h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm surprised that you find German easier than French, Edward. Although the basic Old English vocabulary is closely related to German, the grammatical structure of modern English is much closer to French than to German. With the exception of the adjective going after the noun rather than in front of it, French has almost exactly the same word order as English. German, on the other hand, has quite a different system. This means that many French phrases can be translated word for word into English once you remember to switch the adjectives around.

Dunno. Maybe it's something in the "feel" of German. It just seems to come out of my mouth easier. I can manage basic French well enough, but the idioms never feel comfortable.

But maybe it's just because I had a better German teacher who put more emphasis on speech. The French teacher used one of those dreadful 'Language Labs' which engendered a Big Brother attitude and put a generation off language learning. I still remember the cold sweats wondering whether the teacher was listening in!

Plus, I practice my German more often. It's horrifying to admit - but I've never been to France! I've spoken French in Canada and to francophone Africans and Haitians, though. And I once had an amazing night on the town in Leningrad (as was) guided by a Lebanese dental student who I met in a bar whose languages were Arabic, Russian and French.

Incidentally - 'Our best export'. Actually, the vast majority of English students worldwide are learning their English second-hand from non-native speakers.

... or from Americans.

I found the same thing as Edward. German no problem, but I just didn't really ever get to grips with French. Probably because pronunciation is so much more straightforward. Word order in French might be similar to English, but the pronunciation of words probably put me off before I reached the stage of caring about correct grammar anyway!

There is, of course, another "English" - that as spoken between two non-native speakers.

If an English speaker (American, British, Australian, Irish) joins the conversation, no one can understand him.

English is, on the one hand, a universal communications vehicle.

On the other, a secret code.

The was for Gnomon - well, for his Americans.

I think that's what happens with my French, also. I can get by well with those who speak it as a 'Lingua Franca'. But French natives tend to use so much idiom that I find them hard to follow. I also find it hard to understand the French accent, while I can generally follow French as spoken by Africans.

Something similar happens in German, though, doesn't it? My understanding is that German dialects lack the low status of English dialects and are accepted in a wider range of social situations. Thus a German eavesdropping on someone else from another Land may not understand them - but when they converse, they will do so in a standard German.

I think you're right about German dialects. I think they are often also much more distinct than dialects in England - seen almost as languages in their own right, which a cockney wouldn't think of a Tynesider except in jest.

Is this perhaps because England has been a country with a central administration of sorts for centuries with the associated language standardisation developed through governmental/court usage? Not that long ago - in my father's granddad's lifetime - Germany was still a whole smattering of tiny states.

Essentially, yes. In Germany - and also Italy - no one region had administrative dominance until the mid-late 19thC.

Also...in other countries, dialects more class-marked in Britain than elsewhere. Shaw's quote that '...one man only has to open his mouth for another to despise him' applies only to Britain. In the US, for example, there have been many presidents with strong regional accents.

English had regional dialects, but most died out many centuries ago. The last one to go was Dorset. Scottish Leid is still hanging in there but is probably not going to survive much longer. There was also an English dialect spoken in County Wexford in Ireland. All of these are/were different enough from Standard English to be considered separate languages.

(to Edward re German dialects) More or less.

It's true about dialects - some are more accepted than others. Particularly the East German dialects are looked down upon. But a Swabian (Schwäbisch) accent which sounds very rural, is still considered highly acceptable, as they come from the home of Daimler Benz, Audi, etc., and represent the most profitable area of the country.

I've found the following:

quote

Gracie Fields; Lancashire singer, comedienne and, er, actress with a voice that could shatter plate glass at three miles. She sang sentimental songs and was very popular until she married an Italian and spent most of WW2 in the USA. Her real name was Grace Stansfield, and she came from Rochdale. (No relation to Lisa Stansfield, also a singer from Rochdale).

unquote

(from: http://www.jasperfforde.com/reader/readerjon5.html)

I don't know what he bases his information on, but he must have put some research into it to even mention it (the fact that Lisa and Gracie are not related, I mean)

>>All of these are/were different enough from Standard English to be considered separate languages.

Probably a debate for the Lang and Ling convo...but modern Linguists don't really distinguish between dialects and 'language continua' (oops continuums!). Standard Modern English and (say) Scouse are dialects of English.

Scots is an interesting one. At one time in history, Scots was the official, court language in Scotland. It was regarded as a separate language to English, and foreign ambassadors would learn each separately. (Although in those days, they'd have been as likely to speak French in England).

The present situation is interesting. Examples of Scots vernacular words are regularly found in the Scottish 'quality' press (The Herald; The Scotsman; The West Highland Free Press) and are used in Holyrood (but possibly largely as a badge that the politician is one of the common people). Scots legal terms are also used. And then there;s the ubiquitous Scots word 'outwith' - essential in everyday spech but unknown in Southern Britain.

I've been racking my brain for the name of the Irish dialect. I know the one you mean. What was it?

Ah! He'd know (Jasper Fforde). In his books, George Formby is a former resistance leader who is elected president-for-life.

"Yola was a Middle English dialect that survived until c. 1820 in County Wexford in Ireland" -- http://members.tripod.com/~rjschellen/EnglishNums.htm

I sincerely wish I could understand the phonetic transcriptions on that page!

<>



My friend Richard and my brother were/are great Jackson Browne fans, and I had a poster made from a photo Richard had taken at a concert here in NZ in the 1980s.

To wind this up -- it looks as if it has been a wild goose chase.

I've got my copy of Wittgenstein's Investigations back and found the quote that started me thinking that "running on empty" was a mistranslation of "leer laufen" (idling, out of gear, in neutral):



132. We want to establish an order in our knowledge of the use of language: an order with a particular end in view; one out of many possible orders, not *the* order. To this end we shall constantly be giving prominence to distinctions which our ordinary forms of language easily make us overlook. This may make it look as if we saw it as our task to reform language.

Such a reform for particular practical purposes, an improvement in our terminology designed to prevent misunderstandings in practice, is perfectly possible. But these are not the cases we have to do with. The confusions which occupy us arise when language is like an engine idling, not when it is doing work.



The German version (the original) of the last sentence is "Die Verwirrungen, die uns beschäftigen, entstehen gleichsam, wenn die Sprache leerläuft, nicht wenn sie arbeitet."

The other quote I tried to remember was



271. "Imagine a person whose memory could not retain *what* the word 'pain' meant--so that he constantly called different things by that name--but nevertheless used the word in a way fitting in with the usual symptoms and presuppositions of pain"--in short he uses it as we all do. Here I should like to say: a wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with it, is not part of the mechanism.



Nice stuff, even if its relevance here is a little tenuous; and all written in the 1940s. But if nobody else has seen "running on empty" used in a context that suggested "idling" then I must have just misread the first instance I saw, and graced it with a resonance it had no claim to.

>> ..wenn die Sprache leerläuft.. <<

When the doves cry.
When the sparrows come back to Capastrano.
When pigs fly.
When der shoe Fitz.

Hey I'm nieder laufen nor leerink.
And I am you for your diligence thanking.

~jwf~

This question of 'when' has been intriguing me.
Especially the sense of 'when', when 'when' is used as a conditional proposition for other events to follow. (Or not, as in the expression 'When hell freezes over' or 'when pigs fly'.)

I have been thinking of dozens since posting that last and it strikes me as curious that so many are lyrics from songs. In particular, 'old' songs.



When Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah...

When Irish eyes are smiling.

When I call your name...

When I come down from the Isle of Sky...

When I fall in love, it will be forever,
or I'll never fall...

When the fileds are soft and green
I'll take you home again Kathleen.

(She'll be coming round the mountain) when she comes.

When the moon hits your eye
like a big pizza pie,
that's amoure!

(She'll be driving six white horses) when she comes.

When you're smiling, oh, when you're smiling
the whole world smiles with you...

When somebody loves you, it's no good
unless they love you, all the way.

Oh, When the saints go marching in..

When the sun goes down and the tide goes out,
all the people gather round and they all begin to shout...



This 'propositional condition' used to be the basis for so many songs, many of hope and promise. There are dozens of other examples.

But then I noticed they are all 'old' songs and that I can't think of a single example in recent years. Except for 'when the doves cry' and 'when I call your name' (which are approximately 20 and 40 years old respectively) all the other songs listed are at least a half a century old. Many much, much older than that.

There used to be so many, and now there seem to be none.

Have we lost hope or become afraid to make promises and predictions?
Or has the 'conditional proposition' simply fallen from favour with songwriters?
Is it lyically or socially no longer cool to use this form of expression to consider questions of faith, hope and promise in popular songs. Are such considerations now mere sentimentality and insufficient to survive in our pragmatic hedonistic world? Or are we just simply too impatient to wait for things anymore?

It really is a big question.
It has the potential to reveal some huge tectonic shifts in our prospectus of future events. Is it our fear of committment or a new sense of fatalism that makes joyful or even merely hopeful speculation old fashioned?

Please, think about it. And let me know. When you can. I know you can.


~jwf~

Is "from whence" now accepted English?
My English teacher used to batter us if we said it rather than just "whence".

Still thinking of when songs...