From: AC Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: 22 Jan 2005 18:07:35 GMT Organization: The Tao of Cow Lines: 8 Message-ID: Reply-To: mightymartianca@hotmail.com X-Trace: individual.net yE47xzVlvyqEenju12WiZwQS0SxcCRPZtCkWih5dgCZsVYAsaJ User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.0 (Linux) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168054 I'm thinking of learning Anglo-Saxon so that I could do neat things like read Beowulf in the original language and impress friends at parties. Is there a good primer, and just how tough is it to go from post-Norman English to Old English? -- Aaron Clausen mightymartianca@hotmail.com ###### From: "Christopher Kreuzer" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Lines: 33 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 18:30:50 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 82.43.124.242 X-Complaints-To: abuse@blueyonder.co.uk X-Trace: text.news.blueyonder.co.uk 1106418650 82.43.124.242 (Sat, 22 Jan 2005 18:30:50 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 18:30:50 GMT Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.belwue.de!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!feed.news.schlund.de!schlund.de!npeer.de.kpn-eurorings.net!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!pe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk!blueyonder!pe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk!blueyonder!text.news.blueyonder.co.uk!53ab2750!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168057 AC wrote: > I'm thinking of learning Anglo-Saxon so that I could do neat things > like read Beowulf in the original language and impress friends at > parties. Is there a good primer, and just how tough is it to go from > post-Norman English to Old English? Even better! get together with other like-minded people and form something like the Kolbiters(?) or Coalbiters, just like Tolkien did! I know a group of people who did just that, and it can be extemely interesting to do things like read Beowulf in the original. I think they used the AS primer written by Bruce Mitchell (who taught with JRR Tolkien). Sadly, I didn't take part, as I am hopeless with foreign languages... The Mitchell book is /A Guide to Old English/ http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=17-0631226362-0 http://www.campusi.com/ta_A_Guide_to_Old_English_by_Mitchell.htm At the moment, I'm reading Steven Pinker's /The Language Instinct/ (1994), which has very interesting things to say about language, mainly in the vein of Noam Chomsky. Does anyone here know how controversial or accepted these language theories are (the concept of a Universal Grammar hard-wired into the brain), or how relevant they are to Tolkien? Christopher -- --- Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard ###### From: Michele Fry Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 19:00:16 +0000 Organization: sass Lines: 31 Message-ID: <+RVqBIAALq8BFwYg@sassoonery.demon.co.uk> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: sassoonery.demon.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1106420538 23592 212.228.13.129 (22 Jan 2005 19:02:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 19:02:18 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Turnpike Integrated Version 4.02 S Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!newsfeed.tiscali.ch!tiscali!newsfeed1.ip.tiscali.net!proxad.net!proxad.net!194.159.246.34.MISMATCH!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!sassoonery.demon.co.uk!michele Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168059 In article , AC writes >I'm thinking of learning Anglo-Saxon so that I could do neat things like >read Beowulf in the original language and impress friends at parties. Is >there a good primer, and just how tough is it to go from post-Norman English >to Old English? I had the same idea a couple of months or so ago (I called it the Garth effect) - just in time to discover I'd just missed out on signing up for the evening class at Oxford University, unfortunately... One can still purchase Sweet's Anglo-Saxon primer - I've seen copies in Blackwells (the academic bookstore here in Oxford) in both the new books section and the used books section... I'm going to wait for Sept. to come around again and then sign up for the evening class at the University (assuming they run it again)... It's possible to do an online course via one of the American universities - I don't know how often it runs, but it began in October or so... I'll see if I can dig out the link for you. Michele == "A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold." - Henry Miller 'The Books In My Life' (1969) == Now reading: The Thief's Gamble - Juliet E McKenna The Amulet of Samarkand - Jonathan Stroud == Commit random acts of literacy! Read & Release at Bookcrossing: http://www.bookcrossing.com/friend/Sass-80 ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 13:07:33 -0600 Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 14:07:31 -0500 From: Robert Kolker User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Lines: 11 NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.128.242.168 X-Trace: sv3-Di6xgmSrDHuQHwVQMD0RXRZEyiK2vRTDyDV+PChpcC3QFjuhgfWWaQBQIaIxM10geAzRfhHEOxWshh4!qHXCwnl7MEaZTRFx1yGo0D/XKkPbcFX9QyhDXfmlk7gD6hvAlha0tN1tDGYDvfLx/4E9GkYGe7ux!faI= X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.22 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!newshosting.com!nx01.iad01.newshosting.com!216.196.98.140.MISMATCH!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168060 Christopher Kreuzer wrote: > Does anyone here know how controversial or accepted these language > theories are (the concept of a Universal Grammar hard-wired into the > brain), or how relevant they are to Tolkien? Chomsky's thesis is not universally accepted. There clearly is a wired-in inclination and ability to speak, but how much is manifested in a mentalese universal grammar is a very open question. Bob Kolker ###### From: "Christopher Kreuzer" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Lines: 31 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 19:42:46 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 82.43.124.242 X-Complaints-To: abuse@blueyonder.co.uk X-Trace: text.news.blueyonder.co.uk 1106422966 82.43.124.242 (Sat, 22 Jan 2005 19:42:46 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 19:42:46 GMT Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!feed.news.tiscali.de!easynet-monga!easynet.net!pe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk!blueyonder!pe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk!blueyonder!text.news.blueyonder.co.uk!53ab2750!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168061 Robert Kolker wrote: > Christopher Kreuzer wrote: >> Does anyone here know how controversial or accepted these language >> theories are (the concept of a Universal Grammar hard-wired into the >> brain), or how relevant they are to Tolkien? > > Chomsky's thesis is not universally accepted. There clearly is a > wired-in inclination and ability to speak, but how much is manifested > in a mentalese universal grammar is a very open question. Thanks. Though talking about the inclination to speak, I did like the story about how the !Kung San bushmen think that their children need to be taught how to sit up and stand and walk. They prop them up with little mounds of sand or something for sitting and similar stuff for standing and walking, whereas other cultures just let their children learn to sit, stand and walk naturally. The corollary was Motherese, where some mothers 'teach' their children how to talk by pointing and going: "Look at the doggie! That's a doggie!", and how this is totally unecessary and children learn to talk by listening to other children and adults talk naturally. But I've only just started the book, so I'd better read the rest of it first. Christopher -- --- Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 14:34:21 -0600 Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 14:33:47 -0600 From: Larry Swain User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Lines: 47 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.80.74.25 X-Trace: sv3-PSu1xhbDwwCIuoWLMj7jJs1ZMVZr/IohnUpde/2DchCZdlXEFXtZ3TJHmbwknbxAKX5dcE181Rh51O2!RqAcJnN8EijjtFzA3Ska1p2uHvlLyuM3R3efgA+hOF+1Ig8WatdEpJ1pd6MF2X4= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.22 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.rcn.net!news.rcn.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168062 AC wrote: > I'm thinking of learning Anglo-Saxon so that I could do neat things like > read Beowulf in the original language and impress friends at parties. Is > there a good primer, and just how tough is it to go from post-Norman English > to Old English? > Grand idea! There are several good sources for you to do it on your own, but there's nothing like doing it with a group of people to keep you honest. CK has recommended the Mitchell and Robinson _Guide to Old English_ which is available fairly inexpensively--the problem with this one is that it discusses all the linguistic features up front, and then gives you a bunch of texts to wrestle with in the back, not much in the way of practice exercises as you learn forms, phonological changes etc. But it is becoming the standard--mostly because it is the first such primer written WITHOUT assuming that the student has a detailed knowledge of Latin and Greek. Sweet's primer is still available as Michelle notes, but is more than a century old now and does assume that you have knowledge of Latin and Greek. If you do, its a good resource, if you don't, it can be touch going in spots. There are some very good online resources now that I'd recommend. First is the course at Univ of Calgary: http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/engl401/ You may enroll in the next course via Internet, but as far as I know you may use the online lessons and texts without being enrolled. Second, is King Alfred's Grammar, developed by Michael Drout and Stephen Harris. The URL is http://acunix.wheatonma.edu/mdrout/GrammarBook/KAGrammar.html though at the moment I can't seem to connect, so it may be down. Third, and one I know is available, is good, and one doesn't need to be enrolled for is Peter Baker's grammar at: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/research/rawl/IOE/ This has the grammar information, followed by exercises; work your way through the grammar, and then you have an "anthology" of online texts to read through to master your new skills. Finally, I'll just point to a list of links on Anglo-Saxon studies in general (scroll up the page), and specifically on language and learning Old English: http://members.aol.com/heroicage1/as.htm#lang ###### From: Michele Fry Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 20:52:19 +0000 Organization: sass Lines: 49 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: sassoonery.demon.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1106428090 21124 212.228.13.129 (22 Jan 2005 21:08:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 21:08:10 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Turnpike Integrated Version 4.02 S Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!newsfeed.vmunix.org!news.cs.univ-paris8.fr!proxad.net!proxad.net!194.159.246.34.MISMATCH!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!sassoonery.demon.co.uk!michele Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168063 In article , AC writes >I'm thinking of learning Anglo-Saxon so that I could do neat things like >read Beowulf in the original language and impress friends at parties. Is >there a good primer, and just how tough is it to go from post-Norman English >to Old English? As promised info. on online courses in A-S: Prof. Murray McGillivray's Internet OE Course is at http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/engl401/ - it's based at the Univ. of Calgary provides a grammar and several glossed texts. Prof. Catherine N. Ball's "Hwaet! Old English in Context" is at http://www.georgetown.edu/cball/hwaet/hwaet06.html Prof. Peter Baker's "Intro. to OE" Course at the University of Virginia: access to a "Tour of OE Culture" is restricted, but all can make use of some sentences for pronunciation practice drawn from Mitchell & Robinson's Guide to Old English available at http://www.engl.virginia.edu/OE/Guide.Readings/Guide.Readings.html According to Mike Hanley's page (from where I drew this info.), Prof. Catherine Ball's site is "the definitive Anglo-Saxon site, the despair of anything else in its class. Everything you need is here somewhere, including links to everywhere else." ! So you might want to stop there first... I looked at the first two sites listed here when I was investigating the possibility of learning it myself. I decided against an online course because I feel it's easier to learn a language with someone who can tell you what it should sound like - and whilst one can, of course, get sound clips on the Net to tell you that, it's not the same (I feel) as hearing a living person speak)... Michele == "A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold." - Henry Miller 'The Books In My Life' (1969) == Now reading: The Thief's Gamble - Juliet E McKenna The Amulet of Samarkand - Jonathan Stroud == Commit random acts of literacy! Read & Release at Bookcrossing: http://www.bookcrossing.com/friend/Sass-80 == Counter-Attack web site: http://www.sassoonery.demon.co.uk email : michele@sassoonery.demon.co.uk ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 16:00:27 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: References: X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 27 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!newsfeed.stueberl.de!logbridge.uoregon.edu!tethys.csu.net!nntp.csufresno.edu!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-01!sn-post-02!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168065 On 22 Jan 2005 18:07:35 GMT, AC wrote: >I'm thinking of learning Anglo-Saxon so that I could do neat things like >read Beowulf in the original language and impress friends at parties. Is >there a good primer, and just how tough is it to go from post-Norman English >to Old English? I dunno. *I* did it. PS: The 'friends' at parties were *not* impressed! The best primer I know of is _Sweet's Old English Primer_ by Henry Sweet, revised by Norman Davis. $25 at Amazon.com. Somewhat more advanced, but still a beginner's book, is _A Guide to Old English_ by Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson. $40 at Amazon.com. You do not need both books, but they cover the same material differently and using different OE texts. Mitchell will get you into _Beowulf_ faster (if you don't get bogged down in the OE philology). I do have both, perhaps in slightly older editions. the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- When I'm not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded. ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 16:04:00 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: References: X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 24 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!news-in.ntli.net!newsrout1-win.ntli.net!ntli.net!sn-xit-03!sn-xit-08!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168066 On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 14:33:47 -0600, Larry Swain wrote: > >Sweet's primer is still available as Michelle notes, but is more than a >century old now and does assume that you have knowledge of Latin and >Greek. > I had no Greek and only very rudimentary Latin. I didn't feel their absence at all. (You just skip those little parts.) OTOH, there isn't a lot of that annoying grammar either: just what is necessary for the texts included. It *is* a 'primer'. It probably helped that I had studied Modern German in college, although that was many long ages ago. Grammatically, Mod. Ger. is 'slightly' closer to OE than Mod. Eng. However Mod. Eng. has a lot more cognates and some of the syntactial structures have passed down well through the ages. I found a good knowledge of King James English very useful for interpreting sentence structure. the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- When I'm not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded. ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 16:05:11 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: References: X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 15 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!newsfeed.vmunix.org!uio.no!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-01!sn-post-02!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168067 On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 20:52:19 +0000, in rec.arts.books.tolkien Michele Fry wrote: >According to Mike Hanley's page (from where I drew this info.), Prof. >Catherine Ball's site is "the definitive Anglo-Saxon site, the despair >of anything else in its class. Yeah: that's where *my* contribution is posted. the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- Smith & Wesson - The original point and click interface... ###### From: clJUNKv1@balcab.ch (CleV) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 01:39:10 GMT Organization: Cablecom Newsserver Lines: 33 Message-ID: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 80-218-141-16.dclient.hispeed.ch X-Trace: news.hispeed.ch 1106444433 537 80.218.141.16 (23 Jan 2005 01:40:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@hispeed.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 01:40:33 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.hispeed.ch!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168070 On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 19:42:46 GMT, "Christopher Kreuzer" wrote: >Robert Kolker wrote: >> Christopher Kreuzer wrote: >>> Does anyone here know how controversial or accepted these language >>> theories are (the concept of a Universal Grammar hard-wired into the >>> brain), or how relevant they are to Tolkien? >> Chomsky's thesis is not universally accepted. There clearly is a >> wired-in inclination and ability to speak, but how much is manifested >> in a mentalese universal grammar is a very open question. >Thanks. Though talking about the inclination to speak, I did like the >story about how the !Kung San bushmen think that their children need to >be taught how to sit up and stand and walk. They prop them up with >little mounds of sand or something for sitting and similar stuff for >standing and walking, whereas other cultures just let their children >learn to sit, stand and walk naturally. >The corollary was Motherese, where some mothers 'teach' their children >how to talk by pointing and going: "Look at the doggie! That's a >doggie!", and how this is totally unecessary and children learn to talk >by listening to other children and adults talk naturally. >But I've only just started the book, so I'd better read the rest of it >first. I've always found the idea of the 6 "root" languages - and how you can trace word origins back through the development of different phases of civilisations - fascinating. ###### From: "T.M. Sommers" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20030104 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 16 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 06:17:45 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.9.102.147 X-Complaints-To: Abuse Role , We Care X-Trace: monger.newsread.com 1106461065 64.9.102.147 (Sun, 23 Jan 2005 01:17:45 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 01:17:45 EST Organization: Cumberland Technologies International (pa.net) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newsread.com!newsstand.newsread.com!POSTED.monger.newsread.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168075 AC wrote: > I'm thinking of learning Anglo-Saxon so that I could do neat things like > read Beowulf in the original language and impress friends at parties. Is > there a good primer, and just how tough is it to go from post-Norman English > to Old English? In addition to what others have said, you might try searching Amazon; there are several books out there. There are also a couple of recordings of Old English. Caedmon has a selection from Beowulf and some other poems, and there is a complete recording of Beowulf. -- Thomas M. Sommers -- tms@nj.net -- AB2SB ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 13:06:12 -0600 Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 14:05:00 -0500 From: Flame of the West User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Macintosh/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Lines: 11 NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.49.64.18 X-Trace: sv3-F8mQSAiP+ZnQUYEsWfG8vYAuNIXFcow9uF0iBwisPPZNCruyVO0Wc7po6byLzL3aw2MEa19/Uut3wip!8Rj9l8RyCYUrq+UlOgCw+JPc3mKXXrK5Zne4Sz7KnenW1lglG+VzuQjWbOk= X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.22 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168091 T.M. Sommers wrote: > There are also a couple of recordings of Old English. Gee whiz, you'd think the quality would have degraded pretty badly after all this time! -- FotW Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-earth. ###### From: AC Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: 24 Jan 2005 05:54:41 GMT Organization: The Tao of Cow Lines: 5 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: mightymartianca@hotmail.com X-Trace: individual.net UvrhRsOf3So0NqfHxhM6iwqd8EzAaf8dmZYY7LZcsyzkNMAhhs User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.0 (Linux) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168102 Thanks everybody for your help. We'll see how it goes! -- Aaron Clausen mightymartianca@hotmail.com ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 23:07:10 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: References: X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 17 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!proxad.net!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!sn-xit-03!sn-xit-08!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168103 On 24 Jan 2005 05:54:41 GMT, AC wrote: >Thanks everybody for your help. We'll see how it goes! Wes žu hal! http://www.margoleath.com/beowabbit/ http://bertc.com/beocat.htm the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- Frisbeetarianism: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. ###### From: jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: 24 Jan 2005 13:10:41 -0500 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Lines: 53 Message-ID: References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix1.panix.com X-Trace: reader2.panix.com 1106590241 12560 166.84.1.1 (24 Jan 2005 18:10:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 18:10:41 +0000 (UTC) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!npeer.de.kpn-eurorings.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!panix!panix1.panix.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168115 In article <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch>, CleV wrote: >On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 19:42:46 GMT, "Christopher Kreuzer" > wrote: >>Robert Kolker wrote: >>> Christopher Kreuzer wrote: >>>> Does anyone here know how controversial or accepted these language >>>> theories are (the concept of a Universal Grammar hard-wired into the >>>> brain), or how relevant they are to Tolkien? >>> Chomsky's thesis is not universally accepted. There clearly is a >>> wired-in inclination and ability to speak, but how much is manifested >>> in a mentalese universal grammar is a very open question. >>Thanks. Though talking about the inclination to speak, I did like the >>story about how the !Kung San bushmen think that their children need to >>be taught how to sit up and stand and walk. They prop them up with >>little mounds of sand or something for sitting and similar stuff for >>standing and walking, whereas other cultures just let their children >>learn to sit, stand and walk naturally. >>The corollary was Motherese, where some mothers 'teach' their children >>how to talk by pointing and going: "Look at the doggie! That's a >>doggie!", and how this is totally unecessary and children learn to talk >>by listening to other children and adults talk naturally. > >>But I've only just started the book, so I'd better read the rest of it >>first. >I've always found the idea of the 6 "root" languages - and how you can >trace word origins back through the development of different phases of >civilisations - fascinating. There are serious linguists who claim that we are on the verge of being able to trace *all* human language back to a single mother tongue. A very accessible introduction to this idea is "The Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue" by Merritt Ruhlen. Ruhlen claims to have a list of 23 words (if I remember correctly) which have concordances in all language families. For example, the original word for "finger" was something like "tik", which survives today in English as "digit", and survives as well in some form in every other language family (although not in every other language!). His ideas are controversial, but not flaky. You might also want to check out another book by Ruhlen, "A Guide to the World's Languages: Classification", which is a compact reference to all the world's languages. Both these books are on Amazon, along with some useful reader reviews. -- John Brock jbrock@panix.com ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 12:48:14 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 28 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news2.euro.net!216.196.110.149.MISMATCH!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news-in.ntli.net!newsrout1-win.ntli.net!ntli.net!sn-xit-03!sn-xit-08!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168118 On 24 Jan 2005 13:10:41 -0500, jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) wrote: > >There are serious linguists who claim that we are on the verge of >being able to trace *all* human language back to a single mother >tongue. A very accessible introduction to this idea is "The Origin >of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue" by Merritt >Ruhlen. Ruhlen claims to have a list of 23 words (if I remember >correctly) which have concordances in all language families. For >example, the original word for "finger" was something like "tik", >which survives today in English as "digit", and survives as well >in some form in every other language family (although not in every >other language!). His ideas are controversial, but not flaky. >You might also want to check out another book by Ruhlen, "A Guide >to the World's Languages: Classification", which is a compact >reference to all the world's languages. Both these books are on >Amazon, along with some useful reader reviews. Ms. Ruhlen is a devoted disciple of the language school at Stanford University, Palo Alto. However, I believe that the majority of the world's linguists do not accept the Stanford Hypothesis and consider a list of 23 words laughably short. Random chance predicts more correspondences. the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- The beatings will cease when morale improves. ###### From: jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: 24 Jan 2005 16:55:12 -0500 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Lines: 43 Message-ID: References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix3.panix.com X-Trace: reader2.panix.com 1106603712 18196 166.84.1.3 (24 Jan 2005 21:55:12 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 21:55:12 +0000 (UTC) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.belwue.de!feed.news.tiscali.de!newsfeed.vmunix.org!peer02.cox.net!cox.net!panix!panix3.panix.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168119 In article <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com>, the softrat wrote: >On 24 Jan 2005 13:10:41 -0500, jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) wrote: >>There are serious linguists who claim that we are on the verge of >>being able to trace *all* human language back to a single mother >>tongue. A very accessible introduction to this idea is "The Origin >>of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue" by Merritt >>Ruhlen. Ruhlen claims to have a list of 23 words (if I remember >>correctly) which have concordances in all language families. For >>example, the original word for "finger" was something like "tik", >>which survives today in English as "digit", and survives as well >>in some form in every other language family (although not in every >>other language!). His ideas are controversial, but not flaky. >>You might also want to check out another book by Ruhlen, "A Guide >>to the World's Languages: Classification", which is a compact >>reference to all the world's languages. Both these books are on >>Amazon, along with some useful reader reviews. >Ms. Ruhlen is a devoted disciple of the language school at Stanford >University, Palo Alto. However, I believe that the majority of the >world's linguists do not accept the Stanford Hypothesis and consider a >list of 23 words laughably short. Random chance predicts more >correspondences. The list of words that are likely to be highly conserved is much shorter than the list of all words in a language, and compared to this 23 isn't so short. Ruhlen is clearly a real linguist, not some crackpot, and I think he makes a good case for his theory in his book. Still, I'm aware that Ruhlen doesn't stand with the majority, and not being a linguist myself I read such books more for entertainment. I *LIKE* the idea that we can tie all the world's languages together into a single tree, and I like even better the suggestion (made in the book) that this tree matches up remarkably well with the family trees that geneticists are coming up with, which seem to map out the prehistoric migrations of the human race. If it all turns out not to be true that's too bad, but nobody is paying me to be right about this, so I might as well enjoy the fun while it lasts. :-) -- John Brock jbrock@panix.com ###### From: AC Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: 25 Jan 2005 00:24:19 GMT Organization: The Tao of Cow Lines: 63 Message-ID: References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> Reply-To: mightymartianca@hotmail.com X-Trace: individual.net cx9nHVFPGdZM7Fj/9TgFAwTUYcMYyjrT4L8j52fg8U4FZgmv5v User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.0 (Linux) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.r-kom.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168129 On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 12:48:14 -0800, the softrat wrote: > On 24 Jan 2005 13:10:41 -0500, jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) wrote: >> >>There are serious linguists who claim that we are on the verge of >>being able to trace *all* human language back to a single mother >>tongue. A very accessible introduction to this idea is "The Origin >>of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue" by Merritt >>Ruhlen. Ruhlen claims to have a list of 23 words (if I remember >>correctly) which have concordances in all language families. For >>example, the original word for "finger" was something like "tik", >>which survives today in English as "digit", and survives as well >>in some form in every other language family (although not in every >>other language!). His ideas are controversial, but not flaky. >>You might also want to check out another book by Ruhlen, "A Guide >>to the World's Languages: Classification", which is a compact >>reference to all the world's languages. Both these books are on >>Amazon, along with some useful reader reviews. > > Ms. Ruhlen is a devoted disciple of the language school at Stanford > University, Palo Alto. However, I believe that the majority of the > world's linguists do not accept the Stanford Hypothesis and consider a > list of 23 words laughably short. Random chance predicts more Yes, the whole notion is pretty ridiculous. First of all, the origins of language are just simply too murky to even begin talking about a mother tongue. But let's just, for the sake of argument, say that modern language (not proto-languages like we surmise our more distant ancestors used) arose with modern H. sapiens, at the outside of 150,000 years ago. That's an enormous period of time for linguistic evolution and would, I suspect, put any study of the actual vocabulary of this mothertongue beyond the reach of study. Even if we take the first real branchings out of Africa between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago, that doesn't do us much good. Just looking at the staggering amount of change that the Germanic and Romance languages have gone through in just 2,000 years, or the Afro-Asiatic in about 10,000 years (I believe that linguists think they've pushed this group that far back), and then add something like an order of magnitude to that, and I think the general concensus of linguists is it's too hidden by time and change to ever be knowable save in the most generalistic terms of what an early full language would like as compared to more simplistic proto-languages. We may do some neat things, like find some roots to the major language groups today, or maybe clean up the problems of some of the isolates we find, but I don't think that anyone is seriously going to be able to identify 23 roots from the alleged mother tongue. It might even be worse than that. If modern language evolved after modern H. sapiens, then it is possible that the neural wiring may have preceded the advent of full language, meaning we might have a bush at the bottom of the linguistic tree. One must remember that the only thing remarkable that is associated with the rise of modern H. sapiens in Africa that marked them as different from other hominids (Neandertals and the later H. erectus populations of Asia) was morphological. Look at the finds in the Levant, modern-looking humans displaying behavior no more complicated than Neandertals. About all we can say is that by the time of the really big pushes that saw moderns push out of Africa and Palestine into Europe, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, modern language as we know it must have evolved. -- Aaron Clausen mightymartianca@hotmail.com ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 18:58:41 -0600 Message-ID: <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 19:59:06 -0500 From: pmhilton User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 27 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.5.183.175 X-Trace: sv3-Fk68OmjUdSv+VFtYR3jbgSbvHdufSVplaUqhSXljn2n2rBonveiPhg2kHp8hLgf640P23P4CFKC11nH!dqkf1YOMo7pXCiv5H/SJLI8hpNT6n2DSMAg2rC7CSbhBZ5MJ0Yl+drfB X-Complaints-To: abuse@gwi.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@gwi.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.22 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.gwi.net!news.gwi.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168134 AC wrote: > On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 12:48:14 -0800, the softrat > wrote: > >>On 24 Jan 2005 13:10:41 -0500, jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) wrote: >> >>>There are serious linguists who claim that we are on the verge of >>>being able to trace *all* human language back to a single mother >>> tongue. Interesting material snipped. A "Theory of All Language" would have to accommodate Basque, Navaho, Romany & Finnish which, I am led to believe, are each members of 1-language families. Pete H -- Either everyone has rights or some have privileges. It's really that simple. Walt Kelly ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 16:59:49 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 13 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!sn-xit-03!sn-xit-12!sn-xit-10!sn-xit-06!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168135 On 24 Jan 2005 16:55:12 -0500, jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) wrote: >this 23 isn't so short. Ruhlen is clearly a real linguist, not >some crackpot, and I think he makes a good case for his theory in >his book. Uh, John, pick up the hints: Merrit Ruhlen is female! the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- I believe no problem is so large or so difficult that it can't be blamed on somebody else. ###### From: Emma Pease Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 01:31:16 +0000 (UTC) Lines: 40 Message-ID: References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> Reply-To: emma+usenet@kanpai.stanford.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: munin.stanford.edu X-Trace: news.Stanford.EDU 1106616676 18945 171.64.23.58 (25 Jan 2005 01:31:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@news.stanford.edu User-Agent: slrn/0.9.7.4 (SunOS) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!enews.sgi.com!wattres.watt.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!shelby.stanford.edu!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168137 In article <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com>, the softrat wrote: > On 24 Jan 2005 13:10:41 -0500, jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) wrote: >> >>There are serious linguists who claim that we are on the verge of >>being able to trace *all* human language back to a single mother >>tongue. A very accessible introduction to this idea is "The Origin >>of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue" by Merritt >>Ruhlen. Ruhlen claims to have a list of 23 words (if I remember >>correctly) which have concordances in all language families. For >>example, the original word for "finger" was something like "tik", >>which survives today in English as "digit", and survives as well >>in some form in every other language family (although not in every >>other language!). His ideas are controversial, but not flaky. >>You might also want to check out another book by Ruhlen, "A Guide >>to the World's Languages: Classification", which is a compact >>reference to all the world's languages. Both these books are on >>Amazon, along with some useful reader reviews. > > Ms. Ruhlen is a devoted disciple of the language school at Stanford > University, Palo Alto. However, I believe that the majority of the > world's linguists do not accept the Stanford Hypothesis and consider a > list of 23 words laughably short. Random chance predicts more > correspondences. Hmm, have to point out that the theory is highly controversial within Stanford also and I doubt a majority of linguists here accept it. To be more exact Ruhlen was a devoted disciple of the late Joseph Greenberg who categorized African languages (not controversial), Native American languages (somewhat controversial), and was contemplating bigger clumpings. Emma not a linguist but have had plenty of discussions with the local ones. not speaking for Stanford. -- \---- |\* | Emma Pease Net Spinster |_\/ Die Luft der Freiheit weht ###### From: jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: 24 Jan 2005 20:31:43 -0500 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Lines: 16 Message-ID: References: <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix2.panix.com X-Trace: reader1.panix.com 1106616703 15075 166.84.1.2 (25 Jan 2005 01:31:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 01:31:43 +0000 (UTC) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!panix!panix2.panix.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168136 In article , the softrat wrote: >On 24 Jan 2005 16:55:12 -0500, jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) wrote: >>this 23 isn't so short. Ruhlen is clearly a real linguist, not >>some crackpot, and I think he makes a good case for his theory in >>his book. >Uh, John, pick up the hints: Merrit Ruhlen is female! I don't think so. The blurbs on the back of the book clearly say "he" and "his". Or are you making some joke that went so far over my head I didn't even feel the breeze? -- John Brock jbrock@panix.com ###### From: jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: 24 Jan 2005 20:48:18 -0500 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Lines: 19 Message-ID: References: <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix2.panix.com X-Trace: reader1.panix.com 1106617699 15508 166.84.1.2 (25 Jan 2005 01:48:19 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 01:48:19 +0000 (UTC) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!wn14feed!worldnet.att.net!209.244.4.230!newsfeed1.dallas1.level3.net!newsfeed2.dallas1.level3.net!news.level3.com!panix!panix2.panix.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168138 In article <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net>, pmhilton wrote: >Interesting material snipped. > >A "Theory of All Language" would have to accommodate Basque, Navaho, >Romany & Finnish which, I am led to believe, are each members of >1-language families. Actually, if I remember right, Ruhlen's book postulates a language family called "Na-Dene" which includes Basque, some languages from the Caucasian mountain region, Chinese, and (ta-da!) Navaho. Try to get your mind around that one! I'm pretty sure the link between Finnish and Hungarian (and some Siberian languages) is better known and much less controversial, and isn't Romany an Indo-Iranian language (like Sanskrit)? -- John Brock jbrock@panix.com ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 19:04:14 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: <5pdbv0prao5os6kj942bu753i4euofaiea@4ax.com> References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 23 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!news-hog.berkeley.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-06!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168140 On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 19:59:06 -0500, in rec.arts.books.tolkien pmhilton wrote: > >A "Theory of All Language" would have to accommodate Basque, Navaho, >Romany & Finnish which, I am led to believe, are each members of >1-language families. > Not Navaho, it is Na-Dene; not Romany, it is Indoeuropean; not Finnish, it is Uralic. http://www.ethnologue.com/ Perhaps you should stay out of arguments about language relationships. the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- "I notice that you still think that vulgar is 'strong'. It's not; it's weak. It demonstrates a lack of vocabulary, courtesy, culture, education, and limber mental processes." -- the softrat, 6/25/99 ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 19:11:38 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: References: <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 35 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-06!sn-post-02!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168142 On 24 Jan 2005 20:48:18 -0500, jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) wrote: >In article <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net>, pmhilton wrote: > >>Interesting material snipped. >> >>A "Theory of All Language" would have to accommodate Basque, Navaho, >>Romany & Finnish which, I am led to believe, are each members of >>1-language families. > >Actually, if I remember right, Ruhlen's book postulates a language >family called "Na-Dene" which includes Basque, some languages from >the Caucasian mountain region, Chinese, and (ta-da!) Navaho. 1. Navaho is Na-Dene as are all forms of Apache and Athabascan. 2. Basque is a language isolate (no other members of family). 3. The Caucasus contains many languages whose interrelationships have not been fully worked out, but being related to Na-Dene (strictly a New World family) is not one of them. 4. The Chinese languages (there are at least five) are members of the Sino-Tibetan Language Family. If you persist in citing a borderline crackpot like Ruhlen, no meaningful discussion is possible. Just because she has written some books is no guarantee. Lots of crackpots have written books. the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- "Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate. From 30,000 feet, every single bomb always hits the ground." - U.S. Air Force ammunition memo. ###### From: AC Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: 25 Jan 2005 03:16:16 GMT Organization: The Tao of Cow Lines: 46 Message-ID: References: <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> Reply-To: mightymartianca@hotmail.com X-Trace: individual.net peEbRlmVVXtS39JvsEVm7QNWtA0+vuZnLT9NXM7+W9qJOhVM85 User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.0 (Linux) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168143 On 24 Jan 2005 20:48:18 -0500, John Brock wrote: > In article <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net>, pmhilton wrote: > >>Interesting material snipped. >> >>A "Theory of All Language" would have to accommodate Basque, Navaho, >>Romany & Finnish which, I am led to believe, are each members of >>1-language families. > > Actually, if I remember right, Ruhlen's book postulates a language > family called "Na-Dene" which includes Basque, some languages from > the Caucasian mountain region, Chinese, and (ta-da!) Navaho. Which should make one very suspicious right off the top. > Try > to get your mind around that one! My skepticism meter is about to explode, to be honest with you. > I'm pretty sure the link between > Finnish and Hungarian (and some Siberian languages) is better known > and much less controversial, and isn't Romany an Indo-Iranian > language (like Sanskrit)? Finno-Ugric is well documented and pretty much universally accepted, though I'm not too sure about the Siberian languages, and I understand that some postulates as to a larger family including some Central Asian members has largely been rejected. The Gypsies, of course, came from India in historical times, so I don't think the language is that hard to figure out. I can't say anything in particular about this fellow's theory, but it sounds just too good to be true. I mean, Navajo, Chinese and Basque aren't even morphologically similar language (Basque is agglutinative, Chinese is inflected and Navajo is polysynthetic). That doesn't mean no potential of a relationship, but coupled with the vast distances between the speakers it's very hard to see how this justification can be made, and, while it may seem like leaning on authority (I'm obviously no linguist), unless a more general consensus were to come out, I see no reason to take this claim any more seriously than claims of genetic relationships between Sumerian and Basque or of a Nostratic founder language for Europe and North Africa. -- Aaron Clausen mightymartianca@hotmail.com ###### From: AC Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: 25 Jan 2005 03:27:19 GMT Organization: The Tao of Cow Lines: 47 Message-ID: References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> Reply-To: mightymartianca@hotmail.com X-Trace: individual.net +iV00V2aJqwvEk+xxGqQ6QHaVPd+CIzxwCuRbVEoMY4vLBoTdr User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.0 (Linux) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168145 On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 01:31:16 +0000 (UTC), Emma Pease wrote: > > Hmm, have to point out that the theory is highly controversial within > Stanford also and I doubt a majority of linguists here accept it. To > be more exact Ruhlen was a devoted disciple of the late Joseph > Greenberg who categorized African languages (not controversial), > Native American languages (somewhat controversial), and was > contemplating bigger clumpings. > > Emma > not a linguist but have had plenty of discussions with the local > ones. > not speaking for Stanford. Well clearly there are, as in any field of study, holy grails in linguistics. I understand making sense out of the pre-Columbian languages of the Americas is a big one, as well as finding places for isolates like the Basque language (Eskara isn't it?) and Sumerian. A really big holy grail is uniting major language groups. Now, like any scholars or researchers, linguists tend to be a rather conservative bunch, and they will, when an extraordinary claim comes around, tend to stare in disbelief. Extraordinary claims require extraorindary evidence, and I know that some of the classification systems used for pre-Columbian languages and for uniting some of the larger Eurasian families have failed on the grounds that the evidence wasn't there to even show a moderate link. I don't think anyone should reject such theories out of hand. Even theories that don't pan out can be educational, at least in demonstrating to another generation the paths that probably won't be terribly fruitful. But claims of uniting all languages or even finding a home for a pugnacious isolate like Sumerian have to be pretty damn convincing. Actually, I remember reading somewhere that isolates can actually be educational, in pointing out possible geographical regions where one people has been overrun by another. It's been a while, but the author seemed to point to Basque as a potential candidate for a survivor of a pre-Indo-European group of languages that may have been dominant in Western Europe. Another example are the click languages spoken by a few African populations like the Khoisan and Hadza indicate that the speakers may have been separated by speakers of other languages. So even if we can't find how such languages fit into a whole, they may still shed light out on particular migration events in human history. -- Aaron Clausen mightymartianca@hotmail.com ###### From: jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: 25 Jan 2005 00:37:30 -0500 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Lines: 46 Message-ID: References: <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix3.panix.com X-Trace: reader1.panix.com 1106631450 19763 166.84.1.3 (25 Jan 2005 05:37:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 05:37:30 +0000 (UTC) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nf3.bellglobal.com!snoopy.risq.qc.ca!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!panix!panix3.panix.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168147 In article , the softrat wrote: >On 24 Jan 2005 20:48:18 -0500, jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) wrote: >>In article <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net>, pmhilton wrote: >>>Interesting material snipped. >>> >>>A "Theory of All Language" would have to accommodate Basque, Navaho, >>>Romany & Finnish which, I am led to believe, are each members of >>>1-language families. >>Actually, if I remember right, Ruhlen's book postulates a language >>family called "Na-Dene" which includes Basque, some languages from >>the Caucasian mountain region, Chinese, and (ta-da!) Navaho. >1. Navaho is Na-Dene as are all forms of Apache and Athabascan. >2. Basque is a language isolate (no other members of family). >3. The Caucasus contains many languages whose interrelationships have >not been fully worked out, but being related to Na-Dene (strictly a >New World family) is not one of them. >4. The Chinese languages (there are at least five) are members of the >Sino-Tibetan Language Family. > >If you persist in citing a borderline crackpot like Ruhlen, no >meaningful discussion is possible. Just because she has written some >books is no guarantee. Lots of crackpots have written books. The actual name of the proposed family is not Na-Dene, but Dene-Caucasian, of which Na-Dene is supposedly a subfamily. So I remembered that wrong. But you need to get off your high horse. I was clearly quoting Ruhlen, and relaying Ruhlen's claim that these languages are related, so your indignant assertion of the accepted wisdom (which I am well aware of) is besides the point. My assertion that Ruhlen says these languages are related is in fact correct, and that was the only point I was trying to make. It's not like I was evangelizing for Ruhlen, or making any claims of my own. I'm content to let the real linguists fight this one out. But Ruhlen is not a crackpot, he (male!) is a respected linguist who happens to have some fringy ideas. Big whoop. He still knows the subject better than you do (and is definitely a more entertaining writer). -- John Brock jbrock@panix.com ###### From: AC Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: 25 Jan 2005 05:53:14 GMT Organization: The Tao of Cow Lines: 60 Message-ID: References: <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> Reply-To: mightymartianca@hotmail.com X-Trace: individual.net p/4YkaCSy+RNrSVEzHkoyAsSVc65PE7Mzq38GzG6l19Wp7RVzX User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.0 (Linux) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168148 On 25 Jan 2005 00:37:30 -0500, John Brock wrote: > In article , > the softrat wrote: >>On 24 Jan 2005 20:48:18 -0500, jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) wrote: > >>>In article <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net>, pmhilton wrote: > >>>>Interesting material snipped. >>>> >>>>A "Theory of All Language" would have to accommodate Basque, Navaho, >>>>Romany & Finnish which, I am led to believe, are each members of >>>>1-language families. > >>>Actually, if I remember right, Ruhlen's book postulates a language >>>family called "Na-Dene" which includes Basque, some languages from >>>the Caucasian mountain region, Chinese, and (ta-da!) Navaho. > >>1. Navaho is Na-Dene as are all forms of Apache and Athabascan. >>2. Basque is a language isolate (no other members of family). >>3. The Caucasus contains many languages whose interrelationships have >>not been fully worked out, but being related to Na-Dene (strictly a >>New World family) is not one of them. >>4. The Chinese languages (there are at least five) are members of the >>Sino-Tibetan Language Family. >> >>If you persist in citing a borderline crackpot like Ruhlen, no >>meaningful discussion is possible. Just because she has written some >>books is no guarantee. Lots of crackpots have written books. > > The actual name of the proposed family is not Na-Dene, but > Dene-Caucasian, of which Na-Dene is supposedly a subfamily. So I > remembered that wrong. But you need to get off your high horse. > I was clearly quoting Ruhlen, and relaying Ruhlen's claim that > these languages are related, so your indignant assertion of the > accepted wisdom (which I am well aware of) is besides the point. > My assertion that Ruhlen says these languages are related is in > fact correct, and that was the only point I was trying to make. > It's not like I was evangelizing for Ruhlen, or making any claims > of my own. I'm content to let the real linguists fight this one > out. But Ruhlen is not a crackpot, he (male!) is a respected > linguist who happens to have some fringy ideas. Big whoop. He > still knows the subject better than you do (and is definitely a > more entertaining writer). Fringy ideas? He's asserting that Navajo, Chinese and Basque are related. John, I'll be blunt, that isn't fringe, that pretty much crosses into full-blown kookery, unless the study of genetic relationships has changed a great deal in the five or six years since I read up on this. I doubt you're going to find too many linguists who are going to jump on this bandwagon, and I defy you to name three that even think this fellow has anything at all. AS I've said, these languages are separated by vast distances of time, space and even language structure. That you might find a few words that sound alike and have similar meaning simply is not enough to declare them related, and if that's what he/she is claiming, then he/she is, to be perfectly blunt, full of shit. -- Aaron Clausen mightymartianca@hotmail.com ###### From: Conrad Dunkerson Reply-To: conrad.dunkerson@worldnet.att.net User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon References: <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 35 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 09:40:30 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 138.89.76.199 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verizon.net X-Trace: trndny01 1106646030 138.89.76.199 (Tue, 25 Jan 2005 04:40:30 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 04:40:30 EST Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!cyclone1.gnilink.net!spamkiller2.gnilink.net!gnilink.net!trndny01.POSTED!ef6ee649!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168152 AC wrote: > Fringy ideas? He's asserting that Navajo, Chinese and Basque are > related. John, I'll be blunt, that isn't fringe, that pretty much > crosses into > full-blown kookery, unless the study of genetic relationships has changed a > great deal in the five or six years since I read up on this. Sapir's classification of Na-Dene was similarly described when he made it back in 1915. It is now universally accepted (with the debated exclusion of Haida)... though named 'Athabascan-Eyak-Tlingit' by those who still find it difficult to swallow this example of a 'clumper' being proven correct. > I doubt you're going to find too many linguists who are going to jump > on this bandwagon, and I defy you to name three that even think this > fellow has anything at all. That Navajo and Chinese are related (also first proposed by Sapir, circa 1920) isn't particularly controversial anymore either - only the degree of connection is still debated. Russian linguists (Sergei Starostin, Sergei Nikolaev, Shevoroshkin, et cetera) came to the same conclusion of a genetic relationship separately and many other linguists now agree (Manaster-Ramer, John Bengston, et cetera). The Basque connection was first suggested by Alfredo Trombetti in 1926, reasserted by V.A. Chirikba in 1985, and since supported by John Bengston and others. So... that's a bit more than three. The war of the 'clumpers' and 'splitters' goes on and there are plenty of trained linguists on either side of the debate. I've always found the 'tik' example mentioned earlier amusing, as presenting that argument can be described as 'giving them the finger' both literally and figuratively. ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 04:24:26 -0600 Message-ID: <41F61E75.3060401@mfx.net> Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 05:24:53 -0500 From: pmhilton User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon References: <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 19 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.5.183.214 X-Trace: sv3-jCyndz/j6OYcIAHGJJHN1rTCtTY48zl8HCdQxGhrH7eOYBbJIiSB8sO4CMv+CguKSOiROBXne2U3FW7!BwF8X9oCNtkBbr3svyjpCJ1YIgROKqiChSy0l+F9BqGmOzjNTByOkfqh X-Complaints-To: abuse@gwi.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@gwi.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.22 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.gwi.net!news.gwi.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168155 AC wrote: >I see no reason to take this claim any more >seriously than claims of genetic relationships between Sumerian and Basque >or of a Nostratic founder language for Europe and North Africa. > > Do you possibly mean "cultural" rather than genetic? The mitochondrial DNA thing does tie us all together, albeit quite loosely. Pete H -- Either everyone has rights or some have privileges. It's really that simple. Walt Kelly ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 04:27:58 -0600 Message-ID: <41F61F49.2080109@mfx.net> Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 05:28:25 -0500 From: pmhilton User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon References: <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 19 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.5.183.214 X-Trace: sv3-hqbc6PCIGAUw2Tg5kxr8CscRmd4pq/ZWIA/+51kazOP9gRtjPdwIZU9FzG+AF+o5Y09Zbc/vV9DX01S!cmi/ehbZ2AowVYwvQRtMVZ+zUsIRxwe1wMEuzfcpS417/u9BabnvJhHZ X-Complaints-To: abuse@gwi.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@gwi.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.22 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.gwi.net!news.gwi.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168156 Conrad Dunkerson wrote: > > The war of the 'clumpers' and 'splitters' goes on and there are > plenty of trained linguists on either side of the debate. I've > always found the 'tik' example mentioned earlier amusing, as > presenting that argument can be described as 'giving them the > finger' both literally and figuratively. Thus: One can be ticked off & tick them off simultaneously? Pete H -- Either everyone has rights or some have privileges. It's really that simple. Walt Kelly ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 12:14:28 -0600 From: R. Dan Henry Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 10:14:32 -0800 Message-ID: References: X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 16 NNTP-Posting-Host: 208.25.49.144 X-Trace: sv3-n7CJ6wAXFGYQeY9yO7PmCVJNyx9PAMNHurgR/JVFOrib6Gr1vJc5ZTTmsbegJ4TNQYPKVSAYgGNyqGs!APvHkSm+NREhDHn7JFk0CqBN+DQn2WTcNyH8WYflIi5xN4q7tColF+b8TITWUxxPxCyCKVDqiDjT!hsgT6/qe8aqLfOhIWqD7Rl8= X-Complaints-To: abuse@inreach.com X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@inreach.com X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.22 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!newsfeed.tiscali.ch!newsfeed.freenet.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.inreach.com!news.inreach.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168160 On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 14:05:00 -0500, Flame of the West wrote: >T.M. Sommers wrote: > >> There are also a couple of recordings of Old English. > >Gee whiz, you'd think the quality would have degraded >pretty badly after all this time! Oh, but you have to remember, in the old days, there was a real pride of craftsmanship. They hadn't yet come up with idea of making everything so you'd need to buy a replacement every few years. R. Dan Henry danhenry@inreach.com ###### From: 103134.3516@compuserve.com (Jim Deutch) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 19:22:05 GMT Organization: Topiary of Cthulhu Lines: 17 Message-ID: <41f68855.16294440@news.compuserve.com> References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: mid-tgn-nge-vty133.as.wcom.net X-Trace: ngspool-d02.news.aol.com 1106680973 7808 216.192.73.133 (25 Jan 2005 19:22:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@compuserve.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 19:22:53 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!ngpeer.news.aol.com!news.compuserve.com!news-master.compuserve.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168161 On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 01:39:10 GMT, clJUNKv1@balcab.ch (CleV) wrote: >I've always found the idea of the 6 "root" languages - and how you can >trace word origins back through the development of different phases of >civilisations - fascinating. The only hit google found on "six root languages" (with the quotes) was from an interdisciplinary course at Swarthmore: CS129/PSYCH129 Computational Models of Language Interesting. Amazing erudition from students in a 100-level course. Cool subject. I miss college. Jim Deutch (JimboCat) -- Cornell Arts '80 ###### From: AC Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: 25 Jan 2005 20:35:33 GMT Organization: The Tao of Cow Lines: 18 Message-ID: References: <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> <41F61E75.3060401@mfx.net> Reply-To: mightymartianca@hotmail.com X-Trace: individual.net SSBe1mR3QaPeqTNLXiR2mAusrVjZroJxcgXKnKoxTziMQa/pup User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.0 (Linux) Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168163 On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 05:24:53 -0500, pmhilton wrote: > AC wrote: > >>I see no reason to take this claim any more >>seriously than claims of genetic relationships between Sumerian and Basque >>or of a Nostratic founder language for Europe and North Africa. >> >> >> > Do you possibly mean "cultural" rather than genetic? The mitochondrial > DNA thing does tie us all together, albeit quite loosely. I'm speaking in the context of linguistics, as in genetic classifications. -- Aaron Clausen mightymartianca@hotmail.com ###### Lines: 66 X-Admin: news@aol.com From: mcresq@aol.comjunk.net (Russ) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Date: 25 Jan 2005 21:17:25 GMT References: Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Message-ID: <20050125161725.04488.00000225@mb-m12.aol.com> Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!newsfeed.freenet.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!ngpeer.news.aol.com!audrey-m2.news.aol.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168165 Aaron wrote: >On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 12:48:14 -0800, >the softrat wrote: >> On 24 Jan 2005 13:10:41 -0500, jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) wrote: >>> >>>There are serious linguists who claim that we are on the verge of >>>being able to trace *all* human language back to a single mother >>>tongue. A very accessible introduction to this idea is "The Origin >>>of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue" by Merritt >>>Ruhlen. Ruhlen claims to have a list of 23 words (if I remember >>>correctly) which have concordances in all language families. For >>>example, the original word for "finger" was something like "tik", >>>which survives today in English as "digit", and survives as well >>>in some form in every other language family (although not in every >>>other language!). His ideas are controversial, but not flaky. >>>You might also want to check out another book by Ruhlen, "A Guide >>>to the World's Languages: Classification", which is a compact >>>reference to all the world's languages. Both these books are on >>>Amazon, along with some useful reader reviews. >> >> Ms. Ruhlen is a devoted disciple of the language school at Stanford >> University, Palo Alto. However, I believe that the majority of the >> world's linguists do not accept the Stanford Hypothesis and consider a >> list of 23 words laughably short. Random chance predicts more > >Yes, the whole notion is pretty ridiculous. First of all, the origins of >language are just simply too murky to even begin talking about a >mother tongue. But let's just, for the sake of argument, say that modern >language (not proto-languages like we surmise our more distant ancestors >used) arose with modern H. sapiens, at the outside of 150,000 years ago. >That's an enormous period of time for linguistic evolution and would, I >suspect, put any study of the actual vocabulary of this mothertongue beyond >the reach of study. Even if we take the first real branchings out of Africa >between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago, that doesn't do us much good. > >Just looking at the staggering amount of change that the Germanic and >Romance languages have gone through in just 2,000 years, or the Afro-Asiatic >in about 10,000 years (I believe that linguists think they've pushed this >group that far back), and then add something like an order of magnitude to >that, and I think the general concensus of linguists is it's too hidden by >time and change to ever be knowable save in the most generalistic terms of >what an early full language would like as compared to more simplistic >proto-languages. > >We may do some neat things, like find some roots to the major language >groups today, or maybe clean up the problems of some of the isolates we >find, but I don't think that anyone is seriously going to be able to >identify 23 roots from the alleged mother tongue. It might even be worse >than that. If modern language evolved after modern H. sapiens, then it is >possible that the neural wiring may have preceded the advent of full >language, meaning we might have a bush at the bottom of the linguistic tree. >One must remember that the only thing remarkable that is associated with the >rise of modern H. sapiens in Africa that marked them as different from other >hominids (Neandertals and the later H. erectus populations of Asia) was >morphological. Look at the finds in the Levant, modern-looking humans >displaying behavior no more complicated than Neandertals. About all we can >say is that by the time of the really big pushes that saw moderns push out >of Africa and Palestine into Europe, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, modern >language as we know it must have evolved. This is all poppycock since as is well known the root language from which all others sprang is Lithuanian. And we also know this occurred when the New Rock appeared that one day so long ago. Russ ###### From: clJUNKv1@balcab.ch (CleV) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 23:13:16 GMT Organization: Cablecom Newsserver Lines: 21 Message-ID: <41f6d21e.1397258@news.hispeed.ch> References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> <41f68855.16294440@news.compuserve.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 80-218-143-138.dclient.hispeed.ch X-Trace: news.hispeed.ch 1106694878 16523 80.218.143.138 (25 Jan 2005 23:14:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@hispeed.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 23:14:38 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.hispeed.ch!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168167 On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 19:22:05 GMT, 103134.3516@compuserve.com (Jim Deutch) wrote: >On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 01:39:10 GMT, clJUNKv1@balcab.ch (CleV) wrote: >>I've always found the idea of the 6 "root" languages - and how you can >>trace word origins back through the development of different phases of >>civilisations - fascinating. >The only hit google found on "six root languages" (with the quotes) >was from an interdisciplinary course at Swarthmore: >CS129/PSYCH129 >Computational Models of Language >Interesting. Amazing erudition from students in a 100-level course. >Cool subject. I miss college. I'm finding the whole discussion on this thread interesting and I'm definitely getting the Ruhlen book (still not convinced if it's a he or a she ... :-)) just as a basis to spark off some fun reading directions. ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 19:54:32 -0600 Message-ID: <41F6F873.8000508@mfx.net> Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 20:54:59 -0500 From: pmhilton User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> <5pdbv0prao5os6kj942bu753i4euofaiea@4ax.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 17 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.5.183.168 X-Trace: sv3-XoaDUOVDYfokTaYj1fgbERz1siA7TjBfzg290vev1SNiJRbWwrFxeqyc8rG73U+HTY2X5jlGxHbXeKi!/2CpqRRXH/XqzIFIIyfLbD0vo0oQINjshn4RS1525rcEFkx4252/+jeu X-Complaints-To: abuse@gwi.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@gwi.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.22 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!newsfeed.hanau.net!newsfeed.vmunix.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.gwi.net!news.gwi.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168168 the softrat wrote: >Perhaps you should stay out of arguments about language relationships. > This was an argument? Sorry, didn't realize. Will assiduously sidestep any future arguments. My original comment did contain a disclaimer which most of those in this thread did not. Pete H -- Either everyone has rights or some have privileges. It's really that simple. Walt Kelly ###### NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 20:03:39 -0600 Message-ID: <41F6FA96.1010103@mfx.net> Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 21:04:06 -0500 From: pmhilton User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> <41f68855.16294440@news.compuserve.com> <41f6d21e.1397258@news.hispeed.ch> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 26 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.5.183.168 X-Trace: sv3-oeKXiGcipVNWNb3J+tlNnZ8mUWp4AcpPT9Prawp8tEpTBSvZIX9WEx3uqnGod3+65gIEslkr79a9sME!79aU2VnP8q8QL+QeQt1YudKMTYbCtMtqJ8SgE8/VgVSTd8WerP2PlfxS X-Complaints-To: abuse@gwi.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@gwi.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.22 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!nntp.infostrada.it!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.gwi.net!news.gwi.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168169 CleV wrote: >>I'm finding the whole discussion on this thread interesting and I'm >>definitely getting the Ruhlen book (still not convinced if it's a he >>or a she ... :-)) just as a basis to spark off some fun reading >>directions. >> Any discussion of philology or language theory can be fascinating. Two titles which are loosely connected to language theory (you decide the strength of the connections) which I also found an endless source of stimulating ideas are Music, the Brain and Ectstasy by Robert Jourdain andPhantoms in the Brain by V. S. Ramachandran. Neither focuses on spoken language as such but they take very different approaches to how the brain interacts with symbolism and reality. Somewhat related to language theory yet oddly separate from it. A difficult relationship to describe yet both are exciting reads. Pete H -- Either everyone has rights or some have privileges. It's really that simple. Walt Kelly ###### From: clJUNKv1@balcab.ch (CleV) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 20:41:39 GMT Organization: Cablecom Newsserver Lines: 20 Message-ID: <41f80065.1441976@news.hispeed.ch> References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> <41f68855.16294440@news.compuserve.com> <41f6d21e.1397258@news.hispeed.ch> <41F6FA96.1010103@mfx.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 80-218-140-117.dclient.hispeed.ch X-Trace: news.hispeed.ch 1106772181 29766 80.218.140.117 (26 Jan 2005 20:43:01 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@hispeed.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 20:43:01 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.hispeed.ch!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168179 On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 21:04:06 -0500, pmhilton wrote: >CleV wrote: >>I'm finding the whole discussion on this thread interesting and I'm >>definitely getting the Ruhlen book (still not convinced if it's a he >>or a she ... :-)) just as a basis to spark off some fun reading >>directions. >Any discussion of philology or language theory can be fascinating. Two >titles which are loosely connected to language theory (you decide the >strength of the connections) which I also found an endless source of >stimulating ideas are Music, the Brain and Ectstasy by Robert Jourdain >andPhantoms in the Brain by V. S. Ramachandran. Neither focuses on >spoken language as such but they take very different approaches to how >the brain interacts with symbolism and reality. Somewhat related to >language theory yet oddly separate from it. A difficult relationship to >describe yet both are exciting reads. Thanks - will look them up! ###### From: "Shanahan" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 21:43:19 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 48 Message-ID: References: <41f2fff6.1071837@news.hispeed.ch> <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-126.newsdawg.com X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews4 Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168622 the softrat creatively typed: > On 24 Jan 2005 13:10:41 -0500, jbrock@panix.com (John Brock) wrote: >> >> There are serious linguists who claim that we are on the verge of >> being able to trace *all* human language back to a single mother >> tongue. A very accessible introduction to this idea is "The >> Origin of Language: Tracing the Evolution of the Mother Tongue" >> by Merritt Ruhlen. Ruhlen claims to have a list of 23 words (if >> I remember correctly) which have concordances in all language >> families. For example, the original word for "finger" was >> something like "tik", which survives today in English as "digit", >> and survives as well in some form in every other language family >> (although not in every other language!). His ideas are >> controversial, but not flaky. > > Ms. Ruhlen is a devoted disciple of the language school at Stanford > University, Palo Alto. However, I believe that the majority of the > world's linguists do not accept the Stanford Hypothesis and > consider a list of 23 words laughably short. Random chance > predicts more correspondences. This is an old debate in anthropological circles (at least, if not in other academic arenas). Its starting point is the incontrovertible fact that there are many points of similarity in human cultures, across both time and geography. One school of thought posits that all things humans create (languages; tools; mythologies; governmental forms) spring from a single or very few source(s), and are disseminated throughout history and cultures from there. The other school posits that these similarities, say a common mythological theme or similar words for the same objects, spring rather from deep underlying structures in the human mind. (Chomsky and Jung would fall in this camp.) The argument is about the software versus hardware of the human mind, if you will. In a way, it's a recasting of the nature versus nurture argument. And the answer is essentially the same, the one that cultural anthropologists came to in the early part of the twentieth century: that the hardware determines a defined range of possibilities within which human cultures may choose, while the software (the culture itself) makes the choices within that range. Just as DNA defines the range of our bodies' possibilities, and our lives set us on a specific point within that range. Ciaran S. -- Write texts that undermine their own authority ###### From: "Shanahan" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 21:52:09 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 43 Message-ID: References: <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-645.newsdawg.com X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.icl.net!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsfeed.yul.equant.net!newsfeed.us.prserv.net!prserv.net!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews4 Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168623 AC creatively typed: > John Brock wrote: >> wrote: >> >>> Interesting material snipped. >>> >>> A "Theory of All Language" would have to accommodate Basque, >>> Navaho, Romany & Finnish which, I am led to believe, are each >>> members of 1-language families. >> >> Actually, if I remember right, Ruhlen's book postulates a language >> family called "Na-Dene" which includes Basque, some languages from >> the Caucasian mountain region, Chinese, and (ta-da!) Navaho. > > Which should make one very suspicious right off the top. > >> Try to get your mind around that one! > > My skepticism meter is about to explode, to be honest with you. > I can't say anything in particular about this fellow's theory, but > it sounds just too good to be true. I mean, Navajo, Chinese and > Basque aren't even morphologically similar language (Basque is > agglutinative, Chinese is inflected and Navajo is polysynthetic). > That doesn't mean no potential of a relationship, but coupled with > the vast distances between the speakers it's very hard to see how > this justification can be made, and, while it may seem like > leaning on authority (I'm obviously no linguist), unless a more > general consensus were to come out, I see no reason to take this > claim any more seriously than claims of genetic relationships > between Sumerian and Basque or of a Nostratic founder language for > Europe and North Africa. Then there's the opposite end of the spectrum, New Guinea, where there are hundreds of unrelated languages existing simultaneously in time and separated by mere miles. (/difficult/ miles, I'll grant you! ) Ciaran S. -- Treat rationality as just another tradition ###### From: the softrat Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2005 22:06:26 -0800 Organization: None to Speak Of Message-ID: References: <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Lines: 18 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!news.glorb.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-06!sn-post-01!supernews.com!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168634 On Sun, 6 Feb 2005 21:52:09 -0800, "Shanahan" wrote: > >Then there's the opposite end of the spectrum, New Guinea, where >there are hundreds of unrelated languages existing simultaneously in >time and separated by mere miles. (/difficult/ miles, I'll grant you! >) > >Ciaran S. And here I thought that New Guinean was the Original Nostratic. the softrat "Honi soit qui mal y pense." mailto:softrat@pobox.com -- "I get to go to lots of overseas places, like Canada." -- Britney Spears ###### From: "Shanahan" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Learning Anglo-Saxon Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 23:05:38 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 21 Message-ID: References: <9hnav05q4ae7aoh64f90j7sa54d0ak5b9a@4ax.com> <41F599DA.3080404@mfx.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-828.newsdawg.com X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!news1.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news.glorb.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!pln-w!spln!lex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews1 Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:168843 the softrat creatively typed: > On Sun, 6 Feb 2005 21:52:09 -0800, "Shanahan" pogues@bluefrog.com wrote: >> >> Then there's the opposite end of the spectrum, New Guinea, where >> there are hundreds of unrelated languages existing simultaneously >> in time and separated by mere miles. (/difficult/ miles, I'll >> grant you! ) > > And here I thought that New Guinean was the Original Nostratic. Indeed! They colonized via long sea voyages in coconut shells, sustained by weeks-long betel-nut-chewing contests. This is the reason for the glottochronological similarities -- chewing betel nuts requires a lot of spitting. Ciaran S. -- Practice one-liners