THE BORE

General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: Howard Alan Treesong on March 03, 2008, 02:34:39 PM

Title: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: Howard Alan Treesong on March 03, 2008, 02:34:39 PM
In French, the word "nothing" takes the gender of the thing that's not there.
Title: Re: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: Eric P on March 03, 2008, 02:40:34 PM
no wonder they gave us existentialism

Title: Re: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: warcock on March 03, 2008, 03:42:03 PM
In French, the word "nothing" takes the gender of the thing that's not there.

Yes but the word's structure is indentical under any circumstances as opposed to the habitual suffix changing due to a particular gender.

Im orally trying to attach it to noun and i cant "il a rien dans cette boite". Stop phuking with my head   :maf
Title: Re: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: Tauntaun on March 03, 2008, 03:47:57 PM
In French, the word "nothing" takes the gender of the thing that's not there.

Yes but the word's structure is indentical under any circumstances as opposed to the habitual suffix changing due to a particular gender.

Im orally trying to attach it to noun and i cant "il a rien dans cette boite". Stop phuking with my head   :maf

taste that cock
Title: Re: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: Howard Alan Treesong on March 03, 2008, 03:56:18 PM
I'm talking aucun vs. aucune
Title: Re: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: warcock on March 03, 2008, 04:01:50 PM
I'm talking aucun vs. aucune
Its more accurate to translate this as "without" imo. Dunno maybe "none" actually   :-*
Title: Re: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: Mandark on March 03, 2008, 06:29:34 PM
I'd translate aucun(e) as "none of" or "not a single".

Then again, "sans aucun(e)" is pretty common and that throws a wrench into all the possible translations in this thread.
Title: Re: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: Ichirou on March 03, 2008, 08:24:01 PM
:bow Romance languages. :bow2

:piss Germanic languages. :piss2
Title: Re: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: warcock on March 03, 2008, 10:00:40 PM
:bow Romance languages. :bow2

:piss Germanic languages. :piss2

What he said.
Title: Re: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: Tauntaun on March 03, 2008, 10:07:08 PM
DU, DU HAST! :rock
Title: Re: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: brawndolicious on March 04, 2008, 04:19:49 AM
german sounds hella cooler.

ichi, which is better?  mexican or spanish?
Title: Re: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: Ichirou on March 04, 2008, 06:45:58 AM
german sounds hella cooler.

ichi, which is better?  mexican or spanish?

Do you prefer paellas or tacos?
Title: Re: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: Ichirou on March 04, 2008, 09:42:45 AM
So the spanish would be...ningun/ninguna?

The translation would be something like "nobody," then?

Ningun hombre puede parar al Sr. Domino.
No man can stop Mr. Domino.

OR

Ninguno puede parar al Sr. Domino.
No one can stop Mr. Domino.

OR

Ninguna mujer puede parar al Sr. Domino.
No woman can stop Mr. Domino.

OR

Ninguna puede parar al Sr. Domino.
No one can stop Mr. Domino.
Title: Re: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: Raban on March 04, 2008, 11:12:03 AM
If anybody knows Japanese, I wanted to get something straight in my head, just for my own personal knowledge: In Japan, kanji and any other kind of lettering stands for sounds rather than letters, right? So it's almost like instead of letters, their alphabet is made of syllables. Did I get that much right? I don't think I'm ever gonna take the time to learn Japanese, but I just wanted to know because to me, that makes Japanese seem like a pretty easy language to get behind, since my jack-off teacher was like "ZOMG JAPANESE SO HARD I'LL STICK WITH ENGLISH LOLOLOL"
Title: Re: Today's linguistic factoid
Post by: Howard Alan Treesong on March 04, 2008, 12:25:15 PM
kanji don't really "stand for" sounds, though they have (several) associated readings, or sounds that they represent depending on context

hiragana and katakana are known as syllabaries, not alphabets. characters are known as phonemes, not letters. so, yes. you can't make a "k" sound in Japanese; you can only say ka/ki/ku/ke/ko. "n" is the only standalone consonant, and it can only appear after a vowel (kan is okay, but you have to say na as a syllable, you can't concatenate n+a)

I know what "aucun" means but unfortunately the context that it's being used in here doesn't have a subject--it's just aucun/aucune by itself, without homme/femme or any other subject stated explicitly. so it's having to take an implied gender. and I'm having to think of a one word aucun translation, which, as you rightly pointed out, doesn't make much sense.

thanks, tho!