tf_talk | continued Thatfucker discussion

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continued Thatfucker discussion

Since we've been kicked off FFA for the week, please feel free to continue the anon discussion here. Apologies if this is a big flop - I've never made a DW community before!

The rules are vaguely the same as they are over on FFA. Please refrain from being too much of an asshole, making personal attacks, posting identifying information or engaging in transfail.

ETA: If there's information you'd like to see archived (journal/blog posts related to Andy, etc.), please dump it here and link to it from the main post for discussing.

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Claiming to be able to speak languages he doesn't is another of Andy's favourite lies. I've seen him claim he speaks six languages (link below) on tumblr. He's claimed to have learned Irish from this grandfather, and that he speaks French, but (IRCC) it's "18th century literary French" or something of that nature. Which is why he needs an actual French speaker to help him translate things.

http://andythanfiction.tumblr.com/post/44496687605/how-many-languages-do-you-know

"18 century literary French"? Okay, I've been thinking it for a while, but this confirms to me that his understanding of linguistics is fucked (if the BS about accents didn't already). You can't learn to SPEAK a language solely from reading it. You may learn prescriptivist grammar, vocab, etc, but you cannot learn to SPEAK it unless you actually, y'know, speak it. First off, you wouldn't get pronunciation right, and second off, there's this flawed idea that written language is more 'pure' or accurate than spoken, when spoken always comes first in a language, with the written language following.

Which actually calls back to the Ancient Greek (and to a lesser degree, Latin) thing, too, because all we have of it (bar some attempts at reconstructing pronunciation) is the written form.

Eh, Greek/Latin I'm willing to give a LITTLE leeway on since the writing is all we have to go on. There are professors of Greek and Latin, I've known people who went to private Christian schools and took Latin. Learning dead languages through the literature is kind of the norm, though yes, speaking it is reconstruction.

But a living language like French? No, no, no, you do not learn to speak it by just reading it.

AYRT Oh, definitely; I was just calling back to his claim that professors of Ancient Greek would come in and chat with him in it. Which, no.

+3

I have a minor in French, and while I didn't take a course specifically on 18th century French literature, I took courses that included works from that time period. As well as two courses specifically on 17th century French literature, a course on 19th century French literature, and a course on Medieval French literature (we covered approximately the 11th through 13th centuries).

It amuses me that Andy says/said he spoke 18th century French as a way to A) explain why he won't actually be proving his language skills to modern speakers and B) act like he's not wrong, he's just fancier and more sophisticated.

Reading 18th century French is very easy if you can fluently read contemporary French. You get used to the slight spelling and grammar differences pretty quickly -- it's not like it's literally a different language, lmao. It's cool if you're good at reading it, but not like, Special Prodigy-level of cool. Now if you're immediately able to read "Lancelot, le Chevalier de la Charrette," come talk to me then.

But you would never pick up the pronunciation from reading it. We watched a few productions of Moliere in class (17th century, I know, not 18th) where the actors were trying to approximate what some consensus of scholars thinks the pronunciation *might* have been like. And you just never would have gotten those sounds from the text if you came from a background of modern English and/or modern French.

His claims are at once too easy to be impressive and too preposterous to be true.

It does make me wonder if there was some specific reason for picking the 18th century. Any characters from that time that he might be into? Maybe tying into the revolution.

He did grow up in Williamsburg, and worked in Colonial Williamsburg. (Though his historical knowledge is sorely lacking, considering his background.) Also, Dangerous Liasons had a major influence on pop culture when he was a kid. There's also the Horatio Hornblower connection, though technically that's the beginning of the 19th century rather than the 18th.

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