Robert Byers
Posts: 160 Joined: Nov. 2009
|
Quote (Arden Chatfield @ April 17 2007,22:52) | Quote | I know this is wrong. Nevertheless, people using 'beg the question' to mean 'suggests the question' pisses me off. |
Some 'new' things people say is language change. Some shit is just wrong. ;) Until EVERYONE says it. Then it's language change.
Quote | Quote | 'some languages are harder than others' |
Well, doesn't it take longer to learn some languages, than others? |
It's totally relative based on what your first language is. For an English speaker, Finnish is a motherfucker. For an Estonian, it's a walk in the park. For an English speaker, Dutch is a challenge but not THAT hard. Dutch would be vastly harder for a speaker of, say, Chinese.
Quote | Quote | 'Chinese characters are pictographic' |
Uh,...what? that's not true? |
No, they're logographic:
Quote | The Chinese written language employs Chinese characters (??/?? pinyin: hànzì), which are logograms: each symbol represents a sememe or morpheme (a meaningful unit of language), as well as one syllable; the written language can thus be termed a morphemo-syllabic script. They are not just pictographs (pictures of their meanings), but are highly stylized and carry much abstract meaning. Only some characters are derived from pictographs. In 100 AD, the famed scholar X? Shèn in the Hàn Dynasty classified characters into 6 categories, only 4% as pictographs, and 82% as phonetic complexes consisting of a semantic element that indicates meaning, and a phonetic element that arguably once indicated the pronunciation. |
Quote | Quote | 'in the Appalachians they speak like Shakespeare' |
I've heard this one. Not true? |
Nope. Appalachian has rural English archaisms, and it also has weird stuff it did on its own, which is what we'd expect. Not Shakespeare.
Quote | 'black children are verbally deprived' Quote | Listening to black english does piss me off.
|
|
You're far from alone, but that still doesn't mean that black children are verbally deprived or that black English is 'illogical'.
Quote | Quote | 'Aborigines speak a primitive language'
|
that seems dumb. Some 'primitive' languages are really complex. |
All languages are complex, most languages of 'primitive societies' are incredibly complex.
Quote | ARDEN, IS IT TRUE YOU AND OTHER HOMOS LISP AND HAVE A SECRET HANDSHAKE?
|
However, you know that notion that Englishmen all talk like homosexuals? That actually is true. :angry: |
I'm glad to hear you say all languages are complex. i am a biblical creationist and indeed it could only be that all languages are equally complex in structure as they all come from a common language at babel. i believe the bible says the original language was broken into 70 languages. of coarse the Indo-European group shows the commonality of at least a portion of mankind. Yes even the most primitive tribe will have a language that is as complex as any so as to bring to words all the intelligence of man as a being in the image of God.
|