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#Post#: 13272--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: Alharacas Date: March 14, 2019, 2:02 pm
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I know. They do the same thing in Polish. I can't really get my
head around it, never have, otherwise I'd give you an example.
(sigh)
#Post#: 13279--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: Kseniia Date: March 15, 2019, 1:26 am
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[quote author=Coligno link=topic=901.msg13264#msg13264
date=1552558553]
...meaning "wild person, savage" (from gŵydd = "wild"). It
would seem to have originally been somewhat derogatory, but the
Irish apparently liked it and adopted it as a name for
themselves.[/quote]
Now that's the spirit!
By the way, am I the only person who has absolutely no idea what
sound this /ðʲ/ denotes? :'( How can you palatalise ð?
[quote author=Nikola link=topic=901.msg13259#msg13259
date=1552552529]
I have a feeling you have something similar in Russian.
[/quote]
Yes, it seems like that's exactly how it works in Russian, too.
As for dogs, it would be
1 пёс, 2 пса, 3
пса, 4 пса, 5
псов ... 20
псов, 21 пёс, 22
пса ...
So, we use the nominative case for simple or compound numbers
ending in 1, 2, 3 and 4 (except for 11, 12, 13, 14 because the
words themselves do not end in 1-4, they start with these
numbers and end in
-надцать [which is of
course just a shortened version of the Old Slavic на
десѩте - lit. "on ten"]),
and all the other numbers must be followed by the genitive.
Same for years, but there's one tiny detail. It all works when
we're just counting:
1 год
2 года
3 года
4 года
5-20 лет
21 год
22 года
etc.
...but when we want the number in the instrumental,
prepositional or dative case, it would be the instrumental,
prepositional or dative case of the word год
for all numbers. For example,
Шестью (6)
годами
ранее. (Instrumental)
Six years earlier.
Мы
договорил&
#1080;сь
на шести (6)
годах! (Prepositional)
We agreed on six years!
Он
приговорё&
#1085;
к шести (6)
годам. (Dative)
He's sentenced to 6 years.
In the genitive (genitive plural, that is, so for every number
but 1), it still would be лет:
Больше
шести (6) лет
прошло с
тех пор.
More than six years have passed since then.
And for 1 in the genitive case it would be
год:
Больше
(одного)
года
прошло с
тех пор.
More than a year has passed since then.
[And if anyone thinks it's complicated, try Irish numerals,
you'll change your mind!]
#Post#: 13282--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: SuKi Date: March 15, 2019, 3:38 am
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Sofia asked how it would sound to refer to Jewish people as
'Hebrews'.
If you referred to the entire race as 'Hebrews', I think it
would sound old-fashioned and/or slightly racist; if you
referred to an individual as 'a Hebrew', or a group of
individuals as 'Hebrews', I think it would actually be wrong.
In modern usage, 'Hebrew' is a language, not a people. If a
student used 'Hebrew' in this way, their English teacher would
correct them.
It would also probably confuse most people. The majority of
anglophones living in their own countries are fairly ignorant
about other cultures, and the average Brit on the street would
probably not know what Hebrew was or necessarily associate it
with Judaism.
Here's an example. Some years ago, I happened to be doing Jury
Service. This gives you a cross section of society - twelve
members of the British public between the ages of 18 and 70, all
of sound mind and body. Our jury room was on a corner of a
street directly opposite a large imposing synagogue, and someone
not local to the area asked what the building was. Despite the
fact that the building was adorned with menorahs, stars of David
and Hebrew lettering, not one person knew what it was. The best
suggestion anyone could come up with is 'I think it must be a
mosque'.
#Post#: 13287--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: Kseniia Date: March 15, 2019, 7:59 am
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[quote author=SuKi link=topic=901.msg13282#msg13282
date=1552639108]
The best suggestion anyone could come up with is 'I think it
must be a mosque'.
[/quote]
Ah, that's the price of secularisation. At least they didn't say
there was a Masonic lodge there (this is what I was told about
St Nicholas Orthodox Church in Shanghai)!
#Post#: 13321--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: NealC Date: March 16, 2019, 6:39 am
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God Bless EGP. 33 interesting and well reasoned (even
scholarly!) replies and no one answers the OP question!
"Chinamen", is definitely a pejorative here in the US. Almost
as bad as "Chink". Hell, my autocorrect won't even let me type
either one! That quote from the Remains of the Day book also
made it into the movie, and I remember hearing it said was a bit
jarring, almost as bad as hearing the word 'nig-ger'. It is
interesting that Chinaman is a pejorative, but not Frenchman,
Englishman, etc... Perhaps they were at one time.
Reading some of the responses make me realize that you Europeans
are rank amateurs when it comes to ethnic insults. Here in the
U.S. we have tons of ethnic insults, I could type dozens without
even thinking much. WOP, dago, guinea (had those three thrown
at me), spic, kraut, Jap, kike, hebe, rooskie, polack, mick,
cheese eating surrender monkies, are just a few. Plus we have a
ton of commonly accepted attitudes we associate with various
ethnicities.
Memorizing it all took up a large part of my childhood.
#Post#: 13326--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: Alharacas Date: March 16, 2019, 7:46 am
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Kseniia, what a wonderful expression! You're welcome to the
elephant. :)
Neal, I don't want to nitpick, but I don't think even SuKi or
Coligno would have been able to come up with a more relevant or
extensive/scholarly reply to the OP's question than wikipedia.
:) Among other things, it also gives the answer to the
Frenchman/Irishman vs. Chinaman question: you'd have to say
Chineseman (resp. Franceman/Irelandman) to get an equivalent.
As to the variety of ethnic insults, the US is in a pretty
unique position, isn't it? After all, you need extensive contact
(whether through war, immigration or shared borders) to come up
with denigrating ephitets for people from other countries, don't
you? There is no German ethnophaulism (what a beautiful word!)
for people from Ireland for the simple reason that contact
between Germans and Irishmen ;) has been minimal.
In contrast, there are epithets for (mentally checks memberlist)
Turkish people in German, and Türkendeutsch is a common, if not
exactly pc way of denoting a jarring version of broken German.
By the way, I've always found Kraut pretty mild as pejorative
epithets go. It probably needs real aversion to
Sauerkraut/appropriate tone to make it sting. :)
#Post#: 13329--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: NealC Date: March 16, 2019, 8:15 am
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Not many German insults, I guess you guys are pretty well
accepted over here. "Heiney" is barely used, "Dutchman", is a
old pejorative based on the German word deutsch and has nothing
to do with Holland. Dutchman is the only thing I can think of
as close to "Chinamen". Also, how English got "Germany" from
"Deutschland" is beyond me. "Dutchman" doesn't really work any
more in the US, but "Kraut" is still supposed to sting. If you
hear it in the US, it is not coming from anyone friendly. I
think that word came from the perception that a lot of German
cooking uses sour flavors. Every German restaurant I have ever
been in always has malt vinegar on the table, right next to the
salt.
Of course the ethnic pejoratives in the US is certainly due to
contact, especially here in NY where we still have a lot of
immigrant communities.
#Post#: 13337--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: Alharacas Date: March 16, 2019, 11:37 am
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Bottles of vinegar on the table? Mystifying. I can think of
exactly one dish people will habitually add vinegar to at the
table, but even that is a regional thing (the vinegar, not the
dish): lentil soup. Then there are about 2 more traditional
dishes with a kind of vinegary flavour: Sauerkraut and
Sauerbraten (sour roast beef).
As to Germany, it comes from Latin Germania, in turn derived
from the name of some, er, Germanic tribes near the Rhine -
etymology uncertain, says wikipedia.
My very own, completely unscientific explanation: ger is the
ancient Germanic word for "spear", "man" is, well, "man",
"person", or Mann. So, the Romans saw some tribesmen, tried to
find out what they called themselves, and got "Can't you see
we're carrying spears, you idiot? Spear-men, that's what we
are!", probably accompanied by a resounding tshlock! as the
first missile hit the ground next to the Romans. :)
#Post#: 13369--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: NealC Date: March 17, 2019, 1:12 am
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Just like the Damn English, to take your country name from the
Romans, and not from your own mouths :-)
I wonder how different European history would have been if the
German tribes had succumbed to Rome. Would romance languages on
both sides of the Rhine have led to less conflict? Caesar
Augustus woke up one day to find out he had lost 3 full Legions
in the Germania forests. When the Romans returned to those
forests they found appalling scenes of slaughter and even human
sacrifice. The "Barbarians" in Germania became the stuff of
Roman nightmares. Other Roman emperors made some inroads but by
and large Germania stayed free.
At least until the Huns and the Goths rode in.
#Post#: 13370--------------------------------------------------
Re: Chinamen / Chinese people
By: NealC Date: March 17, 2019, 1:17 am
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Malt vinegar, yeah. At least that is what I thought it was. It
was brown, slightly acidic, tasted sour and a little like wheat.
Had a German name.
I haven't been to many German restaurants, but it was always
there. Too bad the wurst and beer place up the road closed
down.
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