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Post by jean on Jan 6, 2011 18:20:26 GMT
You never said they inserted other letters beside 't'!
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Post by Weyland on Jan 6, 2011 18:33:50 GMT
You never said they inserted other letters beside 't'! You didn't ask.
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Post by aubrey on Jan 8, 2011 10:42:28 GMT
Is that formal and informal thing in some languages (or that Tu and whatever it is thing) a source of much anguish for people who don't know which to use? Or does it just come naturally (in the way that English people know who they can call an old bugger and who they can't)?
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Post by Weyland on Jan 8, 2011 13:00:44 GMT
Is that formal and informal thing in some languages (or that Tu and whatever it is thing) a source of much anguish for people who don't know which to use? Or does it just come naturally (in the way that English people know who they can call an old bugger and who they can't)? Seems to just come naturally, like noun genders in languages that have them. And tense forms of irregular verbs (English has plenty of those -- often the same ones other Germanic languages have). Not necessarily that easy for non-native speakers, but in Dutch at least it doesn't seem to matter a helluva lot. I realised I was finally getting the hang of it when I started noticing Dutch people making mistakes. Things just start to sound wrong. But then I'm a career nitpicker in English as well. Noun gender can be very meaningful sometimes*: de blik (common (m)) -- blink, glance het blik (neuter) -- tin can, container [ kip in blik -- police car (literally canned chicken)] (The form of the definite article is the same for m and f, hence common.) (Indefinite article is the same for all nouns -- een.) [/ramble] _______________ * QUIET at the back there!
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Post by everso on Jan 8, 2011 14:17:04 GMT
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Post by Weyland on Jan 8, 2011 14:42:16 GMT
If you're reacting to the thing about Dutch, Ev, it's just as well it wasn't Deutsch. Your Hunspeak has three noun genders and several cases. Dutch has two genders and a case system as simple as English. I'm trying to get Riot to tell us about Serbo-Croat. [Finnish has fifteen (15) cases. Moto will tell us all about gender.]
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Post by everso on Jan 8, 2011 16:04:32 GMT
If you're reacting to the thing about Dutch, Ev, it's just as well it wasn't Deutsch. Your Hunspeak has three noun genders and several cases. Dutch has two genders and a case system as simple as English. I'm trying to get Riot to tell us about Serbo-Croat. [Finnish has fifteen (15) cases. Moto will tell us all about gender.] I did German at school for 2 years. The nominative, accusative, genitive and dative did me in - at 12 I didn't know what they meant (and I still don't). Der die das, den die das, dem der dem, des der des. Ye gods. What ever is the matter with the Germans? Why would anybody bother having more than one definite article? What's the point?
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Post by Weyland on Jan 8, 2011 16:21:08 GMT
What ever is the matter with the Germans? Why would anybody bother having more than one definite article? What's the point? Precision. That'll be why I particularly like German, difficult though it is. I'm an engineer/programmer. We like precision, give or take a case or two. I guess English is one of the few Indo-European languages without much in the way of gender and case complications. Jean will know. I'm no linguistics expert, but languages -- natural and machine -- fascinate me. Always have. English, Latin, Assembler, COBOL, Dutch, C, ReXX, SGML, HTML, German, unameit. And fonts.
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Post by everso on Jan 8, 2011 17:05:43 GMT
Yes, but how in the first place did some languages develop in such a complicated way? English is the best! For all that it's not very easy on the spelling side, at least you only have to learn one "the".
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Post by Weyland on Jan 8, 2011 17:22:30 GMT
Yes, but how in the first place did some languages develop in such a complicated way? Ye Olde English -- Anglo-Saxon -- did have those complications. And then it got Vikingised, Normanised, Americanised, and the rest. It's actually amazing that English turned out as well as she did. Could have been worse -- could have been <shudder> privatised. Blair did his best to drag it down into the gutter, but we are made of sterner stuff, inni' y'know. I agree. Aber vive les différences, mevrouw, hinny!
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Post by everso on Jan 8, 2011 18:24:22 GMT
What annoys me though is that when I go to Germany or Italy or wherever, I can't understand what they're damn well saying, but you can bet the crafty foreigners can understand me.
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Post by jean on Jan 8, 2011 18:43:35 GMT
Yes, but how in the first place did some languages develop in such a complicated way? Ye Olde English -- Anglo-Saxon -- did have those complications. It's a fascinating question and Weyland's is only a partial answer. I don't think anyone knows how languages developed such complicated inflectional systems, which they then proceeded to lose at varying rates. Something happened between the (presumed) initial stage of grunts and the complex systems athat are the earliest we know, but we have no evidence. We can observe languages becoming simpler, but we have no record of that earlier stage when they became more complex.
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Post by Weyland on Jan 8, 2011 18:53:32 GMT
It's a fascinating question and Weyland's is only a partial answer. How true. My excuse is that I simply don't have a complete answer. (Unless we're talking about machine languages, of course, such as consultant-speak.)
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Post by aubrey on Jan 8, 2011 20:10:36 GMT
What annoys me though is that when I go to Germany or Italy or wherever, I can't understand what they're damn well saying, but you can bet the crafty foreigners can understand me. And they all speak English when we're not around.
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Post by Weyland on Jan 8, 2011 21:05:58 GMT
What annoys me though is that when I go to Germany or Italy or wherever, I can't understand what they're damn well saying, but you can bet the crafty foreigners can understand me. And they all speak English when we're not around. Except Americans.
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Post by riotgrrl on Jan 8, 2011 21:40:05 GMT
What ever is the matter with the Germans? Why would anybody bother having more than one definite article? What's the point? Precision. That'll be why I particularly like German, difficult though it is. I'm an engineer/programmer. We like precision, give or take a case or two. I guess English is one of the few Indo-European languages without much in the way of gender and case complications. Jean will know. I'm no linguistics expert, but languages -- natural and machine -- fascinate me. Always have. English, Latin, Assembler, COBOL, Dutch, C, ReXX, SGML, HTML, German, unameit. And fonts. I think that both French and German should be updated and we should do away with the le/la der/die/das distinctions (like what we do with bloody good old English.) (And probably in serbocroat too.) Did you know the french for vagina is LE vagin. Now why is that masculine?
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Post by jean on Jan 8, 2011 22:48:43 GMT
Well, in Latin the word is nothing to do with the female anatomy - it means a scabbard or sheath for a sword.
It is feminine in Latin as it happens, though grammatical gender hasn't necessarily got anything to do with sex.
Ask Weyland what gender the German for girl (and then he can do the umlaut too, because I've forgotten how.)
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Post by Weyland on Jan 8, 2011 22:54:47 GMT
Did you know the french for vagina is LE vagin. Now why is that masculine? I'd forgotten about French . . . . . . yes, I suppose it is a bit like a language. But only a bit. As for your query, I'd have to look into it. Can't be rushed. In-depth study. It's the way of the engineer -- suck it and see, and all that. Sorry if this is too obscure -- I can't help it.
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Post by Weyland on Jan 8, 2011 23:00:40 GMT
Well, in Latin the word is nothing to do with the female anatomy - it means a scabbard or sheath for a sword. It is feminine in Latin as it happens, though grammatical gender hasn't necessarily got anything to do with sex. Ask Weyland what gender the German for girl (and then he can do the umlaut too, because I've forgotten how.) German: Mädchen. Neuter. Dutch: meisje. Neuter. All diminutives are neuter in German and Dutch. Nothing to do with sex. Dunce. Go and stand in the corner.
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Post by riotgrrl on Jan 8, 2011 23:18:27 GMT
Did you know the french for vagina is LE vagin. Now why is that masculine? I'd forgotten about French . . . . . . yes, I suppose it is a bit like a language. But only a bit. As for your query, I'd have to look into it. Can't be rushed. In-depth study. It's the way of the engineer -- suck it and see, and all that. Sorry if this is too obscure -- I can't help it. For anyone paying detailed attention to that exchange, that could be construed as being quite filthy.
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