LL-L "Lexicon" 2009.11.14 (03) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 14 November 2009- Volume 03
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From: Andrys Onsman <Andrys.Onsman at calt.monash.edu.au>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2009.11.13 (01) [EN]

First, let me say that I have no real disciplinary expertise and what
 follows is purely speculative.

To Marlou:

"So Schadenfreude was an *new* idea in England? Never felt before the word
appeared? Really? :-)"

OK - what was the English word for that concept before the language
imported schadenfreude? To (sort of) follow on from Ron comments, I'd argue
that there was no such word - probably because there was no such exact
concept. "To laugh at someone else's misfortune" misses much of the nuance
(such as the vague realisation that it is wrong to do so, the sense of
relief that it isn't happening to the observer and so on). I did not
suggest that the separate elements of events, knowledge, attitudes and so
on that together make up the concept did not exist prior to the word but
rather that the way it is defined and characterised in that specific way
didn't: which is probably why the word was imported. It allowed the concept
to be discussed in general conversation without having to carefully define,
defend and exemplify it every time. So, I guess my answer to your question
is "yes".

To Ron
Doesn't the function to which words are put create meaning shifts and
wouldn't that cause such imported words change meaning over time, so that
eventually a word like ersatz means something slightly different in English
than it does in German. Doesn't angst now mean something somewhat different
in English than it does in German? I'd argue that the Dutch angst is
different to the English angst. (BTW - this is not a rhetorical question:
see my disclaimer.)

To David

"Sorry Andrys, but the idea in that last sentence really has gone awry."

No need to be sorry, David - my ideas often go awry!

"What I'm saying is: there are some Old English words which in updated
forms may be useful in Modern English and could therefore get back into use
(and
Dictionaries).If that were to happen, how would getting Chinese learners
(or anyone else) familiar with them be any worse than teaching any other
English words, whether new technical terms, or older words?"

My comment was about what is likely to influence change in a specific and
contemporary usage of the English language. The suggestion was that changes
to English may be driven by need and function. Where the language is
functioning well and there is no need for change or development it is
unlikely to change.  I'm not convinced that making up (speculative and dare
I say unnecessary) alternatives is going to have much traction. Obviously I
don't see that as amazing - but I take the point that should there arise a
need for a word to describe something that is as yet not well described by
any word in current use, it could come a number of sources. Various writers
have imagined various such sources: Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange
springs to mind - albeit that his jargon didn't take.

My example came from my environment where global English is changing
rapidly to meet an urgent need that is increasingly demanding to be as free
as possible of cultural baggage - a phenomenon I see as "language
modification in a hurry". I accept that it may not have been the best turn
to take as you were talking about something altogether different.

Damn tricky language, this English.

Cheers
Andrys

----------

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
 Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2009.11.13 (01) [EN]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
 > Subject: Lexicon
>
> In the case of German importations in English these tend to be terms
> taken from German published works and tend to belong to specialist
> jargon. Here are further examples (and I am not talking about the
> numerous German importations denoting actual novel items here):
>
> Narrenfreiheit
> Sturm und Drang
> Gestalt
> Weltschmerz
> Dasein
> Leitmotif (now often "leading theme")
> Realpolitik
> Verfremdungseffekt
> Umlaut
> Ablaut
> Sprachbund
> Dachsprache
> Ausbausprache
> Urtext
> Urheimat
> Zeitgeist
> Methodenstreit
> Festschrift
> Angst
> Wunderkind
> Galgenhumor (which recently became a calque: gallows humor)
> Loanword (calque of Lehnwort)
>
> In some cases, these are semantically general words in German (e.g.
> Dasein 'existence') that in English came to be used in specialized
> ways.

I notice you refer to these as "importations" rather than the more usual
"borrowings" or "loan words".

I'm not sure I'd say many of these have (yet) become accepted into
English as borrowings. In speech these are mainly used by people who
have recently read them somewhere or come across them in their
particular line of work or interests. Most involve taking on a bit of a
German accent and being prepared to explain and discuss the word if it's
introduced into a general conversation. They may also have a definite
pseudo-intellectual intent behind them.

There's a point (or grey area) at which a word moves over into being an
English (or whatever) word, which is where it starts to be pronounced
entirely in English phonemes and clusters, and instead of needing to be
a specialist to use it, you need to be a specialist to realise that it's
not English.

Sandy Fleming
(who recently decided to become a little less polite recently so that
the discussion group can have some discussion :)
http://scotstext.org/

----------

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
 Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2009.11.13 (01) [EN]

> From: DAVID COWLEY <DavidCowley at anglesey.gov.uk>
 > Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2009.11.12 (02) [EN]
>
> COMMENT: No: I'm saying they might be of use to some folk, in some
> contexts (free choice of expression); on these words themselves:
> - The nearest I can think for 'fordo' would be 'scuppered' .
> - 'Overloaded means' 'too much', 'onbeloaded' just 'loaded up'
> - Unbefought/ unfought - Much alike, yes, that's true: But compare:
> bewitched/ witched  because/ 'cause/ coz
>
> COMMENT: Sandy, its clear you're just not grabbed by the idea of
> thinking about the 'What if' scenarios, and I respect that. But there
> are some folk who are interested. Think your football scenario is a
> fair analogous criticism? By going over what they did in a game,
> players learn how to play better, to get different outcomes next time.
> This essentially involves the 'what if?' idea. Surely getting insights
> from past action/ results, with an eye to the future means something
> to us all - or where would we be?
> What about we move on from this now though, and agree to have
> different viewpoints!!

I do get the "what if" thing, let's not move this over into argumentum
ad hominem.

The football is just illustrating a point of logic. As I said, if you
remove a cause you can say that the effects of it won't happen, but you
can't infer effects from imagined causes.

> On Andrys' Comments:

> COMMENT: I've only said that there are some updated words that might
> be of use in some cases: so, you like uncontested better - fine - your
> choice, as with so many other English words; 'unbefought' can be there
> too for those who MIGHT like its sound. Choosing between words is
> something we already do all the time - i'm saying here are a few more
> to choose from. And the 11th c. election thing - that has nothing at
> all to do with my proposed use of updated words - I'm amazed if you
> really think it did.

> COMMENT: Sorry Andrys, but the idea in that last sentence really has
> gone awry.
> What I'm saying is: there are some Old English words which in updated
> forms may be useful in Modern English and could therefore get back
> into use (and Dictionaries). If that were to happen, how would getting
> Chinese learners (or anyone else) familiar with them be any worse than
> teaching any other English words, whether new technical terms, or
> older words?

To continue the football analogy, you're moving the goalposts  :)

This discussion was supposed to have been about how English would have
been if the Normans had lost, or possibly just the re-saxonisation of
English. Now you've brought it down to the possibility of a few words,
derived by a particular method, being introduced into the language.
People do this every day in school playgrounds and on the Internet.

Yes, there's a benefit (often little more than entertainment) in
following a "what if" line of reasoning (fiction writers do it all the
time), but you can't say that this is what _would_ have happened, or
even anywhere near it.

With respect to the football analogy, you say:

"By going over what they did in a game, players learn how to play
better, to get different outcomes next time."

So what do we learn from the "what if" exercise you're proposing?

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

----------

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

Thanks, Andrys and Sandy.

Andrys:

Doesn't the function to which words are put create meaning shifts and
 wouldn't that cause such imported words change meaning over time, so that
eventually a word like ersatz means something slightly different in English
than it does in German. Doesn't angst now mean something somewhat different
in English than it does in German? I'd argue that the Dutch angst is
different to the English angst. (BTW - this is not a rhetorical question:
see my disclaimer.)

Quite so, which I alluded at:

In some cases, these are semantically general words in German (e.g.
Dasein 'existence') that in English came to be used in specialized
ways.

And "angst" *is* a good example, as you said. In German it simply means
"fear", sometimes "anxiety", while in English jargon it means "sense of
dread," a generalized feeling of stress and insecurity that is a deep-seated
part of the human condition.

Sandy:

I notice you refer to these as "importations" rather than the more usual
 "borrowings" or "loan words".

Very observant of you. It isn't my invention. I use "importation" in a more
general sense: a term is imported from another language and there's (at that
point) no telling if it is going to stick around long enough to be
nativized, namely goes through the process you referred to:

There's a point (or grey area) at which a word moves over into being an
 English (or whatever) word, which is where it starts to be pronounced
entirely in English phonemes and clusters, and instead of needing to be
a specialist to use it, you need to be a specialist to realise that it's
not English.

To me, "loanword," by its mere etymology, seems to imply a temporary status.
("Let me borrow this word for a moment. Uh, and do you want it back when I'm
done with it?")

It is my theory that all lexical importations at first belong to what we
might call jargon, namely a specialist sociolect. It may or may not move on
to becoming a generally used item if the supposedly new concept or item it
denotes becomes a part of general culture. By that time its meaning may have
shifted, as Andrys and I mentioned.

As for the process of nativization ("grey area"), as you said, degrees of
adaptation to the recipient language's phonology is a good indicator in most
cases; e.g. the pronunciation of "garage" in various English dialects (where
Germanic stress assignment is a crucial point): [gaˈrɑːʒ] > [gəˈrɑːʒ] >
[ˈgærɑːʒ] > [ˈgærəʤ] > [ˈgɛrɪʤ].

It is not only lexical items of foreign origin that are initially used only
in jargon and may and may not make it into the general language. The same
applies to lexical items that are newly coined using native components.
Lately I have been reading and hearing the adverb "jewishly" a lot, confined
to Jewish contexts. (Let's assume that "Jew" is a native English word
although it developed from an ancient importation.) In general English the
equivalent is "in a Jewish way," "from a Jewish angle" or some such.
"Jewishly" is quite commonly used in English-speaking Jewish circles (e.g.
"Let's think about this jewishly!"). My prediction is that this will not go
beyond this particular sociolect. In Jewish contexts it denotes a "native"
way of doing that is the result of four thousand years of history and
tradition. Furthermore, in general English there is no precedent for such a
construction (e.g. no *"englishly", *"frenchly", *"norwegianly",
*"christianly").

Sandy Fleming
(who recently decided to become a little less polite recently so that
the discussion group can have some discussion :)

Uh-oh! Take cover, everyone! My angst level just rose dramatically. It even
made the Kahuna wake up from his usual snooze (
http://lowlands-l.net/treasures/kahuna.htm)!

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

•

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