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L O W L A N D S - L - 26 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 "Lexicon" 2011.04.25 (03) [EN]</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">I believe meaning drift
affects all languages, especially when a word is borrowed precisely because
there is no native equivalent. The potato is an example: French and Dutch
went down the descriptive route: "earth apple", whereas English
borrowed a native word - except that the Carib <em>batatas</em> is a root plant totally unrelated to the common spud
as we know it. But any language encountering a foreign thing or idea is
going to have the same dilemma, whether they had an empire or not. Mexico was never part of the British
empire, but we still have to call an enchillada something, be it
enchillada or Mexican cheesy bean roll.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">If it comes to that, I've
never had a Mexican enchillada in Mexico,
so I don't even know if the things I've eaten in Australia
or England
are actually enchilladas at all. What I think of when I see or hear the
word might be quite different from the Mexican concept.</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"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Paul</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><br>
----------<br>
<br>
From: <span class="gd"><span style="color:#790619">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 "Lexicon" 2011.04.25 (03) [EN]</span><br>
<br>
> From: <span style="color:#5B1094">Pat Barrett</span> <<a href="mailto:pbarrett@cox.net" target="_blank">pbarrett@cox.net</a>></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>
Subject: <img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Ron/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif" border="0" width="1" height="1">LL-L "Lexicon" 2011.04.25 (01)
[AF-EN]<br>
<br>
> The reason I'm going into such detail on this is that I think of my
Pakistani friends who use English in a way, esp vocabulary, that can be quite
misleading e.g. "rush" meaning 'a crowd'. "There was quite a
rush at the airport" would make me think of people running for planes
whereas they would simply mean a lot of people. </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;">>
How do we "control" (impossible) the proliferation of meanings? Maybe
it is to specify the cultural-geographical context. I think only English and
Spanish and French, due to colonial empires, have this problem. </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><br>
Surely proliferation (of semantic interpretations, phonemes, syntax and so on)
is the norm? Even smallish islands like Britain have a large number of
languages and these languages have a large number of dialects. National
publishing and education gives the illusion that language is or should be
reasonably stable, but that's a recent and unregulated phenomenon. The benefits
of regulating language seem illusory to me.<br>
<br>
Your Pakistani friends only use language in a way that misleads you, it doesn't
mislead them! I think you need to explain why you consider this to be
"misleading" in a general sense.<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: Minohara Tomoki
<<a href="mailto:t-minohara@HOTMAIL.IT">t-minohara@HOTMAIL.IT</a>><br>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2011.04.25 (01) [AF-EN]<br>
<br>
Beste Piet,<br>
<br>
Hartelijk dank voor je gedetailleerde uitleg.<br>
Als je zegt, is het beter "ranch" als leenwoord laten staan.<br>
<a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranch" target="_blank">http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranch</a><br>
<br>
De reden is dat de structuur van "ranch" is<br>
verschillend van "boerderij", is het niet?<br>
<br>
Als mijn uitlegging correct is, wordt het woord "boerderij"<br>
gebruikt zowel om een "landbouw" als een gebied voor het fokken.<br>
Het is onjuist om de definitie van "boerderij" te beperken dat<br>
een gebied voor allen landbouwproducten (bv. groenten), niet<br>
voor het fokken is.<br>
Is het correct?<br>
<br>
Met vriendelijke groet,<br>
<br>
Tomoki</p>
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<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">----------</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">From: Minohara Tomoki
<<a href="mailto:t-minohara@HOTMAIL.IT">t-minohara@HOTMAIL.IT</a>><br>
Subject: Lexicon<br>
<br>
Dear Lowlanders,<br>
<br>
I would like to know if the definition /meaning of the following expressions<br>
in English and Dutch is same or not.<br>
(Ik zou graag weten als de definitie /betekenis van de volgende zinnen<br>
in het Engels en Nederlands dezelfde is of niet).<br>
<br>
quit job = met werken stoppen, ontslag nemen<br>
retire from a company = , ontslag nemen, met pensioen gaan<br>
<br>
Example (Bijvoorbeeld):<br>
<br>
If a 65-year-old man says "I will quit my job next month",<br>
this phrase implies two cases:<br>
- he quits his job but it is uncertain if he gets pension.<br>
- he quits his job to get pension.<br>
<br>
Als een man, 65-jaar zegt dat "Ik stop met werken volgende maand",<br>
betekent deze zin impliceert twee gevallen:<br>
- hij stopt met werken maar het is onzeker als hij pensioen ontvangt.<br>
- hij stopt met werken om pensioen te ontvangen.<br>
<br>
Thanks for your feedback.<br>
Hartelijk dank!<br>
<br>
Tomoki</p>
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<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">From: "dealangeam"
<<a href="mailto:atdelange@iburst.co.za">atdelange@iburst.co.za</a>><br>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" [AF-EN]<br style="mso-special-character:line-break">
<br style="mso-special-character:line-break">
</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Dear Lowlanders,</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Pat Barrett wrote:</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">“How do we "control" (impossible) the proliferation of
meanings? Maybe it is to specify the cultural_geographical context. I think
only English and Spanish and French, due to colonial empires, have this
problem.” </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">This question connects to one of my passions the last thirty years -
Irreversible Self-organization (ISO)</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">There is evolution in far more worlds than the biological world. For the
biological world we have Darwin’s
theory. It has been improved so much that after 150 years it explains more than
95% of how life evolved. Its central feature is the “time tree of life”.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Unfortunately, Darwin’s
theory cannot explain other physical “time trees” like that of geology and
climatology. Even more worse, after many thousands of attempts, it cannot
explain spiritual (mental) “time trees” like in the evolution of language,
music, economy, crafts and technology.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">The reason is that Darwin’s
theory does not make use of any universal physical law like the Law of
Gravitation. Even worse, there is not even one universal law for both the
physical and spiritual (mental) worlds. However, the Law of Entropy Production
(LEP) has already been discovered about 150 years ago. It is a universal and
phenomenological law like the Law of Energy Conservation (LEC). Unlike all other
universal physical laws, it is extremely difficult to understand correctly.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">In the early 1950's, Ilya Prigogine began to study not only LEP, but
also how entropy gets created. Then, in the late 1960's, he began to study the
consequences of entropy production. I began to study his work closely because
of my research on soil science and especially the evolution of soils. In 1977
he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on LEP and its
consequences. In 1984 he was the senior author of a book “Order out of Chaos”
together with the philosopher Isabella Stengers.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">The book took the scientific world by storm. But it did not change
scientific thinking (like the theory of Copernicus) as was expected, In my
opinion, the reason was two fold:</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">(1) To understand LEP and how entropy gets produced, requires excellence
in the hard core sciences like mathematics, physics, engineering and chemistry.
Only those scientists which defy the specialization of the natural sciences and
have a passion for wholeness of science are motivated to understand it. They
are few and far between.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">(2) To learn something of anything requires knowledge of LEP and entropy
production, not of the physical world, but of the spiritual (mental world).
Sadly, there was no empirical evidence that LEP also acted upon the spiritual
world.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">In 1982-83 I made an empirical discovery by accident while trying to
improve the learning of university students in chemistry. Were it not for my
experience in soil science and knowledge of Prigogine’s work, I would not have
recognised the importance of this discovery. LEP does indeed act on also the
spiritual world with all its consequences as in the physical world.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">However, trying to publish the results, first in an educational journal
and afterwards in a chemical journal, were met with scorn and derision. It was
even considered as bad science fiction because it required a greater paradigm
shift than that to accept Copernicus’ theory. As a result of this, I had to
make all my future investigations on my own, having no other scientists helping
me to shape my thoughts. But it gave me immense joy for almost thirty years
now.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Pat, you question “How do we "control" (impossible) the
proliferation of meanings?” has to do with Irreversible Self-Organization (ISO)
as a consequence of LEP. Words do not have any meaning, unless we create them
for conveying meaning and afterwards attach other meanings to each of them. It
is a result of the “ISO of consciousness”, or in older almost useless terms
“the evolution of mind”.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Your observation “”"control" (impossible)” is magnificent. It
means in terms of ISO that the evolution of the connection between words and
their meanings is a SPONTANEOUS process. Trying to force this connection is to
overrule this spontaneity. In almost all attempts it will destroy the
connection intended. It is because it destroys the self-control of ISO itself.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">I interpret your word “proliferation” as the time-tree of meanings. It
is like the time-tree of geological, soil and biological species. Trying to
prevent this “proliferation”, is in ISO known as reaching the equilibrium
state. The past, present and future become the same. Even using tenses in verbs
in languages become obsolete. It is simply death.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">In Afrikaans we have a far reaching construction to deal with this
“proliferation” of meanings in any noun or verb. Like in most languages we have
adjectives to specify the meaning of a noun and adverbs for verbs. But we also
have the construction “writing or speaking them fixed (fastened)”. It is called
in Afrikaans “skryf of praat woorde vas”. The rule is</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">1) write or speak fixed (“vas”) where you must</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">2) otherwise, write or speak loose (“los”) whenever you can.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">For example, in the recent discussion on what the translation of ‘ranch’
would be in Dutch, we will write and speak of it in Afrikaans as one word
“beesplaas” (‘cattleplace’) rather than two words “bees plaas” or “bees
boerdery” (‘cattle farm’). Studying an Afrikaans dictionary will reveal far
more than a thousands words similar in construction to this example</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">It is a construction which is even intuitively grasped by the Xhoisan,
Banthu and Asian speaking peoples. When they use it in their own languages, it
is frown upon. It is because in ISO, emergences in any species (resulting in
two species) is by far an emergence between that species and a closely related
other species. It is considered as alien.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">I have a strong hunch that Low-Saxon will become a very important
language once again when some of the Dutch dialects and German dialects emerge
spontaneously as one modern version of Low-Saxon. The other dialects will
follow suite. However, what lacks is the passion for working towards such an
emergence.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Only 100 copies of Edgar Alan Poe’s first book was printed. He was the USA’s most
imaginative writer. Only some of them got sold. Today a original copy of that
book is worth about $200,000. I have written a manuscript on my own
discoveries. I eventually decided not to publish it because perhaps not even 10
copies would have sold. I have written it in Word Perfect, but still has also a
MS Word 97 version of it. Contact me and i will send you a copy of it in WP or
DOC format.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">This reply is a little over a thousand words. I can extend it by another
thousand of words, but this will have to do. The thought which i want to
stress, is that the spontaneous evolution of natural languages will have to be
by way of Irreversible Self-organization (ISO). There is no other possibility
witnessed by 14,700,000,000 years of evolution since the Big Bang.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Mooi loop.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">At de Lange</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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