Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Keith Thompson Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: And they say C is obscure Date: Wed, 10 May 2017 12:45:02 -0700 Organization: None to speak of Lines: 31 Message-ID: References: <20170409-035940.754.0@Peabody.ssl.astraweb.com> <1HsMA.38105$mr5.3385@fx36.am4> <6ae9b3ed-f560-4261-a430-76cbff8c7d9f@googlegroups.com> <0e562728-eeaf-4028-bb43-ed1f7502922e@googlegroups.com> <5597f232-de91-40e5-9b62-b4c8c8850173@googlegroups.com> <1btw4xtnf1.fsf@pfeifferfamily.net> <59119412.843046@news.xs4all.nl> <591224e7.142125@news.xs4all.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="6459811f956872201b6c7fc05e0f492b"; logging-data="21702"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/dwVDS2DNJ7e/yoVOmH8Kd" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.1 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:/i6NfnfbE+8l9cdkCKuT1b7uL/4= sha1:YTDo5NQvvChY3jnA4Qm2B1kM7og= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:109707 Manfred writes: [...] > I have to admit I am not an expert in German, but as far as I know even > if the /vocabulary/ of German is not widely derived from Latin (although > it has its share of it), its /grammar/ is strictly related with the > Latin one, even more than Italian in some ways - I'm thinking of its use > of declensions for one example. [Indulging myself in a bit of off-topicality] I *think* that German and Latin both inherited declensions from a common ancestor language, Indo-European or perhaps something later. Both English and Italian have, more or less independently, largely dropped that feature (taking your word for it on Italian, which I don't know). Learning other languages can help you understand your own. For example, French taught me a lot about how verbs work, and German taught me a lot about how nouns work. English still has remnants of the complex verb tenses and noun declensions, but in a weakened and often implicit form that makes it a bit harder to see the underlying concepts. Similar ideas apply to learning other programming languages (making a vague gesture in the general direction of topicality). -- Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org Working, but not speaking, for JetHead Development, Inc. "We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this." -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"