<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 17 November 2009 - Volume 01<br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><a href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com">lowlands.list@gmail.com</a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/">http://lowlands-l.net/</a></span><br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">
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===========================================<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: dealangeam <<a href="mailto:atdelange@iburst.co.za">atdelange@iburst.co.za</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" (04) [EN]</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CRon%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><style>
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<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="EN-GB">Germanic recovery</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="EN-GB">Dear Lowlanders,</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="EN-GB">I have followed the thread “if the Normans did not ...” with immense delight.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="EN-GB">I have special appreciation for Sandy’s viewpoint that one cannot simply
replace words of Romanic (Latin and Greek) origin with words from Germanic
origin and expect English speakers to understand intuitively what these words
mean.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="EN-GB">But what applies to English need not to be prescribed
to other Germanic languages. What often delights me to the seventh heaven is
the extraordinary power of my mother tongue Afrikaans to express thoughts in a
Germanic manner. It is the youngest of all languages, but its roots go back to
3 000 years ago into proto-Germanic. Most linguists consider it to be a sort of
<span class="spelle">creolic</span> derivation from Dutch. But to me it is a
magnificent emergence between 16th century <span class="spelle">Hollands</span> and <span class="spelle">Nederduits</span> (Low German).</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="EN-GB">I have written a series of articles on <span class="spelle">Onomkeerbare</span> <span class="spelle">Selforganisasie</span> (OS)
(“irreversible self-organization”) involving the concept entropy. Fellow
Lowlanders can have a look at</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><a href="http://www.woes.co.za/skrywers/6377_ontluiker.htm" target="_blank"><span style="" lang="EN-GB">http://www.woes.co.za/skrywers/6377_ontluiker.htm</span></a></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="EN-GB">I have decided to write these articles in Germanic
words as far as possible, obviously in the Afrikaans idiom. I tried to avoid
words of Romanic origin. What I did was to supply the English equivalent (and
usually the international term) in quotation marks. To my surprise and great
delight I got some emails from interested people abroad who are interested in
the OS topic. <span class="spelle">Google</span> put them on the track with these
international terms in quotation marks. They also had to use <span class="spelle">Facebook</span> to get in touch with me.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="EN-GB">They were all surprised that the articles were written
in a language which they could not comprehend even closely. They begged me to
translate the articles into English. My answer was simple and polite: find
someone who can do the translation for you. Do we not need job creation? The
result is that three groups are now translating them in English, French and
Hebrew. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="EN-GB">One of the last words which troubled my brains was the
word <span class="spelle">complementarity</span>. It concerns a very important
concept in hard core physics and chemistry. To explain its meaning needs about
500 words. By the end of it, most people would have lost interest in the
concept. This will not do.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="EN-GB">So, what I did is to think deep and wide about what
the concept implies. Then I had to select Afrikaans words which are still in
use and will reflect that meaning with little thinking. I decided on the word <span class="spelle">paarwisseling</span> (“<span class="spelle">paar-wechselung</span>”).
I cornered about 20 people asking them what this word might mean. Most people
replied that it concerns something which switches between two possibilities. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="EN-GB">To translate this word into Germanic English is
impossible. I spent several hours hunting through all my dictionaries to find a
solution. So, Sandy,
you are right. The word “<span class="spelle">wissel</span>” <span class="grame">(
“</span><span class="spelle">wechselen</span>”) has disappeared in English.
Trying to resurrect it would be stupid and preposterous. But you are also
wrong. Many words from Germanic origin still exist in English which then can be
used. But will they get used? In the answer to that you may be right again.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="EN-GB">At de Lange</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="EN-GB">Pretoria</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"></span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></p>
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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