scott wrote:

> I actually find it really fascinating to learn about the history of 
> English words.  Whilst learning German it is surprising how many words 
> are actually German words in disguise (once you know a few "rules").

Similarly, how many words are based on Latin or just *are* Latin...

Ambulo - "I walk"
Vocat - "I speak"
Laborat - "I work"
etc.

The nice thing about Latin is that most of the sounds are pronouncible. 
It took me an entire evening of practice to finally master uttering the 
words "Lieblich Gedackt". o_O

(Similarly, while taking the train through Switzerland, there are an 
endless number of stations who's name, as read by the recorded 
announcement, sounded more like somebody coughing than anything you 
could describe as a "word".)

Post a reply to this message

"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> > "English: A language that hides in dark corners waiting to mug other
> > language, rifle through their pockets and steal spare vocabulary."
>
> I actually find it really fascinating to learn about the history of English
> words.  Whilst learning German it is surprising how many words are actually
> German words in disguise (once you know a few "rules").
>

Lots of our words are Germanic
Gang (as in gangplank); Dutch for corridor, Scots for go.
Kirk (Scots for Church); Kirche in German, Kerk in Dutch
Long (Lang in Scots); Lange in German, Lang in Dutch.
Nether (under), Neder in Dutch.
Daughter (Dochter in Scots); Tochter in German, dochter in Dutch.

But since a lot of Germanic peoples visited Britain after the Romans left it is
not surprising.

Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Am Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:29:05 +0100 schrieb Orchid XP v8:

>>>> ...how the heck do you pronounce "Lieblich Gedact"?
>> 
>> http://www.pesth.org/tmp/lieblich.ogg
> 
> ...so there you have it then. Quite conclusively.

Along the way I learned why yEnc is better than uuencode but bad and that 
uploading of binary files to usenet is probably still broken. However 
what I didn't learn / found was the package name for it in Ubuntu.

> 
> Thanks. ;-)
> 

You're welcome. If you wanted to learn german I'm glad to help ;-). (Ok, 
ok I realise that you just want to sing (?) something - or are just 
curious whatever)

Post a reply to this message

On 16-Oct-08 10:56, Invisible wrote:

> The nice thing about Latin is that most of the sounds are pronouncible. 

You mean pronounceable in a heavy English accent? Then again, as there 
are no native speakers, who is to judge.

> It took me an entire evening of practice to finally master uttering the 
> words "Lieblich Gedackt". o_O

You won't know if you succeeded unless you have a german handy. (In a 
slightly obvious attempt to try to get the Germans to misinterpret that 
;) ). Or record your attempt and post it somewhere.

Post a reply to this message

>> The nice thing about Latin is that most of the sounds are pronouncible. 
> 
> You mean pronounceable in a heavy English accent? Then again, as there 
> are no native speakers, who is to judge.

Well, the Italians, so I hear...

>> It took me an entire evening of practice to finally master uttering 
>> the words "Lieblich Gedackt". o_O
> 
> You won't know if you succeeded unless you have a german handy.

Florian has already fixed that one for me. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On 16-Oct-08 23:35, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> The nice thing about Latin is that most of the sounds are pronouncible. 
>>
>> You mean pronounceable in a heavy English accent? Then again, as there 
>> are no native speakers, who is to judge.
> 
> Well, the Italians, so I hear...

I don't think so, they can compare to contemporary Italian not to how it 
was pronounced 2000 years ago. Remember, there was a time when the 
English written and spoken language were connected.

>>> It took me an entire evening of practice to finally master uttering 
>>> the words "Lieblich Gedackt". o_O
>>
>> You won't know if you succeeded unless you have a german handy.
> 
> Florian has already fixed that one for me. ;-)

Sort of, you know how he pronounces it, but does he know how you do?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> scott wrote:
> 
>> I actually find it really fascinating to learn about the history of 
>> English words.  Whilst learning German it is surprising how many words 
>> are actually German words in disguise (once you know a few "rules").
> 
> Similarly, how many words are based on Latin or just *are* Latin...

I've noticed that English seems to have two of many words meaning 
similar things but with slightly different connotations. One tends to 
come from the Spanish/Latin kind of words, with the other coming from 
the German.

Snot / booger.

Terminate / Finish.

Cold / Frigid.

Stuff like that.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

Post a reply to this message

>> Florian has already fixed that one for me. ;-)
>
> Sort of, you know how he pronounces it, but does he know how you do?

Exactly.  No matter how exactly I think I am copying how my gf pronounces a 
word, she still tells me it's not correct, and she says it sounds like I'm 
from Holland (as a lot of English trying to speak German do, apparently). 
Funnily enough, she says when I speak Bavarian she can't tell me apart from 
a native!

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:

> Exactly.  No matter how exactly I think I am copying how my gf 
> pronounces a word, she still tells me it's not correct, and she says it 
> sounds like I'm from Holland (as a lot of English trying to speak German 
> do, apparently). Funnily enough, she says when I speak Bavarian she 
> can't tell me apart from a native!

...that's what SHE said. ;-)

Post a reply to this message

48f7c440@news.povray.org...
> I've noticed that English seems to have two of many words meaning similar 
> things but with slightly different connotations. One tends to come from 
> the Spanish/Latin kind of words, with the other coming from the German.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_I_of_England  ;-)


Marc

Post a reply to this message