I get a few minutes to think every day, while riding the bus. Well actually I get to thinking if I'm by myself riding the bus, otherwise I get asked every 5 seconds what I'm thinking about. Anyway.
Anastasia and some of her friends complimented me on my deep understanding of speech, which obviously loses alot by the time it reaches my fingertips, or the articles on this site would be much better. Well they were amazed, that I could understand and help translate alot of what they said, even though none of them had the same native tongue. And indeed I can at least read and (sometimes roughly) understand all western-european languages and some of their derivations like Afrikaans, Asutralian :P and Mexican.
Okay back to the topic. Language is an art. An art that is deceasing slowly, but more an more rapidly as time goes by. The apostrophe-catastrophe is a famous example of this, to name just one. In America, Germany and, as far as I know, Holland apostrophes are coming out of nowhere jumping at every word that ends with a s.
On the other hand language is also very organic and alive. Like every other living thing language is still evolving. Take abbreviations like *rofl*, *lol* or *STFU* for example. Five years ago almost no one knew what they meant, today they are part of the english language (Okay some people accept this more readily then others. I for one would never use them in my spoken language and cringe every time I hear it, but I'm positively sure, that the people that do, don't necessarily kill kittens and/or rape cupids).
There are other examples of this as well. Examples that are nowadays accepted, but in time were as atrocious as *CU*. sadly, the only example I can come up with is "Zwielicht". Zwielicht is german and means twilight. It is used to describe the hours between night and day, when the sun is neither up or down. Zwielicht has another meaning as well, nowadays, it is used as an adjective to describe people of a doubtful profession, people that lurk in the shadows, in the greyshades, or in the twilight.
Zwielicht brought me to another interessting line of thought. Twilight comes from the german Zwielicht, both literally mean two lights.
If one would read "zwielichtige Typen"(men of twilight) and didn't know of the real meaning of Zwielicht (non-light before the sun rises), but knew of the second meaning, now let's say he started to wonder about the Zwielicht. He takes the word apart "Two Lights". "What two lights?" He could wonder. Do you think he would think of sunset/dawn right away. Or would he maybe think of electric light and natural light. If he does, what would he make of this information. Would he possibly think of the late 19th century, when salesmen came selling light. These men would no doubt be men of twilight. Could one think, that maybe these men were of a questionable reputation? Were the General Electric salesmen all crooks?
What do you think is more plausible? Without knowing the meaning of Twilight, only knowing of the bad conotations most have regarding these men of twilight, which explenation is more plausible. Men of shadows or General electrics crooks.
Language is a living, and evolving thing, but without the ability (or a very limited one), that evolution (or god up to isomorphisms) has granted every other livig being. The abillity to cut away parts, that just don't work, or have worked, but are now useless. Language is a living thing, but it's no animal. It's more like a tree. One can (almost) always see where the roots lie, and what grew from where. And sometimes someone comes by with the smallest of scissors and cuts it back a bit, or more oftenly looses oversight and therefore looses a branch or two.
I hope this article didn't bore you to much. Best regards
Anastasia and some of her friends complimented me on my deep understanding of speech, which obviously loses alot by the time it reaches my fingertips, or the articles on this site would be much better. Well they were amazed, that I could understand and help translate alot of what they said, even though none of them had the same native tongue. And indeed I can at least read and (sometimes roughly) understand all western-european languages and some of their derivations like Afrikaans, Asutralian :P and Mexican.
Okay back to the topic. Language is an art. An art that is deceasing slowly, but more an more rapidly as time goes by. The apostrophe-catastrophe is a famous example of this, to name just one. In America, Germany and, as far as I know, Holland apostrophes are coming out of nowhere jumping at every word that ends with a s.
On the other hand language is also very organic and alive. Like every other living thing language is still evolving. Take abbreviations like *rofl*, *lol* or *STFU* for example. Five years ago almost no one knew what they meant, today they are part of the english language (Okay some people accept this more readily then others. I for one would never use them in my spoken language and cringe every time I hear it, but I'm positively sure, that the people that do, don't necessarily kill kittens and/or rape cupids).
There are other examples of this as well. Examples that are nowadays accepted, but in time were as atrocious as *CU*. sadly, the only example I can come up with is "Zwielicht". Zwielicht is german and means twilight. It is used to describe the hours between night and day, when the sun is neither up or down. Zwielicht has another meaning as well, nowadays, it is used as an adjective to describe people of a doubtful profession, people that lurk in the shadows, in the greyshades, or in the twilight.
Zwielicht brought me to another interessting line of thought. Twilight comes from the german Zwielicht, both literally mean two lights.
If one would read "zwielichtige Typen"(men of twilight) and didn't know of the real meaning of Zwielicht (non-light before the sun rises), but knew of the second meaning, now let's say he started to wonder about the Zwielicht. He takes the word apart "Two Lights". "What two lights?" He could wonder. Do you think he would think of sunset/dawn right away. Or would he maybe think of electric light and natural light. If he does, what would he make of this information. Would he possibly think of the late 19th century, when salesmen came selling light. These men would no doubt be men of twilight. Could one think, that maybe these men were of a questionable reputation? Were the General Electric salesmen all crooks?
What do you think is more plausible? Without knowing the meaning of Twilight, only knowing of the bad conotations most have regarding these men of twilight, which explenation is more plausible. Men of shadows or General electrics crooks.
Language is a living, and evolving thing, but without the ability (or a very limited one), that evolution (or god up to isomorphisms) has granted every other livig being. The abillity to cut away parts, that just don't work, or have worked, but are now useless. Language is a living thing, but it's no animal. It's more like a tree. One can (almost) always see where the roots lie, and what grew from where. And sometimes someone comes by with the smallest of scissors and cuts it back a bit, or more oftenly looses oversight and therefore looses a branch or two.
I hope this article didn't bore you to much. Best regards
John