Altered Maps XVI: Gerardus Mercator Must Die

[Arakhor]

Our grammar may be poor, but we have the richest vocabulary in the world.

 

[The_J]

Think I never noticed that Dutch doesn't have cases .

 

[sophie]

English has cases and genders.

Three cases - nominative, genitive, and objective

Three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter

 

[Arakhor]

Anyone can just state things. Could you provide examples?

 

[sophie]

Anyone can just state things. Could you provide examples?

:sigh:

|1st person singular | 2nd person singular | 3rd person singular masc/fem/neu | 1st person plural | 2nd person plural | 3rd person plural | relative/interrogative pronoun
nominative | I | thou | he/she/it | we | ye | they | who
genitive | mine | thine | his/hers/its | ours | yours | theirs | whose
objective | me | thee | him/her/it | us | you | them | whom

cf. German:

| 1st person singular | 2nd person singular | 3rd person singular masc/fem/neu | 1st person plural | 2nd person plural | 3rd person plural | relative/interrogative pronoun
nominative | ich | du | er/sie/es | wir | ihr | sie | wer
genitive | meiner | deiner | seiner/ihrer/seiner | unser | euer | ihrer | wessen
dative | mir | dir | ihm/ihr/ihm | uns | euch | ihnen | wem
accusative | mich | dich | ihn/sie/es | uns | euch | sie | wen

Note that English doesn't change its neuter form as it declines from nominative to objective, (a merger of the accusative and dative cases) in Old and Middle English. All Indo-European languages retain or have retained this quirk of neuter nouns holding the same form in nominative and accusative. Now there's nobody who would deny that English's use of a case system is much less robust than that of many IE languages, in particular IE languages in past times. The story of the IE families can broadly be characterized as a general reduction in the number of cases (with a few notable families that have retained a remarkable number of their declined forms and cases). However these forms nevertheless represent a declension system. Note:

I see the cat
The cat sees me

The 1st person pronoun shifts in syntax from the subject to the direct object, and so the pronoun declines in form from the nominative to the accusative to reflect this.

The case system only really exists in the pronominal forms, but with one notable exception:
The chair belongs to Susie -> It is Susie's chair.

Again, cf. German:

Dieser Stuhl gehört Mark
Das ist Marks Stuhl

Or Latin:

Marcus habet illam sellam
sella Marci est (or less awkwardly with the dative of possession):
Marco sella (est)

English still retains the genitive form in all nouns and pronouns. I have office hours I have to go to, so maybe I'll get to gender later.[/table]

 

[metatron]

:sigh:

I think people's point is that English cases are obscurred to the point that native speakers are barely aware of them by virtue of the pronouns being the only thing that is marked - you know, rather than all nouns.
I guess that's what the map is referring to as well.
Yes, sure there's still the genetive, but, you know, colloquially what Englich does is not what lay people call a "case system", for that reason.

 

[Lohrenswald]

I'm a native Anglophone - even mentioning cases and genders does not come naturally to me!

talking about cases doesn't come natural to anyone; you have to learn about it

 

[Arakhor]

I don't recall being taught those specific terms, even in modern language lessons. That might simply be a flaw in my schooling though.

 

[Lohrenswald]

I only learned about them in german class

 

[Kyriakos]

Our grammar may be poor, but we have the richest vocabulary in the world.

Most of which is greek

 

[W|M]

As demonstrated by a Greek economist:

I always wished to address this Assembly in Greek, but realized that it would have been indeed "Greek" to all present in this room. I found out, however, that I could make my address in Greek which would still be English to everybody. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, l shall do it now, using with the exception of articles and prepositions, only Greek words.

Kyrie, I eulogize the archons of the Panethnic Numismatic Thesaurus and the Ecumenical Trapeza for the orthodoxy of their axioms, methods and policies, although there is an episode of cacophony of the Trapeza with Hellas. With enthusiasm we dialogue and synagonize at the synods of our didymous organizations in which polymorphous economic ideas and dogmas are analyzed and synthesized. Our critical problems such as the numismatic plethora generate some agony and melancholy. This phenomenon is characteristic of our epoch. But, to my thesis, we have the dynamism to program therapeutic practices as a prophylaxis from chaos and catastrophe. In parallel, a Panethnic unhypocritical economic synergy and harmonization in a democratic climate is basic. I apologize for my eccentric monologue. I emphasize my euharistia to you, Kyrie to the eugenic and generous American Ethnos and to the organizers and protagonists of his Amphictyony and the gastronomic symposia.

Kyrie, it is Zeus' anathema on our epoch for the dynamism of our economies and the heresy of our economic methods and policies that we should agonize the Scylla of numismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic anaemia. It is not my idiosyncrasy to be ironic or sarcastic, but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather cryptoplethorists. Although they emphatically stigmatize numismatic plethora, they energize it through their tactics and practices. Our policies have to be based more on economic and less on political criteria. Our gnomon has to be a metron between political, strategic and philanthropic scopes. Political magic has always been anti-economic. In an epoch characterized by monopolies, oligopolies, monopsonies, monopolistic antagonism and polymorphous inelasticities, our policies have to be more orthological. But this should not be metamorphosed into plethorophobia, which is endemic among academic economists. Numismatic symmetry should not hyper-antagonize economic acme. A greater harmonization between the practices of the economic and numismatic archons is basic. Parallel to this, we have to synchronize and harmonize more and more our economic and numismatic policies panethnically. These scopes are more practicable now, when the prognostics of the political and economic barometer are halcyonic. The history of our didymus organizations in this sphere has been didactic and their gnostic practices will always be a tonic to the polyonymous and idiomorphous ethnical economies. The genesis of the programmed organization will dynamize these policies. Therefore, I sympathize, although not without criticism on one or two themes, with the apostles and the hierarchy of our organs in their zeal to program orthodox economic and numismatic policies, although I have some logomachy with them. I apologize for having tyrannized you with my Hellenic phraseology. In my epilogue, I emphasize my eulogy to the philoxenous autochthons of this cosmopolitan metropolis and my encomium to you, Kyrie, and the stenographers.

 

[Takhisis]

cases like akkusative and dative?

Or superessive, delative, translative, inessive, comitative, abessive… Finno-Ugric languages are so much fun!

That said, for greek the middle case (not sure what it is called in english) was stupidly taken out of use in the 70s, due to supposed 'modernization' (lol) of the language. So the case where the noun ends in omega, and means "to (noun)" is replaced with a periphrasis like 'sto'+noun etc.
While some terms still are routinely used in that case, it is seen as more archaic. Cause the 70s language modernization was braindead and should never have happened (it also took out the polytonic system, so we are left with just one tonal mark, ie a dot above the vowel which is stressed). Only good thing is that most of the changes to the language were overruled in practice, but not those main ones (i don't know how to write in polytonic).

I would need some information on this, given that all textbooks I've ever had use only the ‘στο’ version rather than a properly formed dative case (but they insist on using ‘μου’ and the analogous pronouns.

 

[Kyriakos]

Or superessive, delative, translative, inessive, comitative, abessive… Finno-Ugric languages are so much fun!

I would need some information on this, given that all textbooks I've ever had use only the ‘στο’ version rather than a properly formed dative case (but they insist on using ‘μου’ and the analogous pronouns.

You and me too.

 

[Kyriakos]

Not sure if altered or correct:

 

[Arakhor]

Well, Cornwall and that little clump in western East Anglia stand out as particularly noticeable.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, lutefisk and rotten sharks and fermented herring surely are nasty, but i think that by 'cow lung soup' they refer to a really tasty local dish (it was always a favourite of mine, though it is usually just prepared at Easter, cause it takes a long while to cook) :

Btw, 'head cheese'?

The name surely is unappetizing...

'Maggot cheese'.

'Nestle'

 

[PhroX]

I like how the worst Slovakia can do is lard. For something like that to be a horror, their cuisine must be incredibly tame.

 

[Lohrenswald]

I've never understood why people don't translate lye fish

or how that's supposedly worse than sheep heads

 

[Kyriakos]

I like how the worst Slovakia can do is lard. For something like that to be a horror, their cuisine must be incredibly tame.

They are next to fried blood.

 

[Lohrenswald]

who are these babies that can't handle liver paste