The Widmann Blog: featured

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From each according to his ability, to each according to his need

The CoLD coalition's new proposal on legal aid in England is quite scary, given that so many people will be unable to go to the courts even when the law is completely on their side, simply because the cannot afford to.However, legal aid was already unavailable to lots of people who couldn't realistically pay the lawyer's fee (without having to...

Vale, Hans H. Ørberg!

Jeg opdagede først i dag, at Hans H. Ørberg afgik ved døden den 17. februar i år, 89 år gammel.Han var forfatter til det fantastiske latinkursus Lingua Latina per se illustrata, som formår at lære den interesserede elev latin uden at bruge andre sprog end latin overhovedet.Denne måde at skrive sprogkurser på ("Naturmetoden") var ikke Ørbergs egen opfindelse (se nedenfor),...

En analyse af zarka-kulli-sproget

(Opdatering: Den seneste version findes nu her).

I anledning af min fødselsdag i går sås flg. dialog på Facebook:

Lars Ræder Clausen: Emfle birnan smörja dunku! “Tillykke med det ekstra år!”
Simon Kristensen: Kulli waflu? “Hvad ville alternativet være?”
Thomas Widmann: Zarka gunku, zarka gunku! “Mange tak, mange tak!”

Dette sprog er også kendt fra vers 11 i sang nummer 57 i TÅGEKAMMERETs Jubilæumssangbog (PDF):

Vi kan ikke lide folk fra lingvistik. . .
Kulli waffli zarka gunku
emfle birnan smöja dunku.

Betydningen af dette vers har længe været ukendt, men der er jo et stort overlap her. Læg dog mærke til de subtile forskelle: Lars sagde “smörja”, hvor sangen har “smöja”, og Simon sagde “waflu”, hvor sangen har “waffli”. Vi må antage, at dette ikke er slåfejl, men sprogligt signifikante forskelle.

Hvis vi antager, at sangen har flg. betydning, falder alt på plads: “Alternativet gør os ikke glade, det er tidsspilde med det ekstra år” (sangen refererer her til det ikke-indoeuropæiske propædeutiske sprog, der indtil for nylig forlængede lingvisters studium med op til et år).

Her er analysen af vores korpus:
(1)
emfle
ekstra
birn-an
år-med
smör-ja
lykke-GEN
dunk-u
tid-AKK
“Tillykke med det ekstra år.”

(2)
kull-i
alternativ-NOM
waf-lu
hvad-ville.være
“Hvad ville alternativet være?”

(3)
zarka
glad
gun-ku
gøre-PRÆS
“(Det) gør (mig) glad.” (Den normale måde at sige “tak” på.)

(4)
kull-i
alternativ-NOM
waffli
ikke
zarka
glad
gunku
gøre-PRÆS
“Alternativet gør ikke glad.”

(5)
emfle
ekstra
birn-an
år-med
smöj-a
spilde-PART
dunk-u
tid-AKK
“(De har) spildt tiden med det ekstra år.”

Gloseliste:
-a suf (danner perf. part.)
-an suf med
birn sb år
dunk sb tid
emfle adj ekstra
gun- vb at gøre
-i suf (markerer nominativ)
-ja suf af (markerer genitiv)
-ku suf (præsens)
kull sb alternativ
-lu suf ville være (copula subj.)
smöj- vb at spilde
smör sb lykke
-u suf (markerer akkusativ)
waffli adv ikke
waf interrog. pron. hvad
zarka adj glad

Vi kan nu skrive nye nyttige ting på dette smukke sprog, fx:

Smöri wafku? “Hvad er lykke?”
Zarka kullian birni “Et år med glade alternativer”
Waffli dunku smöjku! “Du spilder ikke tiden!”

(2. reviderede udgave – nu med nominativ og akkusativ.)

Are we related to people born before 1575?

While sampling some nice beer in Århus earlier this year with my good old friend Thomas Mailund, we had an interesting discussion about how long our genes live on for.I was reminded of this discussion when I managed to find my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather on Google. His name was Georg Widmann, and he was born around 1532 in Heiningen in Württemberg.However, as I discussed a few years ago, we get half our genes from our father and the other half from our...

Changing England’s borders

Finally, I tried to recreate the Danelaw. This would actually balance the two halves of England very neatly and would from a mathematical point of view be the best solution. However, it would place London on the border (just south of it, to be precise), and I'm not sure whether that'd be a good or a bad thing.From the point...
The emergence of hypergrams in the written language of young people
Anybody who has young Facebook contacts from the UK is likely to have come across weird spellings in recent years.It started out as text speak, i.e., the abbreviation of words to make them easier to type on a phone, such...
Generations
Our parents' generation were born at a time of strife and poverty, but after that things got better and better for them. However, the picture for our generation is much more complex.I was therefore very interested when I found a...

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