Re: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen?
I assume, Arto, that when you refer to the difference between Italian and Spanish in the context of language, that you mean a difference among the Finno-Ugric as differentiating Finnish and Estonian, rather than that the Finnish and Estonian are like the two Romance and Indo European languages of Italy and Spain. Being a native English speaker I speak almost all languages, but like most of my fellow English speakers I don't realize it. But I do think there is no Finno-Urgic in English, and no one has answered me on the Basque. Is that of that Finno family? Or is it another separate language. Remember that the Russian and other Balkan languages yet use a derivation of the Greek alphabet. I can read Cyrillic if I take the time to shape the letters to the Greek derivation, and many of the words are more Latinate than Greek, so transliterate into the Romance languages. A side point, I met an Estonian gentleman years ago, he joined my company bowling league (I hated bowling, but did it for social reasons). He was amazed that when I read his name (Uibopu) I pronounced it correctly - but I sang choral songs in Finnish years ago. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: "Arto Wikla" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Roman Turovsky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "Stewart McCoy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Lute Net" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 10:46 AM Subject: Re: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen? > > There are a couple more Finno-Ugric in upper Volga region (Chuvash, etc.) > > but these will probably be extinct in a 100 years > > And do not forget the Estonians! They are even joining the EU next spring! > I nearly can understand Estonian, but not quite... :-) > Perhaps the difference is a little like between Italian and Spain? > > Arto, a Finn > > > >
Re: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen?
>> And do not forget the Estonians! They are even joining the EU next spring! >> I nearly can understand Estonian, but not quite... :-) >> Perhaps the difference is a little like between Italian and Spain? > > > Quite correct, my apologies to the Estonian people. > Caroline > Especially considering that they have 4 times as many lutenists as have Lituanians. RT __ Roman M. Turovsky http://turovsky.org http://polyhymnion.org
Re: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen?
At 05:46 PM 11/3/2003 +0200, Arto Wikla wrote: >And do not forget the Estonians! They are even joining the EU next spring! >I nearly can understand Estonian, but not quite... :-) >Perhaps the difference is a little like between Italian and Spain? Quite correct, my apologies to the Estonian people. Caroline * Caroline Usher DCMB Administrative Coordinator 613-8155 Box 91000
Re: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen?
Dear all, > >> As I > >> remember my linguistics only Basque and Finnish are languages west of the > >> Caucasian Mountains that aren't in the family. > > > > Also Hungarian and Lappish, which along with Finnish belong to the Finno-Ugric > > family. The other speakers are tribal peoples from east of the Ural > > mountains. > There are a couple more Finno-Ugric in upper Volga region (Chuvash, etc.) > but these will probably be extinct in a 100 years And do not forget the Estonians! They are even joining the EU next spring! I nearly can understand Estonian, but not quite... :-) Perhaps the difference is a little like between Italian and Spain? Arto, a Finn
Re: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen?
>> As I >> remember my linguistics only Basque and Finnish are languages west of the >> Caucasian Mountains that aren't in the family. > > Also Hungarian and Lappish, which along with Finnish belong to the Finno-Ugric > family. The other speakers are tribal peoples from east of the Ural > mountains. There are a couple more Finno-Ugric in upper Volga region (Chuvash, etc.) but these will probably be extinct in a 100 years
Re: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen?
At 03:54 AM 11/3/2003 -0500, Jon Murphy wrote: >Actually Hebrew (and Arabic and Aramaic) are in the family of Indo-European >languages. Sorry, no. I speak as a former linguistics major. >Sanskrit is one of the bases, but the differences in sound of the >Semitic languages are minimal when compared to the similarities. Having studied French, German, Russian, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, I beg to differ. >As I >remember my linguistics only Basque and Finnish are languages west of the >Caucasian Mountains that aren't in the family. Also Hungarian and Lappish, which along with Finnish belong to the Finno-Ugric family. The other speakers are tribal peoples from east of the Ural mountains. Caroline * Caroline Usher DCMB Administrative Coordinator 613-8155 Box 91000
Re: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen?
Mathias,
> (Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, English). Actually, I doubt it can be called
an
> Indo-European language at all because half of it is Hebrew. There is, btw,
no
> Yidish word for the lute. So, what is this about? :)
>
Actually Hebrew (and Arabic and Aramaic) are in the family of Indo-European
languages. Sanskrit is one of the bases, but the differences in sound of the
Semitic languages are minimal when compared to the similarities. As I
remember my linguistics only Basque and Finnish are languages west of the
Caucasian Mountains that aren't in the family. The Latin "homo" means
mankind ("vir" is a man) and the Greek "homo" means same. But both are
Indo-European.
Yiddish, as someone else pointed out, is a conglomerate language from
Eastern Europe, and relatively recent in origin. Of course the most
conglomerate language is my own. English is a combination of the Gaelic of
the Celts (which included the Britons), the Teutonic of the Angles and
Saxons, and the French of the Normans. The ending of the name of a town may
be "ham", "wick(h)", "ton" or "ville". All mean the same, and one can almost
follow the history of the various conquests (none after 1066) by the names
that have held on.
I doubt that there is a Gaelic name for the lute either, it came later.
Best, Jon
Re: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen?
Roman Turovsky at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > This is a Polish import. No less Yiddish for that.
Re: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen?
This is a Polish import. RT >> There is, btw, no >> Yidish word for the lute. So, what is this about? :) > My 1968 Modern English-Yiddish, Yiddish-English Dictionary gives the Yiddish > "Lutenieh" or "lootnieh" (remember, it's spelled with a modified Hebrew > alphabet) for the English "lute." > > Howard Posner __ Roman M. Turovsky http://turovsky.org http://polyhymnion.org
Re: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen?
"Mathias Rösel" at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > There is, btw, no > Yidish word for the lute. So, what is this about? :) My 1968 Modern English-Yiddish, Yiddish-English Dictionary gives the Yiddish "Lutenieh" or "lootnieh" (remember, it's spelled with a modified Hebrew alphabet) for the English "lute." Howard Posner
Re: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen?
"Thomas Schall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> schrieb: > Just a question: What about Jiddish? I've learnt it would be exactly the same than > the > "Mittelhochdeutsch" and would be nearly unchanged for about 800 years? it is a branch which has, in fact, retained many a form of medieval German. Yiddish, however, has changed a lot over the centuries in that it e.g. took over a lot of vocabulary and some grammatical features from surrounding languages (Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, English). Actually, I doubt it can be called an Indo-European language at all because half of it is Hebrew. There is, btw, no Yidish word for the lute. So, what is this about? :) -- Cheers, Mathias Mathias Roesel, Grosze Annenstrasze 5, 28199 Bremen, Deutschland/ Germany, T/F +49 - 421 - 165 49 97, Fax +49 1805 060 334 480 67, E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen?
> Many thanks for your message. You seem unhappy with the idea of Why unhappy? I couldn't care less. > Lithuanian being described as "the oldest (i.e. the least changed > over the years) surviving Indo-European language", but you don't say > which modern Indo-European language you think might be older. Icelandic (an extremely close relative of old Norse) is older, and A LOT more intact. > > > Meilute Ramoniene and Ian Press, in their introduction to > _Colloquial Lithuanian_ (London: Routledge, 1996), confirm that > Latvian and Lithuanian are closely related to Old Prussian, a West > Baltic language, which became extinct towards the end of the 17th > century. This opinion is somewhat tendentious. It is a la mode in Lithuania to distance oneself from everything Slavic (for understandable reasons), but Prussian is more likely to have belonged to the Slavic rather than Baltic subgroup. > If I remember right (from library books - so not available at home) > Latvian and Lithuanian parted company with each other c. 800 AD, and > the two languages have hardly changed for the past 800 or 900 years. > "Lithuanian itself is traditionally described as 'archaic'; what is, > or ought to be, meant by this is that it retains a large number of > features, particularly in declension, one might assume to have been > present at an earlier stage in the history of the Indo-European > languages. Putting it simply, Lithuanian might be placed alongside > Latin, Greek and Sanskrit in its linguistic importance. With the > difference that it and its numerous dialects are still spoken." No doubt. The INTERESTING thing is that Lithuanians are GENETICALLY closer to Slavs than the Balts (do not tell them this: they are as sensitive on this subject as the Japanese on their origin in Korea), so they are not the same people that broke off the Letts 1300 years ago, but a people that adopted that language. A related issue has a HUGE bearing on one particular paleolutenistic theory: Bulgarians (a genetically Turkic people who adopted an Indo-European Slavic language) are responsible for the introduction of short necked lutes into Europe in the 6th century (may Ferengizade's progeny all have large feet). More on the subject later. I am working on a webpage about linguistic evidence of Lute's Balkan entry into Europe. RT __ Roman M. Turovsky http://turovsky.org http://polyhymnion.org
Re: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen?
Just a question: What about Jiddish? I've learnt it would be exactly the same than the "Mittelhochdeutsch" and would be nearly unchanged for about 800 years? Thomas Am Son, 2003-11-02 um 20.40 schrieb Stewart McCoy: > Dear Roman, > > Many thanks for your message. You seem unhappy with the idea of > Lithuanian being described as "the oldest (i.e. the least changed > over the years) surviving Indo-European language", but you don't say > which modern Indo-European language you think might be older. > > According to David Crystal, _The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language_ > (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 298, there are six > main groups of languages which derive from the hypothetical > language, Proto Indo-European: Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, > Italic, Albanian and Greek, and Tocharian. > > Balto-Slavic in turn divides into two groups: > 1) Baltic languages, including Lithuanian and Latvian; > 2) Slavic languages, which sub-divide into three groups: > a) West Slavic, e.g. Czech; > b) South Slavic, e.g. Bulgarian; > c) East Slavic, e.g. Russian. > > Meilute Ramoniene and Ian Press, in their introduction to > _Colloquial Lithuanian_ (London: Routledge, 1996), confirm that > Latvian and Lithuanian are closely related to Old Prussian, a West > Baltic language, which became extinct towards the end of the 17th > century. > > If I remember right (from library books - so not available at home) > Latvian and Lithuanian parted company with each other c. 800 AD, and > the two languages have hardly changed for the past 800 or 900 years. > > Now, you could say that all modern languages which evolved from > Proto Indo-European are all as old as each other, because they all > have a common ancestor. The reason why people often describe > Lithuanian as the oldest Indo-European language is because there are > features of the language which seem close to how we conceive Proto > Indo-European to have been. Meilute Ramoniene and Ian Press put it > as follows: > > "Lithuanian itself is traditionally described as 'archaic'; what is, > or ought to be, meant by this is that it retains a large number of > features, particularly in declension, one might assume to have been > present at an earlier stage in the history of the Indo-European > languages. Putting it simply, Lithuanian might be placed alongside > Latin, Greek and Sanskrit in its linguistic importance. With the > difference that it and its numerous dialects are still spoken." > > -o-O-o- > > There are a number of early music enthusiasts in Lithuania, but as > far as I know there is only one Lithuanian lute player. > > Best wishes, > > Stewart McCoy. > > > - Original Message - > From: "Roman Turovsky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Stewart McCoy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Lute Net" > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003 1:37 PM > Subject: OT: Why was the K'berg MS stolen? > > > > > It is interesting what you say about a group of Lithuanians > seizing > > > a manuscript of epic poetry from Koenigsberg. In spite of > countless > > > invasions from other countries, Lithuanians have managed to > preserve > > > their national identity, and books such as these would be very > > > important for them. Their language is the oldest (i.e. the least > > > changed over the years) surviving Indo-European language. > > This is actually untrue, Stewart. You might have been misled by > your > > overzealous hosts. Lithuanians were originally Slavs (speaking a > language > > related to Prussian, an extinct Slavic language) that at one > mysterious > > point in history changed their language. This is one of 3 > instances of such > > unexplained linguistic reneging that come to mind (Sumerians > switching from > > an Indo-European to a Semitic language, and Bulgarians switching > from a > > Turkic to a Slavic one). > > RT > -- Thomas Schall Niederhofheimer Weg 3 D-65843 Sulzbach 06196/74519 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.lautenist.de / www.tslaute.de/weiss --
