2 hours ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

The above may be a bit confusing (I doubt I managed to express it properly) so please ask me if you have any questions.

It sounds like you're talking about Sapir-Whorf, which has been rejected by mainstream linguistics.

16 minutes ago, svelok said:

It sounds like you're talking about Sapir-Whorf, which has been rejected by mainstream linguistics.

Not really, no. I am not saying that the language determines the people's ability to attain a certain level of thought (if I understood the nature of the contents of the link above correctly), but that the language through its structure revealed a depth of thought which the creators wished to expressed and which was a summary/manifestation of their world view. In the changing of the language, this world view was obscured, and Modern Greek speakers, owing to the change, have lost contact with that world view through not being constantly exposed to it. They may come to it on their own, of course, but the language no longer expresses it to or for them, and thus it is diminished. As diminished is not inherently good, I hold that the change was harmful to the integrity of the language and speaks ill of the culture that allowed such a divorce of cultural values/thought and language to happen.

From my years of Ecce Romani circa 1996

Latin is a dead language dead as dead can be it killed the ancient Romans now its killing me......

That's all I can contribute to the debate....

26 minutes ago, jamie nasmyth said:

From my years of Ecce Romani circa 1996

Latin is a dead language dead as dead can be it killed the ancient Romans now its killing me......

That's all I can contribute to the debate....

More than what I can contribute.

My contributions are limited to some assorted fart noises and a Bruce Willis “5th Element” quote.

1 hour ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

Not really, no. I am not saying that the language determines the people's ability to attain a certain level of thought (if I understood the nature of the contents of the link above correctly), but that the language through its structure revealed a depth of thought which the creators wished to expressed and which was a summary/manifestation of their world view. In the changing of the language, this world view was obscured, and Modern Greek speakers, owing to the change, have lost contact with that world view through not being constantly exposed to it. They may come to it on their own, of course, but the language no longer expresses it to or for them, and thus it is diminished. As diminished is not inherently good, I hold that the change was harmful to the integrity of the language and speaks ill of the culture that allowed such a divorce of cultural values/thought and language to happen.

I think this inverts cause and effect; the language changes because the world changes, not vice versa. In the instant case, the "political motivation" for the linguistic changes in Greek has to do with Alexander's conquests and the new role of the Greek language as an international standard. I'd suggest it's no surprise that the worldview of the people who spoke that language was profoundly affected by this change in their stature- simplification and standardization are typical hallmarks of empire- you may as well argue that the classical Latin we think of today is a corruption of the archaic Latin that came before, and suggest that this devolution to classical Latin weakened the contemporaneous idea of the Republic to such a degree that Empire became inevitable. That narrative contains some facts about the language itself but ignores the cultural context in which language evolves...

I speak English, Spanish and German, and while this linguistic discussion is amusing and somewhat instructional, it doth indeed veer most verbose, and it doth pale in comparison to the undeniable fact that WE DONT HAVE NARY A CLUE AS TO WHEN A PREVIEW ARTICLE WILL APPEAR.

By all that is unholy, take the linguistic dialectic over to off topic, and let us continue to rant and rave about the lack of an article to appease our need for Armada crack.....

1 minute ago, Darth Lupine said:

I speak English, Spanish and German, and while this linguistic discussion is amusing and somewhat instructional, it doth indeed veer most verbose, and it doth pale in comparison to the undeniable fact that WE DONT HAVE NARY A CLUE AS TO WHEN A PREVIEW ARTICLE WILL APPEAR.

By all that is unholy, take the linguistic dialectic over to off topic, and let us continue to rant and rave about the lack of an article to appease our need for Armada crack.....

Yeah, no.

Thats not going to happen.

Not now, anyway.

Honestly, its a better use of a complaint thread than complaining, at least.

1 minute ago, Drasnighta said:

Yeah, no.

Thats not going to happen.

Not now, anyway.

Honestly, its a better use of a complaint thread than complaining, at least.

Doggone it, Dras, stop with your logical arguments about thread usage!! Use your feelings, give in to your anger at not having an article, much less the actual product!! COME TO THE DARK SIDE, WE HAVE COOKIES.....??????

Just now, Darth Lupine said:

Doggone it, Dras, stop with your logical arguments about thread usage!! Use your feelings, give in to your anger at not having an article, much less the actual product!! COME TO THE DARK SIDE, WE HAVE COOKIES.....??????

I bet they're Chocolate Chip.

I'm allergic to Chocolate.

20 minutes ago, OlaphOfTheNorth said:

I think this inverts cause and effect; the language changes because the world changes, not vice versa. In the instant case, the "political motivation" for the linguistic changes in Greek has to do with Alexander's conquests and the new role of the Greek language as an international standard. I'd suggest it's no surprise that the worldview of the people who spoke that language was profoundly affected by this change in their stature- simplification and standardization are typical hallmarks of empire- you may as well argue that the classical Latin we think of today is a corruption of the archaic Latin that came before, and suggest that this devolution to classical Latin weakened the contemporaneous idea of the Republic to such a degree that Empire became inevitable. That narrative contains some facts about the language itself but ignores the cultural context in which language evolves...

The change happened after the Greek Revolution of 1821. Nothing to do with Alexander's Empire. The changes were brought about by the government, under a German king, who sought to divorce the inhabitants of what is now Greece from the culture of Hellenism which had spread throughout the entire East, because to have the 'Hellens' united under one ideal was a danger they sought to avert. Hellenistic peoples already controlled much of the Ottoman Empire, and Napoleon is said to have claimed that a united Hellenism would be dangerous to Imperial Expansion (or something like that). So the powers that be created a new language that divorced its speakers form their heritage, associated it with nationalism, and kicked all Hellens back to Greece for being 'Greek' not Pontaic, or Ephesian, or from the Black Sea.

The point of Modern Greek was to whittle away the cultural identity of the 'Hellens' (who considered themselves citizens of the Roman Empire) and transform them into 'Greeks' an term arbitrarily applied to one peninsula of the entire eastern world, whereas Hellens occupied cities from Spain to Persia.

Just now, Drasnighta said:

I bet they're Chocolate Chip.

I'm allergic to Chocolate.

We also have Macadamia and Peanut Butter, just saying.....

2 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

I bet they're Chocolate Chip.

I'm allergic to Chocolate.

We did have waffles. But I ate them all.

Just now, Megatronrex said:

We did have waffles. But I ate them all.

You did say that you liked Waffles, after all.

1 minute ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

The change happened after the Greek Revolution of 1821. Nothing to do with Alexander's Empire. The changes were brought about by the government, under a German king, who sought to divorce the inhabitants of what is now Greece from the culture of Hellenism which had spread throughout the entire East, because to have the 'Hellens' united under one ideal was a danger they sought to avert. Hellenistic peoples already controlled much of the Ottoman Empire, and Napoleon is said to have claimed that a united Hellenism would be dangerous to Imperial Expansion (or something like that). So the powers that be created a new language that divorced its speakers form their heritage, associated it with nationalism, and kicked all Hellens back to Greece for being 'Greek' not Pontaic, or Ephesian, or from the Black Sea.

The point of Modern Greek was to whittle away the cultural identity of the 'Hellens' (who considered themselves citizens of the Roman Empire) and transform them into 'Greeks' an term arbitrarily applied to one peninsula of the entire eastern world, whereas Hellens occupied cities from Spain to Persia.

My wife would argue High German shouldn't be her language, but only Bayrish. She also is all for Bavaria to secede from Germany and become an independent country, but I digress....

Just now, Drasnighta said:

You did say that you liked Waffles, after all.

And I meant that quite literally.

Is it bad that I am having flash backs to Mr Hitchings class room in the New Building at failing latin conjugate what now?

21 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

The change happened after the Greek Revolution of 1821. Nothing to do with Alexander's Empire. The changes were brought about by the government, under a German king, who sought to divorce the inhabitants of what is now Greece from the culture of Hellenism which had spread throughout the entire East, because to have the 'Hellens' united under one ideal was a danger they sought to avert. Hellenistic peoples already controlled much of the Ottoman Empire, and Napoleon is said to have claimed that a united Hellenism would be dangerous to Imperial Expansion (or something like that). So the powers that be created a new language that divorced its speakers form their heritage, associated it with nationalism, and kicked all Hellens back to Greece for being 'Greek' not Pontaic, or Ephesian, or from the Black Sea.

The point of Modern Greek was to whittle away the cultural identity of the 'Hellens' (who considered themselves citizens of the Roman Empire) and transform them into 'Greeks' an term arbitrarily applied to one peninsula of the entire eastern world, whereas Hellens occupied cities from Spain to Persia.

Sure, there are certainly many instances of language being suppressed, engineered, or otherwise tampered with for a particular political goal. As language is central to culture, it would be a critical component to suppressing any dissident ethnicities or conducting genocide/colonization.

The concept I struggle with is the notion that since a language is altered, people speaking that language will no longer be able to think or know certain things. While it could clearly assist in wiping out a cultural identity intertwined with a language, I don't see how that will lock out others from expressing themselves. For example, there may not be a specific word in English that means schadenfreude, but the concept is communicated daily between people in English speaking countries with little difficulty.

If you want to argue there is a distinct difference between the English phrases and words used to covey schadenfreude and the full definition of it in German, that may have a bit of traction. I am however then inclined to ask if that difference is of use or actual benefit. Does that minor nuance really help communicate the idea better? When is 99% accuracy not enough in linguistics?

7 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

The change happened after the Greek Revolution of 1821. Nothing to do with Alexander's Empire. The changes were brought about by the government, under a German king, who sought to divorce the inhabitants of what is now Greece from the culture of Hellenism which had spread throughout the entire East, because to have the 'Hellens' united under one ideal was a danger they sought to avert. Hellenistic peoples already controlled much of the Ottoman Empire, and Napoleon is said to have claimed that a united Hellenism would be dangerous to Imperial Expansion (or something like that). So the powers that be created a new language that divorced its speakers form their heritage, associated it with nationalism, and kicked all Hellens back to Greece for being 'Greek' not Pontaic, or Ephesian, or from the Black Sea.

The point of Modern Greek was to whittle away the cultural identity of the 'Hellens' (who considered themselves citizens of the Roman Empire) and transform them into 'Greeks' an term arbitrarily applied to one peninsula of the entire eastern world, whereas Hellens occupied cities from Spain to Persia.

I see- you did bring up the Greek Revolution in your first reply to me, and I didn't notice. I was fixated on "stripped of the finer points of ancient Greek" instead; it's scarcely accurate to describe the Greek of 1820 as "ancient," but my confusion as to timeline is nonetheless my own. I see what you mean about trying to destroy the heritage of Byzantium by regulating language, and the political expediency thereof, but I still think it's an error to suggest that the culture was eroded by the change in language at a time when a government policy of obliterating the culture prevailed. Is it not likely that the oppression did the bulk of the work, rather than the lexicon?

In any case, the deliberate suppression of a language and the ideas it expresses is a far cry from the natural evolution of a hyperbolic use of something like 'literally,' which is where we started down this rabbit hole.

2 minutes ago, OlaphOfTheNorth said:

In any case, the deliberate suppression of a language and the ideas it expresses is a far cry from the natural evolution of a hyperbolic use of something like 'literally,' which is where we started down this rabbit hole.

So this is how it all began. I simply could not connect how a rant about a preview article turned into a discussion about language.

Is this what happens when we wait so long for a preview article? We ignite discussions about linguistics just to pass the time?

5 minutes ago, TheBigLev said:

For example, there may not be a specific word in English that means schadenfreude, but the concept is communicated daily between people in English speaking countries with little difficulty.

If you want to argue there is a distinct difference between the English phrases and words used to covey schadenfreude and the full definition of it in German, that may have a bit of traction. I am however then inclined to ask if that difference is of use or actual benefit. Does that minor nuance really help communicate the idea better? When is 99% accuracy not enough in linguistics?

I love the word schadenfreude. I've often wished that there was a single word in the English language that perfectly conveyed it. Mainly just so I wasn't being asked to define it every time I use it.

5 minutes ago, Hawkwing said:

Is this what happens when we wait so long for a preview article? We ignite discussions about linguistics just to pass the time?

Pretty much. But the important thing to remember is

Taking a word that has one meaning and expanding its definition to include the literal opposite of that word is stupid. There is literally no argument that can change my view of this.

6 minutes ago, Megatronrex said:

Pretty much. But the important thing to remember is

Taking a word that has one meaning and expanding its definition to include the literal opposite of that word is stupid. There is literally no argument that can change my view of this.

"I posit the argument that if you do not change your view, you may never eat Waffles again..."

16 minutes ago, Hawkwing said:

So this is how it all began. I simply could not connect how a rant about a preview article turned into a discussion about language.

Is this what happens when we wait so long for a preview article? We ignite discussions about linguistics just to pass the time?

Hey, I'm newer than you are, but I'm here for it.

In any case, I'm not trying to change anyone's view, just pointing out the Sisyphean nature of setting oneself against the prevailing usage of a word. As I said in my first post on the subject, "people aren't going to do what you want."

3 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

"I posit the argument that if you do not change your view, you may never eat Waffles again..."

Taking a Waffle that has one Waffle and expanding its Waffle to include the literal opposite of that Waffle is Waffle. There is literally no Waffle that can change my view of Waffles.

Just now, Megatronrex said:

Taking a Waffle that has one Waffle and expanding its Waffle to include the literal opposite of that Waffle is Waffle. There is literally no Waffle that can change my view of Waffles.

Not even a Blue Waffle?