POLITICS - After last week's election

Today I'm going to be spending time with family, so I won't have time to do a blog-post properly; this is at the moment just a place holder for a dämonisch analysis of what happened last week. Come back tomorrow (probably) to read it.

Another slice of π

Here's an interesting tool for finding where a series of digits occur in the mathematical number π. For example, if I were to input the birthdate of the late polyglot and mathematical genius and child prodigy William James Sidis, namely 01041898 (1st April 1898), we discover the following:

The string 01041898 occurs at position 12,755,930 counting from the first digit after the decimal point. The 3. is not counted.

The string and surrounding digits:

37624525549731537286 01041898 67094399007840784936

I'm sure Sidis would have loved this tool.

LITERATURE - Forward Motion

Just quick note this time on writing and reading, more of a plug really. I've mentioned it before, but if you're into creative writing, you might want to head on over to Forward Motion, a great writers' website, forum and chat-rooms. I sometimes hang out there.

LANGUAGE - English first person pronoun

The modern usage of the first person pronoun in English are interesting, and with a cursory glance it can propose an interesting development of the future of the English language.

We can see the modern English language pronouns are descended from the Anglo-Saxon and thus from the Anglo-Frisian family (with the exception of the Old Norse loan of the third person plural they). The modern English table of pronouns is quite simple when compared to the table of Old English pronouns, which had separate forms for duality as well as case, something which means grammar to the modern English speaker, and instils fear in the common Anglophone. The Middle English table is a bit closer to what we're used to, but can still seem unfamiliar.

However, particularly in the usage the singular first person pronoun, I seem to have noticed a lot of tendencies for I to be dropped, with no nominative or subject of the sentence indicated. I cite a recent example I have encountered:

Have to go now.

There is no clear suggestion of who is speaking, but by natural implication the speaker is the agent of the sentence. I have mainly observed it in text messages, internet messaging and, of course, spoken English. This has not been recently observed in formal writing, although one may create a hypothetical example such as:

I have visited your website, and am writing about your article.

The second part of my hypothetical sentence above in bold lacks a clear subject marker, although it is implied by the verb am being in the present singular first person form of the verb that it is the previous clause's I as the agent.

This is interesting, as much more work needs to be done to see if English is taking on these tendencies, but it seems to suggest that English may be developing in a direction that would take on the pro-drop behaviour of languages such as Japanese, where the a pronoun is rarely used in indicating the agent of a sentence. The pronoun is often absent, merely implied, in Japanese.

In comparison, Italian is a language that is often referred as a pro-drop language, as pronouns are often only used for emphasis, but the difference between Italian and Japanese is that the agnet can still be clearly implied through the verb endings. Parlo (I am speaking) implies the first person singular is the agent through the O ending. Japanese does not alter its endings according to the agent. English only does in a limited way; compare the present form of the regular English verb walk: I/you/we/they walk, with he/she/it/one walks.

This is just a supposition, of course, and would require much more gathering of evidence and analysis to see if it could be a hypothesis that would hold water. It would also require looking at the usage of English in a wide variety of locations to see if it is geographically peculiar to particular locales, or whether it is found amongst different types of speakers, whether it is unique to monolingual Anglophones, or to those who have English as their first language, etc. In other words, a lot of work to be done before the kernel of an idea is developed to a level that I can even attempt to answer the following questions:

Is I at risk of dying out?

Is English likely to become a pro-drop language?

It's something to consider.
Haven't got time at the moment.
Gotta go now.
Catch you later.

Happy Star Wars Day

May the Fourth be with you.

π

Here's a cool way of visualising, using colours, the mathematical number pi π, to the first 10,000 decimal places.

Click here to generate your own image.

Elections today

A few days ago, I went out to help out a friend who's running as candidate in the Cardiff Council elections today. It was most interesting, most enjoyable, and good to dip my toe in the political waters again.

I have just been out to vote, putting my 'X' in the relevant boxes. I now urge you to go out and vote too. Keep democracy working.

Blogging is light at the moment

I'm a bit occupied at the moment. I'll be back in action most soonest.