Linguistic Quackery Thread, take 2

[Mr. Z]

You're missing the part where all the replies agree with him.

[Bob Johnson]

*The fuck is this even supposed to mean? Is it redundant to be bilingual? Is Maori's use of reduplication just too much? Huh?

Proper English is a perfectly good language. We don't need any other languages, they're all redundant.

[Kaenif]

Dr. Clyde A. Winters:

The culture hero Huang Di is a direct link of Africa. His name was pronounced in old Chinese Yuhai Huandi or Hu Nak Kunte. He was supposed to have arrived in China from the west in 2282 B.C., and settled along the banks of the Loh river in Shanxi. This transliteration of Huandgi, to Hu Nak Kunte is interesting because Kunte is a common clan name among the Manding speakers.

I should feel honoured for having the history of my country in some crackpottery (you know, it's rare), but

[Mr. Z]

Dr. Clyde A. Winters:

The culture hero Huang Di is a direct link of Africa. His name was pronounced in old Chinese Yuhai Huandi or Hu Nak Kunte. He was supposed to have arrived in China from the west in 2282 B.C., and settled along the banks of the Loh river in Shanxi. This transliteration of Huandgi, to Hu Nak Kunte is interesting because Kunte is a common clan name among the Manding speakers.

I should feel honoured for having the history of my country in some crackpottery (you know, it's rare), but

Got a link?

[Kaenif]

Got a link?

Okay back to unsubtle crackpottery again (of many kinds, not just linguistic). Presenting Dr. Clyde A. Winters:

http://olmec98.net/
http://bafsudralam.blogspot.com/


(and yes, he is a real PhD. He is in fact a professor!)
[also I know the whole "ALL GREAT CIVILIZATIONS WERE REALLY BLACK AFRICANS SO TAKE THAT CRACKERS" thing isn't exactly new or unfamiliar, but this stuff is still pretty entertaining. Plus it involves language idiocy so it's relevant]

(also, please look at his profile picture on blogger)

[Vuvuzela]

My Spanish teacher this year seems to believe that languages reproduce sexually. She asked the class "what language is the mother of Spanish and French and English?" and I raised my hand and said "Proto-Indo-European?" And she said "No, I'm looking for something shorter; Latin!" and then she said "Yes, Latin is the mother of both English and Spanish, they just have different fathers." And, on the origin of Latin itself, she said that it was invented by violent criminals in Roman jails who couldn't understand each other, and so conlanged it into existence, similar to the way slaves in the US created the one and only Pidgin English. My jaw was too close to the floor to ask what the Romans spoke before that, so I'm just going to guess it was Ebonics. Also, there are only four Romance languages, and Catalan and Galicean are dialects of Spanish.
God, I hope she doesn't talk about historical linguistics anymore. I mean, how do you not know that reference grammars are brought to the doorsteps of primitive people by the stork?

[Lyra]

My Spanish teacher this year seems to believe that languages reproduce sexually. She asked the class "what language is the mother of Spanish and French and English?" and I raised my hand and said "Proto-Indo-European?" And she said "No, I'm looking for something shorter; Latin!" and then she said "Yes, Latin is the mother of both English and Spanish, they just have different fathers." And, on the origin of Latin itself, she said that it was invented by violent criminals in Roman jails who couldn't understand each other, and so conlanged it into existence, similar to the way slaves in the US created the one and only Pidgin English. My jaw was too close to the floor to ask what the Romans spoke before that, so I'm just going to guess it was Ebonics. Also, there are only four Romance languages, and Catalan and Galicean are dialects of Spanish.
God, I hope she doesn't talk about historical linguistics anymore. I mean, how do you not know that reference grammars are brought to the doorsteps of primitive people by the stork?

I would raise the seven hells in her class. I would.

~Lyra

[linguofreak]

And she said "No, I'm looking for something shorter; Latin!"

This is a fairly common error, and excusable for those who never took LING 101, given the massive number of Latinate loanwords in English.

and then she said "Yes, Latin is the mother of both English and Spanish, they just have different fathers."

Ooooookayyyyy...

And, on the origin of Latin itself, she said that it was invented by violent criminals in Roman jails who couldn't understand each other, and so conlanged it into existence, similar to the way slaves in the US created the one and only Pidgin English.

Are you sure she's not just trying to troll the ling majors in her class?

My jaw was too close to the floor to ask what the Romans spoke before that, so I'm just going to guess it was Ebonics.

Etruscan? King James English?

Oh! Of course! It couldn't have been anything but Basque!

[WeepingElf]

And she said "No, I'm looking for something shorter; Latin!"

This is a fairly common error, and excusable for those who never took LING 101, given the massive number of Latinate loanwords in English.

and then she said "Yes, Latin is the mother of both English and Spanish, they just have different fathers."

Ooooookayyyyy...

And, on the origin of Latin itself, she said that it was invented by violent criminals in Roman jails who couldn't understand each other, and so conlanged it into existence, similar to the way slaves in the US created the one and only Pidgin English.

Are you sure she's not just trying to troll the ling majors in her class?

My jaw was too close to the floor to ask what the Romans spoke before that, so I'm just going to guess it was Ebonics.

Etruscan? King James English?

Oh! Of course! It couldn't have been anything but Basque!

We all know that Proto-Indo-European is a myth, thanks to the unrelenting efforts of Octaviano!

[Pinetree]

Oh! Of course! It couldn't have been anything but Basque!

I was going to sarcastically agree with this by posting a link to a youtube video, but the account's been deleted.

[Morrígan]

Remember when he was honestly promoting the Paleolithic Continuity Theory and claiming that all agricultural terms were loans from Vasco-Caucasian?

Good times >_>

[WeepingElf]

Remember when he was honestly promoting the Paleolithic Continuity Theory and claiming that all agricultural terms were loans from Vasco-Caucasian?

Good times >_>

Yes, good times indeed. It was fun. Hilarious. Also, he was the reason why I eventually reached the rank of Šalea in the old rank system. Judging from the posts on his blog and this discussion, his opinions do not appear to have changed much since then.

[linguoboy]

Oh my god, why did I follow the link to this site? It's pretty much all awful, but the link to this site probably falls most closely within the purview of this thread. Sure, Galatian borrowings into Turkish will end up looking just like Modern Standard Irish.

Is there any way we can make Mark's essay on chance resemblances required reading in schools?

[Morrígan]

Oh my god, why did I follow the link to this site? It's pretty much all awful, but the link to this site probably falls most closely within the purview of this thread. Sure, Galatian borrowings into Turkish will end up looking just like Modern Standard Irish.

Is there any way we can make Mark's essay on chance resemblances required reading in schools?

Oh man, this is priceless. And yeah, it would definitely be worth teaching people about chance resemblances.

[dhok]

A blast from the past.

[WeepingElf]

All writing systems date back to an international guild of smiths in the Ancient Near East.

[Wattmann]

The African Origin of the Greeks (and, by association, the Romans)

Apparently, the Ethiopians had mathematics, and they taught it to Egyptians, and then the Egyptians taught the Greeks about gods that certainly don't have Indo-European names.
Then the comments start quacking, ranging from the Anatolian origin of Greeks, and Ethiopians are very very Arabic, and things such as Alexander the Great being blonde with blue eyes and a thief of Greek culture, and Scythians being direct descendants of Sumerians, and that Sumerians ruled in Northern Africa...

I won't spoil everything, though

[Thry]

Our Autonomical Government's Consejero de Educación (some politically important person who is in charge of the autonomical equivalent of the Ministry of Education, in short), said that Finns had good educational systems and that,

"they learned not merely English but also Swedish, a language very similar to their native one".

[Mr. Z]

Our Autonomical Government's Consejero de Educación (some politically important person who is in charge of the autonomical equivalent of the Ministry of Education, in short), said that Finns had good educational systems and that,

"they learned not merely English but also Swedish, a language very similar to their native one".

He should go ahead and learn Basque, then. A language very similar to his native one.

[Thry]

He should go ahead and learn Basque, then. A language very similar to his native one.

Oh sure as hell he should xDD

[Izambri]

Our Autonomical Government's Consejero de Educación (some politically important person who is in charge of the autonomical equivalent of the Ministry of Education, in short), said that Finns had good educational systems and that,

"they learned not merely English but also Swedish, a language very similar to their native one".

Well, is that view of the Outer World, you know...

1. Scandinavia are those lands in the North Pole, beyond Germany, where everyone has blond hair (without exception) and night covers everything. Finland is near Sweden, which is part of Scandinavia. Finland is a Scandinavian country.
2. Swedish is spoken in Sweden. Sweden and Swedish is Scandinavian stuff, like IKEA, reindeers and Santa Claus. So it is anything closely related to Sweden; for example, Finland.
3. All Scandinavian languages sound the same. Finnish sounds funny and doesn't resemble any other tongue we know here in the south, so it must be Scandinavian too.
4. Besides, many Finns also spoke Swedish, which may be the language of culture and science in Finland because Finnish sounds so funny that cannot be a serious tongue, ya know.

Conclusion: Finns' language is as closer to Swedish as Swedish is closer to Norwegian or Danish.

[WeepingElf]

Our Autonomical Government's Consejero de Educación (some politically important person who is in charge of the autonomical equivalent of the Ministry of Education, in short), said that Finns had good educational systems and that,

"they learned not merely English but also Swedish, a language very similar to their native one".

Well, is that view of the Outer World, you know...

1. Scandinavia are those lands in the North Pole, beyond Germany, where everyone has blond hair (without exception) and night covers everything. Finland is near Sweden, which is part of Scandinavia. Finland is a Scandinavian country.
2. Swedish is spoken in Sweden. Sweden and Swedish is Scandinavian stuff, like IKEA, reindeers and Santa Claus. So it is anything closely related to Sweden; for example, Finland.
3. All Scandinavian languages sound the same. Finnish sounds funny and doesn't resemble any other tongue we know here in the south, so it must be Scandinavian too.
4. Besides, many Finns also spoke Swedish, which may be the language of culture and science in Finland because Finnish sounds so funny that cannot be a serious tongue, ya know.

Conclusion: Finns' language is as closer to Swedish as Swedish is closer to Norwegian or Danish.

Just that. This blunder doesn't get more than about 50 millinylands.

[Thry]

Conclusion: Finns' language is as closer to Swedish as Swedish is closer to Norwegian or Danish.

+They're all descendants of vikings.
+Skyrim

[Mr. Z]

Our Autonomical Government's Consejero de Educación (some politically important person who is in charge of the autonomical equivalent of the Ministry of Education, in short), said that Finns had good educational systems and that,

"they learned not merely English but also Swedish, a language very similar to their native one".

Well, is that view of the Outer World, you know...

1. Scandinavia are those lands in the North Pole, beyond Germany, where everyone has blond hair (without exception) and night covers everything. Finland is near Sweden, which is part of Scandinavia. Finland is a Scandinavian country.
2. Swedish is spoken in Sweden. Sweden and Swedish is Scandinavian stuff, like IKEA, reindeers and Santa Claus. So it is anything closely related to Sweden; for example, Finland.
3. All Scandinavian languages sound the same. Finnish sounds funny and doesn't resemble any other tongue we know here in the south, so it must be Scandinavian too.
4. Besides, many Finns also spoke Swedish, which may be the language of culture and science in Finland because Finnish sounds so funny that cannot be a serious tongue, ya know.

Conclusion: Finns' language is as closer to Swedish as Swedish is closer to Norwegian or Danish.

Just that. This blunder doesn't get more than about 50 millinylands.

You will have to explain your millinylands system to me some day, you know.

[WeepingElf]

You will have to explain your millinylands system to me some day, you know.

It is simple. A nyland is a unit of measurement for linguistic quackery. The standard is Edo Nyland, a crackpot who claimed that all languages were conlangs made by Basque monks or something like that. That is 1 nyland. Or 1000 millinylands. As few people ever get close to the quackery of Edo Nyland, most linguistic quackeries are in a range of a few millinylands to a few hundred millinylands.