Re: Chez Watt Re: Common ancestor between man and ape

In article
<uranium-1187972858.543721.288950@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
UC <uraniumcommittee@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Aug 24, 12:12 pm, Ymir <y...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article
<uranium-1187970550.617900.24...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,

UC <uraniumcommit...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Aug 24, 11:42 am, Harvest Dancer <harvestdan...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
BA. Ohio State. General philosophy, emphasis on Kant.

And that is supposed to make you an expert on linguistics?

No, as a matter of fact it doesn't. One is capable of learning on
one's own, O Dumbass. I did study German (4 quarters) and found that I
had a gift for language. By the fourth quarter of German, I was
working with Nietzsche and translation theory. The prof gave me a 'B'
in that class because I was not doing the assigned work, but more
difficult stuff that I had chosen on my own.

You do of course realise that studying German isn't going to give you a
background in linguistics any more than studying gymnastics is going to
give you a background in biomechanics.

Surprise, suroprise, study a foreign labguage (with an emphasis on
translating one to the other) makes you MUCH more aware of the
structures of your own language, and to the structure of language in
general. I learned much more about English by studying German than
most people ever do.

In general, studying a second language will give you a greater
familiarity with grammatical terminology and will alert you to the fact
that somethings which you take for granted about your first language are
not necessary for language to work. However, studying English and German
-- two closely related west germanic languages -- isn't really going to
give you that much knowledge about language in general. For that you
need to do comparative study of a wide range of unrelated languages.

Andre

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