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Latin: Alumni vs. Alumnus | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6267 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 9 of 13 03 October 2010 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
Languages change, but that doesn't mean you have to throw your hands up and go "oh well" as soon as somebody makes an illogical usage. Someday "irregardless" might be an acceptable word; likewise "alumni" as a singular. But that day is not today, so I think I'm perfectly justified in choosing to be annoyed by both of them. ;) Edited by furrykef on 03 October 2010 at 5:26pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4968 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 10 of 13 03 October 2010 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
True, but languages change often in silly, illogical ways whether we like it or not. Chaucer, I believe, has a couple of good examples of bemoaning change that became modern English 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6498 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 11 of 13 04 October 2010 at 10:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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You can bemoan things that without doubt are acceptapted usage in a language. This includes both 'old' words and phrases and new ones. For instance I bemoan that English hasn't got a simple alternative to "him/her" (except singular "they", which I also bemoan), and that it hasn't got an unstressed reflexive pronoun. I probably do so because I know language that have solved these problems. I also bemoan usages of words and attitudes to words that force good neutral words out of usage because somebody takes exception to them (so here I effectively bemoan other bemoaners). And I bemoan halfbaked attempts to integrate foreign words in a language. Either you should inflect them correctly as in the original language, or you should go all the way and integrate them fully into your own.
But ultimately language development is a dirty power struggle. If those who use a certain way of expression are sufficiently numerous, influentual, stubborn and even plain dumb then they win, and the error becomes the norm. Edited by Iversen on 04 October 2010 at 10:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| H.Computatralis Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 6099 days ago 130 posts - 210 votes Speaks: Polish*, French, English Studies: German, Spanish, Latin | Message 12 of 13 04 October 2010 at 10:55am | IP Logged | |||||
So, borrowed Latin words should be inflected in six different cases? That's ridiculous! I actually, like the other approach -- when you borrow a word you treat it as a new lexical unit and integrate it fully in your own language. For example, in Polish we have borrowed the word "jeans" from English, but we don't care that it's plural. We write it "dżins" and treat it as a singular noun, and we decline it as we would decline any other noun that ends in a consonant. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6498 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 13 of 13 04 October 2010 at 11:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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No, borrowed Latin words should not be be inflected in six different cases. You can choose to inflect them, not to inflect them, or you can inflect them according to the rules of your own language. In the case of English this means that you don't have to use separate forms for the accusative, vocative, dative and ablative forms because they aren't relevant in any English context - and you could get away with using an English genitive 's' on an unchanged Latin word because that would be one way of integrating the word into English. Essentially what is left for an English speaker is the distinction between singular and plural.
But now I see that your native language is Polish... and you guys have probably got a lot of cases like other Slavic languages. OK, I don't ´know what people do in Poland. But I would probably go for no flexion or full integration in order to avoid the case problem. I don't say that people should import foreign flexion into their own language whenever they use a loan word. I say that IF people choose to inflect then they could at last have the decency of using a relevant form. Edited by Iversen on 04 October 2010 at 11:36am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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