Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

[Iversen]

Some day I'll have to have a peek at Old Church Slavic (and maybe, but only maybe, also Glagolitic writing, which apparently was invented by the very same Cyril whose name was used for an alphabet he didn't invent - nor did his Brother Methodius, but maybe one of their trainées).

and speaking about trainees:

FR: Ce matin ce me suis reveillé après une rêve en français - quoiquoi silencieux pour la première et seconde partie et seulement en français à la fin. D'abord j'étais à .. non, pas dans une gare, mais plutôt une gare-musée. J'ai eu l'occasion de experimenter avec les boutons sur un tableau de côntrole, et j'ai regardé par la fenêtre sur le gare de triage au-dessous du tour de contrôle. Mais heureusement il n'y avait pas de trains. Après il y avait une partie au milieu de la rêve où j'étais passager dans un auto qui roulait dans la ville au dehors, plusieur fois sur le trottoir - le chauffeur était un idiot. Mais toujours en silence, personne n'a dit rien. Nous sommes retourné au gare-musée, et là un garçon a enfin rompu la silence en me demandant ce que je faisais là. J´'était en stage je disais, mais il a refusé de me croire. Non, ce lieu n'avait pas de stagiaire, il m'a informé. Et alors je me suis reveillé, confus de son refus de me croire ... et demandant moi-même ce que je réellement faisais là...

[vonPeterhof]

Some day I'll have to have a peek at Old Church Slavic (and maybe, but only maybe, also Glagolitic writing, which apparently was invented by the very same Cyril whose name was used for an alphabet he didn't invent - nor did his Brother Methodius, but maybe one of their trainées).

The Old Church Slavonic Wikipedia actually refers to the Glagolitic script as "кѷрїлловица". I remember they also used to consistently refer to the Cyrillic script as "климєнтовица" (after Clement of Ohrid), and that name still shows up in the Wiki, but apparently at some point they decided to switch the default name for it to the compromise variant of "вътора словѣньска аꙁъбоукꙑ" (second Slavonic alphabet). Not sure if these usages are promoted anywhere else.

[Iversen]

It is interesting that precisely the authors of the Glagolitic Wikipedia should have referred to the Glagolitic alphabet as Cyrillic, especially since I haven't ever seen this anywhere else. Nevertheless I think we should stick to the prevalent nomenclature despite its confused origin.

As for Cyrillic in Serbia I spent a fair amount of time during my last visit looking for Serbian dictionaries with the Serbian part in Cyrillic (in connection with the Novi Sad conference). I do own such a dictionary from a much earlier visit, but it uses a bad font where some letters are almost impossible to distinguish because the horisizontal lines are extremely thin. Well, I did see purely a Cyrillic Russian-Serbian and a Latin-Serbian dictionary (and I bought the latter), but all dictionaries that involved languages that use Latinitsa use the Latinitisa Serbian alphabet. But I don't want one of those - especially since I own a decent French-Croatian diactionary, and I want to keep Serbian and Croatian separate by using different alphabets for them. On the internet it seems however that Latinitsa is getting the upperhand compared to Cyrillic.

At least texts in Croatian and Serbian Latinitisa haven't dispensed with the diacritics... yet. In Romanian the special Romanian characters are now habitually spelled using variants without diacritics, which must be quite confusing to inexperienced foreign learners - luckily I have personally seen enough Romanian to make correct guesses. Official homepages and Wikipedia in Romanian do however still write correctly. And the Albanian text about Alzheimer I finished recently also stubbornly used 'e' for both 'ë' and 'e', which is irritating because they are kept separate in my dictionaries. I have always wondered why the ë was introduced at all in the Albanian alphabet since it is more common than the diacriticless e. The printouts about Gjirokastra I have used since the Alzheimer thing do however use the ë.

And ë in Russian? Well, I don't write it myself because I find it idiotic to mark the stress (and associated sound changes) in the case of e/ë when the Russians seem to live happily without marking stress anywhere else.

One curious detail: when I read the English Wikipedia article about Glagolitic states that "It is also acrophonically called azbuki from the names of its first two letters in Bulgaria, on the same model as "alpha" + "beta". The Slavs of Great Moravia (present-day Slovakia and Moravia), Hungary, Slovenia and Slavonia were called Slověne at that time, which gives rise to the name Slovenish for the alphabet. Some other, rarer, names for this alphabet are Bukvitsa (from common Slavic word "bukva" meaning "letter", and a suffix "-itsa") and Illyrian." The irony of this is that according to my Serbian dictionaries the Cyrillic Serbian alphabet is now also called the azbuka (азбука).

I have been on a family visit this past weekend, and as usual I have not really studied during this time - except that I had brought along the Kauderwelsch Quechua booklet and my old TY Old English, and I managed to read about an hour in each as goodnight reading. GER: Diese Woche werde ich mich besonders um meine Deutschen Fähigkeiten kümmern müssen, aber mehr darüber im nächsten Folge.

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[Daniel N.]

On the internet it seems however that Latinitsa is getting the upperhand compared to Cyrillic.

At least texts in Croatian and Serbian Latinitisa haven't dispensed with the diacritics... yet.

From my experience, the ratio on the Serbian Internet domain (.rs) is some 80% Latin, 20% the Cyrillic script, or less. Most tabloid Serbian newspapers (Kurir, Blic...) are printed and online in Latin, and that is what the majority reads. Most books in Serbia are published in the Latin script these days.

And people do sometimes drop čšž marks and just write csz.

Some posts ago you've written about the parallel structure 'want to X' in Serbian and Greek; you're right - it's a feature common in the Balkan area, loss of infinitives.

[Iversen]

Since my last message I have been on a 5 day trip to Berlin followed by a visit to my mother's place. It all started a couple of weeks ago when my sister without warning phoned me and said that she had decided to visit Berlin, and that she wanted me to accompany her there - and also to arrange the details of our voyage. I have been there many times, but for my sister it would be her first time. We took the train even though it is more expensive (my sister doesn't like to fly), and we slept in the same A&O which housed the first three 'gatherings' - it was relatively cheap, close to the Hauptbahnhof and close to a good supermarket, but alas, also more noisy than during the gatherings because several groups of kids and teenies stayed at the dormitories at the back. Ok, we survived.

We bought two 72 hour transportation cards with Museumsinsel and discounts to other places included, and on top of that we visited the zoo and the Tierpark. Well, to be true my sister only visited the first floor of the Museumsinsel museums, and I then visited the upper floors while she took pauses in the cafeterias, but I'm slightly more keen on seeing everything - so I also visited the History museum and the Naturkunde museum alone while she rested and ate. Last time I really went for the whole Berlin experience was in 2014, where I bought a card with free access to scores of museums. For most people such cards are too expensive for what they see, but I just drop lunch and visit places galore from they open till they close, so for me they are interesting offers - but only if I can get in for free. Otherwise those cards aren't worth the price.

GER: Zum Glück sprechen wir beide fließend Deutsch - OK, fehlerhaftes Deutsch, aber das ist ja auch eine geläufige Variante. Ich persönlich spreche meistens nur, wenn ich einen Grund dazu habe und vorzugsweise über ein gegebenes Thema (aber dann spreche ich viel, wie diejenige, die mich getroffen haben, wissen!). Meine Schwester nutzte aber die Gelegenheit, um mit ALLEN zu sprechen - einschließlich Aufseher in den Museen, Kaufleute, Personal und Passagiere in den Zügen, Straßenbahnen und Bussen .. und ganz einfach irgendjemand, der sich freiwillig in einem Umkreis von etwa zwei Metern von ihr sich stellte. Und wenn man sein Deutsch üben möchte, ist das natürlich die richtige Einstellung - ich bin nur anders programmiert.

Ich habe zwei populärwissenchaftliche Zeitschriften gekauft: PM Fragen und Antworten plus Spektrum Dossier Gehirn und Geist. Speziell Spektrum enthält einige Artikel, die für das Sprachenlernen relevant sind - aber darüber mehr später. Außerdem besuchte ich die große Buchhandlung Düssmann in der Friedrichstraße, und hier kaufte ich Forssmann's Lettisch-Deutsche Wörterbuch, Križinauskas' Vokiečių-Lietuvų Wörterbuch, das kleine gelbe lateinische Wörterbuch von Langenscheidt sowie Kauderwelsches Buch über Estnisch, aber nur weil für diese Sprache kein relativ großes Wörterbuch vorhanden war (in der Tat KEIN Wörterbuch überhaupt). Ich werde weder Lettisch noch Litauisch oder Estonisch in naher Zukunft studieren, aber es könnte sein, daß ich später dazu Zeit habe, und dann habe ich jedenfalls einige gute Lernwerkzeuge - mir fehlen nur die entsprechende Grammatiken (und viel Zeit).

Platt: Un worüm dat Bild vün een Töög op de Bahnhoff Hamburg Langenfeld? Gut, wi sünn vün Berlin HBF över Berlin Spandau na Hamburg BHF mit 'ne ICE föhrt, un dit Töög is in Spandau een Viddelstünn stehn blieft omdat een Passageer krank worrn wörr - aver wi höffen ons Töggansloot in Hamburg na Däänmark schafft. Aver dit Tögg is dann in Hamburg Langerfeld stehn blieven, omdat jichtenswat op ons Part vün de Tögg loss wörr - wi höffen redig een Personal mit 'ne Rolle Gaffatape seehn! Na ungefähr 22 Minuten höffen sie opgeven un ons Wagon afkoppelt, un alle Passageere in dit Wagon mütten dann free Plätze in the vördere Töggdeel söken. Ik höff mien Anschloot in Däänmark verpasst, so dat ik mit mien Süster na 't Hus vün mien Mudder in sien Auto bün förrn, und op Sünndag höff ik Deele vün sien Hus höff maalt - wiel dat Wetter noch dröög wörr, un nüüms wüss, wie lang dat gode Wätter noch schöll duern...

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[Iversen]

Since my last message I have mainly been studying Slavic languages. I have used my Routledge Serbian grammar as goodnight reading, and one of the things I have been reading about is the numeral system and its repercussions.

The number one behaves like any other adjective, agreeing with the noun in number and case, and as subject it is associated with a verb in the singular third person. No problems there - strict logic intact. And numbers ending in 1 (except 11) follow the same pattern.

Numbers two to four (and оба, both) are declined, and if there is a masculine or neuter noun after one of them it carries the abnormal ending -a. Could it be a relic from an old extinct dual, which has spread to numbers 3 and 4? At least that's the explanation I have seen for a parallel phenomenon in Russian. Maybe a peek in my Slovenian grammar could resolve the question, but I didn't have that grammar in my bed chamber yesterday. This final -a is also used on past tense forms with masculine subjects ... but what about neutral subjects then?

Numbers 5 and up are really weird. They are combined with nouns in the genitive plural, but a footnote states that when such a complex is used as subject the corresponding verb is put in the SINGULAR ! How did that system come up, and why did the language users adopt it and keep it till today, against all logic? Except of course if the digit in question (5 or higher) is seen as a singular entity, which might explain the use of a singular verb. Well, actually that's the only way I can fathom how such a weird rule came about.

Today I first studied the last part of a Slovak text about the Trenčin Castle and afterwards a text in Polish about the prehistoric populations of Eastern Europe. As some may remember Western and North Europe some time after 2800 BC was invaded by males belonging to the haplogroup R1B1, whereas Eastern Europe apparently was invaded by carriers of the haplogroup R1A1 (my latest lecture in Bratislava dealt with precisely this situation). This article states that Eastern Europe after the invasion was populated by Protobaltoslavic tribes, which resulted in the emergence of the socalled corded ware culture ('sznurowa kultura' in Polish). But somewhat surprisingly it also states that the carriers of the R1B1 gene of Eastern Europe may have come from Anatolia. Actually there has been a theory which stated that the Indoeuropan language family was introduced to Europe from Anatolia, but at an earlier date and over a very long timespan. Since it has been realized that at least 2/3 of all males in Europe carry Y-chromosome genes of Kurgan origin the Anatolian hypothesis has been less popular. Another theory, which is my personal favorite, states that both haplogroups R1B1 and R1A1 came from the steppes to the North of the Black Sea, but from different populations in this area. The R1B1 group spoke a Protoindoeuropean language from the 'centum' group, and this group populated Western Europe and Southern Scandinavia, the other group (R1a1) spoke a language from the 'šatem' group and these people went to Eastern Europe.

Another aspect of this article is however that the Preslavonic tribes pushed Westwards until somewhere around Leipzig, and there they came into contact with the Protogermanic tribes, with possible consequences for the languages of both groups. This idea is however not pinned out in detail so I'll just mention it as a possible research topic for historically inclined language nerds.

POL: W tym momencie chcę wspomnieć, że teraz mogę czytać słowacki bez większego wysiłku. Moje rozumienie języka polskiego jest wolniejsze, w tym sensie, że muszę się czytać/kopiować/studiować przez co najmniej dziesięć minut, zanim wrócę do nawyku rozumienia tego języka. I wciąż mam problemy ze zrozumieniem mówionego języka polskiego - czego rzadko próbuję, ale wczoraj był program o astronomii w TVP Polonia. W tym momencie jest medyczny program "Jak do dziala" z tematem "jak naprawic czlowieka" - ale słucham niemieckiej muzyki organowej z wczesnego baroku a nie programu telewizyjnego polskiego. Powinienem się wstydzić.

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[Iversen]

After my return from Berlin earlier this week I promised to write a few lines about the special issue of Spektrum called "Gehirn und Geist", because some of the articles in it in general might be relevant for language learning in particular. In between I have been busy with other things, but now the time has come.

First: some of articles don't really concern learning as such - there is one about the olfactory system (smell) and another about ways to detect consciuousness in individuals who seem to be totally unconscious and potentially braindead. Some of these are victims of accidents, others of an illness like ALS (the one the famous astronomer Hawking had), but even more incapacitating since it also blocks eye movements and any other overt reactions. Still brainscans of such patients show that some react to stimuli with complex brain activity, others just with localized activity that doesn't spread. The first kind of patients are possibly conscious to some extent - which actually is a scary throught. Which reminds me of TV programs that showed how people can make robots move based on signals obtained from brainscans. The first kind I heard about such systems were crude machinery that detected Alpha wawes, but now the detectors have become more sensitive, and it is possible to pick up thoughts about specific movements of specific limbs from the brain - to some degree even from the outside of the skull, but with much better results from detectors inserted directly into the brain tissue . And if you had ALS, wouldn't you accept also wires into your brain if they made it possible for you not only to communicate, but also to get a robot to scratch an itching spot or switch to another TV program for you?

Sci fi question to ye all out there: If you could extend your brain with complete language modules in the form of something like dongles connected to thin wires into your brain, would you jump on the wagon and get it done? There are already systems like the cochlear implants that can send perceptory signals via wires into your brain, so why not knowledge modules?

Back to Spektrum:

GER: Es gibt darin einen langen Artikel über das Gedächtnis, in dem vorgeschlagen wird, daß das Gedächtnis mehr Stufen hat als nur das Kurzzeit- und das Langzeitgedächtnis. Ein weiterer Artikel beschreibt, wie man vergißt, und es ist in Kürze eine Angelegenheit von Beseitigung von nicht verwendeten Neuronen. Also, zuerst wird Neuronennetze aufgebaut in realer Zeit wenn man irgend etwas erfährt. Die meisten Empfindungen werden jedoch nie bewusst, und einer der Schritte auf dem Weg zur Aufbewahrung besteht darin, dass sensorisch orientierte Gehirnzentren andere Zentren einbeziehen, die unsere Aufmerksamkeitsfunktionen verwalten. Was uns bewußt wird, wird kurzfristig im Kurzzeitgedächtnis gespeichert. Und schließlich agiert (vielleicht) dann der Hippocampus und es werden semipermanente neuronale Bahnen aufgebaut.

Penfields klassische Studien, bei denen eine sonst vergessene Erinnerung bei Berührung des Gehirns auftrat, wurden so interpretiert, daß ALLES gespeichert wird. Dafür gibt es keine Beweise. Einige Savanten erinnern aber sich an unglaublich viele Details über ihr Leben, während ich bereits vergessen habe, wovon ich vor zwei Minuten dachte. Und die Fähigkeit sich nicht von alles zu erinnern ist vielleicht nicht nur negativ to bewerten, aber generell möchten Sprachlernender sich sicher mehr von ihre unmittelbare Vergangheit erinnern können.

Es gibt auch einen Artikel namens "Ein neues Bild der Sprache", in dem Chomskys Idee von einem eingebauten Sprachmechanismus abgelehnt wird. Die Alternative ist jedoch eine ebenso unklare und undokumentierbare These, nämlich daß Sprache ausschlieslich durch Erfahrung weitergegeben wird. Für mich bestand der Fehler von Chomsky darin zu glauben, daß wir konkrete Grammatikregeln erben, wie die Tiere ihren Instinkte erben. Es reicht jedoch aus, daß wir einige allgemeine Mechanismen erben, wie zum Beispiel die Fähigkeit, Muster in Kombinationen von Symbolen wahrzunehmen und Konventionen in Bezug darauf zu akceptieren. Die konkrete Universalien entwickeln sich aus dieser Sicht durch Konvention und Praktikalität, und wir kriegen dann ein System von Universalien à la Greenberg.

EO: Alia demandon por la legantoj: iu drogo nomata ''volproat' lau iuj esploristoj povus pli faciligi lerni ekzemple denask-similan prononcadon de fremdaj lingvoj por plenkreskuloj. Ĝi ankaŭ uzis in eksperimentoj sur la trejnado de absolutan sonsenton por plenkreskulojn. Se vinos ne-danĝera kaj efika rimedo kun ĉi tiuj elektoj, ĉu vi kuraĝas NE preni ĝin??

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[Iversen]

This evening I have worked my way through the jungle of Irish nominal syntax again (from prepositions over articles and substantives to adjectives, in that order). I'm not going to write a lot about it, but just make the point that the beginning of Irish words doesn't know what the other end is up to, and it really doesn't care. If you want to describe the sound changes of the front end of Irish substantives then you need to know gender, case and number, but not necessarily which of the 5 declensions the concrete substantive belongs to. That information is only relevant for the other end, which for its part couldn't be be less concerned with the question of determining whether there should be -t, h- n,, eclipse, lenition or just the normal headword version of the beginning at the front end.

This fact has some consequences for the way you build morphological tables. If you want to enumerate all the possible combinations of beginning and ends within each gender, case, number and declination youll end up with something absolutely monstrous and bloated. The way to do it is to accept that the preceding word(s) influence the beginnings, and then you describe the different outcomes in the part of your description that refers to the preceding word in casu - like for instance the definite article or a preposition with or without an article. On the other hand the endings are best described using the standard five declensions, in spite of the fact that several endings are shared between several of these - like the poor little -anna, whom I have mentioned in an earlier message.

I spent maybe an hour this evening trying to piece together the relevant forms from my paper grammars, but the result I arrived at was basically the same as the system of tables at the Gramadach, except that it has some variations I didn't notice. But the best thing is that it has a ton of examples, which you can run through to ascertain why each one is inflected as it is, using the tables.

And now I have some text study to do before I call it a day - and those texts will be in another language..

[Iversen]

SCO: The day ah hae been studyin a wee bit o Scots grammar acause o the threid English Grammer. whare a bunch o guid peeple hae been discussin some constructions which shuirly didnae pleeze all o them Anglophones from aw the creeks an corners o this bonnie planet, but mebbe wad meet mair seempathy in Scotland. Ah quoted thare some ensaumples frae the braw site scots-online, but here is a few mair:

He'll hae tae coud dae't (He'll have to be able to do it)
He shoud coud tak it wi him (He ought to be able to take it with him)
ilka bairn in the toun will can say that (Every child in town ought to be able to say that)
She wad coud milk the kye gin she ettelt (she would be be able to milk the cows, if she tried)

When ah read such phrases ah dink that Scots (fra Sooth o the Forth, 'tis said) really is like a auld-farrant bourie wi an eik in the back that standard English ought to hae coud envy it for. The site likeweys propine a leet o expressions what itherwise woud hae been awfu haurd to gaither for a Dane sittin in his gairdie-cheer In Denmark with nae Scots person in the roonds an scantlins onything tae read in Scots on the internet. Lemme give a wheen mair ensaumples frae the site:

Abuin yer feet ('Beyond one's means' in Sassenach)
Aff the fang ('Not in the mood, out of humour')
Aff the gleg ('Off the mark')
Are you takkin me on? ('Are you pulling my leg?')
As weel suin as syne('the sooner the better').

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[Iversen]

Today I have been battling with Google translate because I needed new bilingual documents in several languages - but as I have written elsewhere it was a rude awakening: to use Google translate I now have to prepare the whole text and insert it in one fell swoop. I can't take one paragraph and add it it or cut irrelevant sections. The right pane simply doesn't react if it already contains anything. I did some experiments where I wrote something myself, and in one case the translation appared while I was still writing - but from the things I wrote after that nothing at all was translated.

I have found one way to survive, namely first to choose the languages on both sides, then finish the text in the left pane, mark everything up, copy it with CTRL C, remove everything out using the X button and then reinsert it with CTRL V (cut and copy in one go with CTRL X also seems to work) - but it is frustrating that things don't just work. The only positive thing about the new version is that it seems to accept /'s in texts now - before the translation process stopped at any / or \. Another good thing is that I now have tried Bing's translator, but it has fewer languages and makes at least as many stupid errors as GT. And among Deepl's languages the only one which might be relevant for my bilingual texts is Polish - I know the rest well enough not to need a digital translator.

IR: Rinne mé staidéar inniu ar théacs faoi aisling 'bréagacha' (comhfhíosacha nó aisling gorm)i nGaeilge - ach chuaigh sé go mall (chuaigh sé freisin an-chuid ama leis an téacs seo a scríobh). Léiríonn an téacs 5 bealach chun a fháil amach go bhfuil duine ag brionglóid le comhfhios. Is é gné coitianta na modhanna seo ná mar fhuaim a iarraidh an bhrionglóid tú - chomh maith agus ag bheith do i dúiseacht. Tá séú modh ann: codlata an-fhada - chomh fada agus a chodladh i ndáiríre gur chóir duit a bheith ag dúisigh. Nó codladh i lár an lae agus tá solas ann.

POR: Também estudei um folheto do Museu da Marinha em Lisboa, que está localizado em Belém (no mesmo edifício do mosteiro Geronimo e do Museu Arqueológico, o qual poderia bem profitar duma ligera varredura). Visitei a cidade no medio deste ano. Depois da minha visita anterior, o Museu da marinha acrescentou dum edifício com vários navios mais recentes, mas mesmo a parte velha vale a pena ver. O Museu dos carros mudou um pouco mais departe para um novo edifício, mas infelizmente eu não tinha o tempo para vê-lo. Por outro lado, eu consegui ver o Museu do Oriente, onde é extremamente agradável e fácil de fotografiar, pois as áreas de caminhada são escuras e as vitrinas são bem iluminadas. Este museu está localizado perto de Ponte Salazar ... não ... tem outro nome agora - se chama Ponte 25 de Abril. E você pode facilmente ignorá-lo porque não é tão fácil chegar-là como aos museus no Belém. O problema é a linha férrea, que só se pode atravessar em alguns poucos lugares.

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