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L O W L A N D S - L - 20 April 2011 - Volume 01<br>
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<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">From: <span class="gd"><span style="color:#C88900">Paul Finlow-Bates</span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk">wolf_thunder51@yahoo.co.uk</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="gi">LL-L "Language history" 2011.04.18 (02) [EN]</span><br>
<br>
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!</p>
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<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Paul</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Derby</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">England</p>
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">----------</p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From:
<span class="gd"><span style="color:#5B1094">Sandy Fleming</span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:fleemin@live.co.uk">fleemin@live.co.uk</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="gi">LL-L "Language history" 2011.04.19 (01) [EN]</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br>
<span style="color:navy">> From: Mike Morgan <<a href="mailto:mwmbombay@gmail.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:navy">mwmbombay@gmail.com</span></a>><br>
> Subject: LL-L "Language history" 2011.04.18 (01) [EN]<br>
<br>
> I have, sitting on my self a work that demonstrates that Sumerian is a
Turkic language written in that same vain...<br>
<br>
> 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... </span></p>
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Sandy Fleming<br>
<a href="http://scotstext.org/" target="_blank">http://scotstext.org/</a></p>
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<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="http://uk.mc286.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:windowtext">sassisch@yahoo.com</span></a>>
</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Subject: Language history </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Sandy wrote:</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">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.<br style="mso-special-character:line-break">
<br style="mso-special-character:line-break">
</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I
wonder if she considered “Finno-Ugric” inferior, what with it being a branch of
Uralic with its origin in Siberia.</p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">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.”</p>
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">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.</p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">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.</p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Regards,<br>
Reinhard/Ron</p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Seattle, USA</p>
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