Reply to Re: Sinterklaas
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Do you really want to know? Ah, here it goes:
Back in the --Whenever-- (800's?) The Celts were a thriving race. Yep. A thriving race (who used Sanskrit as an alphabet, by the way) until the Romans came. They brought Christianity, which didn't mix very well with the Celt's Pagan Ways [For more information on this, you may enjoy the story "Beowulf".] But anyway, that's another story (maybe even literally).
So, three-hundred years after the Romans leave, the Angles and the Saxons came to Britain (Germany, Norway, and I believe France). They take over, (And during the heraldic times when French becomes the main language of the nobility, Geoffrey Chaucer comes along to change that, but that's off track again.) and after some-hundred years, the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons are just starting to blend.
Well, guess who shows up! The Danish Vikings! They ruin everything. They fence the Celts off (where the Celts are in Scotland and Wales, and the Anglo-Saxons were in England). The Vikings start picking off the weaker race: the Celts. If I remember correctly (which I probably don't), this is the time where Queen Bodiccea comes to power, again another story.
Then everything goes from there. The Vikings withdrew from England after some odd incident in Denmark; All three races, though not so much the Celts as their influence has spread to the Anglo-Saxons and they've pretty much died off, have makeshiftedly combined to form what is now Great Britain (minus Ireland).
Therefore, the English language is made up of German(hence called Germanic), French (IIRC), Norweigan, Danish, Celtic, and Greek (from the Romans). There ya go!
--
Now on a related note to the completely unrelated.
While I can confirm that the above is accurate, I'm not so sure of the below (except the Greek Language part involving the Iliad).
--
Well, the Byzantine language was technically derived from the Phoenicians. The Greeks essentially fabricated their own language, and then decided they needed their own written language; somewhere around 800 BC they adopted the alphabetic symbols from the Phoenicians, and then applied their own sounds to them. In fact, the English word "alphabet" is derived from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet - alpha and beta. So, essentially, since I seriously doubt this forum can handle Greek display, I'll attempt to show you something with Latin (NOT easy):
Mnviv aeide tea |-|nlniadw aXilnoc oulouevnv n'mupi aXaioic alye' etnke.
Just in case:
Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί᾿ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾿ ἔθηκε.
Which essentially means:
Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.
The First line from the Iliad, isn't that neat? Anyway, I'm off-track.
Now, through the stages from Mycenaen Greek to Hellenistic Greek (aka koine greek), the next stage is Byzantine Greek.
Now, the Byzantines picked Greek instead of Cyrillic (The Russian alphabet) for one main reason: it was the main language of the time. Cyrillic was virtually non-existant except for in scattered parts across Eastern Europe and Northern Asia (When the Mongols had control of Russia). So, there you go.
Keep in mind that the Byzantines helped essentially revive the Greek language and carry it forward to evolve into Modern Greek, spoken today, mainly in Greece and Cyprus.
So:
Ancient Greek (14th - 4th century BC)
--Mycenaean Greek (14th - 12th century BC)
--Archaic (Classical) Greek (8th - 4th century BC)
Hellenistic Greek (4th century BC - 4th century AD)
Byzantine Greek (5th - 15th century AD)
Modern Greek
So, the question is, why use an unused alphabet for a language of a culture instead of a widespread one? Just look at Latin...
--
Anyway, nice little history lesson there. Oh, and I *do* brush up on Greek skills once in a while.
EDIT: Now who in the right mind would even edit a post like this?
I would like to know where the Phoenicians got their alphabet from, but I assume it's something like the Japanese route:
"[The Japanese Language] consist of many letters, all of which look completely different and bear absolutely no resemblance to each other whatsoever. Hiragana were devloped by having a bunch of completely blind, deaf, and dumb Japanese people scribble things on pieces of paper while having no idea why they were doing so. The resulting designs were then called 'hiragana'. The prince who invented these characters, Yorimushi("stinking monkey-bush-donkey") was promptly bludgeoned to death."
Back in the --Whenever-- (800's?) The Celts were a thriving race. Yep. A thriving race (who used Sanskrit as an alphabet, by the way) until the Romans came. They brought Christianity, which didn't mix very well with the Celt's Pagan Ways [For more information on this, you may enjoy the story "Beowulf".] But anyway, that's another story (maybe even literally).
So, three-hundred years after the Romans leave, the Angles and the Saxons came to Britain (Germany, Norway, and I believe France). They take over, (And during the heraldic times when French becomes the main language of the nobility, Geoffrey Chaucer comes along to change that, but that's off track again.) and after some-hundred years, the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons are just starting to blend.
Well, guess who shows up! The Danish Vikings! They ruin everything. They fence the Celts off (where the Celts are in Scotland and Wales, and the Anglo-Saxons were in England). The Vikings start picking off the weaker race: the Celts. If I remember correctly (which I probably don't), this is the time where Queen Bodiccea comes to power, again another story.
Then everything goes from there. The Vikings withdrew from England after some odd incident in Denmark; All three races, though not so much the Celts as their influence has spread to the Anglo-Saxons and they've pretty much died off, have makeshiftedly combined to form what is now Great Britain (minus Ireland).
Therefore, the English language is made up of German(hence called Germanic), French (IIRC), Norweigan, Danish, Celtic, and Greek (from the Romans). There ya go!
--
Now on a related note to the completely unrelated.
While I can confirm that the above is accurate, I'm not so sure of the below (except the Greek Language part involving the Iliad).
--
Well, the Byzantine language was technically derived from the Phoenicians. The Greeks essentially fabricated their own language, and then decided they needed their own written language; somewhere around 800 BC they adopted the alphabetic symbols from the Phoenicians, and then applied their own sounds to them. In fact, the English word "alphabet" is derived from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet - alpha and beta. So, essentially, since I seriously doubt this forum can handle Greek display, I'll attempt to show you something with Latin (NOT easy):
Mnviv aeide tea |-|nlniadw aXilnoc oulouevnv n'mupi aXaioic alye' etnke.
Just in case:
Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί᾿ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾿ ἔθηκε.
Which essentially means:
Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.
The First line from the Iliad, isn't that neat? Anyway, I'm off-track.
Now, through the stages from Mycenaen Greek to Hellenistic Greek (aka koine greek), the next stage is Byzantine Greek.
Now, the Byzantines picked Greek instead of Cyrillic (The Russian alphabet) for one main reason: it was the main language of the time. Cyrillic was virtually non-existant except for in scattered parts across Eastern Europe and Northern Asia (When the Mongols had control of Russia). So, there you go.
Keep in mind that the Byzantines helped essentially revive the Greek language and carry it forward to evolve into Modern Greek, spoken today, mainly in Greece and Cyprus.
So:
Ancient Greek (14th - 4th century BC)
--Mycenaean Greek (14th - 12th century BC)
--Archaic (Classical) Greek (8th - 4th century BC)
Hellenistic Greek (4th century BC - 4th century AD)
Byzantine Greek (5th - 15th century AD)
Modern Greek
So, the question is, why use an unused alphabet for a language of a culture instead of a widespread one? Just look at Latin...
--
Anyway, nice little history lesson there. Oh, and I *do* brush up on Greek skills once in a while.
EDIT: Now who in the right mind would even edit a post like this?
I would like to know where the Phoenicians got their alphabet from, but I assume it's something like the Japanese route:
"[The Japanese Language] consist of many letters, all of which look completely different and bear absolutely no resemblance to each other whatsoever. Hiragana were devloped by having a bunch of completely blind, deaf, and dumb Japanese people scribble things on pieces of paper while having no idea why they were doing so. The resulting designs were then called 'hiragana'. The prince who invented these characters, Yorimushi("stinking monkey-bush-donkey") was promptly bludgeoned to death."
