There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
From: H. S. Teoh
1.2. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
From: George Corley
1.3. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
From: H. S. Teoh
1.4. You say 马铃薯 and I say 土豆 （was: RE: "How do you say X
From: Douglas Koller
1.5. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
From: G. van der Vegt
1.6. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
From: Roger Mills
1.7. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
From: C. Brickner
1.8. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
From: J. 'Mach' Wust
1.9. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
From: Leonardo Castro
1.10. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
From: R A Brown
2.1. Re: English Orthography in the Future
From: Padraic Brown
2.2. Re: English Orthography in the Future
From: Padraic Brown
2.3. Re: English Orthography in the Future
From: H. S. Teoh
3a. Re: translation exercises: McWhorter's 500 things language classes o
From: Padraic Brown
4.1. Re: Dieing Languages
From: Padraic Brown
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1.1. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Mon Jun 3, 2013 3:27 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Jun 03, 2013 at 03:59:40PM -0500, George Corley wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 2:04 PM, Garth Wallace <gwa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Jun 2, 2013 at 2:28 PM, Njenfalgar <njenfal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Having learnt Vietnamese the same way, I have come to the
> > > conclusion that it kind-of makes sense. If your first ventures
> > > into actually speaking the language with real-life humans is with
> > > friends, and you use the polite forms, they might correct you,
> > > they might laugh, they might do might do many things, but there's
> > > no reason they would go hostile. If, on the other hand, your first
> > > time is in a very formal setting (which is quite common if you're
> > > in the country for tourism) and you only know intimate forms (many
> > > of which are identical with denigrating and hostile forms in
> > > Vietnamese) you might fare less well.
> >
> > That's pretty true for Japanese too. The "plain forms" are mostly
> > used predicatively in informal situations within your in-group. As a
> > foreigner, you don't really have an in-group, at least at first, and
> > the "polite forms" are always acceptable.
> >
> > There's also the fact that the polite forms tend to be simpler. Not
> > necessarily more regular, but more obviously regular. So there's an
> > advantage in terms of learning curve. On the other hand, while you
> > can usually figure out the polite forms from the plain forms, you
> > can't really go the other way without additional information, so to
> > some extent you have to re-learn the verbs.
> >
>
> As you gain friends it would probably behoove you to learn the plain
> forms and use them appropriately.
Yeah, it's better to err on the side of politeness than on the side of
rudeness. When I first starting learning Russian, I was careful to use
the polite forms with strangers, and got told on various occasions
things like "don't call me вы (polite form of "you"), I'm not *that*
old!".
OTOH, on another occasion, I was glad I did start out using the polite
forms, as the person in question was much older and seemed to keep her
distance (never switched to the polite forms), unlike the previous
occasions. I'm pretty sure she would've been quite offended if I had
used the casual forms with her.
> I don't know much directly about Japanese, but I have heard that
> polite forms can be used in informal situation to indicate that the
> speaker is angry -- probably a way of putting social distance between
> you and your interlocutor.
I think in some languages, deliberately using polite forms where one
would normally use casual forms is a way of snubbing the other party
and/or indicating that they're in trouble -- e.g. when your parents call
you by your full name in English. (I had my dad do that to me in Chinese
before -- but I'm not certain whether that's a borrowing from English,
rather than a native mode of expression.)
> I know that in Chinese, I have had friends complain about using 你好
> (ni2hao3 "hello"), because it is too formal for use with close
> friends. I think it makes them uncomfortable to hear it when they
> think that the relationship is too close for it to be used.
Yeah, ni2hao3 is pretty formal. I think it's really reserved for
strangers and formal occasions where in English you'd greet them by last
name (Mr. So-and-So, etc.).
With close friends among your peers, you can often just greet them by
their name or pet name (if you're close enough -- e.g., "ah1 wen2!",
"ah1 xiang2!", etc.).
With your elders, you greet by title. E.g. I greet my mother-in-law as
"mama", even though she's not my biological mother -- it's considered
more intimate than calling her "yue4mu3". This is of course pretty
informal; with less familiar family members or on formal family events
you're technically supposed to address them by their exact relationship
to you -- e.g., lio4yi2zhang4 (husband of 6th aunt on mother's side).
Fortunately, my family doesn't practice that (seriously, who can keep
track of all those convoluted family relations?!). It can get very
political sometimes in traditional families that continue that practice
-- failure to address someone by their exact relationship to you is
taken either as a sign of boorishness or as a personal insult, and can
escalate into family disputes.
Interestingly enough, no matter how close you are to your elders, you
can never call them by name; it's considered quite rude (e.g. I can
never call my mother-in-law by name, no matter how close we are). And
definitely *never* call your elders by their pet names, that starts
family feuds. :)
Politeness in some languages is a strange beast, indeed.
T
--
Маленькие детки - маленькие бедки.
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.2. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jun 3, 2013 4:33 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 5:26 PM, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
>
>
> > I don't know much directly about Japanese, but I have heard that
> > polite forms can be used in informal situation to indicate that the
> > speaker is angry -- probably a way of putting social distance between
> > you and your interlocutor.
>
> I think in some languages, deliberately using polite forms where one
> would normally use casual forms is a way of snubbing the other party
> and/or indicating that they're in trouble -- e.g. when your parents call
> you by your full name in English. (I had my dad do that to me in Chinese
> before -- but I'm not certain whether that's a borrowing from English,
> rather than a native mode of expression.)
Another example I can think of (related to your Russian example I didn't
quote), I once read a story in Spanish, where a man is carrying his son on
his shoulders, talking to him using the form "usted" (which is a formal
form). My guess was that this was to convey emotional distance, since the
man was not saying particularly kind things (the son does not respond, for
reasons that are important to the plot).
> > I know that in Chinese, I have had friends complain about using 你好
> > (ni2hao3 "hello"), because it is too formal for use with close
> > friends. I think it makes them uncomfortable to hear it when they
> > think that the relationship is too close for it to be used.
>
> Yeah, ni2hao3 is pretty formal. I think it's really reserved for
> strangers and formal occasions where in English you'd greet them by last
> name (Mr. So-and-So, etc.).
>
> With close friends among your peers, you can often just greet them by
> their name or pet name (if you're close enough -- e.g., "ah1 wen2!",
> "ah1 xiang2!", etc.).
>
Not quite certain what your e.g. is about. (Note, pinyin is useful for the
board members who don't read Han characters or get them broken by the
encoding in their email, but I can read them or look them up as necessary.)
I wonder if it is borrowed from Anglophone culture. My understanding
(correct me if I am wrong) is that it's not terribly uncommon for Chinese
to call someone by their full name even in fairly familiar circumstances.
Of course, most Chinese names are two or three syllables, and it's easy
for two names to collide.
In American culture, calling a child by their full name -- including the
"middle name" -- is used to signal that they are in trouble for something
and should pay attention. We often consider use of the middle name crucial
there, as it is rarely used in normal circumstances (even a legally binding
signature doesn't require it), and you can even call someone out using
first name + middle name, leaving off the surname. There are lots of jokes
about how you can tell how much trouble you're in by how much of your name
your parents use.
> With your elders, you greet by title. E.g. I greet my mother-in-law as
> "mama", even though she's not my biological mother -- it's considered
> more intimate than calling her "yue4mu3". This is of course pretty
> informal; with less familiar family members or on formal family events
> you're technically supposed to address them by their exact relationship
> to you -- e.g., lio4yi2zhang4 (husband of 6th aunt on mother's side).
> Fortunately, my family doesn't practice that (seriously, who can keep
> track of all those convoluted family relations?!). It can get very
> political sometimes in traditional families that continue that practice
> -- failure to address someone by their exact relationship to you is
> taken either as a sign of boorishness or as a personal insult, and can
> escalate into family disputes.
>
Interesting. I don't think I have ever met any Chinese that were that
strict about it. Of course, there are a couple factors that might mitigate
that: 1) I interact mostly with city-dwelling mainlanders, who may have
eschewed many of these traditional attitudes, and 2) being a foreigner, I
get a pass on a lot of cultural faux pas.
Interestingly enough, no matter how close you are to your elders, you
> can never call them by name; it's considered quite rude (e.g. I can
> never call my mother-in-law by name, no matter how close we are). And
> definitely *never* call your elders by their pet names, that starts
> family feuds. :)
>
That's very interesting. Many cultures specifically use diminuitives or
pet names for grand parents. In Anglophone culture, at least from my own
experience, each family will adopt a different set of titles for each pair
of grandparents, often quite cutesy and informal. For me, my paternal
granparents were Mamaw and Papaw, and my maternal grandparents were Mawmaw
and Dada (for clarification, Mamaw is pronounced /��m忙m��/ and Mawmaw is
/��m��m��/). Of course, we lack the more specific kinship terms Chinese has.
It works out quite well for my half-Taiwanese neice: To her, her American
parents are Grammy and Granddad (the same terms adopted by their other
grandchildren), while her Taiwanese grandparents use Chinese terms (I know
that the grandmother is 姥姥 lao2lao2 -- though my sister-in-law seems to
pronounce it as lao3lao1, though child-talk style singsong might be
screwing with me, but I'm not sure what they call the grandfather. I want
to say that they've decided to call him 爷爷 ye4ye4 despite his being the
maternal grandfather.)
> Politeness in some languages is a strange beast, indeed.
It's always a bit complex.
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.3. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Mon Jun 3, 2013 5:35 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Jun 03, 2013 at 06:33:24PM -0500, George Corley wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 5:26 PM, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
[...]
> > I think in some languages, deliberately using polite forms where one
> > would normally use casual forms is a way of snubbing the other party
> > and/or indicating that they're in trouble -- e.g. when your parents
> > call you by your full name in English. (I had my dad do that to me
> > in Chinese before -- but I'm not certain whether that's a borrowing
> > from English, rather than a native mode of expression.)
>
>
> Another example I can think of (related to your Russian example I
> didn't quote), I once read a story in Spanish, where a man is carrying
> his son on his shoulders, talking to him using the form "usted" (which
> is a formal form). My guess was that this was to convey emotional
> distance, since the man was not saying particularly kind things (the
> son does not respond, for reasons that are important to the plot).
>
>
> > > I know that in Chinese, I have had friends complain about using
> > > 你好 (ni2hao3 "hello"), because it is too formal for use with
> > > close friends. I think it makes them uncomfortable to hear it
> > > when they think that the relationship is too close for it to be
> > > used.
> >
> > Yeah, ni2hao3 is pretty formal. I think it's really reserved for
> > strangers and formal occasions where in English you'd greet them by
> > last name (Mr. So-and-So, etc.).
> >
> > With close friends among your peers, you can often just greet them
> > by their name or pet name (if you're close enough -- e.g., "ah1
> > wen2!", "ah1 xiang2!", etc.).
> >
>
> Not quite certain what your e.g. is about. (Note, pinyin is useful
> for the board members who don't read Han characters or get them broken
> by the encoding in their email, but I can read them or look them up as
> necessary.)
I apologize for the unclear explanation, the examples are for shortened
names used between close friends. Pet names? Or nicknames? It may be
something borrowed from Taiwanese/Hokkien, though -- we have a tendency
of shortening given names to a single syllable and prefixing /ah/. For
example, my aunt's name (in Hokkien) is "sin hui", and her siblings call
her "ah hui". (I'm not allowed to address her like that, though, it'd be
considered an insult!) I don't know if Beijing people have this
practice, maybe not.
Sadly, I'm illiterate in Chinese, so I can only transcribe phonetically.
:-/
> I wonder if it is borrowed from Anglophone culture. My understanding
> (correct me if I am wrong) is that it's not terribly uncommon for
> Chinese to call someone by their full name even in fairly familiar
> circumstances. Of course, most Chinese names are two or three
> syllables, and it's easy for two names to collide.
Hmm, now that you mention it, we *do* use full names for disambiguation
in situations that call for it (e.g., asking to speak with a particular
person on the phone, esp. if multiple people with the same given names
may be present).
> In American culture, calling a child by their full name -- including
> the "middle name" -- is used to signal that they are in trouble for
> something and should pay attention.
I believe this is common to British culture too.
> We often consider use of the middle name crucial there, as it is
> rarely used in normal circumstances (even a legally binding signature
> doesn't require it), and you can even call someone out using first
> name + middle name, leaving off the surname. There are lots of jokes
> about how you can tell how much trouble you're in by how much of your
> name your parents use.
Yep!
> > With your elders, you greet by title. E.g. I greet my mother-in-law
> > as "mama", even though she's not my biological mother -- it's
> > considered more intimate than calling her "yue4mu3". This is of
> > course pretty informal; with less familiar family members or on
> > formal family events you're technically supposed to address them by
> > their exact relationship to you -- e.g., lio4yi2zhang4 (husband of
> > 6th aunt on mother's side). Fortunately, my family doesn't practice
> > that (seriously, who can keep track of all those convoluted family
> > relations?!). It can get very political sometimes in traditional
> > families that continue that practice -- failure to address someone
> > by their exact relationship to you is taken either as a sign of
> > boorishness or as a personal insult, and can escalate into family
> > disputes.
> >
>
> Interesting. I don't think I have ever met any Chinese that were that
> strict about it. Of course, there are a couple factors that might
> mitigate that: 1) I interact mostly with city-dwelling mainlanders,
> who may have eschewed many of these traditional attitudes, and 2)
> being a foreigner, I get a pass on a lot of cultural faux pas.
I have been mostly spared of these petty attitudes, though many of my
cousins have horror stories to tell about being humiliated for not
remembering what to call a certain relative, being made fun of for using
the wrong term, etc., of family members being ostracized, etc..
> > Interestingly enough, no matter how close you are to your elders,
> > you can never call them by name; it's considered quite rude (e.g. I
> > can never call my mother-in-law by name, no matter how close we
> > are). And definitely *never* call your elders by their pet names,
> > that starts family feuds. :)
> >
>
>
> That's very interesting. Many cultures specifically use diminuitives
> or pet names for grand parents. In Anglophone culture, at least from
> my own experience, each family will adopt a different set of titles
> for each pair of grandparents, often quite cutesy and informal.
Gah, I think I made a fool of myself by poor choice of words... what I
meant to say, was that an older family member often has a nickname (like
my aunt's "ah hui") reserved for the use of their peers and elders. The
younger generation are not permitted to use those names, though we
certainly do have affectionate terms for them (in Hokkien, we say "ah
kong"/"ah mah" for granddad and grandma). My aunt's kids, for example,
call her "mami" (mummy), and her grandkids call her "ah mah", but they
never call her "ah hui" -- only her siblings and parents can.
> For me, my paternal granparents were Mamaw and Papaw, and my maternal
> grandparents were Mawmaw and Dada (for clarification, Mamaw is
> pronounced /��m忙m��/ and Mawmaw is /��m��m��/). Of course, we lack the
> more specific kinship terms Chinese has. It works out quite well for
> my half-Taiwanese neice: To her, her American parents are Grammy and
> Granddad (the same terms adopted by their other grandchildren), while
> her Taiwanese grandparents use Chinese terms (I know that the
> grandmother is 姥姥 lao2lao2 -- though my sister-in-law seems to
> pronounce it as lao3lao1, though child-talk style singsong might be
> screwing with me,
That's not child-talk singsong; it's tone sandhi in action. :) A more
liberal form of tone sandhi than the usual, granted, but this *is*
informal speech we're talking about. For example, I address my
mother-in-law as ma3ma1 (sometimes even ma3ma2) even though the
"correct" pronunciation is ma1ma1. My conjecture is that there's some
kind of tone sandhi that changed ma1ma1 > ma3ma1, and then the second
tone is corrupted into tone 2 for prosodic reasons.
> but I'm not sure what they call the grandfather. I want to say that
> they've decided to call him 爷爷 ye4ye4 despite his being the maternal
> grandfather.)
[...]
Yeah, in spite of what the traditionalists would have us believe, many
of these kinship terms are actually more fluid than they're made out to
be. A lot of it comes from "historical accident" -- you learnt it one
way when you're a child, and it stuck, not realizing that when you
learned it, the adults themselves were actually unsure what the correct
term was, so they taught you the wrong term (or you were imitating
another child who was using a different term due to different kinship).
But once learned, it sticks in spite of being "incorrect".
T
--
Give a man a fish, and he eats once. Teach a man to fish, and he will sit
forever.
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.4. You say 马铃薯 and I say 土豆 （was: RE: "How do you say X
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" douglaskol...@hotmail.com
Date: Mon Jun 3, 2013 5:39 pm ((PDT))
> Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2013 18:33:24 -0500
> From: gacor...@gmail.com
> Subject: Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> while her Taiwanese grandparents use Chinese terms (I know
> that the grandmother is 姥姥 lao2lao2 -- though my sister-in-law seems to
> pronounce it as lao3lao1, though child-talk style singsong might be
> screwing with me,
姥 is third tone lao3, so what you're hearing with 姥姥 is the ol' third-neutral
KO (lao3lao).
> but I'm not sure what they call the grandfather. I want
> to say that they've decided to call him 爷爷 ye4ye4 despite his being the
> maternal grandfather.)
Now *here* I would invoke the second tone: 爷爷 ye2ye.
Kou
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.5. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
Posted by: "G. van der Vegt" gijsstri...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Jun 3, 2013 6:21 pm ((PDT))
On 4 June 2013 00:26, H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 03, 2013 at 03:59:40PM -0500, George Corley wrote:
>> On Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 2:04 PM, Garth Wallace <gwa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> As you gain friends it would probably behoove you to learn the plain
>> forms and use them appropriately.
>
> Yeah, it's better to err on the side of politeness than on the side of
> rudeness. When I first starting learning Russian, I was careful to use
> the polite forms with strangers, and got told on various occasions
> things like "don't call me вы (polite form of "you"), I'm not *that*
> old!".
Reminds me of a pun I like to use when dealing with students who don't
know me. (For context, I teach Dutch at a secondary school. Being in
the Netherlands, this is much like teaching English in the UK or USA.)
"Zeg maar 'jij' tegen mij want ik heb een hekel aan 'u.'"
Which translates to: "Please say 'you' (plain/informal) to me because
I strongly dislike 'you' (polite/formal.)"
Of course, one can't hear the quotes in spoken language, so the fact
I'm talking about the word 'u' rather than the person I'm talking to
is not immediately obvious to everyone. To the ones it isn't, I'm of
course quick to explain. (I don't use this one when talking to the
parents of students, as talking to them with the formal/polite pronoun
is more expected than I would be expected to use that pronouns with
students.)
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.6. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Jun 3, 2013 8:04 pm ((PDT))
Re polite vs. familiar forms
IN HS Spanish, we _never_ used (though we were taught to recognize them) the
familiar 2d pers. forms of verb; it was always Usted + 3d pers.� I had an early
trip to Spain, where it was mostly Usted, but I did manage to use t� with
certain ladies I met....
Then in college, quite a bit later, we of course used Usted with the faculty,
but I at least used it with fellow-students (some of whom were Hispanophones).
No one protested, but then I was rather distant from most of my cohort (since I
was several years older).
Then in� 1967 I made a trip to Latin America. First stop, Lima Peru. Some of it
was business, so that was Usted. But on my flight from Lima to Cuzco, I started
chatting with the young woman in the next seat, and she _immediately_ used t�
with me. I tell you, I was shocked!! But it turned out, that is now very common.
Argentina has solved the t�/Usted problem by using neither-- rather, they use
vos, with a deformed 2d plur. form e.g. vos amas, �qu� pens�s vos?� etc. The
plural however is Ustedes + 3pl.
For Indonesian, our textbook (and native speaker instructors) taught us Saudara
[so'dara] as the polite generic 2d pers., (with barely a mention of kamu or
enkau, the familiar forms). Saudara is a Sanskrit word, mng. 'brother'-- it may
have been a holdover from the pinko-leftist days of Sukarno.�
Now when I look at Indonesian websites etc., Saudara is utterly absent, but I
haven't been able to figure out what has taken its place. I certainly hope not
"anda" (which I've seen on-line) but which always struck me as terribly
mush-mouthed and officialese.
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.7. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
Posted by: "C. Brickner" tepeyach...@embarqmail.com
Date: Mon Jun 3, 2013 8:47 pm ((PDT))
When I began ministering (I am a Catholic priest) to the Mexican immigrants in
sw VA about 20 years ago, I asked them about the tu/Ud. situation. They told
me that I should address them with "tu" (the plural being "Usted") and they
would use the polite "Usted" to me.
Charlie
----- Original Message -----
Re polite vs. familiar forms
IN HS Spanish, we _never_ used (though we were taught to recognize them) the
familiar 2d pers. forms of verb; it was always Usted + 3d pers.�� I had an
early trip to Spain, where it was mostly Usted, but I did manage to use tú with
certain ladies I met....
Then in college, quite a bit later, we of course used Usted with the faculty,
but I at least used it with fellow-students (some of whom were Hispanophones).
No one protested, but then I was rather distant from most of my cohort (since I
was several years older).
//
Then in�� 1967 I made a trip to Latin America. First stop, Lima Peru. Some of
it was business, so that was Usted. But on my flight from Lima to Cuzco, I
started chatting with the young woman in the next seat, and she _immediately_
used tú with me. I tell you, I was shocked!! But it turned out, that is now
very common.
Argentina has solved the tú/Usted problem by using neither-- rather, they use
vos, with a deformed 2d plur. form e.g. vos amas, 驴qué pensás vos?�� etc. The
plural however is Ustedes + 3pl.
For Indonesian, our textbook (and native speaker instructors) taught us Saudara
[so'dara] as the polite generic 2d pers., (with barely a mention of kamu or
enkau, the familiar forms). Saudara is a Sanskrit word, mng. 'brother'-- it may
have been a holdover from the pinko-leftist days of Sukarno.��
Now when I look at Indonesian websites etc., Saudara is utterly absent, but I
haven't been able to figure out what has taken its place. I certainly hope not
"anda" (which I've seen on-line) but which always struck me as terribly
mush-mouthed and officialese.
Messages in this topic (43)
________________________________________________________________________
1.8. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
Posted by: "J. 'Mach' Wust" j_mach_w...@shared-files.de
Date: Mon Jun 3, 2013 10:32 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, 3 Jun 2013 20:04:04 -0700, Roger Mills wrote:
>Argentina has solved the tú/Usted problem by using neither--
>rather, they use vos, with a deformed 2d plur. form e.g. vos amas,
>驴qué pensás vos? etc. The plural however is Ustedes + 3pl.
Yet they continue using _usted_ as a singular referential form. So
they have exactly the same familiar-referential distinction as in
other varieties of Spanish, only that the distinction does not
involve any _tú_, but instead _vos_.
BTW, I think polite speech in English is much harder than in
languages such as Spanish or French, where the referential
addressing is (sorta) grammaticalized. In English, you can't just
resort to using another pronoun, but you must resort to choice of
words. It has happened to me that only after I had uttered
something, I then realized I'd just said it much less politely than
I should or could have.
--
grüess
mach
Messages in this topic (43)
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1.9. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 3:39 am ((PDT))
2013/6/3 H. S. Teoh <hst...@quickfur.ath.cx>:
> On Mon, Jun 03, 2013 at 06:33:24PM -0500, George Corley wrote:
>> In American culture, calling a child by their full name -- including
>> the "middle name" -- is used to signal that they are in trouble for
>> something and should pay attention.
>
> I believe this is common to British culture too.
In Brazil and apparently in Mexico too. Maybe in the whole American
continent?! This includes calling them by their real forenames if they
are more frequently called by a nickname.
Messages in this topic (43)
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1.10. Re: "How do you say X (in LANGUAGE)?"
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 5:53 am ((PDT))
On 04/06/2013 11:39, Leonardo Castro wrote:
> 2013/6/3 H. S. Teoh :
>> On Mon, Jun 03, 2013 at 06:33:24PM -0500, George
>> Corley wrote:
>>> In American culture, calling a child by their full
>>> name -- including the "middle name" -- is used to
>>> signal that they are in trouble for something and
>>> should pay attention.
>>
>> I believe this is common to British culture too.
You believe correctly.
> In Brazil and apparently in Mexico too. Maybe in the
> whole American continent?!
Britain ain't in the American continent! I suspect this is
common to many parts of the world.
> This includes calling them by their real forenames if
> they are more frequently called by a nickname.
Oh yes - my sister now hates being called 'Janice' because
as a girl she was generally known as Jan and if my Mum said
"Janice" she knew she was in trouble ;)
FWIW my name was not generally shortened when I was young,
so 'Raymond' was not such a good signal.
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"language � began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
for individual beings and events."
[Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (43)
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2.1. Re: English Orthography in the Future
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Jun 3, 2013 4:10 pm ((PDT))
--- On Mon, 6/3/13, Daniel Myers <d...@dmmyers.com> wrote:
> Assuming that English retains its position as the language of
> international commerce, I'd expect it to splinter into sublanguages in
> different economic regions.�
I dunno about that. If it *retains* its position, I think it more likely
that something like a world standard based more or less on US English
will continue to dominate. If English *loses* its position, then I can
certainly see the rising to prominence of local varieties of English
once the pressure to conform coming from the dominant partner(s) is
relaxed.
> Perhaps the Americas would have one version, Europe a second, Asia a
> third, and Africa a fourth.� In each region the language might change to
> suit the kind of errors the local non-English-speakers would make.
That said, we've already g�t the situation you describe above! There are
already regional and national varieties of English in America, Europe,
Africa and Asia that are distinct and have evolved characteristically
given the sorts of errors likely to be made by the non-English-native
speakers of those Englishes.
You can hear this very clearly in the English of, just for example, the
Philippines. The accentuation of syllables and intonation of phrases is
very different; lexicon is different; etc. And of course, all of this
without even getting into the heavy use of code switching, etc, etc in
these regions.
> - Doc
Padraic
Messages in this topic (29)
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2.2. Re: English Orthography in the Future
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Jun 3, 2013 4:19 pm ((PDT))
--- On Mon, 6/3/13, George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> but India and the Phillipines and other places where English is just a
> lingua franca will more likely drop it as it loses prestige.
Possibly. But note that subjects taught in Spanish were only dropped in
the Phils in the mid to late 1970s, and the Spanish had been kicked out
back in the late 1890s. (My wife's year was the first, at least in her
province, to not be taught any subjects in Spanish, while her ate's year
was still taught some things in Spanish.) I think English will die very
VERY slowly in the Phils. So long as the relationship is good between the
two countries (economically, politically, as well as immigrationally) I
think they will continue to speak and use Philippine English. This
regardless of the relative strength of the US in world events.
Padraic
Messages in this topic (29)
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2.3. Re: English Orthography in the Future
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" hst...@quickfur.ath.cx
Date: Mon Jun 3, 2013 5:06 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Jun 03, 2013 at 04:10:40PM -0700, Padraic Brown wrote:
> --- On Mon, 6/3/13, Daniel Myers <d...@dmmyers.com> wrote:
[...]
> > Perhaps the Americas would have one version, Europe a second, Asia a
> > third, and Africa a fourth.� In each region the language might
> > change to suit the kind of errors the local non-English-speakers
> > would make.
>
> That said, we've already g�t the situation you describe above! There
> are already regional and national varieties of English in America,
> Europe, Africa and Asia that are distinct and have evolved
> characteristically given the sorts of errors likely to be made by the
> non-English-native speakers of those Englishes.
>
> You can hear this very clearly in the English of, just for example,
> the Philippines. The accentuation of syllables and intonation of
> phrases is very different; lexicon is different; etc. And of course,
> all of this without even getting into the heavy use of code switching,
> etc, etc in these regions.
[...]
A significant percentage of Malaysia's population would regard
themselves as "native English speakers", since that is the only language
they use at home, as distinct from, say, their ancestral Chinese
tongues, or Malay, or Tamil. But the "English" they speak (jokingly
referred to as "Manglish") is almost unintelligible to native English
speakers. My wife, for example, who mostly grew up in Canada, finds it
extremely difficult to understand them. Conversely, my dad, who still
lives in Malaysia, finds her Canadian accent difficult to understand.
They would often talk at cross purposes even when trying to be mutually
intelligible, and I find myself in the paradoxical position of having to
translate from English to English. (In fact, my wife has resorted to
speaking Chinese with my family members, as they can communicate better
that way!)
And just as Padraic says: the accentuation is markedly different from
"standard English" (a Canadian friend calls it "acCENTing the wrong
sylLAble"), the phrasal prosody is different, and there are lots of
unique idioms that are completely opaque to outsiders, e.g. "see first"
(I'll think about it), "gostan" [go"stan] (drive a car in reverse --
corruption of "go astern"), "afters" [Vf"t@s] (afterwards -- often
pronounced without the /s/ and distinguished from "after" only by
intonation), "chop" (to stamp), "very can" [vErI"k_hE:n] (very capable
-- often used in pejorative sense), "is it!" [iz"zit] (is that really
so? -- expression of disbelief), "what lah!" ["watlV] (how could you! --
expression of annoyance), "can meh?" ["kEn"mE:] (is that actually
possible?), "where got?" (that's not true -- expression of denial).
So, yeah, it's already happening. Um... it's already happen*ed*. And no,
the existence of the Internet and global communication did not diminish
the local dialect. If anything, it strengthened it, 'cos now it's much
easier to find like-minded people speaking the same way. In fact, in
Singapore, the populace have already begun to distinguish between the
"formal register" of English (i.e., standard English) and "street
register" (i.e., Singlish, the local English creole). Singaporeans
already consciously switch between the two depending on occasion: it's
only a matter of time before they become two distinct languages.
ObConlang: Did any of you make a creole of your conlang with a natlang?
T
--
You have to expect the unexpected. -- RL
Messages in this topic (29)
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3a. Re: translation exercises: McWhorter's 500 things language classes o
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Jun 3, 2013 4:26 pm ((PDT))
--- On Mon, 6/3/13, Adam Walker <carra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Adam Walker <carra...@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [CONLANG] translation exercises: McWhorter's 500 things language
> classes overlook
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Date: Monday, June 3, 2013, 2:14 PM
> On Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 12:38 PM,
> Garth Wallace <gwa...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Jun 2, 2013 at 4:08 AM, Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Unless, of course, this is a perfectly normal,
> hardly bat an eyelash when
> > > it does happen, sort of event. Why, in the
> Eastlands of the World, your
> > > average witch's cottage is a veritable "Auntimoany
> Can Dance" of whirling
> > > cutlery and contredancing candelabras. Although
> the company disavows all
> > > knowledge of such events, chairs merrily chasing
> various other pieces of
> > > furniture about the hall is commonplace in those
> households where one of
> > > Lord Maytagge's Self Actuating Laundry Board
> Mechanism with Attached
> > > Wringer is in use.
> >
> > My old washer used to walk across the laundry room.
> Maybe it came from
> > the same manufacturer?
> >
>
> Ooooohhh!� I had that one too.� Actually, I've had
> several of those.� Noisy beasties!
Would that be the big old Mark VIJ? Huge bronze cauldron things with
bloody brass claws and all sorts of curious pipes and hoses and belts
to run the wringer attachments. Yeah, they were certainly prone to
get up and go on walkabout.
The line was discontinued after a number of complaints were lodged stating
that the devices were found wandering several blocks away having gorged
themselves on other people's laundry hung out to dry. Ruddy bottomless
old things!
Padraic
> Adam
Messages in this topic (19)
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4.1. Re: Dieing Languages
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Tue Jun 4, 2013 6:26 am ((PDT))
--- On Thu, 5/30/13, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <goldyemo...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> I think the first question was how do
> fever bite and frostbite match up,
> they don't match up. The Silknish speakers feel that trying
> to create
> medical roots or any other Silknish word root with a Yardish
> suffix will create an unmatched word like fever bite.
Okay. There are folks who likewise believe we oughtn'y mix Latin and
Greek or English and Greek roots in this way. This would be more of a
cultural issue than a strictly linguistic one.
> The symbols I used represent letters, and even thought both
> languages use
> them, Yardish doesn't use them in one word grouped like
> that. Yardish would
> be more likely to use a double symbol at the word's
> beginning, and a triple
> set at the end, so I made that world deliberately hard to
> read, as that's how a Silknish speaker would write it.
Well, I guess if your goal is to turn us away, then this might do!
> Example:
>
> Yardish:
>
> ~`Con/$%ers
>
> Silknish:
>
> ~~`C/##$%%*/er%s
No idea what any of that is supposed to mean, how they're supposed to
relate to each other, etc. I think at this point I'll just give up
asking...
About the only thing I can tell so far from your examples is that words
in both languages seem to have basically the same "letters", the same
basical shape. But one or the other adds a whole bunch of baggage. It's as
if two languages have the same "word": cronim, but one adds gratuitous
ephemera to the word:
cr[trill|long]o[ceraky.voice|tone.1|short]n[palatalisation]
i[breathy.voice|tone.3|extra.long]m[long] leaving one with something
that basically sounds like 'crow-nim' while the other basically sounds
like 'crrrrownyihmm'. Is that what you're doing?
Padraic
> Mellissa Green
Messages in this topic (35)
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