihla '(originally 'collateral'), now 'engagement', as in kihlasormus
'engagement ring, olla kihloissa 'to be engaged' < *gizla(z), cf.
Visigothic geisls 'hostage', German Geisel 'hostage'.
This is but a small sample of the abundance of material from Early
Germanic, specifically Early East Germanic, in Finnic. It is quite
consistent with the hypothesis that the Estonians had a major gene input
from Indo-European-speaking people, initially speakers of early East
Germanic, continuing�as early, middle, and modern Scandinavian, from a
stage so early that the phonological form of many Finnic borrowings is
older than that of any attested borrowing and, in many cases, coincides
perfectly with the results achieved independently by comparative
reconstruction.
For more on this topic, see http://koti.welho.com/jschalin/.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
J. Anderson
"Eugene Holman" <hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
news:holman-0407...@ke-hupnet91-26.hupnet.helsinki.fi...
> In article
> <2ef29f6c-c30e-47c8...@c9g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>, Tadas
> Blinda <tadas....@lycos.es> wrote:
>> Does Finnish have distinct third person singular and plural endings
>> for verbs?
> Standard Finnish does:
> lintu laulaa 'the bird sings' linnud laulavat 'the birds sing'
> lintu lauloi 'the bird sang' linnud lauloivat 'the birds sang'
Admittedly this is soc.culture.baltics, but here on the northern shores of
Soome Laht the plural form of lintu is linnut, not linnud ;-)
Joachim Pense
That's not true. One relationship is that both speak Balto-Slavic languages.
Joachim
Eugene Holman
<ander...@inbox.lv> wrote:
Yikes! Thanks,
Red facedly,
Eugene Holman
Peter T. Daniels
<ostap_bender_1...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 3, 8:06 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > On Jul 3, 10:59 pm, "Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr."
>
> > <ostap_bender_1...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > You would have to give some proof that this word originally came to
> > > Slavs from Lithuanians, and not vise versa. Or maybe it came from the
> > > common ancestors of Slavs and Balts?
>
> > The fact that Balto-Slavic was a single language at some not terrribly
> > distant point in prehistory says nothing about any possible
> > relationships betwen the _peoples_ called "Balts" and "Slavs."
>
> Absolutely nothing, eh? :-)
>
> Ancient European peoples, who spoke the same language, were not
> related to each other? How come they spoke the same language? By
> "divine co-incidence"?
There are quite a few ways for what linguists call "language
replacement" to take place.
The most familiar in the modern world is the simple fact that African
Americans speak varieties of English, not varieties of any languages
of Africa. Do you understand how that came about?
> Are you sharing the Balt nationalist theory that Prussians, Latvians
> and Lithuanians were Volga Finn peoples, later captured and
> assimilated by Indo-European Slavs?
Nope, I know nothing whatsoever about the history of Baltic peoples. I
know only that speaking similar languages does not constitute
evidence, let alone proof, of common genetic ancestry.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balts
A recent, very detailed study of genetic markers from more than a
hundred populations in Africa shows that there is little correlation
between genetic relationships of the populations and historical
relationships between their languages -- indeed, comparing the genetic
and linguistic family trees allows hypotheses about the nature and
timing of the migration of populations. It's in *Science* 22 May 2009.
Peter T. Daniels
> On Jul 4, 7:16 am, "Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr."
> <ostap_bender_1...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > So, when exactly did the Balts and Slavs speak the same language
>
> When they both spoke PIE.
>
> > When exactly did the languages start to diverge?
>
> The moment that PIE started to fragment into various groups. Some
> linguists postulate that one of the groups at an early stage of PIE
> fragmentation spoke a language that is the common ancestor not only of
> Balts and Slavs, but also of the Germanic people.
Languages are not ancestors of people.
> According to those
> scholars, this language group split at a fairly early stage into a
> Proto-Germanic group and a Proto-Baltic/Slavic group (don't ask me for
> dates). Then the Proto-Baltic/Slavic group, if you accept this school
> of thought, split into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic (again I don't
> know when, presumably still BC).
The great similarity between the Baltic and the Slavic languages
suggests that the date of the split is later rather than earlier, but
since we have no records of languages of either group until abouit
five and ten centuries ago respectively, we really can't tell.
Languages don't change at uniform, standard rates.
> > I know Balt nationalists want to deny any relationship to other modern
> > Europeans
>
> Where did you get that nonsense? You won't find a Lithuanian anywhere
> who does anything other than revel in our language's membership of the
> PIE family, especially since our language is the best preserved
> specimen of a PIE descendant.
I've asked several Balticists what, exactly, chauvinistic Lithuanians
mean when they claim that Lithuanian is the "most conservative" or
"most like PIE" IE language, and they have no answer.
Peter T. Daniels
Hockett was writing before the development of (quantitative)
sociolinguistics. We have a far better understanding of the mechanisms
of language change now than we did forty years ago.
anal...@hotmail.com
They call it "the living Sanskrit". Since its similarity to Sanskrit
can be objectively measured, thats considered evidence for simliarity
to the mythical "PIE" beast.
Peter T. Daniels
Who do? and what is your "objective measure" for language similarity?
If you made such a thing available to linguists, you would go down in
history alongside Bloomfield, Sapir, and Jakobson.
Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr.
> On Jul 4, 12:16 am, "Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr."
>
>
>
>
>
> <ostap_bender_1...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > On Jul 3, 8:06 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > On Jul 3, 10:59 pm, "Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr."
>
> > > <ostap_bender_1...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > > You would have to give some proof that this word originally came to
> > > > Slavs from Lithuanians, and not vise versa. Or maybe it came from the
> > > > common ancestors of Slavs and Balts?
>
> > > The fact that Balto-Slavic was a single language at some not terrribly
> > > distant point in prehistory says nothing about any possible
> > > relationships betwen the _peoples_ called "Balts" and "Slavs."
>
> > Absolutely nothing, eh? :-)
>
> > Ancient European peoples, who spoke the same language, were not
> > related to each other? How come they spoke the same language? By
> > "divine co-incidence"?
>
> There are quite a few ways for what linguists call "language
> replacement" to take place.
>
> The most familiar in the modern world is the simple fact that African
> Americans speak varieties of English, not varieties of any languages
> of Africa. Do you understand how that came about?
>
Of course. But African-Americans speak pretty much the same English as
all other Americans. But Latvians and Lithuanians speak languages that
are very different from Slavic in every respect, except for similarity
in many word roots.
If, as you admit, Slavs and Balts spoke the same language at some
point, the dissimilarity in these languages tell us that the time when
they stopped speaking the same language was many millenia ago, at leat
5, imho.
Do you see where I am driving at?
>
> > Are you sharing the Balt nationalist theory that Prussians, Latvians
> > and Lithuanians were Volga Finn peoples, later captured and
> > assimilated by Indo-European Slavs?
>
> Nope, I know nothing whatsoever about the history of Baltic peoples. I
> know only that speaking similar languages does not constitute
> evidence, let alone proof, of common genetic ancestry.
>
>
> > > The fact that Balto-Slavic was a single language at some not terrribly
> > > distant point in prehistory says nothing about any possible
> > > relationships betwen the _peoples_ called "Balts" and "Slavs."
>
Wrong. As a probability expert, I asure you that on Planet Earth,
linguistic and ethnic/historical similarites are highly correlated,
despite some exceptions of the enslaver/slave, conquerer/conquered and
occuppier/occuppied kind (like the fact that the Irish, Scottish and
Welch now speak English). The correlation is not exactly equal to 1,
but in the absence of any evidence that Slavs enslaved Balts 5 000
years ago or vise versa - common ethnic origin is a very good
assumption.
Of course, since then, both Slavs and Balts got a great amount of add-
mixture of various Finno-Ugric groups, who were indeed assimilated
into the Balt and Russian cultures and languages and lost their own
language.
Peter T. Daniels
I don't have the impression that you're prepared to speak of "every
respect" of language structure. Can you list, for example, the sound
changes that the two groups underwent independent of each other? Can
you say how the two groups resemble other IE families with respect to
this or that ancestral feature more closely than they resemble each
other?
"Word roots" are a useful tool for where to look for more substantive
connections between languages, but words are very easily borrowed.
> If, as you admit, Slavs and Balts spoke the same language at some
> point, the dissimilarity in these languages tell us that the time when
> they stopped speaking the same language was many millenia ago, at leat
> 5, imho.
>
> Do you see where I am driving at?
I see that you have vastly overestimated the differences between
Baltic and Slavic languages.
> > > Are you sharing the Balt nationalist theory that Prussians, Latvians
> > > and Lithuanians were Volga Finn peoples, later captured and
> > > assimilated by Indo-European Slavs?
>
> > Nope, I know nothing whatsoever about the history of Baltic peoples. I
> > know only that speaking similar languages does not constitute
> > evidence, let alone proof, of common genetic ancestry.
>
> > > > The fact that Balto-Slavic was a single language at some not terrribly
> > > > distant point in prehistory says nothing about any possible
> > > > relationships betwen the _peoples_ called "Balts" and "Slavs."
>
> Wrong. As a probability expert, I asure you that on Planet Earth,
> linguistic and ethnic/historical similarites are highly correlated,
You say that "as a probability expert," without consulting the _facts_
about genetic and linguistic relationshps? Have a look at the
*Science* article I mentioned.
> despite some exceptions of the enslaver/slave, conquerer/conquered and
> occuppier/occuppied kind (like the fact that the Irish, Scottish and
> Welch now speak English). The correlation is not exactly equal to 1,
> but in the absence of any evidence that Slavs enslaved Balts 5 000
> years ago or vise versa - common ethnic origin is a very good
> assumption.
Linguistic similarity is neither evidence nor proof of genetic
relationship. It is on a very macro level suggestive of what to look
for.
> Of course, since then, both Slavs and Balts got a great amount of add-
> mixture of various Finno-Ugric groups, who were indeed assimilated
> into the Balt and Russian cultures and languages and lost their own
> language.-
PaulJK
> On Jul 4, 12:31 am, Tadas Blinda <tadas.bli...@lycos.es> wrote:
>> On Jul 4, 7:16 am, "Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr."
>> <ostap_bender_1...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> So, when exactly did the Balts and Slavs speak the same language
>>
>> When they both spoke PIE.
>>
>>> When exactly did the languages start to diverge?
>>
>> The moment that PIE started to fragment into various groups. Some
>> linguists postulate that one of the groups at an early stage of PIE
>> fragmentation spoke a language that is the common ancestor not only of
>> Balts and Slavs, but also of the Germanic people.
>
> Languages are not ancestors of people.
>
>> According to those
>> scholars, this language group split at a fairly early stage into a
>> Proto-Germanic group and a Proto-Baltic/Slavic group (don't ask me for
>> dates). Then the Proto-Baltic/Slavic group, if you accept this school
>> of thought, split into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic (again I don't
>> know when, presumably still BC).
>
> The great similarity between the Baltic and the Slavic languages
> suggests that the date of the split is later rather than earlier, but
> since we have no records of languages of either group until abouit
> five and ten centuries ago respectively, we really can't tell.
> Languages don't change at uniform, standard rates.
Henning Andersen deals specifically with the relationship between
Baltic and Slavic languages in the Routledge's The Indo-European
Languages. He suggests that a continuum was established, probably,
in the second millennium BC, and which during the subsequent
two thousand years developed a mosaic of internal isoglossies,
formed in periods of gradual differentiation and presumably shifted
and levelled in intermittent periods of convergence.
Stang (1964) has demonstrated that West Baltic and East Baltic do
not provide the basis for reconstructing a single Baltic proto-language,
and that Slavic bears very different relations to West Baltic and
to East Baltic. From this it follows that Slavic and three attested
Baltic languages should be understood as the sole surviving,
originally discontinuous, fragments of a former Slavic-Baltic dialect
continuum.
pjk
PaulJK
Even the most superficial observer notices, amongst other things,
striking morphological similarities in the case declension system.
They hint of even tighter relationship between these two groups
than, as Ostap suggests, some similarities in many word roots
would do.
pjk
Tadas Blinda
> Henning Andersen deals specifically with the relationship between
> Baltic and Slavic languages in the Routledge's The Indo-European
> Languages. He suggests that a continuum was established, probably,
> in the second millennium BC, and which during the subsequent
> two thousand years developed a mosaic of internal isoglossies,
> formed in periods of gradual differentiation and presumably shifted
> and levelled in intermittent periods of convergence.
>
> Stang (1964) has demonstrated that West Baltic and East Baltic do
> not provide the basis for reconstructing a single Baltic proto-language,
> and that Slavic bears very different relations to West Baltic and
> to East Baltic. From this it follows that Slavic and three attested
> Baltic languages should be understood as the sole surviving,
> originally discontinuous, fragments of a former Slavic-Baltic dialect
> continuum.
That is indeed interesting.
> >> You won't find a Lithuanian anywhere
> >> who does anything other than revel in our language's membership of the
> >> PIE family, especially since our language is the best preserved
> >> specimen of a PIE descendant.
>
> > I've asked several Balticists what, exactly, Lithuanians
> > mean when they claim that Lithuanian is the "most conservative" or
> > "most like PIE" IE language, and they have no answer.
Oh yes they do, and I have posted it on sci.lang more than once. For
starters, Lithuanian is the only IE language to preserve mobile pitch
stress. in a complete way (i.e. every word has it, and pitch is
phonemic). Lithuanian morphology is the richest of all the surviving
IE languages. I have posted several more other points on sci.lang in
the past.
John Atkinson
> On Jul 4, 8:33 am, analys...@hotmail.com wrote:
>> On Jul 4, 8:01 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>> On Jul 4, 12:31 am, Tadas Blinda <tadas.bli...@lycos.es> wrote:
>>>> On Jul 4, 7:16 am, "Ostap S. B. M. Bender Jr."
>>>> <ostap_bender_1...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
[...]
>>>>> I know Balt nationalists want to deny any relationship to other
>>>>> modern Europeans
>>
>>>> Where did you get that nonsense? You won't find a Lithuanian
>>>> anywhere who does anything other than revel in our language's
>>>> membership of the PIE family, especially since our language is the
>>>> best preserved specimen of a PIE descendant.
>>
>>> I've asked several Balticists what, exactly, chauvinistic
>>> Lithuanians mean when they claim that Lithuanian is the "most
>>> conservative" or "most like PIE" IE language, and they have no
>>> answer.
>>
>> They call it "the living Sanskrit". Since its similarity to Sanskrit
>> can be objectively measured, thats considered evidence for simliarity
>> to the mythical "PIE" beast.-
If they say that, they're wrong. Lithuanian _noun_ declensions are indeed
conservative, and thus the "closest" (with Sanskrit) of any language we know
to PIE. However the Lithuanian _verb_ tense system has changed quite a lot
from PIE, and works rather differently from Sanskrit too. Lithuanian is not
all that conservative in some other respects either.
> Who do? and what is your "objective measure" for language similarity?
> If you made such a thing available to linguists, you would go down in
> history alongside Bloomfield, Sapir, and Jakobson.
John.
Peter T. Daniels
Oh, no they don't. Show me one recognized professional Balticist (and
there aren't that many in the world) who will defend such a statement.
> and I have posted it on sci.lang more than once. For
> starters, Lithuanian is the only IE language to preserve mobile pitch
What do you mean, "preserve"?
> stress. in a complete way (i.e. every word has it, and pitch is
> phonemic).
The _existence_ of phonemes of "mobile pitch stress" is a typological
feature.
> Lithuanian morphology is the richest of all the surviving
> IE languages. I have posted several more other points on sci.lang in
> the past.
"Richness of morphology" is not evidence of preserving antiquity.