CDR: Re: Treatment of subjugated people (and bagpipes)

[Tom Vogt]

ocorrain at esatclear.ie wrote:
> Chinese is interesting in this connexion. As far as I understand it, the
> 'language' is made up of different spoken forms, all of which are covered
> by the same writing system, are mutually incomprehensible when spoken. I don't
> know if there are other examples of this in human languages. 

there are similiar examples, mostly with ancient languages - if they
still exist (roman/italian or ancient/modern greek/hebrew) they are
often virtually identical in written form, but very different when
spoken.
of course, there's also the question of how much we really know about
the ancient pronounciation.

> >Such exceptions always arouse my curiosity. Any online sources?
> 
> Don't know about online sources. As far as I remember, the Hopi used two
> tenses, one to describe the present, the other to describe dream time,
> taking in the past (memory regarded as a sort of dream, which Fraud would
> have loved had he known about it), and the future, as well as any
> loose ends involving magical or fabricated events, legendary time, etc.

the most interesting point about the hopi grammar is, that it takes the
observer into the picture. AFAIK, there can be no confusion in hopi
about whether something happened to you, or you imagined it happening,
or you saw it happening to someone else, or someone else saw it
happening to a third person. in english these are all 
"he killed (me, for real)"
"he killed (me, in my dream)"
"he killed (someone else)"
"he killed (fred told me)"