greek to me

О людях-придурках магических ритуалах, правильных названиях, блестящей монополии и о том, что следовало переназвать птицу, когда Гоголь умер.

[Tarahumara] are said to use the same word for “dancing” and for “working”—obviously because the distinction between these two activities is not immediately apparent to them, since in their scheme of things dance and agriculture serve essentially the same purpose of providing the means of livelihood. The growth and prosperity of their crops seems to them to depend as much or more on the correct performance of their dances, their magical and religious ceremonies, than on prompt and proper attention to the soil.

In the Kate language, which is current in New Guinea, there is a word bilin, which denotes a certain kind of grass with tough stems and roots that are wedged firmly in the soil; the latter are said to hold the earth together during earthquakes, so that it does not break apart. When nails were first introduced by Europeans, and when their use became popularly known, the natives applied this word to them—as also to wire and to iron rods, in short, to everything that served the purpose of holding things together.

Georg von der Gabelentz, in his book on the science of language, mentions the edict of a Chinese emperor of the third century B.C., whereby a pronoun in the first person, that had been legitimately in popular use, was henceforth reserved to him alone.

The dead may, at any moment, be literally “invoked,” the moment those who survive him speak his name. As everyone knows, the fear of such visitation has led many savages to avoid not only every mention of the departed, whose name is tabooed, but even the enunciation of all assonances to his name. Often, for instance, an animal species whose name a defunct person had borne has to be given a different appellation, lest the dead man be inadvertently called upon by speaking of the beast.” In many cases procedures of this sort, entirely mythic in their motivation, have had a radical influence on language, and modified vocabularies considerably.
Ernst Cassirer, “Language and Myth”

It is funny to note that in several translations of the Ecclesiastes the Preacher states calmly and solemnly that all is in vain, and only the Italian version shouts and throws its arms about 🙂

Из попавшихся мне версий перевода  Экклезиаста о том, что всё тлен, только итальянская версия орёт и размахивает руками 🙂

Vanitas vanitatum, dixit Ecclesiastes. Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas. (Vulgata)

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities ; all is vanity. (King James)

Fumée de fumée, dit Qhoèlèt : fumée de fumée, tout est fumée. (Chouraqui)

Est ist ganz eitel, sprach der Predigter, est ist alles ganz eitel. (Luther)

« Vanità delle vanità ! – dice Kohelet – Vanità delle vanità ! Tutto è vanità ! » (Galbiati)

A notable Irish joke is that it is not possible to translate mañana into Gaelic as the Irish “don’t have a word that conveys that degree of urgency”. (W)

Известная ирландская шутка гласит, что слово “завтра” невозможно перевести на гэльский, так как у ирландев “нет слова, передающего такую степень срочности”.

“Tense is most often marked on verbs, but not always. The California language Hupa has tense-marking on nouns. Thus, for example, the word for ‘house’ has three tenses: a present tense “xonta” (house which now exists), a past tense “xontaneen” (house which is now in ruins) and a future tense “xontate” (house which is not built yet). English, of course, has nothing like this, and we have to use different words to achieve the same effect: one might consider, for example, that “ex-wife” is the ‘past tense’ of “wife”, while “fiancée” is its ‘future tense’! ”

“Language: The Basics” by L. Trask

Говоря о людях или вещах, глухонемые на них показывают. Говоря об отсутствующих людях, рассказчик зачастую назначает каждому персонажу определённое место в своём личном пространстве, и ориентирует знаки к нему. Жест со значением “давать” может быть направлен от одного человекоместа к другому, показывая таким образом дающего и получателя.

“When signing about people or objects that are present, signers point to them. When signing about people or objects that are not present, they often assign each person to a different location within their signing space, and then orient their signs toward these assigned spots. A sign meaning “give” can then move from one spot to another, so both the giver and the recipient are shown simultaneously with the sign for “give”.”

“The Talking Ape: How Language Evolved” by Robbins Burling

Как у людей, у птиц одного вида могут быть разные “диалекты”. У живущей в Калифорнии белоголовой овсянки они различаются настолько, что человек с натренированным ухом мог бы с завязанными глазами определить, в какой части штата он находится, просто слушая пение птиц.

As with humans, the song of a single species of bird may have different but related ‘dialects’. The white-crowned sparrow, a Californian resident, has dialects so different, even within the San Francisco area, that ‘someone with a cultivated ear would be able to tell where he or she was in California, blindfolded, simply by listening to their songs’ (Marler 1991b: 38).

The Seeds of Speech: Language Origin and Evolution (Jean Aitchison).

Во многих языках мира есть обозначающие родителей слова типа “мама”, “папа/баба”. Причина кроется в том, что ребёнку, не владеющему речью, губные звуки воспроизвести легче всего, потому что он видит орган артикуляции. Довольные родители, в свою очередь, считают, что дети обращаются к ним. Так и повелось 🙂

Infants typically go through a phase when they utter mamama, babababa sequences. Fond parents gleefully assume their child is referring to them, which is why words such as mama and papa are found the world over as pet names for parents (Jakobson 1962/1971). In fact, the child is instinctively exercising its vocal organs in an enjoyable and non-meaningful way.

The Seeds of Speech: Language Origin and Evolution (Jean Aitchison).

“I’m brave! I WILL actually open those Romanian books” – thought Alex suspecting no evil. “So what if you don’t know the language? What problems can pose another Romance one, with 20% of words of Slavic origin? Phah.”

And then she hit the very first words, in the title of the story, as on the pic. Bordel de merde, how do you read Elvish characters? Let’s check out the contents page. “D-l Goe”, ok, much clearer, thanks. Come on, Romania, what kind of word is this? 😀 That’s not fair! 😀 We, the French, are not easily confused. This obvious construction must be something like “de le”, and the story is “du Goe” – people always do this to pronouns, articles and prepositions. But later on the combination appears as a subject of a sentence -> must be a noun -> must be a short form of “domnul” (which turned out to be right) -> Mr. Goe. Seems like I forgot простейшие вещи, г-да.

Besides this little bastard, on the next three pages you find things like d-ta, n-are, l-ar, c-a, şi-l, i-a, să-l, whatever they mean 🙂 It is soothing to know there are languages nearby that think a couple of hyphened letters is a word alright – just like it calms you to know there still are people who suck in their spaghetti instead of using a spoon. And that’s nice, you don’t just love a language for it’s ă, â, ț and î 🙂 Gonna be fun 🙂