Re: Messy orthography (Re: Sound change rules for erosion)
| From: | Roger Mills <romilly@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Saturday, November 22, 2003, 6:37 |
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Tim May wrote:
> Paul Bennett wrote at 2003-11-21 18:22:33 (-0500)
> > On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 17:22:45 -0500, John Cowan <cowan@...>
> > wrote:
> >
> > Odd note: Googling Sakao, it appears on Langmaker.com, which is odd
> > because I was convinced it was a natlang. It also appears in
> > Ethnologue.com (code SKU) thus I'm officially confused. Are there
> > two Sakaos out there?
> >
>
> Langmaker includes Babel texts of natlangs. Sakao is spoken in
> Vanuatu, as the Ethnologue says. Jaques Guy (who submitted the text
> to Langmaker) did fieldwork on it there, and posted this to the list
> in 1992; it's about Tolomako, but some contrasting features of Sakao
> are mentioned.
>
(snip very interesting post...)
In my contacts with German and Dutch speakers of English, I've noticed that
they too sometimes mix up "when" and "if" (perhaps because _als_ can mean
both, also the resemblance of Grm. _wenn_ 'if' to Engl. when)...?
In Indonesian, _kalau_ ('if' mostly) can also be used to mean "when". There
is a word for "when" (conjunction), but it's an Arabic loan, waktu (also
means 'time')---
waktu ia datang.... 'when (at the time) he comes...' vs.
kalau ia datang ...'when/if he comes...'