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Do all languages have a "turning point"?

  Tags: Linguistics | History
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38 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 35  Next >>
robarb
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 Message 25 of 38
23 April 2015 at 5:22am | IP Logged 
I'm from the US and I've never heard "outwith" before.
I've also never heard "gives you well to..."
We do not use the word "farther" in the way Cromwell does.
All the individual pieces still exist in "an Instrument drawn up by the consent and advice of the principal Officers of
the Army" but the sentence as a whole is archaic in style to the point that its meaning is not obvious.
Where I'm from people don't really use "scant" or "shall" that way either, but I think some people still do.

Although I'll agree with the general sentiment, that Cromwell's English is not any further from contemporary speech
as you might expect after 350 years. I'm still able to read it.

Edited by robarb on 23 April 2015 at 5:23am

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tarvos
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 Message 26 of 38
23 April 2015 at 8:24am | IP Logged 
All these excerpts are completely legible and understandable to me. Cromwell's is a bit
more laborious to get through because of some of the grammatical differences, but given
that they are often present in Dutch they do not represent a problem for me in
particular.

I always categorized "outwith" as exclusively Scottish in nature.

I would consider using "hitherto" quite posh, if not archaic; I would expect it to be
written in very old formal texts, but I would only use it if I were being facetious on
purpose.

Edited by tarvos on 23 April 2015 at 8:27am

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Radioclare
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 Message 27 of 38
23 April 2015 at 9:50am | IP Logged 
I've also never heard anyone say "outwith" and wouldn't have known what they meant if they did.

I would consider "hitherto" to be quite a common word; I might not use it very frequently in everyday conversation but wouldn't hesitate to use it in writing. I certainly encounter it in business correspondence quite often.

I was quite surprised to receive an email a few weeks ago that included the word "herewith", however, as that is a word which I have only ever seen in legal documents before. The person who used it is someone on secondment from one of our offices in Pakistan, so I'm not sure whether it's more common in the English spoken there or whether he learned it from a slightly outdated textbook.
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eyðimörk
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 Message 28 of 38
23 April 2015 at 10:27am | IP Logged 
Radioclare wrote:
The person who used it is someone on secondment from one of our offices in Pakistan, so I'm not sure whether it's more common in the English spoken there or whether he learned it from a slightly outdated textbook.

Third alternative: He just likes using an older or more formal register, and is aware of this tendency in himself. I can't possibly be the only person who can't write a semi-formal text without digital red pen left and right because my language is supposedly "antiquated". ;)

I'll also add a quick general warning to everyone, since this is a pet-peeve of mine and the "outdated textbook" comment touches a bit on that: beware of assuming that the "I wouldn't personally say/write this" you find in a non-native speaker is an unconscious fault on their part, because you probably don't like it when helpful natives make the same assumptions about you when you're not actually doing anything wrong (e.g. last week someone corrected me for saying that I was painting something 'dolphin grey' and told me it was better to say 'mouse grey' since that's what a French person would say... not only could I simply have meant to describe the paint in more vivid and descriptive terms since mice and dolphins aren't actually the same hue, but the fact of the matter was that I was simply giving the name of the actual colour I had bought, a name given by a French paint company. In Swedish, I could've said drizzle-cloud-grey and I would just have been creative, because my native accent doesn't make it register as an error). We're all learners, so let's give other learners the benefit of the doubt. :)
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outcast
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 Message 29 of 38
23 April 2015 at 3:13pm | IP Logged 
Why is the Benjamin Franklin excerpt written in "German-style" orthography? (all nouns are capitalized)
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daegga
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 Message 30 of 38
23 April 2015 at 9:07pm | IP Logged 
outcast wrote:
Why is the Benjamin Franklin excerpt written in "German-style"
orthography? (all nouns are capitalized)


He was obviously a member of the so called "Tea-Party".

read me


edit: I'm giving up on this forum -.- now even re-formatting doesn't help

Edited by daegga on 23 April 2015 at 9:09pm

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Stolan
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 Message 31 of 38
29 June 2015 at 6:44pm | IP Logged 
No, they do not, they simply do not and most never will because it is not the norm.
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emk
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 Message 32 of 38
29 June 2015 at 8:41pm | IP Logged 
kanewai wrote:
To me, English feels modern from about 1800 on. Bram Stoker, Mark Twain, Jane Austen,
Mary Shelley, etc. are all pretty easy, and don't require me to shift gears to
understand them.

In French, I find that Tocqueville was quite accessible, as of 1848:

Quote:
Parmi les objets nouveaux qui, pendant mon séjour aux États-Unis, ont
attiré mon attention, aucun n'a plus vivement frappé mes regards que
l'égalité des conditions. Je découvris sans peine l'influence
prodigieuse qu'exerce ce premier fait sur la marche de la société; il
donne à l'esprit public une certaine direction, un certain tour aux
lois; aux gouvernants des maximes nouvelles, et des habitudes
particulières aux gouvernés.

But if we go back to 1651, Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan is more annoying to read in English than Tocqueville was in French:

Quote:
Nature (the art whereby God hath made and governes the world) is by the
art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it
can make an Artificial Animal. For seeing life is but a motion of Limbs,
the begining whereof is in some principall part within; why may we not
say, that all Automata (Engines that move themselves by springs and
wheeles as doth a watch) have an artificiall life? For what is the
Heart, but a Spring; and the Nerves, but so many Strings; and the
Joynts, but so many Wheeles, giving motion to the whole Body, such as
was intended by the Artificer? Art goes yet further, imitating that
Rationall and most excellent worke of Nature, Man.


But if we jump back to France, we have Montaigne's Essais in the mid-1500s, which can still be mostly deciphered by anybody who reads modern French fluently, although some of the vocabulary is used in surprising ways:

Quote:
LA plus commune façon d'amollir les coeurs de ceux qu'on a offencez,
lors qu'ayans la vengeance en main, ils nous tiennent à
leur mercy, c'est de les esmouuoir par submission, à commiseration
et à pitié: toutesfois la brauerie, la constance, et la resolution,
moyens tous contraires, ont quelquesfois seruy à ce mesme
effect.   Edouard Prince de Galles, celuy qui regenta si long temps
nostre Guienne: personnage duquel les conditions et la fortune ont
beaucoup de notables parties de grandeur; ayant esté bien fort
offencé par les Limosins, et prenant leur ville par force, ne peut
estre arresté par les cris du peuple, et des femmes, et enfans
abandonnez à la boucherie, luy criants mercy, et se iettans à ses
pieds: iusqu'à ce que passant tousiours outre dans la ville, il
apperçeut trois Gentilshommes François, qui d'vne hardiesse incroyable
soustenoient seuls l'effort de son armee victorieuse. La
consideration et le respect d'vne si notable vertu, reboucha premierement
la pointe de sa cholere: et commença par ces trois,
à faire misericorde à tous les autres habitans de la ville.

I can only read this in small quantities, or it will mess up my French spelling!

But if you go back another 200 years in either language, I start to get into trouble. I actually find the Canterbury Tales to be slightly harder than Montaigne (although it varies depending on the passage).

But if you're interested in how languages change over time, the Egyptian language makes a wonderful case study, because we have texts from 3,400BC up through the 17th century when spoken Coptic finally died out, for a total run of over 5,000 years. And in many cases, we know how long texts remained intelligible: Ancient Egyptian texts could generally be read by speakers of Middle Egyptian, for example, but Late Egyptian readers appeared to use translations of earlier texts.

One big driver is language evolution is clear: Written languages will often outlive the fall of an empire, but when a new empire arises, the regional vernacular of its ruling class will often become the new prestige dialect. The spoken language is no longer held back by an older written language, and hundreds of years of poorly-recorded changes to spoken language become visible at once.



Edited by emk on 29 June 2015 at 9:19pm



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