Mlller's comments

This tale of the Grimmsʼ collection was contributed (in a Low German dialect) by Philipp Otto Runge. His main profession was painting, and he designed a color model using a sphere.[1]

His interest in colors certainly left a trace in the elaboration how the sea and the sky are colored and change their colors.

Runge contributed another tale, “Von dem Machandelboom” ‘Of / about the juniper tree’. Both tales were held in high regard by the Grimms. They saw some traits as typical or classical for the genre, e.g. the repetitions, parallelisms with rising tension.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Otto_Runge#Runge_and_c... –

The article nearly equivocates “Rather Useless” and “unambiguously the worst”. Python3 seems more coherent to me than the article's argument:

1. Python3 plainly distinguishes between a string and a sequence of bytes. The function `len`, as a built-in, gives the most straightforward count: for any set or sequence of items, it counts the number of these items.

2. For a sequence of bytes, it counts the number of bytes. Taking this face-palming half-pale male hodgepodge and encoding it according to UTF-8, we get 17 bytes. Thus `len("\U0001F926\U0001F3FC\u200D\u2642\uFE0F".encode(encoding = "utf-8")) == 17`.

3. After bytes, the most basic entities are Unicode code points. A Python3 string is a sequence of Unicode code points. So for a Python3 string, `len` should give the number of Unicode code points. Thus `len("\U0001F926\U0001F3FC\u200D\u2642\uFE0F") == 5`.

Anything more is and should be beyond the purview of the simple built-in `len`:

4. Grapheme clusters are complicated and nearly as arbitrary as code points, hence there are “legacy grapheme clusters” – the grapheme clusters of older Unicode versions, because they changed – and “tailored grapheme clusters”, which may be needed “for specific locales and other customizations”, and of course the default “extended grapheme clusters”, which are only “a best-effort approximation” to “what a typical user might think of as a “character”.” Cf. https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr29

Of course, there are very few use cases for knowing the number of code points, but are there really much more for the number (NB: the number) of grapheme clusters?

Anyway, the great module https://pypi.org/project/regex/ supports “Matching a single grapheme \X”. So:

  len(regex.findall(r"\X", "\U0001F926\U0001F3FC\u200D\u2642\uFE0F")) == 1

5. The space a sequence of code points will occupy on the screen: certainly useful but at least dependent on the typeface that will be used for rendering and hence certainly beyond the purview of a simple function.

That would be …

  "\u{1F926}\u{1F3FC}\u200D\u2642\uFE0F".length == 7

… for Javascript.

“Max and Moritz” is not Grimm but Wilhelm Busch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_and_Moritz

No, the pressing issue of the Willy-Nicky telegrams was that Russia had mobilised her troops against Germany. Speaking about the Hague conference while setting troops in motion is hypocritical: you should wait out lengthy proceedings while we are invading your country. In the telegrams, William II tried to convince Nicholas II to stop the mobilisation. But Sergey Sazonov shortly thereafter made Nicholas II restart and escalate the mobilisation. At that point, a major war was inevitable.

Regarding the alphabetical order, I think one of the oldest alphabetically organized dictonaries extant is ‘Alphabetical collection of all words’ by Hesýchios¹. In his preface (written as a letter to a friend named Eulogios), Hesychios writes that quite a few other people in earlier times have made alphabetical collections of words, but always only for a certain subset, e.g. all homeric words, all words found in the tragedies or in the comedies etc. After them a certain Diogenianós was the first (according to Hesychios) to make an alphabetical collection of all words.²

The names of the older lexicographers Hesychios mentions are: Appíon (Ἀππίων – or Ἀπίων?)³, Apollónios son of Archibios (Ἀπολλώνιος ὁ τοῦ Ἀρχιβίου)⁴, Théon (Θέων)⁵, Dídymos (Δίδυμος)⁶.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychius_of_Alexandria

² https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/Epistula_ad_Eulogium – “κατὰ στοιχεῖον” is the phrase meaning ‘by / according to the letter’, understood as ‘alphabetical(ly)’; “καθʼ ἕκαστον στοιχεῖον” ‘by / according to every letter’.

³ a search turned up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apion

⁴ certainly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_the_Sophist

⁵ I donʼt know, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aelius_Theon perhaps?

⁶ a search turned up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didymus_Chalcenterus

What I said is the position held by historical linguists focussing on early Ancient Greek, e.g. Strunk (who wrote the paper about aeolisms that are archaisms), Leumann, Meier-Brügger (Griech. Sprachw. II W 201.2 quoting Leumann “Versetzung in eine vom Alltag ferne Atmosphäre”, II F 218.3), Wachter (who wrote the grammar accompanying the latest comprehensive Greek Ilias edition), e.g. “the epic poet used non-everyday forms”, “it is true that from the point of view of its formation, ἤμαρ is more archaic than ἡμέρη, but there is no doubt that ἡμέρη, which is attested in the whole of post-Homeric Greek, particularly in Ionic-Attic, was the current form at Homer's time.” etc.

No linguist studying early Ancient Greek thinks that the poet(s) of the Iliad and Odyssey “used their own contemporary language”.

“You enjoying archaic text has zero to do with” … indeed, so letʼs not miss the argument I actually made: one of the two reasons for your view seems to be that Homer “made it sound pleasant”, “people […] liked it”. I just wanted to convey that it is a non sequitur to induce a non-archaic, contemporary style from that, particularly in the case of an epic poem about older times. This genre usually has an archaic, non-everyday style. (Two links I had included there to parallel examples were scrubbed.)

If herein you did not mean to give a reason for your view, I am sorry for the detour.

The then remaining reason for your view seems to be that the Homeric poems were “composed to be passed orally and only later on written”. But this is also no evidence for a non-archaic, contemporary language because highly archaic poems can be transmitted orally, even for centuries (cf. the Vedic hymns).

Your wording can only mean the history of the Homeric poems, but to take a look at their prehistory: the Oral-Formulaic Theory (Parry, Lord) also does not speak against archaic, non-everyday language, on the contrary, it was developed inter alia to explain the most archaic forms in the Homeric poems.

“older translations […] can be quite expansive over original. Given that this particular translation has the same length as original.” Sorry, but this is not correct, you wrote yourself “the translation is shorter then some other translations”. Emily Wilsonʼs translation has the same number of verses, as metric translations usually have, but uses the iambic pentameter instead of the considerably longer dactylic hexameter. Note that I donʼt criticize her decision. (On the contrary, I sympathize with the view that the English iambic verse may correspond a little bit better to the Greek dactylic verse. I know, in the end, Germanic metrical language and Ancient Greek metrical language are very different anyway.)

“This is kind of weird argument given there older translations you don't take issue with” … Look, I havenʼt made and donʼt intend to make any comment about any translation at all. In particular, I donʼt take issue with Wilsonʼs translation. I just wanted to corroborate the little objection made by DiscourseFan against a tiny, understandable and innocuous misconception. I deplore that the argument has rather deteriorated since then, will not engage further and wish you well.

The point at issue I was referring to was yours, not his. I had the passage in mind I quoted; to quote and refer more concisely and precisely perhaps:

“But, when they created it [= Iliad or Odyssey] originally, they used their own contemporary language”

No, “they” did not. The Iliadʼs and Odysseyʼs language was nobodyʼs contemporary language. Not for the 8th century, not for the 5th. It has too many archaisms and dialectisms (aiolisms). (Note: Some forms seen as aiolisms in earlier research are understood as archaisms now.)

Yes, people enjoyed it, very much. But people can enjoy something that sounds archaic and unusual, not like contemporary speech. Particularly, when it is an epic poem about older times. That is quite common. I for one enjoy that, too, YMMV.

Your point “it was meant to be remembered and listened to” is difficult to unpack: Yes, this is true both for the time before and after a Homeric poem was composed as the whole that we know, but true in a very different manner. In any case, it is no evidence against archaisms (and aiolisms).

So:

“do you translate it into contemporary English or archaic one”

Archaic would be a little bit more authentic than contemporary.

Contemporary may be a better fit for many readers today – perhaps the ease of access is paramount when the translation competes with infinitely more permanently accessible information and entertainment than there was in the 8th century BC.

On the other hand, the point at issue was not turgidness or unnaturalness but (emphasis mine):

“Likewise, do you translate it into contemporary English or archaic one? Old texts are sometimes intentionally translated into archaic language, so that you feel like reading something old. But, when they created it originally, they used their own contemporary language and made it sound pleasant to themselves. So, do you pick old words or new words for the same thing?”

and GPʼs point is salient and correct; to be perhaps more clear: the homeric style was already archaic when the Odyssey was composed. Moreover, it was probably intentionally and somewhat artificially made archaic, e.g. using the old inflectional suffix /‑φι(ν)/ also in the singular and not only in the plural, where it was solely used originally.

AFAIK, epic poems telling about times far away are often composed in an archaic style, e.g. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildebrandslied>, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenlied>; I guess Beowulf is similar.

“robigo”, genitive “robiginis”, feminine.

I, conversely, lack the knowledge to quite get the allusion to a Hallmark card or a Thomas Kincaid painting.

I guess that Kincaid paintings are considered subpar by connoisseurs. That wouldnʼt be the thing with Morgenstern. He is popular, but not that popular, and was sufficiently unconventional at his time to be seen as a genuine creative artist.

That is a comparison in terms of connoisseurship (or snobbery). If I had to make a comparison in terms of how the workʼs nature, Iʼd say that the shorter poems are like Roger Price droodles.

Yes, but somehow it worked in a not-so-tangible way.

Germany for one apparently gave much more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_reparations than it got out of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan#Expenditures in reverse. Imagine the allies had extracted much more wealth from Afghanistan or the Irak than they have put into it – itʼs inconceivable.

Slightly alternative explanation for West Germany, combining what others have said:

- First stage: The allies under US leadership were running the country anyway, they did it well and there was sufficient cooperation by Germans, for whom the Germany that was defeated represented an entity utterly discredited on account of the most horrible crimes against humanity.

- Second stage: The feeling “the Americans are actually on our side – defeating us they have liberated us and then helped us to a new state in which we can live better than ever before, plus they are protecting us from the USSR” became more or less mainstream.

(The experience in East Germany was completely different of course.)

So I think the most important factor was that American victory and American predominance were associated with liberation and freedom.

I have heard the opposite: that the United Kingdom was, as a rule, an important ally for the economic policies favoured by Germany and others. E.g., “So far the following EU countries have announced that they oppose Eurobonds: Germany, United Kingdom, Finland and the Netherlands.” on p. 186 in Schäfer 2012 = vol. 9.2 in EJCE = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255726169_The_Sover...

Further more, the UK was an important net contributor.

So I think, on the whole, Brexit was bad for Germany.

Yes, you are right, and the whole story of the laryngeal theory is quite exciting. – Saussureʼs initial evidence was a set of Sanskrit forms; and his argumentation went like:

- There is e.g. a root meaning ‘carry’ having the full grade “bʰar” and a corresponding zero grade “bʰr̩” (within the regular ablaut system of Sanskrit).

- Then there is e.g. a root meaning ‘clean’ having the full grade “pavi” and a corresponding zero grade “pū”.

- So we have “bʰar” : “pavi” = “bʰr̩” : “pū” or, re-grouped, “bʰar” : “bʰr̩” = “pavi” : “pū”.

- We already know (since the times of the great Indian grammarians) that, in ablaut, “v” corresponds to “u” (samprasāraṇa). All synchronic observations, by the way, about these different kinds of roots were already made by the Indian grammarians in the first millennium BC, too; and they called the roots à la “bʰar” “aniṭ” ‘without i’ and the roots à la “pavi” “sēṭ” ‘with i’.

- “bʰar” : “bʰr̩” is the regular ablaut pattern understandable as: ‘the full grade has the short vowel (“a” in Sanskrit, “e” in PIE), the zero grade lacks it.’

- Saussures brilliant and simple idea was to trace back “pavi” : “pū” to this very same basic pattern.

- To make this work he assumed a sound in the ‘clean’-root that became “i” between consonants but vanished with compensatory lengthening after sonantic “u”. (Saussure denoted this sound here with the cover symbol “A” in small caps.) So the older, regular pattern can be reconstructed as (in more modern notation):

- “bʰar” : “bʰr̩” = “pavH̩” : “puH”, which yields:

- “bʰar” : “bʰr̩” = “pavi” : “pū” as attested.

This argumentation is fairly compelling IMHO because it complies with Occamʼs razor by assuming that a second complicated, seemingly irregular morphological pattern leads back to the simpler, regular pattern we have to assume anyways, and that this simpler pattern was complicated by sound change – which is the normal way of linguistic change.

But it got even better.

- Saussure then drew attention to the Sanskrit verb formations of the seventh and ninth class (again, already classified and extensively described by the Indian grammarians), which both had an infix, i.e. a morphological element inserted into the root (not prepended like a prefix or appended like a suffix):

- 7th, e.g. “yunakti” ‘yokes (up)’ (the English word is a cognate), built like “yu·na·k-ti” with zero grade “yug” (and “g” → “k” before voiceless “t”), “na”-infix and personal ending “ti”.

- 9th, e.g. “punāti” ‘cleans’ – our pavi/pū-root again. But now with a short “u”? And with an infix “nā” instead of “na” as in “yunakti”? So … “u” instead of “ū” and “nā” instead of “na” … and both is already explained by the coefficient, because then we have to reconstruct:

- “pu·na·H-ti”, because the na-infix had to be inserted before the last consonant of the root. And this formation “pu·na·H-ti” is, again, exactly the same pattern as:

- “yu·na·k-ti”, just with “H” : “k”.

So far this argument justifies to assume one “coefficient”, in the case of the “pavi”-root denoted as “A” (in small caps) by Saussure and “h₂” nowadays. Saussure assumed two – denoting the other as “O̬”, nowadays “h₃” – because he also already noticed the coloring effect you explained in your comment below: The compensatorily lengthened Sanskrit “ā” sometimes corresponds to e.g. Greek and Latin “ā”, sometimes to Greek and Latin “ō”; for the latter Saussure introduced the “O̬”. His argumentation here is more difficult and partly outdated, because he wrote his mémoire (published 1879) in a time when another major discovery was not yet fully taken into account: So far, Indo-Europeanists had assumed that Sanskrit “a” originated from Proto-Indo-European “a”. When Saussure wrote his mémoire, it had become clear that it was necessary to assume at least two diffent vowels here, which both became Indian “a”.

Thank you, thatʼs it: one of the biggest validations of the methodology for reconstructing languages. – Little nitpicks, if you allow:

- Saussure reconstructed only two of the three consonants now called “laryngeals” and called them “coefficients sonantiques”. Saussureʼs two sounds would be h₂ and h₃ in modern notation. The Danish linguist Möller added the third (h₁) and suggested that they were laryngeals.

- In Hittite, not all of the laryngeals are preserved: the Hittite sound transcribed as “ḫ” is certainly not a reflex of h₁, which had no reflexes in Hittite, and it certainly is a reflex of h₂. Whether it can also be a reflex of h₃ is contested.

(Edit: Your explanation below about the coloring by laryngeals is also correct in principle; just the specific example is problematic: because of Latin “ovis”, Greek “ὄις” we know that the late PIE form was “Howis” with “o” not “a”, either from “h₃éwis” with “h₃e” → “o” or from “h₂ówis”. The Hittite word you quoted may be evidence for the latter: “h₂ówis” → Hittite “ḫawis” with uncontested “h₂” → “ḫ”.)

> Germany in particular asked hundreds of thousands of people from Turkey to immigrate into Germany to help rebuild it after WW2.

Not quite, because the earliest wave of Turkish immigrants came after the migration agreement between Turkey and Germany in 1961 (and Germany was rebuilt at that time). The reasons for this agreement – initiated by Turkey – were curiously complex and not simply economical ones.

That doesnʼt add up, because one of the most – arguably the most – irritating hesitations affected the main battle tanks (you have mentioned them, too), and that was long after gas imports from Russia and any hopes for a renewal of such imports were abandoned. Thus it cannot be the effect of extortion. Or, if you assume that a secret plan to get Russian gas again has lived on, why then the big military aid package indeed, when gas is needed in the next winter as well as in the last one (when Russian gas imports have stopped not as long ago).

“they have had to wait”: Germany also had to wait for (Swiss) permissions, which blocked the transmission of anti-aircraft vehicles (Gepard). And while that was merely lost time, the prolonged negotiations in the case of Leopard 2 in the end meant more tanks (which were said to be less suited first, but are very welcomed by the Ukrainian forces). This episode, however, gave another glimpse into the actual mechanism that demands caution, precaution. Donʼt let this German tank go to war, or if you absolutely must, only in company with a tank from one of the allied powers. If something goes wrong, hindsight is 20/20, and who will be blamed? In fact: “Nearly a month after Berlin gave European allies permission to send German-made tanks to Ukraine, the flow of tanks so many leaders vowed would follow [if only Germany gives permission] seems more like a trickle.” E.g.: “Finland, where many outspoken members of Parliament led the calls for Germany to allow Leopard deliveries, announced on Thursday that it would supply three Leopard mine-clearing vehicles — but none of its estimated 200 Leopard main battle tanks.” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/world/europe/ukraine-tank...

Coming back to what chrysler stated is the point at issue, one had to conclude that there are many more extorted countries.

Marginal note: This statistic covers only the time span until Feb. 24th, so it doesnʼt comprise Germanyʼs “Biggest Military Aid Package Yet” (ca. 3 Billion) – https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/13/world/europe/ukraine-germ... – which probably led to Zelenskyyʼs statement. Dividing by capita or GDP and making geographical, economical, strategical allowances is fine – one could do that in the case of Germany, its imports, exports, closings, openings and other decisions, too.

But this doesnʼt address the point stated by GP as follows: “The point is whether Russia could extort countries (eg: prevent from sending military aid to Ukraine) or not”, proceeding with a comparison in which Germany is heavily dependent, Finland is not, which implies: Germany could be extorted e.g. to prevent it from sending military aid to Ukraine. And this is hardly tenable when “Germany was now Ukraine’s second-largest backer after the United States”.

As I conjectured, the events indicate at some effective extortion, but a psychological one, that is leveraged by both sides drawing contradicting conclusions from the same premises (which does not mean that both arguments are equally sound).

I certainly did not mean to imply that Finland looked bad, of course it looks excellent.

If that is the point (which is not clear to me from the start of this subthread), it is rather settled: The linked article shows that Germany could get over not buying Russian gas anymore well; and it sends vastly more military aid to Ukraine than Finland – Zelenskyy “noted that Germany was now Ukraine’s second-largest backer after the United States” (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/14/world/europe/ukraine-zele...). (That this took sometimes painfully long has a sufficient reason in senses of guilt regarding war – in fact, both sides still draw arguments from the same history for violently contradicting claims on Germany.)

Sorry for my unclarity, but I understand the point at issue (of GP and this thread) to be how a prolongation of mutual economic relations with Russia was not justifiable morally, not how well a country could cope with an abrupt end of these relations economically or in terms of the well-being of their own population. You seem to argue with regard to the latter, and I would concur, although the linked article shows that after Germanyʼs 58.9 percent went down to zero, they either, in fact, could let their population freeze (household consumption went down) or got over it in other ways (a considerable part of the 58.9 percent was industrial consumption).