Mlller
His interest in colors certainly left a trace in the elaboration how the sea and the sky are colored and change their colors.
Runge contributed another tale, “Von dem Machandelboom” ‘Of / about the juniper tree’. Both tales were held in high regard by the Grimms. They saw some traits as typical or classical for the genre, e.g. the repetitions, parallelisms with rising tension.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Otto_Runge#Runge_and_c... –
1. Python3 plainly distinguishes between a string and a sequence of bytes. The function `len`, as a built-in, gives the most straightforward count: for any set or sequence of items, it counts the number of these items.
2. For a sequence of bytes, it counts the number of bytes. Taking this face-palming half-pale male hodgepodge and encoding it according to UTF-8, we get 17 bytes. Thus `len("\U0001F926\U0001F3FC\u200D\u2642\uFE0F".encode(encoding = "utf-8")) == 17`.
3. After bytes, the most basic entities are Unicode code points. A Python3 string is a sequence of Unicode code points. So for a Python3 string, `len` should give the number of Unicode code points. Thus `len("\U0001F926\U0001F3FC\u200D\u2642\uFE0F") == 5`.
Anything more is and should be beyond the purview of the simple built-in `len`:
4. Grapheme clusters are complicated and nearly as arbitrary as code points, hence there are “legacy grapheme clusters” – the grapheme clusters of older Unicode versions, because they changed – and “tailored grapheme clusters”, which may be needed “for specific locales and other customizations”, and of course the default “extended grapheme clusters”, which are only “a best-effort approximation” to “what a typical user might think of as a “character”.” Cf. https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr29
Of course, there are very few use cases for knowing the number of code points, but are there really much more for the number (NB: the number) of grapheme clusters?
Anyway, the great module https://pypi.org/project/regex/ supports “Matching a single grapheme \X”. So:
len(regex.findall(r"\X", "\U0001F926\U0001F3FC\u200D\u2642\uFE0F")) == 1
"\u{1F926}\u{1F3FC}\u200D\u2642\uFE0F".length == 7
The names of the older lexicographers Hesychios mentions are: Appíon (Ἀππίων – or Ἀπίων?)³, Apollónios son of Archibios (Ἀπολλώνιος ὁ τοῦ Ἀρχιβίου)⁴, Théon (Θέων)⁵, Dídymos (Δίδυμος)⁶.
¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychius_of_Alexandria
² https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/Epistula_ad_Eulogium – “κατὰ στοιχεῖον” is the phrase meaning ‘by / according to the letter’, understood as ‘alphabetical(ly)’; “καθʼ ἕκαστον στοιχεῖον” ‘by / according to every letter’.
³ a search turned up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apion
⁴ certainly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_the_Sophist
⁵ I donʼt know, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aelius_Theon perhaps?
⁶ a search turned up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didymus_Chalcenterus
No linguist studying early Ancient Greek thinks that the poet(s) of the Iliad and Odyssey “used their own contemporary language”.
“You enjoying archaic text has zero to do with” … indeed, so letʼs not miss the argument I actually made: one of the two reasons for your view seems to be that Homer “made it sound pleasant”, “people […] liked it”. I just wanted to convey that it is a non sequitur to induce a non-archaic, contemporary style from that, particularly in the case of an epic poem about older times. This genre usually has an archaic, non-everyday style. (Two links I had included there to parallel examples were scrubbed.)
If herein you did not mean to give a reason for your view, I am sorry for the detour.
The then remaining reason for your view seems to be that the Homeric poems were “composed to be passed orally and only later on written”. But this is also no evidence for a non-archaic, contemporary language because highly archaic poems can be transmitted orally, even for centuries (cf. the Vedic hymns).
Your wording can only mean the history of the Homeric poems, but to take a look at their prehistory: the Oral-Formulaic Theory (Parry, Lord) also does not speak against archaic, non-everyday language, on the contrary, it was developed inter alia to explain the most archaic forms in the Homeric poems.
“older translations […] can be quite expansive over original. Given that this particular translation has the same length as original.” Sorry, but this is not correct, you wrote yourself “the translation is shorter then some other translations”. Emily Wilsonʼs translation has the same number of verses, as metric translations usually have, but uses the iambic pentameter instead of the considerably longer dactylic hexameter. Note that I donʼt criticize her decision. (On the contrary, I sympathize with the view that the English iambic verse may correspond a little bit better to the Greek dactylic verse. I know, in the end, Germanic metrical language and Ancient Greek metrical language are very different anyway.)
“This is kind of weird argument given there older translations you don't take issue with” … Look, I havenʼt made and donʼt intend to make any comment about any translation at all. In particular, I donʼt take issue with Wilsonʼs translation. I just wanted to corroborate the little objection made by DiscourseFan against a tiny, understandable and innocuous misconception. I deplore that the argument has rather deteriorated since then, will not engage further and wish you well.
“But, when they created it [= Iliad or Odyssey] originally, they used their own contemporary language”
No, “they” did not. The Iliadʼs and Odysseyʼs language was nobodyʼs contemporary language. Not for the 8th century, not for the 5th. It has too many archaisms and dialectisms (aiolisms). (Note: Some forms seen as aiolisms in earlier research are understood as archaisms now.)
Yes, people enjoyed it, very much. But people can enjoy something that sounds archaic and unusual, not like contemporary speech. Particularly, when it is an epic poem about older times. That is quite common. I for one enjoy that, too, YMMV.
Your point “it was meant to be remembered and listened to” is difficult to unpack: Yes, this is true both for the time before and after a Homeric poem was composed as the whole that we know, but true in a very different manner. In any case, it is no evidence against archaisms (and aiolisms).
So:
“do you translate it into contemporary English or archaic one”
Archaic would be a little bit more authentic than contemporary.
Contemporary may be a better fit for many readers today – perhaps the ease of access is paramount when the translation competes with infinitely more permanently accessible information and entertainment than there was in the 8th century BC.
“Likewise, do you translate it into contemporary English or archaic one? Old texts are sometimes intentionally translated into archaic language, so that you feel like reading something old. But, when they created it originally, they used their own contemporary language and made it sound pleasant to themselves. So, do you pick old words or new words for the same thing?”
and GPʼs point is salient and correct; to be perhaps more clear: the homeric style was already archaic when the Odyssey was composed. Moreover, it was probably intentionally and somewhat artificially made archaic, e.g. using the old inflectional suffix /‑φι(ν)/ also in the singular and not only in the plural, where it was solely used originally.
AFAIK, epic poems telling about times far away are often composed in an archaic style, e.g. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildebrandslied>, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenlied>; I guess Beowulf is similar.
I guess that Kincaid paintings are considered subpar by connoisseurs. That wouldnʼt be the thing with Morgenstern. He is popular, but not that popular, and was sufficiently unconventional at his time to be seen as a genuine creative artist.
That is a comparison in terms of connoisseurship (or snobbery). If I had to make a comparison in terms of how the workʼs nature, Iʼd say that the shorter poems are like Roger Price droodles.
Germany for one apparently gave much more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_reparations than it got out of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan#Expenditures in reverse. Imagine the allies had extracted much more wealth from Afghanistan or the Irak than they have put into it – itʼs inconceivable.
Slightly alternative explanation for Germany, combining what others have said:
- First stage: The allies under US leadership were running the country anyway, they did it well and there was sufficient cooperation by Germans, for whom the Germany that was defeated represented an entity utterly discredited on account of the most horrible crimes against humanity.
- Second stage: The feeling “the US Americans are actually on our side – defeating us they have liberated us and then helped us to a new state in which we can live better than ever before” became more or less mainstream.
(The experience in East Germany was completely different of course.)
Further more, the UK was an important net contributor.
So I think, on the whole, Brexit was bad for Germany.
- There is e.g. a root meaning ‘carry’ having the full grade “bʰar” and a corresponding zero grade “bʰr̩” (within the regular ablaut system of Sanskrit).
- Then there is e.g. a root meaning ‘clean’ having the full grade “pavi” and a corresponding zero grade “pū”.
- So we have “bʰar” : “pavi” = “bʰr̩” : “pū” or, re-grouped, “bʰar” : “bʰr̩” = “pavi” : “pū”.
- We already know (since the times of the great Indian grammarians) that, in ablaut, “v” corresponds to “u” (samprasāraṇa). All synchronic observations, by the way, about these different kinds of roots were already made by the Indian grammarians in the first millennium BC, too; and they called the roots à la “bʰar” “aniṭ” ‘without i’ and the roots à la “pavi” “sēṭ” ‘with i’.
- “bʰar” : “bʰr̩” is the regular ablaut pattern understandable as: ‘the full grade has the short vowel (“a” in Sanskrit, “e” in PIE), the zero grade lacks it.’
- Saussures brilliant and simple idea was to trace back “pavi” : “pū” to this very same basic pattern.
- To make this work he assumed a sound in the ‘clean’-root that became “i” between consonants but vanished with compensatory lengthening after sonantic “u”. (Saussure denoted this sound here with the cover symbol “A” in small caps.) So the older, regular pattern can be reconstructed as (in more modern notation):
- “bʰar” : “bʰr̩” = “pavH̩” : “puH”, which yields:
- “bʰar” : “bʰr̩” = “pavi” : “pū” as attested.
This argumentation is fairly compelling IMHO because it complies with Occamʼs razor by assuming that a second complicated, seemingly irregular morphological pattern leads back to the simpler, regular pattern we have to assume anyways, and that this simpler pattern was complicated by sound change – which is the normal way of linguistic change.
But it got even better.
- Saussure then drew attention to the Sanskrit verb formations of the seventh and ninth class (again, already classified and extensively described by the Indian grammarians), which both had an infix, i.e. a morphological element inserted into the root (not prepended like a prefix or appended like a suffix):
- 7th, e.g. “yunakti” ‘yokes (up)’ (the English word is a cognate), built like “yu·na·k-ti” with zero grade “yug” (and “g” → “k” before voiceless “t”), “na”-infix and personal ending “ti”.
- 9th, e.g. “punāti” ‘cleans’ – our pavi/pū-root again. But now with a short “u”? And with an infix “nā” instead of “na” as in “yunakti”? So … “u” instead of “ū” and “nā” instead of “na” … and both is already explained by the coefficient, because then we have to reconstruct:
- “pu·na·H-ti”, because the na-infix had to be inserted before the last consonant of the root. And this formation “pu·na·H-ti” is, again, exactly the same pattern as:
- “yu·na·k-ti”, just with “H” : “k”.
So far this argument justifies to assume one “coefficient”, in the case of the “pavi”-root denoted as “A” (in small caps) by Saussure and “h₂” nowadays. Saussure assumed two – denoting the other as “O̬”, nowadays “h₃” – because he also already noticed the coloring effect you explained in your comment below: The compensatorily lengthened Sanskrit “ā” sometimes corresponds to e.g. Greek and Latin “ā”, sometimes to Greek and Latin “ō”; for the latter Saussure introduced the “O̬”. His argumentation here is more difficult and partly outdated, because he wrote his mémoire (published 1879) in a time when another major discovery was not yet fully taken into account: So far, Indo-Europeanists had assumed that Sanskrit “a” originated from Proto-Indo-European “a”. When Saussure wrote his mémoire, it had become clear that it was necessary to assume at least two diffent vowels here, which both became Indian “a”.
- Saussure reconstructed only two of the three consonants now called “laryngeals” and called them “coefficients sonantiques”. Saussureʼs two sounds would be h₂ and h₃ in modern notation. The Danish linguist Möller added the third (h₁) and suggested that they were laryngeals.
- In Hittite, not all of the laryngeals are preserved: the Hittite sound transcribed as “ḫ” is certainly not a reflex of h₁, which had no reflexes in Hittite, and it certainly is a reflex of h₂. Whether it can also be a reflex of h₃ is contested.
(Edit: Your explanation below about the coloring by laryngeals is also correct in principle; just the specific example is problematic: because of Latin “ovis”, Greek “ὄις” we know that the late PIE form was “Howis” with “o” not “a”, either from “h₃éwis” with “h₃e” → “o” or from “h₂ówis”. The Hittite word you quoted may be evidence for the latter: “h₂ówis” → Hittite “ḫawis” with uncontested “h₂” → “ḫ”.)
Not quite, because the earliest wave of Turkish immigrants came after the migration agreement between Turkey and Germany in 1961 (and Germany was rebuilt at that time). The reasons for this agreement – initiated by Turkey – were curiously complex and not simply economical ones.
“they have had to wait”: Germany also had to wait for (Swiss) permissions, which blocked the transmission of anti-aircraft vehicles (Gepard). And while that was merely lost time, the prolonged negotiations in the case of Leopard 2 in the end meant more tanks (which were said to be less suited first, but are very welcomed by the Ukrainian forces). This episode, however, gave another glimpse into the actual mechanism that demands caution, precaution. Donʼt let this German tank go to war, or if you absolutely must, only in company with a tank from one of the allied powers. If something goes wrong, hindsight is 20/20, and who will be blamed? Si monumentum quaeris, circumspice.
But this doesnʼt address the point stated by GP as follows: “The point is whether Russia could extort countries (eg: prevent from sending military aid to Ukraine) or not”, proceeding with a comparison in which Germany is heavily dependent, Finland is not, which implies: Germany could be extorted e.g. to prevent it from sending military aid to Ukraine. And this is hardly tenable when “Germany was now Ukraine’s second-largest backer after the United States”.
As I conjectured, the events indicate at some effective extortion, but a psychological one, that is leveraged by both sides drawing contradicting conclusions from the same premises (which does not mean that both arguments are equally sound).
I certainly did not mean to imply that Finland looked bad, of course it looks excellent.
Or perhaps Germany couldnʼt hear them, because their actions spoke louder than their words – a majority of Eastern European countries had made themselves more dependent on Russian gas than Germany:
- Hungary: 110.4 percent
- Latvia: 100.1 percent
- Finland: 92.4 percent
- Estonia: 86.5 percent
- Czechia: 86.0 percent
- Slovenia: 81.0 percent
- Slovakia: 75.2 percent
- Bulgaria: 72.8 percent
- Germany: 58.9 percent
[1] https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/14/2987/2014/acp-14-2987...
Both “bist geboren” and “wurdest geboren” are in wide-spread use, some German speakers prefer the one, some the other variant – e.g. https://dict.leo.org/forum/viewGeneraldiscussion.php?idThrea... – but not under all circumstances:
- “wurdest geboren”: the passive with an auxiliary form of “werden” is called “Vorgangspassiv” ≈ ‘passive expressing an event’.
- “bist geboren”: the passive with an auxiliary form of “sein” is called “Zustandspassiv” ≈ ‘passive expressing a state’.
A minimal pair:
- “Die Tür wird geöffnet” = ‘The door is opened’.
- “Die Tür ist geöffnet” ≈ ‘The door (has been opened and) is open’ (There is also “Die Tür ist offen” = ‘The door is open’).
So “wurdest geboren” and “bist geboren” offer two different perspectives (with a difference that often doesnʼt really matter):
- “Wann wurdest du geboren?” focuses on the past event of having been born at a certain time.
- “Wann bist du geboren?” focuses on the personʼs property to be now a person that was born at a certain time (a property, in the end, like age or weight maybe).
So the latter is rather not used for dead persons: “Kant wurde 1724 geboren” is much preferred over “Kant ist 1724 geboren”.
(If students of the German language donʼt want to memorize much here, they can, as often with German, happily apply the postmodern motto “anything goes”, plus there is probably some dialect anyway in which the form you use is the right one since the middle ages :-)
- Hesiod ‘Works and Days’ v. 763–764: “Φήμη δʼ οὔτις πάμπαν ἀπόλλυται, ἥντινα πολλοὶ | Λαοὶ φημίζουσι. θεός νύ τίς ἐστι καὶ αὐτή.” ‘No rumour will perish completely which is rumoured by so many people. A kind of god indeed is also this [= the rumour].’
- Seneca (the older) ‘Controversies’ I.1.10: “Crede mihi, sacra populi lingua est.” ‘Believe me, sacred is the language [≈ speech?] of the people.’
To be clear: I agree with your main point regarding the present war; I just think that specifically the “Einigungskriege” are not a good analogy, that they are quite unlike Putinʼs war, even before the question of defeat or victory comes into play.
You have shifted the focus to WW1, and I think your analysis of the power relations before WW1 is completely convincing (given the usual allowances due to brevity). (Nitpick: 1872 → 1871)
- The first of the three wars was a reaction against Denmarkʼs attempt at annexing Schleswig. Prussia and Austria won the war on behalf of the so-called “Deutscher Bund” ‘German Federation’, a rather loose federation of states. It actually was a defensive war: against an on-going forced annexation.
- The second war was Prussia against Austria – not Germany against Austria; in fact, the majority of the German Federation was on Austriaʼs side, which lost the war.
- The third war was declared and started by the French emperor (after a public outcry in France over an alleged insult by the Prussian king, it was a ridiculous matter) with the objective to annex more of the German regions to the left of the Rhine. So it certainly was a defensive one.
This is often misunderstood because the wars were of use to Bismarckʼs policy. But he was not able to telepathically force the Danish king or the French emperor to their aggressive policies. He just had an uncanny ability to foresee peopleʼs actions, especially their stupid ones, and to align his policy with what he had foreseen. And of course it was necessary that the wars then were won, which was mainly Moltkeʼs work as far as the mere military matters were concerned. But the victories, especially in the first and third war, depended also on allies and benevolently neutral parties Bismarck won for his side.
So the lesson here would be: Donʼt start a war, you have to wait until you can credibly claim to be attacked; wage war from the position of the defender.
(Besides: “After these 3 wars, Germany was more than double in population” doesnʼt make sense: Before the war, the Germany that was after the war didnʼt exist in the first place; and the Germany after the war was rather “little–Germany”: the realization of the “kleindeutsche Lösung” ‘little-German solution’ because Austria was out.)
https://www.businesslive.co.za/bloomberg/news/2022-08-03-fra...
https://www.powermag.com/nuclear-power-production-curtailed-...
https://www.theenergymix.com/2022/08/07/failing-french-nucle...
https://www.grs.de/en/news/built-close-water-do-increasing-d...
https://www.thelocal.de/20090630/20301/ [Rhine, too, heated up by nuclear plants]