ZOMBIE FORUMS

I have this little theory, on some of the bizzare diffrences between translations:
Today's English had Evolved from Latin, who had evolved from a main language that was kicking about around the time of King David. Almost all of the mideastern and Europe languages are dereaven from it. that explains why in every language that I know A and B are the first two letters, and why there is allways the raw of K L M N. Now, The third letter in that language was like the sound of the G in the word 'Gun'. That's the reason that in some translations a name will be with C, and in others it will be with a G. For example I'll take the trinity of Belthasar Melchior and... 'Caspar' or 'Gaspar'? I've met them both.
My theory is that's the same case with L and R when you translate from Japanease. What do you say about it?

And wrong in many many ways:

1) English is actually Germanic, not Italic. Although much of english vocabulary is derived from the Italic Latin, it is actually much more closely related to German and Dutch.

1.1) And Middle Eastern languages are also not related to English, unless you refer to Farsi. Germanic, Italic, and Farsi (and a fuck-tonne of others) are Indo-European and are all evolved from something kicking around well before King David. Most other Middle Eastern (I assume you mean Arabic and such?) languages are evolved from a base Semitic language, and as such your reference to King David is a little more appropriate, although by his time they had certainly evolved into their separate branches if not their final forms.

2) What you have stumbled across is Grimm's Law. I am not going to spell it out but it includes the transformation of hard K sounds to hard G sounds through the borrowing of words but not sounds between languages.

2.1) In Japanese, this occurs because there are many western distinctions for sounds that dont exist in far eastern asiatic tongues (and vice versa). L and R are one of these distinctions. The simple reason for this can be deduced by the layman. Make an a nice, full L sound (say "La", for example) Now do the same with R ("Ra). Notice the placement of the jaws and throat is similar throughout, the only thing that does in fact change is the tongue. When someone untrained and of native to the Japanese tongue encounters Western languages and is faced with having to make these distinctions, their inexperience with forming the sounds will lead to an indiscretion between L and R.

yes, English is very much a northern European language, lots of Scandinavian in it etc, after the Norman Conquest suddenly a lot of French was imported and things took a sharp turn towards today's language, my surname, tho 100% English, as is my family, is actually linguistically of Danish origin

and as for letters in the alphabet, it's only now that things are becoming internationally standardised, for instance Germany is starting to lose it's letter for the double S (I can't remember the term, 'shalfers s' or something, phonetically) with the standardisation of keyboards and computer programs, also American English spelling is starting to overtake real English spellings even here I notice, I mean you can actually buy American English dictionaries in shops alongside English ones, no one really seems to see any difference

I'm not going to go French on the language etc, but it's odd to see language changing so fundamentally like that

anyway, um, debate club you think... or would that bury this?

What Cindery said is correct. All the langauges of Europe (and a few other places such as India) are derived from a single root language, proto-Indo-European, that most likely developed somewhere in eastern Europe many thousands of years ago. This original language split into several other languages eventually, which in turn became the major Indo-European language families. English is of the Germanic family, whereas Latin is of the Italic family.

All of the Romance languages (e.g. French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian) are directly descended from Latin. English is heavily influenced by Latin, both directly, since Latin was the language of scholarship (I believe college courses were taught exclusively in Latin until about 1800, though I could be wrong about that), and indirectly, through French (due to the Norman invasion). 60% of English vocabulary is derived from Latin, and certain aspects of what's considered "proper" for English grammar are influenced by Latin grammar (in Latin and English, for example, one should not end one's sentences with prepositions, whereas in other Germanic languages this is perfectly acceptable). Nevertheless, English remains, at its root, a Germanic language.

As for the alphabet and why "alphabetical order" in different European writing systems seems to be so similar... The English alphabet is taken from the Romans, who adapted their alphabet from the Etruscans, who in turn based their alphabet off the Greek one, which was an adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet. Most of the other alphabets in Europe are derived, in one way or another, from one of these alphabets. The Cyrillic alphabet, for example, was created by Catholic missionaries to Russia and based largely off the Greek and Roman alphabets.

the Australians have twisted English further by their servile and weak nature to end sentences with a rising, questioning tone, whereas proper English is spoken to end a sentence with a downward and self assured tone. The popularity of Australian soaps here has meant that children and the unemployed have started to speak in the Australian style, despite keeping their own accents and (limited) vocabulary

Latin was the language of education as it was taught by the priesthood, and just about all books were written in Latin as it was considered the international language of scholarship in general in Europe with Greek coming a close second, where as French was that of diplomacy with most royal courts officially speaking it at one time or another, Russia only starting to speak Russian after the Napoleonic campaigns as a mark of Russian nationalism and anti-French sentiment, until then it was the language of the peasant class, German was the language of science especially physics until WW2 when it was dropped as a protest in favour of English

silly things, words

"We are separated by a common language." --Some person...it's true, though.
I swear, sometimes I think that I am the only person in the world to speak english correctly. Then I get myself proven wrong. Vicious cycle.

Yeah, danm, everyone has already beaten me to the punch with how wrong you are.

Language is fun, it all makes sense, and is really interesting... but... you can't just make shit up like people do in soft sciences... philologists are the anal retentive bastards that came up with the idea of writing down every word in a language in one big book... and then doing this several more times. In other words, if you get something wrong, philologists are not only going to be the most articulate people in denouncing you, but also the most dedicated.


edit: Would Etymologists compile a long historical list of reasons of why you are so very wrong?

OK, I was wrong. That what's happen when you learn most of your English from the internet...

hey ... that hurts ... though it's actually quite funny if you could see me sitting in my games room in front of the computer talking to myself to see if you're right .. and damn if it seems that you are. though the way you've described it is totally wrong ... the higher pitched ending is part of our way to make the language our own, to give it some of our own style ... we don't force you to watch our crappy soaps :)

but hey, at least we don't have cockney accents -- anything is better than that :P

somewhat overly harsh perhaps, true none the less, I'm sure I can source where I got it from given some time and effort (ie no) but it was said that being a nation built by convicts (to simplify things grossly) and the general dislocation from the old class and occupation structured society, each sentence ends, to an English ear, in an insecure questioning tone, in the style of a child talking to an adult unsure of the validity of their words

I mean, I'm a social scientist, I didn't find this stuff in my arse one day y'know, but yeah, for the next few days you'll be noticing just how whiney Australians sound to me :P

note how I said 'children and the unemployed' being the main watchers of your export industry, not me, I'm so superior and clever like, the only soap I like is the WWE (WWF) as they get the fighting/talking ratio a lot more to the correct balance

but anyway, to quote the Jackass Gumball Rally participants after each time they were stopped by Eastern European cops: harsh, harsh but fair

may i like to point out another quote ''just because he's a doctor, it doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about'' :P

but yes, damn you -- i can see you're right even if i don't agree with where you're coming from ... 8) <--- smilies are fun and annoying

Blah. Time for lame history pedantry....

It was actually Orthodox Christians, not Catholics (though I suppose you could just be using Catholic as a synonym for Christian). While the East-West Schism didn't actually occur until 1054, by the 860s there was already a lot of tension between Rome and Constantinople due to much bitching over the addition of a single word to the Nicene Creed. Therefore while Eastern and Western Christianity weren't officially split it can be argued that they differed enough for there to be two seperate Christian faiths in Europe at the time.

Secondly, Saints Cyril and Methodius actually created the Cyrillic script for the Moravians as part of their mission to convert the Moravians in 863. For some reason it had been decided that the people should be able to hear the church service and read the bible in their own language, Slavonic. Side note: in 869 C&M were called to Rome for a dressing down by the pope, he died before their arrival, the new pope however commended them and sanctioned the Slavonic liturgy, 'tis strange how 600 years later the pope goes anal about the bible being translated into vernacular languages.
So it wasn't the Russians that Cyrillic was originally created for, it was the Moravians.
However it was decided that Cyrillic was to be used for the Russians, because they spoke a Slavonic language, when the grand prince of Kiev converted to the Orthodox faith in 988, bringing along all his subjects for the ride.

Ah fuck it, funky side tangent:
When Grand Prince Vladimir decided to dump polytheism he noticed he had four choices: Islam, Judaism, Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity. So he sends representatives to the four religions so he can find out which would be best for him to convert to. When the representative he sent to Germany to find out about Catholicism returned his was informed that the religion was very ritualised, cold and to top it off the services would be in latin, Vladimir decides to avoid catholicism. The representative he sent to the Jews also returned with a negative report he was informed that god had been angry at their forefathers and had scattered them among the gentiles on account of their sins. Vladimir asked that if God loved the Jews, they wouldn't be dispersed in foreign lands. Deciding that he'd rather keep his kingdom he scratched Judaism off the list.
His represntative to the Muslims didn't have much better to offer: hearing of Islam's prohibition of drinking he said, "Drinking is the joy of the Russes. We cannot exist without that pleasure." When the representatives sent to Constantinople returned their comment was that during the Orthodox service they didn't know whether they were on heaven or on earth.
End funky tangent.
Well *I* thought it was funky, trust a prince to go for the religion with all the shiny pictures on the walls, incense and whatnot. Defintely one of the more amusing stories in history, up there with the Diet of Worms....

Orthodox Christians are Catholics. The term "Catholic" includes Orthodox Christians and Anglicans as well as "Roman" Catholics.



Wrong. This is actually not accurate. Cyril created an alphabet for the Slavs, but the one he created is not actually in use any more. What we today call the Cyrillic alphabet was actually created by Cyril's followers after his death.

Do not try to outpedant me, boy.

I concede that the definition here supports that statement, however further down the page they state:
Furthermore, while it may be possible to contain all of Christianity under a generic 'Catholic' it does lead to possible confusion with its useage (most of them are historical in context). Most notable of these useage issues is related to the situation in Northern Ireland. It has at times been considered a religious conflict and thus been labeled as Catholics vs Protestants. I would find it rather confusing if someone were to say it was Catholics vs Catholics, though many non-Christians would probably find it remarkably enlightening yet confusing at the same time to find that Catholics were fighting each other. I'm not sure how the Irish Catholics would take being lumped together under a generic 'Catholic' with the Protestants though....

Oooh, is that a challenge? :)

I knew this was debate club material

anyway, you can't call non-Catholic Christians Catholics any more than you can call Christians Jews, just because they have the same start point (old Testament for those not paying attention) I mean I know America is a young nation, so I'm guessing you don't have big monuments around in the places where they used to burn Protestants, oh, and you don't burn Catholics every November the 5th either, there is quite a difference

anyway, Northern Ireland is technically more an ethnic dispute than religious one, think Republican and Democrat, the terms are (basically) code for right and left wing, in N. Ireland religious terms are used to (basically) group together ethnic British and ethnic Irish peoples, to grossly over simplify the situation, it's not like you've got a holy war going on over there or anything

I thought my list was nice, concise, and to the point.

The world is Swedens bitch!

:D

Nah, I don't know. Just as much Norways bitch, I would say, then. :)