Re: Do Eskimos count like New Guineans?

On Jan 18, 9:08 pm, "John Atkinson" <johna...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...





On Jan 18, 3:48 am, "John Atkinson" <johna...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...

On Jan 17, 8:08 am, richard01 <richardparke...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...]

Invention - means a word (or bit of grammar) that doesn't descend
directly from an earlier language - it's genuinely new.
A vanishingly rare phenomenon -- the best-known examples in English
are "gas" and "Kodak."

I don't know about "Kodak" -- which I think never quite made it as an
ordinary English word, as opposed to a brand name -- but "gas" is
supposed to be a variant of the Greek word khaos. The first user of
the word, van Helmont (a Dutchman), pronounced <g> as a velar
fricative, so his innovation, besides the semantic extension,
consisted
merely of dropping the /o/.

OK, maybe it doesn't descend _directly_ from the Greek, and it did
(apparently) involve a conscious choice on van Helmont's part, but
you
could hardly call it "genuinely new" either.
The Dutch voiced velar isn't relevant in English!

Yes.  It's a Dutch word which we borrowed, keeping the Dutch spelling
and pronouncing it according to English rules, as we tend to do.  We
changed the vowel too (in my dialect anyway, and, I think, yours too).

Is this your point?

My point is that made-up words are vanishingly rare.

If you want to exclude one of the two standard examples, you double
the strength of my point.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Do Eskimos count like New Guineans?
    ... directly from an earlier language - it's genuinely new. ... the word, van Helmont, pronounced as a velar ... The Dutch voiced velar isn't relevant in English! ... and pronouncing it according to English rules, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Do Eskimos count like New Guineans?
    ... directly from an earlier language - it's genuinely new. ... the word, van Helmont, pronounced as a velar ... and pronouncing it according to English rules, ... What about television, that seems to have come from two separate ...
    (sci.lang)
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