Language topic

The longest word in literature comes from a theatrical piece of Aristophanes "Assemblywomen", 391 BC. Aristophanes' works have survived to this day. This play is still quite popular and has been performed in Epidaurus theater many times, most recent being 2015.
Aristophanes has also made a speech appearance in Plato's Symposium, great book by the way, highly recommended.
The word has 175 letters, it describes a dish and it looks like:

Λοπαδοτεμαχοσελαχογαλεοκρανιολειψανοδριμυποτριμματοσιλφιοκαραβομελιτοκατακεχυμενοκιχλεπικοσσυφοφαττοπεριστεραλεκτρυονοπτοκεφαλλιοκιγκλοπελειολαγῳοσιραιοβαφητραγανοπτερύγων

In English is
Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon

Wiki article

Pronunciation
 
Question for Swedish speakers:

What are the basic rules of capitalization in songs titles in Swedish?

I like to have my files with correct capitalization in English, but I have some Swedish bands that have songs in Swedish on their albums, and the titles only have the initial word capitalized with the rest of the words having lower case letters. Is this correct?
 
I did dream the other night that I was attempting to speak Italian, and a work colleague who is Italian was falling about laughing. Thanks Pietro.
 
I have been wondering (and I'm aiming this question primarily at native UK speakers, like @Brigantium and... heck, I don't know were you lot actually come from, sorry :D ) about a certain issue of which I was recently reminded when listening to a series of lectures on the Medieval world in my car.

(Let me preface this with saying I'm not a native speaker and that although I actually taught the language in a language school, my comprehension of English and especially the language theory behind is very limited, so I apologise beforehand for any stupid shit you might read below)

So, my language, Czech, is what we call in Czech "flective" - if I understand correctly, in English it's called a synthetic language, meaning that for example just like Latin, the function of the words in a sentence is decided by their form, via means of inflection and such.

So, just like in Latin, we have a theoretically completely free word order, although some word orders in a sentence may sound too poetic, archaic or stilted (or just "weird").

So, for the simplest example, you may say "Petr viděl Pavla" (Peter saw Paul), but you can also say "Pavla viděl Petr" and it means the same thing, with the final "-a" implying that Pavel is the object of that sentence. (and just before you ask, yes, it is possible to say "Pavla Petr viděl", "Petr Pavla viděl", "Viděl Petr Pavla"/"Viděl Pavla Petr" - mainly a question-type word order, but can be used as indicative as well - and so on)

Now, English doesn't have that (much, there's still "I" and "me", for example), with the professor I'm listening to saying that this disappeared from the Old English, which was allegedly more synthetic, and that it started to simplify already during the reign of Alfred, mainly because with the settling of the Viking invaders the languages "brushed" each other and both simplified because of increased comprehension by the other party.

And that with that the English word order became fixed and you cannot shift the words around in English anymore (we have been taught the SVOMPT rule in school), that I've heard repeated often enough.

---

However, my Tolkien studies have shown me that you can use differing word orders and get away with it, which admittedly gives a somewhat more archaic feel, but it is comprehensible and I personally love it (it just feels both really natural and rather poetic at the same time).

And it's not just Tolkien, there's also Shakespeare, IIRC, and other older sources where you can easily find sentences beginning with the object, with the verb, or just generally nonstandard.

So, my question is - is there any literature I could read on this? I'd be really interested in the limits of the alleged "strict word order" of modern English, how it can be broken and what are the rules then.


(also, it's not really much of an issue with word order in particular, but "Come not between the Nazgul and his prey." (Tolkien) and "Come not between the dragon and his wrath." (Shakespeare) both sound totally badass, to be honest)
 
JudasMyGuide said:
So, my question is - is there any literature I could read on this?
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I can't think of any offhand. I did have some A level language textbooks but I don't have them any more. English has so many different varieties, though, that all sorts of things are possible. Different regions will have conventions that are peculiar to that area or are remnants of older varieties.

The examples you've given from Shakespeare and Tolkien relate to the Middle English period of the language.

In Shakespeare it wasn't too different from everyday speech, maybe with some extra formality thrown in for dramatic effect. In Tolkien it was deliberately meant to sound archaic. There's another connotation to using conventions from Middle English. It's more like the English used in the King James Bible. A lot of people will automatically consider this 'Biblical English', and it suddenly gives a lot of gravity, power (and often menace) to the text. Legal English contains archaisms too, usually for clarity, but it instantly sounds extremely formal.
 
Thank you both and especially @Brigantium for bringing the M-E influence into play.

With that I immediately found this article

https://thehistoricallinguistchannel.com/the-history-of-the-english-language-middle-english-syntax/

which also mentions the Old English V2 clause and the S-O-V order, among other things

(and in general, the examples are really beautiful

Gyf ye the chyld any thyng?
Give you the child any thing?
Bring ye the horse
Bring you the horse
This boke I haue mad and wretyn
This book I have made and written
Clothis have they none
Clothes have they none )

and it gives me a jump-off point to look at the development and when and how to go "against the current".

As well as another article (I didn't save the link, though), talking about the placement of indirect object - instead of "He sings me the song" saying "He sings the song to me" and that it is the "correct" modern usage, but in poetry for example, it is altogether fine using "To me he sings the song".

So yeah, poetry. The heart of every language.


What I find intriguing is the fact that if we don't mind the fact it's going to be perceived as dated and/or poetic (and most of my life is attempting to be perceived as both, so I don't see the problem there), you can use these "weird" modfications and although there's no inflection in the language and everybody insists that you need the word order to make sense of what is what, it is still comprehensible

Even the second article by Bart, (I have yet to summon the courage to go and tackle the first one), when it presents the grammatical and the ungrammatical versions ("Amal ate chocolate" vs "Amal chocolate ate"), it doesn't mention the "semi-grammatical" one "Chocolate Amal ate", preferably with emphasis on the object, which is nonetheless understandable and probably not perceived as "wrong" in general.

That's what I find fascinating.

So anyway, thank you both bothering with me and I appreciate the tips.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
and it gives me a jump-off point to look at the development and when and how to go "against the current".
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It's interesting that you're pointing all this out because I don't remember ever being taught about how to rearrange English properly without it losing its meaning / coming across as word salad. But it's always been something that you kind of inherit. Almost like the iconic Yoda speak from Star Wars where he always talks backwards, it doesn't become a word salad because it's still structured in a way that preserves English grammar. You definitely don't speak or write like that anymore though, except when you're (in my experience) trying to sound archaic or some other outside-the-box approach like adding some variety. An interesting subject for sure. I think if you want to know when and how to go against the current, my rule of thumb is 'any time it feels right'.

Writing outside of the box is fun in general too. I've got the start to a ghost story saved in my docs that I wrote just to have fun with language. Every sentence and every word I broke down, translated into German and back into English but did it as if English was following German rules, right down to breaking words into what they mean piece by piece in German before being put together. This is the dumb shit that keeps me rolling, lol. But playing around with language and how we use it is a lot of fun and gives you more appreciation for the words you use every day.
 
Diesel 11 said:
You definitely don't speak or write like that anymore though, except when you're (in my experience) trying to sound archaic or some other outside-the-box approach like adding some variety
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Yeah, I'm generally trying to be as simple as possible on the forum, especially since there are native speakers here and I don't feel self-conscious enough to put out anything too unnecessarily florid. It still gets the best of me, sometimes, though, but it's mainly because I am that way in Czech too.

But for example, I've been working on a translation of Svatební košile (Wedding Shirts) by the Czech collector of folklore and a poet of old, K. J. Erben. Mainly because the poem is really metal as fuck and I wanted to spread its beauty forth. Well, it was also a spur-of-the-moment idiocy I fell into when I was last bedridden (early November, I think).

And with the translation, I'm trying to keep it just as archaic as the Czech original is.

It's terrible and I know it and I should check the internet regarding all the words and their proper forms (I don't even know if "endleft" has seen any actual usage after Old English "endlefta"), but I'm too lazy for that I thought you lot might find it funny anyway.

This is what I have from the beginning

Již jedenáctá odbila, /// The endleft hour hath come and gone
a lampa ještě svítila, /// And yet the lamp hath shone and shone
a lampa ještě hořela, /// And yet the lamp hath burned on
co nad klekadlem visela. /// Which on a wall above the kneel-stool hung upon - (I wonder if this anacrusis is acceptable, heh :D )

Na stěně nízké světničky /// Upon the humble bower’s wall
byl obraz boží rodičky, /// The God-bearer, in her splendour all
rodičky boží s děťátkem, /// The God-bearer, with child safely set
tak jako růže s poupátkem. /// As a rose-blossom with her flowerlet

A před tou mocnou světicí /// And before the mighty Heaven’s saint
viděti pannu klečící: /// There maiden kneelth, a figure faint
klečela, líce skloněné, /// She knelt, with her brow downwards turned
ruce na prsa složené; /// Arms crossed abreast, as if somehow spurned
slzy jí z očí padaly, /// Tears fell down as she softly sobbed
želem se ňádra zdvihaly. /// With woe her bosom gently throbbed
A když slzička upadla, /// And thence the teardrops fallen down
v ty bílé ňádra zapadla. /// Hid in that bosom – and her gown.

„Žel bohu, kde můj tatíček? /// „Alas, whither my father’s went?
Již na něm roste trávníček! /// Beneath the verdure he was sent!
Žel bohu, kde má matička? /// Alas, whither my mother’s gone?
Tam leží — podle tatíčka! /// Thither – beneath the selfsame stone!
Sestra do roka nežila, /// But a year was given my sister dear,
bratra mi koule zabila. /// A ball my brother tooketh, like a spear.

Měla jsem, smutná, milého, /// Oh woesome me, what a darling I had
život bych dala pro něho! /// To bestow me own life, I’d have eagerly sped


(spoiler alert, the darling will come back to her, but he'll come back wrong)


And this is what I have from the end so far


Ráno když lidé na mši jdou, /// On the morrow as the churchbound folk
v úžasu státi zůstanou: /// gatherth, and at the sight gaspeth and talketh
hrob jeden dutý nahoře, /// a barren grave sitting atop a mound
panna v umrlčí komoře /// Behold, in a charnel a maiden found
a na každičké mohyle /// And upon each and every barrow seen
útržek z nové košile. — /// A tatter of new shirt doth there gleam.

*

Dobře ses, panno, radila, /// A splendid rede, miss, hast thou thought
na boha že jsi myslila /// that God in Heaven thou besought
a druha zlého odbyla! /// And thy evil lover away befought
Bys byla jinak jednala, /// Hadst thou deported thyself otherwise
zle bysi byla skonala: /// You’d watch how a maiden cruelly dieth:
tvé tělo bílé, spanilé, /// Thy body, so pearly and bonny and fair
bylo by co ty košile! /// Would be as the shirts all tattered there!



Like I said, this was written from the top of my head when I was burning with fever the previous time I was sick and I had to find a pastime for my brain, so please, don't take offence.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
Yeah, I'm generally trying to be as simple as possible on the forum, especially since there are native speakers here and I don't feel self-conscious enough to put out anything too unnecessarily florid. It still gets the best of me, sometimes, though, but it's mainly because I am that way in Czech too.
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Well in all honesty you probably have the most flowery language of all of the members here. And it’s not a bad thing at all, it’s what makes you you and what sets your posts apart from the rest. (Makes me all the more interested to read your Nightwish appraisals because there’s a band where flowery language is incredibly appropriate to use.) I think I write in a mixture of standard English and modern slang, depending on my mood and the ideas I want to bring across. Having your own unique voice spring through text is a gift and one that should not be wasted, I think. And anyway, if people like you or Perun etc didn’t specify that you’re not from an predominantly English-speaking country, I really never would’ve guessed. Even just in your own post your grasp of the language is impressive. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the word ‘florid’ before. Dunno if that says more about you or about me!

As far as ‘endleft’ goes, also never heard of it and a quick Google search isn’t proving elucidating either. But that’s kind of the beauty of language; sometimes it’s not the words you used, but the idea or vision you’re trying to get across. Same principle with, say, Dr. Suess just making shit up. It’s all about the way you point the pictures your trying to bring across to your blind audience. In that regard I really don’t think anything is off the table and deciphering between good and bad comes down to personal taste.

I ended up down a Wikipedia rabbit hole yesterday and discovered the poet William McGonagall, who they almost literally cite as the worst poet who ever lived. And reading through his work is a trip (as is his absolutely quixotic life, my god what a treat that would be to the proper storyteller!) in the silliest of ways. He is so on the nose and dedicated to make the most obtuse sentences rhyme that he seems to miss the point of poetry altogether. But still there’s something to be said for this approach. Take the last lines in his infamous “The Tay Bridge Disaster”:

Oh! Ill-fated bridge of the silv'ry Tay,
I now must conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

It’s very clumsily written without a doubt (who puts buttresses in a goddamn poem??), but my god those final two lines absolutely kill. It’s almost something I wish I’d thought of myself. The direct and to-the-point finish really hits you over the head and leaves you with a smile on your face (in spite of the Very Grave Moral being bestowed upon you). So anyway, flowery or not flowery, my belief is that language is to be seized by the individual for their own use and abused to whatever extent said individual has purpose for. It makes the world a lot more fun that way.
 
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