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Is there any significance to the fact that English and German seem to have almost all their interrogatives start with "w", while Romance languages like French and Spanish, mostly have "qu" interrogatives? Am I correct in guessing that the "qu" comes from Latin? And if so, does it strike anybody else as ironic that all those "w" interrogatives in English are "qu"estions?
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There's a whole set of rules about this. Question starts with a Qu because it's of Romance origin.
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Did the Grimm brothers have anything to do with codifying the rules you mention? Also, if German has Frage, and Dutch has vraag, what happened to the Englisc equivalent that was displaced by question? I would have thought we might at least have ended up with a Germanic/Romance pair like freedom/liberty, brotherhood/fraternity, that sort of thing.
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In English there are many cases where there are three tiers of words meaning essentially the same thing.
Germanic/French/Latin
ask/question/interrogate
goodness/virtue/probity
better/improve/ameliorate
rider/cavalier/equestrian
None of the words have supplanted the others, they just get used with different frequency and have taken slightly different meanings. Interrogate has a more sinister meaning than question which in turn is more formal than ask.
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Huh? Ich bin übergefragt. But seriously  , this is a question for William the Conqueror and his hordes. Now if you'd like to hear my theory on the Great Vowel Movement, I'll send it to you in private.
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Yes, in a word. The proto-Indo-European interrogatives began with /kw-/, and they were all related because they were all essentially case-forms of a single word: kwis? 'who?' contained the active ending /-s/, and kwid? 'what?' had a neuter element /-d/ instead.
Other interrogatives 'why?', 'how?' etc. are originally oblique cases 'for what?', 'with what?'.
The normal sound-changes applied in the different branches.
Latin /kw-/ became /k-/, inherited in all its descendants (qui, que, che etc.).
In Germanic it became /hw-/, and yes this is Grimm's Law. The brothers were the first to lay out the regularity of the sound changes. These have become /w-/ in most varieties of English (still /hw-/ in Scots and older American) (and /h-/ in who, how but I'm not sure why), and /v-/ in German (wo, was, wie). It's still a cluster in Icelandic (hvadh).
The /kw-/ became /t-/ or /p-/ in Greek depending on the following vowel: tis, ti, pu, pote.
Now 'query' and 'question' come from a Latin verb root quaes-, which I would guess is from the interrogatives, i.e. originally meant 'to say "what?"', but I can't confirm that.
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Dear AnnaStrophic: "Great Vowel Movement, I'll send it to you in private."
If that isn't a private joke, why not share it with all of us. Glad you didn't make a typo on the middle word.
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Grimm's Law
Excellent reply, Bro. Nick, as we have come to expect of you. You touched on Grimm's Law. Since few people have ever heard of it, we might explain that the brothers Grimm were not just storytellers. They were philologists, among the first serious ones in German studies and the tales resulted from a long research project. What they were really after was information on how German was used and what it's grammar and vocabulary were in various areas, which involved various usages and dialects. They figured that the natural well of the language was to be found in the old folk tales that had been passed down from remote antiquity, so they went out to collect them direct from the lips of all these old gammers in all sorts of remote places. The publication of the tales, and their resultant popularity, was really a by-product of their research. One of the things they learned is that languages change over time and there is a regular progression of how consonantal changes occur, as Nick described. The codified description of how these changes occur is Grimm's law. (Should be Grimms', but that's too much to expect of publishers.) One other note on the tales -- they have been thoroughly bowdlerized to make them more acceptable as children's tales. In the original versions, there are few you would want to read to small tots.
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-- they have been thoroughly bowdlerized to make them more acceptable as children's tales. In the original versions, there are few you would want to read to small tots
Oh, do tell! We are all mostly grownups here (in age anyway.)
Or wait until the children are asleep, if you will ... but an example or two, please?
wow
Need I say "in English, please?"
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What the stepmother wanted to do to Hansel and Gretel was not nice, to say the least. And the father being wimpy enough to go along with it was not very reassuring.The witch wanting to eat Hansel was not nice either. Could scare hell out of any kid really thinking about the story.
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but an example or two, please?
The one I remember is Sleeping Beauty. Apparently Jakob und Wilhelm decided that a story centred on the practice of necrophilia might not be such a hot seller, hence the sanitised version we are familiar with.
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The one I remember is Sleeping Beauty. Apparently Jakob und Wilhelm decided that a story centred on the practice of necrophilia might not be such a hot seller, hence the sanitised version we are familiar with.
And thank heavens they did. Life would be grim, indeed, without Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty suite. Or the Nutcracker suite. Or the Romeo and Juliet suite. Hang on, that last one was Billy the Bard, wasn't it. Damn, analogy ain't what it used to be.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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wow, if you are really interested you must get a copy of a book called Best Loved Folktales of the World (ISBN 0-385-18949-4). It has the original versions of Grimms' and other fairy tales.
Isn't it nice how things work out sometimes. I started packing up all of my books right away for my big move because I want to catalogue them all. I just happen to have packed up that book last night so it was easy to find in my list.
Just a teaser...the Cinderalla story is actually an amalgam of a couple of stories from different countries - and they do not finish like the Disney version.
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And speaking of Cinderella, I recall reading that the whole glass slipper thing was the result of a mistranslation of the French for "satin." Why people ever bought that glass slipper idea, I'll never know, but it is so ensconced now that I doubt you could eradicate it with gasoline and flamethrower.
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It was actually a mistranslation using a homonym. The original word was "vair" meaning the fur of the Siberian grey squirrel or one of the furs of the crown; an expensive fur at the time. The word "verre" is the French word for glass. Cinderella was written by Charles Perreualt, a French civil servant, in before 1720. He also wrote, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in boots, Beauty and the Beast,
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Thanks, Rouspeteur. I knew it was something like that, but my French is limited to food and wine.
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>but my French is limited to food and wine.How sad for your Sparteye ma chouette, you are missing the best part 
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Yes, Sparteye, food and wine are not the only things the French love.
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Right. You forgot bidets.
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wwh,
You are, of course, referring to Jerry Lewis!
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Not to my knowledge. Bidets are used to wash the private parts, and the water used to be thrown out the window. The cry of gardyloo, often meant "bullseye".
So please tell me how this suggested Jerry Lewis?
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One of the first versions of Cinderella came from China. I'm foggy on the date, 700? (not enough sleep, too much computer time...) I collect Cinderella stories, I'm trying to obtain a copy of the original block print of that Cinderella story. I know where it is but getting it's another story.
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wwh,
>>So please tell me how this suggested Jerry Lewis?
Sorry, I should have been clearer, I was responding to your reply to Sparteye about 4 posts above. (I should look at how to quote text from messages so it would be clearer, but I've been too occupied as of late to find the time.)
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A poet in his own country is without honor, etc etc.
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Which leads me to repeat the old phrase: Move your vowels every day or you might get consonated!  Rod Ward
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Move your vowels every day or you might get consonated!Ow, Rod, you made my stomach hurt! By the way, when I saw your post about Americans confusing your name, I couldn't help wondering if it was because Ron Ward sounds so close to onward.
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Ron Ward sounds so close to onward
Ron Ward Christian soldier?
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