OT: human language study (was Re: DEBIAN)

[Nathaniel Reindl <fiction@sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Thu, Mar 17, 2005 at 06:46:34PM -0600, Harold Crouch wrote:
> Was that pun intended or not?

No pun intended.  None at all. :)

> Aw, it's not that bad.  One vowel and *only* one vowel per syllable. 
> Much, MUCH more consistency in pronunciation of the alphabet.  None of

German shares the same consistency in native words.  And, uh, Russian
has dipthongs too, FYI.  That's what i kratkoje is for.

Now, the reason I'd suggested learning German first is just to give
you a taste of how cases work.  Russian is fully declined; not only do
nouns decline as per case and gender, but they also decline as per
number.  In German, this is (kinda) not the case; all plural nouns are
grouped into their own gender, and as such, they all share the same
declination.

IMHO, the case system in German is straightforward on top of that;
there are very few weak nouns and inconsistencies in that regard to
confuse the newbie.  Russian's involves weak nouns, and keeping those
straight as well as keeping genders of nouns straight is just a royal
PITA. :)

> these non-intuitive stand up, sit down, roll over, verb-preposition
> combinations that we have in English.  (Well, I guess a person *could*
> stand down, or sit up or roll in, roll out, roll down, ROLL FRICKEN'

... yeah, this is a moot point.

> Where-EVER!)   See! Studying Other languages makes a person realize
> what a silly language our forefathers saddled us with!  

Hey, honestly, if we wouldn't've dropped our case system in English
some several centuries ago, things would be so much more interesting.

> Da Svidanya!

Einen guten Tag noch!

-- 
Nathaniel Reindl

    "Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt."
       (The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.)
			-- Ludwig Wittgenstein

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