Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!usenet.pasdenom.info!news.albasani.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Daniele Futtorovic Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: O/T linguistics Date: Fri, 06 May 2011 21:44:47 +0200 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 57 Message-ID: References: <92ea64F3avU1@mid.individual.net> <92ft5pFjeiU1@mid.individual.net> <92hu9kFh10U2@mid.individual.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Injection-Date: Fri, 6 May 2011 19:44:50 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx01.eternal-september.org; posting-host="Zjm1/7nnVMUmB9baN8E6xQ"; logging-data="20758"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18kOpuZv+txl7+PhZ6MkMWS" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.17) Gecko/20110414 Thunderbird/3.1.10 In-Reply-To: Cancel-Lock: sha1:stmDfPo9snrOnnyWpubQnuz0Rrc= Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.java.programmer:3710 On 06/05/2011 21:28, Lew allegedly wrote: > Daniele Futtorovic wrote: >> Lew allegedly wrote: >>> Daniele Futtorovic wrote: >>>> Michael Wojcik allegedly wrote: >>>>> Joshua Cranmer already mentioned "co=F6peration" which (along with = its >>>>> lemmas) >>>>> is a prominent case of the latter. >>> >>>> Didn't know that, but it's preposterous. Trying to pronounce that >>>> makes me >>>> sound like a Saxon. ;) >>> >>> Trying to pronounce what is preposterous? >>> >>> The word "co=F6peration" is pronounced the way you've always pronounc= ed >>> it, so I cannot figure out what you mean. >> >> You won't get it if you don't speak German and know how they speak it >> it the >> further south-east. :) > > Is that what's called High German? I am rather fascinated by languages,= > and of course Saxon is one of the root languages of English. Saxon in this case being a German accent. I'm terribly embarrassed about this, actually. I know a few Saxons and=20 they're generally a great people. But I always have to refrain myself=20 from laughing when I hear them talk. I really hate myself for that. > I suppose there's no way to convey the humor of an accent via a text > medium, but I can imagine by reference to cognate American phenomena. > > One fascinating factoid: Not only do linguistically isolated > communities, such as English speakers in the American Ozarks and Farsi > speakers in the mountains of Afghanistan, retain linguistic patterns an= d > accents longer than their cosmopolitan (often coastal) counterparts, th= e > culture of the linguistically mixed often disparages that of their > isolated brethren as "hillbilly" or the equivalent, and just as unfairl= y. Same thing in biology. Isolated populations (e.g. insular ones) will=20 generally retain traits longer than the population they split off from.=20 Less "evolutionary pressure", so to speak. --=20 DF. An escaped convict once said to me: "Alcatraz is the place to be"