From iad@MATH.BAS.BG Fri Dec 01 23:24:18 2000 Return-Path: X-Sender: iad@math.bas.bg X-Apparently-To: lojban@egroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-6_3_1_2); 2 Dec 2000 07:24:17 -0000 Received: (qmail 45374 invoked from network); 2 Dec 2000 07:24:17 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 2 Dec 2000 07:24:17 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO lnd.internet-bg.net) (212.124.64.2) by mta1 with SMTP; 2 Dec 2000 07:24:16 -0000 Received: from math.bas.bg (ppp66.internet-bg.net [212.124.66.66]) by lnd.internet-bg.net (8.9.3/8.9.0) with ESMTP id JAA32651 for ; Sat, 2 Dec 2000 09:26:17 +0200 Message-ID: <3A28A10F.951729DE@math.bas.bg> Date: Sat, 02 Dec 2000 09:13:19 +0200 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.74 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: zoi gy. Good Morning! .gy. References: <3A27DF96.F5D288A@math.bas.bg> <3A2809C1.BCDD4566@reutershealth.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Ivan A Derzhanski John Cowan wrote: > Ivan A Derzhanski wrote: > > Contrariwise, in Russian _dobroe utro_ can't be a wish, > > because then the case of the phrase would have to be > > genitive, and it is actually nominative/accusative, > > so the whole is a statement of fact if anything. > > This reminds me of my repeated observation that Russian-speakers > here in the U.S. often respond to "How are you?" with a personal > medical report. Whereas foreign students in the US (I used to be one, as you may recall) often find that Americans are the rudest lot ever: they ask you how you are and then move on without listening to the answer. > > Many languages have calqued the Western time-of-day greetings, > > but considerably fewer use them as partings also. > > It's an interesting oddity that "Good night" is only a parting; > the corresponding greeting has to be "Good evening" no matter how > late it is. Bulgarian has a full set of `good morning/day/evening', used only as greetings. By contrast, the parting `good night' is _leka nosht_, (lit. `light night'). Hosts of night-time 'phone-ins on the radio, however, seem to have got into the habit of using the odd-sounding _dobra nosht_ (lit. `good night') as a greeting. Callers sometimes respond in the same way, but more often they say `good evening', though it be past midnight. --Ivan