The language thread

Speaking about languages, here's a bad idea. Seems the IT sector wants to have kids get into programming as young as possible. They're not even semi-formed as individuals, and they want to get them into programming.

http://m.csmonitor.com/Technology/2...-to-learn-coding-instead-of-foreign-languages

The measure, championed by a former Yahoo executive turned state senator, would let students substitute traditional foreign language studies for courses in coding, often seen as key skill in an increasingly technological era.

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Conflict of interest much?

Full-disclosure: I'm currently working as a software engineer, if that makes any difference, for my opinion.

Don't get me started. Education is indeed much more than job training, and this corporatist mindset that treats it such is to be resisted.

Well, there is the (very probably fake) story about the German and the Japanese who met somewhere and some time after 1959. They didn't speak each other's language and not English either. But communicaton was not a problem, since they both knew COBOL.

pibbur who thinks the main purpose of teaching children programming languages would be to make them obey commands given to them more efficiently.

If we can have "gaggle of geese" I see no reason why we can't have "whoop of gorillas"!
But, since we have "murder of crows", why can't we have 'crow of murderers"? Seems only fair...

my favourite is an exhaltation of larks! Also a very good wine from Canberra district here called exaltation from Lark Hill winery (yes they know they mis-spelt it!)

danutz_plusplus said:

Speaking about languages, here's a bad idea. Seems the IT sector wants to have kids get into programming as young as possible. They're not even semi-formed as individuals, and they want to get them into programming.

http://m.csmonitor.com/Technology/2...-to-learn-coding-instead-of-foreign-languages



Conflict of interest much?

Full-disclosure: I'm currently working as a software engineer, if that makes any difference, for my opinion.

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Reminds me of the supossed Jesuit motto -" Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man"

Jesuit Robotics, Programming

pibbur who also will mention http://moodle.jesuitcp.org/pluginfile.php/150599/mod_resource/content/4/1.0.pdf

An interesting read ! http://blog.linguistlist.org/fund-drive/linguistics-goes-hollywood/

What If EVERY LANGUAGE Was GERMAN?

Gods in Old Norse:

Languages of love. If you now think of a French or Russian accent… yeah, that would have suited this thread a bit better I guess.

But what's your primary love language? Words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, or physical touch?

Find out what your love language is, and also what your loved ones speak. It’s crazy how real and effective this concept is—you’ll learn how to understand and love others better and how to communicate with others to love you better.

We each have a primary love language for receiving and giving love. Dr. Chapman says: It is possible for couples to truly love each other, but to feel unloved because they don’t speak the same “love languages.”

First, you need to understand your own primary language of love. Then, you need to understand the love language of your loved ones and treat them accordingly to make sure they feel loved. This applies not only to couples, but to your relationships with any loved ones such as your parents, siblings, and friends.

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Either read some more about it or watch the video:



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Tl;dr
If you're curious about what makes you tick, just take the test.

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Got this one from QI, which means that it actually might be be true. And of course, quite interesting.

A few years ago in Ireland, a speeding Polish man repeatedly appeared in Ireland's traffic offenders database, becoming one of Eire’s most wanted speeding villains. But he had avoided serious repercussions by showing a faked driver's licence each time he was stopped by the poilice. In fact, they found he had been using several fake licence cards.

The man's name was Prawo Jazdy.

And now every polish watcher will start laughing, while the rest of us (excluding pibbur) will wonder why, and also why this is posted in the language thread.

This is why:


pibbur who knows the answer to the hidden question in Norwegian

Rijbewijs.

Have you seen the new series of QI, now that Sandi Toksvig has taken over? I think she's doing an excellent job.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=chMjBYGDaZs

Ripper said:

Have you seen the new series of QI, now that Sandi Toksvig has taken over? I think she's doing an excellent job.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=chMjBYGDaZs

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Haven't seen it, not sure it's available here yet. So currently it's reruns, but fortunately there are a lot of episodes, so usually I find one I haven't (can't remember having) seen before.

pibbur who disagrees with some of the claims made in the programs. Cruithne is not a moon! And there is one chameleon species who shifts its colouring in order to hide. And ... other things.

pibbur who said:

Got this one from QI, which means that it actually might be be true. And of course, quite interesting.

A few years ago in Ireland, a speeding Polish man repeatedly appeared in Ireland's traffic offenders database, becoming one of Eire’s most wanted speeding villains. But he had avoided serious repercussions by showing a faked driver's licence each time he was stopped by the poilice. In fact, they found he had been using several fake licence cards.

The man's name was Prawo Jazdy.

And now every polish watcher will start laughing, while the rest of us (excluding pibbur) will wonder why, and also why this is posted in the language thread.

This is why:

Spoiler

Prawo jazdy is polish for "drivers licence".

So, what's the word for "prawo jazdy" (or "førerkort") in your language?

pibbur who knows the answer to the hidden question in Norwegian

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Drivers licence - of course!

It's not the best stand-up, but he does say a few things about the nordic languages.

pibbur who speaks Norwegian (that everybody should understand), English, some German, a couple of words in Sami and French. And C, SQL, Lisp (and Lithp), Pascal and a few others.

PS. His pronounciation of Norwegian leaves something to be desired. We don't say "Jag" like the Swedes do, but "Jeg", pronounced like "Yay". The part about the tone is correct, to some degree. DS.

The great language game: 78 different languages, fragments of twenty seconds, multiple choice, after three lives: game over.

Since 2013 nearly one million players guessed 15.580.829 times, enough for a publication in PLoS ONE:

We investigate which languages are confused for which in the game, and if this correlates with the similarities that linguists identify between languages. This includes shared lexical items, similar sound inventories and established historical relationships.

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I read an article in the Dutch newspaper 'NRC' about the findings.
Apparently all languages have been confused with other languages at least one time, but French and Vietnamese the least often.

The Scandinavian languages Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Icelandic are often confused with each other.

Serbian, Czech, Polish, Bulgarian are put together, though they are often seen as Russian, the most famous representative of the Slavic languages - not the other way around.

Basque language is not mixed up with anything. The languages of Fiji, Samoa, and Maori, relatives in the Pacific, are mixed up.

But being related is not everything: German is too well-known to be mixed up with sister language Dutch.
Although the Celtic languages Welsh and Scottish Gaelic seem to resemble Dutch according to online players, they are not really related. The investigators think it is either because of the geographic proximity or the resembling sounds: all three are known for their rolling 'r' and the guttural g/ch.

Polish and Portugees, both with nasal sounds, are often confused with each other, just as Latvian and Estonian, Vietnamese and Khmer (Cambodian), and Korean and Japanese: no close family, but either neighbours or similarity in vocals.

Participants are only known by their IP-addresses, but the best participants seem to be coming from Luxemburg (75% of correct guesses). Worst are the Chinese (60.7%).

1. Luxemburg
2. Slovenia
3. Norway
4. Kenya
5. Austria
6. Macedonia
7. Lebanon
8. Switzerland
9. Netherlands
10. Germany


O and my score: 750. Three times I was in doubt and picked the wrong one of the two I was not sure about.

Now that was interesting.

pibbur who scored 650, and was never confused by the Scandinavian languages

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur

Looks like latin, right. Well, it is. Sort of. But it's completely nonsence (and dont't give me that "latin is noncence these days" or my oldest will come and hunt you down).

This is the text where the above material is obtained from (Cicero's De finibus bonorum et malorum):

Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaque ipsa, quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem, quia voluptas sit, aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos, qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt, neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit amet consectetur adipisci[ng] velit, sed quia non numquam [do] eius modi tempora inci[di]dunt, ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit, qui in ea voluptate velit esse, quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum, qui dolorem eum fugiat, quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

Can't understand it? Wikipedia is your friend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum#English_translation

As you can see, the Lorem Ipsum text is an intermittent selection of words/part of words from the latin text.

Cur?

According to Wikipedia:
"The earliest known occurrences of Lorem ipsum passages are on Letraset dry-transfer sheets from the early 1970s, which were produced to be used by graphic designers for filler text.

A version of lorem ipsum was created in the mid-1980s for Aldus Corporation's desktop publishing program PageMaker."

Since then it has been used as a placeholder in lots of software and publishing examples. You'll find it also in MS Word (seek help on "Lorem Ipsum").

I came across it on the Google Android app store, the Samsung web browser where it appears in an ad for Galaxy S7 Edge phone: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sec.android.app.sbrowser.beta. At first I thought it was real Latin, and was about to call my oldest and tell her about it. She knew. She told me she was very glad when she found out what it was, after having serious trouble translating it.

Some more information about why it's used like this (http://www.lipsum.com/):
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here', making it look like readable English.

Nervus petrosus superficialis major! quod erat pibburum

PS. According to the lipsum web site, Lorem Ipsum has actually been used as a standard dummy text as early as the 16th century. DS.