LL-L "Language history" 2011.04.20 (01) [EN]

Wed Apr 20 17:11:59 UTC 2011

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L O W L A N D S - L - 20 April 2011 - Volume 01
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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language history" 2011.04.18 (02) [EN]

There is a tendency to avoid anything implying "Germanic" because of
political implications. I was even once asked if the German conversation
group I belonged to was some sort of fascist organisation!

Paul

Derby

England

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From: Sandy Fleming <fleemin at live.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language history" 2011.04.19 (01) [EN]

> From: Mike Morgan <mwmbombay at gmail.com>
> Subject: LL-L "Language history" 2011.04.18 (01) [EN]

> I have, sitting on my self a work that demonstrates that Sumerian is a
Turkic language written in that same vain...

> When i first moved to Japan, aeons ago (year of the emperor Heisei 1 to be
exact) as a historical linguist who was also embarking on his study of the
Japanese language, i started to buy any books I could find that dealt with
theories of the origin and geneology of Japanese. There were soem books in
the West (Roy Miller was a big proponent of the Altaic theory of Japanese),
but mostly I was buying books in Japanese by japanese. After a short while
(1 year?) I realized that all these books would probably best be reshelved,
moved from Linguistics to Humour... or Wackie Theories. The most
"scientific" monograph (it was FULL of tables and charts and numbers, so it
MUST have been felt to be science) porposed the Dravidian theory of the
origin of Japanese...

There was a 19th century trend (and earlier, I believe) for trying to prove
that English was essentially the same language as Hebrew. Because in those
times some people just couldn't accept that English wouldn't be spoken in
heaven.

I had a Swedish-language teacher (she was Finnish but living in England),
who believed that Finnish was closely related to English. She had written
many letters and papers which she sent to Helsinki University on the matter,
demonstrating ways in which Finnish and English were related, and also why
Finnish and Hungarian weren't. The motive behind this is much harder for me
to understand: it seems personal.

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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From: R. F. Hahn
<sassisch at yahoo.com<http://uk.mc286.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=sassisch@yahoo.com>>

Subject: Language history

Sandy wrote:

I had a Swedish-language teacher (she was Finnish but living in England),
who believed that Finnish was closely related to English. She had written
many letters and papers which she sent to Helsinki University on the matter,
demonstrating ways in which Finnish and English were related, and also why
Finnish and Hungarian weren't. The motive behind this is much harder for me
to understand: it seems personal.

 I wonder if she considered “Finno-Ugric” inferior, what with it being a
branch of Uralic with its origin in Siberia.

In the late 20th century, several academic articles were mentioned in the
popular press as purporting that, as Mark mentioned, the Japanese language
was a part of or was related to Altaic, and that in addition the Japanese
people partly descended not only from Ainu (Japan’s aboriginal population)
but also from Oceanic (“Polynesian”) people. I remember one Japanese person
telling me, as though it was a matter of “either ... or ...”, that she much
preferred the “Polynesian” theory since those cultures are “much nicer.”

Many English speakers, including those with higher levels of education, use
“German” and “Germanic” interchangeably, and this leads to confusion. I have
come across English speakers that are incredulous when I say that English is
basically a Germanic language. They tend to assume that it descended “from
French and Latin,” and some assume I made up the Germanic thing because of
my personal background.

In the early days of Lowlands-L, I was accused of leading a fascist
organization, since it explicitly dealt with “Germanic languages.” This
included such accusations from at least two Germans, who believed that use
of the word “Germanic” was a clear sign of Nazi inclinations. In those days
I was called quite a few names.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

Seattle, USA

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