LL-L: "Gothic" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 23.JUN.1999 (01)

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From: UB82DN at aol.com
Subject: Gothic

Liewe Laaglanders,
        The diplomat in question - presumably for the Holy Roman Empire - was
Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, described as "Flemish," who visited the Crimea
between 1560 and 1562 and compiled a list of words of Gothic origin.  See
Joseph Wright, _Grammar of the Gothic Language_ (Oxford Univ. Press,  1958
[1910]), 380, where sources are mentioned that reprint Busbecq's list.
Joseph  Wright is himself an interesting example.  A child laborer in the
mills of northern England [this would make him a "linthead" in Appalachian],
he showed a gift for languages and was subsidized to study in Germany.  He
became a stalwart of the Neogrammarian School, with the result that his
"philological" treatises remain readable unlike so much modern "linguistics."
  You don't get any phonemes and minimal pairs with Wright and - yet - si
muove.  (Nor do you get long lists of unlikely laryngeals.)
        On another matter, for some reason there is a whole generation of
Americans who seem quite incapable of using their own language idiomatically.
 The "it's between she and I" construction is unhappily very common and has
more to do with the failings of the very expensive but apparently
unproductive US educational system than with anyone's NZ origins and so
forth.  It may have something to do with Starr's Law (named for Ringo Starr)
- but I suppose we don't do politics on this list.

Cheers,
Joe Stromberg

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