Hungarian and Finnish are the two best proofs for extraterrestrials. All the other languages seem to be related, and/or have similarities. But those two are just off in a class, all by themselves. They are physically near other people, and yet, they are so radically different, it’s like they are from another planet.
Now we get to pressure Dave about memes, cognates, locatives, declensions, phonemes, and quiz Dave about concepts that Sarnothi needs but doesnt have. Or that Sarnothi has but doesnt need, cause that’s what language is about, na?
Basque? I knew that it differed widely from Portugese and Spanish, i did NOT know it was an isolate! Thanks for posting that!
Note: APG! You are here, but i just saw your post over “Mastery”! You and I should compare notes, we seem to want to comment in the same comics, and we avoid making posts on comics that we both either don’t like to comment on, we don’t Both read, or that neither one of us reads.
It is like we have similar tastes in comics! (Grins!)
Last I read, Basque was considered to be descended from the Eutruscan. Another group of conquerers overrunning the Italian peninsula and running things for a while and then absorbed into the population.
Indeed, Basque linguistically, and the Basques, North Welsh and Tuscans genetically, are perhaps islands remaining of a pan-European aboriginal population. The Welsh national costume (though not the hat) may also once have been universal amongst European peasant women.
Or, er, not. No study is without its critics- and I’m rather a folklore bore.
Etruscan and Basque are both survivors of the pre-Indo-European languages, but that doesn’t mean they are related. Linguists and historians would love to be able to use comparisons with Basque or any other living language in studying the surviving fragments of written Etruscan, but haven’t been able to find any correspondences.
The Welsh and Basque genetic links are unsurprising. The Basques (at least) have been sailing across the water between for so long that it’s been named after them (the Bay of Biscay). Intermarriage and informal liaisons would have occurred.
OTOH, Finno-Ugric is thought to be an Asian language, brought west by intruders after the Indo-European speakers settled in. In the case of the Magyars (“Hungarians”, misnamed for Attila’s people), the invasion is a historical fact – they pushed west centuries after the Hunnish invasions ended. It’s not so clear when the old Finnish-speakers came to Scandinavia; they were probably primitive dwellers on the Arctic coast and ignored by the more advanced peoples that wrote the histories until suddenly there was this nation of very tough warriors separating the Norse from their conquests in Russia… Estonians are more difficult to account for, but there have been times of disruption when much bigger nations moved across Eurasia.
What a fascinating topic! Google Translate is very useful indeed, but there are certain Pythonesque issues with any language in the early stages. Welsh was an early member of Google’s family, arriving in 2009, when GT was known to render e.g. “Blasting in Progress” as “Gweithwyr yn ffrwydro”, that is,”workers exploding”. There are still some issues- the word “ysgol” means both “school” and “ladder”, so context is very important.
I wonder what it’d make of the Sarnothi pluralization issues?
Oh I know!
I’ve had the most success using Google Translate by typing sentences one line at a time, and phrasing as simply and literally as possible.
Human language is often very contextual (particularly non-English languages; English is comparatively very blunt and direct.)
Nonetheless, GT has helped me out in a lot of situations dealing with people who don’t speak English very well, because you don’t always get to choose who you need to talk to based on your language preferences. My Iraq refugee neighbor who came to this country with no English, mainly speaking Arabic, was a good example. Depressed and lonely, he mentioned suicide on the Arabic language Facebook, and members of his Mosque called the police to do a wellness check…
Now… when a call comes in with keywords like “Iraqi” and “suicide”, it raises some flags. They ended up sending two cars, with four officers, not a one of whom spoke any Arabic, and he ended up arrested for resisting (and I can’t blame him; groups of armed men in uniforms coming to see him in the night was kind of what he fled his home country to avoid… in Iraq, those were Saddam’s “Recruiters” and my friend had actually cut off his own ears to disqualify himself for their draft. The fact that he’s therefor a bit hard of hearing and tends to speak loudly as a result doesn’t help twitchy police relax.)
I was able to use GT on my laptop to open some communication between the two groups. He was still arrested, but not charged with anything, and sent home after a couple days, I hope in-part because the situation was made a little clearer at the time.
He moved away to a bigger city with a larger Arabic-speaking community to integrate with a few years ago. He’s doing quite well now, and with local medical expertise to rebuild his ears, he also speaks more softly.
I tangented pretty far there.
My point was that even if GT can’t get the subtler grammar perfect, used properly, it can be a huge help to get your basic point and intentions across; poke a hole in the language barrier. ^_^
He could point to himself and say “Todd”, point to the teacher, “Mi Nah”, and that should be enough to cue them on introducing themselves. But since they’re out of time anyway, maybe skip the language struggles and just do the “handshake” again. (Does that work as a departure salutation too?)
Yeah! Hey! Dave, does it work like Aloha, Shalom, and Ciao? Or does it not? Your local collegiate bookstore will have books on advanced soc. and maybe linguistics.
I recommend that book of amateur poetry by the psychiatrist titled; “Knots.” Its a fun read, and has almost as much fun with words as “Who’s on First.”
Long time reader. I think that Mina should be fired. She’s putting a new family that doesn’t speak English into repeatedly awkward situations. At a certain point, it qualifies as systematic discrimination.
Reminds me of my 1st grade. msotly Laotian and Hmong kids. they had to translate for their parents, but some of them didnt have much English themselves.
I remember seeing this also in my storytimes. Part of this also goes into a first grader’s master of language period. Some talk a lot, but there is a gap of vocabulary between an average 6 year old and an average grown-up. If nothing else, it means simplifying some concepts down to what a first grader can understand before they tell their loved biguns. (Of course, the storytimes I have seen are younger than first grade – usually preschool or toddler, so even less words to choose from in general. Even asking about countries can be hard when someone is still learning the concept of house, street, etc)
I call for an English-Sarnothi dictionary!
Or better still, a Welsh-Sarnothi dictionary.
Long as it doesn’t turn out to be a Hungarian phrasebook….
https://youtu.be/G6D1YI-41ao
Hungarian and Finnish are the two best proofs for extraterrestrials. All the other languages seem to be related, and/or have similarities. But those two are just off in a class, all by themselves. They are physically near other people, and yet, they are so radically different, it’s like they are from another planet.
Now we get to pressure Dave about memes, cognates, locatives, declensions, phonemes, and quiz Dave about concepts that Sarnothi needs but doesnt have. Or that Sarnothi has but doesnt need, cause that’s what language is about, na?
And then there’s Basque- that good people share many genetic traits with the population of Wales, but their language is a perfect “isolate”.
And by a similar interesting coincidence, my hovercraft is also full of eels.
Am Basque. Can concur. Yeesh, that language.
Basque? I knew that it differed widely from Portugese and Spanish, i did NOT know it was an isolate! Thanks for posting that!
Note: APG! You are here, but i just saw your post over “Mastery”! You and I should compare notes, we seem to want to comment in the same comics, and we avoid making posts on comics that we both either don’t like to comment on, we don’t Both read, or that neither one of us reads.
It is like we have similar tastes in comics! (Grins!)
Last I read, Basque was considered to be descended from the Eutruscan. Another group of conquerers overrunning the Italian peninsula and running things for a while and then absorbed into the population.
Indeed, Basque linguistically, and the Basques, North Welsh and Tuscans genetically, are perhaps islands remaining of a pan-European aboriginal population. The Welsh national costume (though not the hat) may also once have been universal amongst European peasant women.
Or, er, not. No study is without its critics- and I’m rather a folklore bore.
I’ll get me coat…
Etruscan and Basque are both survivors of the pre-Indo-European languages, but that doesn’t mean they are related. Linguists and historians would love to be able to use comparisons with Basque or any other living language in studying the surviving fragments of written Etruscan, but haven’t been able to find any correspondences.
The Welsh and Basque genetic links are unsurprising. The Basques (at least) have been sailing across the water between for so long that it’s been named after them (the Bay of Biscay). Intermarriage and informal liaisons would have occurred.
OTOH, Finno-Ugric is thought to be an Asian language, brought west by intruders after the Indo-European speakers settled in. In the case of the Magyars (“Hungarians”, misnamed for Attila’s people), the invasion is a historical fact – they pushed west centuries after the Hunnish invasions ended. It’s not so clear when the old Finnish-speakers came to Scandinavia; they were probably primitive dwellers on the Arctic coast and ignored by the more advanced peoples that wrote the histories until suddenly there was this nation of very tough warriors separating the Norse from their conquests in Russia… Estonians are more difficult to account for, but there have been times of disruption when much bigger nations moved across Eurasia.
Daves going to have to go tolkein.
Dictionary smictionary.
It’s 2018. Get Google on this, and they’ll have an app for that in everyone’s phone by the end of the workweek.
What a fascinating topic! Google Translate is very useful indeed, but there are certain Pythonesque issues with any language in the early stages. Welsh was an early member of Google’s family, arriving in 2009, when GT was known to render e.g. “Blasting in Progress” as “Gweithwyr yn ffrwydro”, that is,”workers exploding”. There are still some issues- the word “ysgol” means both “school” and “ladder”, so context is very important.
I wonder what it’d make of the Sarnothi pluralization issues?
Oh I know!
I’ve had the most success using Google Translate by typing sentences one line at a time, and phrasing as simply and literally as possible.
Human language is often very contextual (particularly non-English languages; English is comparatively very blunt and direct.)
Nonetheless, GT has helped me out in a lot of situations dealing with people who don’t speak English very well, because you don’t always get to choose who you need to talk to based on your language preferences. My Iraq refugee neighbor who came to this country with no English, mainly speaking Arabic, was a good example. Depressed and lonely, he mentioned suicide on the Arabic language Facebook, and members of his Mosque called the police to do a wellness check…
Now… when a call comes in with keywords like “Iraqi” and “suicide”, it raises some flags. They ended up sending two cars, with four officers, not a one of whom spoke any Arabic, and he ended up arrested for resisting (and I can’t blame him; groups of armed men in uniforms coming to see him in the night was kind of what he fled his home country to avoid… in Iraq, those were Saddam’s “Recruiters” and my friend had actually cut off his own ears to disqualify himself for their draft. The fact that he’s therefor a bit hard of hearing and tends to speak loudly as a result doesn’t help twitchy police relax.)
I was able to use GT on my laptop to open some communication between the two groups. He was still arrested, but not charged with anything, and sent home after a couple days, I hope in-part because the situation was made a little clearer at the time.
He moved away to a bigger city with a larger Arabic-speaking community to integrate with a few years ago. He’s doing quite well now, and with local medical expertise to rebuild his ears, he also speaks more softly.
I tangented pretty far there.
My point was that even if GT can’t get the subtler grammar perfect, used properly, it can be a huge help to get your basic point and intentions across; poke a hole in the language barrier. ^_^
He could point to himself and say “Todd”, point to the teacher, “Mi Nah”, and that should be enough to cue them on introducing themselves. But since they’re out of time anyway, maybe skip the language struggles and just do the “handshake” again. (Does that work as a departure salutation too?)
Yeah! Hey! Dave, does it work like Aloha, Shalom, and Ciao? Or does it not? Your local collegiate bookstore will have books on advanced soc. and maybe linguistics.
I recommend that book of amateur poetry by the psychiatrist titled; “Knots.” Its a fun read, and has almost as much fun with words as “Who’s on First.”
Long time reader. I think that Mina should be fired. She’s putting a new family that doesn’t speak English into repeatedly awkward situations. At a certain point, it qualifies as systematic discrimination.
Reminds me of my 1st grade. msotly Laotian and Hmong kids. they had to translate for their parents, but some of them didnt have much English themselves.
I remember seeing this also in my storytimes. Part of this also goes into a first grader’s master of language period. Some talk a lot, but there is a gap of vocabulary between an average 6 year old and an average grown-up. If nothing else, it means simplifying some concepts down to what a first grader can understand before they tell their loved biguns. (Of course, the storytimes I have seen are younger than first grade – usually preschool or toddler, so even less words to choose from in general. Even asking about countries can be hard when someone is still learning the concept of house, street, etc)
Too bad that Tehk has class. Otherwise he could’ve translated.
Also really sucks that this was all rushed and there isn’t a translator available for them.
Maybe there’s a translator running around to the various classes? If they only have one, and have to get to half a dozen classrooms…