PaulRyckier wrote:

Lady, as I have listened to the Romansch words and sentences, I understand them mostly immediately. And for me it is a kind of Italian.

Not really unsurprising in that both Romansch and Italian are descended from late Roman Latin ... but other than some loan words and other linguistic borrowings from northern Italian I thought Romansh evolved more or less independently and more directly from the Latin spoken in the late Roman empire. As such those words and phrases to me seem, at least in pronunciation, closer to classical Latin than even modern Italian. Modern Italian I believe mostly derives from the written language of medieval Tuscany, by which time it had already evolved quite a bit away from its Latin roots.

And talking of Italian I was surprised to learn that even up to the beginning of the 20th century (but before the formal post WW1 Italian possession of Trieste/Gorizia province in Slovenija, and later the 1939-43 invasion and occupation of Dalmatia, Montenegro, Albania and the Greek Ionian Islands) that Italian was widely spoken throughout all these regions as the principal secondary language after the local Slavic or Greek. I presume this was a legacy of the medieval Venetian trade 'empire' in the Adriatic coupled with Italian being an academic/diplomatic language during the renaissance and enlightenment. When I visited Albania in 1991 (just after the fall of Hoxha) Italian was still widely spoken as a second language, where in schools it was as likely to be taught as English or French. More surprising perhaps were the number of Albanians who claimed to be able to speak some Chinese - an effect of Hoxha's courting of Mao's China which was Albania's only major ally following his break with the Soviets in 1961 for being too 'revisionist'. Even in 1991 a lot of the industry and much of the public transport - such as it was despite all private vehicle ownership being illegal - was Chinese built from decades earlier.

I'm nowhere near as "travelled" as nordmann.  I would imagine that with China's importance nowadays Chinese would be a useful language to know, nordmann. The sign language class is on summer hiatus at present but one lady's son has managed to nab himself a teaching job in China.  I think she said he's qualified in engineering.  I'm less widely travelled than nordmann but I'm sure I mentioned before on this board that I was surprised to learn (after the collapse of the "iron curtain") that there were many people of the Islamic faith in Eastern Europe, although I think I'd read something about people of the islamic faith in Yugoslavia in an Alastair Maclean novel set in wartime Yugoslavia.  About Latin, I'm sure I mentioned that my brother who went to the local grammar school (now closed) learned to say "veni, vidi, vici" as "wenny, widdy, wiccy" (pronunciation) whereas at my convent school we learned the "church" way of saying things "venny,  viddy, vichi".

Anyway, thanks to Paul and nordmann about the etymology of "tudesque" and the thoughts on how Romansch evolved.  I like to learn things from other people who have a good knowledge of some of the historical matters we discuss.

Meles meles wrote:

PaulRyckier wrote:

Lady, as I have listened to the Romansch words and sentences, I understand them mostly immediately. And for me it is a kind of Italian.

Not really unsurprising in that both Romansch and Italian are descended from late Roman Latin ... but other than some loan words and other linguistic borrowings from northern Italian I thought Romansh evolved more or less independently and more directly from the Latin spoken in the late Roman empire. As such those words and phrases to me seem, at least in pronunciation, closer to classical Latin than even modern Italian. Modern Italian I believe mostly derives from the written language of medieval Tuscany, by which time it had already evolved quite a bit away from its Latin roots.

And talking of Italian I was surprised to learn that even up to the beginning of the 20th century (but before the formal post WW1 Italian possession of Trieste/Gorizia province in Slovenija, and later the 1939-43 invasion and occupation of Dalmatia, Montenegro, Albania and the Greek Ionian Islands) that Italian was widely spoken throughout all these regions as the principal secondary language after the local Slavic or Greek. I presume this was a legacy of the medieval Venetian trade 'empire' in the Adriatic coupled with Italian being an academic/diplomatic language during the renaissance and enlightenment. When I visited Albania in 1991 (just after the fall of Hoxha) Italian was still widely spoken as a second language, where in schools it was as likely to be taught as English or French. More surprising perhaps were the number of Albanians who claimed to be able to speak some Chinese - an effect of Hoxha's courting of Mao's China which was Albania's only major ally following his break with the Soviets in 1961 for being too 'revisionist'. Even in 1991 a lot of the industry and much of the public transport - such as it was despite all private vehicle ownership being illegal - was Chinese built from decades earlier.

Meles meles,

just entered. The whole late evening spending with explaining, in answer to a private message from Rebecca West on the French forum, the link between the "White Hoods of the Ghent revolt against Count Louis of Maele" and the Flemish movement of the Fifties...

Thank yu very much for your first paragraph.

"And talking of Italian I was surprised to learn that even up to the beginning of the 20th century (but before the formal post WW1 Italian possession of Trieste/Gorizia province in Slovenija, and later the 1939-43 invasion and occupation of Dalmatia, Montenegro, Albania and the Greek Ionian Islands) that Italian was widely spoken throughout all these regions as the principal secondary language after the local Slavic or Greek. I presume this was a legacy of the medieval Venetian trade 'empire' in the Adriatic coupled with Italian being an academic/diplomatic language during the renaissance and enlightenment. When I visited Albania in 1991 (just after the fall of Hoxha) Italian was still widely spoken as a second language, where in schools it was as likely to be taught as English or French. More surprising perhaps were the number of Albanians who claimed to be able to speak some Chinese - an effect of Hoxha's courting of Mao's China which was Albania's only major ally following his break with the Soviets in 1961 for being too 'revisionist'. Even in 1991 a lot of the industry and much of the public transport - such as it was despite all private vehicle ownership being illegal - was Chinese built from decades earlier."

"And talking of Italian I was surprised to learn that even up to the beginning of the 20th century (but before the formal post WW1 Italian possession of Trieste/Gorizia province in Slovenija, and later the 1939-43 invasion and occupation of Dalmatia, Montenegro, Albania and the Greek Ionian Islands) that Italian was widely spoken throughout all these regions as the principal secondary language after the local Slavic or Greek."

Trieste/Goriza
I saw a documentary about Slovenes in Italy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovene_minority_in_Italy
And in the documentary the ethnic Slovenes lamented that in some years they will all become Italians.
But the fate of the Italians in the new Yugoslavia was worser in my opinion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istrian_Italians
It always remembers me the fate of Alcase-Lorraine...
But there was worser: the sudden projected exodus of the Greeks from Turkey, Smyrna (Izmir) and all...remember the lament of our Greek of the old BBC board, the one from Thessaloníki...

"When I visited Albania in 1991 (just after the fall of Hoxha) Italian was still widely spoken as a second language, where in schools it was as likely to be taught as English or French."

And it still is MM...I met a lady working in a clinic as cleaning service...and she explained me while she was speaking Italian to her family that a lot of Albanians speak Italian...and as it is so close to the heel of Italy there is nowadays a lot of economic exchange, even a lot of Italian firms present in Albania...
Distance about 60 kilometer



...no Albania... I brought it only as far as Dubrovnik by car..if I recall it well in 1973...one and a quarter Euro for a night "doppel zimmer" without luxe in Zadar...on the roof of an hotel in Dubrovnik...five courses menu and excellent...one Euro pro person...

Kind regards from Paul.

That's interesting about the overlap of Italian and languages of the former Yugoslavia.  The U3A French conversation group I belong to starts today - if I go I will take a printout of a page from the pdf I found (in French) about francique.  I'm thinking of taking a page about French words which are derived from francique.  There's been a bit of to-ing and fro-ing over the years it seems - "bacon" comes from "bacun" (ancient French).  I didn't know about the Slovene minority in Italy.  I'll be starting sign language again later in the month.  I found a (to me) interesting video explaining Italian signs (I don't think these are particularly for deaf people) - the chap making this video seems to know a lot of languages.  I wish I had his learning capacity.  

Another aside - buée as an alternative word to "lessive" for laundry apparently came from the fact that at one time laundry was done with the ashes of beech - 'bokon' being a German word for beech (I don't know if that's current German or old-fashioned German.  I'm sure there are people who visit the site whose German is better than mine.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Another aside - buée as an alternative word to "lessive" for laundry apparently came from the fact that at one time laundry was done with the ashes of beech - 'bokon' being a German word for beech (I don't know if that's current German or old-fashioned German.  I'm sure there are people who visit the site whose German is better than mine.

Lady, Lady,

I started with the wrong term "bokon" and came to all kind of "things"...
https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Buche
"buche" in German (beech) is "hêtre" in French
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katzenelnbogen
Historians speculated that the name derives from Cattimelibocus, a combination of two words: the ancient Germanic tribal name of the Chatti and Melibokus, a generic Roman name for "mountains"^{[clarification needed]}.,^[2][3] The theory is based on the name Μηλίβοκον (Mēlíbokon) used by Ptolemy specifically for a mountain range farther to the east, either the Harz, the Thuringian Forest, or both. Melibokon in a Latinised form would then be Melibocus or Melibokus. The fact that the name, in any recognisable form, first appears in medieval documents also suggests that it has no older, i.e. Roman, origin.
And even
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/boc%C3%B3n

I had better started from the first time with "buée"
And there it is:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bu%C3%A9e_(tradition)
(nordmann everywhere on the fora I have a problem with that last ")" which let the entry not appear. Is there a method to avoid this?)
And yes you are right cher Lady...the ash of not hard wood (I read somewhere this evening that soft wood as beech was indicated as it didn't contain colouring substances as tanine)
And you seems to be right along the whole line...
http://projetbabel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5209
From the discussion:
En picard, buquer, qui signifie frapper, n'est pas sans rappeler bukon.
in Picard: buquer means beat, and also "bukon" beat the wash several times on a stone as one sees nowadays still in Turkey..

généralement considéré comme issu par voie orale (1219 - 1226) d'un gallo-romain "bussata", lessive, auquel remonte aussi l'ancien provençal "bugata" (XIII e.).
C'est l'ancien participe passé substantivé d'un verbe "buccare", laver, faire la lessive.
seen as come by oral way from the gallo-roman bussata (wash)
 
But also:
On a proposé de faire remonter ce gallo-romain au francique "bukon" ( en moyen allemand "buken, buchen", en s'appuyant sur le fait que la lessive s'est faite à l'origine avec les cendres du hêtre (comme détersif). On le rattache aussi à un autre nom germanique du hêtre "bik(i)on" dont l'origine indo-européenne serait apparentée au grec "phagos" (fagus en latin). 
proposed to come from francique "bukon" (middle german "buken, buchen" (Dutch: beuk, beuken) supported by the fact that the wash was done originally with the ash of beech as cleaning. Also connected to another germanic word of "beech": "bik(i)on", which the IE origin would be related with the greek "phagos" (fagus in Latin)

I don't know if this discussion has a scientific base, but apparently it fits with all what you say...

Kind regards from Paul.

Off topic but thinking about Switzerland, I mentioned the legend of William Tell a few days ago.  I can only think of two other stories coming from Switzerland - one I liked, Heidi and the other I never read though I saw bits of adaptations but I found it very boring (dislike would be too strong a word) and that was The Swiss Family Robinson.  A few years ago when I was trying to find money saving tips I found a video (in French) about doing the laundry with the cinders of wood (though I'm not sure which type of wood.  

Lady in retirement,

There are quite a few Swiss tales, legends ,folktales, myths.
 As an example :

https://houseofswitzerland.org/swissstories/history/myths-and-legends-Switzerland


Dirk

Dirk thank you for the link.

Now one of my (more lightweight) examples of tangential thinking.  I've forgotten most of the (elementary) German I ever knew but for some reason the word "zugfuhrer" (train driver) always makes me think of Hitler's title "the Fuhrer" - sorry I've used some of the accents on letters in non-English language but I can't fathom how to do the umlaut yet.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Dirk thank you for the link.

Now one of my (more lightweight) examples of tangential thinking.  I've forgotten most of the (elementary) German I ever knew but for some reason the word "zugfuhrer" (train driver) always makes me think of Hitler's title "the Fuhrer" - sorry I've used some of the accents on letters in non-English language but I can't fathom how to do the umlaut yet.

For the second time lost my whole message now LiR

For the third time:

as you my tangential thinking: (but in my lost message more stuffed) when mentioning in the "bokon" message "Buche" to you I saw "Buchenwald" as example, but for me was that quite another connotation than "beech wald"...

(but in my lost message more stuffed) zugführer-führer, quite common before the dictators started. As the name Adolf (my uncle Adolf), Adolphe pour les femmes...
The dictators
Führer (Adolf), Caudillo (Franco), "Chefe" (Salazar), il Duce (Mussolini), someting like that in Romania (will not look on internet for fear to lose my message again), in France le guide, le chef (Pétain) and I believe also in the Dutch speaking countries for the Fascist parties : "de Leider"


Wanted then speak about our thread about the "White Hoods" and the Ghent revolt against Louis of Maele...said on the French historyboard that the nowadays Flemish nationalists don't use the bombastic terminology anymore of the in between the wars period as from the Klokke Roeland song: you Jan Yoens, you Arteveldes, tremble in your graves...
And see today a row about a far right movement with a leader studying at the Ghent university..."Schild en Vrienden"...armed resistance and all that...will add the link in an addendum or perhaps in my thread about the new Fascist Russia of Putin and Kiryl, a bit "the Caudillo and the Catholic church"?
No I will comment it in: Russia, the new marriage between State and Church...

No, as I studied that in depth the "in between the wars period" (interwar period?) I see more and more nowadays some similarities with that period...am I too pessimistic...Turkey with its leader, again a marriage between state and religion?...

Kind regards from Paul.

Addendum to the previous message.

And it is quite worser than I thought about "Schild en Vrienden"...
Some propaganda films from them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m24mhizyIwI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv2wSaqyyx8
I found nothing in English but international right wing propaganda

In Dutch:
http://nl.wikisage.org/wiki/Schild_%26_Vrienden
https://goo.gl/PNTRN7

Kind regards from Paul.

I think that Lauren Southern person is a friend of Tommy-tommy-tommy-tommy Robinson.  I have watched a few Rebel Media videos periodically not from any love of the channel but I like to know the measure of what is going on.  Anyway, with all the depression* I'm feeling I'm posting something a bit more cheerful.  It's from the 1960s but when I was looking at the Appenzell music videos the other day something popped up about a Swiss cowboy singer called Peter Hinnen.  It's interesting as a curiosity.    * For the avoidance of doubt I'm not in a slough of despond but I'm mulling over whether a change in political leadership in the UK could be worse than what we have currently.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

  I've forgotten most of the (elementary) German I ever knew but for some reason the word "zugfuhrer" (train driver) always makes me think of Hitler's title "the Fuhrer" - sorry I've used some of the accents on letters in non-English language but I can't fathom how to do the umlaut yet.

Lir,

About umlaut in lowercase;

ä  =  Alt + 0228

ü  +  Alt + 0252

Remember to keep Alt key pressed when typing in the number. 

If you send me an email with your email address I will send you the full list involving umlauts, grave accent, acute accent, circumflex, tilde, diphthong, cedilla etc

Tried to PM you but was unable to attach the list with all the information.


Dirk

I've managed to find the thread on Historum that I referred to the other day.[url=historum.com/european-history/128597-who-have-right-alsace-lorraine.html]historum.com/european-history/128597-who-have-right-alsace-lorraine.html[/url]The Emperor of Wurttemberg makes a worthwhile contribution and Chlodio explains about the part of Charlemagne's empire that Lothar inherited (though I think Paul may have already touched on this).  Paul's friend Isleifson has contributed a nice (sounding) song - I've forgotten what little German I knew and wouldn't know francique anyway so I hope it's not rude words or anything.  In typing/edit mode I don't see any of the characters nordmann told me to delete when posting a link but the link still doesn't appear as a hyperlink -  I'm having a second try at posting it.


historum.com/european-history/128597-who-have-right-alsace-lorraine.html

Lady,

I copied again your link to google and then copied and pasted it to here. The link appears in the line above the screen when the entry starts on your window and then I transfer this line to here and it is alright...
http://historum.com/european-history/128597-who-have-right-alsace-lorraine.html
The Emperor and Chlodio (Chlodovech ) are both valuable contributors as I have seen during the years, but they will never be that to the point as the insiders from the language borderline as for instance an Isleifson, on the French board Laumesfeld, where he don't contribute that much as coincidentally a lot of members of this French board are from Alsace-Lorraine and the viewpoints differ from time to time...Even I as I see some national feelings as the Francique, am a bit taking distance...
I whom they tried to brainwash in the Flemish nationalistic "gedachtengoed" (they translate it in my dictionary by "way of thinking, realm of thought". Perhaps "realm" is better, but in my opinion better is what I found on internet: "intellectual legacy, mental legacy").
Once seeing through it all, I became Belgian, the entity that was separated by the circumstances of the Dutch Revolt from the up to then Burgundian Kreiz or in that time Spanish Netherlands, but I saw nearly immidiately through the Belgian bombast and saw that the best way was cooperation and as such the Benelux (the entity from before the split) was for me a workable solution, as I see now the tandem France-Germany, that larger Belgian like entity as a good thing and from there the European cooperation is the next step and including Britain as I see, as someone from Ostend (that English town), no difference between "them" and "us", as they all in Europe have nearly the same "mental legacy".
I saw also during the discussion of "No Renaissance without Islam" (concerning Aristote au Mont Saint Michel) that they (isleifson and another Frenchman) not as me an in my eyes more realistic point of view adhered, but a more or less "Liittle Europeaner" one. Excuses Isleifson if you read this, but it is my point of view, especially on Sylvain Goughenheim...

No, LiR , better read once "our" thread and this thread from the beginning (all the pages !) to better understand it all...
http://historum.com/european-history/130958-charlemagne.html

Kind regards from Paul.

Addendum to the previous message.

LiR,
http://historum.com/european-history/128597-who-have-right-alsace-lorraine.html
I already wanted from the first ime to point to some anomalies in the messages of Chlodio and the Emperor...
"Lorraine was founded as a Duchy in the 10th century and was the fifth biggest Duchy in Germany. In the 12th century the Duchy split into two halves with the northern half becoming the core of what is now Belgium and the southern half becoming what is today. It then remained that way for many centuries until when in 1766 France conquered it. You probably know the story from 1870 onwards."
" until when in 1766 France conquered it."

https://www.amazon.fr/don-daimer-Marie-Leczinska-France/dp/2857044992


Had a lot to search while in French there is Marie Leczinska and in English Maria Karolina Zofia Felicja Leszczyńska
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Leszczy%C5%84ska

If you want to learn French read once this historical novel about a clever and pragmatic woman., queen of Louis XV.
And it is all there, how France came in possession of Lorraine...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Leszczy%C5%84ski
"On 26 January 1736, Stanisław again abdicated the throne, but received in compensation the Duchy of Lorraine and of Bar, which was to revert to France on his death." in 1766
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Lorraine
"In the 12th century the Duchy split into two halves with the northern half becoming the core of what is now Belgium and the southern half becoming what is today."




Belgium he said...No the later duchy of Brabant, the Prince Bishopry of Liège, a part of nowadays Germany and the nowedays Netherlands...as you see the left of present day Belgium was the county of Flanders and I suppose also Hainautand under the suzerainity of France and the Eastern half became later the HRE.
Thus the present day Flemings where divided along a North South line and were left part of France and rignt of the HRE until the Burgundians, when they became part of the Leo Belgicus



And about Alsace:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Alsace


PS. LiR don't be afraid of someone with straigth talking...on the old BBC I became once a target of the Texan Buckskin (he was overhere as Blloodaxe) for my polite endings and it was nordmann who came to my help, on Historum I became once blamed "for all and something" (voor alles en nog wat) by a Romanian (and it was perhaps my fault) because he introduced me to the Fascist Romania from the interwar period with several links and on the French board I mentioned the links to nowadays parties as neo-fascists..but I was forgotten that most Romanians can also read French...and perhaps was he even a contributor overthere...no LiR I at least love your daily chats, which many times spark an in depth investigation and comments...I have the same to say for Temperance...

Kind regards from Paul.

Oh, I wouldn't want nordmann to feel I was being overly sensitive, Paul.  In the UK we do use "you" impersonally sometimes.  I've known Americans to use "y'all" and I a friend who was originally an Irish cockney used to say "Yous" for a plural form of "you".

I've just seen that upthread autocorrect has changed "worse" to "worth" so I'll have to amend that - upthread I was pondering whether BoJo* would suit as a replacement for Mrs May.

I see from the map that the frontiers of Lotharingia have indeed changed somewhat over the years

Lady,

"autocorrect" bah...I do my own autocorrect...rereading my messages and correcting the in my eyes! faults...and if my "anglodutch" is wrong, so be it...but even when I was (would be?) an Englishman! I would still expect from the readers that they take me as I am...with my faults...after I have done my utmost best of course to write correctly ...

Kind regards from Paul.

Nothing profound but I've realised that when as a school pupil I went with a group from my convent school to France (to Mulhouse in the Alsace) we must have travelled through what was once Lotharingia.  It was quite a long journey but we didn't have to change trains once we reached Belgium - rather than head for Paris and then go east the teacher that organised the trip had us go to Dover, then we went by ferry to Ostend and then we went on a train through part of Belgium, then Luxembourg and then into France finally winding up in Mulhouse.  I can't remember the exact route we took.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Nothing profound but I've realised that when as a school pupil I went with a group from my convent school to France (to Mulhouse in the Alsace) we must have travelled through what was once Lotharingia.  It was quite a long journey but we didn't have to change trains once we reached Belgium - rather than head for Paris and then go east the teacher that organised the trip had us go to Dover, then we went by ferry to Ostend and then we went on a train through part of Belgium, then Luxembourg and then into France finally winding up in Mulhouse.  I can't remember the exact route we took.

Lady,

"we must have travelled through what was once Lotharingia"
"then we went by ferry to Ostend and then we went on a train through part of Belgium, then Luxembourg "
Not exactly you went through the county of Flanders, which was under French suzerainty...dear lady I couldn't resist to pinpoint on that fact
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_of_Flanders



12th century:



Topographic map of the county of Flanders at the end of the 14th century, the French-Imperial border marked in red



And yes Ostend didn't exist yet, but you certainly passed through Bruges and Ghent (in my childhood done the train Ostend Bruges Ghent two long years during schooltime)...

Kind regards from Paul.

Thank you Paul,

What these maps helps - me - to understand, is that the ideas of suzerainty at present to some extent are forgotten, yet must be remembered when thinking and working with the history of such disputed lands.



Edited because a verb had dropped out.

So I didn't travel through Lotharingia, then.  I do remember we joked about having been to 3 countries though we only went from boat to train in Belgium and didn't get out of the train at all in Luxembourg.  During the stay in Mulhouse we had one day where we visited Geneva (beautiful place) in Switzerland and another where we went over the Rhine to Freiburg in Germany, so very loosely we could say we'd visited 5 countries though we only "overnighted" in France.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

So I didn't travel through Lotharingia, then.  I do remember we joked about having been to 3 countries though we only went from boat to train in Belgium and didn't get out of the train at all in Luxembourg.  During the stay in Mulhouse we had one day where we visited Geneva (beautiful place) in Switzerland and another where we went over the Rhine to Freiburg in Germany, so very loosely we could say we'd visited 5 countries though we only "overnighted" in France.

Lady,

"So I didn't travel through Lotharingia, then."
Yes you did, but only a short distance between Ostend and Ghent not. And yes Ostend was not yet part of Flanders while it didn't exist. Only from 1350 on and I read today that it was destroyed a first time because the actions of people on the environment. Sounds pretty actual in my opinion. Enlarge the map to 175 or 200% to better see it.



And after all my studies I have done about the transgressions and regressions in the Flemish coastal plain, it seems that the scientists still don't agree, even debunk one other's theories...but that is the good scientifical way...
[url=http://www.armara.be/augustyn/SEA LEVEL RISE.pdf]http://www.armara.be/augustyn/SEA%20LEVEL%20RISE.pdf[/url]

PS: I was once in Mexico with my father, 2 hours in Tijuana just over the US border and then back in the US again. Taht time we could say we had done the whole North American continent (we were in Vancouver and Calgary too).

Kind regards from Paul.

Of course, having read your recent comment, Paul, I had to look up the history of Ostend https://www.visitflanders.com/en/destinations/ostend/history/  I suppose "low countries" were not named (or is it nicknamed?) thus for no reason.  Your mention of happenings on the Flemish coastal plain made me think of the building of the dyke in the Netherlands in the 20th century to block off the Zuyder Zee and change it into a freshwater lake.  I'm sure that was mentioned somewhere on this site - the enclosure of the IJsselmeer may have been largely as a means of safeguarding against flooding if my understanding is correct.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Of course, having read your recent comment, Paul, I had to look up the history of Ostend https://www.visitflanders.com/en/destinations/ostend/history/  I suppose "low countries" were not named (or is it nicknamed?) thus for no reason.  Your mention of happenings on the Flemish coastal plain made me think of the building of the dyke in the Netherlands in the 20th century to block off the Zuyder Zee and change it into a freshwater lake.  I'm sure that was mentioned somewhere on this site - the enclosure of the IJsselmeer may have been largely as a means of safeguarding against flooding if my understanding is correct.

Lady,

and now I see that I somewhere somehow made the same mistake ais you with the URL
/augustyn/SEA LEVEL RISE/
[url=http://www.armara.be/augustyn/SEA LEVEL RISE.pdf]http://www.armara.be/augustyn/SEA%20LEVEL%20RISE.pdf[/url]
No it don't work...is it because it is a "pdf"? nordmann?
LiR if you want to see it you will have to put it on the URL on google and see to the resutls...
And yes about the "Zuiderzee" you are completely correct.
And thanks for you interest in Ostend. After all I lived there the first years only during schoolvacations and then fully overthere, during 24 years....
And as for queens...we went in France to some similar city
I only found this really relevant to the history and seeminlgly it is a robot translation from I don't now what language: French?
https://www.france-voyage.com/tourism/granville-933.htm
From the 1850s, the bathing season attracts vacationers increasingly numerous. For three months Granville turns into an "elegant district of Paris." The casino to distract and seduce his audience, holds dances every evening concerts three or four times a week and some theatrical performances during the summer. Stendhal, Jules Michelet and Victor Hugo Granville stay, enjoying the scenic town and port activity. The first fire station was completed in 1750, the second in 1780 and the latest date from the late nineteenth century. To these military works, the Germans added bunkers of the "Atlantic Wall", from the Isthmus to the tip of the Roc. Released without a fight July 31, 1944, Granville is invested for a few hours March 9, 1945 by Germans from Jersey still occupied.
And when we were there we learned that they had specially constructed a Railway from Paris to there...
And from there we went by hoovercraft to Jersey for two days...
ANGLO-NORMAN where are you...

Kind regards from Paul.

Meles meles wrote:

PaulRyckier wrote:

Lady, as I have listened to the Romansch words and sentences, I understand them mostly immediately. And for me it is a kind of Italian.

Not really unsurprising in that both Romansch and Italian are descended from late Roman Latin ... but other than some loan words and other linguistic borrowings from northern Italian I thought Romansh evolved more or less independently and more directly from the Latin spoken in the late Roman empire. As such those words and phrases to me seem, at least in pronunciation, closer to classical Latin than even modern Italian. Modern Italian I believe mostly derives from the written language of medieval Tuscany, by which time it had already evolved quite a bit away from its Latin roots.

In his Naturalis Historia Pliny the Elder suggests that the Rhaeto peoples are descended from Tuscans. They warrant only this fleeting reference in his book on Italian geography in the section on the Alps:
 
'Rhetos tusco(rum?) prolem arbitrantur a gallis pulsos duce rheto.'

With my dog Latin I’d translate that as:

The Raetos are a Tuscan clan, it is decided, whose leader Raeto was pushed out by the Gauls.

Firstly, I’m guessing that when Pliny refers to Tuscans he mean Etruscans and secondly by the use of the word ‘arbitrantur’ (‘it is decided’ or ‘it is believed’ or ‘it is supposed’) then this seems to be a disclaimer by Pliny with regard to that particular foundation myth - i.e. that the Rhaeto people are descendants of Raeto (or Rhaetus). One is almost left thinking well what was even the point of writing that sentence and yet with such a short sentence Pliny gives a tantalising glimpse of the Roman attitude towards the Etruscans. A strange admixture of grudging admiration and sneering contempt.

With regard to the Rhaeto languages today (Friulian, Romansch and Ladin) then they almost certainly have little or no characteristics in common with what is known of the Etruscan language. Ladin is spoken in South Tyrol which means that that province can have not just bilingual but sometimes trilingual road signs. And quite confusing they can look too:



(The order is Ladin first, then German and then Italian.)

You've taught me something, Vizzer.  I didn't know of (or if I ever did I had quite forgotten) of the existence of Ladin and Friulian.  I wonder was it the height of the mountains around various valleys which made some of these languages survive.  (Just me surmising and I'll probably be shot down in flames).

Of course if we ever want to learn Friulian, YouTube can come to the rescue 

And if we fancy a little Friulian music:-

I've no idea what the words mean though.

In a sense of fair play I should put something about ladin.  The writing of the phrases doesn't look all that different to Italian (not that I speak Italian either) but they sound somewhat different.  

It was purely co-incidence but after my trip down the rabbit hole with the mind-boggling conspiracy theory that all public figures are clandestine transgender persons, when I did a search on "ladin" something came up about "transgender".  This time it looked to be (I didn't open it) a serious video about a transgender person whose surname was "Ladin".  After that I changed my search term to "ladin language"

A video of a song that one of Paul's friends had linked on a thread about Lotharingia on Historum (where I lurk sometimes but haven't joined) I found a translation but only into French, not English, of the song where the poor medieval Lothringian peasant is having a hard time of it (and autocorrect kept changing "ich" to "ice"- O ich armer Lothringer Bur..https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/O,_ich_armer_Lothringer_Bur

Lady,

suddenly my message was gone again as yesterday and an advertisement of Volkswagen instead, although I have Norton as security...or is there something wrong with my computer?

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/O,_ich_armer_Lothringer_Bur

I will not bore you with the Dutch translation but the song is certainly German/Dutch
O, ich armer Lothringer Bur,
O ik arme Lotharingse boer
O ich arme Lothringer Bauer

Wie isch mir das Läwe sur!
Hoe is mij de luim zuur (oldfashioned normal: humeur) (Normal in Dutch: Hoe zuur is mijn humeur)
Wie ist mir das Laune sauer

Das än, das hängt so hin un her,
Het ene, dat hangt zo heen en weer
Das eine, das hangt so hin und her

Das zwät hat nur drey Zän im Mull,
Het tweede heeft slechts drie tanden in de muil
Das zweite hat nur drei Zähne im Maul.

And yes it is still a poor PIB region.
This map is with the new "régions" in France (MM if you can explain all this difficult stuff)

But this masks the PIB from the old "départements".
For instance the PIB of Belgium is higher than this of Wallonia...
here more relevant:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_d%C3%A9partements_fran%C3%A7ais_class%C3%A9s_par_produit_int%C3%A9rieur_brut_par_habitant
Look at Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin...
But Le Nord and Pas de Calais is even more inferior

Kind regards from Paul.

Lady,

suddenly my message was gone again as yesterday and an advertisement of Volkswagen instead, although I have Norton as security...or is there something wrong with my computer?

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/O,_ich_armer_Lothringer_Bur

I will not bore you with the Dutch translation but the song is certainly German/Dutch
O, ich armer Lothringer Bur,
O ik arme Lotharingse boer
O ich arme Lothringer Bauer

Wie isch mir das Läwe sur!
Hoe is mij de luim zuur (oldfashioned normal: humeur) (Normal in Dutch: Hoe zuur is mijn humeur)
Wie ist mir das Laune sauer

Das än, das hängt so hin un her,
Het ene, dat hangt zo heen en weer
Das eine, das hangt so hin und her

Das zwät hat nur drey Zän im Mull,
Het tweede heeft slechts drie tanden in de muil
Das zweite hat nur drei Zähne im Maul.

And yes it is still a poor PIB region.
This map is with the new "régions" in France (MM if you can explain all this difficult stuff)

But this masks the PIB from the old "départements".
For instance the PIB of Belgium is higher than this of Wallonia...
here more relevant:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_d%C3%A9partements_fran%C3%A7ais_class%C3%A9s_par_produit_int%C3%A9rieur_brut_par_habitant
Look at Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin...
But Le Nord and Pas de Calais is even more inferior

Kind regards from Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

This map is with the new "régions" in France (MM if you can explain all this difficult stuff).

Those are current administrative régions of France. They are a fairly modern construct first formed in 1982 when there were 27, but in 2016 the number was reduced to the 13 shown plus 5 overseas regions outside of mainland France. These regions were created as an administrative level intermediate between central government and local départements (departments are roughly equivalemnt to British counties) as a deliberate move towards decentralisation. Regions levy their own taxes and so increasingly receive proportionally less of their budget from central government. Within their region they are primarily responsible for education at high school (lycée) level, as well as having considerable discretionary powers over roads, public transport, regional ports and airports, universities, support for businesses, and in patrimonie (heritage) projects, such as funding for museums, archaeological digs, the restoration and preservation of ancient buildings, and in sponsoring theatres, galleries, cultural events etc.

Departments were created in 1790 under the pre-Revolutionary National Assembly (ie the brief period of constitutional monarchy after the storming of the Bastille but with Louis XVI still on the throne) as a replacement for the Ancien Régime provinces (although the idea had been proposed decades earlier during the reign of Louis XV), with a view to strengthening national unity: the title 'département' was deliberately used in its sense of being a part of a larger whole (an aspiration fully supported, for their own ends, by the later Revolutionary and Napoleonic governments). Furthermore most of the departments were named after physical geographic features such as rivers, mountains and coasts, rather than after historical territories which might have their own loyalities and which were also often associated with ancient hereditary dukedoms and principalities. There are currently 102 French departments (including overseas ones) and their main areas of responsibility are secondary schools (collége), libraries, local roads and buses etc. Furthermore many of the local services of the state administration, such as the police and fire services, tax collection, the issuing of identity cards and driving licences etc. are also typically organised on a departmental level where the local prefecture acts as the representative of central government.

The lowest administrative level is typically the commune (and/or arrondissment in cities) which grew out of the old municipal and parish councils. Communes can vary from having millions of inhabitants (eg in Paris or Marseilles) to very small indeed: the commune where I live comprises just one small town, two very small outlying villages and a couple of even smaller hamlets, together having a total population of just 3000 people but nevertheless, this being France, with a mayor, council and town hall, for each of the three separate villages. Communes have considerable autonomy over local affairs, eg in planning permission for building works, although their role is largely restricted to the local administration of national policy and procedures.

I lost a post; I think I tried to post at the same time as MM.  It was mostly about the times I had been in  Mulhouse and a few years later (for a shorter time) in Colmar both in Haut-Rhin and that I had remembered there being a significant viticulture industry (is viticulture an industry?) and that I was surprised at the PIB in that region being so low.

Interesting, MM, 
You say the top levels - state and region - levy taxes what about the departements and the communes?
Do they claim their own taxes or are they dependent on what the state offers?

Also the responsibilities of the various levels in government. I had the - apparently erroneous - idea that there was much more centralisation in eg. schooling, basic as well as secondary and higher, but does this decentralisation concern curriculae or primarily funding?


Edit: crossed posts with LiR

I wasn't sure where to put this (and it doesn't relate to Nielsen's post, which contains some valid points) - but by visiting the I Love Languages channel I learned of a new to me language Aromanian which is stated to be a Romance* language spoken in Greece, Macedonia, Albania, Macedonia and Bulgaria and Romania.  It is supposed to be something akin to Romanian but to have absorbed more Greek words and  to be spoken by about 300,000 people.  

* It was said to be a Romance language so I popped it in here though it doesn't sound like such Romance languages that I am aware of:-

As I understand it, Neilsen, the regional council (50 or so councillors elected by popular vote throughout the région, a fixed number for each department, at least I think is how it works) sets the rate for tax (principally the taxe d'habitation, a household tax, essentially equivalent to the British Council Tax, and through various business taxes), and these are then spent at both regional and departmental level. Hence the departmental budget in turn operates on monies raised at regional level and their departmental budget has to be approved by the regional council. Similarly I guess the comune budget (which is of course very much smaller as they are not having to pay for road maintenance, buses or schools) comes as a percentage per inhabitant, from the departmental budget.

Regarding education ... the région and department are responsible for maintaining and staffing schools, but the curriculum and teachers' wages are still fixed by central government. Spending powers are devolved to the regions but they still have to work within the accepted national guidelines. I'm not sure how it works for private/religious schools - they certainly exist in France although there are nowhere near as many as in Britain - but I think that all French schools receiving any state support have to be completely secular with no religious affliation/bias at all, and that even private, totally-independent schools funded entirely by religious (or other) bodies, still have to teach the whole national curriculum (including evolution etc, and with girls taught alongside boys). At least that's how I understand it although I'll admit I'm no expert in this area.

So yes, despite the moves towards decentralisation, France does retain a strong central control of policy. I can get my new EU driving licence from the departmental prefecture's office but at the end of the day they are still only the local administrator for the national law. Similarly the region and department control the budget for the local schools, but they are expected to pay staff the national rate according to the national pay scales, to conform to national teacher-to-pupil ratios, and to conform to the national curriculum, and I suspect they are further limited by how much they can decrease or increase overall education spending as a proportion of their whole budget. The key word in it all is their 'discretionary' control over the budget.

I have just skimmed the wiki article on British Council Tax, which is about as comprehensible as most government papers, imho - but then I just skimmed it!

My question is, does the national government, perhaps in agreement with the regions and the departements, decide at which level from the lowest to the highest earners pay how much in taxes?

Above, I think, you wrote on the salaries of teachers - policemen - government empoyees [in France] generally being set by the government.
 
My question is based in the Danish system where agreements are reached between the Ministry of Finance and the various trade unions relevant for workers on government services. 
Such an agreement has a durability of a set period of time, and during that period strikes and lock-outs are illegal and punishable by fines, payable to the other part.
Equally so in the private sector, our trade unions within the equal to the English TUC make agreements with the employers main organisations. 
There are some union and employer organisations outside the Main Agreements, and some few on both sides - for simplicity's sake - who like to operate outside the system, but they are then not covered by the unemployment insurance built into the system through many years and agreements.

Hmmm ... not exactly sure how it all works in France. I'll investigate and get back to you.

If it's a bother, MM, then don't, I don't want you to suffer for my morbid interests.

Meles meles wrote:

So yes, despite the moves towards decentralisation, France does retain a strong central control of policy.

It could also be said that without centralisation there would be no France as we know it. The centralising instinct of the French state is something which traditionally distinguishes it from its more locally-minded neighbours to the north and the east in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and even in Italy.

The large, Paris-based state often posed a threat to the smaller states along the Rhine as did the view that that river should act as a natural boundary between the French and the Germanic world. This was exacerbated following the French Revolution when the new regime employed arguments based on reason to back up this territorial claim. In other words one could be a Breton or a Basque or an Alsatian etc but all were equal citizens of the French state. Citizenship and nationality became separate concepts and the cult of the former was promoted. Napoleon Bonaparte was himself a great proponent of natural boundaries and being a Corsican of Neapolitan descent was also keenly aware that, for a large centralised state based on natural boundaries to function effectively, then it was imperative that citizenship should trump nationality every time. This was after all what the Revolution had been about. To sweep aside archaic legal structures, mediaeval borders and royal, ecclesiastical and aristocratic privileges etc and make the world fit the spirit of the Enlightenment.  

The view in Antwerp, Luxembourg and Cologne etc would have been quite different. To their mind the intricate constitutions of their small states built up over generations and centuries were precisely the things which acted as a brake on the ambitions of any would be tyrant whether that be a bishop, duke or emperor. And so 2 opposing world views confronted each other. And this was compounded when (with a few but very important exceptions) it was seen that Francophone people tended to subscribe to 1 view while Dutch and German speakers tended to subscribe to the other.

To the north of France across the Channel lay England which schizophrenically combined both views. The English liked to see themselves as a small country with a populace fiercely aware of and ready to defend their ancient rights through parliament. In reality, however, England had been one of the largest states in mediaeval Europe and also one of the most centralised. Some economic historians have pointed to the centralisation of the English kingdom during the reign of Edgar as being what basically established the power structure of the state which endures to this day and also set the scene for subsequent economic development which saw England as a country and the kingdom as a treasury becoming one of the wealthiest in Europe. It has also been suggested that this centralised and efficient state structure is in large part what enabled the Normans to so quickly and thoroughly take over the country following the conquest in 1066.

All these interesting messages to read and already nearly half past midnight overhere...

Kind regards to all from Paul.

I mentioned "Der Heidenroslein" on another thread but I found something about the background of the lyrics (poem) and it seems that Goethe was involved with a lady from somewhere near Strasbourg if not Strasbourg itself when he wrote his verses.  It seems that she may have thought their romance was more binding than he did. Strasbourg is certainly a town that has been on different sides of the border and it was independent at one time I believe.  I've always wished I had a better knowledge and ability with music than I do; I know if I like something or dislike something but anyway here is a link to the blog post about "Der Heidenroslein".  Some people have interpreted the plucking of the rosebud as a rape but others think not.  [url=figures-of-speech.com/2017/06/röslein.htm]figures-of-speech.com/2017/06/röslein.htm[/url]

I went to my French conversation group yesterday and finally got to share the article I had printed off about francique words back in October.  I know when I first started looking at the 'francique' spoken in part of Lorraine I wondered why there hadn't been three sets of languages - German, French and Lotharingian (following the division of Charlemagne's empire between his three sons on his death).  I was thinking in an over simplified manner then.  Well, now I'll have to find another French article online to take into the group meeting but if it takes as long for it to be read as the one just studied, it won't be read until June this year or thereabouts.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

I mentioned "Der Heidenroslein" on another thread but I found something about the background of the lyrics (poem) and it seems that Goethe was involved with a lady from somewhere near Strasbourg if not Strasbourg itself when he wrote his verses.  It seems that she may have thought their romance was more binding than he did. Strasbourg is certainly a town that has been on different sides of the border and it was independent at one time I believe.  I've always wished I had a better knowledge and ability with music than I do; I know if I like something or dislike something but anyway here is a link to the blog post about "Der Heidenroslein".  Some people have interpreted the plucking of the rosebud as a rape but others think not.  [url=figures-of-speech.com/2017/06/r%C3%B6slein.htm]figures-of-speech.com/2017/06/röslein.htm[/url]

Lady,


http://figures-of-speech.com/2017/06/r%C3%B6slein.htm


LiR, I always post my Urls on apart line, perhaps has that someting to do with your difficulties?



Kind regards from Paul.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

I went to my French conversation group yesterday and finally got to share the article I had printed off about francique words back in October.  I know when I first started looking at the 'francique' spoken in part of Lorraine I wondered why there hadn't been three sets of languages - German, French and Lotharingian (following the division of Charlemagne's empire between his three sons on his death).  I was thinking in an over simplified manner then.  Well, now I'll have to find another French article online to take into the group meeting but if it takes as long for it to be read as the one just studied, it won't be read until June this year or thereabouts.

Lady,

about that francique and our friend Isleifson/Laumesfeld from Lorraine tudesque on both Historum and Passion Histoire
http://www.passion-histoire.net/viewtopic.php?f=77&t=36778&start=15
https://historum.com/threads/francophone-music.89889/page-5


And I think I already made a comparaison on this thread from the music in the second entry. A comparaison of "Ich armer Lothringer" (August 25 2016) between Francique/German/Dutch

Kind regards from Paul.

Revisiting this thread because when I switched on my Acer laptop a scene of the Toblacher See in South Tyrol popped up as a screen wallpaper.  As the area nowadays belongs to Italy the lake is also known as Lago di Dobbiaco though there are a significant number of German speakers and possibly even a few Ladin speakers.  It looks to be a beautiful lake in any language.

The subject of language frontiers even in Europe is vast.  Did the mountains in Scandinavia help keep the Norwegian and Swedish languages distinct?  Some people seem to think Portuguese is a version of Spanish rather than a separate language though I would hesitate to make such a suggestion to a Portuguese person.  Then language frontiers in continents other than Europe is a whole other kettle of fish (and of course too vast to be explored here).

While here, I listened again to Herr Fischer-Diskau's singing.  It was nice to listen to something pleasant on this overcast and damp December morning.

I wasn't quite sure where to put La Page de La Lange Wallonne this comment - I didn't really think it merited its own thread.  While looking for stuff to offer to the French group I revisited .  Wallon is a language in its own right but some of its sounds reminded me of the northern French sounds referenced when MM mentioned the film Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis a while back.

An extract from L----- P------ W---- website about t sound in Wallon:-

"

• Le latin [k+a] ou [g+e,i,u a] a donné des phonèmes affriqués notés tch (comme dans tchèque) et dj (comme dans jazz): vatche (vache), djambe (jambe)."