Re: deepfriedmars.com

From: Xenia (tyusha_at_freemail.ru)
Date: 11/21/04 

Date: 21 Nov 2004 03:19:09 -0800

"nightjar" <nightjar@<insert_my_surname_here>.uk.com> wrote in message news:<419f440b$0$16967$afc38c87@news.easynet.co.uk>...
> As languages develop, they generally become more complex. A language that
> has not evolved some of the attributes of a more complex grammar is,
> therefore, usually considered to be less advanced linguistically.

On the contrary, it's clear that ancient languages (Latin, Greek,
Sanskrit, Old English) were MUCH MORE grammatically complex than their
modern descendants.

For example, Old Russian had 7 cases, Modern Russian dropped the
Vocative. Similarly, Modern Russian lacks the dual number which was
present in the Old Russian.

> Most commonly, languages develop through contact with other languages and

More commonly, it's the centuries of foreign domination that lead to
loss of inflections and development of simplified, or analytical
syntax. I would disagree that analytical syntax represents some
"advanced" stage of language development. So degradation of more
complex Indo-European grammar led to emergence of modern English and
Bulgarian.

> Russia has a long tradtion of isolationism, which would limit that route for
> development.

Your ignorance becomes laughable. Don't you know that Russia is the
home to more nationalites than any other country of the world?

Unlike Western Europe, Southern Russia was a primary route for the
great medieval Volkerwanderung. So Hunnic, Illyric, Chinese, Baltic,
and Finnish borrowings were woven into the fabric of Russian language,
as even the earliest 11th-century texts show.

There are deep layers of Scythian (e.g., bogatstvo, radi), Gothic
(e.g., kupit, khudozhestvo, iskustvo), Norse (e.g., kolodets, skot,
knut), Greek (e.g., korabl, krovat) and Turkic (e.g., k***, khozyain)
loanwords present in the core of Russian as well as other Slavic
languages.

Russian grammar faithfully preserves most characteristics of the Old
Slavic. Alhough Russian had close contacts with non-Indo-European
language families of its neighbours, one can hardly discern any
influence of Uralic, Caucasian or Altaic languages on the Russian
grammar.

> > The Russian name is "Khram Spasa na Krovi". Khram = church, spasa =
> > saviour, na = on, krovi = blood. In other words, there is no "spilled"
> > or "spilt" in there, so it is pretty arbitrary which form you decide
> > to add in English.
>
> However, the two words do have quite different connotations in English.
> Spilled blood would imply that the act of the blood being spilled was the
> important feature. Spilt blood would imply that the blood was important in
> itself.

Russian churches "on the blood" were traditionally built where a
regicide had taken place, both to hallow the cursed spot and to comply
with the Orthodox doctrine that "the church of Christ is founded on
the blood of martyrs". Other famous examples of the practice are the
blood-red church in Uglich where Czarevich Dimitri was murdered in
1591 and the new cathedral in Ekaterinburg, on the spot where the last
czar was executed in 1918.

Xenia