[CrackMonkey] [Eugene Leitl <Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>] [Pigdog] Re: "put minority languages on the map" (fwd)

[Seth David Schoen]

Sean Neakums writes:

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2001 11:06:04 -0700
> From: Jonathan Litt <littlitt at alum.mit.edu>
> To: potserity <silent-tristero at world.std.com>
> Subject: Re: "put minority languages on the map"
> 
> 
> Anton Sherwood wrote:
> >
> > http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9479/
> > Alternate place-names in local languages, all over the world.
> > Text in Basque and English.
> 
> The Basque language is an endless source of mystery to me. This quote
> from the above web page seems typical of the kind of description you
> typically hear from a Basque speaker describing the language:
> 
> 
> "Other features may shock you, for instance: pluri-personal verbs, the
> 3-number system (singular, plural and indefinite), allocutive speech,
> ergative construction, the 20-or-so declination cases (very easy to
> learn: they are just strictly regular postpositions) ..."

Ancient Greek has three voices and three numbers (among other things),
although the dual is called archaic (pre-classical).  This situation
led to many British prep school students learning things like the
present subjunctive first-person middle dual of "luo", no doubt so
that, if two of them were ever captured by extremely ancient Greeks,
they could sing a duet in which they discuss with their captors the
possibility that they might ransom themselves.

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org>  | And do not say, I will study when I
Temp.  http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/  | have leisure; for perhaps you will
down:  http://www.loyalty.org/   (CAF)  | not have leisure.  -- Pirke Avot 2:5