Rules/FAQ | Memberlist | Calendar | Stats | Online users | Last posts | Search
|
| ||
| Views: 19,995,719 |
Home
| Forums
| Uploader
| Wiki
| Object databases
| IRC
Rules/FAQ | Memberlist | Calendar | Stats | Online users | Last posts | Search |
04-19-24 08:52 PM |
| Guest: | ||
| Main - Posts by PixelDimension |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 81/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
if this would fit better in Relaxland, please move it there. thanks
I've recently become interested in languages, and I've started to notice quite a few oddities. Here are a few of them: Let's start with words for the same thing. English: worm German: wurm French: ver Icelandic: ormur Swedish: mask And another one: English: volume Portuguese: volume Spanish: volumen French: volume Swedish: volym Norwegian: volum Italian: volume Finnish: äänenvoimakkuus And another: English: table German: tabelle French: table Italian: tavolo Spanish: mesa And that's just words. Now let's go on to grammar: We'll start with English, a classic example of weird grammar. Let's use the verb "walk" as an example for this. Past tense: I walked We walked You walked They walked He/she/it walked Future tense: I will walk We will walk You will walk They will walk He/she/it will walk So far so good... Present tense: I walk We walk You walk They walk He/she/it..........walks. Why? WHY? WHYYYYY????? And there are other crazy grammars, too. Icelandic verbs conjugate for tense, mood, person, number, and voice. In addition, the language also has 4 noun cases. But at least it's not Hungarian, which has 18 (18!!!) noun cases. Or Finnish, where it is perfectly normal to have an entire sentence be made up of one complicated word: for example, "juoksentelisinkohan", which translates to "I wonder if I should run around aimlessly?" And there are so many more crazy things, too. I'll add to this post as I think of more. |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 82/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
Posted by MrRean That is something we can all agree on. cough rough though through WHY ARE THESE NOT RHYMES? |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 83/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
Another word inconsistency I forgot in the first post:
English: night Italian: notte Spanish: noche Swedish: natt French: nuit German: nacht Finnish: yö |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 84/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
Posted by StapleButter It's called a "double u" because it actually is a double u. In Latin, u and v were the same letter, always written as v (but pronounced differently). So both names for the letter are technically correct. |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 85/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
People don't care about the speed limit here. At all. It's terrifying. |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 86/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
Posted by cros107 "ph" is Greek in origin. |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 87/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
Posted by cros107 Phillip, Pharaoh, Physics, and many other words are all Greek in origin, and they all contained the Greek letter φ. In Classical Greek this was pronounced as an aspirated [pʰ], which the Romans wrote as ph in Latin when they borrowed words from Greek. (This is also how they used the letter y and why they called it "i graeca" - literally "greek i".) Later the pronunciation became "f" and this spelling and pronunciation passed into French and then into English. |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 88/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
this country is crumbling piece by piece, and I certainly don't want to be in here when the rest of it collapses on everyone inside. I can't wait to get out |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 89/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
We are coming apart.
For most of my life, I've been proud of my country. Not anymore. |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 90/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
Posted by StapleButter Germany. I've seen videos and it looks TERRIFYING. fun fact: "autobahn" literally means "car road". How's that for uncreative naming? |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 91/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
The reason English is problematic is that the written form of the language is over 500 years old - very outdated.
Causing things like these 6 words to not even be close to rhyming: cough ("coff") rough ("ruff") though ("tho") through ("thru") ought ("ot") borough ("buhro") Or "debt" sounding like "det" or "island" sounding like "iland" or the horror that is "colonel" sounding like "krnl" (English speakers, at least where I live, have a habit of dropping vowels) Here's why this happens: The word "laugh" is pronounced "laff". Back when the spelling system for English was created, it was pronounced more like "logkh", so that spelling made sense. Over time, the pronunciation shifted (which happens in any language), but I guess people were very stubborn at that time because the spelling didn't, leaving us with our nonsensical spellings. Posted by Super-toad 65 English verb forms in the PRESENT TENSE (Present tense verbs are one of the only consistent things in the English language. The only irregular present-tense verb I can think of is "to be". 1st person singular - walk 1st person plural - walk 2nd person singular+plural (identical in English - no difference between singular and plural "you") - walk 3rd person singular - walks 3rd person plural - walk That "s" there is the last surviving piece of a once much more complicated verb system similar to that of German. You can still see other pieces of this in the pronouns - "he" is used if that person is the subject of a sentence, "him" if that person is the object, "his" for possessive, etc. Words ending with E: It is not pronounced, but usually changes the other vowel sound in the word (however, as with nearly everything in English, there are some exceptions) For example, the words mad and made - the e in "made" is not pronounced at all, but the a is pronounced differently in each. |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 92/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
This video is very satisfying to watch for some reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlD39tw8W8Q |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 93/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
Posted by Super-toad 65 That is because vowels in English do whatever they want - any vowel can really make almost any sound. Vowels are not really thought of as all that important in English. It is not uncommon for people to drop vowels entirely in speech - for example, the name of the Canadian city Toronto often becomes "T'ronno" in casual speech (dropping the first o and the second t), and most English speakers would pronounce my username as something closer to "Pix'lD'mension" rather than PixelDimension. Some accents/dialects also have a tendency to run syllables together - New Zealanders are famous for this, a common example being the way they say the name of their country - "New Zilnd". Example: "sun" and "son" sound the same "cot" and "caught" sound the same (in some accents/dialects, not all) "ball" and "doll" rhyme Written English and spoken English differ to a ridiculous degree. The only way to learn it correctly is to memorise almost everything, which can be very difficult if you have not grown up with the language. Add that to the unusual sounds like "th" and it is not hard to see why so many people have trouble with it. But as long as they can get the general idea of what you are saying/writing, most English speakers will be very friendly and accommodating toward people whose English is not perfect, because even the native speakers such as myself are confused by it. 
(For example, a common native-speaker error: Using "there is" instead of "there are" when talking about something in the plural - for example, saying "there's more boxes in the closet" instead of the correct way, "there are more boxes in the closet".) |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 94/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
I would first like to point out that Hillary Clinton actually got more votes. Donald Trump only won because of the "Electoral College" system, AKA not even an actual democracy.
Second, I would like to point out this: We're screwed. |
| PixelDimension |
| ||
|
Normal user Level: 22 Posts: 95/95 EXP: 55525 Next: 2825 Since: 06-15-14 Last post: 2609 days ago Last view: 2480 days ago |
Have you eaten all of it yet? |
| Main - Posts by PixelDimension |
|
Page rendered in 0.055 seconds. (2048KB of memory used) MySQL - queries: 21, rows: 127/127, time: 0.017 seconds. ![[powered by Acmlm]](img/poweredbyacmlm.png "powering nostalgia")
Acmlmboard 2.064 (2018-07-20)© 2005-2008 Acmlm, Xkeeper, blackhole89 et al. |