In an attempt to break up the constant doom scrolling, I'm going to post random little snippets of information I've picked up over the years.
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When scribes started using miniscule, they only used miniscule. it was its own alphabet.they wrote completely in lowercase letters.they also didn't space out their sentences much.parchment was expensive so they didn't want to waste space.
It wasn't until Charlemagne's time that scribes invented "mixed case": using capital letters to start paragraphs and mark proper nouns while using miniscule for everything else. Capital letters helped break up the wall of text so it was easier to read.
Upper and lowercase letters were two different alphabets stuck together to give us capitalization. If they had chosen a different majuscule alphabet, we could have had sentences like this:
"Тhe Лord of the Рings" was a sequel to "Тhe Хobbit", both of which were written by Д'.Р.Р. Тolkien. Иt tells the story of the Оne Рing after Бilbo gives it to his nephew Фrodo and Гandalf tells him to destroy it.
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Upper and lowercase letters were two different alphabets stuck together to give us capitalization. If they had chosen a different majuscule alphabet, we could have had sentences like this:
"Тhe Лord of the Рings" was a sequel to "Тhe Хobbit", both of which were written by Д'.Р.Р. Тolkien. Иt tells the story of the Оne Рing after Бilbo gives it to his nephew Фrodo and Гandalf tells him to destroy it.
Michael J. Fox's real middle name is Andrew, but he didn't like "Michael A. Fox" as a stage name. By SAG rules, he had to use a name other than "Michael Fox" because there was already an actor with that name, so he just stuck a J in the middle.
In his hit movie "Back to the Future", his character's father, George, says he has to get home so he doesn't miss his favorite TV program, "Science Fiction Theatre". "Science Fiction Theatre" had only 8 episodes. Four starred the original Michael Fox!
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Michael J. Fox's real middle name is Andrew, but he didn't like "Michael A. Fox" as a stage name. By SAG rules, he had to use a name other than "Michael Fox" because there was already an actor with that name, so he just stuck a J in the middle.
In his hit movie "Back to the Future", his character's father, George, says he has to get home so he doesn't miss his favorite TV program, "Science Fiction Theatre". "Science Fiction Theatre" had only 8 episodes. Four starred the original Michael Fox!
The Vietnamese language has *many* pronouns for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person. I can think of dozens off the top of my head and I suspect it's actually hundreds. They vary based on both relative and absolute age, social standing, incredibly complex family trees, profession, politeness, marital status, and more. Vietnamese people tend to ask a lot of personal questions when first meeting someone, which foreigners think is kind of rude, but they need that information to know how to refer to you.
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The Vietnamese language has *many* pronouns for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person. I can think of dozens off the top of my head and I suspect it's actually hundreds. They vary based on both relative and absolute age, social standing, incredibly complex family trees, profession, politeness, marital status, and more. Vietnamese people tend to ask a lot of personal questions when first meeting someone, which foreigners think is kind of rude, but they need that information to know how to refer to you.
Because of the complexity of its pronouns, the Vietnamese translation adds an extra layer of depth to the otherwise shallow dialogue of the Star Wars original trilogy, which I watched on TV in Vietnam.
People speak to droids with the pronouns used to speak to pets or farm animals. Droids address people as professional superiors.
Droids speak to each other like they are siblings.
Vader speaks to everyone (except the emperor and Tarkin) as an arrogant superior addressing an underling.
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Because of the complexity of its pronouns, the Vietnamese translation adds an extra layer of depth to the otherwise shallow dialogue of the Star Wars original trilogy, which I watched on TV in Vietnam.
People speak to droids with the pronouns used to speak to pets or farm animals. Droids address people as professional superiors.
Droids speak to each other like they are siblings.
Vader speaks to everyone (except the emperor and Tarkin) as an arrogant superior addressing an underling.
Everyone addresses Vader as if he were a high ranking imperial mandarin, which he kind of is.
Leia is addressed as a princess. Han constantly butchers it and mixes up her rank constantly until the Carbonite/"I know" scene when they start addressing each other as lovers.
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Everyone addresses Vader as if he were a high ranking imperial mandarin, which he kind of is.
Leia is addressed as a princess. Han constantly butchers it and mixes up her rank constantly until the Carbonite/"I know" scene when they start addressing each other as lovers.
Vader speaks formally to Luke as an arrogant superior addressing an unknown young man. When he says "I am your father", he suddenly switches to the pronouns used by a father to his child. He continues addressing Luke as father to child until he dies. Luke continues speaking as a humble peasant addressing a mandarin until the next film when he finally tells Leia "he's my father". Then he speaks to Vader as a child to his father.
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Vader speaks formally to Luke as an arrogant superior addressing an unknown young man. When he says "I am your father", he suddenly switches to the pronouns used by a father to his child. He continues addressing Luke as father to child until he dies. Luke continues speaking as a humble peasant addressing a mandarin until the next film when he finally tells Leia "he's my father". Then he speaks to Vader as a child to his father.
When I say Vietnamese has a lot of pronouns, I'm not exaggerating. There are pronouns for almost every specific family relationship. Not just "aunt" or "uncle" but "the aunt who is my father's younger brother's wife". For some reason "parent's older sibling" is just one term though. Also "cousin" isn't really a thing: they're just "surname siblings" that are addressed like siblings.
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When I say Vietnamese has a lot of pronouns, I'm not exaggerating. There are pronouns for almost every specific family relationship. Not just "aunt" or "uncle" but "the aunt who is my father's younger brother's wife". For some reason "parent's older sibling" is just one term though. Also "cousin" isn't really a thing: they're just "surname siblings" that are addressed like siblings.
Vietnamese has pronouns that are only used in fiction, because they describe relationships that don't exist in the real world. Some are for feudal relationships that no longer exist in the modern world, but are still used in historical settings. Some are relationships that only exist in fiction.
There's a 2nd person ("you") pronoun for addressing talking animals in folktales or cartoons. This is different than the word used to talk to pets and farm animals that aren't expected to talk back.
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Vietnamese has pronouns that are only used in fiction, because they describe relationships that don't exist in the real world. Some are for feudal relationships that no longer exist in the modern world, but are still used in historical settings. Some are relationships that only exist in fiction.
There's a 2nd person ("you") pronoun for addressing talking animals in folktales or cartoons. This is different than the word used to talk to pets and farm animals that aren't expected to talk back.
I watched the movie "300" in a cinema in Saigon with Vietnamese subtitles. They kept translating "you" as "khanh", but only when Leonidas spoke to his captain. I'd never encountered the word before, so I looked it up in my big unabridged dictionary when I got home. That's how a king says "you" when speaking to his favorite subject. It's a word for "you" which is only spoken by kings and only when speaking to one particular guy!
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I watched the movie "300" in a cinema in Saigon with Vietnamese subtitles. They kept translating "you" as "khanh", but only when Leonidas spoke to his captain. I'd never encountered the word before, so I looked it up in my big unabridged dictionary when I got home. That's how a king says "you" when speaking to his favorite subject. It's a word for "you" which is only spoken by kings and only when speaking to one particular guy!
@BrianBinh@dice.camp I can only imagine how much the translator nerded out when they had this chance to use this word.
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You've heard how "uppercase" & "lowercase" letters are called that because typesetters literally stored them in cases with the majuscules on top. Did you know that majuscule & miniscule letters are two different versions of the Latin alphabet? The ancients wrote in majuscule letters. That's right. THE ROMANS WROTE IN ALL CAPS LIKE AN ANGRY INTERNET COMMENT (when they weren't using Greek to look fancy and dignified). Miniscule letters came much later around the start of the Middle Ages.
@BrianBinh@dice.camp the context I’d like to add to this is that the Romans were not writing on paper - that hadn’t been invented in Europe yet, and vellum was too expensive. So for scratch writing ,They were writing most commonly on… WAX. They had wax tablets on sheets, which they would heat to ‘wipe clean’. This plus often carving in stone is why so many of those upper case Latin characters are big LINES. This persisted through to the Middle Ages.