Languages and those who violate them

[hyena]

ah, i have spawned the wrath of the german linguists no, actually i do enjoy the discussion.

and thanks a billion for providing me with the translation.

 

[Taliesin]

Dont forget Nadine's Nagelstudio

Maybe we should stop now, we're scaring the others

 

[opacity]

@ Mal: "für'n Arsch" would depict it better

i will stop right here :Spin:

 

[marduk1507]

@hyena: uhm, youre welcome!

 

[Taliesin]

the plural s is pretty weird though.. one of the german teachers at my old school said that the ending should always be the same as the ending in the complete word.. like "LKWs" should be "LKWen".. from "..wagen"
Can anyone comment on that?

 

[Taliesin]

Im pretty sure that's the example he gave though. So anyway, you agree that the plural forms pf abbreviations should have the original endings and not simply an s?

 

[opacity]

agree that the plural forms pf abbreviations should have the original endings and not simply an s?

i'd definitely prefer it.

@fireangel: Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod. - that's the swiss
(there are many prepositions that work for 2 cases, either 3rd+4th, or 2nd+3rd. it's not that german doesn't leave you any options free to choose :Spin: )

 

[Magrathean]

Ah, what a good thread (i'm talking about the original language-abuse topic). =)

I find it extremely annoying when people don't use commas or other punctuation marks. I have to reread several times before i think i understand what the writer is trying to say. Hell, is it really that hard to press the ',' key in your keyboard?

"Anywho" D)... Not like any of you care.

Please, go on with the german lessons as if i had never interrupted.

 

[RampageSword]

French's my first language and a few things are pissing me off. First, the language is simply adopting every single word from other languages in order to "simplify" our, and it "frenchisize" it. For example, in english, we say "chat" for internet discussions. The original french word for this was "clavardage" which is a mix of "clavier"(keyboard) and "bavardage"(chatting). Now since so many people were saying chat the dictionnary is now accepting the word "tchatte" This is horrible. I mean, how low can you go?
Second thing that's really getting on my nerves is a typical Quebec expression. Some of us say "sontaient" instead of " ils étaient" (as in "they were") It's like saying "they ared" in English. Once again, this is pathetic.

Well, that's what's getting on my nerves in my first language (which few of you seem to speak so I guess you don't really care...)

 

[Hitori]

this thread is amusing. reminds me of some of the discussions we used to have at my linguistics class.

it's funny how people think languages should be fixed and stable. every language is constantly changing and growing. loans from other languages are nothing new. adapting old words to whatever is easiest for the speakers is nothing new. this is the way every single language we now speak was formed.

 

[RampageSword]

@Hitori : I agree with you however, I see this tendency to make our languages easier and easier instead of educating our people. If you ask me, I'll be the first to agree that French is too complicated. Still, I see a difference between removing or adapting complicated grammar rules or useless words and to stupify the tongue. My best example would be through George Orwell's 1984 : In Newspeak, a modern form of English, all words that could lead towards individual thought have been eliminated in order to control the population. Of course, this is an exaggeration of the truth yet, it points out the fact that a rich language is often part of a rich culture and it allows artists (writers, poets, singers...) to express their creativity.

 

[Hitori]

My point is, it's nothing new. And it can't be avoided. Society auto-regulates its language, so language will always be as simple or complicated as fits its needs, even if a few scattered individuals disagree. Spanish, french, portuguese, basque, to put some examples, were born this way. As to a culture being rich because of its language- well, Shakespeare for example invented tons of new words, borrowed others, and you can't tell me Shakespeare doesn't presently count as an example of "high culture".

I mean, in my language for example, I am baffled as to why someone would write "io" instead of "yo", unless they are italian, yet whining about it, while enjoyable, is not going to change much. I don't think it's a problem of basic education systems, nor is it caused by technology and chat and sms or the "global community". It just happens and always has.

anyway, sorry, I've had too many of these discussions to care too much about it anymore, everyone's right, everyone's wrong.

 

[Blitzkrieg Pajo]

can´t be what the teacher said, because the full word is "Lastkraftwagen", so if you add "-en" to it, the ending would be double. Just spell it out and then you see the solution. If you have an abbreviation and add an ending, you´ll have to consider the whole abbreviated word and the ending altogether.
But then "LKWs" is wrong, too. LKW is plural because "Wagen" is the same both singular and plural. Otherwise you´d say "Lastkraftwagens" I guess the s-ending came along with the fake-fancy English language aswell.

Same error happens with stuff like "70ies" or "80iger". Look at the whole word and you have "Achtzig"" plus "-er", not plus "-iger" again.

well i wouldn't say that "LKWs" is too wrong, because everyone would understand it and i think it's common to use this. e.g. which news reporter would say "Auf der A523 sind zwei LKW zusammengestoßen?" i think they would rather say "LKWs" or "Lastkraftwagen". but speaking grammatically, you're right, of course.

@RampageSword: At the moment we have an exchange student from Canada in our grade and she said in our english lesson that she is native-french-speaker but that no one really likes french and so they all speak english and she also hangs out with english people so she only talks french at home. did you experience something similar?

 

[Rusty]

I'm so proud of Hitori right now. Even though I happen to hate some new words and phrases and whatever, she's absolutely right.

 

[Hitori]

@Rusty
I thought I always made you proud

 

[opacity]

i am not so concerned that german does not find its own word for every foreign term - i can well live without "Zwischennetzgegenwart" and other monsters
but I agree with fireangel, that young people are not capable of making proper sentences anymore, and worse: they think it's cool (every time I skip to a music channel, I feel a sudden and overly strong urge to kill all these Deutschrapper who emerged recently )

 

[rahvin]

I like evolutions and new additions to a language, but just that is only done in small circles, the majority of the speakers rather simply and boringly integrate English words. In Swedish, computer is "dator", in Finnish "tietokone". In German, it´s "computer" There is no board of scientists who cares for real nice translations or transferrings of newly added foreign words, like many countries have.

this has less to do with laziness than with conservatism in society. english being the official language of multi-cultural interaction, its implementation in a community takes place in bigger or smaller quantities depending on how much that community feels the need to preserve a strong identity and fend off attempts to water down its foundations. generally speaking, countries with a consistent history of either high-profile international business partnerships (like germany), or low-profile internal culture ass-rapings (like italy) will prefer instant integration of foreign words in everyday speech because of the immediate simplicity of it, which makes it easier to make profit of - or merge oneself with - irresistible phenomena of technological or cultural colonization. i can assure you that the finns, the swedes, and most noticeably the french with their "ordinateur", have no "board of scientists" brainstoming over "real nice translations" either, but they are preoccupied of maintaining a specificity in the language used by laymen that will define them first and foremost as finns, swedes, or french. their interest in the variety of language is less than zero: the dogma is to prefer a "national" official language over local dialects as well as foreign words, for instance. it's not a coincidence that, in italy, the government who worried the most about "real nice translations" was the same government who prohibited the use of local dialects in any kind of social interaction that could technically be sanctioned (i'm referring to the fascist regime). with this, i'm not saying that one solution is better than the other all the time, just pointing out that rejecting foreign terms and promoting variety and innovation don't necessarily go hand in hand.

 

[rahvin]

Svenska Akademien

Research Institute for the Languages of Finland

I don´t think this is being used only in order to have an area of same language use without any differences or to prevent the use of dialects. I think there is care for the development of the language.

well, that's exactly like http://www.ids-mannheim.de/ , if your "board of scientists" was a just a way to say that there are people studying the issue. people studying the issue, however, have little impact on the actual use of words.

It is possible that in Italy or France there are certain reasons for avoiding foreign terms, justified or not, but my post was not about this kind of integration.

which is why i think it missed the point.

 

[rahvin]

As I learned from my language teachers, there is a difference. In Germany, I have never noticed any institution in fact suggesting translations of new English words which would be sipping into German. In Sweden they´d make active suggestions and people would actually use them.

this might be based on the kind of acceptance that these suggestions are likely to receive. scholars who are in it for the beauty of language likely exist everywhere, but i thought your boards of scientists were some sort of government-appointed authorities. if they were not, remove "boards of scientists" from my original post and add in "government-appointed authorities" instead.

No, it´s just a completely different way of thinking. I didn´t see your point as that relevant. It´s not news that we are on different planets.

my posts were on the subject. if i wanted to read snotty comebacks i'd go turn on my other elaboratore elettronico and i'd fire up some videogiochi multigiocatore to get abused by adolescenti tamarri in the terreno di battaglia.

 

[rahvin]

sure they are on the subject, but it´s not like you are purely objective. Just take the use of quotation marks in that one post. Don´t try to imply you were being completely neutral and distant from any emotion. That you are not can be seen from your general style of debate and writing

they were in quotes because i was having trouble understanding the meaning of it, and in fact i misunderstood at least one. while it's true that you're one of the posters whose language i sometimes find hard to understand, i wouldn't call my attempts to interpret the words an "emotion" (<-- see what i did there?).