Listening to John McWhorter's Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, he goes in to great depth on the influence Cornish and Welsh had on the development of the English verb and gerund. It's extremely interesting, but it strikes me that English is really the exception, language-replacement wise. The Norse invaded, conquered and settled the British Isles, Russia, and Normandy and most of it didn't amount to much, apart from fucking up the English noun. The Norse don't seem to have had much influence on Scots Gaelic or Gaelic, or French, and the influence on Russian is pretty goddamned minuscule compared to the early influence of the Uralic and Iranian languages, as well as Gothic and Old Church Slavic. Turkish succeed in part because it came with a faith and continuous migration over a 600 year period, but the Angles, Saxons, Frisians, Jutes and Franks who made up the initial Germanic settlement of England were pretty much a one-time affair, and in terms of numbers probably not a huge amount more than the German settlement of the Western Empire.
Were the Vikings just a lot more willing to adopt local customs when compared to the Saxons? Were the Gaels and Slavs better at assimilating people? I think the second makes a degree of sense, cause the early Slavs were pretty amazing assimilation machines, and the Irish still have that reputation. Did English replace some kind of weird Celto-Romance that we don't know much about, but was maintained in regions with minimal Roman influence?
I could swear we had this exact discussion not that long ago.
QQ's language threads all kinda blend together. Looking forward to his children's book though. :D
:unsure:
Norse had quite a big impact on English. They're the source of lots of our personal pronouns which is apparently very rare, it's a very intimate base-level assimilation. From what I've read it suggests they became very integrated into English society very quickly.
There's an interesting sound of paper by some linguists in Norway that argue that English is more of a Norse language than a Germanic one. Don't think it's available in English yet.
Norse isn't Germanic? When did this happen?
Quote from: citizen k on December 27, 2013, 06:06:39 PM
Norse isn't Germanic? When did this happen?
Okay. Norse and North Germanic rather than normal German/West Germanic :P
"Normal" German? :yeahright:
If the French hadn't fagged up the English tongue it would have been great. Great castles though.
Quote from: The Brain on December 27, 2013, 06:44:38 PM
If the French hadn't fagged up the English tongue it would have been great. Great castles though.
Without the influence of the French, the English language would have dozens of words to describe homely girls, but not one for hotties.
Quote from: alfred russel on December 27, 2013, 06:47:58 PM
Quote from: The Brain on December 27, 2013, 06:44:38 PM
If the French hadn't fagged up the English tongue it would have been great. Great castles though.
Without the influence of the French, the English language would have dozens of words to describe homely girls, but not one for hotties.
If you want to be happy for the rest of your life don't make a pretty woman your wife.
English didn't really survive, not anymore then Latin did. The language of the Saxons is gone, and what replaced it can't really be called the same thing.
Quote from: Razgovory on December 27, 2013, 06:53:52 PM
English didn't really survive, not anymore then Latin did. The language of the Saxons is gone, and what replaced it can't really be called the same thing.
Well, if you get butchered all the time, than it's not easy to survive.
Quote from: Razgovory on December 27, 2013, 06:53:52 PM
English didn't really survive, not anymore then Latin did. The language of the Saxons is gone, and what replaced it can't really be called the same thing.
But we aren't speaking a Celtic language. That's my entire question.
Quote from: Sheilbh on December 27, 2013, 06:02:15 PM
Norse had quite a big impact on English. They're the source of lots of our personal pronouns which is apparently very rare, it's a very intimate base-level assimilation. From what I've read it suggests they became very integrated into English society very quickly.
There's an interesting sound of paper by some linguists in Norway that argue that English is more of a Norse language than a Germanic one. Don't think it's available in English yet.
Scholarly terms are North and West Germanic. English has roots in southern Jutland and clearly had close ties to the Proto-Norse, perhaps closer than their more continental contemporaries like the Suebi. I wouldn't be surprised if we're somewhere almost exactly in the middle between North and West.
TBH I'm actually really interested in Iron Age Europe right now for....reasons that are known only to whatever the whim of my interest-fairies determine. The bizarre mixture of Proto-Slavic, German, and Celtic in Central Europe extremely interesting. :unsure:
Quote from: Queequeg on December 27, 2013, 07:32:52 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on December 27, 2013, 06:53:52 PM
English didn't really survive, not anymore then Latin did. The language of the Saxons is gone, and what replaced it can't really be called the same thing.
But we aren't speaking a Celtic language. That's my entire question.
Okay. :huh:
In the year 980 a huge chunk of Europe was Viking-ruled. Kievan Rus, the largest state in Europe, was founded and run by the Norse, the Norse and mixed Norse people ruled Ireland, large parts of France, most (and eventually all) of England, etc...It's pretty impressive. Sum linguistic influence? A lot of terms in English, some grammar changes. Minimal in Normandy, or Russia, or the Celtic-ruled parts of the British Isles.
The Dark Age Germanic peoples ruled a larger area, going from Tunisia to Edinburgh. Yet even today the divide between French and Dutch or German is generally pretty close to the site of the Roman frontier. England seems a big exception. It's relatively far-off from Jutland, was the site of the settlement of as few as 100,000 Anglo-Saxons, but English still completely assimilated the greater part of England and half of Scotland. There should be a reason for this. The Franks left a big impact on French, the Visigoths on Castilian, but the English people speak the language of the barbarian invader. Given the proximity of France to the frontier, you'd expect it to be assimilated, not England.
The Norse really did affect the French language, just more regionally. Norman French was a major Dialect for a while. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_language
German was much wider spread before WWII and I'm not sure it's fair to Franks made an impact on French, since I don't know if those people spoke French prior to the Franks, they probably spoke a form of Latin.
You are making some odd assumption regarding German languages and Russian languages, how wildly they were spoken at a time when they didn't have written languages and what forms they had. I'm not sure I see the point.
QuoteGerman was much wider spread before WWII
I was obviously referring to the border between the Germanic and Romance languages, which are clearly based on the frontiers of the Late Empire. The border between the Baltic and Slavic languages is different.
QuoteI'm not sure it's fair to Franks made an impact on French, since I don't know if those people spoke French prior to the Franks, they probably spoke a form of Latin.
Fine. Call it "Frankish influence in Northern Gallo-Romance dialects that became French."
Quote
You are making some odd assumption regarding German languages and Russian languages, how wildly they were spoken at a time when they didn't have written languages and what forms they had. I'm not sure I see the point.
1) No such thing as "Russian languages." East Slavic languages.
2) You can trace this through sound changes. See Proto-Germanic Kuningas-Russian Knyaz, English King, German Koenig, while hyper conservative Lithuanian keeps it as kunigaikštis. So a relatively recent Russian borrowing from German (German Hertzog-Russian Gertsog) isn't affected by historical sound changes in the language like older ones are (kuningas-knyaz).
3) There's a pretty intense layer of proto-Slavic German borrowings roughly corresponding to the Gothic expansion to the Black Sea after the collapse of Sarmatian authority and before the Huns. There's also a layer of super-ancient Iranian borrowings corresponding to Scythian, Sarmatian, Alan, and maybe even Kimmerian influence. The Slavic languages actually have a p. good claim of being the branch closest to the ancestral Indo-European tree in terms of where they live and conservative nature of the languages.
There's not really much of a Viking or Swedish influence. There's some cultural concepts that might reflect Varangian heritage-burning concubines during funeral rights is mentioned by some Arab travelers, the druzhina have Norse antecedents, and Russian focus on Perun might have a basis in the Thor cult. Might.
I was under the impression that German pushed pretty far into Latin territory and stayed there. The provinces of Rhatiea, Noricum and Pannonia both became fairly German. The German settlement of Romania does not involve Balts or Slavs. In the West, Belgica had strong German influence, what provinces that the Romans called Germania probably had few Germans in them when they were established. More later on, but then that is sort of the point we are getting at isn't it?
Is saying "Russian languages" some sort of nationalist faux pax? I imagine the languages that would one day become standardized into Russian were quite varied before Christianization. Anglo-Saxon certainly was.
QuoteIs saying "Russian languages" some sort of nationalist faux pax? I imagine the languages that would one day become standardized into Russian were quite varied before Christianization. Anglo-Saxon certainly was.
The opposite. A Slav could pretty easily go from Murom to Prague and be understood in reasonably complex conversations all the way though at the year 900. Even today there's less differences between the entire Slavic family than there is between "dialects" of Arabic or "dialects" of Chinese. Differences between Russian dialects or Russian-Ukrainian-Belorussian aren't that huge, still. The Proto-Slavs were still Pripyat' marsh dwelling cousins of the Balts, routinely subjugated by Caspian Steppe peoples and hardly noticed by anyone, when Arabic, Latin, Greek, and German expanded in the Dark Ages.
QuoteI was under the impression that German pushed pretty far into Latin territory and stayed there. The provinces of Rhatiea, Noricum and Pannonia both became fairly German.
Weren't those areas pretty substantially mixed? They were pretty much the home territory of the Celts, but by the time of the Empire the Germans had been pushing the Celts out of the region for at least a century.
QuoteThe German settlement of Romania does not involve Balts or Slavs.
1) Romania speaks better Latin than most of the Romance-speaking world today.
2) Yeah, it did. The early Goth settlement of the region probably already had a Slavic component, and once the Goths move en masse in to the Western Empire it's the first place we have records of recognizably Slavic peoples.
TBH probably best example I can think of is that all of Flanders was once Dutch speaking, and Alsace and other parts of France German speaking, but were pushed back because French was the administrative language of the European courts, and the development and strengthening of Wallonian. Then again, the frontier movied forward a few hundred miles rather than going over the North Sea and subjugating almost all of the good land on a large island.
Example: The cow jumped over the great river.
Russian: Korova prygnula velikuyu reku
Czech: Kráva přeskočil velké řeky.
Polish: Krowa przeskoczył wielkiej rzeki.
Croatian: Krava preskočio velike rijeke.
And a lot of the differences here are orthographic.
By comparison:
Swedish: Kon hoppade över den stora floden.
Danish: Koen sprang over den store flod.
German: Die Kuh sprang über den großen Fluss.
"Cow", "river", "over" and the article are all understandable, and for a native speaker "sprang" makes sense as jumped. However just about everything else is different.
TBH the Danish makes it sound like a Jewish man leaped over the flood store.
Why did the cow jump the river?
I was trying to think of something simple yet silly.
Fascinating slice of info: in Swedish the standard word for river is "flod", but no river in Sweden is ever called "flod" in Swedish. They are "älv" or "å". Makes you thimk.
Is there a difference between an älv and an å?
Quote from: Queequeg on December 28, 2013, 03:34:32 AM
Is there a difference between an ålv and an å?
An älv is generally bigger than an å.
Quote from: The Brain on December 28, 2013, 03:32:44 AM
Fascinating slice of info: in Swedish the standard word for river is "flod", but no river in Sweden is ever called "flod" in Swedish. They are "älv" or "å". Makes you thimk.
Hm. In German it's "Fluss", but I'm trying to think of any river that actually has that as part of its name and come up empty. The best I have is the Huang He (Yellow River) in China. Smaller bodies, like creeks might have the corresponding word in their name (-bach or -au).
Additionally, rivers in German will be male or female - die Elbe, die Donau, der Rhein, der Mississippi
(Though to be fair, the Elbe's name is most likely derived from the old nordic word for river, i.e. elv/älv)
Quote from: Syt on December 28, 2013, 03:48:33 AM
Quote from: The Brain on December 28, 2013, 03:32:44 AM
Fascinating slice of info: in Swedish the standard word for river is "flod", but no river in Sweden is ever called "flod" in Swedish. They are "älv" or "å". Makes you thimk.
Hm. In German it's "Fluss", but I'm trying to think of any river that actually has that as part of its name and come up empty. The best I have is the Huang He (Yellow River) in China. Smaller bodies, like creeks might have the corresponding word in their name (-bach or -au).
Additionally, rivers in German will be male or female - die Elbe, die Donau, der Rhein, der Mississippi
(Though to be fair, the Elbe's name is most likely derived from the old nordic word for river, i.e. elv/älv)
But you do use Fluss when talking about a German river, right?
Yeah, Fluss is the generic term when you talk about any river. Elbe, Thames, Mississippi - each one is a Fluss.
It's a bit like the use of car. You call it Auto in German, and it's the catch all term for all cars, but you would never talk of a Mercedes-Auto or Toyota-Auto.
Just for clarity: in Sweden you never use "flod" about a Swedish river. "I'm going down to the river" is "I'm going down to the älv/å".
Ah. Well, you would use Fluss for that in German.
Quote from: Queequeg on December 27, 2013, 08:03:27 PM
The Dark Age Germanic peoples ruled a larger area, going from Tunisia to Edinburgh. Yet even today the divide between French and Dutch or German is generally pretty close to the site of the Roman frontier. England seems a big exception. It's relatively far-off from Jutland, was the site of the settlement of as few as 100,000 Anglo-Saxons, but English still completely assimilated the greater part of England and half of Scotland. There should be a reason for this. The Franks left a big impact on French, the Visigoths on Castilian, but the English people speak the language of the barbarian invader. Given the proximity of France to the frontier, you'd expect it to be assimilated, not England.
The Vandals left very few traces. The Byzantine Reconquista wiped them out quickly.
As for Visigothic influence on Castilian, it's very small. Arabic had a bigger impact, not to mention Greek. I'm not even sure it was more influential than the Iberian substratum (cf. izquierda).
Frankish had a more important role, being that the Frankish connection is one of the features separating
Langue d'oïl (Northern Gallo-Romance of which Parisian is the standard French) and
Langue d'Oc. If Frankish had more of an impact than the Celtic substratum is still open to debate though. Counting by twenties
quatre-vingt supposedly comes from there.
Btw, Norman French is just another Langue d'Oïl dialect with a limited Norse influence. The wikipedia page stating "castel" to be Norse is suspicious since castel is an Occitan form, closer to other Romance languages i.e Portuguese, Castilian, Catalan and Italian.
Quote1) Romania speaks better Latin than most of the Romance-speaking world today.
Where did you get that?
As for Romanian, it's the farthest from Latin, among Romance languages. Keeping cases is not everything you know.
Aren't Castilian patronymics a Goth thing? The Goths ruled effectively for 400 years, longer in Castile and Asturias, would be surprised of they just left.....the way people construct their names. That seems pretty intimate.
I always assumed Norse was a Oïl language with a layer of Norse. It shows up in some of the Anglo-Norman borrowings.
Romanian keeps entire case system. Phonetically Sardinian is pretty close, and Italian might have more vocab, but keeping the fundamental way the language was structured is a bfd.
Quote from: Queequeg on December 28, 2013, 02:29:21 AM
QuoteIs saying "Russian languages" some sort of nationalist faux pax? I imagine the languages that would one day become standardized into Russian were quite varied before Christianization. Anglo-Saxon certainly was.
The opposite. A Slav could pretty easily go from Murom to Prague and be understood in reasonably complex conversations all the way though at the year 900. Even today there's less differences between the entire Slavic family than there is between "dialects" of Arabic or "dialects" of Chinese. Differences between Russian dialects or Russian-Ukrainian-Belorussian aren't that huge, still. The Proto-Slavs were still Pripyat' marsh dwelling cousins of the Balts, routinely subjugated by Caspian Steppe peoples and hardly noticed by anyone, when Arabic, Latin, Greek, and German expanded in the Dark Ages.
QuoteI was under the impression that German pushed pretty far into Latin territory and stayed there. The provinces of Rhatiea, Noricum and Pannonia both became fairly German.
Weren't those areas pretty substantially mixed? They were pretty much the home territory of the Celts, but by the time of the Empire the Germans had been pushing the Celts out of the region for at least a century.
QuoteThe German settlement of Romania does not involve Balts or Slavs.
1) Romania speaks better Latin than most of the Romance-speaking world today.
2) Yeah, it did. The early Goth settlement of the region probably already had a Slavic component, and once the Goths move en masse in to the Western Empire it's the first place we have records of recognizably Slavic peoples.
TBH probably best example I can think of is that all of Flanders was once Dutch speaking, and Alsace and other parts of France German speaking, but were pushed back because French was the administrative language of the European courts, and the development and strengthening of Wallonian. Then again, the frontier movied forward a few hundred miles rather than going over the North Sea and subjugating almost all of the good land on a large island.
Rhatiea had it's own language which was an isolate I believe, and the settlement of Romania I was thinking was in the middle ages. Anyway, they along with Noricum and other Roman provinces are examples of either Celtic or Italic languages (which are fairly closely related) falling before German
QuoteRhatiea had it's own language which was an isolate I believe
Etruscan related, it looks like. However, it looks like that was on the skids by the time of Augustus, and immediately prior to the migration period it was maxed Sarmatian, Germanic, Latin and Celt. It seems reasonable that some of the German replacement happened during the period of the Empire; enough tribes were settled, or worked as Foedatori, that Germanic dialects were probably pretty common.
Quoteand the settlement of Romania I was thinking was in the middle ages.
Languages in the Carpathians are a huge clusterfuck, one of the biggest clusterfucks in the Dark Age Europe. There was some Germanic settlement, but no one knows how much.
QuoteAnyway, they along with Noricum and other Roman provinces are examples of either Celtic or Italic languages (which are fairly closely related) falling before German
Seems reasonable. But Austria isn't a big country and is really pretty close to the lands already assimilated by Germanic tribes by the time of the Principate. Still seems different from England.
Linguistic situation in Austria is likely complicated by the introduction of the Slavs. With the mixture of Rhaeto-Roman, German and Slavic languages it makes sense that people became monolingual in the language of the Holy Roman Empire.
My point is that the that the German language spread quite a bit from the period of Caesar to fall of the Roman empire. When Caesar was campaigning in Gaul and such it's not know how much of what's now Germany spoke German. I was under the impression that that the settlement of Germans in Romania was fairly well known. The King of Hungary said "I want some Germans" and the some Germans came.
There was also the whole Goth settlement in Romania. That was pretty substantial after the Huns started fucking everything up. It's the reason the Vlachs are called Vlachs; it's the same root as "Welsh" and "Walloon."
Quote from: Queequeg on December 28, 2013, 03:09:29 AM
TBH the Danish makes it sound like a Jewish man leaped over the flood store.
You mean a jewish priest. Be scholarly, be accurate.
I know what the last name Cohen and Kagan and whatnot means, but it's been a thousand years since the name was much other than a name. The only Cohen I know is a twink hipster who works at Penguin Publishing.
Quote from: Queequeg on December 28, 2013, 03:03:12 AM
Polish: Krowa przeskoczył wielkiej rzeki.
Krowa przeskoczył
a wielk
ą rzek
ę. :)
Quote from: Queequeg on January 01, 2014, 02:20:32 PM
I know what the last name Cohen and Kagan and whatnot means, but it's been a thousand years since the name was much other than a name. The only Cohen I know is a twink hipster who works at Penguin Publishing.
You are forgetting the vital cultural influence of the Spock greeting. :)
Quote from: Queequeg on January 01, 2014, 02:20:32 PM
I know what the last name Cohen and Kagan and whatnot means, but it's been a thousand years since the name was much other than a name. The only Cohen I know is a twink hipster who works at Penguin Publishing.
Perhaps. Many people did choose Kohen as a last name without having the background, expecting benefits.
However I know of at least 4 families that claim to descend from the kohen gadol mishpacha, the unbroken line from aaron ben amram, the first kohen gadol or high priest.
Quote from: Queequeg on December 28, 2013, 09:48:00 AM
Aren't Castilian patronymics a Goth thing? The Goths ruled effectively for 400 years, longer in Castile and Asturias, would be surprised of they just left.....the way people construct their names. That seems pretty intimate.
What dates are you using for Gothic rule? 400 years seems too long...
But my extremely amateur opinion was that the language of the visigoths in spain was something like the romans in the eastern part of the empire...The educated visigoths spoke latin to begin with, the gothic language never supplanted latin for daily use, and even the ruling class transitioned to latin/romance languages relatively quickly.
Quote from: Queequeg on December 28, 2013, 03:03:12 AM
Croatian: Krava je preskočila veliku rijeku.
Unless I am mistaken. :grammarustasa:
Quote from: alfred russel on January 02, 2014, 12:59:45 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on December 28, 2013, 09:48:00 AM
Aren't Castilian patronymics a Goth thing? The Goths ruled effectively for 400 years, longer in Castile and Asturias, would be surprised of they just left.....the way people construct their names. That seems pretty intimate.
What dates are you using for Gothic rule? 400 years seems too long...
But my extremely amateur opinion was that the language of the visigoths in spain was something like the romans in the eastern part of the empire...The educated visigoths spoke latin to begin with, the gothic language never supplanted latin for daily use, and even the ruling class transitioned to latin/romance languages relatively quickly.
I think the Franks and the Lombards were like that. I wonder if the Roman ruler ship of Britain was less latin then that of Spain and France. For all the talk of Romanized Britons, they factionalized into petty kingdoms and tribes fairly quickly.
Quote from: Razgovory on January 02, 2014, 08:50:17 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on January 02, 2014, 12:59:45 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on December 28, 2013, 09:48:00 AM
Aren't Castilian patronymics a Goth thing? The Goths ruled effectively for 400 years, longer in Castile and Asturias, would be surprised of they just left.....the way people construct their names. That seems pretty intimate.
What dates are you using for Gothic rule? 400 years seems too long...
But my extremely amateur opinion was that the language of the visigoths in spain was something like the romans in the eastern part of the empire...The educated visigoths spoke latin to begin with, the gothic language never supplanted latin for daily use, and even the ruling class transitioned to latin/romance languages relatively quickly.
I think the Franks and the Lombards were like that. I wonder if the Roman ruler ship of Britain was less latin then that of Spain and France. For all the talk of Romanized Britons, they factionalized into petty kingdoms and tribes fairly quickly.
Perhaps, but how much relationship did the tribes and kingdoms that developed after the legions left have to those that existed before they came?
I don't know. My guess is they were mostly client kingdoms and tribes giving tribute to Rome, rather then people who considered themselves Romans first.
Anyone know any good books on this subject. Listening to Melvyn Bragg's book; I love In Our Time but this seems a little light, and I enjoyed Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue but the whole Phonenician substratum in Proto-Germanic made me think the entire thing was bullshit.
Quote from: Razgovory on January 02, 2014, 08:50:17 PM
I think the Franks and the Lombards were like that. I wonder if the Roman ruler ship of Britain was less latin then that of Spain and France. For all the talk of Romanized Britons, they factionalized into petty kingdoms and tribes fairly quickly.
Not really. It took a few generations. But a century in the Dark Ages is nothing. Romanization was much more enduring in Wales where they did not have all the Saxons, Jutes, and Angles moving in Germanizing everything.
Quote from: Razgovory on January 03, 2014, 07:53:35 PM
I don't know. My guess is they were mostly client kingdoms and tribes giving tribute to Rome, rather then people who considered themselves Romans first.
I don't think that is true. Britain considered itself so Roman it once had its own Roman Empire.
I thought Latin influence on Cornish, Breton and Welsh wasn't that great. Heck, the Bretons moved out of England and assimilated a whole lot of Romance speakers.
Quote from: Queequeg on January 09, 2014, 04:59:15 PM
I thought Latin influence on Cornish, Breton and Welsh wasn't that great. Heck, the Bretons moved out of England and assimilated a whole lot of Romance speakers.
The significance was mainly on vocabulary which was pretty significant. Also remember speaking Latin was not necessarily a requirement for strong Roman identity, Egyptians certainly considered themselves very Roman but spoke Coptic.
Fair enough, but I don't think anyone would argue that the Roman state was as invested in Britan and Amoricum as Egypt, Syria or even some of the western European provinces. Egypt kept the Empire running, Britain was a vanity project with a tin mine.
Always back to Tommy Wiseau. :rolleyes:
Quote from: Valmy on January 09, 2014, 04:46:40 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on January 03, 2014, 07:53:35 PM
I don't know. My guess is they were mostly client kingdoms and tribes giving tribute to Rome, rather then people who considered themselves Romans first.
I don't think that is true. Britain considered itself so Roman it once had its own Roman Empire.
It did? Oh and Italic and Celtic languages are fairly closely related. It's not surprising to find quite bit of linguistic overlap.
Hey Squeelus, how much Punic do you know?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 09, 2014, 05:16:09 PM
Hey Squeelus, how much Punic do you know?
Uh, none? But it seems impossible that the Phonecians would leave such a massive influence on the language of some extraordinarily poor lowland inhabitants of the marshes and swamps of Jutland and southern Sweden and Norway while leaving out a much larger, measurable influence on the far wealthier Celtic lands. The fact that the Germanic languages have a weird nautical words is, pretty obviously, a result of the fact that they didn't have much measurable contact with the more advanced Mediterranean civilizations, meaning that the first Proto-Germans to sail the North Sea and the Baltic used their own terms, which today have plausible Indo-European etymologies. The weirdness of some of the early Germanic shifts (say p-f, as in father) is probably due to a combination of early separation, relative isolation, and possibly some kind of non or early Indo-European substratum. I think it's a lot more likely that if there WAS some kind of substratum, it was an Old European language, either Indo-European or not.
All the Indo-European languages have some pretty early borrowings from the Semitic group, and I guess it's actually possible that somehow some of the sounds changed in Proto-Germanic before the settlement in Scandinavia and far northern Germany, but that seems pretty unlikely. I like McWhorter, but he uses a lot of really flimsy evidence. The Germans had a god named Baldr to the Levantine Baal plus some kind of honorific, but IDK how the fuck Baal ends up in Denmark without a similar cult among the Celts.
DAMN IT PEOPLE SHARE MY INTEREST IN BRONZE AND COPPER AGE EUROPE!
*takes a drink*
Quote from: Queequeg on January 09, 2014, 08:35:31 PM
DAMN IT PEOPLE SHARE MY INTEREST IN BRONZE AND COPPER AGE EUROPE!
No thanks.
done
Quote from: Queequeg on January 09, 2014, 08:35:31 PM
DAMN IT PEOPLE SHARE MY INTEREST IN BRONZE AND COPPER AGE EUROPE!
It is kind of hard when the history is derived from picking through placename and descendant language analysis to get clues regarding extinct languages, and from that some ideas about what was going on. You really have to be something of a specialist.
But, I did post a question / comment, that you didn't reply to (though after the bronze age). ;)
If anyone wants to talk about Spartan latrine procedures, I'm game.
Quote from: alfred russel on January 02, 2014, 12:59:45 PMWhat dates are you using for Gothic rule? 400 years seems too long...
But my extremely amateur opinion was that the language of the visigoths in spain was something like the romans in the eastern part of the empire...The educated visigoths spoke latin to begin with, the gothic language never supplanted latin for daily use, and even the ruling class transitioned to latin/romance languages relatively quickly.
I think there's a real argument that Spanish (Castilian) is at least as, probably more, of a hodgepodge than English. There's substantial Basque influence in phonology and vocabulary, and the extent of Gothic influence on grammar is actually really surprising. As I said, the patronymic (Sancho-->Sanchez, son of Sancho, like -ovich in Russian) is of Gothic origin. Spanish shares with English the -ing ending taken from Gothic. Taking complex grammar from a language is generally an indication of intense contact. It's probably secondary to Celto-Iberian and Arabic, and Basque, but it's there. There was probably a core warrior class of Goths that kept the Spaniards in line, and they kept Gothic around for a while, and eventually adopted a bastardized Romance that kept some of the war and political terms. Fascinatingly, there was an area of Alan in Spain, but any influence it might have had was obliterated by the Moors.
A few reasons why Gothic might have survived in some form in Spain for an extended period of time;
1) Arianism-they were outside Rome's authority for a substantial period of time. The tension between Germanic Arians and the Romance-speaking Catholic population would have been conductive to this kind of linguistic divide
2) The Goths went all-in on moving out of Central Europe. The traditional area of Gothic settlement-the Ukraine, Poland, Romania-were all almost totally depopulated in the wake of the Huns, making way for my beloved Slavs. :wub: This was probably enough of an exodus to form an effective ethnic nucleus in certain regions in settlement prior to the catastrophe of the Arab invasion.
3) "Goth" was probably always a pretty loose term, almost more of a profession. Romance-speakers would learn some basic Gothic for talking to the king or moving in warbands. Like "war" being Norman in origin, but originally shares the same Germanic etymology as "worse".
Holy Shit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alano
Awesome. It's a Caucasian Shepherd. I've seen breeds like this on the streets in eastern Turkey.
Quote from: Queequeg on January 10, 2014, 01:12:17 AM
A few reasons why Gothic might have survived in some form in Spain for an extended period of time;
1) Arianism-they were outside Rome's authority for a substantial period of time. The tension between Germanic Arians and the Romance-speaking Catholic population would have been conductive to this kind of linguistic divide
2) The Goths went all-in on moving out of Central Europe. The traditional area of Gothic settlement-the Ukraine, Poland, Romania-were all almost totally depopulated in the wake of the Huns, making way for my beloved Slavs. :wub: This was probably enough of an exodus to form an effective ethnic nucleus in certain regions in settlement prior to the catastrophe of the Arab invasion.
3) "Goth" was probably always a pretty loose term, almost more of a profession. Romance-speakers would learn some basic Gothic for talking to the king or moving in warbands. Like "war" being Norman in origin, but originally shares the same Germanic etymology as "worse".
Quite a bit of the German influence in Spanish is explained through the Frankish presence in the north-east in the Hispanic Marche. Catalan is way more germanized than Spanish, and a lot of the words present in Spanish can be traced back to Catalan/Occitan and French, entering Spanish centuries after the Goth domination.
As I was told in school, direct goth influence is quite small since goths were almost fully romanized when they occupied the peninsula, and mixed with the local populace, which explains why names (and surnames in particular) were their single biggest contribution.You have to take into account that surnames were far more ductile at the time, and it was easy for the locals to take upon the conventions of the ruling elite.
Quote from: Ed Anger on January 09, 2014, 10:02:05 PM
If anyone wants to talk about Spartan latrine procedures, I'm game.
DAMN IT PEOPLE SHARE MY INTEREST IN SPARTAN TURDS!
*takes a drink*
Naw. When Ed mentions bowl movements, you have to vomit up a drink previously taken. :P
This games has too many rules.
Quote
Quite a bit of the German influence in Spanish is explained through the Frankish presence in the north-east in the Hispanic Marche. Catalan is way more germanized than Spanish, and a lot of the words present in Spanish can be traced back to Catalan/Occitan and French, entering Spanish centuries after the Goth domination.
You sure about Catalan? I thought the Langue d'Oc dialects and Catalan were famous for being conservative.
I'm pretty sure. Besides speaking it I work with Catalan filologists almost daily, they have boring conversation topics ;)
Catalan is the surviving Iberian language with biggest German influence. Castillian was relatively isolated, which allowed it to evolve a bit more on its own and receive less external influence (besides Arab, etc...), while Catalan, sitting on the border, was heavily affected by Frankish and Occitan.
That's awesome.
I've been really interested in Spain for a while, tbh. It's kind of the photo-negative of Turkey in a lot of respects.
Weren't Catalan and Occitan pretty much the same for a long time? Barcelona was under loose Frankish control for the early Middle Ages, and I always assumed that most of Catalonia functioned similarly to other marches; a place where entrepreneurial or especially zealous sorts, or second or third sons, went to change their fortunes, fight the infidel, something it would have in common with Turkey. I think I might be filling in my gaps on Spanish history with Turkish history, though.
Quote from: Queequeg on January 10, 2014, 01:19:20 AM
Holy Shit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alano
Awesome. It's a Caucasian Shepherd. I've seen breeds like this on the streets in eastern Turkey.
Not really. Caucasian Shepherds are 90% hair.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-nqbmdon8bK4%2FTpOR6OBAd9I%2FAAAAAAAAB7Q%2F75gRwKWy1y8%2Fs1600%2F073.jpg&hash=3271d09ceae98b8972b9ba3a7015d38cbf15322d)
Quote from: Grinning_Colossus on January 10, 2014, 02:31:52 PM
Not really. Caucasian Shepherds are 90% hair.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-nqbmdon8bK4%2FTpOR6OBAd9I%2FAAAAAAAAB7Q%2F75gRwKWy1y8%2Fs1600%2F073.jpg&hash=3271d09ceae98b8972b9ba3a7015d38cbf15322d)
There's variety. It's a general kind of Pontic proto-Mastiff that might date back to the Scythians. Also, that hair would be fucking lethal in Spanish heat. Probably a lot more useful in the extraordinary cold of the high Caucasus.
What do they look like when they're not being jerked off?
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F0%2F06%2FALI_BABA.9.26.13.jpg&hash=a38ea56272b62ce181e2fd6d87da12b6e37359a2)
This is more what I was thinking of-the Anatolian Shepherd. You see them on the streets, they're a big genetic influence on the urban dog population of most of the mid to small sized Turkish cities, while Istanbul is a lot more mixed.
Quote from: Ed Anger on January 10, 2014, 09:29:51 AM
Quote from: Ed Anger on January 09, 2014, 10:02:05 PM
If anyone wants to talk about Spartan latrine procedures, I'm game.
DAMN IT PEOPLE SHARE MY INTEREST IN SPARTAN TURDS!
Go cull a helot or something.
Quote from: Queequeg on January 10, 2014, 02:30:39 PM
Weren't Catalan and Occitan pretty much the same for a long time? Barcelona was under loose Frankish control for the early Middle Ages, and I always assumed that most of Catalonia functioned similarly to other marches; a place where entrepreneurial or especially zealous sorts, or second or third sons, went to change their fortunes, fight the infidel, something it would have in common with Turkey. I think I might be filling in my gaps on Spanish history with Turkish history, though.
It's an open debate. We don't have consistent written testimony from that time and the fact that for long time Occitan remained the prestige language of the Catalan nobility (who had heavy territorial interests in South-Eastern France) further complicates things. It certainly is the closest language to Catalan. One of my professors used to say that "French and Spanish are our cousins, but Occitan is our sister".
So you can fuck French and Spanish, but not Occitan.
I only know an Occitan, she's rather hot though <_<
I find that fascinating. You'd have more in common linguistically with an inhabitant of the Italian Alps than an inhabitant of Aragon.
Repressed French minorities are the hottest. Hottest friend I had in College was a Breton exchange student. :wub:
Quote from: Queequeg on January 10, 2014, 03:39:31 PM
Repressed French minorities are the hottest. Hottest friend I had in College was a Breton exchange student. :wub:
You have the weirdest turn-ons.
She was really, really hot. The weird accent certainly helped, but she was objectively stunning.
I think you just have a thing for ethnic obscurity. To wit, your previously stated adoration of Caucasians.
If you ever met a Romansche speaker you'd probably spontaneously combust.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 10, 2014, 03:48:22 PM
I think you just have a thing for ethnic obscurity. To wit, your previously stated adoration of Caucasians.
This.
Queequeg, you've gone through a variety of incarnations during your time with us - which is a good thing. Personal growth and development is a positive.
But the one, single constant during that time has been an obsession, even fetishization, for obscure linguistic and/or cultural minorities. Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a thing.
I think that's part of it, but you're likely all confusing cause and effect. These just happen to be two beautiful women I met in college, and I was more likely to talk to them and remember them, and subsequently remark about them, because of their ethnic origins. With one, knowing chouchen and quite a bit about France and Brittany was a huge icebreaker, and with the other I actually interviewed her for an ethnographic project. I can guarantee that any poster here would consider them both to be attractive, though frankly I'm not comfortable sharing their likenesses over a message board.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 10, 2014, 03:48:22 PM
If you ever met a Romansche speaker you'd probably spontaneously combust.
"Is that...is that a Zaza accent?"Yes! How did you know!"*dies*
Quote from: Queequeg on January 10, 2014, 03:56:11 PM
I think that's part of it, but you're likely all confusing cause and effect. These just happen to be two beautiful women I met in college, and I was more likely to talk to them and remember them, and subsequently remark about them, because of their ethnic origins. I can guarantee that any poster here would consider them both to be attractive, though frankly I'm not comfortable sharing their likenesses over a message board.
So you've generalized about ethnic groups based on sample sizes of one. Not buying it.
Quote from: Queequeg on January 10, 2014, 03:56:11 PM
I think that's part of it, but you're likely all confusing cause and effect. These just happen to be two beautiful women I met in college, and I was more likely to talk to them and remember them, and subsequently remark about them, because of their ethnic origins. I can guarantee that any poster here would consider them both to be attractive, though frankly I'm not comfortable sharing their likenesses over a message board.
Whatever dude. You are constantly remarking on the hotness of various obscure ethnic groups.
I met a super hottie in College who was Ukrainian. I was totally in lust. But I don't go around with some Slavic obsession.
Nothing wrong with it, it is just funny.
I didn't say anything about Bretons being abnormally attractive. It might be true; I think the French are generally an attractive lot, but then again I'm not sure I'd consider the Welsh or Cornish people I've met to be paragons of beauty. In the case of North Caucasians I've interacted with and read enough about them to know that they're generally considered an attractive people, and my anecdotal evidence and personal biases lean in this direction.
EDIT: There's a fucking Wikipedia article on it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_beauties)
I was enjoying the attention, don't tell me he does that with all cultural minorities. Makes me feel less special. :(
Marry an Armenian. Best way to secure perma-fetish status.
Quote from: Queequeg on January 10, 2014, 04:04:01 PM
I didn't say anything about Bretons being abnormally attractive.
QuoteRepressed French minorities are the hottest. Hottest friend I had in College was a Breton exchange student. :wub:
That was a joke, though in retrospect I look like an idiot.
It's really hard for me to tell the line between my schtick and me. Even for me.
Quote from: Queequeg on January 10, 2014, 04:04:01 PMEDIT: There's a fucking Wikipedia article on it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_beauties)
Which has this in the very first line:
QuoteCircassian beauties is a phrase used to refer to an idealized image of the women of the Circassian people of the Northern Caucasus.
In your defense Squeelus, I think Quebecoise are insanely hott, and as everyone knows they are from Breton stock.
I thought they were mixed with a bunch of other Northern French types?
Also, agree on Quebeckers. Mariee-Jozee Croze was one of my first intense celebrity crushes. Also, Caroline Dhavernas :wub:
Quote from: Queequeg on January 10, 2014, 04:16:24 PM
I thought they were mixed with a bunch of other Northern French types?
If so, I'm sure they were suitably repressed types. :sleep:
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 10, 2014, 04:18:53 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on January 10, 2014, 04:16:24 PM
I thought they were mixed with a bunch of other Northern French types?
If so, I'm sure they were suitably repressed types. :sleep:
I am not sure what you are talking about. Royal France was a bastion of tolerance and freedom.
Quote from: Valmy on January 10, 2014, 04:20:15 PM
I am not sure what you are talking about. Royal France was a bastion of tolerance and freedom.
It was a jab at Squeelus' bizarro comment about hott repressed French ethnic groups.
I dunno - Quebecois are faily hot, but I always chalked it up to how they dress / carry themselves, rather than anything genetic about their face or proportions...
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 10, 2014, 04:21:26 PM
Quote from: Valmy on January 10, 2014, 04:20:15 PM
I am not sure what you are talking about. Royal France was a bastion of tolerance and freedom.
It was a jab at Squeelus' bizarro comment about hott repressed French ethnic groups.
I am contractually obligated to fire back at any anti-French comments out there until Zoupa returns.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.lv3.hbo.com%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Fseries%2Fthe-pacific%2Fcharacter%2Fvera-keller-1024.jpg&hash=f55f1701e788f8ac1f4fa9cc991e2d7bed41cec5)
I'd storm her Plains of Abraham.
Quote from: Barrister on January 10, 2014, 04:21:54 PM
I dunno - Quebecois are faily hot, but I always chalked it up to how they dress / carry themselves, rather than anything genetic about their face or proportions...
Are Quebecois a bit more native-influenced than most European Canadians?
Quote from: Queequeg on January 10, 2014, 04:24:47 PM
Quote from: Barrister on January 10, 2014, 04:21:54 PM
I dunno - Quebecois are faily hot, but I always chalked it up to how they dress / carry themselves, rather than anything genetic about their face or proportions...
Are Quebecois a bit more native-influenced than most European Canadians?
Not that I'm aware of.
I have to admit though that I consciously decided not to post in your fairly racist "what people look the hottest" thread, but I was tempted to say "Metis"...
I don't think I've ever met a Metis, but you've said they were an attractive people previously. Aren't they kind of mixed French-English-Scottish-First Nation?
Quote from: Queequeg on January 10, 2014, 04:24:47 PM
Quote from: Barrister on January 10, 2014, 04:21:54 PM
I dunno - Quebecois are faily hot, but I always chalked it up to how they dress / carry themselves, rather than anything genetic about their face or proportions...
Are Quebecois a bit more native-influenced than most European Canadians?
I very much doubt they are more so than, say, Saskatchewan.
Quote from: Barrister on January 10, 2014, 04:21:54 PM
I dunno - Quebecois are faily hot, but I always chalked it up to how they dress / carry themselves, rather than anything genetic about their face or proportions...
They are svelte and they have rockin' poopers.
Like 12 y/o boys? Thanks but no thanks.
Chacun a son mauvais gout.
Asoka.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 10, 2014, 04:29:39 PM
Quote from: Barrister on January 10, 2014, 04:21:54 PM
I dunno - Quebecois are faily hot, but I always chalked it up to how they dress / carry themselves, rather than anything genetic about their face or proportions...
They are svelte and they have rockin' poopers.
That says much more about diet and exercise then it does genetics.
Quote from: Barrister on January 10, 2014, 04:35:07 PM
That says much more about diet and exercise then it does genetics.
Perhaps. But you don't get those little tiny Quebecoise hips just by dieting. Dieting doesn't make bones shrink.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 10, 2014, 04:38:02 PM
Quote from: Barrister on January 10, 2014, 04:35:07 PM
That says much more about diet and exercise then it does genetics.
Perhaps. But you don't get those little tiny Quebecoise hips just by dieting. Dieting doesn't make bones shrink.
I do believe hip size has very little to do with bones, and everything to do with body fat.
Quote from: Barrister on January 10, 2014, 04:44:20 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 10, 2014, 04:38:02 PM
Quote from: Barrister on January 10, 2014, 04:35:07 PM
That says much more about diet and exercise then it does genetics.
Perhaps. But you don't get those little tiny Quebecoise hips just by dieting. Dieting doesn't make bones shrink.
I do believe hip size has very little to do with bones, and everything to do with body fat.
Fuck no.
Quote from: Barrister on January 10, 2014, 04:44:20 PM
I do believe hip size has very little to do with bones, and everything to do with body fat.
COMPLETELY INCORRECT
Waist and thighs yes, not hips.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 10, 2014, 04:38:02 PM
Quote from: Barrister on January 10, 2014, 04:35:07 PM
That says much more about diet and exercise then it does genetics.
Perhaps. But you don't get those little tiny Quebecoise hips just by dieting. Dieting doesn't make bones shrink.
Not dieting, diet.
I'm pretty sure I shared this anecdote with you earlier - a Croatian buddy and I bonded about our ability to spot first generation and second generation girls from our respective home countries based on the size of their asses. We both concurred there was something in North America that made for thicker bottoms.
Personally I think it's diet, and I could buy the argument that the diet in Quebec may be different that in Anglophone North America.
Based on our observations, it's definitely not genetics, because there shouldn't be any difference between a Scandinavian/Yugoslavian girl born and raised in Scandinavia/Yugoslavia and one born to Scandinavian/Yugoslavian parents in North America; but the fact remains that (at least to my friend and I) the butt-size is a consistent give-away.
Butts are muscle and fat. Hips are neither.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 10, 2014, 04:55:49 PM
Butts are muscle and fat. Hips are neither.
We were considering the whole region, including hips, in our assessment.
Are you saying that you attribute the beauty of Quebecoise bums purely to hip structure? And if so, are we certain that hip structure is purely controlled by genetics (and not at all influenced by diet, exercise, and other environmental factors)?
I am saying if you quote a post about hips I'm naturally going to think you're responding to it.
:lol:
Awesome hijack.
All I have to say is that I'm generally a fan of a more fulsome posterior, and in my experience Quebecois girls don't actually disappoint on that end. -_-
My only experience gawking at Quebecois chicks was at the beach in my early teens :(
Quote from: Barrister on January 10, 2014, 05:16:29 PM
All I have to say is that I'm generally a fan of a more fulsome posterior, and in my experience Quebecois girls don't actually disappoint on that end. -_-
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fclutch.mtv.com%2F%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fclutch%2F2012%2F04%2Ftumblr_m106qgTIZS1r3zat8.gif&hash=3a4ead394dc8f870ce1c8f9abe5b9e99c16f36cb)
The Quebecois are also a repressed French ethnic group. :frog:
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 10, 2014, 05:05:43 PM
I am saying if you quote a post about hips I'm naturally going to think you're responding to it.
Yeah, and the hips are different across the selected sample groups; leading my colleague and I to our conclusion.