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It’s Archaic | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4950 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 1 of 50 09 February 2013 at 3:10am | IP Logged | ||
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I haven't seen a topic like this so thought it might be interesting (maybe only to me).
What are grammatical uses, tenses, or uses that are considered archaic in whatever languages you know well? I think many of you know that there is subtle difference generally accepted between archaic and obsolete. Archaic is generally a use that can be still heard or read but has been tagged by the speakers of a language as dated or from an earlier time. Thus its use today is either seen as quaint, silly, or stilted. That contrasts with obsolete, which are uses almost no one would recognize or even understand, and generally found in the older literature of a language. I've been slowly trying to learn about archaic phrases or grammar in my target languages: "als wie" or "denn" instead of "als" in German, the imperfect subjunctives or the word "ès" in French, etc. So what things or list of things come up in your head as archaic in your language(s)? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ojorolla Diglot Groupie France Joined 4966 days ago 90 posts - 130 votes Speaks: French*, English | Message 2 of 50 09 February 2013 at 3:52am | IP Logged | ||
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"I took dinner", maybe?
Can any English speaker confirm if this should be considered as archaic? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 3 of 50 09 February 2013 at 5:08am | IP Logged | ||
What's the sense of the expression? To eat dinner? Taking the phrase at face value, it sounds like a neutral way of saying that you moved the dinner (in dishes or containers) from one place to another. Off the top of my head, a likely archaism in one of my target languages is in the Finnish imperative. It's grammatical but rare (and for some deemed archaic) to use the suffix -kaamme / -käämme for the imperative of 1st person plural. It's usual and sometimes taught without additional comment that the form is -(ta)an / -(tä)än which from a certain point of view means that the passive present and 1st person plural imperative are the same. "Let's go!" Menkäämme (vain)! (rare but grammatical) Mennään (vaan/vain)! (common, and grammatical despite the identity with a form that's not imperative) Mennään kotiin/himaan "Let's go home; We're going home/We'll go home" (common and grammatical. As if one "extra" use of the passive present form weren't enough, the colloquial way to conjugate the 1st person plural in present/future tense is to use this canonical passive form. In other words, depending on context or intonation, this particular sentence can be the imperative or present tense indicative for "we". himaan is a slangier way to say "home(ward)") "Let's buy some beer!" Ostakaamme olutta! (rare, and the archaic or stilted nature of the utterance is magnified by using the formal word for "beer", olut) Ostetaan kaljaa! (common, and grammatical with the stiltedness or archaism reduced by using a slangy term for "beer", kalja. In other words, depending on the intonation and context, this can also be understood as the present/future tense of the 1st person plural i.e. "We're buying some beer / We'll buy some beer") Laivalta ostetaan olutta/kaljaa "[Some] beer is bought on [from] the boat" (standard or neutral passive sentence) As a learner I found the rare or archaic form with -kaamme / -käämme more predictable or easier to remember than the present passive form since the former is vaguely similar to the other forms in imperative (including the quite useful forms for the 2nd person plural cf. Ostakaa kaljaa! / Älkää ostako kaljaa!) and it combines the ending -mme which is associated with the 1st person plural. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| berabero89 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4643 days ago 101 posts - 137 votes Speaks: English, Amharic* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, French | Message 4 of 50 09 February 2013 at 5:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Spanish:
The future subjunctive: "No creo que hablare con ellos" ("I don't think I'll talk with them") instead of the current "No creo que hable con ellos" (lit. "I don't think I talk with them) (anyone, feel free to correct me, since I've never seen it used before, I'm making an educated guess on the future usage). The placement of object pronouns after a verb: "Dánmelo" ("They give me it") instead of "me lo dan". English: The change of some word order (this is usually poetic): "I thee love" or "Thee I love" ("I love you"). The use of the pronouns "ye, thou, thy, thee": "ye shall go", "thy horse is sturdy", "thou shalt not...", and like before, "I love thee". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4359 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 5 of 50 09 February 2013 at 9:14am | IP Logged | ||
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There are sooooo many in greek. Each and every type or expression of katharevousa, still in formal use untill the 1970s/80s. It is associated with very conservative political ideas, with stuck up declined "aristocrats", etc. But you can use it when having fun with your friends, saying things like
Φίλτατε... Dearest... Δύναμαι να δανεισθώ τον κονδυλοφόρον σας, παρακαλώ; May I borrow your pen, please? Αναιδεστάτη! Most disrespectful! Απαξιώ! I won't dignify that with an answer! and have a good laugh. The most famous one, which is a pun and a naughty one, is the following. It means, the two orphan girls, but if pronounced fast (as it always is) it sounds like something I will not translate. Αι δύο ορφαναί. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 6 of 50 09 February 2013 at 10:09am | IP Logged | ||
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In Dutch, the subjunctive survives in fixed expessions like "Leve de koningin!" but is
otherwise not used. It sounds archaic. Same for using constructions with cases, which are not part of the grammar anymore, but can be seen in fixed phrases. Edited by tarvos on 09 February 2013 at 10:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4522 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 7 of 50 09 February 2013 at 10:59am | IP Logged | ||
"als wie" is colloquial, I hear it all the time. In German, the dative -e in certain noun classes is considered archaic, is understood and still used occasionally ... but it often sounds poetic or hypercorrect. Edited by daegga on 09 February 2013 at 11:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 8 of 50 09 February 2013 at 11:49am | IP Logged | ||
And yeah, I've only/mostly heard the "proper" imperative in songs. Old or epic power metal, hehe. Potentiaali is a rarer form, btw. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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