Ear infections cause Australian languages

[Astraios]

If brown was 10, green would be 9 and blue would be 2.

[Aurora Rossa]

If brown was 10, green would be 9 and blue would be 2.

What would be 1 on your list?

[Jadyndar]

If brown was 10, green would be 9 and blue would be 2.

What would be 1 on your list?

I think it's just a scale. On which note, Straio - where would "green outside, hazel inside" rank?
</narcissism>

[Bob Johnson]

If brown was 10, green would be 9 and blue would be 2.

Tsk, so picky.

(At least I'm the prettiest kind.)

[Astraios]

I think it's just a scale.

Yes. Although 1 would probably be blue-grey-nothingy eyes with no real colour at all.

On which note, Straio - where would "green outside, hazel inside" rank?

Probably 8, because not all green so not 9, but enough to be interesting.

Tsk, so picky.

(At least I'm the prettiest kind.)

You're always the prettiest.

[faiuwle]

So I guess hazel (=hazelnut-colored, sort of brown + yellow/green, not two-tone) would be 9.5, then, Straio?

Actually, following this and a recent conversation with my sister about how I basically can't read anything written in thin lettering without my glasses, I'm wondering what kinds of writing systems omnipresent nearsightedness would cause.

[Astraios]

So I guess hazel (=hazelnut-colored, sort of brown + yellow/green, not two-tone) would be 9.5, then, Straio?

Seems about right to me.

Actually, following this and a recent conversation with my sister about how I basically can't read anything written in thin lettering without my glasses, I'm wondering what kinds of writing systems omnipresent nearsightedness would cause.

One that's written really big? xD

[faiuwle]

It's not a matter of big so much as lines that are thick and shapes that are relatively simple. The thin lines disappear and the serifs and so forth are lost in the blur.

[Herr Dunkel]

blondeblues ... get sexy girls

Nah, because sexy people are latin@s and they live in latino countries and have sex with each other more than with ugly blondblue people like you.

Blondblues like us have the inherent attribute of being awesome and making good propaganda.

[Astraios]

It's not a matter of big so much as lines that are thick and shapes that are relatively simple. The thin lines disappear and the serifs and so forth are lost in the blur.

Oh, interesting. For me I can still kinda see thin writing without my glasses, if it's big enough.

Blondblues like us have the inherent attribute of being awesome and making good propaganda.

And we have the inherent attribute of DESPISING YOU BECAUSE YOU MURDERED MY FAMILY.

[Herr Dunkel]

It's not a matter of big so much as lines that are thick and shapes that are relatively simple. The thin lines disappear and the serifs and so forth are lost in the blur.

Oh, interesting. For me I can still kinda see thin writing without my glasses, if it's big enough.

Blondblues like us have the inherent attribute of being awesome and making good propaganda.

And we have the inherent attribute of DESPISING YOU BECAUSE YOU MURDERED MY FAMILY.

XD that actually kind of might be true, except that both parties acted in WWII

[Salmoneus]

Hmm. Boasting of the holocaust. Unusual approach there DG.

[Astraios]

XD that actually kind of might be true, except that both parties acted in WWII

Except no, it is true. My family used to live in Eastern Europe - now there's only my great-grandfather from Russia and his wife from Poland, and then nobody else we know of on that side of the family at all. There's only two conclusions: 1) the rest got murdered, or 2) both the families simply lost touch with my great-grandparents and are still living in wherever, and the first is more likely.

[Herr Dunkel]

Hmm. Boasting of the holocaust. Unusual approach there DG.

Am not boasting, am admitting truth.

XD that actually kind of might be true, except that both parties acted in WWII

Except no, it is true. My family used to live in Eastern Europe - now there's only my great-grandfather from Russia and his wife from Poland, and then nobody else we know of on that side of the family at all. There's only two conclusions: 1) the rest got murdered, or 2) both the families simply lost touch with my great-grandparents and are still living in wherever, and the first is more likely.

The equation needn't have my grand-grandfather in it, though.
As far as I know, one of my grand-grandfathers was in France, while two more were best friends and stationed somewhere in the south. That leaves one grand-grandfather unaccounted for.
He might just have been on the Eastern front.

[Astraios]

The equation needn't have my grand-grandfather in it, though.

You're the one who implied it did, by grouping yourself with those blondblues.

(Also stop writing grand-grandfather, it's wrong.)

[Herr Dunkel]

(Also stop writing grand-grandfather, it's wrong.)

It, technically speaking, isn't wrong.
It has 38 million hits on Google.

[Soap]

The vast majority of those hits are just pages where the word "grandfather" occurs and then "grand" also occurs on the same page, not necessarily together.

[Astraios]

It has 38 million hits on Google.

Being on Google does not make it right.

[Herr Dunkel]

Old Photos: My Grand Grand Grandfather
very-old-photos.blogspot.com/.../my-grand-gra... - Diese Seite übersetzen
19 Oct 2008 – This picture dates back somewhere around 1920. The old man in the middle is my grand grand grandfather. The house in the back was build ...

my grand-grand father went to the USA before World War 1 - Gallas ...
boards.ancestry.com/surnames.gallas/.../mb.ashx - Diese Seite übersetzen
9 Oct 2006 – my grand-grand father went to the USA before World War 1/Gallas family history & genealogy message board. Hosted by Ancestry.com.

My Grand Grandfather was Canadian - How do I get Canadian Citizenship
www.canadavisa.com/.../my-grand-grandfather-... - Diese Seite übersetzen
2 Beiträge - 2 Autoren - Letzter Eintrag: 30. Apr. 2009
Hi Canadians and Wannabe Canadians,First a little History Lesson:My Grand Grandfather Immigrated to Canada around 1880 and lived there ...

Maradona´s grand-grandfather comes from Praputnjak, Croatia ...
www.balkanforum.info › Balkanforum › Sport › Sport
10 Beiträge - 5 Autoren - Letzter Eintrag: 27. Juni 2010
"Maradona's grand-grandfather Matej Kariolic, the father of the footballer's grandmother Salvadora, comes from the tiny village of Praputnjak. ...

Who is grand grand father of mathematics
wiki.answers.com › ... › School Subjects › Math - Diese Seite übersetzen
Who was the Abraham Lincoln's father and grand father? ... Who is Ranbir kapoor's grand father? ... Prophet Muhammad grand father name is Abdul Motteleb. ...



Out of ten hits on the first page, five have explicit reference to "Grand-grand (grand) father"
I'll stop using it anyway, but this is something you should think about.

[Salmoneus]

"Grand-grandfather" is completely wrong. Native speakers don't say it. If they do say it, they're either a) immensely ill-educated, if such a lack of education is even possible, b) being weird or having a laugh, or c) having a momentary loss of memory as to what the right word is.

You say there are lots of citations.

Well, of those five on the front page of Google:
1 is written by a Romanian on their personal blog
1 is written by an Indian who lives "in Europe", writing in an online forum
1 is a comment by a Croatian pensioner, as reported by a Croatian weekly paper, as reported by a Croatian online news-site in English. [Sidenote: which has such wonderful front-page news stories as "piranha bites ear" and "Frenchman falsely reports crime!"]
1 is writing in an online forum by a German. At least, when he says "We're coming from Gisengen (Saarland) Germany. Greetings Christian Hans", I'm guessing he means that his name is Christian Hans and that he's from Germany, but who can say.
1 is written by an Indonesian - it's a one-line caption to a picture on a flickr page on which all the other comments are in indonesian, and the person who put it up has labelled most of their other pictures in indonesian only.

To summarise: only 1 is in a situation where you'd expect proofreading. Only 1 is by somebody who might, perhaps, it's not unreasonable to believe, have English as a first language, or at least a fluent language (the Indian), but even then it's unlikely. 1 is in a short post containing several other glaring errors. 0 are by people who are clearly native speakers, and 0 are from, so far as we can tell, a country in which English is the dominant language.

Why are you offering these people as evidence of grammaticality? I mean, for almost any error, you could find SOMEBODY on the internet who said it once. That doesn't mean that it's grammatical in English.

[Similarly, I went through the second page of google as well. The only instances there were a Flickr caption by a Czech, and the American translation of another Romanian site. There was also the subject of a message by a Serbian woman who seemed to have OK English... but then she switched to the proper form in the body of the text, so I don't think even she actually thought it was OK.]

[Pabappa]

Given that evidence shows people from southern India boated their way over to northern Australia with dingos around 2000 BC, maybe the phonologiers arent much of a coincidence after all. Honestly Im surprised and disappointed that there isnt an actual shared language family like we have with Indonesia/Madagascar, so perhaps it was not Dravidians that sailed over, but rather another now-lost language family that is actually Pama-Nyungan.

i.e. Pama-Nyungan originated in India.

The similarities in phgonology between PM and Proto-Dravidian would be due to areal language contact, since proto-Dravidian existed at about the same time that proto-Pama-Nyungan did. (Thus grammar can be completely different.) The alternative would be that the Indians didnt bring their language with them at all, and either the phonologies are just a coincidence, or they both have a similar level of problems with inner ear infections for the last 5000 years (maybe the migrating Indians even brought that with them?) and that explains the similarity of phonologies in the rest of Asutralia as well. Tamil does seem to have more fricatives as allophones than Australian languages typically do, but that, too, could be due to influence from the pervasive Indo-European languages and may not have been common in the ancestor language.

[WeepingElf]

Fair. Proto-Pama-Nyungan could have been the language of those South Asians who came to Australia 4000 years ago; the similarity between the PN and the Dravidian consonant inventories may indeed be the result of language contact in India.

[Nortaneous]

Given that evidence shows people from southern India boated their way over to northern Australia with dingos around 2000 BC, maybe the phonologiers arent much of a coincidence after all. Honestly Im surprised and disappointed that there isnt an actual shared language family like we have with Indonesia/Madagascar, so perhaps it was not Dravidians that sailed over, but rather another now-lost language family that is actually Pama-Nyungan.

i.e. Pama-Nyungan originated in India.

The similarities in phgonology between PM and Proto-Dravidian would be due to areal language contact, since proto-Dravidian existed at about the same time that proto-Pama-Nyungan did. (Thus grammar can be completely different.) The alternative would be that the Indians didnt bring their language with them at all, and either the phonologies are just a coincidence, or they both have a similar level of problems with inner ear infections for the last 5000 years (maybe the migrating Indians even brought that with them?) and that explains the similarity of phonologies in the rest of Asutralia as well. Tamil does seem to have more fricatives as allophones than Australian languages typically do, but that, too, could be due to influence from the pervasive Indo-European languages and may not have been common in the ancestor language.

The theory I've heard is that they were Vedda-speakers, not Dravidian-speakers, and Dravidian had a Vedda substrate.

[WeepingElf]

The theory I've heard is that they were Vedda-speakers, not Dravidian-speakers, and Dravidian had a Vedda substrate.

This makes sense.

[8Deer]

Interesting, is there any research on this topic? I've noticed how similar the phonologies of Proto-Dravidian and Proto-Pama-Nyungan are before but I assumed it was just coincidence.