Hey They got it !
- Thread starter foxjaw
- Start date
- Joined
- Mar 5, 1999
- Messages
- 34,096
A vertically modified version is on the shopping site, courtesy Beo.
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2001
- Messages
- 1,780
Originally posted by foxjaw
Wow I see they finally got my HI poster up on the HI site. Looks cool even if I do say so myself
Foxy
I thought this was your work - I saw it 'lying round' in Uncle's Andale pic-files and managed to get it up on (what I call) 'The Shop Front' page .
My devanagari literacy is impairing my ability to read the fount (that's the Prakrita font, no?) - just the first line:
'-ELD THE BEST'?
HELD, WIELD, WELD, FIELD ??
******
I think it's like that duck-rabbit thing:
Some people can see the duck, or the rabbit, but not the other one, until someone points it out to them. The basis of this 'problem' is that your visual processing system can't 'maintain' both images at one - the one interferes with the other (there- you see I can sometimes justify being called a 'cognitive scientist' when I'm really a linguist
). So even if you can see both, you can't see them at the same time - it's either a duck or a rabbit....you see what I mean ?In my case, I'm seeing nagari vowel signs and can't make out what the Roman letter is meant to be.
cheers, B.
ps Don't stare at the duck-rabbit too long or you'll start to go a bit loony (derived from the Latin root luna as Berk observes).
- Joined
- Mar 5, 1999
- Messages
- 34,096
Just to show you what I'm up against everyday I just showed the pix to Yangdu and asked her what this critter was. She said a raccoon.
Have I mentioned that she's dyslexic?
And she's the foreman of the Nepali shipping staff.
And now you know why some orders end up in Siberia.
Have I mentioned that she's dyslexic?
And she's the foreman of the Nepali shipping staff.
And now you know why some orders end up in Siberia.
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2001
- Messages
- 1,780
I've always thought that there were only three possibilities - a person could see both the duck and the rabbit, but not at the same time; or they would only be able to see, but not the other. Apparently there's a fourth possibility of interpreting the whole picture as a raccoon
I'm still trying to figure out how to see it as a raccoon though
B.
- Joined
- Mar 5, 1999
- Messages
- 34,096
And I'm still trying to figure out how khukuris meant to go to Colorado end up in Siberia.
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2001
- Messages
- 1,780
OK - if you'll tell me what the first word on the sign is...'field'?
As for Sanskrit & Latin - the short answer (the long answer would take several months) is that they both descend from a hypothetic language called Proto-Indo-European (or Urindogermanische by the Germans and sometimes also called Proto-Indo-Aryan).
There are no records of Proto-IE, so how, you might well ask, did the 18th & 19th century linguists make this claim. Essentially by studying the vocabularies of languages. How do you know that English and German are related? Look at vocabulary, there's a lot that's shared (hand is Hand (phon. /hant/); I is ich; &c.) and you if compare Old English with older Germanic dialects one sees even more similarity (languages tend to diverge, or, put it another way, dialects tend to turn into languages--Danish, German, Norse, &c. were once all 'dialects' of a single language; French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese were also once 'dialects'),
So one can see that Latin and Sanskrit are related by comparing cognates like ignis (or whatever) in Latin, meaning fire; with Agni in Sanskrit, meaning fire (and the God of Fire). If one finds enough of these cognates--to put it simply--that's good proof that the two languages were related. One has to be careful though, because languages like to borrow words too, but the fact that katana is a word in English doesn't make English related to Japanese. There are some tricky case though - English has borrowed a massive amount of vocabulary from Norman French and also 'regular' French - something like 60% of the words in an English dictionary are of Romance origin (this includes 'scientific' words with Latinate roots too). So why isn't English a Romance language like French or Italian then? Because the 'core' vocabulary of English--the words we use the most frequently, esp. in speech--are almost all Germanic. Articles like 'the', words for body parts ('hand'), the 'core' verbs ('eat', 'drink', 'go', 'say', 'sleep', 'fight', 'sing', 'break', 'have', &c.), pronouns ('he', 'him', 'it'), &c., &c. are almost all Germanic, not from French or Latin. Modern English loves to borrow words though (this is a weird and not well understood phenomenon, some languages like borrowing words and some don't--'open' and 'closed' systems)--some words you might think of as being really 'English', like 'punch'--aren't! 'Punch' is from Sanskrit/Hindi 'panch', meaning 'five' (how many fingers in a fist?)
The basic theory is that once all of the Indo-Europeans lived in the same place (where is hotly debated--the theories proposed tend to have an interesting correlation with where the theorist is from
-- the Baltic area is the current favourite though). All of the Indo-Europeans spoke the same language (more or less). Then they began to migrate, and, being a rather warlike people, they quickly dominated all of Europe and a lot of Asia--displacing, assimilating or simply killing off the indigenous inhabitants. In Europe, the only non-Indo-European language left is Basque. The Indo-European peoples' languages diverged, turning into Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Slavic, Celtic, &c.. Of course, Sanskrit in turn, broke into Hindi, Bengali, Gujarti, Maharathi, Nepali, &c. Latin into Italian, French, Spanish, &c. Proto-Germanic into Norse, [standard] High German, Danish, Dutch, English. Celtic into Irish, Welsh, Breton, &c. (by the way, the Celts were extremely successful in prehistorical times in Europe, with a loose empire stretching from the Balkans to the British Isle -- largely because they had advanced metal-forging techniques and thus their swords didn't break )So, in fact, not only are Latin and Sanskrit related; but English and Sanskrit are related as well, because Sanskrit and Proto-Germanic were 'sister languages' and English descended from Proto-Germanic. So Sanskrit is sort of like a great uncle of English, you might say
. That's the short answer - if I got at what you were asking.
cheers, B.
- Joined
- Mar 5, 1999
- Messages
- 34,096
Please don't send any Russian addresses or something really will end up there. No, it's stuff like Springfield, Mass and Springfield, MO that gums up the works. Also is a person has a work address and home address and request one and then the other it seldom works.
Another very educational post, Beo, and many thanks. I'm still learning.
Another very educational post, Beo, and many thanks. I'm still learning.
Beo:
This has been a subject that's been on my mind a lot lately. I'm trying to learn Farsi (so I'll be able to speak to my future wife's family). I find the little word-relationships lots of fun. There aren't many direct cognates with English. But, if you know a little German and Latin, you find them all over the place.
S.
This has been a subject that's been on my mind a lot lately. I'm trying to learn Farsi (so I'll be able to speak to my future wife's family). I find the little word-relationships lots of fun. There aren't many direct cognates with English. But, if you know a little German and Latin, you find them all over the place.
S.
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2001
- Messages
- 1,780
Mine too - but it's a fairly unusual thing to have on one's mind
Is your fiancée Persian or Afghanistani or Indian or ? Just curious.
If you learn Farsi, then Indian languages like Hindi and Nepali shouldn't be too difficult for you to pick up. An interesting little fact is that the first European to learn Sanskrit (like Sir William Jones) actually learned it via classical Persian. Because the Mughal conquerors had had a lot of things translated into Persian and that formed a basis for learning (sort of like the Rosetta stone, but obviously with living speakers, it just would have been harder without the Persian intermedium, not impossible). In any case, Farsi is very closely related to Hindi and Nepali, they're all part of a sub-family of Indo-European called Indo-Iranian. So Farsi and Hindi would be a bit like Danish and German perhaps, in terms of their relationship.
There should be quite a number of cognates with English in Farsi - but they may not be as transparent as those in Latin (or German?). I find it odd that German helps - esp. if English doesn't...but then I don't know any Farsi (though I am acquainted with a Farsi linguist [who is Persian/Iranian]).
If you learn any interesting facts, let me know.
Any general linguistic stuff you want to know, I should be able to help you with--though not Farsi in particular. They're probably some good intro books on Indo-European and historical linguistics. The only one I can think of off the topic of my head is by Larry Trask-- an American linguist who's been 'stuck' in England for about 2 decades; his speciality is actually Basque, but he is very knowledgeable about historical linguistics as well--I think it's just called something like Historical Linguistics. They're probably some other good ones out there too - I think Roger Lass (who's an Old English specialist) has a intro to Historical Linguistics book; he's always a good one to read, easy to understand. If anyone is really that curious, I can probably dig up some good references.
cheers, B.
- Joined
- Mar 5, 1999
- Messages
- 34,096
Although I berate them, in truth, the Nepali shipping staff does a fair job. I figure they miss maybe once in two or three hundred tries which is good enough I suppose.
Here I am still trying to master English after using it for 68 years. All these language experts scare me.
Here I am still trying to master English after using it for 68 years. All these language experts scare me.
Beo:
She's Anglo-Persian, but Farsi is her first language.
I say Latin and German because I am familiar with those languages - so that's where I find the parallels (actually, with German it's more in word order and sentence construction). As far as English goes, I guess there are some readily accessible links (Na/No, Khoda/God, shish/six off of the top of my head - but you could use those for German, too).
I figured North Indian languages would be close, given that the Aryans/Iranians and their descendants were in and out of there at various times. I know that they have a lot of food-related words in common, if nothing else. Nepali hadn't occurred to me, though.
Thanks for the offer of linguistics knowledge. I may take you up on it in the near future. I'll also keep you appraised of any Farsi "fun facts" if I come across them.
S.
She's Anglo-Persian, but Farsi is her first language.
I say Latin and German because I am familiar with those languages - so that's where I find the parallels (actually, with German it's more in word order and sentence construction). As far as English goes, I guess there are some readily accessible links (Na/No, Khoda/God, shish/six off of the top of my head - but you could use those for German, too).
I figured North Indian languages would be close, given that the Aryans/Iranians and their descendants were in and out of there at various times. I know that they have a lot of food-related words in common, if nothing else. Nepali hadn't occurred to me, though.
Thanks for the offer of linguistics knowledge. I may take you up on it in the near future. I'll also keep you appraised of any Farsi "fun facts" if I come across them.
S.
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2001
- Messages
- 1,780
You should be able to find lots of cognates in English (esp. if you find them in German). The trick with English is--though laymen bemoan its irregular spelling--that the orthography often preserves older pronounciations. So when you're looking for cognates, compare both against the spoken form and the written form. On the pronunciation part, remember the Great Vowel Shift in English (ah, the Great Vowel Shift, those were the days - just kidding, this shift occurred right before Shakespeare's time), which is not reflected in the spelling--it only affected long vowels, thus:
I is said as aye, but used to be ee (as in 'eek').
A is often pronounced to rhyme with 'day', but used to be ah
E (like in 'geese') is often pronounced as in eek, but used to be pronounced to rhyme with day
O (like in 'goose') is often pronounced as ew, but was formerly oh
U usually spelt ou is typically pronounced ow, but used to be ew (some Canadians and Scots still retain the old pronounciation, e.g. listen to a Canadian say 'about').
So, shifting the pronunciation 'back' sometimes might help. Often the spelling will help where the pronunciation doesn't, e.g. 'one' is pronounced exactly the same as 'won' (with a 'w'), but used to be pronounced more like 'ahn' (c.f. French un/une, German ein/eine).
But yes, 'no' and 'six' are probably cognates. Most Indo-Euro. languages use some sort of 'nasal' for 'no' and numbers tend to be pretty stable. I don't know about 'Khoda/God' - that might be a 'false friend'.
On 'Indo-Iranians' - the Indo-Iranians broke off from the rest of the Indo-Europeans, and were a single group for a while, then some migrated into what is now Pakistan and eventually into the other parts of India (or, as some of the revisionists would have it, Indo-Europeans originated in India and migrated out). And Nepali is one of the Indo- Indo-Iranian languages. But Hindi should share even more commonalities with Farsi, because not only are they closely related, but the Mughals spoke a form of Persian and thus Hindi has many Farsi/Persian loan-words. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but they're hard to spot since they look very much like native words. Like in English, I imagine most people (who bother to think about it), think of words like 'gift' and 'egg' as being 'native' Anglo-Saxon. But they're not -- if they were from Old English, we would say 'yive' and 'eye' for 'gift' and 'egg'. They're both loan words from Norse, from the time when the Danes/Vikings alternately occupied and raided most of the north of England.
I imagine Farsi has a lot of Arabic words, doesn't it. I know Hindi has quite a few (like kitab 'book'), which I believe were borrowed from the Mughals who themselves borrowed them from the Arabs.
cheers for now, Ben.
- just kidding, this shift occurred right before Shakespeare's time), which is not reflected in the spelling--it only affected long vowels, thus:I is said as aye, but used to be ee (as in 'eek').
A is often pronounced to rhyme with 'day', but used to be ah
E (like in 'geese') is often pronounced as in eek, but used to be pronounced to rhyme with day
O (like in 'goose') is often pronounced as ew, but was formerly oh
U usually spelt ou is typically pronounced ow, but used to be ew (some Canadians and Scots still retain the old pronounciation, e.g. listen to a Canadian say 'about').
So, shifting the pronunciation 'back' sometimes might help. Often the spelling will help where the pronunciation doesn't, e.g. 'one' is pronounced exactly the same as 'won' (with a 'w'), but used to be pronounced more like 'ahn' (c.f. French un/une, German ein/eine).
But yes, 'no' and 'six' are probably cognates. Most Indo-Euro. languages use some sort of 'nasal' for 'no' and numbers tend to be pretty stable. I don't know about 'Khoda/God' - that might be a 'false friend'.
On 'Indo-Iranians' - the Indo-Iranians broke off from the rest of the Indo-Europeans, and were a single group for a while, then some migrated into what is now Pakistan and eventually into the other parts of India (or, as some of the revisionists would have it, Indo-Europeans originated in India and migrated out). And Nepali is one of the Indo- Indo-Iranian languages. But Hindi should share even more commonalities with Farsi, because not only are they closely related, but the Mughals spoke a form of Persian and thus Hindi has many Farsi/Persian loan-words. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but they're hard to spot since they look very much like native words. Like in English, I imagine most people (who bother to think about it), think of words like 'gift' and 'egg' as being 'native' Anglo-Saxon. But they're not -- if they were from Old English, we would say 'yive' and 'eye' for 'gift' and 'egg'. They're both loan words from Norse, from the time when the Danes/Vikings alternately occupied and raided most of the north of England.
I imagine Farsi has a lot of Arabic words, doesn't it. I know Hindi has quite a few (like kitab 'book'), which I believe were borrowed from the Mughals who themselves borrowed them from the Arabs.
cheers for now, Ben.
- Joined
- Mar 5, 1999
- Messages
- 34,096
Holy Toledo.
Beo:
Farsi has lots of Arabic words (as well as an Arabic-derived alphabet). Including ketab. These date from the Arab conquest of Persia, or so I've been told. One Farsi fun fact is that ever since the Arab conquest, some Iranians (including several of their literary figures) go to some lengths to avoid using Arabic words - my future father-in-law is one.
Farsi fun fact two comes from the fact that the Farsi alphabet has sounds that don't occur in Arabic (that is, the Iranians don't pronounce the letters the same way the Arabs do). My fiancee says that certain of these sounds indicate that a word is of true Persian origin. Your Iranian linguist friend could probably fill you in there.
On a semi-related note, I've taught myself the Farsi alphabet. A totally unintended consequence is that I find that I can read many of the signs that have been on the news lately - including those of Pakistani and Arab demonstrators. I don't usually know what they actually mean, but I've become pretty adept at spotting "Osama".
S.
Farsi has lots of Arabic words (as well as an Arabic-derived alphabet). Including ketab. These date from the Arab conquest of Persia, or so I've been told. One Farsi fun fact is that ever since the Arab conquest, some Iranians (including several of their literary figures) go to some lengths to avoid using Arabic words - my future father-in-law is one.
Farsi fun fact two comes from the fact that the Farsi alphabet has sounds that don't occur in Arabic (that is, the Iranians don't pronounce the letters the same way the Arabs do). My fiancee says that certain of these sounds indicate that a word is of true Persian origin. Your Iranian linguist friend could probably fill you in there.
On a semi-related note, I've taught myself the Farsi alphabet. A totally unintended consequence is that I find that I can read many of the signs that have been on the news lately - including those of Pakistani and Arab demonstrators. I don't usually know what they actually mean, but I've become pretty adept at spotting "Osama".
S.