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Thread: Why French?

  1. ISO #1

    Why French?

    So, I just found out about "Diary of Merer", logbooks written over 4,500 years ago that record the daily activities of workers who took part in the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact.

    So I gogole to read translations of those logbooks. This is the best I could find (other than many websites giving just quick summaries that limestone from Tora to Giza was transported using ships, after creating artificial cannals from the Nile river):
    https://f-origin.hypotheses.org/wp-c...705_Tallet.pdf

    Why is the, false, list of content in French, while everything else (which is presumably just conclusions and summaries?) is in either English or Arabic?
    Is it because the original first translations of those logbooks were or are in French only?
    This reminds me of tales/rumors of a time when most/best technical/engineering books in EU were in French and people either learned from those or from their translations. Case and point: "La radio ?. mais c'est très simple !" was the best book in world if you wanted to learn basics about electronics / radio technology / electricity. And it's still brilliant to this day.
    Even the Metric System, which was invented by the French(?), is used world wide (Except America and some other "special" places, ).
    I swear I keep seeing the French language over and over and over. Language of love? More like - language of engineering!

    Long story short:
    Go away, French language. You feel invasive!


    I feel like this might have been one of my biggest bullshit posts yet? YOU DECIDE!

  2. ISO #2
    Ganelon
    Guest

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by OzyWho View Post
    So, I just found out about "Diary of Merer", logbooks written over 4,500 years ago that record the daily activities of workers who took part in the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact.

    So I gogole to read translations of those logbooks. This is the best I could find (other than many websites giving just quick summaries that limestone from Tora to Giza was transported using ships, after creating artificial cannals from the Nile river):
    https://f-origin.hypotheses.org/wp-c...705_Tallet.pdf

    Why is the, false, list of content in French, while everything else (which is presumably just conclusions and summaries?) is in either English or Arabic?
    Is it because the original first translations of those logbooks were or are in French only?
    This reminds me of tales/rumors of a time when most/best technical/engineering books in EU were in French and people either learned from those or from their translations. Case and point: "La radio ?. mais c'est très simple !" was the best book in world if you wanted to learn basics about electronics / radio technology / electricity. And it's still brilliant to this day.
    Even the Metric System, which was invented by the French(?), is used world wide (Except America and some other "special" places, ).
    I swear I keep seeing the French language over and over and over. Language of love? More like - language of engineering!

    Long story short:
    Go away, French language. You feel invasive!


    I feel like this might have been one of my biggest bullshit posts yet? YOU DECIDE!
    Translating a scientific text from cover to cover is not an easy task; to quote one of my favourite authors, Michael Crichton, 'it is the nature of language that a pretty translation is not accurate, while an accurate translation finds its own beauty'. I assume they wanted to have access to the original text, and that the scholars who compiled that logbook were French, and they presumably wish to draw their own conclusions?

  3. ISO #3
    Ganelon
    Guest

    Re: Why French?

    Oh. I think the thing here is that there is no French translation as yet.

  4. ISO #4
    Ganelon
    Guest

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by OzyWho View Post
    So, I just found out about "Diary of Merer", logbooks written over 4,500 years ago that record the daily activities of workers who took part in the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact.

    So I gogole to read translations of those logbooks. This is the best I could find (other than many websites giving just quick summaries that limestone from Tora to Giza was transported using ships, after creating artificial cannals from the Nile river):
    https://f-origin.hypotheses.org/wp-c...705_Tallet.pdf

    Why is the, false, list of content in French, while everything else (which is presumably just conclusions and summaries?) is in either English or Arabic?
    Is it because the original first translations of those logbooks were or are in French only?
    This reminds me of tales/rumors of a time when most/best technical/engineering books in EU were in French and people either learned from those or from their translations. Case and point: "La radio ?. mais c'est très simple !" was the best book in world if you wanted to learn basics about electronics / radio technology / electricity. And it's still brilliant to this day.
    Even the Metric System, which was invented by the French(?), is used world wide (Except America and some other "special" places, ).
    I swear I keep seeing the French language over and over and over. Language of love? More like - language of engineering!

    Long story short:
    Go away, French language. You feel invasive!


    I feel like this might have been one of my biggest bullshit posts yet? YOU DECIDE!
    Notice how that logbook you found skips 150 pages of content straight to an annexed copy of the English Translation? I assume that the rest of it was written in French, seeing as the summary is written in it.

  5. ISO #5
    Ganelon
    Guest

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by OzyWho View Post
    So, I just found out about "Diary of Merer", logbooks written over 4,500 years ago that record the daily activities of workers who took part in the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact.

    So I gogole to read translations of those logbooks. This is the best I could find (other than many websites giving just quick summaries that limestone from Tora to Giza was transported using ships, after creating artificial cannals from the Nile river):
    https://f-origin.hypotheses.org/wp-c...705_Tallet.pdf

    Why is the, false, list of content in French, while everything else (which is presumably just conclusions and summaries?) is in either English or Arabic?
    Is it because the original first translations of those logbooks were or are in French only?
    This reminds me of tales/rumors of a time when most/best technical/engineering books in EU were in French and people either learned from those or from their translations. Case and point: "La radio ?. mais c'est très simple !" was the best book in world if you wanted to learn basics about electronics / radio technology / electricity. And it's still brilliant to this day.
    Even the Metric System, which was invented by the French(?), is used world wide (Except America and some other "special" places, ).
    I swear I keep seeing the French language over and over and over. Language of love? More like - language of engineering!

    Long story short:
    Go away, French language. You feel invasive!


    I feel like this might have been one of my biggest bullshit posts yet? YOU DECIDE!
    French used to be the International lingua franca, right up to the Second World War, when the influence of the United States of America and, to a lesser extent, that of the British Empire, superseded France's global reach both scientifically-culturally as well as militarily.

  6. ISO #6

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by Magoroth View Post
    French used to be the International lingua franca, right up to the Second World War, when the influence of the United States of America and, to a lesser extent, that of the British Empire, superseded France's global reach both scientifically-culturally as well as militarily.
    English has only been the international language for that long? I was under the impression it assumed its status as the international language earlier than that - maybe some time between 1900 and 1918. Or maybe even earlier. Interesting.

  7. ISO #7

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by yzb25 View Post
    English has only been the international language for that long? I was under the impression it assumed its status as the international language earlier than that - maybe some time between 1900 and 1918. Or maybe even earlier. Interesting.
    The more I look it up, the more I realize how Anglo-centric I am LOL.

  8. ISO #8
    Ganelon
    Guest

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by yzb25 View Post
    English has only been the international language for that long? I was under the impression it assumed its status as the international language earlier than that - maybe some time between 1900 and 1918. Or maybe even earlier. Interesting.
    To my knowledge, anyway.

  9. ISO #9

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by OzyWho View Post
    So, I just found out about "Diary of Merer", logbooks written over 4,500 years ago that record the daily activities of workers who took part in the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact.

    So I gogole to read translations of those logbooks. This is the best I could find (other than many websites giving just quick summaries that limestone from Tora to Giza was transported using ships, after creating artificial cannals from the Nile river):
    https://f-origin.hypotheses.org/wp-c...705_Tallet.pdf

    Why is the, false, list of content in French, while everything else (which is presumably just conclusions and summaries?) is in either English or Arabic?
    Is it because the original first translations of those logbooks were or are in French only?
    This reminds me of tales/rumors of a time when most/best technical/engineering books in EU were in French and people either learned from those or from their translations. Case and point: "La radio ?. mais c'est très simple !" was the best book in world if you wanted to learn basics about electronics / radio technology / electricity. And it's still brilliant to this day.
    Even the Metric System, which was invented by the French(?), is used world wide (Except America and some other "special" places, ).
    I swear I keep seeing the French language over and over and over. Language of love? More like - language of engineering!

    Long story short:
    Go away, French language. You feel invasive!


    I feel like this might have been one of my biggest bullshit posts yet? YOU DECIDE!
    BUUUUURRNNNNN INNNN HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

    More seriously. Because France has had many many many colonies (AKA people invaded then france said "it's ours now"), probably. And about science... it's because we're so good ;)

    Also, @yzb25 , French is one of the main languages of the United Nations, so it's kinda an "universal language" too.

    TL;DR: FRENCH IS THE BEST LANGUAGE EVER =)
    Quote Originally Posted by The Lawyer View Post
    Besides your lamp and your refridgerators, do you find anyone else suspicious?
    Quote Originally Posted by oliverz144 View Post
    it looks like many, e.g. MM and lag, suffered under the influence of paopan. However there is a victim: frinckles. He left the path of rationality and fully dived into the parallel reality of baby shark, king shark, and soviet union pizzas.
    Spoiler : The meaning of life :

  10. ISO #10

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall View Post
    Also, @yzb25 , French is one of the main languages of the United Nations, so it's kinda an "universal language" too.
    Well I knew THAT, at least XD

    Wikipedia says the french colonized Egypt for 3 years, so the documents may have been written as a result of that occupation. It may sound like a stretch, but these excerpts from wikipedia about the expedition make it sound a lot more likely:

    "An unusual aspect of the Egyptian expedition was the inclusion of an enormous contingent of scientists and scholars ("savants") assigned to the invading French force, 167 in total."

    "The Egyptian Institute that Napoleon established saw the construction of laboratories, libraries, and a printing press. The group worked prodigiously, and some of their discoveries were not finally cataloged until the 1820s.

    A young engineering officer, Pierre-François-Xavier Bouchard, discovered the Rosetta Stone in July 1799. However, many of the antiquities collected by the French in Egypt were seized by the British Navy and ended up in the British Museum – only about 50 of the 5,000 Egyptian objects in the Louvre were collected during the 1799–1801 Egyptian expedition. Even so, the scholars' research in Egypt gave rise to the Description de l'Égypte, published on Napoleon's orders between 1809 and 1821.

    Napoleon's discoveries in Egypt gave rise to fascination with Ancient Egyptian culture and the birth of Egyptology in Europe."


    The excerpt makes it sound likely, but I'm detecting some sort of bias towards French patriotism - given that the page describes France as "collecting" the antiques, as if the French colonialists politely took these antiques from the Egyptian people, as opposed to the British who "seized".

    I'm just concerned the reader might be overstating France's influence here ^^.
    Last edited by yzb25; May 31st, 2018 at 05:18 AM.

  11. ISO #11

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by yzb25 View Post
    I'm detecting some sort of bias towards French patriotism - given that the page describes France as "collecting" the antiques, as if the French colonialists politely took these antiques from the Egyptian people, as opposed to the British who "seized".

    I'm just concerned the reader might be overstating France's influence here ^^.
    It is said that the British and the French hate each other, right?
    I quickly googled why and got this list of 30 reasons why the British hate the French:
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/fea...he-French.html
    I especially like the first one saying "because the French are losers".

  12. ISO #12
    Ganelon
    Guest

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by OzyWho View Post
    It is said that the British and the French hate each other, right?
    I quickly googled why and got this list of 30 reasons why the British hate the French:
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/fea...he-French.html
    I especially like the first one saying "because the French are losers".
    What kind of British we talking about?

  13. ISO #13

  14. ISO #14

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by OzyWho View Post
    It is said that the British and the French hate each other, right?
    I quickly googled why and got this list of 30 reasons why the British hate the French:
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/fea...he-French.html
    I especially like the first one saying "because the French are losers".
    NGL, there is a meme of roasting the French here, but no one I know actually takes it seriously. We're forced to learn French in school so most of us don't associate the language with many positive experiences XD. But it does sound rather pretty and sophisticated to the British ear (as all the romantic languages do, tbh).

  15. ISO #15

    Re: Why French?

    Spoiler : long post that I don't want to quote to avoid filling the thread, but I am still filling the thread with a long spoiler title...[QUOTE=yzb25;739033 :
    Well I knew THAT, at least XD

    Wikipedia says the french colonized Egypt for 3 years, so the documents may have been written as a result of that occupation. It may sound like a stretch, but these excerpts from wikipedia about the expedition make it sound a lot more likely:

    "An unusual aspect of the Egyptian expedition was the inclusion of an enormous contingent of scientists and scholars ("savants") assigned to the invading French force, 167 in total."

    "The Egyptian Institute that Napoleon established saw the construction of laboratories, libraries, and a printing press. The group worked prodigiously, and some of their discoveries were not finally cataloged until the 1820s.

    A young engineering officer, Pierre-François-Xavier Bouchard, discovered the Rosetta Stone in July 1799. However, many of the antiquities collected by the French in Egypt were seized by the British Navy and ended up in the British Museum – only about 50 of the 5,000 Egyptian objects in the Louvre were collected during the 1799–1801 Egyptian expedition. Even so, the scholars' research in Egypt gave rise to the Description de l'Égypte, published on Napoleon's orders between 1809 and 1821.

    Napoleon's discoveries in Egypt gave rise to fascination with Ancient Egyptian culture and the birth of Egyptology in Europe."


    The excerpt makes it sound likely, but I'm detecting some sort of bias towards French patriotism - given that the page describes France as "collecting" the antiques, as if the French colonialists politely took these antiques from the Egyptian people, as opposed to the British who "seized".

    I'm just concerned the reader might be overstating France's influence here ^^.[/QUOTE]


    Well it's true :P when Napoleon invaded the Mameluks (unsure about the spelling), he had many people wanting to check out the great history of Egypt. But how dare you... of course, they asked their enemies before taking their treasure, what do you think /s

    You're right on that part, but the text is not LYING. It's not overstated, since France literally INVADED Egypt.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Lawyer View Post
    Besides your lamp and your refridgerators, do you find anyone else suspicious?
    Quote Originally Posted by oliverz144 View Post
    it looks like many, e.g. MM and lag, suffered under the influence of paopan. However there is a victim: frinckles. He left the path of rationality and fully dived into the parallel reality of baby shark, king shark, and soviet union pizzas.
    Spoiler : The meaning of life :

  16. ISO #16

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by OzyWho View Post
    It is said that the British and the French hate each other, right?
    I quickly googled why and got this list of 30 reasons why the British hate the French:
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/fea...he-French.html
    I especially like the first one saying "because the French are losers".
    Lol... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years%27_War this may or may not be a good reason too.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Lawyer View Post
    Besides your lamp and your refridgerators, do you find anyone else suspicious?
    Quote Originally Posted by oliverz144 View Post
    it looks like many, e.g. MM and lag, suffered under the influence of paopan. However there is a victim: frinckles. He left the path of rationality and fully dived into the parallel reality of baby shark, king shark, and soviet union pizzas.
    Spoiler : The meaning of life :

  17. ISO #17

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by yzb25 View Post
    NGL, there is a meme of roasting the French here, but no one I know actually takes it seriously. We're forced to learn French in school so most of us don't associate the language with many positive experiences XD. But it does sound rather pretty and sophisticated to the British ear (as all the romantic languages do, tbh).
    WTF... seriously? Why the hell are you forced to learn French???
    Quote Originally Posted by The Lawyer View Post
    Besides your lamp and your refridgerators, do you find anyone else suspicious?
    Quote Originally Posted by oliverz144 View Post
    it looks like many, e.g. MM and lag, suffered under the influence of paopan. However there is a victim: frinckles. He left the path of rationality and fully dived into the parallel reality of baby shark, king shark, and soviet union pizzas.
    Spoiler : The meaning of life :

  18. ISO #18

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall View Post
    [spoiler=long post that I don't want to quote to avoid filling the thread, but I am still filling the thread with a long spoiler title...[/spoiler]

    Well it's true :P when Napoleon invaded the Mameluks (unsure about the spelling), he had many people wanting to check out the great history of Egypt. But how dare you... of course, they asked their enemies before taking their treasure, what do you think /s

    You're right on that part, but the text is not LYING. It's not overstated, since France literally INVADED Egypt.
    I'm more concerned with what they omitted to overstate the intellectual underpinnings of the expedition for the purpose of "brevity", rather than what they have explicitly stated, which I agree they are very unlikely to have lied about. w/e, mafia has probably made me paranoid lol.

    But yh, they force us to do a language from the ages of 12-16, which in practice typically ends up being French or Spanish because there's lots of French and Spanish teachers. I think it's been changed to 12-14 now, with the option of continuing to 16, I think.

    That said, I don't really hear many Spanish roasts. Maybe we really are salty about the French LOL.

  19. ISO #19

    Re: Why French?

    Quote Originally Posted by yzb25 View Post
    I'm more concerned with what they omitted to overstate the intellectual underpinnings of the expedition for the purpose of "brevity", rather than what they have explicitly stated, which I agree they are very unlikely to have lied about. w/e, mafia has probably made me paranoid lol.

    But yh, they force us to do a language from the ages of 12-16, which in practice typically ends up being French or Spanish because there's lots of French and Spanish teachers. I think it's been changed to 12-14 now, with the option of continuing to 16, I think.

    That said, I don't really hear many Spanish roasts. Maybe we really are salty about the French LOL.
    I 100% confirm Mafia made me paranoid, but I also confirm being paranoid is good

    Lol okay, that's legit. I thought you were literally FORCED TO LEARN FRENCH... which is stupid if you aren't in a french-speaking country. So yeah, probably :P
    Quote Originally Posted by The Lawyer View Post
    Besides your lamp and your refridgerators, do you find anyone else suspicious?
    Quote Originally Posted by oliverz144 View Post
    it looks like many, e.g. MM and lag, suffered under the influence of paopan. However there is a victim: frinckles. He left the path of rationality and fully dived into the parallel reality of baby shark, king shark, and soviet union pizzas.
    Spoiler : The meaning of life :

  20. ISO #20
    Quote Originally Posted by The Lawyer View Post
    Besides your lamp and your refridgerators, do you find anyone else suspicious?
    Quote Originally Posted by oliverz144 View Post
    it looks like many, e.g. MM and lag, suffered under the influence of paopan. However there is a victim: frinckles. He left the path of rationality and fully dived into the parallel reality of baby shark, king shark, and soviet union pizzas.
    Spoiler : The meaning of life :

 

 

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