Death of languages. - Page 3

brodski · 28th October 2009, 01:40 PM

Originally Posted by BPScooter

:-) the version of English we seem to be speaking, so kind of you to ask! Which sort of English did you imply that I was intending, if I might be so forward in the asking?

I didn't imply that you were asking about any particular form of English.
I assumed you didn't mean the mish-mash of idiolects which are used on this forum or even on this thread, as it's a bit odd to ask if the language which we are currently using is dead.

Akhenaten · 29th October 2009, 05:50 AM

Idiolects

I knew there'd be a proper name for my language. It sounds so right.

Jeff Corey · 29th October 2009, 09:34 PM

I though it was "moi aussi".
Or did I have a frog in...
oh forget it,

Akhenaten · 30th October 2009, 03:31 AM

Cuppa tea, a Bex, and a good lie down, old son.

You'll be fine.

ETA:

Actually, that's kinda relevant to a discussion of language. Here's a linky to a short article on my above phrase.

BPScooter · 30th October 2009, 04:17 AM

You folks have summed me up, confounded and a little vexed on the side. From what I know (which could be totally wrong) the English language has a s***load of very specific nouns, as well as a soupily absorbtive way of using nebulous and ephemeral stuff like adjectives and adverbs from other tongues. The spelling is way confusing, but the bread-crumb trail of how the words and saying-ways got lodged in the old bean is some sort of help. Single-syllable Anglo Saxon words are good.

JJM 777 · 1st November 2009, 01:08 AM

Originally Posted by Kritikos

Do you mean "inshallah" (Arabic)?

I really have nothing better to do right now, so: It always annoyed me at school when an otherwise smart and well educated IT teacher used the phrase "ins'Allah" or something like that. I hate grammatical inaccuracies.

The Arabic saying is "In shaa'a el-Lahu" (pronounced "in shaa'a llah"), literally "If wills God" (= "God willing"), where "in" means "if", "shaa'a" is a verb "wills / wants", and "el-Lahu" means "the God" -- a variant of the better known basic form "al-Lahu", which includes a definite article "al" that becomes "el" (with silent e) in the middle of a sentence.

People's Arabic skills are so extinct.

Akhenaten · 1st November 2009, 08:08 AM

Mine never existed, and I know not one whit of Arabic, but I've always found that phrase to sound pleasant.

As an aside, despite sometimes describing Arabic script as "some squiggly lines", I actually think it looks quite beautiful. Do people who can read it feel the same?

I wouldn't, for instance, regard my normal Roman characters as inherently attractive.

JJM 777 · 1st November 2009, 12:13 PM

I think that many traditional Latin "Handwriting" / "Script" fonts are very attractive, more attractive than Semitic scripts. The obligatory Semitic calligraphy pen in 45 degrees angle feels monotonous after you have seen a few thousand texts with the same basic style.

Akhenaten · 1st November 2009, 01:10 PM

Well that's a real insight for me. Thank you.

Akhenaten · 1st November 2009, 01:27 PM

Is this correct?

JJM 777 · 2nd November 2009, 11:16 AM

The two "L"s in "Allah" look unusual, these are word ending forms of L, normally should be middle-of-word forms of L. But technically, all the correct letters are in there, some variants of them anyway.

The same is true for SH + AA, normally they are tied together. Never mind.

Akhenaten · 2nd November 2009, 11:48 AM

Thank you.

That was fun to draw, but it will be my last attempt. The subtleties are way beyond me and I could easily end up writing something offensive without realising it.

I still find it a beautiful-looking language though.

All in the eye of the beholder, as they say.

Cheers JJM,

Dave

JJM 777 · 6th November 2009, 01:00 PM

Beauty and functionality don't always go hand in hand.

No vowels, and all the beautiful calligraphy... you will realize its meaning if you stare long enough, but quickly finding interesting pieces of information from masses of text is difficult. I swear that native writers of Arabic and Hebrew read their university books essentially slower than native English writers do. I would love to see that proven with a statistical survey.

Akhenaten · 7th November 2009, 01:22 AM

I do understand what you mean. As something of a fan of ancient Egypt I've come to appreciate the beauty of the glyphs, and I understand the ways in which functionality was secondary to appearance for their creators.

The lack of vowels is common too.

I feel that you're right about the speed of reading, but can't support that feeling in any way. I also understand, I hope, your meaning with the masses of text.

Am I wrong in beliving there's a connection between Coptic Egyptian and early Arabic?

Thank you again for your answers. This is the first time I'm hearing many of your insights.

Cheers,

Dave

JJM 777 · 8th November 2009, 01:52 AM

Originally Posted by Akhenaten

Am I wrong in beliving there's a connection between Coptic Egyptian and early Arabic?

Remotely yes, but very remotely.

Nearly all alphabets (representing single sounds, rather than syllables or ideas) in the world descend from the earliest known Proto-Sinaitic alphabet, whose earliest samples are from around 2000 BCE:

http://www.ancientscripts.com/protosinaitic.html

The last common ancestor of Coptic and Arabic scripts is Early Phoenician script (1100 BCE), essentially a simpler and faster way of writing the Proto-Sinaitic icons:

http://www.ancientscripts.com/phoenician.html

Greek and Latin scripts evolved from Early Phoenician script around 750 BCE.

http://www.ancientscripts.com/greek.html
http://www.ancientscripts.com/latin.html

The Coptic script evolved from Greek script in 2nd century CE (not "BCE" as accidentally written on top of this linked page):

http://www.ancientscripts.com/coptic.html

The Arabic script is not a descendant of Greek, Latin or Coptic scripts. It has evolved a different line from Early Phoenician, through Aramaic and Nabatean scripts, around 3rd century CE:

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/24evolmideast.gif
http://www.ancientscripts.com/arabic.html
http://www.ancientscripts.com/ws_timeline.html

Akhenaten · 8th November 2009, 03:36 AM

Thank you very much for those links. They laid it out very nicely.

The biggest surprise for me was the later than I had expected emergence of Coptic. I'm glad you noted the error in the link as I would have regarded the "BCE" as approximately correct.

You seem to share a great deal of knowledge that my friend Marduk has studied. I will point him to this thread and hopefully gain from reading your exchanges.

Again, thank you for your time.

Marduk · 8th November 2009, 02:07 PM

Originally Posted by JJM 777

I think that many traditional Latin "Handwriting" / "Script" fonts are very attractive, more attractive than Semitic scripts. The obligatory Semitic calligraphy pen in 45 degrees angle feels monotonous after you have seen a few thousand texts with the same basic style.

still, saves me cutting down reeds and digging up clay to write on, so can't be all bad

Akhenaten · 8th November 2009, 02:46 PM

Well met Babylonian, good to see you matey.

I'm looking forward to some of your excellent Cuneiform stuff.

Cheers,

Dave

JJM 777 · 9th November 2009, 01:40 PM

Talking about language-related things that I wish to become extinct, I have tried to learn some Chinese, but strictly with Romanized Pinyin characters. I have no intention whatsoever to learn those zillion Chinese characters. I don't use much other technology from that era either, I prefer the latest technology, latest tools, and latest languages.

Akhenaten · 9th November 2009, 11:58 PM

I think I can relate to what I aee as a desire for simplification on your part, and it would be impossible for me to disagree that this would be a good thing.

Where we might differ is from a less practical point of view.

As I've already stated, I love the way Arabic 'looks' without understanding a word of it, and I'd have to say the same about Chinese and Japanese characters when done as calligraphy. Hindi looks cool too, for that matter.

It reminds me again of the way in which the ancient Egyptians persisted with the glyphs long after they had developed the need for a more efficient language, simply because they were so damned beautiful.

The language of ancient Egypt might have died, but those little symbols are lasting quite well, it seems.

Nepher is popular:

I might be a little subjective.

Akhenaten · 10th November 2009, 05:16 AM

Oops!

I meant 'kheper', of khourse.

The Fallen Serpent · 10th November 2009, 05:42 AM

I believe the Chinese government is moving towards adopting a version of the western alphabet as the official form of writing. At least the younger Chinese immigrants I know in the US were given that impression and passed it along to me. The idea as I understood it was that most people would not have a full knowledge of the old system and it would end up being something left to scholars and artists. Already there is a difference in Mandarin writing between China and Tawain as China sought to simplify it over the past 50 years. It is enough of a difference that Chinese people have difficulty with the traditional system still used in Tawain and vice versa.

MikeSun5 · 10th November 2009, 03:46 PM

Just a thought...

What about stuff like Esperanto and Klingon? Don't people speak Elvish nowadays? Some languages may be dying, but new ones pop up as well. I have a few Rastafarian friends from Jamaica. Granted, they're speaking a bastardized form of English, but their language is constantly evolving.

BPScooter · 10th November 2009, 11:51 PM

This reminds me of something William F. Buckley wrote as part of a preface section in an American Heritage Dictionary copyright 1982. [Aside, that shows how geeky I must be, to actually read and remember the *preface* to an old dictionary!] Longish quote, but interesting. He's coming down on the side of correctness and usage in language (no surprise) but makes an interesting point:

"Language is an aesthetic as well as an analytical tool. And to slur language is as painful to the well-tempered ear as to slur music. In music the individualist seeks to introduce a new modality. He may emerge as a great artist, or he may be held to be witless; juries will judge. Usually, in serious music, a genuinely new style requires fifty years to win acceptance. In language some words have been paying court to the admissions committee for centuries, while thousands upon thousands have simply given up. Some win almost immediate acceptance. But the question is always, acceptance by whom?"

Granted he's talking about words and usages rather than languages in the whole cloth, but I thought the aesthetic argument was interesting and I suppose that's why the preceding discussion reminded me of this.

28th October 2009, 01:40 PM	#81
brodski faceless bureaucrat Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham Posts: 11,636	Originally Posted by BPScooter :-) the version of English we seem to be speaking, so kind of you to ask! Which sort of English did you imply that I was intending, if I might be so forward in the asking? I didn't imply that you were asking about any particular form of English. I assumed you didn't mean the mish-mash of idiolects which are used on this forum or even on this thread, as it's a bit odd to ask if the language which we are currently using is dead.
	__________________ ...and the story does suggest a part 2 to the Turing Test: 1. can machines behave like humans? 2. can we?

29th October 2009, 05:50 AM	#82
Akhenaten Heretic Pharaoh Pither Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Pi-Broadford Australia Posts: 3,811	Idiolects I knew there'd be a proper name for my language. It sounds so right.
	__________________ Life is mostly Froth and Bubble - Adam Lindsay Gordon

30th October 2009, 03:31 AM	#84
Akhenaten Heretic Pharaoh Pither Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Pi-Broadford Australia Posts: 3,811	Cuppa tea, a Bex, and a good lie down, old son. You'll be fine. ETA: Actually, that's kinda relevant to a discussion of language. Here's a linky to a short article on my above phrase.
	__________________ Life is mostly Froth and Bubble - Adam Lindsay Gordon Last edited by Akhenaten; 30th October 2009 at 03:34 AM.

30th October 2009, 04:17 AM	#85
BPScooter Muse Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 726	You folks have summed me up, confounded and a little vexed on the side. From what I know (which could be totally wrong) the English language has a s***load of very specific nouns, as well as a soupily absorbtive way of using nebulous and ephemeral stuff like adjectives and adverbs from other tongues. The spelling is way confusing, but the bread-crumb trail of how the words and saying-ways got lodged in the old bean is some sort of help. Single-syllable Anglo Saxon words are good.
BPScooter Muse Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 726

1st November 2009, 01:08 AM	#86
JJM 777 Muse Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Finland Posts: 742	Originally Posted by Kritikos Do you mean "inshallah" (Arabic)? I really have nothing better to do right now, so: It always annoyed me at school when an otherwise smart and well educated IT teacher used the phrase "ins'Allah" or something like that. I hate grammatical inaccuracies. The Arabic saying is "In shaa'a el-Lahu" (pronounced "in shaa'a llah"), literally "If wills God" (= "God willing"), where "in" means "if", "shaa'a" is a verb "wills / wants", and "el-Lahu" means "the God" -- a variant of the better known basic form "al-Lahu", which includes a definite article "al" that becomes "el" (with silent e) in the middle of a sentence. People's Arabic skills are so extinct.
	Last edited by JJM 777; 1st November 2009 at 01:11 AM.

29th October 2009, 09:34 PM	#83
Jeff Corey New York Skeptic Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 9,408	I though it was "moi aussi". Or did I have a frog in... oh forget it,

1st November 2009, 08:08 AM	#87
Akhenaten Heretic Pharaoh Pither Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Pi-Broadford Australia Posts: 3,811	Mine never existed, and I know not one whit of Arabic, but I've always found that phrase to sound pleasant. As an aside, despite sometimes describing Arabic script as "some squiggly lines", I actually think it looks quite beautiful. Do people who can read it feel the same? I wouldn't, for instance, regard my normal Roman characters as inherently attractive.
	__________________ Life is mostly Froth and Bubble - Adam Lindsay Gordon

1st November 2009, 12:13 PM	#88
JJM 777 Muse Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Finland Posts: 742	I think that many traditional Latin "Handwriting" / "Script" fonts are very attractive, more attractive than Semitic scripts. The obligatory Semitic calligraphy pen in 45 degrees angle feels monotonous after you have seen a few thousand texts with the same basic style.

1st November 2009, 01:10 PM	#89
Akhenaten Heretic Pharaoh Pither Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Pi-Broadford Australia Posts: 3,811	Well that's a real insight for me. Thank you.
	__________________ Life is mostly Froth and Bubble - Adam Lindsay Gordon

1st November 2009, 01:27 PM	#90
Akhenaten Heretic Pharaoh Pither Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Pi-Broadford Australia Posts: 3,811	Is this correct?
	__________________ Life is mostly Froth and Bubble - Adam Lindsay Gordon

2nd November 2009, 11:16 AM	#91
JJM 777 Muse Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Finland Posts: 742	The two "L"s in "Allah" look unusual, these are word ending forms of L, normally should be middle-of-word forms of L. But technically, all the correct letters are in there, some variants of them anyway. The same is true for SH + AA, normally they are tied together. Never mind.
	Last edited by JJM 777; 2nd November 2009 at 11:18 AM.

2nd November 2009, 11:48 AM	#92
Akhenaten Heretic Pharaoh Pither Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Pi-Broadford Australia Posts: 3,811	Thank you. That was fun to draw, but it will be my last attempt. The subtleties are way beyond me and I could easily end up writing something offensive without realising it. I still find it a beautiful-looking language though. All in the eye of the beholder, as they say. Cheers JJM, Dave
	__________________ Life is mostly Froth and Bubble - Adam Lindsay Gordon

6th November 2009, 01:00 PM	#93
JJM 777 Muse Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Finland Posts: 742	Beauty and functionality don't always go hand in hand. No vowels, and all the beautiful calligraphy... you will realize its meaning if you stare long enough, but quickly finding interesting pieces of information from masses of text is difficult. I swear that native writers of Arabic and Hebrew read their university books essentially slower than native English writers do. I would love to see that proven with a statistical survey.

7th November 2009, 01:22 AM	#94
Akhenaten Heretic Pharaoh Pither Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Pi-Broadford Australia Posts: 3,811	I do understand what you mean. As something of a fan of ancient Egypt I've come to appreciate the beauty of the glyphs, and I understand the ways in which functionality was secondary to appearance for their creators. The lack of vowels is common too. I feel that you're right about the speed of reading, but can't support that feeling in any way. I also understand, I hope, your meaning with the masses of text. Am I wrong in beliving there's a connection between Coptic Egyptian and early Arabic? Thank you again for your answers. This is the first time I'm hearing many of your insights. Cheers, Dave
	__________________ Life is mostly Froth and Bubble - Adam Lindsay Gordon

8th November 2009, 01:52 AM	#95
JJM 777 Muse Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Finland Posts: 742	Originally Posted by Akhenaten Am I wrong in beliving there's a connection between Coptic Egyptian and early Arabic? Remotely yes, but very remotely. Nearly all alphabets (representing single sounds, rather than syllables or ideas) in the world descend from the earliest known Proto-Sinaitic alphabet, whose earliest samples are from around 2000 BCE: http://www.ancientscripts.com/protosinaitic.html The last common ancestor of Coptic and Arabic scripts is Early Phoenician script (1100 BCE), essentially a simpler and faster way of writing the Proto-Sinaitic icons: http://www.ancientscripts.com/phoenician.html Greek and Latin scripts evolved from Early Phoenician script around 750 BCE. http://www.ancientscripts.com/greek.html http://www.ancientscripts.com/latin.html The Coptic script evolved from Greek script in 2nd century CE (not "BCE" as accidentally written on top of this linked page): http://www.ancientscripts.com/coptic.html The Arabic script is not a descendant of Greek, Latin or Coptic scripts. It has evolved a different line from Early Phoenician, through Aramaic and Nabatean scripts, around 3rd century CE: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/24evolmideast.gif http://www.ancientscripts.com/arabic.html http://www.ancientscripts.com/ws_timeline.html
	Last edited by JJM 777; 8th November 2009 at 02:07 AM.

8th November 2009, 03:36 AM	#96
Akhenaten Heretic Pharaoh Pither Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Pi-Broadford Australia Posts: 3,811	Thank you very much for those links. They laid it out very nicely. The biggest surprise for me was the later than I had expected emergence of Coptic. I'm glad you noted the error in the link as I would have regarded the "BCE" as approximately correct. You seem to share a great deal of knowledge that my friend Marduk has studied. I will point him to this thread and hopefully gain from reading your exchanges. Again, thank you for your time.
	__________________ Life is mostly Froth and Bubble - Adam Lindsay Gordon

8th November 2009, 02:07 PM	#97
Marduk Dragon Killer Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Newbury, Berkshire Posts: 2,005	Originally Posted by JJM 777 I think that many traditional Latin "Handwriting" / "Script" fonts are very attractive, more attractive than Semitic scripts. The obligatory Semitic calligraphy pen in 45 degrees angle feels monotonous after you have seen a few thousand texts with the same basic style. still, saves me cutting down reeds and digging up clay to write on, so can't be all bad
	__________________ Senno Ecto Gama ĝae haš dug zae ama kibid "Stupid humans" (Wollery) "Kill all humans" (Bender) "for while heaven may be closed I am always open, even on Christmas." (Lucifer)

8th November 2009, 02:46 PM	#98
Akhenaten Heretic Pharaoh Pither Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Pi-Broadford Australia Posts: 3,811	Well met Babylonian, good to see you matey. I'm looking forward to some of your excellent Cuneiform stuff. Cheers, Dave
	__________________ Life is mostly Froth and Bubble - Adam Lindsay Gordon

9th November 2009, 01:40 PM	#99
JJM 777 Muse Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Finland Posts: 742	Talking about language-related things that I wish to become extinct, I have tried to learn some Chinese, but strictly with Romanized Pinyin characters. I have no intention whatsoever to learn those zillion Chinese characters. I don't use much other technology from that era either, I prefer the latest technology, latest tools, and latest languages.

9th November 2009, 11:58 PM	#100
Akhenaten Heretic Pharaoh Pither Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Pi-Broadford Australia Posts: 3,811	I think I can relate to what I aee as a desire for simplification on your part, and it would be impossible for me to disagree that this would be a good thing. Where we might differ is from a less practical point of view. As I've already stated, I love the way Arabic 'looks' without understanding a word of it, and I'd have to say the same about Chinese and Japanese characters when done as calligraphy. Hindi looks cool too, for that matter. It reminds me again of the way in which the ancient Egyptians persisted with the glyphs long after they had developed the need for a more efficient language, simply because they were so damned beautiful. The language of ancient Egypt might have died, but those little symbols are lasting quite well, it seems. Nepher is popular: I might be a little subjective.
	__________________ Life is mostly Froth and Bubble - Adam Lindsay Gordon

10th November 2009, 05:16 AM	#101
Akhenaten Heretic Pharaoh Pither Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Pi-Broadford Australia Posts: 3,811	Oops! I meant 'kheper', of khourse.
	__________________ Life is mostly Froth and Bubble - Adam Lindsay Gordon

10th November 2009, 05:42 AM	#102
The Fallen Serpent Thinker Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 145	I believe the Chinese government is moving towards adopting a version of the western alphabet as the official form of writing. At least the younger Chinese immigrants I know in the US were given that impression and passed it along to me. The idea as I understood it was that most people would not have a full knowledge of the old system and it would end up being something left to scholars and artists. Already there is a difference in Mandarin writing between China and Tawain as China sought to simplify it over the past 50 years. It is enough of a difference that Chinese people have difficulty with the traditional system still used in Tawain and vice versa.

10th November 2009, 03:46 PM	#103
MikeSun5 Trigger Happy Pacifist, Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Florida, USA Posts: 827	Just a thought... What about stuff like Esperanto and Klingon? Don't people speak Elvish nowadays? Some languages may be dying, but new ones pop up as well. I have a few Rastafarian friends from Jamaica. Granted, they're speaking a bastardized form of English, but their language is constantly evolving.
	__________________ I always wondered if those WWJD bracelets worked, so I bought one. Well later, I was on a plane and this little kid was kicking my seat repeatedly, while his sister sang along with her walkman and their mother just sat there. I almost turned around and went off, and then I caught sight of my bracelet. What would Jesus do? So I lit them on fire and sent them all to Hell. --Daniel Tosh

10th November 2009, 11:51 PM	#104
BPScooter Muse Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 726	This reminds me of something William F. Buckley wrote as part of a preface section in an American Heritage Dictionary copyright 1982. [Aside, that shows how geeky I must be, to actually read and remember the preface to an old dictionary!] Longish quote, but interesting. He's coming down on the side of correctness and usage in language (no surprise) but makes an interesting point: "Language is an aesthetic as well as an analytical tool. And to slur language is as painful to the well-tempered ear as to slur music. In music the individualist seeks to introduce a new modality. He may emerge as a great artist, or he may be held to be witless; juries will judge. Usually, in serious music, a genuinely new style requires fifty years to win acceptance. In language some words have been paying court to the admissions committee for centuries, while thousands upon thousands have simply given up. Some win almost immediate acceptance. But the question is always, acceptance by whom?" Granted he's talking about words and usages rather than languages in the whole cloth, but I thought the aesthetic argument was interesting and I suppose that's why the preceding discussion reminded me of this.
BPScooter Muse Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 726