Re: CHAT: An introduction

Hello,

Welcome Ian!

[Christophe:]
> >  (though I must
> >admit, school left me with a dislike of French, alone among
> >languages).
>
> Why is it always French which suffers from such dislikes? :((((
Why, isn't that a sign that something *is* wrong with the language? ;-)
*no offence meant*

Well, as a wise sage used to say, 'personal predilections varies [sic]
widely'. Which as good a basis for ignoring other people's _lámatyávi_
as anything.

But I admit that reading a book on history of French has changed my
stance a bit. I keep disliking modern French, but at least I can't say I
dislike the whole language ;-)

An anecdote from our morphology class. The teacher is, quite contrary to
my views, a big fan of Romance languages. As we were discussing
reduction of case systems, he quoted the Old French _roys_-type:

        Sg.     Pl.
Rect.   roys    roy
Obliqu. roy     roys

(I remember I mixed it up last time I quoted it, hope it's correct now).

Looking at it, he said: 'Now this is the pinnacle of morphological
genius, and only the Romance people could produce that'.

I and the other guy from our class who visits Mod. Irish lessons look at
each other and say in a unison: 'Why, this is the Irish first
declension!'

        Sg.     Pl.
Nom.    mac     mic
Gen.    mic     mac

The teacher, stroking his beard: 'Umm, yeah... well, sometimes the
Celtic genius approaches that of the Romans' descendants...'

Morale: like and dislike for a language is a factor in a linguist's
career. This is where one should quote Dirk's .sig...

Pavel
--
Pavel Iosad               pavel_iosad@mail.ru

Is mall a mharcaicheas am fear a bheachdaicheas
                 --Scottish proverb

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