Wednesday, May 21, 2003
meer over die fijne broeder
Indeed, one could easily get the impression, for example from Geoffrey Sampson's Schools of Linguistics, published in 1980, that the Dutch have made no contribution at all. Worse still, in Robins's authoritative Short History of Linguistics, a Dutch linguist is mentioned, the 'notorious' Johannes Goropius Becanus (1518-1573) of Antwerp, who has given Dutch linguistics rather a bad name. In 1569 he put forward the claim that his native language really was the oldest language in the world and had actually been used by Adam and Eve in Paradise. In support of this claim he adduced the most hilarious etymologies. His argument was that in general the simplest is the oldest, so short words must be older than longer words and as Dutch has more short words than Latin, Greek and Hebrew, Dutch is obviously the older language. If we thus come to see Dutch as the original language from which all other languages are derived, it is suddenly very easy to understand why the Dutch have no difficulty at all with foreign languages. You will also understand, though, that on account of these views, Goropius Becanus has been buried under centuries of ridicule. The term 'goropism' was especially coined by Leibniz to mean "absurd etymology". Today, Becanus is chiefly remembered as a stock example of linguistic chauvinism.
Dit smeekt om een fanclub ...
17:37
| posted by roel |
|
|
 |
wim de bieslog
nupuntenel
onze man in rusland
liftcentrale
the smiths dagelijks brood