docoflove1974

Nah, Sven's on his way to coach the US National Team

Sticks and stones...and all that jazz. Ursus...I couldn't agree more! And not nearly as common as my names!

This came on the wires of LinguistList; for those of you who are knowledgeable of the lingua latina, this might be something to look for in future...or perhaps even contribute! Call for Collaboration: Latin Treebank The Perseus Project has recently received a planning grant from the NSF to investigate the costs and labor involved in constructing a multimillion-word Latin treebank (a large collection of syntactically parsed sentences), along with its potential value for the linguistics and Classics community. While our initial efforts under this grant will focus on syntactically annotating excerpts from Golden Age authors (Caesar, Cicero, Vergil) and the Vulgate, a future multimillion-word corpus would be comprised of writings from the pre-Classical period up through the Early Modern era. To date we've annotated a total of 12,000 words in a style that's predominantly informed by two sources: the dependency grammar used by the Prague Dependency Treebank (itself based on Mel'cuk 1988), and the Latin grammar of Pinkster 1990. While treebanks provide valuable training data for computational tasks such as grammar induction and automatic syntactic parsing, they also have the potential to be used in traditional research areas as well. Large collections of syntactically parsed sentences have the potential to revolutionize lexicography and philology, as they provide the immediate context for a word's use along with its typical syntactic arguments (this lets us chart, for example, how the meaning of a verb changes as its predominant arguments change). Treebanks enable large-scale research into structurally-based rhetorical devices particularly of interest to Classicists (such as hyperbaton) and they provide the raw data for research in historical linguistics (such as the move in Latin from classical SOV word order to romance SVO). The eventual Latin treebank will be openly available to the public; we should, therefore, come to a consensus on how it should be built. To that end we encourage input from the linguistics and Classics community on the treebank design (including the syntactic representation of Latin) and welcome contributions by annotators (for which limited funding is available). Interested collaborators should contact David Bamman (David.Bamman@tufts.edu) at the Perseus Project.

Works for me! Muchas gracias (or whatever the Welsh version would be), Nepilla!

But of course: hamahnoras

This is too good...I have to play along! Full name: zabrrmsahnehaoealith (femina)

Not just invaders...but invaders who intended to seize direct control swiftly and immediately, and who definitely had 'fancier toys' (horses, guns, better swords, if the indigenous peoples even had swords, and I'm not sure on this, either). When possible and convenient, as I recall, there were some tribes who made pacts with the Spanish in order to help them defeat their rivals--I vaguely recall this in particular with Cortez and the various (what is now) Mexican tribes, who drooled at the thought of conquering the Aztecs. It wouldn't shock me if there was similar 'help' from the indigenous peoples when it came to defeating the Incas and Aymara tribes, too.

Etruscan derived from Greek???? I think not! Etruscan, as it was noted earlier, is not an Indo-European language; that much is known for sure. As of now, it's a linguistic isolet, meaning that it is not related to any other known language.

I thought it was Rupert Murdoch, the Aussie media emperor businessdude?

I was under the impression that the Celts were an ethnic 'entity', just as the Germanic tribes, the Romans (of Latium, that is), the Etruscans, etc., and the linguistic group of the Celts happened to coincide with the same group?

Oh yeah, I forgot. So it's a booze made from witches' toenails...that should hit the spot

Coffee and a witch? Yikes...you shouldn't say such things about your wife

As I recall, his brothers were as bad as good ol' Frank! If not worse!

Huh? Why would they keep books at the lighthouse of Alexandria when there was a well-known library of Alexandria nearby? I'm confused...wasn't the library part of the lighthouse?

That's what I feel, too. For me, it's the lighthouse at Alexandria, for the sheer numbers of volumes, the history of it, and the supposed construction. Then again, I was always a bit more partial to books

This book by Henry Kamen does deal with a bit on the Conquistadores, including those who went to Asia, and was also good for reference. The chapters were exceedingly long, however, so beware if you should read it. But it was a great eye opener: Italian, once again, financed the world Ok, I'll elaborate...basically, the Spanish didn't ever have a 'navy'...they went to their Italian provinces and their Basque neighbors and asked them to build ships, asked Italian admirals to head the army...and as a result, all the gold, silver, and precious material that the Spaniards brought back was taken off the top by their debtors. When one reads this, one realizes how the Spanish empire ceased to exist. They started with a bang, and then run themselves into relative bankruptcy.

I hate having a short memory at times As I recall... The Conquistadores themselves tended to be second sons or batard sons of hidalgos--which, BTW, is a shortened word for hijo de algo, or 'son of something', meaning you came from a noble/rich family--and in that way could get the money needed to finance the expeditions. This is probably true for Portuguese Conquistadores, too, since the cultures and histories are so tied together, and it wouldn't shock me if it was true for other explorers. And while the conquistadores and their lieutenants were 'in the money', their crew was often whoever they could find; that is to say, they pulled from the dregs of society, as long as they could find a use for you. This explains much of the looting and ill-behavior once they got to the Americas. Growing up in California, we learn quite a bit about the Jesuits and the missions they built--hells bells, it's those missions that 'created' California--and the Conquistadores. But it's not until later that you get the less-romanticized version. In all honesty, the Conquistadores, and the later colonizers, saw opportunities here that they couldn't have. I've read numerous early colonial writings--letters back home to Spain, primarily--and no one seems unhappy about being on this side of the world. Many of them talk about how hard they have to work the land, how the indigenous people were either easy and nice or mean and demonic (I guess it depends on their mother-in-laws!), and--and this is key--how they feel much freer to be someone, that they are 'someone' in the 'new' society, instead of a 'no one' in Spain. Oh, sure, you'll read about someone missing something about Spain--usually someone's cooking--but they wouldn't trade what they have in the New World. I know I have bibliographies somewhere...but they'll be in Spanish. I'll see what I can come up with.

I'm interested in the Conquistadores as a matter of history, but perhaps moreso in the role of the Jesuits and other religious figures who came into contact with the indigenous population. I seem to recall a college course on Mexican culture which started out with documentation of the Mayan calendar and language...done by the Jesuit priests. Language policies in general really interest me, but in particular in the past 3000 years.

Happy Birthday, dude! I didn't have any libations in your honor...not yet, anyway. There's still 2:15 left in this day for me!

I imagine its actually named after the Swiss town but yes: 2007 Buick Lucerne In much of the country where there is a Safeway (or its 'little sister' Randalls) store, Lucerne is also the 'store brand' name!

Let's just say that all the tight ends you see will have tight ends...but that, sadly, you'll see many more 'ends' which are not very tight

That's like many American women say they watch football for the tight ends...too bad there aren't many worth watching

Never was into the Hardy Boys, personally. But as for the last thriller that got my attention, that would be Umberto Eco's The Name Of The Rose, both times I read it. I liked his Baudolino, as long as you could let your mind wander for the last third.

Because it's a world-recognized and -practiced religion, one that most people have heard of and know something about...it's an easy 'target'.

Yeah, you really do need to work on your English...it's pretty stinky! Must be the 'water' in Brooklyn