Lazy8 wrote: 
Speaking of languages:  I recently finished re-reading Bastard Tongues by linguist Derek Bickerton.  It's a fascinating and very entertaining exploration of the evolution of creole languages around the world — as much an adventure story as anything else.  I heartily recommend it!  Here's the Amazon link in case anyone's interested.

JustineFromWyoming wrote:
Sooooo wish I could help you!

Eating all this English toffee won't make me any less sleepy.

 Lazy8 wrote: 

Not true with the lexicon for any given modern language, for example, which tends to get bigger and more complex as time goes by. English itself is a famous example. Why, we have a word for everything.  And some modern languages are quite conservative grammatically, like Lithuanian, which proudly boasts all seven of the original Indo-European noun cases (wow, an instrumental case?!). Lithuanian also has the richest participle system of all I-E languages, with participles derived from all tenses with distinct active and passive forms, and several gerund forms. Sounds exhausting. Linguistic evolution isn't simply a progress from complexity to simplicity or vice versa; change can work in many different ways, some of them producing greater complexity, or leaving past complexity in place.

 Lazy8 wrote: 

 dionysius wrote:
 
Languages tend to get simpler as they get older, and the bits that fall off are the ones that carry no information. Like gender.

Numbering systems tend to get simpler too—counting in Mandarin is much simpler than in English, which is simpler than French.

French has a further disadvantage: l'Académie Française. The French language actually has a sort of governing body that decides what is French and what isn't, a sure-fire way to freeze the evolution of the language and doom it to the dustbin of history in a few centuries. Assuming anyone pays it any attention.

 

 

Most people can not chew gum while simutaneously slapping their ass with both hands.

If someone offers to slap your ass while you chew gum, call the authorities.

The current temperature at Newark Liberty Airport gate A18 is in the low 120's F.

 Isabeau wrote: 
Chairs the world over appreciate this!

 dionysius wrote: 
And crazy, too!

 Welly wrote: 

And who wouldn't?

Billy G has a soft spot for Librarians

 phineas wrote: 

Latin? Three genders but no articles. Closely related to Greek, three genders with articles. Lithuanian has strongly inflected noun system, like those ancient languages, but with no article. Icelandic uses only postfixed definite articles. English, with a developed system of definite and indefinite article, is more sophisticated than most languages. Try to have a Russian speaker make a quick and easy distinction between "a (any) banana lassi" and "the (one under discussion) banana lassi" and you'll get my point. That Frenchman was un homme complètement fou!

And I am aware that articles are weakened demonstratives, but demonstratives (like the Latin ille which yields Spanish el)  are not used like articles in these languages!

 phineas wrote: 
My ex, who's French as you may know, used to say English was a primitive language for the exact same reason.

 phineas wrote: 
I consider it boorish to look under a chair to see what gender it is.

 dionysius wrote: 
Years ago, in Nepal, I sat next at a table next to a group of travellers, among them a Frenchman who was declaiming loudly that, because there is no 'gender' in English, "It is a baby language... THE butter, THE chair..."  I wish I had been quick enough to ask if he thought, then, that French must be an adolescent language (2 genders), compared to, say, German with three. And would that in turn make Mandarin, which doesn't even use definite articles, an embryonic language.

But no, I just ordered a banana lassi and some toast...

dionysius wrote:
Yes...I actually minored in German in college.     That makes sense.. and B said that 'die DJin' wouldn't really sound good, so I guess that's why they came up with DJane.  They kinda thought 'DJay' even though they know that 'DJ' actually is an abbreviation of 'disc jockey'.    Danish used to have more of a separation too, but they kinda got rid of it. 

Speaking of gender specificities and rrrrromance languages (have to rrrroll the rrrrr), it's interesting to note that in spanish the vulgar terms for genitals are gender inverse.  That is, "vulgar penis" has a female ending and "vulgar vagina" has a male ending.  As such, you'd use "La" with the male and "el" with the female term.  Reminds me of a movie I saw once actually...

Hmmm... "vulgar penis"...where's that Name My Band thread...

 Talalala wrote: 

Well, not that strange. Many languages have stronger grammatical gender than English does. Even inanimate objects can have "gender" which will determine if it gets a masculine, feminine or (in some languages) neuter adjective or article, for instance. Der DJ and die DJ might grate on German-speaking ears without further gender distinction. The Romance languages are even stronger with the gendered nouns, often with distinctive endings and declension. Anyone out there with specific examples from their own languages?

 Talalala wrote:  i like it!