ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (12/24/85)
>>Seriously. The English language, which is considered one of the easiest >>languages in the world... - Mike Maxwell >Says who??? Seriously, how can you quantify that? By making studies of >lots of native speakers of languages X1, X2, X3... trying to learn >languages Y1, Y2, Y3...English, where {X1, X2, X3...Y1, Y2, Y3...English} >are all unrelated languages? I doubt whether anyone has ever done that. >(Same comment for those who say, as I have often heard said, that English >is a very hard language.) - Thomas Breuel I think there are many criteria by which a language can be judged `easy' or `difficult' to learn. Is the written representation logical? If there are inflections, are there a large number of inflectional categories or only a few? Are there many exceptions? Does the language carry `excess baggage', like grammatical gender, or nominal classifiers? Are logical relations transparently represented in the form of the language? Artificial languages, like Loglan or Esperanto, for example, are genuinely `easy' languages according to all of the criteria above, although no doubt they seem more natural to europeans than they would to anyone else. Except for Chinese and (formal) Japanese, English is clearly one of the most difficult languages to write. Our spelling is quite abominable; in its defense, the orthography of the international european wordstock is preserved at the cost of uncertainty about pronunciation. This may provide some clue to the foreigner as to the meaning of new vocabulary. However, I think that we must conclude spoken English IS easy with respect to most of the other criteria. English nouns are very simple indeed -- the vast majority are of a single type (plural in -s); we have neither gender, nor classifiers. Our verbs admit more complexity, but even the few irregular ones are still simpler with 3 stems {see(-s,-ing), saw, seen} than any european language I know. Most astonishing is the huge number of aspects/moods/tenses that can be generated from the single Chomskian formula: VP => Tense + (Modal) + (HAVE + EN) + (BE + ING) + VERB We might also judge a difficulty of a language according to phonetic peculiarities relative to the world languages. For example, the central vowels in French or German are more likely to present difficulty than the 5 cardinal vowels in Japanese or Greek. The opposition between palatized and nonpalatized consonants in Slavic or Gaelic are also likely to cause difficulties. The tones in Chinese or Thai can be a particularly difficult obstacle for those whose native languages lack such features. English, with 7 vowels, 7 diphthongs, a strong emphasis on the major syllable (with all others approaching schwa), and a propensity for closing open syllables, is a bit unusual. I suspect our initial and final consonant clusters (as in `strengths') are problematic for most newcomers, as are the initial sounds of {the, thin, at, up}. Nonetheless, I do not think these qualities are any more unusual than say, vowel harmony in Turkish. I have heard that the slavic languages are, in fact, particularly difficult for even native children to learn, requiring an extra year before children have to proficiency to enter public schools. I can testify as to the enormous difficulty of Russian/Polish nouns -- there are many different nominal inflexions and declensional categories! I found Latin and Greek nouns much simpler in contrast. -michael
neal@druhi.UUCP (Neal D. McBurnett) (12/27/85)
> English has 7 vowels and 7 diphthongs
There are certainly many ways of counting, but I think it is closer
to 12 vowels and 8 diphthongs, at least with my accent:
bean, bin, Ben, ban, bun, barn, Bonn, born, burn, boon, good, banana
say, no, fly, how, fear, care, poor.
At some Esperanto conferences in Germany and Hungary last summer, I had
very little difficulty with the variations in Esperanto accent among
speakers from, e.g., France, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and China.
The letter with the most variation was "r".
I had much more difficulty with the variation in English accent
among English speakers from England, Austrialia and the southern US.
I attribute this mostly to the relative simplicity of the vowel system in
Esperanto (which has the same five vowels as Spanish, Serbo-Croatian,
Japanese, and many other languages).
-Neal McBurnett, ihnp4!druny!nealellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (12/31/85)
> = Neal McBurnett >> English has 7 vowels and 7 diphthongs > >There are certainly many ways of counting, but I think it is closer >to 12 vowels and 8 diphthongs, at least with my accent: > bean, bin, Ben, ban, bun, barn, Bonn, born, burn, boon, good, banana > say, no, fly, how, fear, care, poor. There are indeed many ways of counting. I'd arrange those words according to their vowels as below: pure +y +w +r i bin bean - *beer e Ben say - care ae ban - how - aa bun - - (burn) ao +bond fly - barn o +pawn *boy no born u good - boon poor Notes: (+) `Bonn', as a German name, is pronounced in a variety of ways, sometimes more like `pawn', other times more like `bond'. These are clearly two different phonemes in most English speech I hear. Some minimal pairs: tot/taut, bottom/bought'em, are/or, doll/tall (*) `boy' and `beer' seem to be omitted in your list. (1) Due to ascii lossage, the digraphs /ae,aa,ao/ are employed here to represent `pure' vocalic sounds in most english I have heard. (2) /ur/ (usually spelled `oor') has dubious ontological status, and is often (usually?) indistinguishable from /or/. This confusion could be brain damage on my part. (3) The sounds /iy,uw,aar/ (bean,boon,burn) are arguably `pure long' vowels. There is no question that, if they are considered to be compound sounds, the preceding vowel is modified considerably from its pure sound. In most american english dialects (especially that heard on TV), postvocalic /r/ (as in barn, care..) is a retroflex glide that is quite distinct from the preceding vowel. Should I count vowel + /r/ as a diphthong? If so, why stop there? Why not also count vowel + /l/ as well? Not to mention vowel + /n,m,z,k.../? Anyway, if I exclude the r-compunds, I count a total of 7 vowels and 7 diphthongs, excluding unaccented schwa(s). If /iy,uw/ are pure vowels, the total is 9+5; adding /aar/ as pure and 5 r-compounds, the total is 10+10, a sum which equals your 20. British english and certain eastern american dialects differ from the above scheme somewhat, since the final-r's either form schwa-diphthongs, or result in compensatory vowel lengthening (I have heard that this is a later development that occurred after the colonial period). There is also considerable divergence in the vowels of (pawn,pond,pan/path) from the dialects I am familiar with. I suspect that my /ar,or/ => /a:,o:/ in your speech (whereas /ir,ur,er/ => /i0,u0,e0/ (where /0/ represents `a' in sofa)). This would transfer two more r-compounds into the pure category, thus redistributing 10+10 => 12+8, in perfect agreement with your count. Do you have a british or east-coast american accent? -michael
mac@uvacs.UUCP (Alex Colvin) (01/02/86)
Would you consider a pure vocalic /r/ from "bird"?
michaelm@bcsaic.UUCP (michael b maxwell) (01/08/86)
In article <718@spar.UUCP> ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) writes: >>>Seriously. The English language, which is considered one of the easiest >>>languages in the world... - Mike Maxwell >>Says who??? Seriously, how can you quantify that? By making studies of >>lots of native speakers of languages X1, X2, X3... trying to learn >>languages Y1, Y2, Y3...English, where {X1, X2, X3...Y1, Y2, Y3...English} >>are all unrelated languages? I doubt whether anyone has ever done that. >>(Same comment for those who say, as I have often heard said, that English >>is a very hard language.) - Thomas Breuel !Please! You mixed us up. The *second* quote is mine (Maxwell), and (I assume) the first is Breuel's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! > I think there are many criteria by which a language can be judged `easy' > or `difficult' to learn. Is the written representation logical? If > there are inflections, are there a large number of inflectional > categories or only a few? Are there many exceptions? Does the language > carry `excess baggage', like grammatical gender, or nominal classifiers? > Are logical relations transparently represented in the form of the > language? > > Artificial languages, like Loglan or Esperanto, for example, are > genuinely `easy' languages according to all of the criteria above, > although no doubt they seem more natural to europeans than they > would to anyone else. [followed by a list of reasons why English, Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Slavic, Gaelic, Thai, Turkish, Russian, Polish, Latin, and Greek each present different difficulties wrt writing, pronunciation, irregularities, multiple conjugations and declensions, etc.] You're proving what I'm saying! Each language has its own peculiarities (and I fear I'm proving how peculiar English spelling is :-). Some of those pecularities may be problems for native speakers of some languages (e.g. tone), but not for speakers of others. That's why I said any study hoping to prove that language X was more difficult (for adult learners, which was what the original posting was about) than language Y would have to take large numbers of native speakers of languages A,B,C... and teach them X and Y under controlled conditions. I seriously doubt whether this has ever been done. Furthermore, who can say whether irregular verbs are more of a problem for native speakers of language A learning language X than unusual syntax? I find syntax and phonology easy in second language learning, irregularities more difficult, and vocabulary a drag. Other native speakers of English have different easy/hard ratings. At best you might come up with a statistical results: 43% of the speakers of A found X harder than Y, 37% found Y harder than X, and the rest found both equally hard. And that assumes you can come up with some kind of criteria for judging language acquisition that is equitable for both X and Y (not an easy task). As for such excess baggage as grammatical gender, one might make a case for the usefulness of such "baggage"--e.g. in disambiguating antecedents of pronouns, etc. You might say that this has no relationship to the difficulty of learning the language, and you might be right, but maybe not... What about the redundancy such "excesses" provide? And of course man-made languages are supposed to be easier, but as you say, this is likely to be true only for speakers of languages cognate to the native language(s) of the designers of the artificial language. A different question, and one you allude to, is the ease of first learning. Here again, I fear that most evidence for the relative difficulty of learning language X is anecdotal. What would be meant by the claim that children learn language X faster than children learning language Y? That they learn vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, semantics, ...? They probably progress faster in language X in one area, and slower in another. How does that give you an index of accomplishment? My three-year old son handles relative clauses quite well in English, but insists that the first person singular nominative pronoun is "my." ("My wanna go to the store that my went to yesterday!") A mystery: can we really say that relative clauses are easier in English than getting case right on the subject pronoun? It's certainly more complex! Of course, we're wired to get syntax right... BTW, one of the early studies of language acquisition in older children was done by Carol Chomsky in the early '60s (yes, Noam's wife). And no, I don't believe she did any comparisons with children learning other languages; but you might be surprised what they didn't know... -- Mike Maxwell Boeing Artificial Intelligence Center ...uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!michaelm
tmb@tardis.UUCP (Thomas M. Breuel) (01/12/86)
||||Seriously. The English language, which is considered one of the easiest ||||languages in the world... [Thomas Breuel] | |||Says who??? Seriously, how can you quantify that? By making studies of |||[Mike Maxell] | |Please! You mixed us up. The *second* quote is mine (Maxwell), and (I | ||I think there are many criteria by which a language can be judged `easy' | |You're proving what I'm saying! Each language has its own peculiarities (and |I fear I'm proving how peculiar English spelling is :-). Some of those I am tired of being quoted out of context. My argument was precicely the same that Mike made, namely that every language has its own peculiarities, and that therefore Japanese is, on the whole, not any harder or easier to learn well than English or German. Even in English, which unfortunately lacks a lot of the necessary grammatical machinery, it should be clear from the quoted sentence above, that the statement 'English is easy' is not a statement that I made, but a statement that I have commonly heard. Probably I should have said 'which is *often* considered...' to make this point absolutely clear. I then went on to discuss why people might get the impression that English is easier than other languages and discussed why that impression is probably unrealistic. Now, if you want to discuss any more whether some languages are easier to learn or speak than others, don't quote me as someone who argues that English is easier than other languages. Thomas.
ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (01/13/86)
>Even in English, which unfortunately lacks a lot of the necessary >grammatical machinery, ... - Thomas What necessary machinery does English lack? Grammatical gender? Declension? Nominal classifiers? Polite 2nd person pronouns? Adjective inflections? English does quite well without such cruft! -michael
donn@utah-gr.UUCP (Donn Seeley) (01/14/86)
English is definitely the easiest language. I'm surprised that this isn't obvious to everyone; it's simply incontestable that English is the only language which is perfectly suited to typewriter keyboards. As for spoken language, it has been proven that English is the easiest language because all other languages are derived from it. This was demonstrated in the '60s by Noam Chomsky and the MIT group of linguists. And if that isn't enough, LADs come with English instructions, Donn Seeley University of Utah CS Dept donn@utah-cs.arpa 40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W (801) 581-5668 decvax!utah-cs!donn PS -- Does this really need a smiley face?
radzy@calma.UUCP (Tim Radzykewycz) (01/18/86)
In article <771@spar.UUCP> ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) writes: >>Even in English, which unfortunately lacks a lot of the necessary >>grammatical machinery, ... - Thomas > What necessary machinery does English lack? (-: (-: (-: (-: (-: (-: (-: (-: (-: (-: (-: (-: I'd love to let you know what necessary machinery English lacks, but unfortunately, I'm unable, since the machinery in question is *necessary*, and this discussion is, of course, in English. How about: English fehlt einige gewichte Sachen, sowie .... :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) How could English *possibly* lack something necessary and still be in use? Perhaps "Thomas" should rephrase his statement, or maybe try thinking before posting. (-: "type 'Pnews', insert foot" :-) -- Tim (radzy) Radzykewycz, The Incredible Radical Cabbage. calma!radzy@ucbvax.ARPA {ucbvax,sun,csd-gould}!calma!radzy
breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel) (01/20/86)
|||Even in English, which unfortunately lacks a lot of the necessary |||grammatical machinery, ... - Thomas | || What necessary machinery does English lack? | |English fehlt einige gewichte Sachen, sowie .... | |How could English *possibly* lack something necessary and still |be in use? Perhaps "Thomas" should rephrase his statement, or |maybe try thinking before posting. Maybe you can recognise a joke when you see one? [By the way, the main, no, the only, point of that posting was that I kept being quoted out of context...] But to explain in more detail why every now and then I make annoying little remarks about the English language: English grammar has been simplified a lot as compared to, say, German grammar. The English language has simply evolved other (non-grammatical) means for expressing concepts for which a German speaker would use grammar. One of these non-grammatical means is, I would postulate, the immense vocabulary that the English language has evolved over the centuries. Now, is there anything wrong with that? Nothing. Except, that a few aspects of the relationship between the Americans and 'their' language invite ridicule. Among those aspects are the obsession with simple sentence structures, simple grammatical constructs, and the constant quest for the 'right' word which is, preferably, either very Germanic or very Romance, depending on the English instructor in question. Nowhere else have I seen such a proliferation of writing manuals, thesauruses, vocabulary cards, and dictionaries than among high-school and college students in America. Together with the American attitudes that the English literature is, of course, the most important in the world and that everybody in the world is speaking -- or at least ought to speak -- the crown of languages, this just invites teasing. Thomas.
soren@olamb.UUCP (Soeren Rabbe) (01/20/86)
[ I don't believe in line eat....... ] In Article <1651@utah-gr.UUCP> Donn Seeley writes: > English is definitely the easiest language. I'm surprised that this > isn't obvious to everyone; it's simply incontestable that English is > the only language which is perfectly suited to typewriter keyboards. This is a new expirence for me. To my knowledge, the layout of the typewriter keyboard was made in the days of the manually devices (do you remember these). The main objective of the design was to *slow down* the typing process as these devices could not follow the faster typists. This problem is now obsolete as the devices of today have the necessary speed. This is also why a lot of discussions are going on about redesigning the keyboards to suit the language better; e.g., by placing the most used letters in a more convenient place. Soren Rabbe --> from the country of the typewriter inventor: DENMARK.
steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (01/21/86)
In article <879@h-sc1.UUCP>, breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel) writes: > > English grammar has been simplified a lot as compared to, say, > German grammar. The English language has simply evolved other > (non-grammatical) means for expressing concepts for which > a German speaker would use grammar. One of these non-grammatical > means is, I would postulate, the immense vocabulary that the > English language has evolved over the centuries. > You are kidding, right? That is why it is good idea to use smiley faces with jokes if the could be interpreted as serious statements. 1) Vocabulary (the lexicon of a language) is part of its grammar. 2) English expresses reltionships like "subject," "object," and so on by word order and not inflections like German does. How could you say that simplifies the grammar? Even stranger is your claim that it is "non-grammatical." I have found it is easier to write parsers for inflected languages than for ones that depend on word order to express grammatical relationships (like English and Chinese). -- scc!steiny Don Steiny @ Don Steiny Software 109 Torrey Pine Terrace Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 (408) 425-0382
michaelm@bcsaic.UUCP (michael b maxwell) (01/22/86)
In article <879@h-sc1.UUCP> breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel) writes: >English grammar has been simplified a lot as compared to, say, >German grammar. Can you explain what you mean? What's left out? -- Mike Maxwell Boeing Artificial Intelligence Center ...uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!michaelm
mac@uvacs.UUCP (01/28/86)
> || What necessary machinery does English lack?
Infinitives for the auxiliary verbs (can, will, &c.).
You have to use circumlocutions (to be able to, to be going to, ...) or bad
grammer (might could, ...).agrawal@csd2.UUCP (Try m/c ACF6) (02/11/86)
> >English is definitely the easiest language. I'm surprised that this >isn't obvious to everyone; it's simply incontestable that English is >the only language which is perfectly suited to typewriter keyboards. > >As for spoken language, it has been proven that English is the easiest >language because all other languages are derived from it. This was > >Donn Seeley University of Utah CS Dept donn@utah-cs.arpa >40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W (801) 581-5668 decvax!utah-cs!donn I am surprised to find that people think that English is the easiest language to learn. I guess it is because that is what is spoken in the US and children are always listening to it. Also most European Languages are derived from English and have a large number of words from common roots. Even many Esparanto words seem to be having European roots. However, I beleive that Indians have extraordinary difficulty in learning English if they are not taught it from childhood. It is because of the extremely non phonetic nature of English whereas most Indian Languages are phonetic in nature. When we start learning and start with the simple words, we immediately get confused on thef pronounciation of words like <put,but>,<no,know>,<now,know>... Mukul Agrawal agrawal@csd2
halle@hou2b.UUCP (J.HALLE) (02/12/86)
Most European languages are derived from English? What pipe are you smoking? English may have infiltrated in Europe, but it is really more the other way around. Spoken English is primarily of Germanic origin, and the Germanic languages in Europe are older. English also has roots in the Romance languages, but these occurred after 1066. And much of Europe speaks languages that are of yet other origins. In fact, the only European country that speaks a language that can even remotely be said to have been derived from English is Great Brittain.
tjsmedley@watmum.UUCP (Trevor J. Smedley) (02/12/86)
>>As for spoken language, it has been proven that English is the easiest >>language because all other languages are derived from it. ^^^ > Also most European Languages are derived from English and have >a large number of words from common roots. All other languages? Most European languages? "All other languages" is simply false. Chinese, Russian, Finnish and Hungarian certainly are not derived from English. As for "Most European languages", I am no expert, but I was under the impression that there were no languages *derived* from English, except, perhaps, Esperanto to a certain extent. I would find it very hard to believe that any one of German, French or Italian was derived from English. They all have some roots in common, but to say that any one is derived from any other seems rather unlikely. In any case, this would not be an argument for English being the easiest language. Using this argument, you would have to say that Latin is easier than Italian, or that Icelandic is the easiest of the Scandinavian languages, and I doubt that anyone would agree with that. If you said that English was easy for many people because it takes things from a wide variety of languages and language types, well, I might agree with that. Trevor J. Smedley University of Waterloo {decvax,allegra,ihnp4,utzoo}!watmum!tjsmedley
tombre@crin.UUCP (Karl Tombre) (02/13/86)
>>English is definitely the easiest language. I'm surprised that this >>isn't obvious to everyone; it's simply incontestable that English is >>the only language which is perfectly suited to typewriter keyboards. ???? I really hope you are joking! Of course english is the only language perfectly suited to ENGLISH typewriter keyboards!!! >>As for spoken language, it has been proven that English is the easiest >>language because all other languages are derived from it. Again I wonder! This must be a joke! English is a very mixed language derived from german, latin, french, scandinavian and saxon roots!!! > Also most European Languages are derived from English and have >a large number of words from common roots. !!!??? Well sincerely, gentlemen, tell me, am I too stupid to understand a joke? It seems to me that both of you are serious??? OK, there are common roots in many european languages, but those roots are not english!!! English language has many origins. Consider those examples: - words like "table", "observation", "principle" and so on have latin or even french roots. - words like "room", "follow" ... are more typically german - other words have specifically scandinavian origins: "husband", "town", "garden" ... This is obviously due to many historical reasons (the history of England through all centuries, also before America was (re)discovered by Columbus! -- --- Karl Tombre @ CRIN (Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Nancy) UUCP: ...!vmucnam!crin!tombre or ...!inria!crin!tombre COSAC: crin/tombre POST: Karl Tombre, CRIN, B.P. 239, 54506 VANDOEUVRE CEDEX, France Les plus desesperes sont les chants les plus beaux, Et j'en sais d'immortels qui sont de purs sanglots. Alfred de Musset.
steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (02/14/86)
In article <402@watmum.UUCP>, tjsmedley@watmum.UUCP (Trevor J. Smedley) writes: > >>As for spoken language, it has been proven that English is the easiest > >>language because all other languages are derived from it. > ^^^ > > Also most European Languages are derived from English and have > >a large number of words from common roots. > > All other languages? Most European languages? > > "All other languages" is simply false. Chinese, Russian, Finnish and > Hungarian certainly are not derived from English. > I hope that this nonsense does not continue to propogate. The original posting was a joke about transformational grammar and the author stated that it was a joke in the posting. Someone took him seriously and now more people are. The original posting joked that all languages were derived from English because Noam Chomsky did his original work on TG on English and postualted a structure (S => NP VP) for all languages. Some papers (Pullum) have shown that this is not universal. The author of the original posting is a competent linguist and was commenting on chauvinism, not suggesting that all languages were derived from English. -- scc!steiny Don Steiny @ Don Steiny Software 109 Torrey Pine Terrace Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 (408) 425-0382
mac@uvacs.UUCP (Alex Colvin) (02/16/86)
> >>As for spoken language, it has been proven that English is the easiest > >>language because all other languages are derived from it. Please! This is clearly a :-)
mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) (02/16/86)
As Don Steiny points out, those familiar with the generative grammar scene
might well conclude that all languages derive from English, or at least
that Universal Grammar _resembles_ English grammar. Now an important news
flash: a group of Native American languages have now been shown to be
genetically related to the Indo European family, on classic philological
grounds. ---
The English word for `house made out of ice' is "igloo".
And the Eskimo word for the same thing is 'illu'.
(Using conventional orthography in both cases. The "ll" is an
unvoiced lateral.)
The English word for `small boat made of animal skins stretched over a
structural frame of local materials' is "kayak".
And the Eskimo word for the same thing is "kayak" or "kayaq".
This discovery should be credited to Jerry Sadock, who also has developed
the following radical simplification of Government and Binding theory:
'Phrase structure' component: w*
(i.e., any number of words).
Transformation: move-alpha
(as in usual GB)
Surface filter: the gamma criterion
where the gamma criterion filters out all sentences except those grammatical
in English.
A question from the audience asked Sadock to explain, under his theory,
why "Jean a vu Marie" was considered an acceptable sentence (in French).
He pointed out that people in France have slightly different phonological
adjustment rules, and the example sentence passes the gamma criterion
because "John has viewed Mary" is a grammatical sentence of English.
--
-- Mitch Marks @ UChicago
...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmarwyatt@cfa.UUCP (Bill Wyatt) (02/17/86)
> >>As for spoken language, it has been proven that English is the easiest > >>language because all other languages are derived from it. [ mass quantities of flames from various authors about this statement ] Come on now! Isn't there *anyone* out there who has a sense of humor? Did Donn Seeley have to bracket his entire article in smiley faces to prevent people from taking this seriously? -- Bill UUCP: {seismo|ihnp4|cmcl2}!harvard!talcott!cfa!wyatt Wyatt ARPA: wyatt%cfa.UUCP@harvard.HARVARD.EDU
christer@kuling.UUCP (02/17/86)
Summary: References: <77@druhi.UUCP> <3550004@csd2.UUCP> <144@crin.UUCP> Reply-To: christer@kuling.UUCP (Christer Johansson) Followup-To: net.nlang Organization: (Studying CS at the) University of Uppsala, Sweden Keywords: In article <144@crin.UUCP> of Sat, 15-Feb-86 04:24:49 GMT tombre@crin.UUCP (Karl Tombre) writes: > OK, there are common >roots in many european languages, > >- other words have specifically scandinavian origins: "husband", "town", > "garden" ... What is the origin of "town"? The origins of 'husband' and 'garden' are obvious (at least if you speak a scandinavian language.) -- SMail: Christer Johansson UUCP: {seismo,seismo!mcvax}!enea!kuling!christer OR Sernandersv. 9:136 christer@kuling.UUCP S-752 63 Uppsala Phone: Int. +46 - 18 46 31 54 SWEDEN Nat. 018 - 46 31 54
goldberg@SU-Russell.ARPA (Jeffrey Goldberg) (02/17/86)
In article <632@scc.UUCP> steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) writes: > I hope that this nonsense does not continue to propogate. >The original posting was a joke about transformational grammar and >the author stated that it was a joke in the posting. Someone took >him seriously and now more people are. > > The original posting joked that all languages were derived >from English because Noam Chomsky did his original work on TG on >English and postualted a structure (S => NP VP) for all languages. >Some papers (Pullum) have shown that this is not universal. The >author of the original posting is a competent linguist and was >commenting on chauvinism, not suggesting that all languages >were derived from English. > >-- >scc!steiny >Don Steiny @ Don Steiny Software >109 Torrey Pine Terrace >Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 >(408) 425-0382 There was a later posting that didn't look like a joke. Anyway, it is is clear that the "Universal Base Hypothesis" has been rejected as either silly or having no consequence (utterly unfalsifyable), and while this is the opinion that is expressed by Pullum he is not to be given the credit for showing the problems with the UBH. Peters and Rithie (1969) ["A note on the UBH" J of Ling, 5] should be given the credit. Notice that 1969 was a long time ago, and generative linguistics may have grown up a little bit since then. Nonetheless, there is a joke. For the sake of the joke please assume that 1 is a prime number. A man who is ignorent of such things has heard the conjecture that all odd numbers are prime. He goes and asks a mathematician if this is true. To which she responds, "Well, one is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is not prime. The conjecture is proved false by counterexample." Our hero isn't satisfied because he knows that mathematicians have their heads in the clouds and aren't tied down to reality. So he asks the physical chemist who has to actually do lots of calculations. The chemist says, "One is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, nine is uh not prime, eleven is prime, thirteen is prime. Yes, they are all prime. We just have some experimental error." [The joke has an engineer and a computer programmer part, but it is too long so I will get on with the point.] Finally, after getting conflicting and inconclusive results from all of the above he goes to the genertive linguist. (He has learned that they get pretty mathematical at times. After all, they use lots of alphas and betas, and they don't know Greek.) So he says to the linguist, "I have heard that all odd numbers are prime. Is this true?" The linguist thinks for a moment and says, "Well, one is prime. Yes, it must be a universal!" I would have posted this to net.jokes, but I don't think that it would have been sufficiently appreciated. -- /* ** Jeff Goldberg (best reached at GOLDBERG@SU-CSLI.ARPA) */
mrgofor@mmm.UUCP (MKR) (02/18/86)
In article <178@uvacs.UUCP> mac@uvacs.UUCP (Alex Colvin) writes: >> >>As for spoken language, it has been proven that English is the easiest >> >>language because all other languages are derived from it. > >Please! This is clearly a :-) Not only that, but I think English should be the standard language for the whole world because the Bible is written in English. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Please! This is clearly a :-) <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< --MKR
mrgofor@mmm.UUCP (MKR) (02/18/86)
In article <183@cfa.UUCP> wyatt@cfa.UUCP (Bill Wyatt) writes: >> >>As for spoken language, it has been proven that English is the easiest >> >>language because all other languages are derived from it. > >[ mass quantities of flames from various authors about this statement ] > >Come on now! Isn't there *anyone* out there who has a sense of humor? Did >Donn Seeley have to bracket his entire article in smiley faces to prevent >people from taking this seriously? > >-- > >Bill UUCP: {seismo|ihnp4|cmcl2}!harvard!talcott!cfa!wyatt >Wyatt ARPA: wyatt%cfa.UUCP@harvard.HARVARD.EDU I think the problem here (that Bill Wyatt and others who expressed similar sentiments are overlooking) is that there really *are* people who have the most *bizarre* and *asinine* opinions and beliefs. (If you don't believe me - try reading some of Ted Holden's postings in net.origins) Without knowing someone personally, it is very difficult to tell if he or she is joking or merely an idiot. --MKR
storm@diku.UUCP (Kim Fabricius Storm) (02/19/86)
In article <889@kuling.UUCP> christer@kuling.UUCP (Christer Johansson) writes: >>- other words have specifically scandinavian origins: "husband", "town", >> "garden" ... >What is the origin of "town"? The origins of 'husband' and 'garden' are obvious >(at least if you speak a scandinavian language.) "Town" comes from the old scandinavian 'tun' which meant an area enclosed with a fence, or a farmyard. It exists in danish town names like Tune and Galten (from Galtatun: Galt = hog (pig) + tun = fence, i.e. a pigsty). ------------------ Kim F. Storm, Inst of Datalogy(=CS), U of Copenhagen UUCP: mcvax!diku!storm, <storm@diku.UUCP>
tombre@crin.UUCP (Karl Tombre) (02/19/86)
In article <889@kuling.UUCP> christer@kuling.UUCP (Christer Johansson) writes: >In article <144@crin.UUCP> of Sat, 15-Feb-86 04:24:49 GMT >tombre@crin.UUCP (Karl Tombre) writes: > >> OK, there are common >>roots in many european languages, >> >>- other words have specifically scandinavian origins: "husband", "town", >> "garden" ... > >What is the origin of "town"? The origins of 'husband' and 'garden' are obvious >(at least if you speak a scandinavian language.) Well town comes from "tun" I believe (as in gaardstun) And for those who don't speak a scandinavian language: husband <-- hus-bonde (~~ the master in the house) garden <-- gard (farm, piece of land) Lenge leve Skandinavia! Cheers, -- --- Karl Tombre @ CRIN (Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Nancy) UUCP: ...!vmucnam!crin!tombre or ...!inria!crin!tombre COSAC: crin/tombre POST: Karl Tombre, CRIN, B.P. 239, 54506 VANDOEUVRE CEDEX, France Les plus desesperes sont les chants les plus beaux, Et j'en sais d'immortels qui sont de purs sanglots. Alfred de Musset.