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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 2097 of 3959 13 October 2010 at 1:32am | IP Logged |
I have been occupied with non-linguistic tasks most of the evening, such as eating pizza and registering four new members of my travel club. However I did find time for one language oriented activity. Having done a video about Old French simple decency bid that I also do one about the language and culture that was crushed by the French kings in the 13. century and the following years: Occitan. The problem being, of course, that I don't speak neather Old nor Modern Occitan.
In that situation the logical thing to do was to search for some material on the internet, and to my surprise I found that my trusty keyboard provider Lexilogos also has a fair amount of materials about Occitan, including several digital dictionaries (or wordlists).
The only problem is that those lists is full of holes. For instances one of the most beloved troubadour songs is Bernat de Ventadorn's "Quan vei la lauzeta mover' (when I see the lark move), so I checked the word "lauzeta" (or "Lauseta") in a "PanOccitan"-French dictionary. But no, no lark there, and no "alouette" in the corresponding Prench-Occitan section. By the way, this dictionary is apparently oriented towards the lingering remnants of Modern Occitan rather than towards the Medieval version, but that's not an excuse for omitting maybe the most wellknown word in the whole language.
At last I found the elusive bird in a lengadoc dictionary - "lauseta, alouette". So it does exist. But where did the initial "a-" in the French word come from?
Edited by Iversen on 13 October 2010 at 1:37am
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| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5300 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes
| Message 2098 of 3959 13 October 2010 at 8:24pm | IP Logged |
Iversen wrote:
"lauseta, alouette". So it does exist. But where did the initial "a-" in the French word come from? |
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Based on my knowledge of several ancient celtic dialects ... ahm, no, wait, I had no idea, but I found this Wiktionaire. There one can read:
"De l’ancien français aloe + suffixe diminutif -ette, du latin alauda, du gaulois (cf. irlandais eala « cygne ») ;"
So for once in their history the French kept a sound instead of skipping it, kind of remarkable, I guess ...
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 2099 of 3959 13 October 2010 at 9:15pm | IP Logged |
I should have looked the Latin word for 'lark' up ... or just checked my field guides.
Alauda arvensis (skylark) at Wikipedia:
Edited by Iversen on 13 October 2010 at 9:18pm
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 2100 of 3959 14 October 2010 at 11:14am | IP Logged |
IT: Ho letto alcuni articoli sul sito Italiano di scienza popolare kosmofysis.com. In uno di quelli si tratta di una nuova teoria cosmologica chi cerca di eliminare la singolarità iniziale dell'universo, il 'big bang'. Il professore taiwanese Wun-Yi Shu pensa che "il tempo e lo spazio non sono indipendenti, ma possono essere convertiti infinitamente uno nell'altro". Questo avrebbe la conseguenza che "semplicemente si alternano periodi di espansione e contrazione". OK, questo non è una nuova idea, ma forse le sue idee sulla convertibilità di tempo e spazio sono nuove - sebbene se seguano bene le orme di Einstein e il suo spazio-tempo. Un'altra teoria che tenta di abolire l'idea della creazione singolare si basa su una estensione della teoria delle stringhe - è la M-teoria, il quale invece di fili opera con superfici multidimensionali, chiamati 'brane'. Il big bang sarebbe allora quello que che vediamo dopo una collisione fortuita.
I have been reading some short articles at the Italian popular science site 'Kosmofysis'. The most thought provoking was the suggestion by a Taiwanese professor that total interchangeability between space and time would mean that the univers just had alternating phases of expansion and contraction. This sounds like an extension of Einstein's notion of Spacetime, but even if the 'pulsating' model of the univers isn't new, I have not seen anybody claim that interchangeability of space and time necessarily should lead to pulsation. And the theory ets rid of the singularity at the beginning, but allegedly can't explain why we then can see a background radiation which supposedly should come from the very beginnings of the univers. There is also another competing theory, namely the idea that the thing we see as a big bang really 'just' was a fortuitous clash between two branes, i.e. multidimensional planes. 'Branes' are used in a development of string theory called m-theory ... and nobody is sure what the "m-" stands for.
This Italian homepage may not be updated as often as some of its Anglophone competitors, but it is nice for once to see the Italian language used for scientific purposes.
Edited by Iversen on 14 October 2010 at 11:21pm
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| zamie Groupie Australia Joined 5255 days ago 83 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Modern Hebrew
| Message 2101 of 3959 14 October 2010 at 12:47pm | IP Logged |
Oh yes, the answer to the origins of the universe, a question that we will not understand
for a long time. Anyway, just when I thought that I had some logical thought on the
question, I read about the blue brain project. After reading about their findings, I
really don't know what to think anymore.
http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 2102 of 3959 14 October 2010 at 5:38pm | IP Logged |
If I have understood the aim of that Blue-brain project right then the goal is to free you from having any thoughts, - some kind of supermachine will do the thinking for you.
OK, maybe not tomorrow...
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| Hobbema Senior Member United States Joined 5743 days ago 541 posts - 575 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese, French, Dutch
| Message 2103 of 3959 14 October 2010 at 6:01pm | IP Logged |
Iversen wrote:
...I have been reading some short articles at the Italian popular science site 'Kosmofysis'. The most thought provoking was the suggestion by a Taiwanese professor that total interchangeability between space and time would mean that the univers just had alternating phases of expansion and contraction. This sounds like an extension of Einstein's notion of Spacetime, but even if the 'pulsating' model of the univers isn't new, I have not seen anybody claim that interchangeability of space and time necessarily should lead to pulsation. And the theory ets rid of the singularity at the beginning, but allegedly can't explain why we then can see a background radiation which supposedly should come from the very beginnings of the univers. There is also another competing theory, namely the idea that the thing we see as a big bang really 'just' was a fortuitous clash between two branes, i.e. multidimensional planes. 'Branes' are used in a development of string theory called m-theory ... and nobody is sure what the "m-" stands for.
This Italian homepage may not be updated as often as some of its Anglophone competitors, but it is nice for once to see the Italian language used for scientific purposes.
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As I understand it, there could still be an expanding and contracting universe even without total interchangeability between space and time, explainable solely in terms of mass and energy. Energy and mass are interchangeable through General Relativity, but I don’t have a enough of a concept of Einstein’s space and time to understand how that perfect efficiency between space and time would determine pulsation. And it makes for interesting reading, but my eyes glaze over and I get lost and confused once the topic of string theory comes up...
But another thing is that this post shows still another way how learning other languages can open up your world. I myself am not studying only for practical use of my target languages, but also because I want to read and hear about world events and topics in a different context. I like to read about the history of the American West in English, but wouldn’t it be cool to read about the Brazilian rain forest from the viewpoint of the people who live there, or about the lives and work of Debussy and Saint-Saens in French?
Or for that matter, you could browse Italian science sites for origins theories!
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Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5849 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map
| Message 2104 of 3959 14 October 2010 at 6:50pm | IP Logged |
Iversen wrote:
IT: Ho letto alcuni articoli sul sito Italiano di scienza popolare kosmofysis.com. In uno di quelli si tratta di una nuova teoria cosmologica chi cerca di eliminare la singolarità iniziale dell'universo, il 'big bang'. Il professore taiwanese Wun-Yi Shu pensa che "il tempo e lo spazio non sono indipendenti, ma possono essere convertiti infinitamente uno nell'altro". Questo avrebbe la conseguenza che "semplicemente si alternano periodi di espansione e contrazione". OK, questo non è una nuova idea, ma forse le sue idee sulla convertibilità di tempo e spazio sono nove - sebbene se seguano bene le orme di Einstein e il suo spazio-tempo. Un'altra teoria che tenta di abolire l'idea della creazione singolare si basa su una estensione della teoria delle stringhe - è la M-teoria, il quale invece di fili opera con superfici multidimensionali, chiamati 'brane'. Il big bang sarebbe allora quello que che vediamo dopo una collisione fortuita. |
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ITA: Anch'io conozco questa website di "Kosmofysis". Io non conosceva la teoria della alternanza di periodi de espansione ed contrazione dell'universo. Nella ultima conferenza dell'astronomia della VHS ho un'altra volta ascoltato la teoria die Edwin Hubble della espansione dell'universo che si prova della "redshift" delle galassie. La teoria delle stringe io non conozco, ho soltanto letto il suo nome qualche volte.
Fasulye
Edited by Fasulye on 14 October 2010 at 7:56pm
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