English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Like in England, the original Romano-British were driven to Wales, and Angles and the Saxons were from Jutland originally, and the Normans are originally of Scandanavian origin, round about

Alain Pannetier

@Billare, that's indeed very interesting.

Billare

9:21 PM

Does France have a similar complicated history?

Alain Pannetier

The Aquitanian and the Basques seem to have haplotypes of pre-indo european invasions.

Vasconic substratum theory

The Vasconic substratum theory is a proposal that many western European languages contain remnants of an old language family of Vasconic languages, of which Basque is the only surviving member. The proposal was made by the German linguist Theo Vennemann, but has been rejected by other linguists. According to Vennemann, Vasconic languages were once widespread on the European continent before they were mostly replaced by Indo-European languages. Relics of these languages include toponyms across Central and Western Europe and some vocabulary in Germanic and Balto-Slavic languages that cannot...

Billare

I see, interesting...I knew that the Basques were a genetic isolate in Western Europe, but had no idea about the Aquitainians

Alain Pannetier

Toponymy and Hydronymy suggest that the Basques are only the tip of the iceberg.

Billare

Do you know what provence you are mainly from?

Gigili

I just made a riddle on where are you from, England, France, Tunis and China plus a little India.

Alain Pannetier

9:28 PM

@Gigili. Actually your name could be Chinese.

Let's have the riddle.

Gigili

Gerne

Billare

I meant provenance.

z7sg

Requests for coinage are off-topic aren't they?

0

Q: What is the collective noun for a collection of collective nouns?

murder : crows :: _ : collective nouns Sorry, no multiple choice this time.

Billare

lol

z7sg

Again meta fails us meta.english.stackexchange.com/questions/1216/…

Alain Pannetier

9:31 PM

My mom's maiden name is very close to 2 Norwegian fjords. and she's pure Norman. My Dad is from the very centre of France itself.

Gigili

@AlainPannetier Wowing

Alain Pannetier

@z7sg. It's a dupe.

Billare

Hm, may I ask what her maiden name was?

And your father: From the Burgundy area?

Alain Pannetier

@Billare, you should email me for these info. Coz this is a kind of agora here...

Billare

@Alain Ah, rightg.

@Alain No matter, it isn't very important.

Alain Pannetier

9:36 PM

@Gigili. What about your riddle? Did anybody find out?

Billare

Very interesting then. Then I believe your son in heir to two great peoples.

Gigili

@AlainPannetier Fortunately, not yet.

Billare

The Normans still rule England, and the Chinese were head of the world till the mid 1500s.

Well, the date they stopped sending large capital ships to sea.

Very auspicious.

Alain Pannetier

@Gigili. I know. Persian !!!!!!!!!!

@Billare. The German do rule England.

Billare

@Alain Tosh, you're talking about the Royal Family right?

Gigili

9:40 PM

@AlainPannetier !!!!

Billare

@Alain Ever since the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha came to power, the monarchy has been weak, ineffectual, and an embarassment.

That's not real power.

Alain Pannetier

@Billare, right. Another example is the invicble armada of 159x or something. That was the end of Spain.

@Gigili. So I got it?

Billare

Though I do like Elizabeth II.

Gigili

6 mins ago, by Alain Pannetier

@Billare, you should email me for these info. Coz this is a kind of agora here...

Alain Pannetier

@Gigili :D fair enough!!!

@Billare, correcting Invicible armada is 1588.

The other European Monarchies did not really fare much better. May be less flamboyant.

z7sg

9:44 PM

@Billare We had the House of Hanover before that. It was 'anyone but a Catholic', even if that must be a German.

Billare

I've always considered the House of Hanover Dutch in character.

I agree with "anybody but a Catholic", for England, by the way.

z7sg

Not a huge improvement.

Billare

Dutch have always been a great people, overlooked I think by some.

Martha

@AlainPannetier It kind of seems like it must be, but of what? Closest I find is:

11

Q: A murder of crows?

I love the subset of collective nouns known as the terms of venery. These are collective nouns specific to a particular group of animals. Some of the more inventive examples are: a murder of crows, a crash of rhinos, a mischief of mice, and a puddling of ducks (specifically swimming ducks). Is t...

etymology word-formation taxonomy

Billare

Home to dissidents, the oppressed, radical democracy, greatest merchants the world has ever seen, scores of scientists.

Alain Pannetier

9:48 PM

Oooh sorry forgot about that. There are 2 Questions.

Billare

Including some of the very greatest.

z7sg

And they usually seem to have a good sense of humour.

Billare

Huygens, Leuuvonhoook, t'Hooft. And our Roosevelts here.

Alain Pannetier

15

Q: Terms for collections of animals

As I watched the murder of crows sitting on the line above my house this evening, I got wondering where all of the collective nouns for animals (pod of whales, gaggle of geese, pride of lions) came from and why we need so many. If sheep can be a flock, why can't whales, geese, lions, and crows?

etymology vocabulary idioms

@Martha and the one you cited. Do you think - given the style of the question - this is what is meant ?

Martha

That one's asking why such terms exist, not what to call them collectively.

And the one I quoted already knows the answer, so to speak.

Billare

9:51 PM

I really want the History StackExchange to open. Sooooo many questions to ask.

Alenanno

@Billare Where do you get your questions from? They are always so complicated :D

Billare

My head...I am a daydreamer, I think.

Alain Pannetier

@Martha. Ok let it go. We had our dose of strife for today.

Yet the question needs a bit of beefing up. It looks like an ipV6 address honestly.

Martha

You mean with the colons? That's actually standard notation for this sort of thing.

But in any case, next topic. Is there any way to make this question be on-topic?

0

Q: Finnegans wake readable on the small scale?

Is the book 'Finnegans Wake' supposed to be readable on the small scale? Decoding the storyline is apprently verry diffucult, this should also be evedent from looking at the text but I don't know yet because I can't read it, it is as if it is writtain in a foregn languege, the text itself dosn't ...