Re: Academic/scientific journals in Esperanto?

From: Manuel M Campagna (fa192_at_FreeNet.Carleton.CA)
Date: 02/20/05 

Date: 20 Feb 2005 21:29:45 GMT

Thomas Bushnell, BSG (tb+usenet@becket.net) writes:
> fa192@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Manuel M Campagna) writes:
>> English is _not yet_ a Romance language, but it is still moving in that
>> direction.
> Really? It has stopped absorbing words from Middle French last I
> recall. What do you think makes something a "Romance Language"? Last
> I heard, it was that it was a descendent of Latin. English isn't.

Old English was quickly turned into Middle English because of the enormous
amount of Old French it suddenly received from 1066 and onwards, and went
on receiving as Middle English. Old French remained itself with its
2-case system (quite like Esperanto: nominative and non-nominative) until
the Valois fell in love with Italy and made love and war to Italy. It is
only then that Old French became Middle French. Middle French lasted only
two centuries before yielding the way to glorious Modern French, which
continues the tradition of enriching the English language generously with
expressions such as "C'est la vie!" and "C'est la guerre!" or
"savoir-faire", "façade", "café", and "après-ski"... Whenever I have
occasion to hear Brits in the news, I can measure the Frenchification of
Brit English (not only in phonetics) compared with the old-fashionedness
of North-American English.

>> Because the classification into families such as that of the
>> "Indo-European languages" dates from the 19th century, when
>> linguists were almost exclusively interested in lexicography and
>> etymology, as well as diachronic phonetics. Other classifications are
>> possible, such as one based on syntactic structure or morphology. Then
>> the results are drastically different.
> I'm afraid that I'm not going to take your word for it. You're
> sufficiently uncareful in your pronouncements about linguistics and
> sufficiently wrong (for example, saying that English is becoming a
> Romance language, whatever that means).

If you're not sure what "Romance language" means (it has nothing to do
with ditties or Romanticism), I suggest you peruse the 4-volume study
"The Romance Language" (meaning "Proto-Romance language") by Dr Robert
C. Hall Jr, (when it was published) professor at Cornell University,
Ithaca, NY, right on Lake Cayuga. (Three-quarters of a century ago, my
father studied there ...in Agricultural Science.)

> Thomas

Manuel

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