What, where, when

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Jonlang
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What, where, when

Post by Jonlang »

Firstly, I apologise if this is in the wrong section!

So someone posted this on Facebook a few days ago and I must say that it had never occurred to me. They posted that the questions "When", "Where" and "When" can be answered by substituting the w for a t. Where > There. I suppose I was mostly surprised by the fact that I'd never noticed this. I guess this has been discussed here before, but is this purely coincidental or did it occur deliberately?
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Re: What, where, when

Post by KathTheDragon »

This is purely a coincidence. Using "what" and "that" as examples, in Old English, these two words were spelt "hwæt" and "þæt". In the course of time, "hw" was respelled "wh" and "þ" was respelled "th", yielding "what" and "that". Ditto for the other pairs.

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Re: What, where, when

Post by M Mira »

That only changed the question from w/t correspondence to hw/þ correspondence though, and to my surprise all three of them fits even in Old English even down to vowel lengths.

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Re: What, where, when

Post by Salmoneus »

M Mira wrote:That only changed the question from w/t correspondence to hw/þ correspondence though, and to my surprise all three of them fits even in Old English even down to vowel lengths.
Throughout IE. Latin 'tam' (so much) vs 'quam' (how much), and 'talis' (such a kind) vs 'qualis' (what kind) for instance.
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Re: What, where, when

Post by KathTheDragon »

Ok, going back all the way to PIE, *kʷó-d vs. *tó-d ("what" vs. "that"), *kʷó-m vs. *tó-m ("when" vs. "then"), and *kʷó-r vs. *tó-r ("where" vs. "there"). In this case, *kʷo- and *to- are adjectival pronoun stems derived from the more basic pronoun roots *kʷ- and *t-.

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Re: What, where, when

Post by احمکي ارش-ھجن »

Well if that isn't the most interesting revelation.
ʾAšol ḵavad pulqam ʾifbižen lav ʾifšimeḻ lit maseḡrad lav lit n͛ubad. ʾUpulasim ṗal sa-panžun lav sa-ḥadṇ lav ṗal šarmaḵeš lit ʾaẏṭ waẏyadanun wižqanam.
- Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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Re: What, where, when

Post by Jonlang »

I think I'm getting out of my depth now!
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Re: What, where, when

Post by gmalivuk »

I sometimes feel like we should use "hat" instead of "this" and "hen" instead of "now", to parallel the "here"/"there" (and hither/thither and hence/thence and here-/there- compounds) distinction.

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Re: What, where, when

Post by Abi »

KathTheDragon wrote:Ok, going back all the way to PIE, *kʷó-d vs. *tó-d ("what" vs. "that"), *kʷó-m vs. *tó-m ("when" vs. "then"), and *kʷó-r vs. *tó-r ("where" vs. "there"). In this case, *kʷo- and *to- are adjectival pronoun stems derived from the more basic pronoun roots *kʷ- and *t-.
At this point it seems pretty apparent that PIE was simply an ancient esperanto gone awry.

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Re: What, where, when

Post by Pole, the »

gmalivuk wrote:I sometimes feel like we should use "hat" instead of "this" and "hen" instead of "now", to parallel the "here"/"there" (and hither/thither and hence/thence and here-/there- compounds) distinction.
Yeah, but we already use "hat" for wearing on the head. And some of us use "hen" for meat and eggs.
Abi wrote:At this point it seems pretty apparent that PIE was simply an ancient esperanto gone awry.
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Re: What, where, when

Post by gmalivuk »

Pole, the wrote:
gmalivuk wrote:I sometimes feel like we should use "hat" instead of "this" and "hen" instead of "now", to parallel the "here"/"there" (and hither/thither and hence/thence and here-/there- compounds) distinction.
Yeah, but we already use "hat" for wearing on the head. And some of us use "hen" for meat and eggs.
Look if I want to hat hat hat hen and forever, I won't let your argument from homonymy stop me.

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Re: What, where, when

Post by linguoboy »

Pole, the wrote:
gmalivuk wrote:I sometimes feel like we should use "hat" instead of "this" and "hen" instead of "now", to parallel the "here"/"there" (and hither/thither and hence/thence and here-/there- compounds) distinction.
Yeah, but we already use "hat" for wearing on the head. And some of us use "hen" for meat and eggs.
there their they're
here hear hir

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Re: What, where, when

Post by Jonlang »

linguoboy wrote:
Pole, the wrote:
gmalivuk wrote:I sometimes feel like we should use "hat" instead of "this" and "hen" instead of "now", to parallel the "here"/"there" (and hither/thither and hence/thence and here-/there- compounds) distinction.
Yeah, but we already use "hat" for wearing on the head. And some of us use "hen" for meat and eggs.
there their they're
here hear hir
Those words, depending on regional accents, aren't necessarily pronounced the same, and hir isn't even a word... In South Wales "there" is different to "their" and "they're" - both sounding like "theya". Also, "Here", "hear", "year" and "ear" are all pronounced as "yurr" (rhyming with "fur").
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Re: What, where, when

Post by Yng »

that hardly negates the point that Some Words Are Homographs/Homophones
كان يا ما كان / يا صمت العشية / قمري هاجر في الصبح بعيدا / في العيون العسلية

tà yi póbo tsùtsùr ciivà dè!

short texts in Cuhbi

Risha Cuhbi grammar

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Re: What, where, when

Post by Jonlang »

Yng wrote:that hardly negates the point that Some Words Are Homographs/Homophones
If this is aimed at me, I apologise if I seemed argumentative. It wasn't meant as such. I was just pointing out that (mainly) the words their and they're have two syllables when spoken in a South Wales accent (particularly the Valleys).
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Re: What, where, when

Post by gmalivuk »

dyolf wrote:and hir isn't even a word...
Yes, it is.

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Re: What, where, when

Post by Jonlang »

gmalivuk wrote:
dyolf wrote:and hir isn't even a word...
Yes, it is.
I stand corrected.
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Re: What, where, when

Post by Travis B. »

Why can't people just use they... and no, I am not going to remember what your favorite personal pronoun is, thank you. (Luckily no one has ever insisted to me that I call them a particular pronoun.)
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: What, where, when

Post by Zaarin »

Travis B. wrote:Why can't people just use they... and no, I am not going to remember what your favorite personal pronoun is, thank you. (Luckily no one has ever insisted to me that I call them a particular pronoun.)
I personally have never heard any other gender-indefinite pronoun used outside the internet.
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Re: What, where, when

Post by gmalivuk »

Travis B. wrote:Why can't people just use they... and no, I am not going to remember what your favorite personal pronoun is, thank you. (Luckily no one has ever insisted to me that I call them a particular pronoun.)
"... and no, I am not going to remember what your favorite personal name is, thank you"

That's cool, Greg. You do you.

(And I mean, sure, if someone picks a totally unique "pronoun" it's really just another name and they'd essentially rather you didn't use pronouns at all. But in real life, even the part of real life here on the Internet, people don't tend to pick words uniformly from a set of thousands. They just pick from a set that's a couple times larger than {he, she, it, they}.)

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