Re: Pronouns, where are they?

[Brian Eric Farnell <bfarnell@xxxxxxx>]

Still, in a language like German that does have pronouns and
articles and cases, a single character substitute for all of the
definite articles would express person and case well enough to
do away with quite a few endings (shortening average word
length) as well as taking out allot of short words
characteristically lacking in Voynich.  In a language that
declined and conjugated everything (like Russian) this would
make a big difference in language characteristics.  Look at this
German example where I will represent a character in the gallows
class with a capitol G:

Ich habe die kuchen.
G haGb kuGche.

Notice how the pronoun/subject followed by verb pattern creates
a Grove word at the beginning of the sentence as often happens
in Voynich.  My example really doesn't show much reduction in
word length, but my German is long forgotten, I'm sure you can
think of examples where it would in German and especially other
languages.
Regards,
Brian

Jacques Guy wrote:
> 
> Brian Eric Farnell wrote:
> [snip]
> 
> > Thoughts?
> 
> Alas, Brian, even in languages that have pronouns
> usage can make them very, very scarce. I have been
> reading Sebastian Englert's grammar of the Easter
> Island language, and fishing for examples in his
> dictionary. The use of personal pronouns is avoided.
> You find the same in Breton, and Pierre Jakez Helias
> explains it in his books on Breton culture: you
> should avoid addressing people directly. If you
> want to ask "where are you going?" the proper way
> of doing it is "where is one going?" And, in fact,
> I remember how I used to adapt my French, unconsciously,
> to my Breton relatives' way of expressing themselves:
> I would use "on" instead of "tu" or "vous".
> 
> Here is a concrete example out of
> Englert's Rapanui dictionary, where he reproduces
> the recipe for roasted chicken intestines. You
> do this, you do that (never a "you"), and finally:
> "he kai" which is, literally, "to eat," understood
> are "you" and "it" (or "them"): "you eat it."
> 
> Some languages have no pronouns. Japanese for instance.
> Others have only two: me (or we), and anyone else.
> (This last weirdo is from Papua-New  Guinea, as you
> might have guessed).
> 
> Once again, we are babes in the Voynich woods, lost.