LL-L "Lexicon" 2008.10.05 (01) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 05 October 2008 - Volume 01
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From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2008.10.04 (02) [E]



from heather  heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk

Jorg wrote

porc                swin

boeuf               neat, oxa, cu

veau                cealf

venaison          heorot (M.E. dere)

mouton            sceap

agneau            lamb

chèvre             geiz

poule              cicen



I have often wondered whether the fact that there is no difference in name
between the animal and the meat was an indication that 'lamb' and 'chicken'
were NOT eaten as meats by our medieval forefathers.



It might have been too wasteful to eat a lamb when it could easily feed many
more people after a breeding / shearing life and then be known as 'mutton'



Similarly a chicken produced eggs and so was not destined early in its life
to the pot. I keep my hens until they die of old age c 4-5 years and can
promise you that even long slow cooking would produce little of value
besides stock!



But we did share the word 'capon' which was a castrated cock destined for
the table. In our readings of medieval rents capons are frequently mentioned
as due as part payment - to be handed over to the Bishop's cook on a
specific day!



Also just to note that we did take on an element of the French ' poule' in
the word 'poultry' and 'poult' which I have just learnt is the correct name
for the young of domestic fowl ( I call them chicks!)



re folio / feuille / Blatt / leaf etc



I don't see why two different languages cannot share the same visual concept
for the same item however real or abstract. That a sheet of paper should
remind all these languages of a large leaf doesn't surprise me at all.



I have always be intrigued by the relationship of telling / recounting a
story

e.g. conter/raconter  erzählen   all these have to do with NUMBERS! &
 counting

Where is the link?



Heather

 ----------

From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2008.10.04 (03) [E]



Luc wrote:

> Aaah: "taxonomy"! Maybe it's time that the cladistic method finds its way
in
> linguistics. It got popular in biology because evolution is seriously
taken
> into account (rather than "similarity"). Analysis is quantitative and done
> through computers, but unfortunately very labor-intensive due to an
> algorithm, being NP-hard.



Actually, the cladistic method HAS found its way into linguistics. Don
Ringe, Tandy Tarnow and Ann Taylor have been using it in language tree
reconstruction since at least the 1990's. Why, little ole me even used
it in a series of papers (two papers, DOES a series make, right?) one
reconstructing the Japanese Sign Language family tree (including Seoul
Korean Sign language, Taipei Taiwanese Sign Language, 4 diaects of
modern Japanese Sign Language and older records for Tokyo dialect),
and also one reconstructing where Bolivian Sign Language fits in the
American Sign language tree... The jury (the larger
historical-comparative linguistics community of researchers) is still
out on the method though.

regards
--
Mike || マイク || माईक || Мика || માઈક || მაიქ || ਮਾਈਕ || מייק || மாஇக்
|| ما یک || Mihangel ================ Dr Michael W Morgan Managing
Director Ishara Foundation Mumbai (Bombay), India ++++++++++++++++
माईकल मोर्गन (पी.एच.डी.) मेनेजिंग डॉयरेक्टर ईशारा फॉउंडेशन (मुंबई )
++++++++++++++++ 茂流岸マイク(言語学博士) イシャラ基金の専務理事・事務局
長 ムンバイ(ボンベイ)、インド

----------

From: Stan Levinson <stlev99 at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2008.10.04 (03) [E]



Mike,

Oh, Mike, get yourself to a decent Chinese vegetarian restaurant and you'll
discover how delicious bitter melon (kugua in Chinese, literally "bitter" +
"melon/gourd") can be.

Stan



From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2008.10.04 (02) [E]

Yes, of course one wonders if, EVEN to the Japanese mind the bitter
gourd (苦瓜 /nigauri/, quite literally 苦 = bitter + gourd 瓜) is
"related" to the water melon (西瓜 /suika/, literally Western = 西 +
gourd 瓜)?

To me they are miles apart. And the former preferably miles from my
plate! (Though I will readily admit to not knlwing how to fix it, I
guess to my taste noone who has ever served it to me knows how to fix
it.)

And as for what R/R notes about "people that try it for the first time

tend to be horrified if they are not "mentally prepped" but expect a

certain taste because of the name "melon"), it reminds me of my wife's
story of her travels in Ladakh and her initial response to ubiquitous
Tibetan tea ... which is salty and has yak's butter in it. She just
could NOT get it to go down ... until she decided that she just needed
to think of it as Tibetan soup. Then it went down just fine!



----------



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

Hi, Heather!

You wrote:


I have often wondered whether the fact that there is no difference in name
between the animal and the meat was an indication that 'lamb' and 'chicken'
were NOT eaten as meats by our medieval forefathers.



It might have been too wasteful to eat a lamb when it could easily feed many
more people after a breeding / shearing life and then be known as 'mutton'



Good point. But what about veal then?
re folio / feuille / Blatt / leaf etc



I don't see why two different languages cannot share the same visual concept
for the same item however real or abstract. That a sheet of paper should
remind all these languages of a large leaf doesn't surprise me at all.



I have always be intrigued by the relationship of telling / recounting a
story

e.g. conter/raconter  erzählen   all these have to do with NUMBERS! &
 counting

Where is the link?


More good points. But rather than suspecting coincidental concepts I'd still
suspect spread resulting in areal features, alternatively a much older
stratum in Indo-European development. Traces of the "tell" <> "count" link
are found in Slavic as well (e.g., Russian *считать*).



Stan:



Oh, Mike, get yourself to a decent Chinese vegetarian restaurant and you'll
discover how delicious bitter melon (kugua in Chinese, literally "bitter" +
"melon/gourd") can be.


Quite so, daddy-o. Or have Uncle R/R cook some for you sometime. And we
won't call it "melon" then.



When I lived in China (before the economic boom) you could not get coffee
outside foreigners' hotels and clubs in the large cities, and most Chinese
(who did not have access to such places) had never tasted them. So when I
visited a Dungan (Hui, "Chinese Muslim") tea house I was delighted to see a
sign saying 咖啡茶 (*kāfēichá*) and 可可茶 (*kěkěchá*), literally "coffee tea" and
"cocoa tea" respectively, suggesting coffee and cocoa (hot chocolate). They
turned out to be very, very weak solutions prepared in the East Asian tea
brewing manner, the default manner in China. For one expecting Western-style
coffee and cocoa it was a real let-down. But I came to accept them by
thinking of them as "coffee tea" and "cocoa tea" respectively, different
"creatures".

Names *are* important.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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