bivargen · HackerTrans

vor 2 Jahrendiscuss

While I agree with your sentiments, I must correct you in that Sweden doesn't have a minimum wage, never had! Our societal safety also isn't all that it was, but to be sure it's much stronger than the US. For the other nordic countries I can't tell, though I seem to remember that Denmark has a minimum wage and Norway doesn't. As for Finland I have no idea.

bivargen

vor 3 Jahrendiscuss

While I do not doubt that your spouse, this is besides the point, the point is that Min Nan pronounces the first phoneme of the word for “tea” with a dental stop, other chinese variants/languages realize the same phoneme with a dental affricate.

I do not know if the article author/cartographer ever studied linguistics or phonetics, but this is the main takeaway from the map for me, a linguist, the pattern is the message, not the somewhat imprecise data points.

bivargen

vor 3 Jahrendiscuss

While being no expert on the historical development of the english personal pronouns (I do read some old english and maintain some fluency in modern ditto, not my first language), the linked Wikipedia page clearly states the opposite: singular they came into use after the plural use.

This is a minor nitpick, as I suspect that third person personal pronouns where in a state of flux during the middle english period, replacing some inherited pronouns with pronouns borrowed from old norse. More so, language isn't defined by it's history but from how it is used presently!

I myself wouldn't use singular they, it goes against my “language intuition ” (probably formed by my native language which wouldn't allow that construction), others feel free!

bivargen

vor 3 Jahrendiscuss

Apropos salt in coffee, the way I heard it when growing up was that coffee brewed (or rather boiled) on meltwater didn't quite taste right, add some salt and presto! Having tried that myself I can easily believe that, meltwater doesn't taste the same as well-water. For the record, I tried myself, and yes, when boiling instead of brewing some salt will work, in brewed coffee though, not!

bivargen

vor 3 Jahrendiscuss

I grew up in Norrbotten (north of the gulf of botnia, northernmost part of Sweden). This was (and still is a thing). Anyway, my mother is from the province of Hälsingland (in the middle part of Sweden), there one eats ”ostkaka” (cheese cake), which is almost the same thing, but heated in the oven and eaten with jam. I therefore suspect these to be ”relic-dishes” and that this type of dairy product was once more widely spread.

And for those who have neither heard or eaten kaffeost, the most similar thing I can think of is Halloumi, though unsalted and made from predominantly cow's milk.

bivargen

vor 3 Jahrendiscuss

No, Anglo-Saxon (or more correct Old English) is not a north-germanic language. Germanic languages per se are traditionally split into three branches: west- east- and north-germanic. English, as do German, belongs to the west-germanic branch. Though it is true that English for a time was heavily influenced by Old Norse (which as a precursor to the modern scandinavian languages sits on the north-germanic branch).

bivargen

vor 5 Jahrendiscuss

Apologies for seemingly misunderstanding your post and in turn not making my point very clear! But, surely “spartiate” (or rather Σπαρτιάτης) isn't a made up word? Also, as I understand your reply the classical sources exclusively use that word for the “homoioi”? If so I understand your original point and have learned something new today.

And a small edit: It was your last parenthesis that confused me, I would have written it as:

“or even "Spartiate", a term distinguished by the author of the blog as distinct from "Spartan"…”

bivargen

vor 5 Jahrendiscuss

Σπᾰρτῐᾱ́της is a perfectly fine greek noun and was used in antiquity to denote the ”homoioi” of spartan society, it is not a made up word by Bret Devereaux. Historical sources <em>do</em> consider helots to be spartans, just not citizens or ”homoioi”.

I would suggest reading the posted blog-post. The author <em>do</em> know what he is talking about and–in my opinion—quiet an engaging writer.

bivargen

vor 5 Jahrendiscuss

Avoiding unicode, or anything but 7-bit ASCII is like using chiseling text into a stone instead of pen and paper because the pen might break. Fix the pen! Or replace it with a computer (and we're back full circle)!

It is not morally objectionable avoiding, it's just stupid.

bivargen

vor 5 Jahrendiscuss

And on a tangent to a tangent: The Old norse word for ‘boat’ is usually ‘bátr’, not the expected inherited ‘beitr’. The former is a loanword from Anglo-saxon and the inherited ’beitr’ is only found in poetry. While anecdotal, it is interesting that a culture so associated with seafaring as the viking-age Scandinavia borrowed the word for boat.

bivargen

vor 5 Jahrendiscuss

No, it’s not, the fish is called ”gädda”. The swedish cognate to gar would be ger, which has the same meaning of acute angle/point.

bivargen

vor 5 Jahrendiscuss

While growing up in Sweden in the eighties, my grandfather showed me the equipment he used to use doing just that, steal power, when he was a young farmer (in the twenties-thirties). Though the farm had power quite early it was easier to drive the 3-phase motor, used when threshing, directly from the poles. An obvious benefit was of course bypassing the meter.

Some years ago, while visiting my uncle who still lives on the same farm, I sought and found both the poles and the old threshing motor. The motor was enormous and mounted on a sled though rated for only 9-10 kW. It is not only semiconductors that keep getting smaller!

bivargen

vor 5 Jahrendiscuss

Yes, the Airport routers used various NetBSD versions as their OS. However the wireless drivers where, at least for some versions, proprietary.

bivargen

vor 5 Jahrendiscuss

While what you say is true for Sanskrit is true, that Sanskrit is in a way fixed, it doesn't mean Sanskrit stopped evolving, it has certainly evolved since the time of Panini, just evolved in a way that doesn't break the rules set up by Panini. That however is a topic for another discussion as the vedas aren't composed in Paninian Sanskrit.

As for the vedas, specifically Rigveda (which is the only one I can comment on with some expertise) we have what we can call different recensions of the text. These texts, independently transmitted, differ very little from each other. This fact alone strongly indicate that even while they've been orally transmitted for many generations, they are more or less uncorrupted by the act of transmission.

Much more could be written on this subject (and has been). However, english isn't my native language, it is late and this comment could go on and on…short story is: memorization and oral transmission seems to work!

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