malloc + 4??

[Dan Pop]

It's debatable where in dictionary sort order the 'sz' should be
placed, since it's neither really two letters [1] nor one letter
of it's own right. However, at least my old Duden dict suggests to
transcript it to 'SZ' when writing all caps - should be "FLOSZ" then.

What is beyond debate is that, under the new German spelling rules,
words like Abfluß became Abfluss and not Abflusz.

Dan

 

[Thomas Stegen]

It's *NOT* "Scandinavian". Only Danish and Norwegian (and maybe
Icelandic) use it. Finnish and Swedish use ä and ö instead of æ and ø.

Finland is not part of Scandinavia you know Anyways yeah, I was
thinking of the sound, the letter has different appearance.

Some people include Finland in Scandinavia, but they are wrong.
Norway, Denmark and Sweden recognise each other as scandinavian,
they recognise no other countries as such. If you want to include
Finland and Iceland use the term "the nordic countries".

Finland and Russia lies on the scandinavian peninsula, but denmark
does not. So it is a bit strange that denmark is part of scandinavia
while finland is not from a geographical viewpoint. From a historic
perspective it is not so strange. The scandinavist political movement
advocated unifying Denmark, Sweden and Norway into a single kingdom.
Finland was part of the Russian empire and so couldn't be included in
this union, so a new term was invented to to mean the nordic
countries excluding Finland, this term was scandinavia. Now, this union
was never to be, but there was a monetary union (kroner) until the first
world war. We still use kroner, but they are not compatible with
eachother.

 

[Joona I Palaste]

Finland is not part of Scandinavia you know Anyways yeah, I was
thinking of the sound, the letter has different appearance.

Some people include Finland in Scandinavia, but they are wrong.
Norway, Denmark and Sweden recognise each other as scandinavian,
they recognise no other countries as such. If you want to include
Finland and Iceland use the term "the nordic countries".

I am aware of the formal situation. But generally when people talk
about Scandinavia, they mean the Nordic countries. I was going by the
pragmatic definition. Isn't pragmatism what this newsgroup is about
these days?

Finland and Russia lies on the scandinavian peninsula, but denmark
does not. So it is a bit strange that denmark is part of scandinavia
while finland is not from a geographical viewpoint. From a historic
perspective it is not so strange. The scandinavist political movement
advocated unifying Denmark, Sweden and Norway into a single kingdom.
Finland was part of the Russian empire and so couldn't be included in
this union, so a new term was invented to to mean the nordic
countries excluding Finland, this term was scandinavia. Now, this union
was never to be, but there was a monetary union (kroner) until the first
world war. We still use kroner, but they are not compatible with
eachother.

If Russia had never conquered Finland, the entire Finnish culture and
language would have ceased to exist as Finland would have been
assimilated into this aforementioned union. So, as much as we Finns hate
the Russians, they saved our entire culture and language from our *real*
enemies - the Scandinavians! (Only kidding - nothing personal against
Scandinavians, myself.)

 

[Thomas Stegen]

I am aware of the formal situation. But generally when people talk
about Scandinavia, they mean the Nordic countries.

Not when you are in Scandinavia.

I was going by the
pragmatic definition. Isn't pragmatism what this newsgroup is about
these days?

It is not a pragmatic definition, it is a mistake, common though.
When people here in britain ask me about Scandinavia I am usually
pragmatic and ask tell them that Finland is not part of scandinavia
if it is relevant (I also mention the Nordic countries at this point).
I don't just "assume" they know what they are talking about and go on
explaining.

 

[Dan Pop]

If Russia had never conquered Finland, the entire Finnish culture and
language would have ceased to exist as Finland would have been
assimilated into this aforementioned union.

How do you know? European minorities are notorious for their resistance
to *cultural* assimilation. Are the Finns any weaker than the Occitans
or the Csangos (which are far smaller ethnic groups)? Any idea about
how many people are native speakers of the fourth official Swiss language?

Dan

 

[Irrwahn Grausewitz]

It's debatable where in dictionary sort order the 'sz' should be
placed, since it's neither really two letters [1] nor one letter
of it's own right. However, at least my old Duden dict suggests to
transcript it to 'SZ' when writing all caps - should be "FLOSZ" then.

What is beyond debate is that, under the new German spelling rules,
words like Abfluß became Abfluss and not Abflusz.

_What's_ beyond debate is that the spelling "Abfluß" was
braindead in the first place: the word is pronounced with a
short and not a long 'u'. [1]

That's one of the few things the so-called experts who are the
glorified fathers of this infamous german Rechtschreibreform
actually got right. Unnecessary to add that it's extremely
surprising they managed to get anything right in the end.

[1] Consider: Fluss vs. Fuß, Fass vs. Fraß, Masse vs. Maße, etc.

Regards

 

[Joona I Palaste]

How do you know? European minorities are notorious for their resistance
to *cultural* assimilation. Are the Finns any weaker than the Occitans
or the Csangos (which are far smaller ethnic groups)? Any idea about
how many people are native speakers of the fourth official Swiss language?

I don't *know*, I'm speculating here. Maybe the culture wouldn't have
totally vanished, but the language would. The Swedish monarchy at the
time was very intent in making Swedish the only official language in
their entire kingdom.

 

[Richard Delorme]

Dan Pop a écrit :

Then, why do I see "Castellano" on so many DVDs, instead of "Español"?

Four languages are spoken in Spain: Basque, Castilian, Catalan and
Galician. So, inside Spain, Spanish (Español) is called Castilian
(Castellano) to distinguish it from the other languages. As Castilian is
the main language spoken in Spain, and the one that spread out, outside
Spain it is usually called Spanish.

 

[Mark Henning]

It's *NOT* "Scandinavian". Only Danish and Norwegian (and maybe
Icelandic) use it. Finnish and Swedish use ä and ö instead of æ and ø.

'ae' is also used in English (e.g. dæmon, etc...) either as a single glyph
or two, it is the same. They most likely have roots in Danish/Scandinavian
or whatever (I don't know, i'm not an etymologist). Our little island has
been invaded so many times that very little of English actually originated
here. (Which, i suppose, is why there is very little consistency between
written words and sounds.)

M Henning

 

[Mark Henning]

Joona I Palaste wrote...

language?

I don't *know*, I'm speculating here. Maybe the culture wouldn't have
totally vanished, but the language would. The Swedish monarchy at the
time was very intent in making Swedish the only official language in
their entire kingdom.

There is a kind of precedent for this. When it comes to history, I am mostly
ignorant, but, AFAIK, whenever it was that the UK was formed, English became
the "only official language" in the kingdom, but Welsh (and Irish and
Scottish to a lesser extent) has still survived. People still taught their
children to speak welsh down through the generations as well as english,
refusing to turn their back on their culture and language.

M Henning

 

[Dan Pop]

I don't *know*, I'm speculating here. Maybe the culture wouldn't have
totally vanished, but the language would. The Swedish monarchy at the
time was very intent in making Swedish the only official language in
their entire kingdom.

Which was an additional reason for the minorities to fiercely fight for
preserving their cultures (and the language is an essential part of a
culture).

The Romanians in Transylvania have been under Hungarian domination for
1000 years (until the end of WW1). To oppose the authorities'
efforts to integrate them and their culture they have switched from
the Christion Orthodox church (which was independent and, therefore,
had no one to defend it) to the Greek Catholic one (which was under
the Pope's authority, so the Hungarians couldn't touch it) and they
adopted Latin names, which could not be "hungarised". You'd think
that the Hungarians learned something from that, but they didn't:
for about 5 years, during WW2, part of Transylvania was again under
Hungarian rule and the first thing the Hungarian authorities did was to
hungarise the Romanian names on the newly issued identity cards. Which
created lots of headaches after the war, when the same person appeared
under different names on different documents... A former teacher of
mine had to prove in a court of justice that Niculas Cornel and Nikuláss
Kornéliusz (not sure about the Hungarian version) were one and the same
person, as the name on his birth certificate was at odds with the name
on his highschool graduation diploma.

Dan

 

[Richard Delorme]

Mark Henning a écrit :

'ae' is also used in English (e.g. dæmon, etc...) either as a single glyph
or two, it is the same. They most likely have roots in Danish/Scandinavian
or whatever (I don't know, i'm not an etymologist).

The AE ligature is quite common in Latin. Dæmon is a Latin word, with
the spelling preserved in English.

 

[Old Wolf]

Japanese is pronounced as written, if you write it that way.

(OK, n' can be pronounced as /n/ or /m/, but that's a trivial
difference and a mistake would never cause confusion.)

Some other differences (using the currently-popular system of romanization):
"sh" is not the same as 's' 'h'
"ei" is the same as "ee"
"g" is pronounced "ng" in some situations
syllabic "n" is sometimes "ng" and sometimes causes nasalisation of
the preceding vowel instead
"i" and "u" are unvoiced in some situations
"h" before an unvoiced vowel, has a different sound
"j" in "ji" is slightly different to "j" in "ja" (actually I'm not
sure about that one)

None of these would change the meanings of words, or cause confusion.
Certainly if you use the Japanese letters then there is no doubt.
I suppose it is as close as we are going to get to "pronounced as written".

Another point: some words are written the same way, but are distinguished
by tonality (eg. rising then falling has 1 meaning, falling then rising
has another). Can't think of any examples offhand, sorry. Chinese is
even worse in this respect. Does this count?

Also - does C count as 'pronounced as written' ?

 

[Irrwahn Grausewitz]

Also - does C count as 'pronounced as written' ?

Not necessarily, but it is 'translated as written',
as opposed to 'translated as intended'.

Regards

 

[Ben Pfaff]

None of these would change the meanings of words, or cause confusion.
Certainly if you use the Japanese letters then there is no doubt.

Not entirely true: if I recall correctly, the hiragana character
for "ha" is sometimes pronounced "wa", the hiragana character for
"wo" is sometimes pronounced "o", and there may be other
exceptions that I am unaware of.