Difference between revisions of "Talk:World History Lecture Seven"

Revision as of 16:24, March 9, 2009

Old English

I like what you have to say about it, but I don't agree that it's as unrecognizable as (I think) you're trying to say.

Eft he axode, hu ðære ðeode nama wære þe hi of comon. Him wæs geandwyrd, þæt hi Angle genemnode wæron. Þa cwæð he, "Rihtlice hi :sind Angle gehatene, for ðan ðe hi engla wlite habbað, and swilcum gedafenað þæt hi on heofonum engla geferan beon."

Some simple pronouns like "he" are recognizable, as are the Old English equivalents of verbs like "were".

This is just my take on it, but if you even hazard a guess at OE pronunciation, and read the line aloud, there are several words (even nouns) that are recognizable! And there are the obvious ones, as you pointed out, like "him", "that", "for", "and".

• Eft: after
• axode: asked (the x>ks is called metathesis, and people still do it (improperly) in English today when they say "aksed")
• engla: angel
• heofonum: heaven (alright, there's a case ending, but it still looks like heaven!)

Great work! Go ahead and add a paragraph in the lecture with your observations, if you like. Thanks and Godspeed.--Andy Schlafly 17:34, 8 March 2009 (EDT)

Oh my gosh, thanks for that fast response! I hardly had time to finish reading about feudalism, which I found developed in France a couple of centuries before England. Since Middle English borrowed the word "tyranny" from French "tyrannie", is it possible that the concept may have existed in France/French before we grabbed the word in the 14th century? The same could be said I guess for numbers. I might not understand what you're trying to say, but Latin had plenty of numbers, so did German and others (Hebrew, Arabic?), and they were all around before English was even on the horizon! (My girlfriend is a linguistics major and talks about etymology ALL the time. It's a good thing I'm equally interested in it :)

I don't see any contradictions with the lecture in what you say above.--Andy Schlafly 17:59, 8 March 2009 (EDT)

There would have been no concept of "tyranny" under feudalism before that time. My only point was just that maybe the concept of tyranny existed before the English word, in the French word "tyrannie", or Latin, or Greek (where it ultimately came from). But anymore I'm not trying to point out that anything's wrong, per se, just expanding.

I've never gotten a response from you before, it's nice to finally "meet" you! JParker 18:10, 8 March 2009 (EDT)

Hi JParker! This dictionary has "nýdgeweald" for "tyranny". Obviously the concept is older than that. On numbers, you may be interested by Numbers in over 5000 languages. DeniseM 06:37, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

Andrew, how are you defining somewhat primitive with regard to Old English? The sentence looks a bit like you're saying it's primitive because we can't understand it today; I'm sure this isn't what you mean. DeniseM 06:55, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

Denise, in response to your comment and in explanation of alteration of some of your edits, we don't subscribe to the fallacious view that all languages are equal. See Essay:Best_New_Conservative_Words for how English lacked terms for concepts and then developed them anew. Old English lacked those and many other terms, and had a vocabulary that was only a tiny fraction of the vocabulary of English today. That makes it primitive, despite how much liberals may pretend that is politically incorrect.--Andy Schlafly 09:37, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

Don't worry, I was only asking what your definition was as a matter of interest, I wasn't pushing any fallcious views :). I just think that you might usefully rewrite the sentence to uncouple the first half (that we can't understand it today) from the second half (it is primitive).

To check - are you saying that bigger lexicons (more lexemes?) are a sufficient or merely a necessary property of a language to make it less primitive than another language? DeniseM 10:16, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

Denise, discussion is not productive if you insist that all languages are equal. That point of view is a dead end and makes further inquiry pointless.

Big vocabularies are advantageous. Words that express powerful, important concepts (as in Essay:Best_New_Conservative_Words) are advantageous. I realize that doesn't fit the politically correct dogma that all languages are somehow equivalent, but we're going to teach the truth here.--Andy Schlafly 10:21, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

Did I say all languages were equal? DeniseM 10:24, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

Genocide

Sorry, are you actually teaching children that there were no genocides before the 20th Century? Really? The original inhabitants of Tasmania would be surprised to hear that. Or at least they would be if they had not all been killed in a Genocide. --KimSell 11:53, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

Kim, you have to be more substantive than that if you want to persuade anyone.--Andy Schlafly 12:24, 9 March 2009 (EDT)