The most comprehensive interspecies dictionary available in paperback!
Over 5,000 references, 80,000 translations and hundreds of new expressions! Contains usage notes to avoid being bitten, and slang signals on a wide variety of subjects. Contains examples to show how sounds are used... Edges treated with bitter apple to deter chewing.The sample page contains entries such as:
And there are carefully researched etymologies, for example for a word meaning 'That's my pea!':
From high classic Rattus [1.75 million BCE]: eeeee, mine; + ee-e, small round; + ee-ee; give me, 2nd person singular, imperative mood of ee-e-e, to give, v.t.Clearly a major advance in lexicography! (Via Language Log.) Posted by languagehat at May 23, 2004 02:06 PM
Hi!
I've been back for a bit (though I am not sure my email address there is working) and here in Istanbul. Love the Rattus reference--when I get back I want one (not a rattus--got one already here), but the book!
Hope you are well.
AP
Posted by: Avantepopuli at May 24, 2004 07:26 AMA purported work of learning, and it gives no etymologies?
Astonishing!
Posted by: aldiboronti at May 24, 2004 10:54 AMMy lesson for the day: read posts carefully before replying with a fool-born jest.
My apologies.
Posted by: aldiboronti at May 24, 2004 10:56 AMSorry, the rats are already on their way. You'll have to convince them you meant no harm. (You'll want to pick up a copy of the dictionary before they get there...)
Posted by: language hat at May 24, 2004 12:47 PMI don't know if I can endorse this ....
"eee ee ee [iii:'ii:i] v. to go away"
The most commonly accepted form is actually ee eee ee, derived from reconstructed proto-Rodent *ei iig ei' (the loss of voiced stops, final glottals and compensatory vowel heightening is well attested in mouse, rat (and somewhat irregularly in grey squirrel, though curiously, red squirrel retained them, giving the modern forms ea eeg ea).
shoddy scholarship, i'm afraid
But what does "high" signify? High German comes from parts further above sea level than Low German, and High Elves are superior to those proletarian low elves.
If I got a high rat, I'd probably try and talk it down until things wore off.
Posted by: stephen at May 24, 2004 09:18 PMI take issue with Michael Farris's reconstruction of Proto-Rodent *ei iig ei 'v. to go away'. The vowels seem accurate, but surely everyone has agreed by now that Proto-Rodent (hint! hint!) had neither labials not velars, but only dentals. Only Proto-Lagomorph evinces hare-labial fricatives corresponding to Proto-Rodent dental fricatives.
Posted by: Joel at May 25, 2004 04:00 AMBen, you're always running here and there ...
(Only hit love song addressed to a rat I can think of.)
Eep!
Posted by: Marco at May 25, 2004 04:11 AMIt's certainly true that non-dental consonants are controversial in historical rodent linguistics.
My transcription is the standard followed by both Szczurowski 1954 and Patkanyi 1963, in which g is understood as a voiced obstruent of unknown/indeterminate value and many (perhaps most) scholars interpretet it as dental [d] or even interdental fricative [D]!! Though early scholars chose g due to modern reflexes (though those are hardly uncontroversial themselves).
Another controversial area of Proto-Rodent reconstruction is the vowel system. Because of the paucity of vowels, basically *e (probably pronounced [i]), vowel quality can be reconstructed fairly reliably, but there is considerable disagreement among specialists about vowel length. For instance, does the verb eeeeeee ee [iiiiiii:'ii] v. 'to move', as in
e eeeeeeee ee eerp mph; 'move over, you meatball, I can't breathe under your furry butt.'
indicate a unique system of octopartite length distinctions, or does it indicate octogemination of like vowels? Where does Prof. Farris stand on this theoretically crucial distinction?
Posted by: Joel at May 26, 2004 02:12 AM