Nationalism and fringe linguistics
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Nationalism and fringe linguistics
Greetings to your forum I am starting my presence here, wishing to discuss the linguistic situation in Greece. I hope you find this story interesting, and I would be greatly interested to know if such phenomena can be found elsewhere.
Of course there is a professional, academic linguistic community in Greece, but other than that, there is also some "urban-legendary" movement of, let's say, para-linguistics.
The average Greek is educated to maintain a pride about his ancestry, the seniority of his language and its unique heritage. Well, if you believe that if language has a "value", this value can be measured by several (subjective) facts, like how ancient it is, how many words it has loaned to other languages, how much indigenous or original it is, etc.
There are some nationalists-dash-conspiracy theorists who are by no means professional linguists, but amateur authors, educators or philologists, with a great personal interest (and admiration) for ancient Greek culture and history. So, there is a big body of press (books and magazines) concerning some fringe theories about ancient Greece in general, and Greek language in particular. Now these authors also claim that mainstream historiography and linguistics are a result of antihellenic propaganda.
So if you are a nationalist, you would wish for even more for the Greek language: you want it to be more ancient, more unique, more rich, more influential with bigger heritage to the world community. For them, it's anathema to claim that Greek is descended from another, more ancient language, or to claim that the Greek alphabet derives from the Phoenician alphabet. I will explain the reasons later.
Other than official books and magazines, there are also the occasional anonymous chain-mail that can be found also on blogs. These texts might refer to some discovery concerning the history of the Greek language, or an observation that proves some "unique" properties of the Greek language that showcase its value.
Of course these people are not consciously nationalists, at least politically, but I guess most are, or share similar views. However they do believe that Greece is the center of the world, and there is an anti-hellenic zionist conspiracy against them, and they try to reveal the "truth" i.e. the true value of the Greek language, as they see it.
Considering that most Greeks have studied only English, and perhaps a couple of other European languages, with their share of Greek loanwords and cognates, I can assure you that the above can sound quite convincing to an uneducated person. And I want to point out strongly, that these fringe theories and folk beliefs are shared only among conspiracy theorists and the common folk. No serious Greek academics or Greeks versed in linguistics take them seriously. I must also point out that these claims are not politically motivated; when these para-linguists claim that e.g. English language derives from Greek, they don't express any territorial claim against England, other than maintaining some high patriotic sentiment of superiority.
And it is even more interesting to say that the above don't originate only from Greeks. There have been also foreign authors who wrote fringe theories about the Greek language. A German professor (but NOT a linguistics professor) wrote a book pointing out similarities between Polynesian languages and Greek roots, and speculating the routes of ancient Greeks.
Although I find this phenomenon very interesting, it is so fringe, that it isn't taken seriously by professional academics, and therefore nobody bothered to document it. If Wikipedia can be taken as a measure, well, there is no Wikipedia article about it. However there are also some anti-hoax and anti-urban legend Greek blogs that debunk these myths.
I would be very interested to know if there are any such phenomena in other countries.
For example, if you are a Spanish and hear that French voir looks and sounds like ver, what would you think? Would you believe that ancient Spanish went to the French and taught them language?
Of course there is a professional, academic linguistic community in Greece, but other than that, there is also some "urban-legendary" movement of, let's say, para-linguistics.
The average Greek is educated to maintain a pride about his ancestry, the seniority of his language and its unique heritage. Well, if you believe that if language has a "value", this value can be measured by several (subjective) facts, like how ancient it is, how many words it has loaned to other languages, how much indigenous or original it is, etc.
There are some nationalists-dash-conspiracy theorists who are by no means professional linguists, but amateur authors, educators or philologists, with a great personal interest (and admiration) for ancient Greek culture and history. So, there is a big body of press (books and magazines) concerning some fringe theories about ancient Greece in general, and Greek language in particular. Now these authors also claim that mainstream historiography and linguistics are a result of antihellenic propaganda.
So if you are a nationalist, you would wish for even more for the Greek language: you want it to be more ancient, more unique, more rich, more influential with bigger heritage to the world community. For them, it's anathema to claim that Greek is descended from another, more ancient language, or to claim that the Greek alphabet derives from the Phoenician alphabet. I will explain the reasons later.
Other than official books and magazines, there are also the occasional anonymous chain-mail that can be found also on blogs. These texts might refer to some discovery concerning the history of the Greek language, or an observation that proves some "unique" properties of the Greek language that showcase its value.
Of course these people are not consciously nationalists, at least politically, but I guess most are, or share similar views. However they do believe that Greece is the center of the world, and there is an anti-hellenic zionist conspiracy against them, and they try to reveal the "truth" i.e. the true value of the Greek language, as they see it.
Considering that most Greeks have studied only English, and perhaps a couple of other European languages, with their share of Greek loanwords and cognates, I can assure you that the above can sound quite convincing to an uneducated person. And I want to point out strongly, that these fringe theories and folk beliefs are shared only among conspiracy theorists and the common folk. No serious Greek academics or Greeks versed in linguistics take them seriously. I must also point out that these claims are not politically motivated; when these para-linguists claim that e.g. English language derives from Greek, they don't express any territorial claim against England, other than maintaining some high patriotic sentiment of superiority.
And it is even more interesting to say that the above don't originate only from Greeks. There have been also foreign authors who wrote fringe theories about the Greek language. A German professor (but NOT a linguistics professor) wrote a book pointing out similarities between Polynesian languages and Greek roots, and speculating the routes of ancient Greeks.
Although I find this phenomenon very interesting, it is so fringe, that it isn't taken seriously by professional academics, and therefore nobody bothered to document it. If Wikipedia can be taken as a measure, well, there is no Wikipedia article about it. However there are also some anti-hoax and anti-urban legend Greek blogs that debunk these myths.
I would be very interested to know if there are any such phenomena in other countries.
For example, if you are a Spanish and hear that French voir looks and sounds like ver, what would you think? Would you believe that ancient Spanish went to the French and taught them language?
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
I think the Croatian version of Metapedia maintains Croatian is directly descended from Sanskrit. Facepalm.
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
Hungarian springs immediately to mind (and not only because someone just necroed a five year old argument thread on it on Unilang). There's a rather longstanding folk theory that Hungarian is a direct descendent of Sumerian and so, as a corollary, the Uralic family (and anything which builds on it) is an anti-Magyar plot. At my old job, we got a sizable gift of Hungarian books going back decades and there were several popular works dealing with this. The donor was a professional chef with, AFAIK, fairly mainstream views wrt Hungarian nationalism, so again I think we're dealing with a fringe theory that had a certain amount of currency among non-specialists. I thought it had died out (or at least vanished from popular consciousness), but then the Internet came along to prove me wrong.
As for why Sumerian, here's what I've managed to conclude on my own:
1. It, like Hungarian, is agglutinative. That's not at all unusual by global standards, but it does make a language stand out in a European context. (As you say, proponents of ideas like these are generally not familiar with foreign language beyond major IE ones like English or French.) The hypothesis dates from a time when typology was given considerably more weight in comparative studies than is the case nowadays.
2. It has a relatively simple syllable phonology (e.g. no consonant clusters) and the features are underspecified to boot due to the nature of the writing system, so it makes matching lexical roots to purported Hungarian cognates even easier than usual.
3. It's the earliest attested language in the world, and confusing age of attestation with age of origin is a common mistake of hoi polloi. I also think there's a sort of horror vacui in play where adherents simply don't want to think that the language of the first human civilisation to leave decipherable written records could have gone extinct without leaving any progeny. Sumerian must have survived, and the nearest likely candidate (suck it, Basque!) is on the Danubian plain.
Oh, another fringe-but-popular hypothesis which I think fits the bill as well is the Sun Language theory promulgated under Atatürk. To his credit, even he seemed to realise it was nonsense and quietly disowned it, but of course some people never got the memo.
The Balkans, being a hotbed of old school nationalism, is fertile ground for these kinds of ideas. I wouldn't be the least surprised to find corresponding "theories" for, say, Albanian or Bulgarian as well.
As for why Sumerian, here's what I've managed to conclude on my own:
1. It, like Hungarian, is agglutinative. That's not at all unusual by global standards, but it does make a language stand out in a European context. (As you say, proponents of ideas like these are generally not familiar with foreign language beyond major IE ones like English or French.) The hypothesis dates from a time when typology was given considerably more weight in comparative studies than is the case nowadays.
2. It has a relatively simple syllable phonology (e.g. no consonant clusters) and the features are underspecified to boot due to the nature of the writing system, so it makes matching lexical roots to purported Hungarian cognates even easier than usual.
3. It's the earliest attested language in the world, and confusing age of attestation with age of origin is a common mistake of hoi polloi. I also think there's a sort of horror vacui in play where adherents simply don't want to think that the language of the first human civilisation to leave decipherable written records could have gone extinct without leaving any progeny. Sumerian must have survived, and the nearest likely candidate (suck it, Basque!) is on the Danubian plain.
Oh, another fringe-but-popular hypothesis which I think fits the bill as well is the Sun Language theory promulgated under Atatürk. To his credit, even he seemed to realise it was nonsense and quietly disowned it, but of course some people never got the memo.
The Balkans, being a hotbed of old school nationalism, is fertile ground for these kinds of ideas. I wouldn't be the least surprised to find corresponding "theories" for, say, Albanian or Bulgarian as well.
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
Pretty much anything any Indian nationalist says about Sanskrit counts here.
Salmoneus wrote:(NB Dewrad is behaving like an adult - a petty, sarcastic and uncharitable adult, admittedly, but none the less note the infinitely higher quality of flame)
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- Niš
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Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
Your replies were quite interesting. Especially the situation with Hungarian!!
Concerning Greek, the situation varies between "IE is a lie" and "Greek has unique properties". If you are interested I can try to summarize the most of the most characteristic claims.
Greeks resent IE for some specific reasons. Personally I have never heard about any criticism about the IE hypothesis outside Greece, and I am not aware of any other people/nation/faction that is against the IE theory. The only comparable criticism I have heard is from Indian nationalists: they don't accept that Aryans visited/invaded India, but that PIE was spoken in ancient India, until the PIE people reached Europe.
Concerning Greek, the situation varies between "IE is a lie" and "Greek has unique properties". If you are interested I can try to summarize the most of the most characteristic claims.
Greeks resent IE for some specific reasons. Personally I have never heard about any criticism about the IE hypothesis outside Greece, and I am not aware of any other people/nation/faction that is against the IE theory. The only comparable criticism I have heard is from Indian nationalists: they don't accept that Aryans visited/invaded India, but that PIE was spoken in ancient India, until the PIE people reached Europe.
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Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
There's a Greek on another forum I go to who is an anti-IE pro-Greek-Is-Awesome diehard. He spends a few posts listing obscure linguists who he claims support his position (by twisting their words) and citing pop news articles about cavemen, and quickly starts accusing people of being pro-Turkey and racist against Greeks (by twisting the words of another forum member who is a supporter of a negotiated settlement in re: the Cyprus situation.) His initial arguments, before he gets into ad hominem attacks, are of the sort which are so confusing that I have trouble deciding how to respond to them.
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Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
Haha, you summarized the situation perfectly, CWB
The biggest problem with these guys is that they consider the mainstream linguistics totally eveil: everyone who doesn't accept their opinions, is an enemy, or part of a conspiracy, or victim of propaganda.
The biggest problem with these guys is that they consider the mainstream linguistics totally eveil: everyone who doesn't accept their opinions, is an enemy, or part of a conspiracy, or victim of propaganda.
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Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
There's an even more widespread Hungarian myth that Hungarian is Turkic. This one has very deep roots, stretching back to the Magyar invasions - the original Magyar claimed to be descendents of the brother/cousin/whatever of the ancestor of the Huns, allowing them to claim legitimate rule in old Hunnic territories in eastern europe, and over old Hunnic vassal peoples. In the modern era, since Hunnic is generally believed to have been Turkic, this has become a belief that the Magyar are a Turkic people, and hence that Hungarian is a Turkic language. It's much more attractive to believe they're relatives of the noble warrior Turks than that they're descended from a wayward band of reindeer-botherers. [And to be fair, until you look at the linguistic evidence, this would be the prima facie assumption, given that their place is history is much like all the turkic nomad groups, and not much like the uralic herders and gatherers].
In general, I'd say this sort of attitude seems very common in eastern europe and in India. Similar views also come up regarding 'native' and 'primitive' people around the world (like native americans, aboriginals - cf a recent thread on the CBB), but I think that's a different trope that sometimes happens to overlap.
In general, I'd say this sort of attitude seems very common in eastern europe and in India. Similar views also come up regarding 'native' and 'primitive' people around the world (like native americans, aboriginals - cf a recent thread on the CBB), but I think that's a different trope that sometimes happens to overlap.
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But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
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But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
Salmoneus wrote:(NB Dewrad is behaving like an adult - a petty, sarcastic and uncharitable adult, admittedly, but none the less note the infinitely higher quality of flame)
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
Tamil is another South Asian language that sometimes gets these theories attached to it. Interestingly enough I've never heard them for any of the other Dravidian languages, but maybe that's just because Tamil is the biggest.Dewrad wrote:Pretty much anything any Indian nationalist says about Sanskrit counts here.
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
I've seen quite a few Assyrian nationalists online who are dead certain that the Neo-Aramaic languages of the modern "Assyrians" are the same language as the Akkadian language of the ancient "Assyrian" empire. So far as I can tell, their reasoning begins and ends with "they're both called Assyrian".
"It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be said, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."
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Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
I make an attempt to sumarize Greek-related fringe claims here:
As for the "mathematical" structure, it's a belief that is advertised and held by fanatics, but not explained. I guess that this belief lays somewhere between gematria and the "logical language" myth. Of course ancient Greek syntax and grammar seems extremely complex to modern Greeks, which makes their ancestors seem extremely clever.
- Greek is a very ancient language, and everything Greek is indigenous. (oldness and originality give prestige)
- The Indo-European theory is a myth, if not anti-hellenic propaganda. (It is wrongly considered that if the glorious, wise Greeks had to "learn" language from another, even more ancient people, that would require for an even more glorious and advanced civilization.)
- Even before classical Greek was spread in the medieval times, ancient Greeks traveled the world and taught words to primitive barbarians, perhaps as a trade language. This explains present-day "cognates" such as water < ύδωρ or father < πατήρ (failure to understand the difference between cognates and loan words. Also, an appropriate alternative explanation to the unwanted IE theory)
- Classical Greek language has loaned words to other languages because they were inadequate to represent higher meanings (that's a matter of the rich Greek literature, not the nature of the language itself. Note also that this claim makes Greeks mentally superior than other Europeans, cf. Sapir-Whorf)
- Ancient Greek literature reveals millions of unique wordtypes, more than any other language's (the figure varies, but it's far from truth)
- The Greek alphabet is indigenous and more ancient than we know. (see #1 and below)
- The Greeks never borrowed letters from the Phoenicians. (it is wrongly considered that an advanced civilization never borrows or learns things from barbarians, so Greeks would never take anything from the Phoenicians)
- Greek language presents "mathematical structure" (duh!)
- Each Greek word has a numerical value that reveals its intrinsic meaning (a belief that originates from the usage to encode words into number, as in John's Revelation. Occult views consider gematria and theories of Pythagoras. Also it represents a failure to understand that Greek numerals derive from the Greek alphabet, and not vice versa).
- Greek words have a structure showing their intrinsic meaning. Foreign words are mostly random, arbitrary sets of sounds with no discernible origin or explanation (a misunderstanding of how etymological roots actually work)
- Greek language is logical and can be understood by the computers (this is a decade-long urban legend. It is obviously based on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: if ancient Greeks spoke a "computer language" they were geniuses).
- Considering that all western languages are daughter languages of Greek, it is a shame to allow these barbaric languages have so much influence in Greek culture. Preferring English fashion words dumbs down the new generations.
As for the "mathematical" structure, it's a belief that is advertised and held by fanatics, but not explained. I guess that this belief lays somewhere between gematria and the "logical language" myth. Of course ancient Greek syntax and grammar seems extremely complex to modern Greeks, which makes their ancestors seem extremely clever.
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
I once saw an argument over the origin of some kind of cheese or dairy product on Youtube. It was between a bunch of Greeks and (I believe) a couple of Turks. One Greek guy went ahead and listed Greek words which represented properties of the cheese and whose initials spelled out the name of the cheese (like for example FETA - 'Fragrant, Excellent, Tasty, Ancient tradition', voilà, see, it's clearly an English cheese now!)Glossophilos wrote: - Greek words have a structure showing their intrinsic meaning. Foreign words are mostly random, arbitrary sets of sounds with no discernible origin or explanation (a misunderstanding of how etymological roots actually work).
When I met my boyfriend, he had a Greek roommate who had a friend with some really interesting theories about languages. He once told another roommate, who was Polish, that her language was based on Greek, and that therefore, Greek people were able to pronounce the letters more correctly than the Poles. I thought long and hard about this, and I'm pretty sure he was under the impression that Polish used the Cyrillic script (which indeed is based on Greek), but even if he'd said this to a Russian speaker, it would have barely been any less ridiculous.
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Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
Many Lebanese believe that Lebanese is not a dialect of Arabic (which it clearly is), but a direct descendant of Phoenician. The reason is mostly socio-political, the belief is mostly held by Christian Lebanese who want to maintain a distance to their Arab, especially Muslim Arab, neighbours.
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
So how do they account for the fact that the ancient Greeks themselves said they borrowed the alphabet from the Phoenicians? Have they never heard of Cadmus/Kadmos?Glossophilos wrote:I make an attempt to sumarize Greek-related fringe claims here:
- The Greeks never borrowed letters from the Phoenicians. (it is wrongly considered that an advanced civilization never borrows or learns things from barbarians, so Greeks would never take anything from the Phoenicians)
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
Relatedly, Kurdish is Sumerian.Xephyr wrote:I've seen quite a few Assyrian nationalists online who are dead certain that the Neo-Aramaic languages of the modern "Assyrians" are the same language as the Akkadian language of the ancient "Assyrian" empire. So far as I can tell, their reasoning begins and ends with "they're both called Assyrian".
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Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
The one I have encountered said that the Greeks developed their alphabet thousands of years earlier (invoking some sort of thing involving cave wall paintings) and seemed to think that the Phoenicians got writing from the Greeks, if I remember his arguments correctly. I may be mildly misrepresenting his arguments because I haven't gone back to look up exactly what he wrote, but that is my recollection of his theory.Shm Jay wrote:So how do they account for the fact that the ancient Greeks themselves said they borrowed the alphabet from the Phoenicians? Have they never heard of Cadmus/Kadmos?Glossophilos wrote:I make an attempt to sumarize Greek-related fringe claims here:
- The Greeks never borrowed letters from the Phoenicians. (it is wrongly considered that an advanced civilization never borrows or learns things from barbarians, so Greeks would never take anything from the Phoenicians)
He also hit up the majority of the points Glossophilos mentions in Gl's last post, and relatedly to this and the mathematical point mentioned, he thought that the Hebrew alphabet was based on the Greek alphabet, citing Kabbalic number stuff as evidence.
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
Ah yes, the "Turanian" hypothesis. It's not just the Huns, it's also a product of superficial typological resemblances (e.g. agglutination, vowel harmony) of the sort which helped spur the now-discredited Ural-Altaic hypothesis.Salmoneus wrote:There's an even more widespread Hungarian myth that Hungarian is Turkic.
The thing is, though, I don't recall encountring any Hungarian speakers who espoused this hypothesis. Their national legend is one of heroic resistance to the Ottomans, making the Turks one of the Others in opposition to whom their identity is constructed.
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
Yep. Even teaching materials for Lebanese often refer to it as the 'Lebanese language', have long lists of its unique properties which supposedly distinguish it from Arabic, and give massively inflated figures of Phoenician loanwords (which, like some Coptic/Egyptian nationalist descriptions of Egyptian Arabic, are usually either obscure/obsolete farming terms or Arabic words). To be fair, if you contrast it with MSA, a lot of these features make Lebanese look p. wow distinct wow - but most of its features, with the exception of a few phonological weirdnesses like some dialects' preservation of MSA diphthongs, are shared with or small variations on features found all over Syria and Lebanon and to some extent in the southern Levantine area too. As I said, you find this in Egypt too - I read a book by a Copt which asserted, for example, that the negator mā (which corresponds in MSA to a number of negative particles including lā, lam, lan and mā) is derived directly from Coptic. If this is the case, then Coptic was presumably present all over the Arab world, since mā is the negative particle in almost every spoken dialect of Arabic.hwhatting wrote:Many Lebanese believe that Lebanese is not a dialect of Arabic (which it clearly is), but a direct descendant of Phoenician. The reason is mostly socio-political, the belief is mostly held by Christian Lebanese who want to maintain a distance to their Arab, especially Muslim Arab, neighbours.
This attitude is also commonly found amongst Arabs of all kinds (although especially Muslims, for obvious reasons) about the literary language. The term 'Modern Standard Arabic' is not used in Arabic at all - its usual translation is fuṣḥā, which is the term used for literary Arabic (as distinguished from colloquial speech) from pre-Qur'anic times to the present. Whilst most Arabs (excluding some nationalists) tend to scorn colloquial Arabic as lacking grammar - although perhaps 'more flexible' or 'more efficient' than fuṣḥā - they in the same breath will describe literary Arabic as the most difficult and most elaborate language in the world. This has a long history rooted in traditional discourses around the Qur'an and Arabic being the language chosen by God to make his revelation in, and is also tied in with the difficulty of producing fuṣḥā for native speakers (as well as having quite a distinct structure, fuṣḥā is quite resistant to adopting colloquial idioms and has, like any higher register, its own style - combine this with shitty education in most Arabic-speaking countries and you'll understand why fuṣḥā has so much of a mysticism attached to it). Even memes on Facebook commonly make the rounds claiming that Arabic has the largest number of words in the world, etc, etc...
and yes indian nationalists god
also, English - although not tied into nationalism, there is a p. pervasive belief for example that English is the easiest/hardest language in the world, that it is """"wacky"""" and uniquely illogical, blah blah blah
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
tà yi póbo tsùtsùr ciivà dè!
short texts in Cuhbi
Risha Cuhbi grammar
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Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
I'd love to see them try to pronounce dGudzong Tibetan (sp?).Yng wrote:also, English - although not tied into nationalism, there is a p. pervasive belief for example that English is the easiest/hardest language in the world, that it is """"wacky"""" and uniquely illogical, blah blah blah
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
This is what I hate about Linguistics. Everyone thinks that because they speak a language, they know Linguistics when...no, that's not true. You don't get this for the other sciences because most people don't think that just because they took high school chemistry they can make theories on chemistry, for the sake of an example.
Nūdhrēmnāva naraśva, dṛk śraṣrāsit nūdhrēmanīṣṣ iźdatīyyīm woḥīm madhēyyaṣṣi.
satisfaction-DEF.SG-LOC live.PERFECTIVE-1P.INCL but work-DEF.SG-PRIV satisfaction-DEF.PL.NOM weakeness-DEF.PL-DAT only lead-FUT-3P
satisfaction-DEF.SG-LOC live.PERFECTIVE-1P.INCL but work-DEF.SG-PRIV satisfaction-DEF.PL.NOM weakeness-DEF.PL-DAT only lead-FUT-3P
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
I strongly presume this is true for any other language, not just English.also, English - although not tied into nationalism, there is a p. pervasive belief for example that English is the easiest/hardest language in the world, that it is """"wacky"""" and uniquely illogical, blah blah blah
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If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.
If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.
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Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
Indeed, there have been some findings in the region of Greece of artifacts that bear writing-like markings. Other than some superficial resemblence to Greek letters (angular shapes etc), it is not known if it's actually writing, and if yes, which language it is supposed to represent.Civil War Bugle wrote: The one I have encountered said that the Greeks developed their alphabet thousands of years earlier (invoking some sort of thing involving cave wall paintings) and seemed to think that the Phoenicians got writing from the Greeks, if I remember his arguments correctly. I may be mildly misrepresenting his arguments because I haven't gone back to look up exactly what he wrote, but that is my recollection of his theory.
Of course, no continuity can be claimed with the classical alphabet, as the earliest Greek alphabet was Linear A, which is totally different and unrelated.
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
It certainly seems a view more prevalent among speakers of some languages than others. I don't see e.g. the Dutch or the Italians making these kinds of claims so freely or frequently. But you hear them about Chinese all the time (from native speakers as well as learners and nonspeakers).Pole, the wrote:I strongly presume this is true for any other language, not just English.also, English - although not tied into nationalism, there is a p. pervasive belief for example that English is the easiest/hardest language in the world, that it is """"wacky"""" and uniquely illogical, blah blah blah
How often do you hear these kinds of claim about Polish, for instance?
Re: Nationalism and fringe linguistics
Well, if you ask a Pole what the hardest language is, half of the time you would hear "Polish". Other half it is "Chinese".
(Or "Hungarian".)
(Or "Hungarian".)
The conlanger formerly known as “the conlanger formerly known as Pole, the”.
If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.
If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.