Alain Pannetier

372 reputation

bio	website	sourceforge.net/projects/…
	location	Paris, France
	age	51
visits	member for	1 year, 11 months
	seen	Apr 5 at 23:35
stats	profile views	22

Born a Frenchman, addicted to the BBC (wherever I live bloom satellite dishes), I have spent several years in the UK (specifically Richmond (I said "UK" )) as well as in Italy (Naples (I said "Italy")). Currently based in Dubai (UAE).

An electronic Engineer by formation and an IT/Telecom professional by occupation, I've had the opportunity to work in many countries (Saudi Arabia, China mainland and Taiwan, Romania, Spain, Ghana, the Netherlands, Brasil, United States, Panama, Dominican Rep., Tunisia, Turkey, Syria and a few others).

Raised by a German au pair at 5, having done my military duty in Germany, I've always been fascinated by languages in general and etymology in particular and my occupation has provided me with several opportunities to indulge in this hobby. I started to learn several languages and still can understand a few of them: including English, Italian and Spanish. The latter allowing me to communicate with my son (see avatar), my wife and my in-laws.

Other accounts I have in the stackexchange family include stackoverflow and programmers.

If you wish to contact me, please feel free to do so using my email/chat account which is alain dot pannetier at gmail dot com.

	372 reputation	bio	website	sourceforge.net/projects/…	visits	member for	1 year, 11 months
39 badges		location	Paris, France		seen	Apr 5 at 23:35

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35 Actions

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Nov 9	awarded	Enlightened
Nov 9	awarded	Nice Answer
Jun 3	awarded	Nice Question
May 31	awarded	Yearling
Aug 6	comment	Is there a reason why Germany (Deutschland) is called so many different things in other European languages? @z7sg, the meaning of mute has to be compared to "one of the the more prominent theories regarding the origin of the term "Slav" suggests that it comes from the Slavic root slovo (hence "Slovenia," "Slovakia"), meaning "word" or "speech." In this context, the Slavs describing Germanic people as "mutes" — in contrast to themselves, "the speaking ones"." excerpt cited from wikipedia.
Aug 5	comment	Is there a reason why Germany (Deutschland) is called so many different things in other European languages? This is an absolutely fascinating topic. Needless to say that it has already attracted the attention of many scholars. To refer to Wikipedia again, there is a dedicated article which summarises the most widely accepted theories. Time permitting I'll add my 2 cents.
Aug 5	comment	Is there a reason why Germany (Deutschland) is called so many different things in other European languages? The most ironic thing is that in contrast, the Germans themselves add a tendency to name all foreign countries and people with very similar names... To quote wikipedia :"The Germanic invaders of the Roman Empire applied the word "Walha" to foreigners they encountered and this evolved in West Germanic languages as a generic name for all non-Germanic speakers; thence, the names Wallachia, Vlachs, Wallonia, Walloons, Wales, Wallasey, and even the Polish name for Italy, Włochy."
Jul 8	accepted	Are German words starting with the letter 'p' really of alien origin?
Jul 8	accepted	Do the noun 'Reich' and the adjective 'reich' have a common origin?
Jun 29	awarded	Enthusiast
Jun 19	comment	Are German words starting with the letter 'p' really of alien origin? @Pekka, No prob. After WWII, Germany was partitioned in 2 separate independent countries as you probably know: the DDR under Soviet influence and the BRD. As none of these countries were allowed to have an army, "protecting" powers were occupying various portions of the German territory. The BDR was occupied by US, Canadian, English and French forces. So I ended up in Villingen-Schwenningen (a beautiful place) in 1986.
Jun 18	awarded	Commentator
Jun 18	awarded	Scholar
Jun 18	accepted	Meaning of Mann as a tribe rather than a male individual
Jun 18	comment	Are German words starting with the letter 'p' really of alien origin? +1. makes sense: the change of 'p' in 'b' is also observed in other languages (Latin sapere => Spanish saber). Most words initiating with a 'p' would have migrated to a 'b'.
Jun 17	comment	Are German words starting with the letter 'p' really of alien origin? @Tim N. No simply 'p'. In the mean time I'm having a look at this list (P letter) and there seem to be some truth behind this assertion. But I have just sampled a few words. I'd like to know whether this is a well established and well known fact.
Jun 17	asked	Are German words starting with the letter 'p' really of alien origin?
Jun 17	comment	Do the noun 'Reich' and the adjective 'reich' have a common origin? +1 Thank you for this learned and precise answer. I had the idea that wealthy came as a second meaning to mighty also because money is a more recent phenomenon than sheer might. I'd probably argue that the actual introduction of money could be the cause of the specialisation of reich in wealthy. But since this is a phenomenon common to many languages German, Dutch, English, Spanish, Italian and French to name just a few, it is probably an early phenomenon. Please note that all these languages have a Celtic substrate but only Dutch and German still use Reich as "kingdom".
Jun 17	asked	Do the noun 'Reich' and the adjective 'reich' have a common origin?
Jun 14	comment	Origin of Separable Verbs @user12889, the of thumb rule in English is that intransitive phrasal verbs are inseparable (as per the very definition of intransitivness: for instance "I get out") and that transitive phrasal verbs have a good chance of being separable. For instance, consider 'I look up a word in the dictionary' (the object is not* inserted between the verb and the preposition), and 'I look it up in the dictionary' (when the object is a pronoun it is always inserted between the verb and the preposition*).