Ukraine-in-a-thread

[Brenus]

"can a nazi be dissatisfied with what other nazis" THEY KILLED EACH OTHERS (and hate each others), read history before to do some insane claims and parallels. Mama mia, such ignorance is painful to watch...

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

"can a nazi be dissatisfied with what other nazis" THEY KILLED EACH OTHERS (and hate each others), read history before to do some insane claims and parallels. Mama mia, such ignorance is painful to watch...

Actually - he's correct in that Nazis would club together - but it's worth pointing out that there are Nazi's on both sides, I read one interview where a Ukranians Nazi said Putin wasa Jew and another where a Russian (yes, actual Russian) said the government in Kiev was the result of a Jewish plot.

The point being that neither side is part of some great Nazi-overmind.

But hey, October 13th and Putin is still a Fascist, so.

[Brenus]

"he's correct in that Nazis would club together" They clubbed each others, for the start (Long Knives' night, someone?).

[Gilrandir]

"can a nazi be dissatisfied with what other nazis" THEY KILLED EACH OTHERS (and hate each others), read history before to do some insane claims and parallels. Mama mia, such ignorance is painful to watch...
Yeah, I realize how it hurts to find your own mistakes. Again, jumping to conclusions and insults without any analysis and reservations.
Yes, they did kill each other, but those were COMPETING GANGS in one country anxious to be in sole control of the government. Such things may well happen (and happened more than once in history) when the gangs are not nazis. I spoke of nazis from different countries who have no rivalry to impede their flocking together. Like Communists or Social democrats from different countries who support each other and even form transnational parties (I know that Tymoshenko's "Batkivshchina" is a member of one).
Speaking of Putin the Fascist, here is what a psychologist thinks of him. I'm sorry it is in Russian, but this is an interview of Philip Jaffe, a Swiss scientists, to RFI on the personality of Putin. I expect those who are interested can find it in the language they understand.
http://ru.rfi.fr/ukraina/20140929-psikhologicheskii-portret-putina-putin-perezhil-sereznuyu-travmu-v-detstve/

And this is how Putin's birthday was celebrated in Chechnya:
http://liveleak.su/15-video/other/74-den-rozhdeniya-putina-v-chechne-otmetili-100000-tolpoj-video-smotret-onlajn
Does it remind you something? "Irrepressible spontaneous demonstrations when workers marched out of factories and offices and paraded through the streets with banners voicing their gratitude to Big Brother for the new, happy life which his wise leadership has bestowed upon them".
G. Orwell 1984.

[Brenus]

“I spoke of nazis from different countries who have no rivalry to impede their flocking together.” Ridiculous! Again. Hitler had no rivals in foreign countries but henchmen.
"Again, jumping to conclusions and insults without any analysis and reservations." Nice self-portrait. :2thumbsup:

[Gilrandir]

“I spoke of nazis from different countries who have no rivalry to impede their flocking together.” Ridiculous! Again. Hitler had no rivals in foreign countries but henchmen.

You don't read carefully what others write. Brenus in his element again.
All you claim is true, moreover, it was what I had claimed in my post.
Hitler supported nazis in other countries like modern nazis do. Hitler hunted nazis in his own country because they were on his way to absolute power.

[Gilrandir]

Darth Vader and the Internet Party of Ukraine headed by him are running for the parliament. Check out the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2JwAHhm6F8
He is playing the bandura (a traditional Ukrainian instrument). The slogan at the end reads: "We will not let them eat our salo" (pork fat eaten raw and considered to be a traditional Ukrainian meal and one of the symbols of Ukrainians).
In another one Darth Vader reveals his cossack hairdo:
http://www.ipu.com.ua/news/Dart_Vejder_YA_snimayu_masku-000450/
And one more:
http://chto-proishodit.ru/news/2014/10/17/75004748

[Gilrandir]

A curious fact: Right Sector held a charity concert in Odessa together with the jewish community of the city. Nazis and jews are singing together?
https://news.pn/en/public/116427
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0E75RBP1cQ

[Gilrandir]

And there is no fascism in newly-acquired by Russia lands:
http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/146190/russians-burn-books-to-liquidate-crimeas-ukrainian-past

[Husar]

The teachers burned the books, it was probably a normal administrative step to get rid of olf books with wrong information.

[Gilrandir]

The teachers burned the books, it was probably a normal administrative step to get rid of olf books with wrong information.
Of course, burning books in the presence of kids is the proper way of getting rid of the books you don't need. Perhaps such words as "paper recycling" also belong to the Crimean past which no one wants to remember.

[Strike For The South]

It's October 21st and Validmir Putin is still a fascist

[Husar]

Of course, burning books in the presence of kids is the proper way of getting rid of the books you don't need. Perhaps such words as "paper recycling" also belong to the Crimean past which no one wants to remember.

It's a good way to teach people to let go of old things.

It's also October 21st and Obama is still a Communist Kenyan.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

It's a good way to teach people to let go of old things.

It's also October 21st and Obama is still a Communist Kenyan.

Islamist-Communist Kenyan with designs on repealing the 22nd amendment and anti-Malthusian population control via Ebola. I mean, if you are gonna haul out the birther crap, you might as well toss them all in.

[Husar]

Islamist-Communist Kenyan with designs on repealing the 22nd amendment and anti-Malthusian population control via Ebola. I mean, if you are gonna haul out the birther crap, you might as well toss them all in.

It has to be short and to the point, it's not like Strike mentioned all the faults, just drop the word fascist and that's enough.

What's next? People who call Kim Jong Un a dictator?

[Gilrandir]

People who call Kim Jong Un a dictator?
Correction: UNdictator.

[Gilrandir]

It's a good way to teach people to let go of old things.

You know, Putin is pretty old, so ...:laugh4:

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The teachers burned the books, it was probably a normal administrative step to get rid of olf books with wrong information.

You mean the history of Crimea between 1953 and 2014?

That wrong information?

[Gilrandir]

You mean the history of Crimea between 1953 and 2014?

And before 1783.

[Husar]

They live in Russia, there is no reason for Russians to learn Ukrainian history.
It's not like schools in Texas have a focus on teaching Mexican history, or is it?

[Gilrandir]

They live in Russia, there is no reason for Russians to learn Ukrainian history.
It's not like schools in Texas have a focus on teaching Mexican history, or is it?
When Ukraine became independent and textbooks on the history of the USSR were out of use they were just taken to archives. No one made conflagrations with them in front of municipal buildings. Like if you bought a new car and you won't need the old one (or you think you won't) you don't blow it up in your backyard with all the neighbors watching it.
In the case of Crimea it is about a civilized attitude to the past one might have had. It looks like they wish to forget every moment of history which could hint that it didn't belong to Russia since biblical times (especially the Crimean khanate and Ukrainian chapters of it). Since this wish coincides with (or indeed comes from) Moscow, it seems that they will succeed in in rather soon and new editions of Russian history textbooks will not have any mentioning of Crimea being at times not within Russia.
For example, during Soviet times it was a dogma that in 9-13th century there was a polity called Kievan Rus, the cradle of three "fraternal peoples" - Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian (in this very order of mentioning). Modern Russian textbooks call this country "the Old Russian state". All mentioning of Kiev was obliterated from them. The same is likely to happen to Crimean history.

[Husar]

When Ukraine became independent and textbooks on the history of the USSR were out of use they were just taken to archives. No one made conflagrations with them in front of municipal buildings.

That explains why Russia has a better economy than Ukraine, they waste less tax money on storage.

[HoreTore]

Textbooks are utterly irrelevant. I do not understand why on earth people care about them. Their only use is for text analysis, and there's a limit to how much of that you can do in a year.

It's the 21st century now people, get with the program.


And the idea that you should only learn the history of your own country is utterly bonkers. Have fun raising the next generation of Nazi's.

[Gilrandir]

Textbooks are utterly irrelevant. I do not understand why on earth people care about them. Their only use is for text analysis, and there's a limit to how much of that you can do in a year.

I'm afraid textbooks are the only way to make modern kids learn at least something of history and then check whether they learned it.

[Husar]

Textbooks are utterly irrelevant. I do not understand why on earth people care about them. Their only use is for text analysis, and there's a limit to how much of that you can do in a year.

It's the 21st century now people, get with the program.


And the idea that you should only learn the history of your own country is utterly bonkers. Have fun raising the next generation of Nazi's.

We learn about the history of our country to learn that being a Nazi is bad, that we should be ashamed of it for all eternity and to prevent us from raising another generation of Nazis (without the apostrophe so it is actually plural and not genitive, the genitive, btw., is something that is being replaced by the dative in common usage of the German language, it's nice that people like it in English, but it is still not a plural form).

We also learn the important bits about the history of other countries, but only a few events had place in our history curriculum over the years. Mostly because we did the French revolution over and over again. But even the French revolution is more important than for Russians to learn about the techniques of corruption, cronyism and crawling into Putin's behind that Yanukovich practiced in recent Ukrainian history.

I'm sure Russians also burned all the books glorifying Staling when Putin recently decided that Hitler should be the guiding figure for his nation and politics as people here led me to believe.

[HoreTore]

I'm afraid textbooks are the only way to make modern kids learn at least something of history and then check whether they learned it.

Nonsense.

We're living in the 21st century, not the 19th. We use modern tools now.

I have used a textbook in my social science class once. That's it. And the reason I used it was for the students to analyze a text on the Vietnam war and see how the authors tried to pack 3 distinct viewpoints into the same text while trying to pass it off as "being objective". And failing utterly at the attempt.

[Gilrandir]

We learn about the history of our country to learn that being a Nazi is bad, that we should be ashamed of it for all eternity and to prevent us from raising another generation of Nazis (without the apostrophe so it is actually plural and not genitive, the genitive, btw., is something that is being replaced by the dative in common usage of the German language, it's nice that people like it in English, but it is still not a plural form).

14689


We also learn the important bits about the history of other countries, but only a few events had place in our history curriculum over the years.

In Ukraine schoolchildren have two subjects - history of Ukraine and world history, so they move in parallel courses studying both what was going on in Ukraine and in the world at the same period of time.


I'm sure Russians also burned all the books glorifying Staling when Putin recently decided that Hitler should be the guiding figure for his nation and politics as people here led me to believe.
In fact, during Putin's presidency there has been a sharp return (sic! not turn, but REturn) in Russian historical science from openly negative attitude to Stalin's regime (practised in the USSR and Russia in 1986-2000) to more or less positive with the emphasis on the progress the country made during his reign.


Nonsense.

We're living in the 21st century, not the 19th. We use modern tools now.

Perhaps you do, no doubt. Ukraine is still to go a long way to catch up with the West. In this country (as well as in Russia) a textbook is the principal manual for kids to use. Moreover, our kids are too lazy to search for information and arguments themselves. They want it cut and dried and ready for consumption. Besides, in Ukraine (I don't know what it's like in Europe) kids at high schools and most universities don't choose the subjects they are taught - consequently they have to study half of those they consider useless for their future life and carreer. As you realize, they are not interested in them which adds to the reluctance for search I have mentioned.

[Husar]

In fact, during Putin's presidency there has been a sharp return (sic! not turn, but REturn) in Russian historical science from openly negative attitude to Stalin's regime (practised in the USSR and Russia in 1986-2000) to more or less positive with the emphasis on the progress the country made during his reign.

That is what I thought, until I mentioned it in this thread when everybody was calling him the reincarnation of Hitler and people explained to me that he is a Hitler fanboy now. Obviously he is still in puberty and looking for his identity.

That picture reply is just further proof that you are willing to call anyone a Nazi if it serves your agenda!

[Sarmatian]

Maybe we can try to go back on track.

In two days, on the 26th, parliamentary elections will be held in Ukraine.

According to most polls, Poroshenko's and Klitschko's bloc is leading with between 11% and 45% voters supporting them, depending on the poll. The election system is mixed, with 50% of the Rada being chosen from the party lists and 50% under constituencies, in a first past the post system. The threshold is 5%.

After Poroshenko, Radical party of Lyashko has most support, followed closely by Yulia Timoshenko's party. Svoboda will most like surpass the 5% threshold.

Elections won't be held in a some areas in Eastern Ukraine, most notably in parts of Donbas and Luhansk, which prompted Party of Regions to decide to boycott the elections as illegitimate. Some Party of Regions members will appear as independent candidates within an Opposition Bloc's list. Opposition Bloc is supposed to represent all anti-Maidan forces, but it appears they haven't managed to achieve that. Nevertheless, it appears Opposition Bloc will also get seats in the parliament.

Communist party will also be a minor force, they will get between 5% and 13% of support, according to the polls. Yatseniuk's new party, People's Front, will also make it, with around 8% of the votes.

So, Poroshenko and Klitschko will be looking for coalition partners to form the government. Ideally, they will be able to do it without Svoboda, Radical Party and other extremists. Yatseniuk's formation of a new party signals difficulties for cooperation with Timoshenko, and I'm not sure what's his relation with Poroshenko. Poroshenko will most likely have to choose between Yatseniuk and/or Timoshenko, and slightly more extreme groups.

Around 3 million people (not counting Crimea), primarily in southeastern Ukraine, won't be able to vote, which won't help legitimacy of the new parliament.

[Tuuvi]

Perhaps you do, no doubt. Ukraine is still to go a long way to catch up with the West. In this country (as well as in Russia) a textbook is the principal manual for kids to use. Moreover, our kids are too lazy to search for information and arguments themselves. They want it cut and dried and ready for consumption. Besides, in Ukraine (I don't know what it's like in Europe) kids at high schools and most universities don't choose the subjects they are taught - consequently they have to study half of those they consider useless for their future life and carreer. As you realize, they are not interested in them which adds to the reluctance for search I have mentioned.

This is what my education was like, and I live in the US. Textbooks were the core of my history classes and a lot of teachers taught straight out of the book without adding any additional insight or information. I didn't do any sort of textual analysis until college, and then it was comparing Howard Zinn, a popular progressive historian, to Larry Schwiekart, a conservative who is endorsed by Glenn Beck. I think Norway is ahead of the game when it comes to education.

[HoreTore]

Perhaps you do, no doubt. Ukraine is still to go a long way to catch up with the West. In this country (as well as in Russia) a textbook is the principal manual for kids to use. Moreover, our kids are too lazy to search for information and arguments themselves. They want it cut and dried and ready for consumption. Besides, in Ukraine (I don't know what it's like in Europe) kids at high schools and most universities don't choose the subjects they are taught - consequently they have to study half of those they consider useless for their future life and carreer. As you realize, they are not interested in them which adds to the reluctance for search I have mentioned.

None of this matters to the use of textbooks. And your description of students is universal.


This is what my education was like, and I live in the US. Textbooks were the core of my history classes and a lot of teachers taught straight out of the book without adding any additional insight or information. I didn't do any sort of textual analysis until college, and then it was comparing Howard Zinn, a popular progressive historian, to Larry Schwiekart, a conservative who is endorsed by Glenn Beck. I think Norway is ahead of the game when it comes to education.

Norway still uses textbooks, which is one of the reasons I don't work in a Norwegian school anymore. Not that I used the ones we had back then anyway...

Well, except when covering a class in a subject I don't teach(like language). In that case, a textbook is a god-send. At all other times, you can create better lessons yourself.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

That is what I thought, until I mentioned it in this thread when everybody was calling him the reincarnation of Hitler and people explained to me that he is a Hitler fanboy now. Obviously he is still in puberty and looking for his identity.

That picture reply is just further proof that you are willing to call anyone a Nazi if it serves your agenda!

The two are not irreconcilable - one can valourise Stalin as a great Russian tsar and still be a Fascist - stalin wasn't any kind of Commie

[Gilrandir]

That picture reply is just further proof that you are willing to call anyone a Nazi if it serves your agenda!
If you look carefully at the picture you will notice that it is one used to criticize/mock so called "grammar nazis" (in case you don't know those are people who pay excessive attention to the grammar their internet interlocutors use and swoop at them if they make mistakes). Your reaction to the apostrophe issue made me remember it. This was the only reason I posted it - it has no relation whatever to political or ideological views you may have expressed in your posts. To tell the truth, I myself am close to being one (an inevitable consequence of my walk of life). So I may address this picture to myself as well.~;)



Svoboda will most like surpass the 5% threshold.

Hardly.


Some Party of Regions members will appear as independent candidates within an Opposition Bloc's list. Opposition Bloc is supposed to represent all anti-Maidan forces, but it appears they haven't managed to achieve that. Nevertheless, it appears Opposition Bloc will also get seats in the parliament.

There is one more oppositional party on the roster - Strong Ukraine headed by Tygypko. He culled the most moderate (and economy oriented) splinters of the Party of Regions and is likely to make it to the parliament.


Communist party will also be a minor force, they will get between 5% and 13% of support, according to the polls.

It isn't likely to squeeze in. Yet it has a chance to try - whatever Brenus may have claimed.


So, Poroshenko and Klitschko will be looking for coalition partners to form the government. Ideally, they will be able to do it without Svoboda, Radical Party and other extremists.

Radical party is different from Svoboda by the absence of nationalistic ideological platform Svoboda uses. In everything else (hang-the-oligarchs-by-the-balls rhetorics) it is likely to appeal to you.


Yatseniuk's formation of a new party signals difficulties for cooperation with Timoshenko, and I'm not sure what's his relation with Poroshenko.

In fact, it is not a new party - he goes back to a separate party format he had had before 2012 elections, but now he has lured into it some Tymoshenko's most ardent supporters (as they were believed to be) - Turchinov, Avakov and some minor ones.


Poroshenko will most likely have to choose between Yatseniuk and/or Timoshenko, and slightly more extreme groups.

Poroshenko has very strained relations with Tymoshenko which goes back to 2005. At that time she was the prime minister and he was the head of President's administration and they were competing for influence upon the insipid Yushchenko. Tymoshenko eventually won and Poroshenko was evicted from the administration.
In view of this she is not likely to satisfy Poroshenko as the prime minister.

In your general overview of the parties likely to get in you didn't mention Civic Stance headed by Grytsenko and Self-help by the mayor of Lviv Sadovy, both of which have pretty good chances to score 5%.

One more peculiarity of current elections - a comparatively great percentage of journalists and volunteer battalion commanders and soldiers on party rosters.


Around 3 million people (not counting Crimea), primarily in southeastern Ukraine, won't be able to vote, which won't help legitimacy of the new parliament.
According to the estimates of the Central Electoral Board the figure is 4.6 million.


Well, except when covering a class in a subject I don't teach(like language). In that case, a textbook is a god-send. At all other times, you can create better lessons yourself.
In the latter case you are to prepare hand-outs and distribute them - otherwise it is difficult to outline the mandatory minimum for the students to learn. Well, perhaps you have your own recipes for success in a classroom.

[Husar]

If you look carefully at the picture you will notice that it is one used to criticize/mock so called "grammar nazis" (in case you don't know those are people who pay excessive attention to the grammar their internet interlocutors use and swoop at them if they make mistakes). Your reaction to the apostrophe issue made me remember it. This was the only reason I posted it - it has no relation whatever to political or ideological views you may have expressed in your posts. To tell the truth, I myself am close to being one (an inevitable consequence of my walk of life). So I may address this picture to myself as well.~;)

Seriously?
Will you also sing a song to me until I sleep?

The wrong use of plural and genitive forms is rampant nowadays, and mixing grammar up can lead to misunderstandings and misunderstandings can lead to wars and wars can lead to nuclear wars.

So tell me: Do you want to die or can I go on correcting other people's grammar mistakes?

Also, PVC: Hitler said that Stalin was a commie!

[Kadagar_AV]

The wrong use of plural and genitive forms is rampant nowadays, and mixing grammar up can lead to misunderstandings and misunderstandings can lead to wars and wars can lead to nuclear wars.

So tell me: Do you want to die or can I go on correcting other people's grammar mistakes?


For public information: Having spent countless time in Germany and with Germans, I'd just like to inform you all that this is their way of saying - "THIS. IS. SPAAARTA!!!"

[Gilrandir]

Seriously?
Will you also sing a song to me until I sleep?

The wrong use of plural and genitive forms is rampant nowadays, and mixing grammar up can lead to misunderstandings and misunderstandings can lead to wars and wars can lead to nuclear wars.

So tell me: Do you want to die or can I go on correcting other people's grammar mistakes?

Sir, no, sir.
Even if I chose the former would you stop doing the latter? If I did what fun it would be to read my post mortem as under "the cause of death" it would say "confusing plural and genitive". Yet my choice doesn't seem to matter, so you will go on doing whatever you please. But doing this see to it that your toil of correcting mistakes is comprehensive. To me it appears that you are involved in what you have been denouncing so vehemently when we still discussed the situation in Ukraine. You likened protests on Maidan and in the East and criticized America/EU supporting the former and condemning the latter. You are doing pretty much the same: correcting mistakes of those whose stance doesn't coincide with yours and condoning mistakes of those (namely Brenus) who are of the like mind with you. If Hore Tore makes one he should be corrected and taught what is right and wrong, but Brenus is welcome to make as many as he likes as long as is in the same camp. Where the impartiality you boast of?
As for the chain of reasoning you applied it is definitely the fruit of a sleepy mind. If I follow it I must admit that the cause of the war Ukraine is in fact involved in is Yanukovych misspelling the words "association agreement" last November. So my singing a lullaby to you would have been a proper thing to do (seeing the time you posted your message at). Yet I think that it would rather keep you wakeful than lull you as it would sound to you something like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD-E-LDc384
So you should look for others (whose lyrics are more agreeble) to do it.
Summing it up, I would call the main reason of misunderstanding the inabilty to tell whether your interlocutor is serious or is just kidding/trolling you.


Also, PVC: Hitler said that Stalin was a commie!
Whatever they might have said of each other, they had very much in common. Both used the same methods against their rivals, both covered their countries with a network of concentration camps to keep the dissident and the recalcitrant, and look at the posters, parades, sport shows held in both countries at that time - they are clones. The only thing they differed in was the reasons they gave for advocating and propagating the total war: Hitler explained the hard life of his people by the conspiracy and sabotage of other nations and nationalities both within the country and outside it; Stalin explained it by conspiracy and sabotage of capitalists outside it and their accomplices within it. So justifying Stalin in Russian official historical science is in fact justifying Hitler.

[HoreTore]

The two are not irreconcilable - one can valourise Stalin as a great Russian tsar and still be a Fascist - stalin wasn't any kind of Commie

Indeed. Just like Stalin, being a dirty commie, brought out some serious worship of past Russian noblemen(Kutuzov) during WWII.

[Hax]

The wrong use of plural and genitive forms is rampant nowadays, and mixing grammar up can lead to misunderstandings and misunderstandings can lead to wars and wars can lead to nuclear wars.


Cease this prescriptivism, everyone know(')s what he meant!

[Husar]

Cease this prescriptivism, everyone know(')s what he meant!

You forgot "thi(')s", but I dislike you anyway!!!!11111

It should not be wrong to ask for at least some level of precision in language.
Especially in a language as imprecise and simple as English.
What if Hitler's application for art school was rejected because his letter of application contained too much bad grammar?
WHAT THEN??????ßßßß

Even journalists are incredibly sloppy nowadays, how can you trust their research if they can't even be bothered to write correctly?

[Hax]

and simple as English.

lol.

[Husar]

lol.

What's funny about that?
Would you say English is more complicated than German or Russian?

[Kadagar_AV]

What's funny about that?
Would you say English is more complicated than German or Russian?

I'm think your bein a rather extrem hear...

[Husar]

Maybe relying on strict rules of grammar was the problem all along. After all, our flexible, adaptive, and imaginatively imprecise language conquered the world. Twice! And one might say it was done better under the less precise regime.

I am not entirely sure whether you are trying to make a reference to the British Empire or something different here.
Maybe it is because your language is not very precise, though it is more the content rather than the grammar that is not precise here.

Latin grammar is rather precise and it also conquered the world, it influences quite a few languages in Europe until today, German, English, Russian, Spanish etc.
Countless people have used these basic, rigid grammatical structures and now people just spit on this heritage and move back to the language of the dark ages where the barbarians wrote words as they saw fit. If these same people produce tanks with as much precision as they produce sentences, you're not going to win the next war. As a member of the military you should value precision, they even force people to be precise when storing clothes in the military, would you say that prevents a military from winning a lot because it has no relevance to pulling a trigger?

And please note that I'm not arguing about ultimate precision or against typos, I find enough typos in my own posts. I just find things problematic that are rapidly spreading everywhere and can even be found in some journalistic texts, as I noted earlier. The difference between plural and genitive is not a special case, it's about very basic grammar rules. Much like using "then" and "than" correctly is usually not hard, neither are "their", "they're" and "there" hard to distinguish.

[Kadagar_AV]

I am not entirely sure whether you are trying to make a reference to the British Empire or something different here.
Maybe it is because your language is not very precise, though it is more the content rather than the grammar that is not precise here.

Latin grammar is rather precise and it also conquered the world, it influences quite a few languages in Europe until today, German, English, Russian, Spanish etc.
Countless people have used these basic, rigid grammatical structures and now people just spit on this heritage and move back to the language of the dark ages where the barbarians wrote words as they saw fit. If these same people produce tanks with as much precision as they produce sentences, you're not going to win the next war. As a member of the military you should value precision, they even force people to be precise when storing clothes in the military, would you say that prevents a military from winning a lot because it has no relevance to pulling a trigger?

Oh my God, can you BE more German?

I don't say it as a diss, heck, I love Germans and am myself somewhat lightly semi-German as you know...

But holy handgrenades dude, you really come off on the extreme side of things here :sweatdrop:

[Husar]

Oh my God, can you BE more German?

I don't say it as a diss, heck, I love Germans and am myself somewhat lightly semi-German as you know...

But holy handgrenades dude, you really come off on the extreme side of things here :sweatdrop:

I just took some time to edit my post, in the hope that I made myself more clear. I just added the last paragraph.

And as for being extreme, after 124 pages , it is kind of a tradition in this thread and much more fun than arguing about who is more Nazi in Ukraine. YMMV.

[Hax]

What's funny about that?
Would you say English is more complicated than German or Russian?

I don't think that one language is inherently more complicated than the other (except Caucasian languages, they are weird as shit), but that what we consider complex has mostly to do with internal cohesion. So for a speaker of Finnish or Hungarian, the case system in Russian might be pretty easy to learn -- but the stress system might actually be pretty hard.

Additionally, I think English has some weird internal inconsistencies that make it difficult to master. Oh well.

[Kadagar_AV]

I don't think that one language is inherently more complicated than the other (except Caucasian languages, they are weird as shit), but that what we consider complex has mostly to do with internal cohesion. So for a speaker of Finnish or Hungarian, the case system in Russian might be pretty easy to learn -- but the stress system might actually be pretty hard.

Additionally, I think English has some weird internal inconsistencies that make it difficult to master. Oh well.

You never studied linguistics then.

Also, you fail at logic thinking.

Not to mention doing a quick search before you post rubbish.

If all languages are different, there must also be a way to rank them (albeit not an easy task).

Take Archi, what's so incredible about the language is that for any given verb, there could be as many as 1,500,000 separate conjugations.

If you want to learn Silbo Gomero, you have to practise to whistle. A LOT.

Taa, some linguists put the number of consonants alone at 164, and at least 111 of those are click sounds—and that only accounts for one dialect, known as West !Xóõn. They also use four different tones—high, mid, low, and mid-falling—providing even more variation in the ways that sounds and clicks can be combined.

[Gilrandir]

What's funny about that?
Would you say English is more complicated than German or Russian?

I don't think that one language is inherently more complicated than the other (except Caucasian languages, they are weird as shit), but that what we consider complex has mostly to do with internal cohesion. So for a speaker of Finnish or Hungarian, the case system in Russian might be pretty easy to learn -- but the stress system might actually be pretty hard.

Additionally, I think English has some weird internal inconsistencies that make it difficult to master. Oh well.
When talking of how complex a language is one must look systematically at four aspects of it: grammar, phonetics, spelling and vocabulary. What causes difficulties in grammar is usually abundant inflexions in verb conjugation and noun/adjective declension and gender systems or/and complicated system of verb categories (tense, voice, aspect). What causes difficulties in phonetics is the sounds hard to pronounce and intonation patterns hard to imitate. What causes difficulties in spelling is hard to remember characters and (once you did that) inconsistencies between spelling and pronunciation. What causes difficulties in vocabulary is belonging of the languages in question to different language families/groups and conseqently abscence of the words which may seem similar or familiar.
But when you start comparing how hard this or that language is to learn, you must do it in view of the vernacular a student approaches it with. For example, for a Ukrainian it would be easier to learn German than English phonetics and spelling, but harder to learn German than English grammar. I guess, for a Chinese it would be easier to learn Japanese or Korean than German spelling.
The bottomline: it is to difficult to speak of a difficult language as a whole and separate unity. We must consider its aspects from the view point of a learner with a certain native tongue.



Latin grammar is rather precise and it also conquered the world, it influences quite a few languages in Europe until today, German, English, Russian, Spanish etc.

Grammar can't influence other languages/grammars. In is inherent in the language since its birth. It may be inherited from a common "parent" and then seem to be somehow translpanted from one language to another, but this is a delusion.
Sometimes, though, some elements of grammar may be borrowed as a result of a long coexistence of languages (well, rather people who speak them) within the common geographical area. For example, some Balkan languages (namely Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Macedonean, Greek, Albanean and (according to some linguists) Roma) have some common features in grammar acquired in this way: postpositional article (as in Swedish), the loss of the infinitive, formation of numerals from 11 to 19, coinciding forms of genitive and dative, future tense formation (with the help of the auxiliary want) and some others.
Damn, I feel I'm giving a gratuitous lecture.

[Hax]

You never studied linguistics then.

Also, you fail at logic thinking.

Not to mention doing a quick search before you post rubbish.

If all languages are different, there must also be a way to rank them (albeit not an easy task).

Take Archi, what's so incredible about the language is that for any given verb, there could be as many as 1,500,000 separate conjugations.

If you want to learn Silbo Gomero, you have to practise to whistle. A LOT.

Taa, some linguists put the number of consonants alone at 164, and at least 111 of those are click sounds—and that only accounts for one dialect, known as West !Xóõn. They also use four different tones—high, mid, low, and mid-falling—providing even more variation in the ways that sounds and clicks can be combined.

yeah, I've only studied English, French, Classical Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, Levantine Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Estonian as well as comparative semitics.

but you're probably right.

[Husar]

yeah, I've only studied English, French, Classical Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, Levantine Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Estonian as well as comparative semitics.

but you're probably right.

You're such a dhimmi hippie, dude...

[Seamus Fermanagh]

NPR reporting on a Russian "Pass in Review" style parade for new FSB recruits.....held in Crimea.

[Hax]

You're such a dhimmi hippie, dude...

but I'm studying Hebrew too, doesn't that make a Zionist?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

but I'm studying Hebrew too, doesn't that make a Zionist?

Well, it gets you reading backwards....

[Gilrandir]

Well, it gets you reading backwards....
He did it studying Arabic.

[Gilrandir]

Meanwhile back in Ukraine: 61% of ballots counted, six parties are making it to the Verkhovna Rada: People's Front (Yatsenyuk), Poroshenko's bloc (both about 22%), Self-help (about 12%), Oppositional bloc (less than 10%), Radical party (Lyashko) (about 8%) and Tymoshenko's Batkivshchina (about 6%). The figures will change slightly, but the general trend is obvious - neither the Communists (about 4%) nor Svoboda (4.7%) are making it through. Yet about 200 out of total 450 will be majority deputies, so the general outline of the new parliament is yet to be seen in a couple of days.

[Husar]

but I'm studying Hebrew too, doesn't that make a Zionist?

That's just like all the racists who go "but I have a black friend....", with so many languages, adding one as an alibi must have been simple for you. And besides, some parts of Israel are full of hippies anyway.

[Sarmatian]

Meanwhile back in Ukraine: 61% of ballots counted, six parties are making it to the Verkhovna Rada: People's Front (Yatsenyuk), Poroshenko's bloc (both about 22%), Self-help (about 12%), Oppositional bloc (less than 10%), Radical party (Lyashko) (about 8%) and Tymoshenko's Batkivshchina (about 6%). The figures will change slightly, but the general trend is obvious - neither the Communists (about 4%) nor Svoboda (4.7%) are making it through. Yet about 200 out of total 450 will be majority deputies, so the general outline of the new parliament is yet to be seen in a couple of days.

Timoshenko took a pounding. That's nice to see. Svoboda not entering is good news. It would have been better without Lyashko, too, but there were little chances of that happening. I'm skeptical of Self-help, too.

How much did Yatseniuk get?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Timoshenko took a pounding. That's nice to see. Svoboda not entering is good news. It would have been better without Lyashko, too, but there were little chances of that happening. I'm skeptical of Self-help, too.

How much did Yatseniuk get?

More than anyone else last I saw - around 22%.

[Kadagar_AV]

yeah, I've only studied English, French, Classical Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, Levantine Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Estonian as well as comparative semitics.

but you're probably right.

Was the last sentence sarcastic, or did you give me right on the latter part? It's hard to tell in written form.

[Gilrandir]

Timoshenko took a pounding. That's nice to see. Svoboda not entering is good news. It would have been better without Lyashko, too, but there were little chances of that happening. I'm skeptical of Self-help, too.

How much did Yatseniuk get?
At 4.53 in the morning 82.76% of votes were counted: Yatsenyuk 21.99%, Poroshenko 21.63, Self-help 10.99, Oppositional bloc 9.47, Radical party 7.45, Tymoshenko 5.7. At Poroshenko's headquarters they said that Yatsenyuk is likely to keep his job as the prime minister.The vacancy of the Parliament's speaker is rumoured to be given to Lutsenko.
As for someone not entering, it is not true since some majority deputies will represent Svoboda, as well as the Right Sector (Yarosh is one) and perhaps Communists. It is true, though, that they will not represent a significant force neither will they be able to form a faction.

[Hax]

Was the last sentence sarcastic, or did you give me right on the latter part? It's hard to tell in written form.

Draw your own damned conclusions, I'm not a psychologist.

So yes -- I was being sarcastic, but you're not completely wrong. What Gilrandir said is actually totally right, in the sense that language acquisition and language difficulty are mostly tied to context. So when talking about why English is -- or isn't -- "difficult" you have to take into account the background of individuals that study or speak it.

That's why taking a "random" element (like case systems) have very little impact on the actual difficulty of learning a language. Yesterday someone asked me if studying Modern Hebrew is difficult, and I had to say that it depends on what your background is: in my case -- because I studied Arabic and I did some Comparative Semitics -- the simplified grammatical system of Modern Hebrew isn't that hard, but the phonology can be quite hard. Because I know Estonian relatively fluently likewise Finnish shouldn't be too hard -- but that's because of my background.

Danish and Norwegian will be fairly easy for you to learn, but not so much for a native speaker of Russian, Thai, or Wolof.

tl;dr: language difficulty is subjective.

[Beskar]

Though Icelandic is apparently classified as the most difficult in the world by everyones standards.

[Hax]

Though Icelandic is apparently classified as the most difficult in the world by everyones standards.

Due to what? I find Icelandic to be more comprehensible than Mandarin Chinese or Polish.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Though Icelandic is apparently classified as the most difficult in the world by everyones standards.

Drink enough Mead and everyone slurs the same.

[Montmorency]

tl;dr: language difficulty is subjective.

For instance, I know of a (Iberian) Georgian woman who felt that the Spanish vowel system was difficult to master, (while English was less of a problem).

Spanish of course has one of the simplest-possible vowel systems, while English has a notoriously hairy one, especially between dialects. Georgian is about at the level of Spanish in vowel-complexity.

The crux, then, is that Georgian vowels all have English counterparts, while there are two vowels in Spanish that are articulatorily-close to two Georgian ones, but nevertheless subtly different.

However, some languages, whether in grammar or phonology, are just harder to learn across the board, if we're talking about adult learners. One could argue that there will be a lot of overlap here with languages that are poorly documented and/or are embedded in undeveloped/low-infrastructure areas, but in principle it's not so far-fetched that some languages would just be harder to acquire - for adult learners. But even for child learners, I am aware of evidence for cross-linguistic variability in at-least phonologies. It is well-established that (in English) certain consonants and clusters are acquired at an early age (~4) and others at a late age (~7). Child Spanish-learners don't have the hardest consonants of English to deal with, so they acquire adult-like phonology at earlier ages than their English-speaking cohorts, and even when Spanish-English bilingual.

Now, Georgian compared to English infamously has a nearly-intractable consonantal phonology. I can't find any work on Georgian child acquisition, but we could easily expect that Georgian phonology would be more difficult to acquire for children in general, and that adult-like competence would be reached relatively later in childhood.

But, again, with something like phonology one could argue that these are not linguistic difficulties per se but ones of motor coordination and procedural memory. But the notion remains plausible in principle.

[HoreTore]

Though Icelandic is apparently classified as the most difficult in the world by everyones standards.

It's just Norwegian with three times the number of letters....

[Hax]

For instance, I know of a (Iberian) Georgian woman who felt that the Spanish vowel system was difficult to master, (while English was less of a problem).

Spanish of course has one of the simplest-possible vowel systems, while English has a notoriously hairy one, especially between dialects. Georgian is about at the level of Spanish in vowel-complexity.

The crux, then, is that Georgian vowels all have English counterparts, while there are two vowels in Spanish that are articulatorily-close to two Georgian ones, but nevertheless subtly different.

However, some languages, whether in grammar or phonology, are just harder to learn across the board, if we're talking about adult learners. One could argue that there will be a lot of overlap here with languages that are poorly documented and/or are embedded in undeveloped/low-infrastructure areas, but in principle it's not so far-fetched that some languages would just be harder to acquire - for adult learners. But even for child learners, I am aware of evidence for cross-linguistic variability in at-least phonologies. It is well-established that (in English) certain consonants and clusters are acquired at an early age (~4) and others at a late age (~7). Child Spanish-learners don't have the hardest consonants of English to deal with, so they acquire adult-like phonology at earlier ages than their English-speaking cohorts, and even when Spanish-English bilingual.

Now, Georgian compared to English infamously has a nearly-intractable consonantal phonology. I can't find any work on Georgian child acquisition, but we could easily expect that Georgian phonology would be more difficult to acquire for children in general, and that adult-like competence would be reached relatively later in childhood.

But, again, with something like phonology one could argue that these are not linguistic difficulties per se but ones of motor coordination and procedural memory. But the notion remains plausible in principle.

Right -- language acquisition is not my area of expertise at all (I focus on historical linguistics, in particular dialectology and language change), but there's definitely merit in what you said. However, I think that it's still mostly got to do with the disparity between certain phonemes. As I said though, it's not my area at all, and I have quite some problems with Polish phonology -- simply because the languages I know don't possess certain sounds with a phonological value that don't exist in any other languages I know. Such is life.

[Montmorency]

What's the dominant trend with the study of creole development these days? Is it more toward the Substratist/Settler Principle end, or toward the Dialectologist/Founder Principle End? I know the mono-creole hypotheses have basically been discarded.

How does the dominant view deal with creoles that may have no genetic history (i.e. Nicaraguan Sign Language)?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Part of it is developmental. The communication sciences and disorders folks point to both the sounds you learn to form early on in life being a limiting factor on your ability to create sounds from different language groups (e.g. the Kalihari 'click' sound characteristic of the desert nomads) as well as your ear becoming "enculturated" to a certain class of sounds -- hence the difficulty for many Westerners of distinguishing the 5 tones associated with each Chinese character.

Is it impossible to acquire languages from these "opposing" sound memes? Of course, not. Is it difficult for most? Absolutely.

[Gilrandir]

It's just Norwegian with three times the number of letters....
As far as I know, it is Norwegian that "got stagnated" due to the insular development (or rather non-development) for a thousand years or so.
But Norwegian itself has two forms, so it complicates the whole story of interrelation of these languages.
Btw, the same stagnating process happened to Ukrainian in comparison to Russian, though with no geographical insulation responsible for it.



hence the difficulty for many Westerners of distinguishing the 5 tones associated with each Chinese character.

I thought it was four.

[HoreTore]

But Norwegian itself has two forms, so it complicates the whole story of interrelation of these languages.

Not really.

Norwegian is the one that has changed by the way, icelandic is much closer to old Norse than modern Norwegian is.

[a completely inoffensive name]

It is October 29, can someone tell me if Putin is still a fascist?

[Hax]

I have it on good authority that he is.

[Brenus]

"It is October 29, can someone tell me if Putin is still a fascist?" Less and less it appears, as winter is coming...:creep:

[Sarmatian]

It appears that Ukrainian crisis is over, since we moved to discussion about language.

[Viking]

Though Icelandic is apparently classified as the most difficult in the world by everyones standards.

I don't think you have to travel much further than to Lithuania in order to find a language that is significantly more grammatically complex than Icelandic. Lithuanian is one of the more conservative Indo-European languages that are still alive.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

It appears that Ukrainian crisis is over, since we moved to discussion about language.

Crisis over. Putin ahead on all cards do to early round knockdown.

[Montmorency]

I don't think you have to travel much further than to Lithuania in order to find a language that is significantly more grammatically complex than Icelandic.

More complex in what sense? Not sure "global" complexity is a valid measure for grammars.

[HoreTore]

It appears that Ukrainian crisis is over, since we moved to discussion about language.

Have we discussed abortion or gun rights in this thread yet?

[Sarmatian]

Crisis over. Putin ahead on all cards do to early round knockdown.

It would appear that he got what he wanted, but be that as it may, this is far from over.

1) Ukraine can't start recovering while in limbo like this. It needs to be legally settled (what kind of autonomy would Donbas and Luhansk region get), which depends heavily on...
2)... what kind of government will Ukraine get and what will be its strategy
3)Maybe most important -Ukrainian gas bill.

Europe gets almost 40% of the natural gas from Russia and roughly half of that goes through Ukraine. Ukraine and the rest of Europe need that gas and Ukraine is not in the situation to pay the gas bill. 1 bn it got from MMF was supposed to go paying some of the debt, but it appears Ukraine didn't pay any of the cca. 5.5 bn so far.

Ukraine is on the verge of financial catastrophe and it doesn't seem alike anyone is taking that seriously. EU will probably arm wrestle Ukraine into some kind of a deal with Russia for gas, but will it be ready to foot the entire bill AND provide money to keep Ukraine solvent?

It's high time Russia and the west stopped this tug of war and properly helped Ukraine, because if the :daisy: hits the fan, what was happening in Ukraine will seem like a children squabble compared to what's going to happen.

[Viking]

More complex in what sense? Not sure "global" complexity is a valid measure for grammars.

More grammatical tenses mean more possible inflections per word.

Looking at written language only, complexity should be measurable by the size of a maximum compressed computer file from which it is possible to recreate most of the language as used on a daily basis.

Another way to look at it is how many grammatical considerations that have to be made during the creation of an average sentence (this way, having no or few compound words will not increase complexity).

Example: the English sentence "I am in Farawayistan" contains ~ 3 main grammatical considerations: the verb to be has to be inflected according to person and number ('am' in this case) and the pronoun could take the objective case, and it is also inflected in person and number (I rather than he or we) (the correct preposition also has to be chosen [could have been on]).

In Norwegian, verbs are not inflected according to person or number, and there should be no extra grammatical considerations not found in English, so for this sentence, English is more complex.


It's high time Russia and the west stopped this tug of war and properly helped Ukraine, because if the :daisy: hits the fan, what was happening in Ukraine will seem like a children squabble compared to what's going to happen.

Putin's Russia helping anyone out of sheer goodwill? Haha!

[Montmorency]

More grammatical tenses mean more possible inflections per word.

Tense system, as part of inflection, is only one component of the grammar.


Looking at written language only, complexity should be measurable by the size of a maximum compressed computer file from which it is possible to recreate most of the language as used on a daily basis.


Seems a bit crude. What about the size of the lexicon, differing discourse/pragmatic delineations, etc.



Example: the English sentence "I am in Farawayistan" contains ~ 3 main grammatical considerations: the verb to be has to be inflected according to person and number ('am' in this case) and the pronoun could take the objective case, and it is also inflected in person and number (I rather than he or we) (the correct preposition also has to be chosen [could have been on]).

You're focusing on the inflection again, and the last consideration is a semantic one - the lexical properties of the preposition, for instance - and not distinctly a grammatical one.

[Sarmatian]

Putin's Russia helping anyone out of sheer goodwill? Haha!

Rarely there are examples of anyone helping anyone out of sheer goodwill, despite western propaganda suggesting otherwise.

However, it is their common interest NOT to have one of the largest European countries become a failed state.

[Viking]

Tense system, as part of inflection, is only one component of the grammar.

It's usually a very big part of it (and seems to be a good measure of how complex the rest of the grammar will be). But of course, add in other grammatical features as they appear.


Seems a bit crude. What about the size of the lexicon, differing discourse/pragmatic delineations, etc.

Size of vocabulary being included does not strike me as problematic; less words should typically mean easier usage of the language.


and the last consideration is a semantic one - the lexical properties of the preposition, for instance - and not distinctly a grammatical one.

Hence the parenthesis. But such things clearly add to complexity.


Rarely there are examples of anyone helping anyone out of sheer goodwill, despite western propaganda suggesting otherwise.

However, it is their common interest NOT to have one of the largest European countries become a failed state.

Rarely goodwill alone; but in terms cynicism, if only de facto (cf. differing public opinions in the countries), I think Putin is in a different league compared to most of the West (e.g. Putin would never have bothered to help the Yezidis).

Also, why would a failed Ukrainian state not be in Putin's interest? It seems to be exactly what he is trying to accomplish.

[Montmorency]

Size of vocabulary being included does not strike me as problematic; less words should typically mean easier usage of the language.

What about the well-known diachronic phenomenon of decreasing complexity of inflection-sytem with more contact/larger speaker-base?

By the measure you propose here, English would likely be taken as the most structurally-complex language in the world. Yet that seems like a rather dubious stance to take.

At the very best, such a technique could only be used to supplement some independent measure of global complexity - but none such exist.

[Viking]

What about the well-known diachronic phenomenon of decreasing complexity of inflection-sytem with more contact/larger speaker-base?

Yes, what about it?


By the measure you propose here, English would likely be taken as the most structurally-complex language in the world.

How?

[Gilrandir]

Norwegian is the one that has changed by the way, icelandic is much closer to old Norse than modern Norwegian is.
That's what I said.

Lithuanian is one of the more conservative Indo-European languages that are still alive.
I don't know of other aspects of it but its phonetics is considered to be the closest to Indo-European protolanguage reconstructed in historic linguistics (and thus the least changed among the living languages).




1) Ukraine can't start recovering while in limbo like this. It needs to be legally settled (what kind of autonomy would Donbas and Luhansk region get), which depends heavily on...
2)... what kind of government will Ukraine get and what will be its strategy

The latter is a wrong assumption. The will of one side can't turn the trick. DPR and LPR are bent on complete independence and joining Russia and pushing the limits of the territory they control at least to the administrative boundaries of corresponding regions. They don't want to hear of any autonomy. So the situation is a stalemate that will likely to drag on the way it does in Transdniestria. Unless the life conditions of people in them get so dire (pensions and state salaries are not paid there, as well as heating, electricity and water supply payments are still doubtful) that they will start to press the separatists (if it is possible for an unarmed person to press an armed one) to enter into negotiations with Ukraine and be ready for compromises.



However, it is their common interest NOT to have one of the largest European countries become a failed state.
"Failed state" is the most frequent generalization about Ukraine made in Russian media starting from winter. And we know who controls it.


What about the well-known diachronic phenomenon of decreasing complexity of inflection-sytem with more contact/larger speaker-base?

It is not proved by lingustic facts. Some languages (Uralic, Turkic) keep their agglutinative structure no matter how much wider their speaker-base has increased for a couple of thousand years, German has lost no inflections during the same time and Chinese has grown some inflections for the last several hundred years which may point to the opposite trend of development. So each language moves its unique way and there is no call to speak of the universal trend for all of them.

[Kagemusha]

Pfffttt.. Indoeuropeans and their silly languages...~;p

14712

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Pfffttt.. Indoeuropeans and their silly languages...~;p

14712

Why are Finns so cheap that they won't spend enough to get a full complement of consonants?

[Montmorency]

It is not proved by lingustic facts. Some languages (Uralic, Turkic) keep their agglutinative structure no matter how much wider their speaker-base has increased for a couple of thousand years, German has lost no inflections during the same time and Chinese has grown some inflections for the last several hundred years which may point to the opposite trend of development. So each language moves its unique way and there is no call to speak of the universal trend for all of them.

Basically incorrect, though I could have been clearer. But first of all:

Areal commonalities and mass literacy mitigate against change. You speak of very broad characteristics, which are also less open to change. Finally, you make the mistake of taking particular features as broadly representative of all others in terms of change.

Anyway, the point I was making refers to the indisputable evidence for the fact that isolated languages with few speakers, most famously the ancestral IndoEuropean language (but also including many indigenous languages of the Americas and Australasia), have highly-ornamented grammars and phonologies that very rapidly begin to simplify once the environment of use becomes less parochial. There is simply a trend toward increasing efficiency. This is not a universal trend inherent to language per se, but one that comes quite naturally from human social behavior and cognitive organization. You can also think of it as a S-shaped curve, in that modern languages are fairly stable in their complexity (apart from the mitigating factors for change that I mentioned), purely because they have become so much less complex than their ancestors - there is not as much room to easily simplify anymore.


Viking, I think you're talking about something completely different. I'm talking about the complexity of form, while I think you might be on about complexity of function. Please clarify.

[Kagemusha]

Why are Finns so cheap that they won't spend enough to get a full complement of consonants?

Cheap with consonants....Hmmpffhhh....Why be cheap with consonants when you can be cheap with full words...?!

14713

[HoreTore]

Everyone knows there isn't such a thing as a Finnish language, it's just a bunch of letters thrown together for the hell of it.

Also, the turn this thread has taken reminds me of why I chose to study mathematics instead of language...

[Kagemusha]

Everyone knows there isn't such a thing as a Finnish language, it's just a bunch of letters thrown together for the hell of it.

Also, the turn this thread has taken reminds me of why I chose to study mathematics instead of language...

14714:grin2:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Cheap with consonants....Hmmpffhhh....Why be cheap with consonants when you can be cheap with full words...?!

14713

I still chuckle at Weber and Flint's description of "traditional Finnish terms for surrender..."

They said the traditional terms were 'Haakke pallee!'

Apparently Sissu isn't heavy into turning the other cheek.

[Viking]

Viking, I think you're talking about something completely different. I'm talking about the complexity of form, while I think you might be on about complexity of function. Please clarify.

What do you mean by 'complexity of form'?

[Kagemusha]

I still chuckle at Weber and Flint's description of "traditional Finnish terms for surrender..."

They said the traditional terms were 'Haakke pallee!'

Apparently Sissu isn't heavy into turning the other cheek.

My bet is that who ever sneaky Finn Weber and Flint have used as source have fooled those poor dictionaries.:rolleyes:

"Hakkaa päälle!" Is a Finnish war cry and literally means hit / beat on top, "käydä päälle"= attack/ assault (move over something/someone) is used from bystander point of view. For example in spoken language when someone describes an individual attacking another one: "Timo kävi Samin päälle", "Timo assaulted Sami". Though "Käydä päälle" is simply the act of engaging in assault against another person. When the outcome has been revealed a different phrase is used, which circles as to the phrase you mentioned: " Timo hakkasi Samin", "Timo battered Sami". So without getting more confusing. It could be said that as Finnish is a polite language. Accurate description for "Hakkaa päälle! ", would be encouraging oneself and others to engage other group of persons to engage violently against a second party, with clear intention of carrying out their purpose with no doubt concerning the outcome.

It has been suggested that " Hakkaa Päälle" war cry gave name to Finnish 17th century cavalry, which fought under Swedish flags during 30 years war. They were called Hakkapeliitta (s).

But in any case the phrase has nothing to do with surrendering..~;).. The correct term for surrender is "antautua", which spring from the base word "antaa","to give", from which a similar chart could be drawn, like i presented in my first post concerning this topic.:mellow:

[Gilrandir]

Also, the turn this thread has taken reminds me of why I chose to study mathematics instead of language...
:dizzy2: I thought it was history. Wait, you are/were TEACHING history, but STUDYING mathematics. Now it makes a perfect sense.



Anyway, the point I was making refers to the indisputable evidence for the fact that isolated languages with few speakers, most famously the ancestral IndoEuropean language (but also including many indigenous languages of the Americas and Australasia), have highly-ornamented grammars and phonologies that very rapidly begin to simplify once the environment of use becomes less parochial.

How do you know that Indo-European had few speakers? Their number must have been pretty large for them to have dispersed so far and wide from Portugal to India.
I realize that it was a gradual process yet they must have numbered some hundred thousands.


There is simply a trend toward increasing efficiency. This is not a universal trend inherent to language per se, but one that comes quite naturally from human social behavior and cognitive organization.

Which makes no sense if we think of a language from this perspective: why a small number of people should need such a complex language to communicate in the environment of close social ties and similar cognitive organization? I would say that there is a general tendency of effort-saving at work in communities of all sizes: humans tend to take no more effort than it is absolutely neccessary to express something. It was especially true of the times when the love of a language didn't prompt people to strive for excessive imbellishment of it not justified by sheer utility.


modern languages are fairly stable in their complexity (apart from the mitigating factors for change that I mentioned), purely because they have become so much less complex than their ancestors - there is not as much room to easily simplify anymore.

How do you know that modern languages are stable and they will not simplify in future? You are making assumptions seeing the synchronic state of a language here and now. Diachronically they may be changing but we can't detect it being ourselves within the same period of time. Just like we can judge of languages changing/stagnating only with a hindsight.

[HoreTore]

:dizzy2: I thought it was history. Wait, you are/were TEACHING history, but STUDYING mathematics. Now it makes a perfect sense.

I have studied and I am teaching natural science and social science. I have studied, but are not currently teaching, mathematics.

Anyway, the teacher education in Norway is currently organized so that you choose either Norwegian or mathematics as your first subject. And now I'm very aware of why I chose what I did....

[Gilrandir]

My bet is that who ever sneaky Finn Weber and Flint have used as source have fooled those poor dictionaries.:rolleyes:

Indo-Europeans cheated indigenes by trading their lands and reaches for beads and handmirrors and the indigenes repaid them in kind by confusing their knowledge of local vernaculars. Seems fair enough.

[Gilrandir]

Anyway, the teacher education in Norway is currently organized so that you choose either Norwegian or mathematics as your first subject. And now I'm very aware of why I chose what I did....
As Rutherford once said, sciences can be of two types: physics and stamp collecting. You definitely opted for the former while others (me including) for the latter.:laugh4:

[Gilrandir]

If no one minds, some information on Ukraine. A new interception has been made public (by the Russian facebook group "Cargo 200 from Ukraine to Russia"):
http://podrobnosti.ua/accidents/2014/10/29/1000430.html
In it a contracted regular of the Russian army (200 motorized rifle brigade of the Northern navy) is talking to his friend, a military retiree. The former has just returned from Ukraine where he had got in the humanitarian convoy. As he claims the white trucks transported both conscripts and contracted soldiers, but after heavy casualties which he estimates at 2000 the conscripts were withdrawn and replaced by mercenaries (psychos in the military slang). He himself says to have been at the hospital for quite a time after being wounded.

[Gilrandir]

However, it is their common interest NOT to have one of the largest European countries become a failed state.
On a second thought "a failed state" is a flawed concept. A number of states may have been termed that way at different difficult periods of their history: Kievan Rus in the late 14th century, Serbia in 1389, France in the 1420s, Poland in 1795, Austria in 1938, Baltic states in 1939, Byzantine empire in 1204, Russia in 1612, Russian empire in 1917, Ukraine in 1918-19.... Yet most of them went through vicissitudes and existed after it for some time or do now.

[Montmorency]

:dizzy2: I thought it was history. Wait, you are/were TEACHING history, but STUDYING mathematics. Now it makes a perfect sense.


How do you know that Indo-European had few speakers? Their number must have been pretty large for them to have dispersed so far and wide from Portugal to India.
I realize that it was a gradual process yet they must have numbered some hundred thousands.

Which makes no sense if we think of a language from this perspective: why a small number of people should need such a complex language to communicate in the environment of close social ties and similar cognitive organization? I would say that there is a general tendency of effort-saving at work in communities of all sizes: humans tend to take no more effort than it is absolutely neccessary to express something. It was especially true of the times when the love of a language didn't prompt people to strive for excessive imbellishment of it not justified by sheer utility.

How do you know that modern languages are stable and they will not simplify in future? You are making assumptions seeing the synchronic state of a language here and now. Diachronically they may be changing but we can't detect it being ourselves within the same period of time. Just like we can judge of languages changing/stagnating only with a hindsight.

For IndoEuropeans, by the time of their wide-ranging migrations 7-6,000 years ago their language had likely already been undergoing the process of simplification since the beginning of the Neolithic. Prior to the migrations, we can imagine that the overall population size of their culture was no more than 100,000 at any point, perhaps much less.

It makes sense if you consider early languages to have come about through a hodge-podge of ad-hoc additions and accommodations based on semantic/cognitive ways of organizing the world for those pre-historic humans. To work an answer to Viking into this: consider that complexity of form and complexity of function correlate more-or-less inversely. In the modern world, say in the modern-English-speaking urban environment, world-knowledge and communicative requirements are orders of magnitude higher than for prehistoric societies. In other words: high complexity function, low complexity form. Meanwhile, the "kludgeocracy" of form-complex (i.e. the grammar and phonology in themselves, independent of any specific usage) pre-historic language would have served a socially-integrative role as well as being basically adequate for communication of low-complexity knowledge and information. Consider the difference between a modern person having to switch between social registers and dialects depending on context, trying to explain to their boss that their cousin was hurt in a car-crash and they have to visit them in the hospital because of insurance issues, and they won't be able to come to work today but can work overtime next week to make up for it, versus a tribal leader explaining to the children over the campfire how man was created from the earth by star-beings and yadda-yadda. The point is, in the societies I'm talking about there are relatively-few negative consequences to the high cost of complex form - because the functional usage of the form is comparatively simple compared to much of the modern world.

As for the future, I'm sure language will have a very different appearance. It will probably simplify, for sure, once governments realize that most syntax - even now - is not strictly necessary for communication, and will enforce policy to strip it down to utilitarian standards. This will also interact with the widespread direct modification of the human language faculty through genetic and neurophysiological manipulation in as-of-yet unknown ways.

[Viking]

consider that complexity of form and complexity of function correlate more-or-less inversely. In the modern world, say in the modern-English-speaking urban environment, world-knowledge and communicative requirements are orders of magnitude higher than for prehistoric societies. In other words: high complexity function, low complexity form. Meanwhile, the "kludgeocracy" of form-complex (i.e. the grammar and phonology in themselves, independent of any specific usage) pre-historic language would have served a socially-integrative role as well as being basically adequate for communication of low-complexity knowledge and information. Consider the difference between a modern person having to switch between social registers and dialects depending on context, trying to explain to their boss that their cousin was hurt in a car-crash and they have to visit them in the hospital because of insurance issues, and they won't be able to come to work today but can work overtime next week to make up for it, versus a tribal leader explaining to the children over the campfire how man was created from the earth by star-beings and yadda-yadda. The point is, in the societies I'm talking about there are relatively-few negative consequences to the high cost of complex form - because the functional usage of the form is comparatively simple compared to much of the modern world.

As for the future, I'm sure language will have a very different appearance. It will probably simplify, for sure, once governments realize that most syntax - even now - is not strictly necessary for communication, and will enforce policy to strip it down to utilitarian standards. This will also interact with the widespread direct modification of the human language faculty through genetic and neurophysiological manipulation in as-of-yet unknown ways.

This sounds more like something that is intrinsic to language itself rather than specific languages. It should translate effortlessly between different languages; just like you should be able to use any alphabet to write any language.

It could make specific cultures and specific social interaction more complex, but not specific languages.

[Kagemusha]

For IndoEuropeans, by the time of their wide-ranging migrations 7-6,000 years ago their language had likely already been undergoing the process of simplification since the beginning of the Neolithic. Prior to the migrations, we can imagine that the overall population size of their culture was no more than 100,000 at any point, perhaps much less.

It makes sense if you consider early languages to have come about through a hodge-podge of ad-hoc additions and accommodations based on semantic/cognitive ways of organizing the world for those pre-historic humans. To work an answer to Viking into this: consider that complexity of form and complexity of function correlate more-or-less inversely. In the modern world, say in the modern-English-speaking urban environment, world-knowledge and communicative requirements are orders of magnitude higher than for prehistoric societies. In other words: high complexity function, low complexity form. Meanwhile, the "kludgeocracy" of form-complex (i.e. the grammar and phonology in themselves, independent of any specific usage) pre-historic language would have served a socially-integrative role as well as being basically adequate for communication of low-complexity knowledge and information. Consider the difference between a modern person having to switch between social registers and dialects depending on context, trying to explain to their boss that their cousin was hurt in a car-crash and they have to visit them in the hospital because of insurance issues, and they won't be able to come to work today but can work overtime next week to make up for it, versus a tribal leader explaining to the children over the campfire how man was created from the earth by star-beings and yadda-yadda. The point is, in the societies I'm talking about there are relatively-few negative consequences to the high cost of complex form - because the functional usage of the form is comparatively simple compared to much of the modern world.

As for the future, I'm sure language will have a very different appearance. It will probably simplify, for sure, once governments realize that most syntax - even now - is not strictly necessary for communication, and will enforce policy to strip it down to utilitarian standards. This will also interact with the widespread direct modification of the human language faculty through genetic and neurophysiological manipulation in as-of-yet unknown ways.

Your entire hypothesis is based on flawed concept. There is no such thing as base Indo- European population. Language is about technology and culture not about genetics. Only changes in European genome are in elite and that does not have any real impact in genetic base of population. So your entire concept is flawed.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Your entire hypothesis is based on flawed concept. There is no such thing as base Indo- European population. Language is about technology and culture not about genetics. Only changes in European genome are in elite and that does not have any real impact in genetic base of population. So your entire concept is flawed.

You are not allowed to say that until AFTER he publishes this theory and receives his doctorate. THEN you critique him and give him a shot at tenure writing articles to disprove your critique...

[Montmorency]

It could make specific cultures and specific social interaction more complex, but not specific languages.

Hence the distinction between form and function. A very simple way of putting it is that if the energy-cost and time-cost of acquiring and using some formal feature is higher than for some other feature or variant of it, and that alternative has the same or larger functional domain or contribution to communication, then there is evolutionary pressure to exchange the former for the latter. However, change is mostly generated in children rather than adults, so without heavy language contact or language shift, this pressure may-well not be realized. Indeed, without extensive contact between peoples, there is also much less complexity to the ideas that need to be or can be gotten across.

An example of the evolutionary pressures in action would be in the case of the organization of morphosyntax around grammatical relations of "agent-patient", realized in an opposition between active and middle voice, but not necessarily passive. The ancestral Indo-Europeans had no grammatical framework for expressing passivized relations. Adopting the passive voice in a framework of "subject-object" with nominative syntax allowed for greater flexibility in describing the relations of nouns to each other. Meanwhile, the middle voice would be an unnecessary flourish - agent-patient relations can be put across without it just as well. In other words, to get an evolutionary advantage develop the passive and drop the middle. Now as we can see, the vast majority of world languages have the passive voice, but lack the middle voice.

But don't get me wrong - I love Classical Latin and Greek as much you all.



Kag, I don't follow your comment at all.

[HoreTore]

As Rutherford once said, sciences can be of two types: physics and stamp collecting. You definitely opted for the former while others (me including) for the latter.:laugh4:

Chemistry is the science of how to make stuff go boom.
Physics is the science of the boom itself.

You really don't need any more in life.

[Viking]

Hence the distinction between form and function. A very simple way of putting it is that if the energy-cost and time-cost of acquiring and using some formal feature is higher than for some other feature or variant of it, and that alternative has the same or larger functional domain or contribution to communication, then there is evolutionary pressure to exchange the former for the latter. However, change is mostly generated in children rather than adults, so without heavy language contact or language shift, this pressure may-well not be realized. Indeed, without extensive contact between peoples, there is also much less complexity to the ideas that need to be or can be gotten across.

An example of the evolutionary pressures in action would be in the case of the organization of morphosyntax around grammatical relations of "agent-patient", realized in an opposition between active and middle voice, but not necessarily passive. The ancestral Indo-Europeans had no grammatical framework for expressing passivized relations. Adopting the passive voice in a framework of "subject-object" with nominative syntax allowed for greater flexibility in describing the relations of nouns to each other. Meanwhile, the middle voice would be an unnecessary flourish - agent-patient relations can be put across without it just as well. In other words, to get an evolutionary advantage develop the passive and drop the middle. Now as we can see, the vast majority of world languages have the passive voice, but lack the middle voice.

But don't get me wrong - I love Classical Latin and Greek as much you all.

I still don't see how my specific method would yield English as one of the more complex languages.

[Montmorency]

Looking at written language only, complexity should be measurable by the size of a maximum compressed computer file from which it is possible to recreate most of the language as used on a daily basis.

1. What do you mean by "recreate"?

2. This is biased towards languages that use writing systems.

3. The sheer variety of use of written English, due to the number of disparate users in disparate contexts where English may be favored or preferred, as well as historical advantages accrued in style and lexicon in part because of literacy...


It might tell us something about the functional complexity of language usage, but it would give precisely no information in terms of form-complexity..

[Viking]

1. What do you mean by "recreate"?

From information contained by the file alone, it should be possible to recreate "every" sentence in the language with a 100% linguistic accuracy (herein correct inflection and sentence structure). No culture notes are included; i.e. 'orca' refers to the animal exclusively, not whether the culture sees it as holy, cute or scary.


2. This is biased towards languages that use writing systems.

The languages can be represented with the IPA, or something similar. It could be biased towards languages that have longer words, unless this is accounted for (although one could just as well argue that such languages actually gain complexity, or at least complicatedness, from such a feature).


3. The sheer variety of use of written English, due to the number of disparate users in disparate contexts where English may be favored or preferred, as well as historical advantages accrued in style and lexicon in part because of literacy...


Ignoring that you used the word written, it would be the most relevant to limit the sampling to any relatively coherent subunit of the language, such as specific dialects or written standards.

[Montmorency]

Ignoring that you used the word written

Yet you said:


Looking at written language only'


From information contained by the file alone, it should be possible to recreate "every" sentence in the language with a 100% linguistic accuracy (herein correct inflection and sentence structure). No culture notes are included; i.e. 'orca' refers to the animal exclusively, not whether the culture sees it as holy, cute or scary.

But again, how does this represent grammatical complexity? What's to say it's not orthogonal to the issue entirely? Why exactly should it be presupposed that there will be any consistent relationship between complexity as independently measured and the size of such files? Also, depending on how you code the software to interpret whatever the input is, you could arbitrarily either create huge discrepancies between languages or bring them all to within a few bytes of each other.

I think that, at best, your proposal only indicates the limits of understanding. At worst, it provides a self-confirming yet logically-invalid measure that has no empirical relationship to what it purports to assess.

[Viking]

Yet you said:


Yes, in order to extend that particular argument, as it does not only pertain to written language.



But again, how does this represent grammatical complexity? What's to say it's not orthogonal to the issue entirely? Why exactly should it be presupposed that there will be any consistent relationship between complexity as independently measured and the size of such files? Also, depending on how you code the software to interpret whatever the input is, you could arbitrarily either create huge discrepancies between languages or bring them all to within a few bytes of each other.

The compression is presumed idealised; which would require an adaptive compression algorithm that operates differently from language to language.

If we do not record words but only rules; i.e. the skeleton of the language, I do not see what else extra file size should come from if not complexity.

A language with k+1 grammatical classes is more complex than one with k grammatical classes, and the information about this extra class must necessarily take more space.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

This has now become Chomsky v Saussure with Korzibinski as referee....

Thread is tired and needs a nap

[Gilrandir]

Chemistry is the science of how to make stuff go boom.
Physics is the science of the boom itself.

You really don't need any more in life.
Yet you need other sciences to earn you a living in this life.

[Gilrandir]

Consider the difference between a modern person having to switch between social registers and dialects depending on context, trying to explain to their boss that their cousin was hurt in a car-crash and they have to visit them in the hospital because of insurance issues, and they won't be able to come to work today but can work overtime next week to make up for it, versus a tribal leader explaining to the children over the campfire how man was created from the earth by star-beings and yadda-yadda.
Those Indo-Europeans of today go on insulting alien tribes by considering them primitive creatures with a primitive mindset and primitive problems to deal with. Indo-European insurance nazis are coming!

[Beskar]

The thread has gone terribly off-topic for a while so it is taking a nap. When any big news come along, feel free to make a new topic.