LL-L "Language acquisition" 2006.05.07 (09) [E]

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   L O W L A N D S - L * 07 May 2006 * Volume 09
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From: Arthur Jones <arthurobin2002 at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language Acquisition" 2006.05.07 [E]


Hoy lowlanders,

Jacqueline said,
>Many of my students complain bitterly about the prevalence of separable 
>verbs (in Nederlands)..."

--And Kevin and Cheryl said,
>I would say "he threw up his dinner"...

One of the facets of Germanic languages I have both wrestled with and loved 
is that of separable verbs and the nearly infinite permutations they can 
take from one Thiudisko tungo to another. As a native Appalachian English 
speaker, I would have said, before the third year or so of formal education, 
"He threw his supper up." Completely separable, except that in the 
infinitive it would have been "to throw up." Then, we were taught in school 
never to end a sentence with a preposition. We were never told why, only 
that people elsewhere would think we were hillbillies.

Thus,  separable verbs would thrive today, or at least appear more often, 
were there not this grammatical genocide, this concerted campaign to kill 
them off.

So, we will never load a file down; or load a picture up. We will merely 
download and upload. Enough to make one chuck up, nee?

But Jacqueline --and others-- are right when they perceive that English is 
rough to learn because it combines both Romance and Germanic vocabulary. 
Pity the Celtic didn't survive; an unholy trinity of derivations and a 
vocabulary divided among earthy accuracy (Germanic), ruffles and flourishes 
(Romance), and wild imagination and lyricism (Celtic). What a combo that 
would have been!

Now: Is everyone sufficiently offended?

As to translations, I have often noticed that non-native English speakers 
translating into English sometimes follow the easy path of using the English 
word belonging to their own family instead of the word or term usually 
employed by native speakers: Ergo, we find Germans translating 
"Doppelarbeit" into "double work" instead of "duplication"; or a French 
speaker referring to "sagacity" when the native speaker would have used 
"wisdom".

Now off-signing,

Arthur 

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