| Topic: |
Science > Physics |
| User: |
"OsherD" |
| Date: |
22 Mar 2006 12:33:09 AM |
| Object: |
History via Physics and Language (Humor) |
From Osher Doctorow
I have noticed in the last few weeks that the explosion of
technological advances in the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries
mostly occurred in Europe and the USA, which both use Indo-European
languages. Jewish people played a large role in these advances, and
the original Jewish language was Hebrew which is not an Indo-European
language, but most Jews in Europe and the USA either speak/spoke the
languages of their host nations or Yiddish which is a
combination-modification of German, Russian, and a little (but not
much) Hebrew. Yiddish also has some modifications in that it adopts
some words from each nation in which Jews live. It is true that until
about the mid-1900s many Jews also spoke/knew some Hebrew in the way
that many Christians knew some Latin (as used in Religious services),
but it was not their main or even secondary language compared to
Yiddish and the language of their host nations.
Believe it or not, it is easier to write and read Indo-European
languages than to write and read Semitic languages (Hebrew, Arabic,
etc.), Chinese, Ancient Egyptian, etc. It is true that many of us
have heard criticisms of English as "too hard to learn," but that is
because (a) it has so many words, and (b) it has a lot of idioms
(expressions that don't reduce to the separate meanings of their
constituent words). But this criticism doesn't refer to writing or
reading most common English words. For example, even Shakespeare at
most used a few thousand different words. Until fairly recently, most
people didn't even write English in exactly the same spellings, but
they were close enough to each other to be understood.
Why is English easier to write and read than Hebrew, for example?
Well, believe it or not, it has to do with vowels ("a", "i", "e", "o",
"u" ). Hebrew omits vowels and just writes consonants (b, c, d, f, g,
h, etc., or whatever corresponds to them in Hebrew if anything). Since
many words have the same consonants but different vowels, Hebrew
writers and readers have to know the missing vowels by heart before
they can understand what they are reading or writing, which puts more
load on memory. Imagine, for example, in English if you had to write
"BL" instead of bull, bell, bill, ball, boll. Which of those 5 words
would you mean? Of course, Hebrew writers and readers manage to do
OK, but most of the scientists and technology inventors arguably have
secondary and even third languages such as English.
I hesitate to remind readers that in the USA, reading and writing are
largely being replaced by watching TV, movies, VCRs, listening to the
radio, etc. As homework, I'll assign the task of figuring out how
long it might take the USA to begin lowering its scores in physics,
mathematics, and similar exams - OOPS! It's already happened! Well,
fancy that :>)
Osher Doctorow
.
|
|
| User: "Hexenmeister" |
|
| Title: Re: History via Physics and Language (Humor) |
22 Mar 2006 01:13:05 PM |
|
|
"OsherD" <> wrote in message
news:1143009189.608344.168270@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
| >From Osher Doctorow
|
| I have noticed in the last few weeks that the explosion of
| technological advances in the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries
| mostly occurred in Europe and the USA, which both use Indo-European
| languages. Jewish people played a large role in these advances, and
| the original Jewish language was Hebrew which is not an Indo-European
| language, but most Jews in Europe and the USA either speak/spoke the
| languages of their host nations or Yiddish which is a
| combination-modification of German, Russian, and a little (but not
| much) Hebrew. Yiddish also has some modifications in that it adopts
| some words from each nation in which Jews live. It is true that until
| about the mid-1900s many Jews also spoke/knew some Hebrew in the way
| that many Christians knew some Latin (as used in Religious services),
| but it was not their main or even secondary language compared to
| Yiddish and the language of their host nations.
|
| Believe it or not, it is easier to write and read Indo-European
| languages than to write and read Semitic languages (Hebrew, Arabic,
| etc.), Chinese, Ancient Egyptian, etc. It is true that many of us
| have heard criticisms of English as "too hard to learn," but that is
| because (a) it has so many words, and (b) it has a lot of idioms
| (expressions that don't reduce to the separate meanings of their
| constituent words). But this criticism doesn't refer to writing or
| reading most common English words. For example, even Shakespeare at
| most used a few thousand different words. Until fairly recently, most
| people didn't even write English in exactly the same spellings, but
| they were close enough to each other to be understood.
|
| Why is English easier to write and read than Hebrew, for example?
| Well, believe it or not, it has to do with vowels ("a", "i", "e", "o",
| "u" ). Hebrew omits vowels and just writes consonants (b, c, d, f, g,
| h, etc., or whatever corresponds to them in Hebrew if anything). Since
| many words have the same consonants but different vowels, Hebrew
| writers and readers have to know the missing vowels by heart before
| they can understand what they are reading or writing, which puts more
| load on memory. Imagine, for example, in English if you had to write
| "BL" instead of bull, bell, bill, ball, boll. Which of those 5 words
| would you mean? Of course, Hebrew writers and readers manage to do
| OK, but most of the scientists and technology inventors arguably have
| secondary and even third languages such as English.
|
| I hesitate to remind readers that in the USA, reading and writing are
| largely being replaced by watching TV, movies, VCRs, listening to the
| radio, etc. As homework, I'll assign the task of figuring out how
| long it might take the USA to begin lowering its scores in physics,
| mathematics, and similar exams - OOPS! It's already happened! Well,
| fancy that :>)
|
bough branch b*
bought purchased b*t
cough sneeze c*
dough pastry d*
fought war f*t
Gough (name) G*
lough lake l*
(e) nough en*
plough knife to cut dirt pl*
rough sandpaper r*
sough wind in the willows s*
tough difficult t*
trough pigs food tray tr*
though yet th*
through bypass thr*
ough is redundant if one different symbol is used.
Ghoti -- the f as in cough or rough, the i as in women, the sh as in
attention --> fish
Then we have fair and fare, tail and tale, plane and plain, also tear (rip)
and tear (weep).
Pronunciation is context sensitive, the language is as difficult as Hebrew.
English is popular by conquest, not by practicality.
It lacks both vowels (book, loot, bait, bat, the, they, thee... )
and consonants, but also haz redundancy (k, c, g, j, th, gh...)
Androcles.
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "OsherD" |
|
| Title: Re: History via Physics and Language (Humor) |
22 Mar 2006 01:05:55 AM |
|
|
From Osher Doctorow
One of the big mysteries in history is why most Semitic nations
(Arabic, Moslem) and China lagged behind European (and USA and
Australia) nations in technology in the last few hundred years. All
kinds of theories have been advanced, including sociocultural
orientations toward or against Knowledge, etc. Some of those theories
may well be partly correct. But if I'm right, they just had bad luck
in being saddled with hard to write and hard to read languages.
The opposite direction, though, requires caution. Languages that are
too easy in spoken words don't necessarily go along with technological
advance (in fact, the opposite may be true). For example, Swahili and
the other Bantu languages of East/South Africa are mostly absurdly easy
to speak (the more complicated words in Swahili are of Arabic origin).
I learned Swahili at the age of 15, and I'm not even of African
descent. But East and South Africa didn't partake in the technological
inventions of the last few hundred years, which mostly came from Europe
and the USA and arguably India and Australia and Canada and Israel
(since 1948) and more recently Japan.
So I'd say that reading and writing need to be rather easy for
technological Creativity, but that extremely simple or easy words in
speaking are probably disadvantages if they characterize a language.
This has some really strange implications or relationships. It seems
to indicate that technological or scientific Creativity isn't a "social
skill" or "group skill," since groups of people typically talk rather
than read or write. In other words, group-oriented people, or as I
call them Plurality-Oriented people, are arguably more Bureaucratic
than Creative. My guess is that they're either Mediocre or Ingenious
Imitators usually. They're often involved in absurd political causes
(at least, in my opinion) in which they try to shout down their
"opposition", demonstrate in the street, burn cars, or even blow
themselves and others up. Some of them become trolls on the internet
(who usually don't know anything about the subject of the forums which
they interrupt).
Now that I think of it, this might explain why Education is so poor in
the USA in recent years. Teachers in secondary schools are usually
selected or survive based on "sociable personalities" rather than
Creativity and Invention. In fact, Hollywood is missing a fantastic
chance to get super actors/actresses by not recruiting almost the
entire Educational Establishment of the USA, especially teachers and
professors with tenure. Professors in State Universities are arguably
as bad as secondary teachers in this respect, while professors in
research Universities tend to have more Creativity but not that much
more and don't usually survive without "sociable personalities" except
in a handful or two of Universities.
Now I can understand why Beethoven did so well even though he was blind
and later deaf, and why Mozart did so well even though he was a flop at
sociability. Socrates was an utter flop at sociability. Pierre De
Fermat and Sir Isaac Newton and if I recall Leibniz were more or less
flops at sociability. I wonder if they should have made a movie of
Mozart's life entitled "Wolfgang" rather than Amadeus :>)
Osher Doctorow
.
|
|
|
| User: "Hexenmeister" |
|
| Title: Re: History via Physics and Language (Humor) |
22 Mar 2006 01:21:30 PM |
|
|
"OsherD" <> wrote in message
news:1143011155.725293.33440@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
| >From Osher Doctorow
|
| One of the big mysteries in history is why most Semitic nations
| (Arabic, Moslem) and China lagged behind European (and USA and
| Australia) nations in technology in the last few hundred years. All
| kinds of theories have been advanced, including sociocultural
| orientations toward or against Knowledge, etc. Some of those theories
| may well be partly correct. But if I'm right, they just had bad luck
| in being saddled with hard to write and hard to read languages.
|
| The opposite direction, though, requires caution. Languages that are
| too easy in spoken words don't necessarily go along with technological
| advance (in fact, the opposite may be true). For example, Swahili and
| the other Bantu languages of East/South Africa are mostly absurdly easy
| to speak (the more complicated words in Swahili are of Arabic origin).
| I learned Swahili at the age of 15, and I'm not even of African
| descent. But East and South Africa didn't partake in the technological
| inventions of the last few hundred years, which mostly came from Europe
| and the USA and arguably India and Australia and Canada and Israel
| (since 1948) and more recently Japan.
|
| So I'd say that reading and writing need to be rather easy for
| technological Creativity, but that extremely simple or easy words in
| speaking are probably disadvantages if they characterize a language.
|
| This has some really strange implications or relationships. It seems
| to indicate that technological or scientific Creativity isn't a "social
| skill" or "group skill," since groups of people typically talk rather
| than read or write. In other words, group-oriented people, or as I
| call them Plurality-Oriented people, are arguably more Bureaucratic
| than Creative. My guess is that they're either Mediocre or Ingenious
| Imitators usually. They're often involved in absurd political causes
| (at least, in my opinion) in which they try to shout down their
| "opposition", demonstrate in the street, burn cars, or even blow
| themselves and others up. Some of them become trolls on the internet
| (who usually don't know anything about the subject of the forums which
| they interrupt).
|
| Now that I think of it, this might explain why Education is so poor in
| the USA in recent years. Teachers in secondary schools are usually
| selected or survive based on "sociable personalities" rather than
| Creativity and Invention. In fact, Hollywood is missing a fantastic
| chance to get super actors/actresses by not recruiting almost the
| entire Educational Establishment of the USA, especially teachers and
| professors with tenure. Professors in State Universities are arguably
| as bad as secondary teachers in this respect, while professors in
| research Universities tend to have more Creativity but not that much
| more and don't usually survive without "sociable personalities" except
| in a handful or two of Universities.
|
| Now I can understand why Beethoven did so well even though he was blind
| and later deaf, and why Mozart did so well even though he was a flop at
| sociability. Socrates was an utter flop at sociability. Pierre De
| Fermat and Sir Isaac Newton and if I recall Leibniz were more or less
| flops at sociability. I wonder if they should have made a movie of
| Mozart's life entitled "Wolfgang" rather than Amadeus :>)
|
| Osher Doctorow
|
I'm a flop at sociability, I won't lie.
"Do I look nice it this dress?"
"No, you fat cow, lose some weight and the dress won't matter,
it'll be coming off instead. I'm not going to screw you in it."
Flop.
Androcles.
.
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|
|
|
| User: "hanson" |
|
| Title: Re: History via Physics and Language (Humor) |
22 Mar 2006 02:00:35 PM |
|
|
Kosher "OsherD" <> wrote in message
news:1143011155.725293.33440@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
From Osher Doctorow
[Kosher]
I learned Swahili at the age of 15, and I'm of African descent.
[hanson]
Wow, so you are a Black Jew, albeit a late bloomer.... ahahaha...
[Kosher]
Now that I think of it, this might explain why Education is so
poor in the USA in recent years.
Now I can understand why Beethoven did so well even though
he was blind and later deaf, and why Mozart did so well even
though he was a flop at sociability. I wonder if they should have
made a movie of Mozart's life entitled "Wolfgang" rather than
Amadeus :>)
[hanson]
That was an impressive post of yours kosher Osher,
considering that you perfectly fit the bumper sticker slogan:
"Hire the handicapped. They are fun to watch"....
ahahaha... ahahahanson
PS: Don't get mad or unkosher now, Osher, just because I
laughed at your Humor.... ahahahaha... ahahahaha...
.
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|
|
|
|
| User: "hanson" |
|
| Title: Re: History via Physics and Language (Humor) |
22 Mar 2006 02:00:36 PM |
|
|
unkosher "OsherD" <mdoctorow@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1143009189.608344.168270@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
I have noticed [ a bit slow in the uptake] in the last few weeks that
the explosion of technological advances in the 18th-21st centuries
mostly occurred in Europe and the USA, [and] Jewish people played
a large role in these advances, [like Einstein Relativity with which AND
5 dollars you can buy a cup of coffee and a bagel with lax]
Believe it or not, it is easier to write and read Indo-European
languages than to write and read Semitic languages (Hebrew)
...believe it or not, it has to do with vowels ("a", "i", "e", "o", "u" ).
Hebrew omits vowels and just writes consonants (b, c, d, f, g, h,
etc., or whatever corresponds to them in Hebrew if anything).
Imagine, for example, in English if you had to write "BL" instead
of bull, bell, bill, ball, boll. Which of those 5 words would you mean?
Of course, Hebrew writers and readers manage to do [ONLY bull]
It's already happened! Well, fancy that :>)
Osher Doctorow
[hanson]
They sure, do.... ahahahaha... Thanks for the laughs!... ahahaha...
ahahaha... ahahahanson
.
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