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Just for the record, Occitan isn't a variety of French. It's its own full on language. Not like saying, no, it's a real language, man : it's actually about as similar as Spanish is to Italian. Also, Breton isn't dead. Yet. 
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Jan 26, 2013 07:32
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For all the talk about doing your own Army of Darkness/Connecticut Yankee stuff, keep in mind that your chances of successful communication, for at least a good chunk of when you arrive, are basically nil unless you happen to speak Latin. While a modern English speaker, with some training, can half-assed read some Middle English, the pronunciation was very different, and English speakers are much better off than just about anyone else, and the dialects would be far less similar or unified so you're entirely boned outside of chunks of Southern England. So, I guess I hope you speak Latin. And to respond about Breton : it's one of the better off minority languages, in terms of actually having a cultural presence, but its future is still pretty grim in the long-term. It's in a similar situation as Irish where they're trying to build it up, and are doing great work, but they have to fight really hard just to tread water, basically. Considering that they're the ones doing better, it's sad to say but a lot of stuff like Occitan, and O god, non-European languages like Salish, it's more of a question of when they die than if they are going to die. And yeah, Catalan, Occitan and Romansch are all separate Romance languages no more related to the other Romance languages than any other.
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Jan 26, 2013 19:53
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I know this is vague as hell, but I don't suppose you could talk some about currency? Like, I know that there were a bunch of different currencies going about (e.g. florins, guilders, etc.), but I can not make heads or tails about where the hell half of them are from (I know guilder is Dutch, duh, but that's it) or what the "exchange rate", such as it was, would be.
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Jan 29, 2013 16:59
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Yeah, Mordhau. It's grabbing by the blade and bashing the other guy's head in with the crossguard like it's a big ol' hammer. It's exactly as  as it sounds.
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Feb 4, 2013 19:21
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Any good resources on non-ecclesiastical Medieval music? I do a little, but most of it's really late. Speaking of, what's your opinion on Corvus Corax? They seem to try pretty hard to be authentic, or as much as they can be, and a good chunk of them have history degrees. But they also have a major addiction to gold body paint and raven masks. Warning for people unfamiliar when you click on that link : side-effects include chanting in Latin and sudden urge to strip naked to the waist and hit something with an axe.
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Feb 14, 2013 03:40
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Pangaea? You mean the thing that existed 250 million years before the extinction of the dinosaurs? No, it was not involved in the settlement of the British Isles. 
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Feb 28, 2013 17:39
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the JJ posted:(Or pateras whatever, it's father. You probably recognize as the Latin pater, but it's the same in both. Fun fact, words that are used often 'drift' the least between language groups. Mother and Father, along with all the 'family' words have drifted the least. This is a pretty big over-simplification and is ignoring that often really, really common words are loans. "very" for instance is a loan. Also, sound-changes can make things basically unrecognizable and those often affect frequent words more. Finally, as nice as family words changing the least would be, it's not true : certainly they "drift" very little, but the least likely word to "drift" appears to be "louse", as in the bug, of all god drat things. Language is weird.
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Mar 2, 2013 20:36
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I think people are being slightly silly and taking "swords were not comically sharp because that would make them brittle and you don't really need it after a certain point" which was the actual idea, to my understanding, and somehow going the other direction and thinking that a sword is functionally identical to a splitting maul. Yes, they were sharp. That's why they cut you. They just were not necessarily as sharp as they physically were capable of, often.
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Mar 14, 2013 03:38
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I can speak a little bit about Chinese sword use. (Although I expect to be  ed like hell for it.) I did traditional Chinese martial arts for 7 years or so, and I did a decent amount of research, but I'm going to add the giant rider that, no, obviously, I can not speak about the use of an entire class of weapons through-out all of the history of an entire nation, obviously. I just went to a traditional school that emphasized weapons and I read a bunch of books.Basically, half-sword totally exists with a dao. But, since it's primarily, by design, a cutting sword, it ends up being less emphasized and instead you have similar techniques more based around using the other hand to force a push in a bind. Generally, this is because you screwed up, because if you get into a bind you'd prefer to use your off-hand to press their arm, free your sword and just cut them. But they do exist and I could track down some historical depictions if people really care. With a jian, they're actually much rarer* because that would be going against the entire point of the jian : if you ever touch the other person's sword you're doing it wrong, always, basta. You're always supposed to go for wrist-cuts and the like and avoid god drat parries at all costs, let alone binds. It's kind of like half-swording a side-sword. Yeah, I guess you could do it, but no one is going to talk about it because this is after several steps of fundamental breakdowns in what the weapon is designed for. For a better source that isn't Some Guy on the Internet, I recommend Lone Sword Against the Cold, Cold Sky by Adam Hsu. It's pretty much entirely traditional Chinese martial arts focused, but it has a really good chapter on weapons. His other stuff is also good because he manages to combine a knowledge of Chinese martial arts with occasionally doing research, something that rarely happens and loving everything is god drat rumor and it's awful and dumb. *Again, giant rider that I'm really talking about the jian vis a vis how it's "practiced" now where it assumes a lack of armor. There is the ancestor of the modern jian that was a much heavier double-edged straight-sword that I straight up do not feel comfortable talking about because I'm not as knowledgeable about it so don't take anything I say as necessarily applicable.
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Mar 21, 2013 03:41
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Blue Star posted:When did people start reconstructing Old English or Old French? They didn't have to ; they're both relatively well documented as far as the period goes, especially Old French. This is also more about linguistics than history. I can answer questions about medieval languages, but it might be better off if that moved over to the linguistics thread in SAL.
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Mar 22, 2013 01:34
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I never finished the book because it's not horribly well written, and the show made me like Ian McShane less. But, if you hate yourself, you can adapt the Braveheart Drinking Game (point out an inaccuracy and take a drink) and get completely poo poo-faced. Also, I can recommend the Braveheart Drinking Game very highly in general if you want to be a really smug drunk nerd for an evening. The costuming alone is enough to get you hammered.
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Mar 23, 2013 20:21
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Wushu practitioners use "whippy" jian, but that's because it's pretty and they're basically doing dance at this point : a real jian should be about as flexible as a rapier or smallsword, so yeah, some, but not really. And lots of Chinese martial arts were relevant on the battlefield, but we just tend to think of "Chinese martial arts" as strike-based. The vast majority until very, very recently were mostly weapon focused, and then you have Shuai Jiao, "which is knocking people over and breaking arms while staying standing" the martial art, which is pretty drat good in armor. And I am unaware of a style that is entirely reliant on striking. I mean, like, Northern White Crane is about as hit-focused as I can think of off the top of my head, and it still does throws and joint locks. And no, that must be ceremonial or inflated. That's horribly impractical. Just think about how awful an 8 pound sledgehammer is to actually wield as a weapon and it's very obvious that something weighing 10 times that is out-right impossible. O, and I'm pretty drat sure they had chainmail, but I don't have a source handy. ( )
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Mar 25, 2013 05:24
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Railtus posted:In fact, the term tavern might have originally just meant visiting the neighbours. No? http://etymonline.com/?term=tavern tavern (n.) late 13c., "wine shop," later "public house" (mid-15c.), from Old French taverne (mid-13c.) "shed made of boards, booth, stall," also "tavern, inn," from Latin taberna "shop, inn, tavern," originally "hut, shed," possibly by dissimilation from *traberna, from trabs (genitive trabis) "beam, timber." And thanks for the source on Chinese chainmail. I knew they had it, but couldn't remember a good source.
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Mar 25, 2013 22:36
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Railtus posted:
Do you have a citation? That sounds like a really questionable etymology, hence why I double-checked. My casual googling isn't even finding anyone advancing this claim. I fully acknowledge not knowing as much about history as you, but I'm pretty okay at linguistics.
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Mar 26, 2013 03:13
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Railtus posted:Which may (complete speculation here) just be like Bandits were in Bands. It's from Vulgar Latin bandire, "to cast out" cf. "banish". Also, since we're already talking about Rus and Mongols, anyone have thoughts on Mongoliad? I thought it was at least pretty interesting and I liked how it got into a lot of the logistics and the actual meat of fighting. I also loved that it's the first work of fiction I've ever encountered that at least tried to be realistic about how linguistically diverse people were. (gently caress you, Timeline.) It also has a displaced alcoholic Korean gladiator named "Two Dogs loving", so it's not exactly serious scholarship. Edit. VVVV Bullshit. There were two handed jian. I had to learn a special form for them and everything. They end up being really different, but they existed. Xiahou Dun fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Apr 24, 2013 |
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Apr 24, 2013 03:00
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Railtus posted:
Generally for English you can always check out https://www.etymonline.com and it'll give you a pretty good break down of the etymology. Sadly, other languages are significantly more annoying and can even involve dead trees. And, yeah, it's the same dude. Neal Stephenson. I still have no idea how I feel about that book over all, but hell if I wasn't entertained. Sufficiently entertaining that I feel no regret about it being my one fiction book of the year. (Or well, I feel regret that grad school has murdered my ability to read fiction, but not that it was the book I happened to choose.)
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Apr 24, 2013 03:51
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1) Rob Roy is a really, really good movie and you should watch it. Even the soundtrack is amazing. 2) You pretty much got all the characterization of the fight correctly. Not Liam Neeson (It's Tim Roth from Resevoir Dogs and Lie to Me) is an arrogant sadist for the most part, and all of his fights are him obviously loving around because he's so sure he's better than everyone else : that fight is actually the one where he fucks around the least because he wants to shame and humiliate Rob before killing him. What I'm saying is, I love that movie and it has the best swordfight ever. Edit : P.S. It's on Netflix. Although I forget how English Netflix works. Xiahou Dun fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Apr 27, 2013 |
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Apr 27, 2013 20:26
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MrYenko posted:That was bad rear end. I'm not exactly an expert, but when I used to train knife, people that did that basically always immediately got shanked : "unpredictability" isn't worth much when it takes you the same amount of time to switch hands as it does for me to just stab you. If you practiced the hell out of it so you could switch hands smoothly, maybe? The vast majority of time you're either in range which means that the other person is just going to stab you, or you're out of range and then they have time to adjust. I think it'd only work on someone who didn't know what they're doing.
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Apr 29, 2013 03:52
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pulphero posted:This is my favorite sword fight is from the Polish movie Deluge. Since most saber systems are a 2 time system it lends it's self more to of a theatrical style of fighting. I was hoping someone smarter than me would jump on this, but no dice, so I'll do it. No, this just made me angry. It's entirely blocking with the blade and attacking out of range and all sorts of bullshit stuff. It is literally just saber fencing with a budget. I'm really sorry, but I disagree and think it is an awful fight-scene. (Also, there's probably context or it'd make sense if I knew Polish, but I just kept thinking, "Surely there's somewhere they could do this out of the rain, right?")
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Apr 29, 2013 07:30
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Railtus posted:Another variation of it is Azincourt, which is more or less the same but with a Z. I think that is the original French version. French spelling wouldn't be anything approaching standardized for another half a century : that's just people writing things down differently and not them being pronounced differently. I could find you a minimal pair, if you wanted. Although, there might be some dialectal effects or some kind of interference from, say, Occitan. I'd have to do some digging to be definite ; I don't really do Romance linguistics.
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May 30, 2013 05:05
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Railtus posted:
 Where on earth are you getting this? That's not how reconstructed phonology works at all, and it's miles off for what Old-Middle French sounded like. If nothing else they still had coda-final consonants for god's sake. Using very, very broad transcription it should be something like [æʒɪŋgʊɾt]. There's probably an epenthetic vowel that I'm missing and I'm not 100% if there would have been the place assimilation on the nasal yet, but that's my best stab without double-checking my notes. And to my knowledge no Romance language has ever had the Germanic-style [ɹ] (your "R as in rye"). Maybe Romanian at some point, maybe? Seriously, what the hell source are you getting this from. It's terrible. (No offense, I love the thread, but that poo poo is just straight up false.)
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May 30, 2013 17:34
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I thought the definitional part of a stilletto was the triangular cross-section, because gently caress you for wanting to staunch this bleeding. So it's pretty tits for everyone. But I'm just an rear end in a top hat, so maybe I'm retarded. (Also, Railtus, I still want to know where the hell you got those awful Middle French pronunciation.)
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Jun 10, 2013 04:41
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LankyIndjun posted:
And you're making some rather silly assumptions that gloss over a lot of complexity. You're forgetting, for instance, that writing in the vernacular was quite common on an informal basis, and that a large amount of people were at least partially able to read and write in it : even if you signed your name with an X, you probably knew how to read basic signs and the like. Also, the magic of non-standardized spelling. This isn't even touching on the fact that in the period, they would consider being "literate" to be being able to read/write Latin or Greek (or, in certain areas and periods, Occitan or French). Really, the whole question of how you define "literate" makes this not something that can be answered.
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Jul 11, 2013 18:30
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Having had to read (a couple of different versions of) it for work recently, I can also recommend Cao Cao's annotated version of the Art of War for a more historically accurate version. It's kind of a bitch to get though, even if you read Classical Chinese. Maybe one day when I have free time (ha!) I'll make a proper English translation.
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Aug 4, 2013 06:29
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Not My Goodies posted:Regarding dual wielding, what's the deal with Chinese weapons like the twin hooks and the butterfly swords? I know they used one handed thrusting swords and sabers martially, did any of those awesome Kung Fu weapons meant to be used in pairs get any use on the battlefield? They sure look effective in demonstrations, especially the twin hooks. Sorry if this is outside the purview of medieval history, I'm not sure exactly what time period these weapons would've seen practical use besides during contemporary martial arts demonstrations. In general, they're pure gimmick weapons. Some people may have used them, but no one was ever arming a battalion of guys with tiger hook swords, because they're just not as good as regular swords. There are a few that there're at least records of people using (three sectioned staffs supposedly were good as a non-lethal restraining weapon ; deer-horn knives actually are pretty useful as knives), but in general it's either because of historical oddity (whatever retard came up with tiger hook swords), because it's a training aid (looking at you, double-headed spear) or because it looks cool and you're doing modern wushu so that's all you care about (loving rope-dart). So, I can't think of any of them being used on a battlefield, but deer horn knives are really good knives, so lots of people were walking around with those. But they're pretty much just funny-shaped knives.
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Aug 18, 2013 21:18
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Posting that without pics is just teasing. And you didn't tell us about the gauntlets. Also, doublet, shirt and hose is actually really comfy, I'll agree : I only feel a slight shame in admitting it. God I wish my department would let me teach dressed like a Landsknecht.
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Aug 18, 2013 22:53
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Railtus posted:We know rest breaks were important because (I think) Maximilian I had barrels of water assigned next to every 8 men during battle, implying they would have time to stop and drink. Who was in charge of moving the barrel?
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Aug 20, 2013 03:40
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Google is not being helpful, but I have a hazy memory of 18th and 19th century lawn-care being done with a scythe and special shoes with wooden blocks on the end to give you the correct height. Wikipedia agrees and mentions the practice (of course there's a wikipedia page for "lawn"), but doesn't give a citation.
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Aug 23, 2013 18:33
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Do you mean something like this? We always called that a "weed whip".
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Aug 23, 2013 18:49
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Dirty Job posted:Hey everyone! I'm interested in taking classes for HEMA. I've already signed up for an intro class that's coming up in a few weeks. I live in New York City, and the only place I've been able to find that teaches German longsword is located here. It seems pretty interesting, and I'm pretty excited to see what it has to offer! As a fellow NYC goon who loves history and needs a new exercise/hobby, this is amazing. Thanks. Anyone have a rough idea on how bad this is on your knees? Roughly comparable to other martial arts?
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Aug 28, 2013 04:53
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Cream_Filling posted:in the wake of the unification of Aragorn and Castille You can read all about this in Dan Brown's The Frodo Code. (I just thought the typo was unintentionally funny and wanted it saved from edits.) So, I asked in the Military History thread and got run over by boat-chat, so I'll try here. How common, if at all, was celibacy as a practice among knightly orders (e.g. Knights of St John, Templars, etc.) in period*? How often was it actually carried out? Or well, not carried out, you know what I mean. *I'm being purposely vague because I'd love a diachronic answer.
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Sep 4, 2013 06:35
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:This horse archer talk brings to mind a question that maybe someone in this thread can answer: What was the state of Chinese fortification at the start of the 13th century? I mean that both systematically and in relation to the actual layout and defensive measures of particular fortifications. China is somewhere I know almost nothing about. A little after when you asked, but the Ming built this old thing in the 14th century.* Beginning of the 13th century is the Yuan Dynasty, who basically were just Mongols and kept their power way up North of the Changcheng, and, to my knowledge, didn't give any fucks about fortifications. *Okay, it'd been around since the Spring and Autumn Period, yeah, but it was mostly rammed earth and bullshit. The Ming made it look like what it looks like now.
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Sep 28, 2013 16:44
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Everything I have to say on this : 1) Jesus Christ were the Europeans retarded at Legnica. And Mohi. Like, a four year old would have led the armies better. gently caress. 2) The whole thread should read Mongoliad. Is it 100% historically accurate? gently caress no. (Although it's the only historical fiction I know to get language correct, e.g. getting by in distant parts of Europe is hard and loving hope you speak Latin or you're hosed.) But it's basically Neal Stephenson sidling up to you in a dark alley, opening his trenchcoat and going, "I heard you liked swordfights." It's literally thousands of pages of quite excellent sword-sperging carefully honed into the perfect airport book.
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Sep 29, 2013 15:48
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I decided to just up an make a Mongoliad thread in the Book Barn : http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3572428 It's a really cool book series, and I recommend it highly. How can you not love a book that actually bothered to choreograph its fight scenes?
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Sep 29, 2013 18:57
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Yeah, and then they completely wrecked the Livonians at Schaulen. Start a Crusade on me will you? I'll kick your rear end so bad you have to get folded into the Templars and aren't even a real Order anymore. gently caress yeah.
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Nov 23, 2013 20:46
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a travelling HEGEL posted:
Yeah, but they used to be a fully independent order before Schaulen. After that they became a semi-autonomous sect of the Templars instead of their own thing. Yes, I'm being slightly pedantic.
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Nov 23, 2013 21:46
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I am also a dumb rear end. Templars, Teutonics ; I was being dumb and got my knights that start with "T" confused. Thanks for the correction! My point stands that they got their asses handed to them. Suck it, Livonians. VVVV : Well, I guess you know what you've got to do, now ain't you? 
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Nov 25, 2013 03:18
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a travelling HEGEL posted:A remark about Bavarians went here. It's gone now. Was it about how we're the best at being German? Because that's 100% true. You guys don't even have Leberkaas. 420 ; drink beer and hate on immigrants every day.
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Nov 26, 2013 02:02
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Fizzil posted:Its a little bit more complicated too, I kind of remember my "source" now, it was a discussion i had with a friend of mine from China and i'm guessing he quoted a chinese source most likely, two things stood out, the climbers and the "Hui Hui Poi" (which is apparently the chinese word for Muslim Cannon), so if anyone with english sources could sort of dig and find out anything that would be cool. The Hui (回, Huí) are a Chinese Muslim ethnic minority. "Poi"===> pao ===> 炮 means "cannon". No idea what the middle bit could be though. If I drink at it hard enough, maybe fire? (火, huo) I'm guessing pretty hard, though.
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Dec 12, 2013 01:09
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Probably a stupid question, but it always bothered me : Why the hell does the Oakeshott typology start at X? It just seems so arbitrary. Or are there another 9 classifications that no one ever talks about or what?
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Jan 20, 2014 18:14
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