LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.13 (06) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 13 July 2008 - Volume 06
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From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.13 (04) [E]

 Beste Lowlanners, Paul (F.-B.), Sandy and Ron,

in your posting, Paul, you again delt with some 'hair-splitting' of mine.
Thanks for your answer.

But now, dear *Scotsman*- I do not agree with you, as well as I don't with *
Ron*.

*Sandy:*
> Idiomatic resolution aside, perhaps one problem here is the obsession
> with grammatical gender that occurs in some language groups?
> ...
 > What should we discard in inventing a world language?

>    o    gender: pointless;
 >   o    plurals: useless;
 >   o    verb tense: worse than useless;
 >   o    word inflections: too complicated;

*Ron:*

 > Gender: *none*
> Plural: *only in three personal pronouns*
> Verb tense: *none, except one particle expressing change and another
expressing progress*
> Word inflection: *none*

So, if I am on the correct path, you tend to erase the greater part of
grammar which our ancestors created 'with huge strenghth'? Are you sure you
want to 'bomb' our modern languages back to any Neandertaler stammering?
(You don't need to bomb; a kind of suicidal process already has begun!)

Perhaps you should allow me to mention that there is one of the most
straight languages, in name Old Latin, since more than 2,000 years  an
established part of our Western society. Pupils of -zig generations had the
plague to be forced to become more or less familiar with a
communication facility that once enabled the preeminence of the Roman
Empire.

Where can we find any examples that societies with a simple, nature- or
agricultural orientated language without that 'weird' grammar which we have
to deal with in our western cultures influenced the modern world
sustainably? You might find any far eastern examples who 'co-moulded' our
culture. Well, let my say: this is fast changing in our time, but not as a
result of their own initiativity, or their language. No member of the e.g.
Inuit language family , no one of the German Low Saxons, no one of the
Basques ever seriously tried to do a habilitation script in her/his native
language. (This, I have to conceed on the other side, might have caused some
different, eminent problems in our modern world... :-(!)
And, Sandy, sorry for you: I fear in cases like these you wouldn't get along
with Sign Language exceptionally, but you would have to use the written
word.

Please don't tell me, that this is just a result of the suppression of
minority languages and weak, adynamic societies!
No, gentlemen, if you want to deal with modern, evolutionary scientology you
are forced to be enabled to rely on a dependable standard, may be called
'system', as we find in physics and mathematics. But the same valids for
languages- with any diffuse banana-mixture you won't get forward at
all. (Please, bear in mind that I named and included Low Saxon as a part of
the European/German hemisphere *g*!)

So, Sandy, going back to my admittedly 'hair-splitting' questions about any
illogicality whithin the English language (that one, which, differently from
Britannia itself, indeed rules the world *s*- from *A*merica to *Z*imbabwe):
just bear in mind my different point of view as a foreigner, ex- and eternal
learner and no-native 'writer' of your language. I'm always interested in
matters suited to get a deeper view into a foreign language- otherwise I
shouldn't be a member of this list.

(BTW: I like your 'brummel-grummel' very much; it is always a pleasure to
deal with your unwillingness to compromises ;-)!)

Allerbest!

Jonny Meibohm

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Grammar

I'm not sure I'm following you, Jonny.

However, let me remind you that it is a common misconception that grammars
of languages of "primitive" cultures are simple. This is not so on the
whole. Some of the grammatically most complex languages are those of
indigenous Americans and Australians, and you ought to add to this the Inuit
and Aleut languages.

In many cases throughout the world, older stages of languages have more
complex grammars. Their descendants discarded more or less of this
complexity. This should not automatically be taken as deterioration.
Europeans and other people with European-centered education have been
indoctrinated into believing that grammatical complexity is superior,
because the "classical" languages Old Hebrew, Old Greek and Latin have
comparatively complex grammars. Does simplification make Modern Greek and
the Modern Romance languages inferior? Absolutely not.

Because of remnants of ancestor worship, we and people of some other
cultures have been brainwashed to believe in the "ancient golden age"
notion. "Simple" should not be automatically equated with "primitive." If
you are eloquent, you can express the same within simple structural
frameworks as within complex ones.

The types of grammatical devices Sandy listed are absent from many languages
in the world. You surely don't want to insinuate that the Chinese languages
and languages like them can be equated with "Neandertaler stammering", do
you?

Chinese society has been one of the most sexist ones throughout history (at
least on a par with European ones), back to the time after the ancient
folksongs in the collection known as *Shijing* (詩經 (诗经), "Classic of Songs")
were created, some probably around 1000 BCE. Despite that, grammatical
gender distinction has never been considered necessary and was never
introduced. Similarly, the Altaic languages are not exactly
grammatically simple,
and they distinguish things our grammars don't (e.g., reporting something
with or without first-hand knowledge). Despite that, they never
distinguished by gender. I am only pointing out gender as an example here.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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