Linguistics discussion (split from new factions thread)

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Originally Posted by Foot

And what language would you like us to use? Dacian and Thracian is unknown beyond a few non-military terms. Greek is the closest we can get, unfortunately.

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Actually there probably are enough Dacian and Thracian words to name units with simple names like "horse men" "sword men" and so on, but the real problem is a total lack of knowledge of how you put these words together grammatically. Not a single coherent sentence of Dacian survives and it's on a dead branch of Indo-European, with no descedants like Celtic or Germanic to help with reconstruction. That said, the EB team did manage to make some Lusitanian names based on three inscriptions about sheep and pigs... ~;)

Edit by bovi: This is in response to this post by Foot in the new factions thread, concerning another somewhat off-topic discussion about the language the Getai speak and which units they have.

And bulls. Let's not forget bulls.

Couldn't help yourself for long could you?

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Originally Posted by Elmetiacos

Actually there probably are enough Dacian and Thracian words to name units with simple names like "horse men" "sword men" and so on, but the real problem is a total lack of knowledge of how you put these words together grammatically. Not a single coherent sentence of Dacian survives and it's on a dead branch of Indo-European, with no descedants like Celtic or Germanic to help with reconstruction. That said, the EB team did manage to make some Lusitanian names based on three inscriptions about sheep and pigs... ~;)

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And an entire germanic voicemod and name list based on ... nothing at all. Both the germanic and lusitanian language stuff were based on reconstructions from languages we do know about and were related. We cannot do the same for the Thracian/Dacian as, as you said, it is a dead branch of indo-european.

Foot

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Originally Posted by Foot

And an entire germanic voicemod and name list based on ... nothing at all. Both the germanic and lusitanian language stuff were based on reconstructions from languages we do know about and were related. We cannot do the same for the Thracian/Dacian as, as you said, it is a dead branch of indo-european.

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Germanic is an order of magnitude easier to reconstruct because we have all its descendants; there may not be significant epigraphic remains as there are for Gaulish and Celtiberian, but it's a whole lot more than 'nothing'. Even the few words of Lusitanian will get linguists talking - the word Porcom, for instance, tells us that Lusitanian isn't Celtic, and belongs to the Centum rather than the Satem branch of Indo-European. Although there's more Daco-Thracian vocabulary than Lusitanian, we're even more in the dark about the grammar... I'd hazard a guess that it suffixed the definite article, but I could be talking crap there.

I'm no linguist, so there's probably a sensible answer to this, but how do you make such large assumptions about a language based on one word? I mean, English is chock-full of Latin words, but we're no Latin language. So could you enlighten me?

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Originally Posted by lobf

I'm no linguist, so there's probably a sensible answer to this, but how do you make such large assumptions about a language based on one word? I mean, English is chock-full of Latin words, but we're no Latin language. So could you enlighten me?

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It's actually only assumptions about the word, but based on the fact that it would extremely weird for people to borrow someone else's word for something as familiar as a pig. Without wanting to take this thread too far in another direction, Celtic lost the proto-Indo-European P, so to take two modern examples Welsh llawr is cognate with English floor and Irish lán is cognate with French plein. That doesn't mean there are no Ps in Celtic, only that an original PIE P wouldn't be there. PORCOM obviously has one. All languages lost PIE k' but the Centum (Italic, Celtic, Germanic) turned it into a K sound while the Satem (Slavonic, Persian, Indic) turned it into an S sound. So because PIE *pork'o has become porcom not *porsom we can tell this.

EDIT - that's "Centum" not "Centrum" - they didn't name a branch of Indo-European after vitamin supplements...

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Originally Posted by Elmetiacos

It's actually only assumptions about the word, but based on the fact that it would extremely weird for people to borrow someone else's word for something as familiar as a pig. Without wanting to take this thread too far in another direction, Celtic lost the proto-Indo-European P, so to take two modern examples Welsh llawr is cognate with English floor and Irish lán is cognate with French plein. That doesn't mean there are no Ps in Celtic, only that an original PIE P wouldn't be there. PORCOM obviously has one. All languages lost PIE k' but the Centum (Italic, Celtic, Germanic) turned it into a K sound while the Satem (Slavonic, Persian, Indic) turned it into an S sound. So because PIE *pork'o has become porcom not *porsom we can tell this.

EDIT - that's "Centum" not "Centrum" - they didn't name a branch of Indo-European after vitamin supplements...

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English is a Germanic language, you can even get an example on wikipedia...
compare this http://ang.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C4%A...isc_spr%C7%A3c to german and you'll be surprised how similar that is to german!:whip:

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Originally Posted by Foot

And an entire germanic voicemod and name list based on ... nothing at all. Both the germanic and lusitanian language stuff were based on reconstructions from languages we do know about and were related. We cannot do the same for the Thracian/Dacian as, as you said, it is a dead branch of indo-european.

Foot

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The germanic words aren't based on 'nothing at all', you based it on the swabian and Frisian dialects wich are both part of the western and northern branches of Germanic languages.

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Originally Posted by Elmetiacos

It's actually only assumptions about the word, but based on the fact that it would extremely weird for people to borrow someone else's word for something as familiar as a pig.

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This is not inconceivable. For instance the English word bag was taken into the language from Norse. This is also a very familiar thing.

You can see the etymology on http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bag.

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Originally Posted by bovi

This is not inconceivable. For instance the English word bag was taken into the language from Norse. This is also a very familiar thing.

You can see the etymology on http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bag.

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Yep, think about the English mouton, pork, brother...? It may not have been as much of a loan word as a new vogue?

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

Yep, think about the English mouton, pork, brother...? It may not have been as much of a loan word as a new vogue?

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It even happens in Arabic: try jundiy, for example (pl. Jund), batreeq(patriarch), grafe(tie), firdaws(heaven), and bashar(people). all are used regularly in the arab world, but none are native to arabic. 2 are persian, one is hebrew, one is greek, and one is french.

the inevitable conclusion: words get borrowed, even if they are for casual purposes. (I'll admit grafe is from my dialect, not written arabic)

i'll note we're already using several getic/thracian terms where they exist (eg mezenai), and we'd like to include more where they verifiably exist (ie, we're not going to use terms from questionable sources).

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

Yep, think about the English mouton, pork, brother...? It may not have been as much of a loan word as a new vogue?

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Brother is a Germanic word.:skull:

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Originally Posted by Viking_Wårlord

Brother is a Germanic word.:skull:

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Who said it wasn't? And what is that skull doing there?

Tellos Athenaios mentioned it at the same place as mouton and porc. It can suggest, that he thinks brother is a loan word.
Is it? I don't think so.

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Originally Posted by bovi

Who said it wasn't? And what is that skull doing there?

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Well the 'skull' word obviously gave skål,as Vikings(like celts) also drinked into the skulls of their dead ennemies!
So it's also a Germanic word...:idea2:

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Originally Posted by ziegenpeter

Tellos Athenaios mentioned it at the same place as mouton and porc. It can suggest, that he thinks brother is a loan word.
Is it? I don't think so.

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The word 'brother' comes from the old English(or ålde Englisc) 'broðor'...

Welcome>Wilcume
thee(you)>Þê
sister>sweostor
Hail!>Hal!

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Originally Posted by Viking_Wårlord

The word 'brother' comes from the old English(or ålde Englisc) 'broðor'...

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which comes from germanic "*broþer"... but lets get back to topic.

I'd actually love another gemanic faction and for the gameplay balance in this region it would make totally sense. Unfortunatly these aren't criteria for a new faction.
I think its very hard to do the research for germanic cultures...

PS: Never thought of a common etymology of skål and skull...:beam:

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Originally Posted by Viking_Wårlord

The word 'brother' comes from the old English(or ålde Englisc) 'broðor'...

Welcome>Wilcume
thee(you)>Þê
sister>sweostor
Hail!>Hal!

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no not really, it's a indo-european word, it's found in almost every modern western language, eg. latin frater,anchent greek phrater,italian fratello, and it went in the germanic language and consecuently inglish starting as brohtir, and evolving in modern day brother.

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Originally Posted by Cyrus

no not really, it's a indo-european word, it's found in almost every modern western language, eg. latin frater,anchent greek phrater,italian fratello, and it went in the germanic language and consecuently inglish starting as brohtir, and evolving in modern day brother.

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I was talking about It's germanic form...about indo-european words:
Father(english)>Vater(german)>far(danish)>Pater(latin)>père(french)>padre(spanish)
>पिता/fatir(hindi)>pakir/(Persian/farsi)پدر

:idea2:

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Originally Posted by bovi

This is not inconceivable. For instance the English word bag was taken into the language from Norse. This is also a very familiar thing.

You can see the etymology on http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bag.

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That's based on the false assumption that English is the lineal descendant of Old English of the 8th Century and everything since then is "foreign".

No, it's based on the assumption that they did not use the word before the Vikings came and they started using it when they did. A sack wasn't a new concept at that time, and still a new word was taken in for it.

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Originally Posted by Viking_Wårlord

I was talking about It's germanic form...about indo-european words:
Father(english)>Vater(german)>far(danish)>Pater(latin)>père(french)>padre(spanish)
>पिता/fatir(hindi)>pakir/(Persian/farsi)پدر

:idea2:

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vader in dutch :juggle2:

Some interesting links about the Indo-European.

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/

An Indo-European "translator":
http://indo-european.info/2008/01/01...-10-post-wlqo/


Obviously the words you have mentioned are all of Indo-European origin.
They are simple words, and have evolved very little in thousands of years.

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Originally Posted by Elmetiacos

That's based on the false assumption that English is the lineal descendant of Old English of the 8th Century and everything since then is "foreign".

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Yeah, but the old english sounds awesome:

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Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað.

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The battle of Maldon is one of my favourite poems.

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Originally Posted by Cartaphilus

Some interesting links about the Indo-European.

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/

An Indo-European "translator":
http://indo-european.info/2008/01/01...-10-post-wlqo/


Obviously the words you have mentioned are all of Indo-European origin.
They are simple words, and have evolved very little in thousands of years.

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Though the words I have used are of the most commonly used,indeed, orphans are rare nowadays...:no:

For what's of military terms....here we go:

war>crīgā(gave german 'krieg' and danish 'krig')
fight>skermō(gave the word 'skirmish')
die>dhewə (gave Deyja(old norse))
kill>colḗjō (nothing to explain here)
destroy>dheukō (here neither...)

I also may remind that, there was no 'proto-indo european' as a single dialect but many languages composed this 'proto-indi-european language' hence some words gave latin,others gave slavic,baltic,germanic and so on...:juggle2:

When did this become The Linguistics Thread?

Right now :beam:!

Ha, the mods obey my suggestions as law. As is their duty.