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It’s Archaic | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4953 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 17 of 50 09 February 2013 at 2:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I forgot to address the issue of of regionalism or written vs oral form. In both
situations, there could be something archaic in one that is not in the other. Daegga mentioned "als wie" is alive and well in his area. I guess there are other areas where it is not as much. That's just like "vosotros" in New World Spanish, where it is seen as archaic almost universally when you speak it, yet it is completely standard in European Spanish. It is strange because when you hear it with a Spanish accent, it does not seem archaic... but with any other accent it sounds completely out of place, i.e. archaic. Same with "vos". With the Rioplatense accent (or other argentine accents like Cordoban, Pampean, Mendozan, or northeastern accent), it sounds completely expected and standard. But one time when a Spaniard used "vos", it sounded totally off and stilted. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Acut Tetraglot Groupie Brazil Joined 4704 days ago 53 posts - 101 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish, French | Message 18 of 50 09 February 2013 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There are a bunch of archaic and falling into disuse expressions/tenses in Brazilian Portuguese. Some uses are even contradictory. Most grammar books regard the "older" forms as correct, condemning the "newer" forms (especially when the "newer" forms imply a separation from "European Portuguese"), but the newer forms are, effectively, what current educated native speakers (ENS) use on a daily basis, in spoken and written forms. Using the older forms may sound odd or even pedantic.
In most of Brazil, the verbal forms associated with the familiar second person pronoun "tu" have died out. I rarely hear someone saying "Tu queres algo?". The pronoun itself, however, is still very used, even associated with incorrect constructions, or mixed altogether with the more formal second person pronoun "você". One can hear "Eu te amo. Você é tudo para mim." (mixing both pronouns "tu" e "você"), which sounds very natural even to educated speakers (even though it is a grammatical mistake). You may also hear "Tu gosta de cantar", which is a mistake a bit more obvious to the ENS, but still often made, except in some southern states. In a nutshell, one may sometimes switch from "tu" to "você" almost freely, even in the middle of a sentence, even if it may incur what prescriptive grammars call "wrong". Grandma never allowed me to use "tu" when talking to others (she, and some older generations, find it offensive/too informal), but that didn't preclude me or her from using the associated objetive pronoun "te". Very weird if you actually think about it, but absolutely natural to the ENS. "Vós" is now confined to written language - as is mesoclisis, or some other pronoun rarities "Dei a casa a ele = Dei-lha". The proposition "a" has mostly been replaced by "para" - "Fui para a Bahia", "Dei a casa para ele"... Proclisis sounds very weird in certain contexts. "Te dei um presente" sounds much more natural to the ENS, even if wrong according to the grammar books, than "Dei-te o presente". Contemporary literature easily disregards those rules, for the sake of naturality - but pre-1922 works usually follow "the book". There is a tendency for proclisis, even when it's not mandatory. I see the future tense getting weaker as well: "Vou comprar o presente" sounds more native-like than "Comprarei o presente". Some "mais-que-perfeito" forms may sound even weirder: "ele chegara na festa antes de Joana" sounds less natural than "ele havia chegado na festa antes de Joana". Overall, we tend to use "split forms" in lieu of "pure" verb forms. The verb "haver" is normally replaced by "ter" - "Hei de ser honesto" became "Tenho de/que ser honesto" and "Há uma pedra no meio do caminho" became, rather famously, "Tem uma pedra no meio do caminho". Gerunds are more often used nowadays, sometimes to the extreme (like substituting "Eu vou ligar para o cliente" by "Eu vou estar ligando para o cliente"). That "gerundism" is usually avoided by the ENS, but sometimes has become almost standard in sub-educated speech. I've heard that there has also been some changes in pronunciation, but I don't know exactly what happened. If I read books from the 1970s (even technical, engineering books), I can clearly notice some usages/vocabulary that would be weird today. The changes have been very fast. Machado de Assis wrote only some 100 years ago, and his books, despite still readable (and great!), sound almost foreign today. I wonder if this has happened to other languages as strongly as it has in Brazilian Portuguese. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| palfrey Senior Member Canada Joined 5277 days ago 81 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 19 of 50 09 February 2013 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I once saw "Il est vrai", meaning something like "It is true", in some writing by a 19th century French author. A native French speaker told me that it was correct, though rather old-fashioned, and that the usual way of expressing it today would be "C'est vrai."
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| BrianDeAlabama Groupie United States Joined 4523 days ago 89 posts - 113 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 20 of 50 09 February 2013 at 6:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There is a good book written by my Greek & Hebrew teacher from Bible School called, Archaic Words and the
Authorized Version(King James Version of Bible). The author is Lawrence Vance. It is a nice book if you love the language of the King James Bible or the Elizabethan English. I am a King James guy and love the book. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4776 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 21 of 50 09 February 2013 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Because in Russian the copula is normally dropped in present tense sentences, all present tense forms of "to be" (быть) are either archaic or obsolete, except for the third person singular form (есть). Going by the definitions in the OP's post, I would say that the first person singular (есмь) and the third person plural (суть) are archaic, while the rest are for all intents and purposes obsolete. "Аз[ъ] есмь" ("I am") often comes up in the better remembered Biblical phrases and also gets used in jokingly self-aggrandizing statements, while "суть" is sometimes used in the study of logic when constructing syllogisms. I've never encountered any modern Russian uses of the other forms, and I believe that most Russians wouldn't even be able to tell you what they were (okay, some might also recall the second person singular "еси" from the Church Slavonic version of the Lord's Prayer, but CS isn't Russian, so this example alone doesn't disprove its obsolescence). Edited by vonPeterhof on 09 February 2013 at 11:32pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5055 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani | Message 22 of 50 10 February 2013 at 3:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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I just picked up Moll Flanders, and here's a random sentence: "They both pleaded their bellies [in Newgate], and were both voted quick with child; though my tutoress was no more with child than I was."
Edited by espejismo on 10 February 2013 at 3:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5104 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 23 of 50 10 February 2013 at 5:41am | IP Logged | |||||
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I cannot pretend to be an expert in French, but I can say with some degree of certainty, that using the imperfect subjuntive in speech is obsolete.
Que j'eusse, que je fusse I've also heard the inversion is becoming a bit unpopular, but I can't verify that. devrais-je pourrais-je I apologize for any spelling errors. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6601 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 24 of 50 10 February 2013 at 10:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
Of course it's too simplified to say me=indicative, but would it be bad as a rule of thumb? BTW, do you natives consider the use of 'te' when addressing ONE person archaic? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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