Replying to LO26644 --
Dear Organlearners,
Leo Minnigh <l.d.minnigh@library.tudelft.nl> writes:
>At and I are not linguists but the richness of languages
>sucks us again and again deep into the roots of linguistic
>matters.
Greetings dear Leo,
Thanks for pointing out that one does not have to be a proffesional in a
discipline to be sucked up in studing that discipline to its deepest
depths. Professional studies are always extremely helpful, but not
prerequisite.
>And then my thoughts found a Dutch word, covering all
>these stepping stones. Unfortunately, the English language
>has no alternative with the richness of meanings of that word.
(snip)
>Let me unveil 'my' word.
>It is *STAM*
I think somewhat different here. English does have the same word from the
Anglo-Saxon side of it, namely "stem".
However, your clue "has no alternative with the richness of meanings of
that word" is most important. Why does the word "stam" (in both Dutch and
Afrikaans) have the richness of meanings while the English word "stem"
(for me as an Afrikaans speaking person) has less rich meanings? Both
"stam" and "stem" evolved from the same proto-Germanic word. (The library
is closed so that I cannot look it up.)
It is because you in Dutch and even more we in Afrikaans can create so
many different words with "stam". The examples which you have given are
all "stam"(noun)+ "...."(noun) where the + means concatenate (string
together). In other words, our languages have become more responsive to
the essentiality fruitfulness -- to connect two concepts effectively so
that a new concept emerge. In Afrikaans we can even string the any noun
like "stam"=stem to verbs to make new verbs!
There is only one condition. The concatenation must be imaginable! Thus
someone who writes with such concatenations in Afrikaans can take me on a
fantastic voyage of discovering what imagination can do.
By the way, your beautiful input can be used to distinguish between
"archetype" and "archegon". The pattern "stam"(noun)+ "...."(noun) is an
archegon rather than an archetype.
Thank you Leo for seeking the underlying creativity in this topic and thus
the learning which can follow from it.
With care and best wishes,
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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