English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Leaky Nun

16:00

Finnish has preserved a Proto-Germanic word more intact than any Germanic language.

tchrist

Thieves and plunderers.

Leaky Nun

consider this an achievement.

englishstudent

@Mitch I'm a coder. But my internship is in a finance department so I might change my field and become a full time finance guy.

@Mitch Also I was modelling part time in the past, for a medium sized clothing company here. I quit that though due to reasons. I had some problems.

Leaky Nun

Finnish is one of the most preservative languages

tchrist

Cold preserves, heat consumes.

Leaky Nun

16:03

The PG word for "hawk" is *habukaz

The Finnish word is haukka

terdon

Hang on, is Finnish Germanic?

Leaky Nun

@terdon no it isn't

They're borrowings into Finnish

they traded in the times of Proto-Germanic

and got those words

terdon

Sorry, misread more than any as more than any other.

Leaky Nun

and preserved them until now

tchrist

> The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian, which are official languages of Hungary, Finland, and Estonia, respectively, and of the European Union. Other Uralic languages with significant numbers of speakers are Erzya, Moksha, Mari, Udmurt, and Komi, which are officially recognized languages in various regions of Russia.

Jason Bourne

16:05

It seems that Leaky Nun has made this chat come alive.

@Mitch I just looked up longanimity and equanimity again, and indeed, they do have quite different meanings. One is long, and the other is equal, lol.

Leaky Nun

it seems to me that Proto-Germanic *hl- /xl/ is completely gone now

replaced by single L

Jason Bourne

@LeakyNun Are you a math undergrad by the way?

Leaky Nun

those should correspond to Latin cl-

@JasonBourne I'm a high school graduate

entering university, inshallah

talking about inshallah, Arabic is quite interesting

Jason Bourne

@LeakyNun Are you Muslim? I ask because nobody else says that.

Leaky Nun

@JasonBourne nah I said it just for fun

and I couldn't find a more appropriate phrase for that

Arabic morphology is an exception to every known rule

I guess @tchrist and @terdon are already gone

Jason Bourne

16:10

@LeakyNun OIC. I am supposing you plan to study math.

Leaky Nun

@JasonBourne yes

tchrist

@JasonBourne oxalá

Leaky Nun

@tchrist Spanish has quite a few influences due to Arabic

tchrist

Yes, 4000 words. But that one was Portuguese under current spellings.

Oxalá

Oxalá é a grafia de duas palavras homônimas da língua portuguesa, uma de origem árabe, que vem da expressão árabe "'in sha' allh", cujo significado é “se Deus quiser”, que é utilizada como interjeição para expressar o desejo que algo aconteça. É sinónimo de "tomara" ou "queira Deus". A outra palavra vem do iorubá Òrìsànlá, nome de um orixá também conhecido como Obatalá. == Oxalá na Umbanda == Oxalá, Orixalá, Orixaguinã, Gunocô ou Obatalá é o orixá associado à criação do mundo e da espécie humana. Apresenta-se de várias maneiras (qualidades) sendo as duas principais qualidades: a forma jovem, em...

Jason Bourne

@LeakyNun I hope you are able to study in a good university. I did not, and realised that only later on. For a look at the topics that can be covered in a good math department, you may want to look at the Cambridge math schedules for their three year course, where they state the number of lectures devoted to a topic in a particular course.

Leaky Nun

16:12

there are some Arabic loanwords that wouldn't be counted

admiral, e.g.

@JasonBourne thanks

Jason Bourne

@tchrist I read somewhere that Spanish was influenced by Arabic, probably because of the Islamic conquest.

terdon

@LeakyNun gone?

tchrist

@JasonBourne That's a gross understatement.

Leaky Nun

@terdon yep. gone.

Jason Bourne

@tchrist Ah, no wonder Spanish music sounds a little like Arabic music too, lol.

tchrist

16:13

@JasonBourne So is that.

Leaky Nun

correlation. does not.

terdon

@JasonBourne Oh, the musical influence is enormous. Probably far greater than the linguistic.

Leaky Nun

fun fact: Latin clīnō is cognate with English lean

Jason Bourne

@LeakyNun Erdos says someone is gone when he has died, and someone is dead when he has stopped doing mathematics.

terdon

Which is also why a lot of Greek music sounds like Spanish music. They just both have enormous Arab influence.

Leaky Nun

16:14

@JasonBourne I see.

tchrist

> Andalusia was probably the main route of transmission of a number of Near-Eastern musical instruments used in classical music; the rebec (ancestor of violin) from the rebab, the guitar from qitara and naker from naqareh. Further terms fell into disuse in Europe; adufe from al-duff, alboka from al-buq, anafil from al-nafir, exabeba from al-shabbaba (flute), atabal (bass drum) from al-tabl, atambal from al-tinbal,[1] the balaban, sonajas de azófar from sunuj al-sufr, the conical bore wind instruments,[2] the xelami from the sulami or fistula (flute or musical pipe),

terdon

@LeakyNun Interesting. That probably comes from the Greek κλίση (leaning)

Leaky Nun

@terdon nope, both from PIE.

fun fact: Latin primus "first" and English first are both superlatives.

terdon

@LeakyNun Not PIE > Greek > Latin?

Leaky Nun

@terdon nope.

tchrist

16:16

erster

Leaky Nun

oh, and the Greek cognate is κλίνω

terdon

@LeakyNun That's the verb, not the noun.

Leaky Nun

@terdon I thought we are talking about verbs

tchrist

> While he, — laid foully low
With limbs red-rent, with festering brain which erst
Willed kingly freedom

terdon

Where are you getting your evidence? I'd like to read up on that.

tchrist

16:17

Música en Andalucía

La música andaluza es tanto la música tradicional propia del territorio español de Andalucía, como un tipo de música específico de género culto, definido por unas características propias en el ámbito métrico, melódico, armónico y formal. En el ámbito armónico es muy frecuente el uso de la cadencia andaluza. Por ello, puede hablarse con propiedad de música andaluza compuesta por compositores no andaluces. En el ámbito de la musicología, a esta tendencia suele llamársele Andalucismo musical. Destacados géneros de música andaluza son el flamenco, la copla andaluza y el rock andaluz. == Historia... ==

Leaky Nun

@terdon well, from wiktionary, but I think it is believable.

tchrist

Man is it one of those days again?

terdon

@LeakyNun wiktionary can sometimes be useful yes. It can also very often be completely wrong.

Leaky Nun

@terdon De Vaan confirms.

clino directly from PIE.

I don't see why you doubt it.

terdon

Into Latin?

Leaky Nun

16:18

yes.

PIE > Latin.

terdon

@LeakyNun I don't doubt it as such, I find it surprising since the PIE > Greek > Latin route is very common.

Leaky Nun

@terdon but PIE > Latin is equally, if not more, common

terdon

I wonder if that's true. No idea which of the two is more common.

Leaky Nun

Do you think Latin isn't an Indo-European language?

Most of the basic words are directly inherited from PIE (that's what makes it an IE language)

terdon

@LeakyNun Hardly. I very much doubt that most of the basic words in IE languages come directly from PIE. Surely they are most often inherited from other IE languages, aren't they?

Leaky Nun

16:21

@terdon for example? Just pick a basic word.

tchrist

Jury's still out on whether Etruscan came from PIE.

terdon

@LeakyNun como

Spanish word, not directly from PIE but instead from Latin.

Leaky Nun

...

Greek > Latin is called a borrowing.

tchrist

*h₁em-

Leaky Nun

Of course Spanish can't come directly from PIE.

terdon

16:23

@LeakyNun Precisely. That's why I objected to your claim that "Most of the basic words are directly inherited from PIE (that's what makes it an IE language)"

Leaky Nun

If you inherit from another language, which inherits from PIE, I still count it as a direct inheritance from PIE.

terdon

@LeakyNun That isn't direct. By definition.

Leaky Nun

@terdon well, I was objecting your claim that most of the Latin words are borrowed from Greek.

terdon

Direct means, well, direct.

tchrist

There's a problem with that.

terdon

16:23

@LeakyNun Oh, I never meant to claim that!

Leaky Nun

If that was the case, Latin would be a hellenic language.

tchrist

There is no discrete language called PIE that we can place as the immediate ancestor of anything.

terdon

I was just wondering whether more words came directly from Greek or from PIE. I would expect that most would have come from whatever the local Italian precursors to Latin were but not from PIE itself.

Leaky Nun

@tchrist following your logic, there'd be no Latin either.

tchrist

@LeakyNun Wasn't my idea.

Leaky Nun

16:25

@terdon well, I just meant that you wouldn't expect most words to be a borrowing

tchrist

Just pointing out that it leads to contradiction.

Jason Bourne

@LeakyNun It seems you study many languages. Is that right?

terdon

@LeakyNun No, of course not.

Leaky Nun

@JasonBourne well, but I can't speak many languages.

@terdon then why would Greek > Latin be more common than PIE > Latin?

tchrist

Etruscan language

The Etruscan language (/ᵻˈtrʌskən/) was the spoken and written language of the Etruscan civilization, in Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria (modern Tuscany plus western Umbria and northern Latium) and in parts of Campania, Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna (where the Etruscans were later displaced by Gauls). Etruscan influenced Latin, but was eventually completely superseded by it. The Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions which have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length, some bilingual inscriptions with texts also in Latin, Greek, or Phoenician...

Jason Bourne

16:26

@LeakyNun Do you study it for fun or because you need the credits?

Leaky Nun

@JasonBourne for fun. I'm not even in university.

terdon

@LeakyNun pffft. In a world were the vast majority speaks one language and that one badly, someone who speaks more than three certainly speaks "many".

tchrist

> The Etruscan language is also believed to be the source of certain important cultural words of Western Europe such as 'military' and 'people', which do not have obvious Indo-European roots.

Leaky Nun

@terdon 'murica

Jason Bourne

@LeakyNun Well, there are people who study languages in high school for credit.

Leaky Nun

16:27

@JasonBourne credit?

tchrist

caveat creditor

terdon

@LeakyNun Because I'd expect very very few direct PIE -> Any language. Unless we're talking about extremely old languages, far older than either Greek or Latin.

Leaky Nun

speaking of credit, it is the 3.sg.pres. of credo

terdon

I'm just wondering about this though, I don't know.

Leaky Nun

@terdon I think you already got my point.

Jason Bourne

16:27

@LeakyNun To satisfy curricular requirements.

tchrist

crescendos

terdon

If you say so.

Leaky Nun

I'm saying, most basic words are inherited through a chain which has PIE at the beginning.

instead of borrowed from another language

@tchrist that's a different verb

@JasonBourne I see

tchrist

@LeakyNun :)

terdon

@LeakyNun I don't understand. If there's a chain, then obviously they're borrowed from other languages.

Leaky Nun

16:28

@terdon I mean, a chain of inheritance

as in, Spanish inherited from Latin, which from Proto-Italic, which from PIE.

terdon

Yes, that's my point. Which is why I would expect very few cases of direct inheritance from PIE in any language.

Leaky Nun

only daughter languages.

tchrist

Crisco oil.

Leaky Nun

@terdon and my point is that PIE > Greek > Latin isn't a chain of inheritance

because Greek > Latin is a borrowing

because Latin isn't a Hellenic language.

tchrist

Right, it wasn't like an existing word just got older.

It was pinched.

terdon

16:30

No, hang on, why would borrowing not be a chain of inheritance?

Leaky Nun

@terdon a borrowing is not an inheritance

terdon

Why?

Leaky Nun

at least here in my discussion, it isn't. I don't care how you call it elsewhere.

@terdon because it isn't a daughter language.

tchrist

Because it wasn't an existing word that just got older.

terdon

@tchrist What do you mean got older?

Leaky Nun

16:31

consider the English word "consider".

@terdon went through a lot of sound changes from the ancestor of the language.

tchrist

That's what I meant.

Leaky Nun

e.g. Old English > English

tchrist

PG > OE

Leaky Nun

PIE > PG

Greek isn't an ancestor of Latin.

tchrist

Nor Latin, English.

Leaky Nun

16:32

if you follow the branch model of languages, only vertical transfer, no horizontal transfer.

terdon

OK, but if a word in languageC ended up in languageC from languageB which borrowed it from languagA, why isn't this a chain of inheritance?

Leaky Nun

no cross-branch stuff.

@terdon because there is a borrowing.

you crossed branches.

tchrist

French inherited Latin words, whereas English merely borrowed them.

Leaky Nun

because French is a daughter language of Latin.

terdon

OK, I see the distinction you're making. I don't really see its importance though. When discussing language phylogeny sure, but why is it relevant to the history of a word? The point is the word was formed in the furnaces of these other langauges before ending up in this one.

tchrist

16:34

@terdon You need to think in cladistics here.

Leaky Nun

@terdon because in a typical language, there is definitely more inheritance than borrowings.

tchrist

Phylogenetic relationships.

terdon

I am. I'm thinking paralogs vs orthologs, actually, which is pretty close to what you describe.

Leaky Nun

English is an odd exception, at least the less vernacular one, like the one we're using now.

tchrist

Tree model

In historical linguistics, the tree model (also Stammbaum, genetic, or cladistic model) is a model of the evolution of languages analogous to the concept of a family tree, particularly a phylogenetic tree in the biological evolution of species. As with species, each language is assumed to have evolved from a single parent or "mother" language, with languages that share a common ancestor belonging to the same language family. Popularized by the German linguist August Schleicher in 1853, the tree model has always been a common method of describing genetic relationships between languages since the...

terdon

16:35

@tchrist Yes, I know.

tchrist

You cannot inherit traits from your uncle.

terdon

What you call borrowing is the equivalent of a gene duplication even following a speciation event in biological phylogenies.

Leaky Nun

@terdon I tend to think of it as a horizontal gene transfer.

tchrist

You understand why English is a Germanic language not a Romance one, right?

terdon

I just don't really see why it makes a difference when discussing a word. It is indeed an important distinction when discussing languages.

@tchrist Sure.

Leaky Nun

16:37

gene duplication following a speciation event is just one language separating into two languages

tchrist

And yet we have so very much Romance in us, as Latin has so much Greek.

Leaky Nun

like Latin splitting into French and Spanish.

terdon

But what difference does it make if foo was inherited or borrowed from bar? It was still shaped by bar before coming to its current language.

Leaky Nun

@terdon different languages undergo different sound changes

tchrist

But we are still not a Romance tongue.

terdon

16:38

Of course not.

Leaky Nun

borrowing is incorporating foreign genes.

Like viral genes entering us

tchrist

Greek influenced Latin, just as French influenced English.

Leaky Nun

or endosymbiosis

tchrist

That doesn't make Latin a Greek language any more than it makes English a French language.

Leaky Nun

@terdon The point I was making is that, no matter how foo language is influenced by bar language, the basic words in foo are still inherited through a chain.

tchrist

16:39

Think of all the Greek words in English. We're also not a Greek language, and in just the same way.

terdon

Agreed. My point is that when looking at individual words rather than entire languages, whether a word was inherited or borrowed doesn't seem to make much difference.

@LeakyNun Sure.

Leaky Nun

@terdon it makes much difference.

tchrist

Much difference in what?

terdon

In the analysis of the history of the word.

Leaky Nun

it does make much difference.

Different languages have different sound changes.

terdon

16:40

Whether inherited or borrowed, the word came through the other language.

Leaky Nun

more difference when it is a learned borrowing.

A word borrowed from bar into foo wouldn't have gone through the same sound changes as the words in foo

tchrist

Focus on structures, not glosses.

Leaky Nun

the difference is more apparent with doublets

tchrist

> Two languages are considered to be genetically related if one is descended from the other or if both are descended from a common ancestor. For example, Italian is descended from Latin. Italian and Latin are therefore said to be genetically related. Spanish is also descended from Latin. Therefore, Spanish and Italian are genetically related. In a similar way, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are genetically related through the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.[1]

terdon

@tchrist Yes, I'm fine with the phylogenetic idea of languages.

Leaky Nun

16:43

@terdon consider the doublet "sure" and "secure".

terdon

OK

Leaky Nun

the -c- didn't get elided because it didn't go through the second lenition.

terdon

@LeakyNun Yes, because one came through French while the other from Latin. The change happened in French.

Jason Bourne

I am thinking of changing my username to leaking monk, being inspired by leaky nun, lol.

Leaky Nun

@JasonBourne your choice.

@terdon precisely.

terdon

16:45

@JasonBourne Ewww please don't. One mildly disgusting user name is enough!

Leaky Nun

at this point I don't know what we're arguing, since you agreed to my main point:

5 mins ago, by Leaky Nun

@terdon The point I was making is that, no matter how foo language is influenced by bar language, the basic words in foo are still inherited through a chain.

Jason Bourne

@terdon I cannot remember, but what does the word terdon mean?

tchrist

@JasonBourne And would you do that if you thought her a boy?

Jason Bourne

@tchrist Well, I wasn't thinking about that at all. =)

tchrist

Oh, I think you were.

terdon

16:46

@LeakyNun My point is that it doesn't make much difference whether a word was inherited or borrowed, the important thing is where it came from rather than how. In your example, sure lost its C in French and English got it from French. So a borrowing. OK, but despite that, French has affected it just as much as if it were found in a daughter language.

@JasonBourne Nothing. It's what I got by randomly pressing keys at a login prompt 20 years ago and has been with me ever since.

Leaky Nun

@terdon alright.

tchrist

Why do we have no Germanic word for use in English? Why isn’t it nutz or something?

Leaky Nun

good question.

> Displaced native Middle English note (“use”) (See note) from Old English notu, and Middle English nutte (“use”) from Old English nytt.

tchrist

Yes, OE had notian

Leaky Nun

> Displaced native Middle English noten, nutten (“to use”) (from Old English notian, nēotan, nyttian) and Middle English brouken, bruken (“to use, enjoy”) (from Old English brūcan).

the first one is the noun, the second one is the verb.

tchrist

16:49

right

So maybe ME had nuttes after all.

Leaky Nun

what is nuttes?

tchrist

If nutten was a verb meaning to use....

Leaky Nun

then?

tchrist

3s nutteth, nuttes

But that's EME.

I have no ME.

terdon

@tchrist What? Nuttela means use her?

Leaky Nun

16:51

@tchrist not unbelievable, but why would you be interested in specifically nuttes?

@terdon now we're mixing languages

terdon

Now? What do you mean now?

Leaky Nun

@terdon "now" means when you said "nuttela"

because "nutte" is presumably ME and "la" is Spanish

terdon

One usually needs at least 3 languages to understand discussions held in this room.

tchrist

Leaky Nun

@terdon indeed :p

Jason Bourne

16:52

Nutella is not good. I don't like peanut butter.

tchrist

@LeakyNun ela is PT for ella

Leaky Nun

@tchrist oh.

Jason Bourne

Oh it is called nocilla lol.

tchrist

Notice it comes in colors.

Leaky Nun

oh, and -tz- in German is from -t- in PG.

cat vs Katze

Jason Bourne

16:53

Nonetheless, all three colours are authentic!

Leaky Nun

ten vs zehn

tchrist

Nocilla

Nocilla is a hazelnut and chocolate spread similar to Nutella. It is sold in Spain and Portugal. It was first launched in the late 1960s, and since 2002 is manufactured by Nutrexpa. In Spain, it outsells Nutella by a large margin. == Slogan == Leche, cacao, avellanas y azúcar... ¡¡No-ci-lla!!: "Milk, cocoa, hazelnuts and sugar... No-ci-lla!!" == References == == External links == Official site Brand information at Nutrexpa site....

Jason Bourne

Oh I thought it was just the translation. It's another brand

Leaky Nun

fun fact: Proto-Germanic borrowed Latin "securus" (sure) and the word is still extant in German (and also frequently used).

tchrist

It is.

Leaky Nun

16:54

The word underwent German /k/ > /x/ change to give sicher.

(not to mention the /x/ > /ç/ change)

tchrist

> A finales de los años 1960, el grupo Starlux se inspiró en un producto del grupo italiano Ferrero, la crema untable Nutella, para elaborar su propio producto para el mercado español. La masa de Nocilla tiene un tercio menos de pasta de avellanas que Nutella.

Not so nutty. :/

Jason Bourne

Ferrero Rocher chocolate is pretty good.

tchrist

Especially if you get it before it's sat on the shelves for a few years.

Leaky Nun

fun fact: compute and count are cognates.

Jason Bourne

That's a very alliterative sentence.

Leaky Nun

16:58

@tchrist I'm recognizing "mercado" as a cognate of market

tchrist

Columbus called cocoa beans "cocoa almonds".

@LeakyNun Of course.

We should call his ships "caramelos" in revenge.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…