Honest question to RW

[Jet]

ксерокс

This is kind of a bad example as it's an American corporate name just like Пепси & МакДоналдс, but there are literally hundreds of words and quite a few acronyms that come directly from American English like телефон & ДСЛ (which would be ЦПЛ if the Russian words were used)

[Totoro]

come directly from American English like телефон & ДСЛ (which would be ЦПЛ if the

Actually "telephone" comes from ancient Greek, "far voice" or "speak far away". Many, many words have their roots deep in time...

[SANDRO43]

The name xerography came from the Greek radicals xeros (dry) and graphos (writing)

Kvinna, when having to find a name for a new invention or phenomenon, it was a rather common practice to delve into Greek (telegraph, gramophone, tachymeter, odometer), Latin (fractal, antiballistic) or Greek/Latin (tele-vision, auto-mobile, etc.). A more recent tendency is to use acronyms (radar, laser).

The ancient Greeks would have probably been quite puzzled on hearing such terms: "Dry writing ? What's new with that ? We and the Romans did that already, on wax tablets ".

My point is that those are contrived, non-original etimologies .

[SANDRO43]

Back to russian, when I studied it my teachers pointed out that several words of common use (дочь, сын, сестра for example) have a germanic origin, and are in fact closely related to english.

There certainly are similarities, but in this case it is quite difficult to establish who gave what to whom, or whether it was a parallelism to be expected in related Indo-European languages, given that both Russians and Varyags were illiterate until St. Cyril gave them the Glagolithic script, later evolved into Cyrillic, and therefore we have no surviving textual or epigraphic evidences prior to the IX century.

[Kuna]

In conclusion of this long post, let me add a final consideration : foreign languages broaden your mental horizons not only by letting you communicate directly with people from different countries, but at times also shedding some light on why they THINK differently. But this is a story for another time (possibly ).

Language effecting the way people THINK differently... Hmmm...

I know doing business in China became much easier for me (Understanding why the heck they negotiate the way they do) when I realised Mandarin doesn't have tense. 

I'm getting a drink/I had a drink/I'm drinking apparently are all very much the same in Mandarin. (Unless telling me this was a part of the negotiating technique)   

Anyway... I'm interested in how a native Russian speaker might THINK differently because of their language.

Sandro...  you've got guru status when it comes to languages... maybe you could describe.

Kuna

[BC]

Language effecting the way people THINK differently... Hmmm...

Kuna,

Try the other way around.. the language develops around the mentality, customs and ways people think.

[SANDRO43]

Kuna, Try the other way around.. the language develops around the mentality, customs and ways people think.

BC, that is almost a "chicken/egg" debate. I lean more towards the "chicken" (language) side, since we need language for structured thinking, and it affects our perception of "reality".

Many years ago I read a book written by the Head of UN translators/interepreters, who explained what mental contorsions they had go through in their jobs,  particularly when working with English/Russian, to avoid producing unintended offenses or touching on sensitive aspects of one culture that were irrelevant or neutral to the other culture. But this was mostly in the area of semantics.  However, it may go deper than that:

Anyway... I'm interested in how a native Russian speaker might THINK differently because of their language. Sandro...  you've got guru status when it comes to languages... maybe you could describe.

Sorry Kuna, I am not familiar enough with Russian now to offer a sensible contribution. Maybe a few years hence . However, just to give you an idea of what I mean ...

Arabs and Sex Discrimination
In most Indo-European languages, sex is evidenced in the endings of nouns, pronouns and adjectives, e.g.:
SINGULAR              PLURAL
1. I write                We write
2. You write            You write
3. He/she writes    They write

Compare that with its Arabic equivalent:
SINGULAR                 PLURAL
1. Anaa aktubu          Nahnu naktubu
2m. Anta taktubu       Antum taktubuna
2f. Anti taktubiina      Antunna taktubna
3m. Huwa yaktubu    Hum yaktubuuna
3f. Hiya taktubu         Humaa taktubaani

Arabic-speaking people are taught very early that sexes are to be treated quite differently (starting with the 2nd person AND including the verb), and Arabic pre-dates Muhammed (and it may well explain why he wrote in a certain way about the subject ).

[SANDRO43]

I know doing business in China became much easier for me (Understanding why the heck they negotiate the way they do) when I realised Mandarin doesn't have tense.

Kuna, you have to consider that Chinese is the OLDEST surviving language on earth, and that continued use for almost 5,000 years has whittled it down to monosyllables and discarded most of its apparently non-essential parts, much as a blade whetted for too-long become thinner and thinner. I cannot even imagine how they can THINK .

[Daveman]

Kuna, you have to consider that Chinese is the OLDEST surviving language on earth, and that continued use for almost 5,000 years has whittled it down to monosyllables and discarded most of its apparently non-essential parts, much as a blade whetted for too-long become thinner and thinner. I cannot even imagine how they can THINK .

Now, this begs the question, how does language evolution and/or "whittling" fit into the Psammothermophonetic Theory?  Are the vowels whittled away over time through human migratory patterns (ultimately influenced by destination areas of cold, sand, etc)?

Beginning with the premise (or tossing it out the window) that human evolution began at a central location and dispersed outward from this point Zero somewhere in Africa (biblical arguments indicating the Tower of Babel theory aside), would not all languages inherently share the same origin, varying over time by migratory splits, sharing these commons within each splitting group, then varying by splits again, etc etc.. so that each language should have regional similarities, with underlying etymologies traceable to the geographical area of each migratory split back through history?

How would a language such as Chinese fit into such a scheme of the evolutionary process?  And if this central dispersion theory is flawed, then why would Chinese and Africans share mitochondrial DNA? Or what else is involved that I'm missing?

I find this discussion absolutely fascinating.  Come on Guru.. put it together for me..   

Dave

[Jazzyclassy]

I also want 1 and 4 item and  my boy is like that:)

about the language which will be easier to learn ,well english is fine for me:)

I know french and studied german for 2 years , I also know a little bit of spanish some words I like languages in general ,so never a problem to learn one, just that does not refer to this topic I think

I learned languages cos I loved that thing  not cos I wanted to marry a foreign man and my future profession will be only focused on languages  that is what I have chosen to study, that is what I like and I do it cos it is interesting for me:) first of all

[SANDRO43]

Since the "language" topic is putting this thread a bit off course, I opened another thread on the subject (Language, evolution, etc. :
http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?topic=4441.msg80787#msg80787) where interested people may continue the discussion.

[Nat]

If i was choosing a man, I would OF COURSE choose №4 around 4-6 years older than I And, yep, may be not precisely Clooney, but... well, you understand what I mean
Speaking of languages, I'd prefer he to learn Russian But for the first time it English and German would be ok
Oh, what a nice topic ))

[ScottinCrimea]

elen, my apology.  It was Kvinna who made the idiotic statement and refused to acknowledge the role of English in the evolution of some words.  While I concede that some of the words I cited have Latin roots, in response I would contend that Russians didn't pick up these words by hearing someone speak Latin.  It was nice to see Kvinna acknowledge the Greek origin of Xerox, but again, It was incorporated into the Russian language as a direct result of its common use in America.

[Kvinna]

elen, my apology.  It was Kvinna who made the idiotic statement and refused to acknowledge the role of English in the evolution of some words.  While I concede that some of the words I cited have Latin roots, in response I would contend that Russians didn't pick up these words by hearing someone speak Latin.  It was nice to see Kvinna acknowledge the Greek origin of Xerox, but again, It was incorporated into the Russian language as a direct result of its common use in America.

yes, dear, and your idiotic statement about english origin of Xerox was also funny

[mirror]

elen, my apology.  It was Kvinna who made the idiotic statement and refused to acknowledge the role of English in the evolution of some words.  While I concede that some of the words I cited have Latin roots, in response I would contend that Russians didn't pick up these words by hearing someone speak Latin.  It was nice to see Kvinna acknowledge the Greek origin of Xerox, but again, It was incorporated into the Russian language as a direct result of its common use in America.

it is not necessary to use rude words.I think we all must keep polite way of communication. If you say some rudeness you can expect some rudeness back to you.

[Kuna]

it is not necessary to use rude words.I think we all must keep polite way of communication. If you say some rudeness you can expect some rudeness back to you.

Indeed!   

[mirror]

Indeed!   

What? I can not believe my eyes! Are you agree? My God!

[jb]

The rudeness of any particular response is usually inversely proportional to the experience of the poster, and directly proportional to the idiocy of the comment being replied to.

Just the way I see things...

[mirror]

The rudeness of any particular response is usually inversely proportional to the experience of the poster, and directly proportional to the idiocy of the comment being replied to.

Just the way I see things...

Can you write a little easier? Specially for fools, pls.

[Kuna]

The rudeness of any particular response is usually inversely proportional to the experience of the poster, and directly proportional to the idiocy of the comment being replied to.

Just the way I see things...

May I put it this way???

The rudeness of any particular response may be proportional to the frustration experienced by the poster when simple questions are not answered in an effort to deceive the poster.

again...   

[ScottinCrimea]

It's simple.  Some of us like a straightforward answer and some are incapable of giving one.

[Kuna]

It's simple.  Some of us like a straightforward answer and some are incapable of giving one.

Scott... thanks for the straightforward explanation... I appreciate it!     

[Kvinna]

The rudeness of any particular response may be proportional to the frustration experienced by the poster

there is too many frustrated males in this thread

[ScottinCrimea]

There are too many frustrating females in this thread.

[Kvinna]

There are too many frustrating females in this thread.

I see, you like to be frustrated by frustrating female, otherwise whatever for you are thrying to answer the honest question to RW