On 02.02.23 10:45, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Feb 2023 18:32:52 +0100
> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>> On 01.02.23 17:22, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>> It didn't get squeezed out , it got squeezed into English.
>>
>> Those were two distinct parallel processes. English borrowed a large
>> vocabulary from Norman French, but assimilated them into the existing
>> English language, retaining the grammar and syntax of English, and the
>
> Not for long. The grammar of Anglo saxon is far closed to the complexity of
> german than it is english.

[hit send on the other one before addressign this]

The inflectional system of Anglo Saxon was already at best vestigial
before the Norman Conquest.

The theory that makes most sense to me relates to the interaction
between Anglo Saxon and Old Norse. At the time of the Danelaw, where
significant Norse speaking people lived in parts of England, Old Norse
and Anglo Saxon were still very similar languages in a lot of respects,
to the extent that people could easily understand the meanings of
individual words in the other language due to them both coming from the
same Germanic root [1]. Where the languages had deviated significantly,
though, was in the specific inflectional endings on words reating to
case and gender.

So you might know that the other person is saying something like "man
woman food bring" but you weren't sure who was doing the bringing and
who the receiving. To overcome this, standard word order came to be
used (initially in addition to existing inflectional endings) to
indicate the grammar (so the convention of subject, verb, indirect
object, direct object that we use, eg the man brings the woman food).

The written records show that in addition to word order becoming
standardised in this way at the time, the actual inflectional endings
evolved in a way that by the time of the Norman Conquest, although
endings were added, they were no longer different enough to actually be
useful to indicate grammar, and the word order was the only means of
establishing meaning.

[1] While the meanings were clear, there had already been sound changes
that distinguished the two languages, and there are a number of
instances where both words survived into Modern English, with related
but distinct meanings. In evolving from the Germanic root to Anglo
Saxon, the ancestral "sk" sound had shifted to "sh", but this did not
happen in Norse. A good example of this is shirt and skirt. Also words
derived from the Germanic root for "cut", that via Anglo Saxon produced
share, shear, shard, while via Norse produced score, scar, scare (with
various intermediate evolutions giving the range of meanings).

Robin

On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 11:19:13 +0100
Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>On 02.02.23 10:48, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>> If you can't understand a lot of something spoken and/or written down without
>
>> help then its fair to say its a seperate language. Robbie Burns' poems are
>> somewhat opaque to modern english speakers - certainly I can't understand a
>lot
>> of his writing without google at hand - so I think its fair to say scots is
>> a seperate language to english and not simply a dialect. Swedish and
>Norwegian
>> are probably much more mutually intelligable, ditto Czech and Slovakian.
>
>While I think it is correct to say that Scots was a separate language in
>the past, the centuries of strong influence from more standard English
>has caused much of what made it distinct fall out of use. Burns was
>writing over 200 years ago, and in the interval the actual way people
>use language in that part of Scotland has become far far closer to
>standard English to the point where I'm not convinced describing it as a
>distinct language makes much sense anymore.

Not now no, today in scotland people just speak english with a scottish accent,
its not scots. Though I once worked with someone from deepest glasgow and
he could be unintelligable quite often so where do you draw the line...

On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 11:27:39 +0100
Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>On 02.02.23 10:45, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>> On Wed, 1 Feb 2023 18:32:52 +0100
>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>> On 01.02.23 17:22, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>>> It didn't get squeezed out , it got squeezed into English.
>>>
>>> Those were two distinct parallel processes. English borrowed a large
>>> vocabulary from Norman French, but assimilated them into the existing
>>> English language, retaining the grammar and syntax of English, and the
>>
>> Not for long. The grammar of Anglo saxon is far closed to the complexity of
>> german than it is english.
>>
>>> modern English words, there are something like 2 that are not either
>>> Anglo Saxon or Norse, and highest placed word of French origin is
>>> something like 45th on the list.
>>
>> I'll take your word for it but 45th seems low to me
>
>Taking the list at [1], the highest ranked word derived from French that
>I can see is "just", at number 57 (based on the OEC ranking).
>
>[1] see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_common_words_in_English

Does "you" come from the same root as the german "du" or is it a corruption
of "vous"? Who knows.

On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:00:17 +0100
Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>So you might know that the other person is saying something like "man
>woman food bring" but you weren't sure who was doing the bringing and
>who the receiving. To overcome this, standard word order came to be
>used (initially in addition to existing inflectional endings) to
>indicate the grammar (so the convention of subject, verb, indirect
>object, direct object that we use, eg the man brings the woman food).

Doesn't always work though. eg:

Fred saw John and he was happy.

Who was happy, fred or john? I think in german case endings would provide the
answer but in english it needs further qualification. Though French has the
same problem so its not exclusively down to english being simplified.

On 02.02.23 12:16, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 11:27:39 +0100
> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>> On 02.02.23 10:45, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>> On Wed, 1 Feb 2023 18:32:52 +0100
>>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>>> On 01.02.23 17:22, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>>>> It didn't get squeezed out , it got squeezed into English.
>>>>
>>>> Those were two distinct parallel processes. English borrowed a large
>>>> vocabulary from Norman French, but assimilated them into the existing
>>>> English language, retaining the grammar and syntax of English, and the
>>>
>>> Not for long. The grammar of Anglo saxon is far closed to the complexity of
>>> german than it is english.
>>>
>>>> modern English words, there are something like 2 that are not either
>>>> Anglo Saxon or Norse, and highest placed word of French origin is
>>>> something like 45th on the list.
>>>
>>> I'll take your word for it but 45th seems low to me
>>
>> Taking the list at [1], the highest ranked word derived from French that
>> I can see is "just", at number 57 (based on the OEC ranking).
>>
>> [1] see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_common_words_in_English
>
> Does "you" come from the same root as the german "du" or is it a corruption
> of "vous"? Who knows.

Second person singular: English: þu to thou, then fell out of use.
German þu to du.
Second person plural: English eow to yow to you. German iu to iuch to euch.

Both þu and eow were in use and recorded in written Anglo Saxon well
before the Norman Conquest.

Robin

On 02.02.23 12:22, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:00:17 +0100
> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>> So you might know that the other person is saying something like "man
>> woman food bring" but you weren't sure who was doing the bringing and
>> who the receiving. To overcome this, standard word order came to be
>> used (initially in addition to existing inflectional endings) to
>> indicate the grammar (so the convention of subject, verb, indirect
>> object, direct object that we use, eg the man brings the woman food).
>
> Doesn't always work though. eg:
>
> Fred saw John and he was happy.
>
> Who was happy, fred or john? I think in german case endings would provide the
> answer but in english it needs further qualification. Though French has the
> same problem so its not exclusively down to english being simplified.

This isn't really the right example for that. In this instance we have
two distinct sentences joined with a conjuction. Fred saw John. He was
happy. English singular pronouns all retain separate case forms: I/me,
thou/thee, he/him, she/her. If a marker for case could have meaning in
this sentence, that would imply "Fred saw John and him was happy."
should give the "other" meaning. That isn't the case.

Robin

<Muttley@dastardlyhq.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 11:19:13 +0100
> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>> On 02.02.23 10:48, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>> If you can't understand a lot of something spoken and/or written down without
>>
>>> help then its fair to say its a seperate language. Robbie Burns' poems are
>>> somewhat opaque to modern english speakers - certainly I can't understand a
>> lot
>>> of his writing without google at hand - so I think its fair to say scots is
>>> a seperate language to english and not simply a dialect. Swedish and
>> Norwegian
>>> are probably much more mutually intelligable, ditto Czech and Slovakian.
>>
>> While I think it is correct to say that Scots was a separate language in
>> the past, the centuries of strong influence from more standard English
>> has caused much of what made it distinct fall out of use. Burns was
>> writing over 200 years ago, and in the interval the actual way people
>> use language in that part of Scotland has become far far closer to
>> standard English to the point where I'm not convinced describing it as a
>> distinct language makes much sense anymore.
>
> Not now no, today in scotland people just speak english with a scottish accent,
> its not scots. Though I once worked with someone from deepest glasgow and
> he could be unintelligable quite often so where do you draw the line...

I was once in a seminar on the topic of Scotland having three languages
(English, Gaelic and Scots, of course). There were some convincing
arguments for that proposition, but the difficulty comes because there’s
enough commonality between English and Scots - grammar and most of the
vocabulary - that it’s hard to distinguish when someone’s talking Scots
rather than English with an accent and some borrowed words.

And then a Shetlandic speaker threw a spanner in the works.

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

On 02.02.23 13:06, Sam Wilson wrote:
> <Muttley@dastardlyhq.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 11:19:13 +0100
>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>> On 02.02.23 10:48, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>>> If you can't understand a lot of something spoken and/or written down without
>>>
>>>> help then its fair to say its a seperate language. Robbie Burns' poems are
>>>> somewhat opaque to modern english speakers - certainly I can't understand a
>>> lot
>>>> of his writing without google at hand - so I think its fair to say scots is
>>>> a seperate language to english and not simply a dialect. Swedish and
>>> Norwegian
>>>> are probably much more mutually intelligable, ditto Czech and Slovakian.
>>>
>>> While I think it is correct to say that Scots was a separate language in
>>> the past, the centuries of strong influence from more standard English
>>> has caused much of what made it distinct fall out of use. Burns was
>>> writing over 200 years ago, and in the interval the actual way people
>>> use language in that part of Scotland has become far far closer to
>>> standard English to the point where I'm not convinced describing it as a
>>> distinct language makes much sense anymore.
>>
>> Not now no, today in scotland people just speak english with a scottish accent,
>> its not scots. Though I once worked with someone from deepest glasgow and
>> he could be unintelligable quite often so where do you draw the line...
>
> I was once in a seminar on the topic of Scotland having three languages
> (English, Gaelic and Scots, of course). There were some convincing
> arguments for that proposition, but the difficulty comes because there’s
> enough commonality between English and Scots - grammar and most of the
> vocabulary - that it’s hard to distinguish when someone’s talking Scots
> rather than English with an accent and some borrowed words.
>
> And then a Shetlandic speaker threw a spanner in the works.

By Shetlandic are you refering to Norn (the Norse language that used to
be spoken there)? I thought that was in the same category as Cornish, of
being effectively dead, with no surviving native speakers.

Robin

Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
> On 02.02.23 13:06, Sam Wilson wrote:
>> <Muttley@dastardlyhq.com> wrote:
>>> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 11:19:13 +0100
>>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>>> On 02.02.23 10:48, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>>>> If you can't understand a lot of something spoken and/or written down without
>>>>
>>>>> help then its fair to say its a seperate language. Robbie Burns' poems are
>>>>> somewhat opaque to modern english speakers - certainly I can't understand a
>>>> lot
>>>>> of his writing without google at hand - so I think its fair to say scots is
>>>>> a seperate language to english and not simply a dialect. Swedish and
>>>> Norwegian
>>>>> are probably much more mutually intelligable, ditto Czech and Slovakian.
>>>>
>>>> While I think it is correct to say that Scots was a separate language in
>>>> the past, the centuries of strong influence from more standard English
>>>> has caused much of what made it distinct fall out of use. Burns was
>>>> writing over 200 years ago, and in the interval the actual way people
>>>> use language in that part of Scotland has become far far closer to
>>>> standard English to the point where I'm not convinced describing it as a
>>>> distinct language makes much sense anymore.
>>>
>>> Not now no, today in scotland people just speak english with a scottish accent,
>>> its not scots. Though I once worked with someone from deepest glasgow and
>>> he could be unintelligable quite often so where do you draw the line...
>>
>> I was once in a seminar on the topic of Scotland having three languages
>> (English, Gaelic and Scots, of course). There were some convincing
>> arguments for that proposition, but the difficulty comes because there’s
>> enough commonality between English and Scots - grammar and most of the
>> vocabulary - that it’s hard to distinguish when someone’s talking Scots
>> rather than English with an accent and some borrowed words.
>>
>> And then a Shetlandic speaker threw a spanner in the works.
>
> By Shetlandic are you refering to Norn (the Norse language that used to
> be spoken there)? I thought that was in the same category as Cornish, of
> being effectively dead, with no surviving native speakers.

No, this <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shetland_dialect>, and in fact the
speaker at the event was Christine de Luca of whom you can see a recording
of at that URL. As it says there, “It has a large amount of unique
vocabulary but as there are no standard criteria for distinguishing
languages from dialects, whether or not Shetland dialect is a separate
language from Scots is much debated.” It’s also the case the the
pronouciation of words common to English and mainland Scots can differ
significantly. I think Ms de Luca switches seamlessly between English and
Shetlandic in that video.

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

On Wed, 1 Feb 2023 16:14:37 -0000 (UTC), Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> wrote:

>Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> wrote:
>> In message <trc5i6$hic$1@dont-email.me>, at 22:43:18 on Tue, 31 Jan
>> 2023, Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> remarked:
>>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> wrote:
>>>> In message <6mnhthhhqrsauchfp7r1jdjdp0rpj0llqp@4ax.com>, at 09:29:56 on
>>>> Tue, 31 Jan 2023, Ken <ken@birchanger.com> remarked:
>>>>> On Mon, 30 Jan 2023 20:43:19 +0000, Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> In message <tr92ca$3d25i$2@dont-email.me>, at 18:30:34 on Mon, 30 Jan
>>>>>> 2023, Anna Noyd-Dryver <anna@noyd-dryver.com> remarked:
>>>>>>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> wrote:
>>>>>>>> In message <tr8k1r$3ar6n$1@dont-email.me>, at 14:26:03 on Mon, 30 Jan
>>>>>>>> 2023, Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> remarked:
>>>>>>>>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.uk> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On iPhone it's "swipe down on the home screen". I don't have my work phone
>>>>>>> with me right now to try on android.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've tried on two here. Zilch.
>>>>>
>>>>> How on earth do you do an internet search on your phone? On my home
>>>>> screen there's a Google search box. I type, or begin to type, a search
>>>>> term into it and get results, whether they're apps or internet
>>>>> results.
>>>>
>>>> I do the above[1], but it never returns any results which are apps
>>>> installed on my phone, …
>>>
>>> You’ve got a crap phone,
>>
>> $600 phones from LG and Samsung. Their marketing departments would be
>> mortified.
>
>Neither which has a really useful feature which every phone used by the
>other correspondents here has. <shrug>

Android is highly configurable, both by the manufacturer and the user, so it could well be that Roland's phones don't
access Drawer mode by swiping up on the home screen. Mine doesn't, either, but I obviously do know how to access that
mode on my phone, and how to find all loaded apps. Roland's problem is that, despite thinking he's an expert, he doesn't
know the basics of how to use an Android phone.

On 27/01/2023 13:12, Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:
> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microstates_and_the_European_Union> is a
> great summary of the differences between the microstates.

Thanks, that does seem to be an excellent summary.

But one thing it omits to mention is that Monaco (but none of the other microstates) is a party to the Svalbard Treaty, which gives its citizens special rights in Svalbard (Spitzbergen and nearby islands). Isn't that wonderful?

--
Clive Page

On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 14:02:37 +0000, Clive Page <usenet@page2.eu> wrote:

>On 27/01/2023 13:12, Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microstates_and_the_European_Union> is a
>> great summary of the differences between the microstates.
>
>Thanks, that does seem to be an excellent summary.
>
>But one thing it omits to mention is that Monaco (but none of the other microstates) is a party to the Svalbard Treaty, which gives its citizens special rights in Svalbard (Spitzbergen and nearby islands). Isn't that wonderful?

I can't say I noticed a lot of priests and nuns in Svalbard...

On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:53:26 +0100
Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>On 02.02.23 12:16, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>> Does "you" come from the same root as the german "du" or is it a corruption
>> of "vous"? Who knows.
>
>Second person singular: English: þu to thou, then fell out of use.
>German þu to du.

The header said UFT-8 but some of that is appearing as gibberish for me.

>Second person plural: English eow to yow to you. German iu to iuch to euch.
>
>Both þu and eow were in use and recorded in written Anglo Saxon well
>before the Norman Conquest.

So they sounded like a late night punters in a west country pub then :)

On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:57:51 +0100
Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>On 02.02.23 12:22, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:00:17 +0100
>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>> So you might know that the other person is saying something like "man
>>> woman food bring" but you weren't sure who was doing the bringing and
>>> who the receiving. To overcome this, standard word order came to be
>>> used (initially in addition to existing inflectional endings) to
>>> indicate the grammar (so the convention of subject, verb, indirect
>>> object, direct object that we use, eg the man brings the woman food).
>>
>> Doesn't always work though. eg:
>>
>> Fred saw John and he was happy.
>>
>> Who was happy, fred or john? I think in german case endings would provide the
>
>> answer but in english it needs further qualification. Though French has the
>> same problem so its not exclusively down to english being simplified.
>
>This isn't really the right example for that. In this instance we have
>two distinct sentences joined with a conjuction. Fred saw John. He was

No, its 2 phrases joined by a conjuntion to form a sentence.

>happy. English singular pronouns all retain separate case forms: I/me,
>thou/thee, he/him, she/her. If a marker for case could have meaning in
>this sentence, that would imply "Fred saw John and him was happy."
>should give the "other" meaning. That isn't the case.

Using "him" doesn't add any clarity for me but YMMV.

On 02/02/2023 12:46, Sam Wilson wrote:
> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>> On 02.02.23 13:06, Sam Wilson wrote:
>>> <Muttley@dastardlyhq.com> wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 11:19:13 +0100
>>>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>>>> On 02.02.23 10:48, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>>>>> If you can't understand a lot of something spoken and/or written down without
>>>>>
>>>>>> help then its fair to say its a seperate language. Robbie Burns' poems are
>>>>>> somewhat opaque to modern english speakers - certainly I can't understand a
>>>>> lot
>>>>>> of his writing without google at hand - so I think its fair to say scots is
>>>>>> a seperate language to english and not simply a dialect. Swedish and
>>>>> Norwegian
>>>>>> are probably much more mutually intelligable, ditto Czech and Slovakian.
>>>>>
>>>>> While I think it is correct to say that Scots was a separate language in
>>>>> the past, the centuries of strong influence from more standard English
>>>>> has caused much of what made it distinct fall out of use. Burns was
>>>>> writing over 200 years ago, and in the interval the actual way people
>>>>> use language in that part of Scotland has become far far closer to
>>>>> standard English to the point where I'm not convinced describing it as a
>>>>> distinct language makes much sense anymore.
>>>>
>>>> Not now no, today in scotland people just speak english with a scottish accent,
>>>> its not scots. Though I once worked with someone from deepest glasgow and
>>>> he could be unintelligable quite often so where do you draw the line...
>>>
>>> I was once in a seminar on the topic of Scotland having three languages
>>> (English, Gaelic and Scots, of course). There were some convincing
>>> arguments for that proposition, but the difficulty comes because there’s
>>> enough commonality between English and Scots - grammar and most of the
>>> vocabulary - that it’s hard to distinguish when someone’s talking Scots
>>> rather than English with an accent and some borrowed words.
>>>
>>> And then a Shetlandic speaker threw a spanner in the works.
>>
>> By Shetlandic are you refering to Norn (the Norse language that used to
>> be spoken there)? I thought that was in the same category as Cornish, of
>> being effectively dead, with no surviving native speakers.
>
> No, this <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shetland_dialect>, and in fact the
> speaker at the event was Christine de Luca of whom you can see a recording
> of at that URL. As it says there, “It has a large amount of unique
> vocabulary but as there are no standard criteria for distinguishing
> languages from dialects, whether or not Shetland dialect is a separate
> language from Scots is much debated.” It’s also the case the the
> pronouciation of words common to English and mainland Scots can differ
> significantly. I think Ms de Luca switches seamlessly between English and
> Shetlandic in that video.
>
> Sam
>

There is a good article in the local on-line news site - complete with
translation to modern Englsh -
http://www.shetnews.co.uk/2023/01/31/history-in-a-wird-the-origins-of-up-helly-aa

--
Colin

On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:46:09 -0000 (UTC)
Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
>Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>> By Shetlandic are you refering to Norn (the Norse language that used to
>> be spoken there)? I thought that was in the same category as Cornish, of
>> being effectively dead, with no surviving native speakers.
>
>No, this <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shetland_dialect>, and in fact the

Interesting video, she's got a nice voice. Not that hard to understand for
me though , not compared to strong glaswegian :) Though I have the advantage
of my father using a some scots words and similar pronounciations when I was
growing up even though he was an east coaster.

>languages from dialects, whether or not Shetland dialect is a separate
>language from Scots is much debated.” It’s also the case the the

A lot of language division is political. Norwegian vs swedish, czech vs
slovakian, romanian vs moldovan etc.

On 02.02.23 17:16, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:57:51 +0100
> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>> On 02.02.23 12:22, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:00:17 +0100
>>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>>> So you might know that the other person is saying something like "man
>>>> woman food bring" but you weren't sure who was doing the bringing and
>>>> who the receiving. To overcome this, standard word order came to be
>>>> used (initially in addition to existing inflectional endings) to
>>>> indicate the grammar (so the convention of subject, verb, indirect
>>>> object, direct object that we use, eg the man brings the woman food).
>>>
>>> Doesn't always work though. eg:
>>>
>>> Fred saw John and he was happy.
>>>
>>> Who was happy, fred or john? I think in german case endings would provide the
>>
>>> answer but in english it needs further qualification. Though French has the
>>> same problem so its not exclusively down to english being simplified.
>>
>> This isn't really the right example for that. In this instance we have
>> two distinct sentences joined with a conjuction. Fred saw John. He was
>
> No, its 2 phrases joined by a conjuntion to form a sentence.

Each half contains a grammatically complete sentence, and the case of
the nouns and pronouns relates only its own half.
>> happy. English singular pronouns all retain separate case forms: I/me,
>> thou/thee, he/him, she/her. If a marker for case could have meaning in
>> this sentence, that would imply "Fred saw John and him was happy."
>> should give the "other" meaning. That isn't the case.
>
> Using "him" doesn't add any clarity for me but YMMV.

Right, because the case of the pronoun does not give any indication of
which of Fred or John it relates to. In a language that is fully
inflected for gender and case, exactly the same ambiguity arrises.

Robin

On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 18:05:17 +0100
Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>On 02.02.23 17:16, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:57:51 +0100
>> No, its 2 phrases joined by a conjuntion to form a sentence.
>
>Each half contains a grammatically complete sentence, and the case of
>the nouns and pronouns relates only its own half.

The "he" in the 2nd half relates to one of the people in the first half, its
not self contained. No reason the pronoun couldn't specify which.

>>> happy. English singular pronouns all retain separate case forms: I/me,
>>> thou/thee, he/him, she/her. If a marker for case could have meaning in
>>> this sentence, that would imply "Fred saw John and him was happy."
>>> should give the "other" meaning. That isn't the case.
>>
>> Using "him" doesn't add any clarity for me but YMMV.
>
>Right, because the case of the pronoun does not give any indication of
>which of Fred or John it relates to. In a language that is fully
>inflected for gender and case, exactly the same ambiguity arrises.

Why would it if the language distiguished between subject and object with
following pronouns or pronoun endings? I don't know if such a language exists
but its perfectly feasible.

Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
> On 02.02.23 17:16, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:57:51 +0100
>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>> On 02.02.23 12:22, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:00:17 +0100
>>>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>>>> So you might know that the other person is saying something like "man
>>>>> woman food bring" but you weren't sure who was doing the bringing and
>>>>> who the receiving. To overcome this, standard word order came to be
>>>>> used (initially in addition to existing inflectional endings) to
>>>>> indicate the grammar (so the convention of subject, verb, indirect
>>>>> object, direct object that we use, eg the man brings the woman food).
>>>>
>>>> Doesn't always work though. eg:
>>>>
>>>> Fred saw John and he was happy.
>>>>
>>>> Who was happy, fred or john? I think in german case endings would provide the
>>>
>>>> answer but in english it needs further qualification. Though French has the
>>>> same problem so its not exclusively down to english being simplified.
>>>
>>> This isn't really the right example for that. In this instance we have
>>> two distinct sentences joined with a conjuction. Fred saw John. He was
>>
>> No, its 2 phrases joined by a conjuntion to form a sentence.
>
> Each half contains a grammatically complete sentence, and the case of
> the nouns and pronouns relates only its own half.
>>> happy. English singular pronouns all retain separate case forms: I/me,
>>> thou/thee, he/him, she/her. If a marker for case could have meaning in
>>> this sentence, that would imply "Fred saw John and him was happy."
>>> should give the "other" meaning. That isn't the case.
>>
>> Using "him" doesn't add any clarity for me but YMMV.
>
> Right, because the case of the pronoun does not give any indication of
> which of Fred or John it relates to. In a language that is fully
> inflected for gender and case, exactly the same ambiguity arrises.
>
> Robin
>

Or just write in an unambiguous way
John saw Fred who was happy.
John who was happy saw Fred.

Part of writing in any language is to express yourself correctly, or
perhaps ambiguously to make a point.

ColinR <rail@greystane.shetland.co.uk> wrote:
> On 02/02/2023 12:46, Sam Wilson wrote:
>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>> On 02.02.23 13:06, Sam Wilson wrote:
>>>> <Muttley@dastardlyhq.com> wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 11:19:13 +0100
>>>>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>>>>> On 02.02.23 10:48, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>>>>>> If you can't understand a lot of something spoken and/or written down without
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> help then its fair to say its a seperate language. Robbie Burns' poems are
>>>>>>> somewhat opaque to modern english speakers - certainly I can't understand a
>>>>>> lot
>>>>>>> of his writing without google at hand - so I think its fair to say scots is
>>>>>>> a seperate language to english and not simply a dialect. Swedish and
>>>>>> Norwegian
>>>>>>> are probably much more mutually intelligable, ditto Czech and Slovakian.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> While I think it is correct to say that Scots was a separate language in
>>>>>> the past, the centuries of strong influence from more standard English
>>>>>> has caused much of what made it distinct fall out of use. Burns was
>>>>>> writing over 200 years ago, and in the interval the actual way people
>>>>>> use language in that part of Scotland has become far far closer to
>>>>>> standard English to the point where I'm not convinced describing it as a
>>>>>> distinct language makes much sense anymore.
>>>>>
>>>>> Not now no, today in scotland people just speak english with a scottish accent,
>>>>> its not scots. Though I once worked with someone from deepest glasgow and
>>>>> he could be unintelligable quite often so where do you draw the line...
>>>>
>>>> I was once in a seminar on the topic of Scotland having three languages
>>>> (English, Gaelic and Scots, of course). There were some convincing
>>>> arguments for that proposition, but the difficulty comes because there’s
>>>> enough commonality between English and Scots - grammar and most of the
>>>> vocabulary - that it’s hard to distinguish when someone’s talking Scots
>>>> rather than English with an accent and some borrowed words.
>>>>
>>>> And then a Shetlandic speaker threw a spanner in the works.
>>>
>>> By Shetlandic are you refering to Norn (the Norse language that used to
>>> be spoken there)? I thought that was in the same category as Cornish, of
>>> being effectively dead, with no surviving native speakers.
>>
>> No, this <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shetland_dialect>, and in fact the
>> speaker at the event was Christine de Luca of whom you can see a recording
>> of at that URL. As it says there, “It has a large amount of unique
>> vocabulary but as there are no standard criteria for distinguishing
>> languages from dialects, whether or not Shetland dialect is a separate
>> language from Scots is much debated.” It’s also the case the the
>> pronouciation of words common to English and mainland Scots can differ
>> significantly. I think Ms de Luca switches seamlessly between English and
>> Shetlandic in that video.
>>
>> Sam
>>
>
> There is a good article in the local on-line news site - complete with
> translation to modern Englsh -
> http://www.shetnews.co.uk/2023/01/31/history-in-a-wird-the-origins-of-up-helly-aa

Thank you - that’s really interesting.

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

<Muttley@dastardlyhq.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:46:09 -0000 (UTC)
> Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>> By Shetlandic are you refering to Norn (the Norse language that used to
>>> be spoken there)? I thought that was in the same category as Cornish, of
>>> being effectively dead, with no surviving native speakers.
>>
>> No, this <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shetland_dialect>, and in fact the
>
> Interesting video, she's got a nice voice. Not that hard to understand for
> me though , not compared to strong glaswegian :) Though I have the advantage
> of my father using a some scots words and similar pronounciations when I was
> growing up even though he was an east coaster.
>
>> languages from dialects, whether or not Shetland dialect is a separate
>> language from Scots is much debated.” It’s also the case the the
>
> A lot of language division is political. Norwegian vs swedish, czech vs
> slovakian, romanian vs moldovan etc.

“A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.” That quote will lead
you to a Wikipedia article if you let it.

Sam

--
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Spit the dummy to reply

On 02.02.23 18:12, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 18:05:17 +0100
> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>> On 02.02.23 17:16, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:57:51 +0100
>>> No, its 2 phrases joined by a conjuntion to form a sentence.
>>
>> Each half contains a grammatically complete sentence, and the case of
>> the nouns and pronouns relates only its own half.
>
> The "he" in the 2nd half relates to one of the people in the first half, its
> not self contained. No reason the pronoun couldn't specify which.

In principle it could be possible for a language to have that feature.
It is, however, not a feature of Indo-European languages, of which
Latin, German, English and lots more, are examples. The example you
gave has two subjects and two active verbs. The case of both relates to
the verb with which they are (grammatically) associated.

>>>> happy. English singular pronouns all retain separate case forms: I/me,
>>>> thou/thee, he/him, she/her. If a marker for case could have meaning in
>>>> this sentence, that would imply "Fred saw John and him was happy."
>>>> should give the "other" meaning. That isn't the case.
>>>
>>> Using "him" doesn't add any clarity for me but YMMV.
>>
>> Right, because the case of the pronoun does not give any indication of
>> which of Fred or John it relates to. In a language that is fully
>> inflected for gender and case, exactly the same ambiguity arrises.
>
> Why would it if the language distiguished between subject and object with
> following pronouns or pronoun endings? I don't know if such a language exists
> but its perfectly feasible.

The way cases and pronouns work in Indo-European languages doesn't allow
for this. Pronouns are deliberately not tied to any specific noun,
allowing them to be used in a generic sense, such as the "empty it" in
sentences like "it is sunny". While it is grammatically a pronoun, the
only reason it exists in that senence is because English requires a verb
to have a subject, but there is no actual thing "being" sunny. Sunny is
just a condition that exists.

Robin

On 02.02.23 18:41, Tweed wrote:
> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>> On 02.02.23 17:16, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:57:51 +0100
>>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>>> On 02.02.23 12:22, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:00:17 +0100
>>>>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>>>>> So you might know that the other person is saying something like "man
>>>>>> woman food bring" but you weren't sure who was doing the bringing and
>>>>>> who the receiving. To overcome this, standard word order came to be
>>>>>> used (initially in addition to existing inflectional endings) to
>>>>>> indicate the grammar (so the convention of subject, verb, indirect
>>>>>> object, direct object that we use, eg the man brings the woman food).
>>>>>
>>>>> Doesn't always work though. eg:
>>>>>
>>>>> Fred saw John and he was happy.
>>>>>
>>>>> Who was happy, fred or john? I think in german case endings would provide the
>>>>
>>>>> answer but in english it needs further qualification. Though French has the
>>>>> same problem so its not exclusively down to english being simplified.
>>>>
>>>> This isn't really the right example for that. In this instance we have
>>>> two distinct sentences joined with a conjuction. Fred saw John. He was
>>>
>>> No, its 2 phrases joined by a conjuntion to form a sentence.
>>
>> Each half contains a grammatically complete sentence, and the case of
>> the nouns and pronouns relates only its own half.
>>>> happy. English singular pronouns all retain separate case forms: I/me,
>>>> thou/thee, he/him, she/her. If a marker for case could have meaning in
>>>> this sentence, that would imply "Fred saw John and him was happy."
>>>> should give the "other" meaning. That isn't the case.
>>>
>>> Using "him" doesn't add any clarity for me but YMMV.
>>
>> Right, because the case of the pronoun does not give any indication of
>> which of Fred or John it relates to. In a language that is fully
>> inflected for gender and case, exactly the same ambiguity arrises.
>>
>> Robin
>>
>
> Or just write in an unambiguous way
> John saw Fred who was happy.
> John who was happy saw Fred.
>
> Part of writing in any language is to express yourself correctly, or
> perhaps ambiguously to make a point.

There is noting wrong in principle with grammatical ambiguity if the
broader context is clear. Take this example from a story on the BBC news
site right now:

"Lancashire Police earlier released a CCTV image of a woman who was
walking a small white dog in the area. She had now been identified, the
force said."

Was "she" the woman or the dog? The whole story is about a woman who is
missing and being looked for, so the context makes it obvious that the
police are not trying to find the dog.

Robin

On 2 Feb 2023 at 6:29:08 PM EET, "<Muttley@dastardlyhq.com>"
<Muttley@dastardlyhq.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:46:09 -0000 (UTC)
> Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
>> Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>> By Shetlandic are you refering to Norn (the Norse language that used to
>>> be spoken there)? I thought that was in the same category as Cornish, of
>>> being effectively dead, with no surviving native speakers.
>>
>> No, this <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shetland_dialect>, and in fact the
>
> Interesting video, she's got a nice voice. Not that hard to understand for
> me though , not compared to strong glaswegian :) Though I have the advantage
> of my father using a some scots words and similar pronounciations when I was
> growing up even though he was an east coaster.

This whole language sub-thread has turned into one of the more interesting
diversions on ukr for a while.

>
>> languages from dialects, whether or not Shetland dialect is a separate
>> language from Scots is much debated.” It’s also the case the the
>
> A lot of language division is political. Norwegian vs swedish, czech vs
> slovakian, romanian vs moldovan etc.

Although one of these things is not like the other - Moldovan is a synonym for
Romanian rather than being a different language (that's not a political point
- nobody even pretends it is a different language, any more than Oltenian is a
different language). You're quite right of course that nevertheless which name
you choose to use can be a political statement.

Speaking of Oltenian dialect - there is an entire tense/construction (perfect
simplu) that is uniquely spoken in Oltenia - although I think more accurate is
to say it fell out of use everywhere except Oltenia.

On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 16:29:08 -0000 (UTC), Muttley@dastardlyhq.com
wrote:

>On Thu, 2 Feb 2023 12:46:09 -0000 (UTC)
>Sam Wilson <ukr@dummy.wislons.fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
>>Bob <bob@domain.com> wrote:
>>> By Shetlandic are you refering to Norn (the Norse language that used to
>>> be spoken there)? I thought that was in the same category as Cornish, of
>>> being effectively dead, with no surviving native speakers.
>>
>>No, this <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shetland_dialect>, and in fact the
>
>Interesting video, she's got a nice voice. Not that hard to understand for
>me though , not compared to strong glaswegian :) Though I have the advantage
>of my father using a some scots words and similar pronounciations when I was
>growing up even though he was an east coaster.
>
>>languages from dialects, whether or not Shetland dialect is a separate
>>language from Scots is much debated.
>
>A lot of language division is political. Norwegian vs swedish, czech vs
>slovakian, romanian vs moldovan etc.

Um, Norwegian and Swedish supposedly aren't mutually understandable.
Scroll down to *Language*:

<https://scandinaviafacts.com/are-norwegians-and-swedes-the-same-people/>

Added to that is the quirk of Norwegian having two written systems:

<https://lithub.com/why-are-there-two-distinct-ways-of-writing-norwegian/>

And be careful how you dip your toes into the Croatian-Serbian divide.
I've been told multiple times by self-speakers that the two are
one-and-same vocally... until the written versions intervene with the
Latin/Cyrillic divide where religion gets plonked in as well.

Dobar dan.