Faffing about with languages

@jackironsides you delight me and I wish to give enough context for everyone to enjoy (though I have never been in your morris team or any archaeology department)

STARTING WITH THE ASIDE:

this is just a strigil for horses

A strigil is a curved metal scraper to remove dirt and oil from the body, used by some ancient Romans.

AND NOW FOR THE MAIN POINT, A TIMELINE, FILLED IN WITH CONJECTURE:

Carboniferous period (like 300 million years ago), formation of the Durham/ Northumberland/ what-would-become-northeast-England coalfields

End of the last ice age (like 13000 years ago), start of continuous human habitation in what-would-become-England

1069-70, the Harrying of the North: William the Conqueror basically destroys northern England. Like, 75% of the people living there are just gone - some killed directly, far more displaced because their farms were destroyed, land remains unused for many years afterwards because there's just nobody there. Northern England for the next millenium has low population density and increased poverty compared to southern England.

Late 1700s to early 1800s, the Industrial Revolution: steam engines get going and England needs a lot of coal to power them. A lot of that coal comes from the northeast. Massive increase in northern English economy, entire pit villages spring up, still poverty but there is work to be had. Winding engines raise and lower cages of miners at shift change, with levels communicated via knocking or rapping a piece of metal sharply some number of times. I can find exactly zero photos of it online, but the string-operated "rapper" in place at Beamish Museum has the exact shape of "rapper" swords that we will get to shortly.

1842, the Mines and Collieries Act: children under 10 banned from underground work in the pits. Pit ponies to haul coal become far more common as a result. (The children still likely work in coal, still likely 12hr shifts at a time, but it's above-ground work like sorting the mined coal not below-ground work like hauling coal and opening/closing ventilation shafts. Except for in the many, many pits which carried on employing them illegally, of course.) Your pit pony, very dirty after their long day hauling coal, may be scraped clean with a flexible bit of metal as shown in the video, also the exact shape of "rapper" swords.

19th century generally, you finish your 12hrs or whatever down the pit, you go to the pub, there's no space, no money, just whatever music and people you can rustle up. A particular type of close-knit formation dance emerges using these two-handled flexible pieces of metal and the style becomes known as "rapper" or "rapper sword dance". To some extent it is developed out of other (rigid) longsword dances and morris dances, idk details, a lot of it is unknowable anyway.

20th century, like many English folk dances rapper mostly dies out and is later revived, I'm not sure if it has a perfectly continuous tradition. Also Maggie Thatcher closing the mines destroys northern economy again (though not as badly as William the Conqueror managed) and the social landscape changes drastically in ways I cannot speak to. Modern rapper teams exist all over the country (not that there are many of them - it is very nerdy even by folk dance standards) and continue to develop the dance in their own ways. Nevertheless, here is a modern performance:

It’s said that all modern writing systems descend from either Ancient Sumerian, or Ancient Chinese. [1]

You’ll notice that Japanese is not on that list of two languages. Japanese was purely a spoken language when Japanese people first visited China, and learned to read and write kanji – Chinese characters.

Writing is, of course, extremely useful [2], so sooner or later, Japanese people started learning Chinese so they could read and write.

Writing in Japan

Imagine this: You know some Chinese, but you’re not great at it, because you are not Chinese.

You see 三 in front of you. It’s the kanji for “three”.

Now, you could say the Chinese word for three (it’s “san”, in case you forgot). Or… bear with me here… you could just say “three”. No one would know. It’s not like you’re in China.

Congratulations, you just invented kun’yomi!

Actually, why don’t we just do that with entire sentences?

Japan tried, but Chinese and Japanese sentences have different word order. If you just read a Chinese sentence, and translated each kanji into Japanese, it would be in entirely the wrong order!

Kanbun

Japan had a solution to that, called Kanbun.

What if you took a Chinese sentence, and just… read it in Japanese word order, and also figured out what words were missing to make it grammatically correct, and add those words back in?

Great idea! So that’s what Japan did, for a while. They called it Kanbun. Write in Chinese, read in Japanese by reading in a different order and inserting words as necessary.

It didn’t work great, though, because most Japanese people are not great at Chinese, and it’s kind of hard to just stare at a sentence and figure out how to rearrange it so it makes sense in Japanese.

I’m sure you can think of an easy solution to this problem.

Yes, that’s right! Draw arrows around the Chinese sentence, so people know what order to read the characters in!

So Japanese people started adding those little symbols on the left, meaning “go down”, “skip”, “reverse”, “go up”. The numbers on the right are the order you’re supposed to read those kanji in. Easy, right?

Eventually, Japanese people finally realized this was stupid, and started just writing sentences in the order you were supposed to read them.

Man’yougana

And those words you had to add in to make the sentence make sense? Japanese people started just writing those out, by just writing kanji with the same Chinese pronunciation as the words you needed to add in. This was called man’yougana, which later evolved into the hiragana and katakana we use today.

Pronunciation

Meanwhile, there are two ways to pronounce kanji.

1. On’yomi – say the Chinese word in a Japanese accent.

2. Kun’yomi – just say a Japanese translation of that Chinese word.

This is actually huge! Japanese people and Chinese people approach kanji in totally different ways.

To a Chinese person, a kanji is just a word. It has a meaning and a pronunciation.

To a Japanese person, a kanji is a concept. It has a meaning, but pronunciation? Just say any word that means roughly the same thing. Words and kanji are different things in Japanese.

On’yomi

On’yomi is a bit more complicated than I let on earlier. “Say the Chinese word in a Japanese accent” is correct, but – the Chinese word from when?

You see, it’s been over a thousand years since Japanese started using kanji from China, and Chinese pronunciation has changed drastically in the meantime.

So when we say “say the Chinese word”, do you mean the pronunciation from six centuries ago? From twelve centuries ago?

Because this is Japan, the answer is: All of the above! It’s not like a kanji has a single pronunciation in the first place.

There are several ways a kanji can be pronounced as on’yomi:

1. Go-on – pronunciations from over 15 centuries ago

2. Kan-on – pronunciations from 12-15 centuries ago

3. Tō-on – pronunciations from less than 12 centuries ago

4. Kan’yō-on – pronunciations that Japanese people thought were Chinese, but they were wrong [3]

The most common on’yomi for any kanji (and the one people will tell you if you ask “what’s the on’yomi?”) is going to be Kan-on. [4] The others are pretty obscure.

Kun’yomi

If you’ve started learning Japanese, kun’yomi might seem simple to you. Some words are written with some kanji.

Once you’re more advanced, you might learn that sometimes multiple words are written with the same kanji. And sometimes, one word might have multiple kanji associated with it, each with slightly different connotations.

Maybe one day, you learn about jukujikun – sometimes, a word will be written with a multiple-kanji phrase that can’t be broken down. You can’t find these in a kanji dictionary because they’re not kun’yomi of a single kanji.

But it ends there, right?

Gikun

Nope. I hinted at this earlier – the most important thing to understand about how Japanese people approach kanji is that kanji are not words, kanji are concepts.

And so the standard way to write certain words with certain kanji? They’re not rules, they’re really just suggestions. And you can just ignore those suggestions, and use whatever kanji with whatever word you want. This is called gikun. [5]

Maybe you’ve seen 超電磁砲 being pronounced “Railgun”.

Consider: 宇宙 (uchuu, meaning “outer space”) and 空 (sora, meaning “sky”). They mean vaguely related things! So Japanese people sometimes switch it up and pronounce 宇宙 “sora”, or 空 “uchuu”. This tends to happen in things like songs, where you want the lyrics to look fancy, but “sora” fits the rhythm better. Or in people’s names – “Sora” is a nice name, but maybe you want to spell it more creatively than other people are spelling it.

My first exposure to how crazy Gikun can get was probably the name Kazuko, written 一子. You see, kazu means “number” and 一 (one) is a number!

Another one of my favorites: 小鳥遊, which, as a surname, can be pronounced “Takanashi”.

Because the kanji in 小鳥遊 mean “little birds playing”. And “Takanashi” means “no hawks around”.

You see? Because little birds are safe and can play when there are no hawks around to eat them?

Kanji are concepts, not words

I hope I’ve made my point by now.

It’s actually really cool how any kanji can be associated with any word.

I just hope you still find it cool when you’re staring at a kanji and have no idea how to pronounce it.

[1] Writing was also independently invented in Mesoamerica, but those have all died out. Several other writing systems are debatably independently invented, but they’ve all died out. Some historians say that there’s nothing saying Ancient Chinese wasn’t inspired by Ancient Sumerian, but there’s no evidence that this actually happened so I’m going to dismiss them as just Westerners being jealous of China.

[2] citation needed

[3] Japanese people learned a lot of Chinese from Koreans who were not actually that great at Chinese. You can understand how mistakes might creep into this process.

[4] During the Tang Dynasty, Japanese people were like “okay, we have a bunch of different inconsistent ways to pronounce Chinese, partially because some of us learned Chinese from Koreans who were not actually that great at Chinese”. So they decided to standardize on how Chinese was pronounced in China at that time. This standardized sound was called Kan-on and mostly caught on, but not completely, because Japanese people just love having fifty pronunciations for a single kanji.

The reason it’s using this pretty archaic root is that it’s an older word than a lot of people think. Here it is in the Canterbury Tales.

Using this as an example:

English, "newfangled"

Old English, "feng"

(disclaimer: I am not diagnosed, but I have my own struggles. I will not defend myself in this post. send me an ask if you care that much, but keep it out of the comments please.)

what happens -> how I deal with it

————–

reading

flipping letters & transposing syllables -> listen to new words with audio; read “aloud” in your head 

you may not even notice when you misread something, but the audio gives you a second chance to catch your mistake. reading “aloud” won’t lessen the number of errors you make, but it should help you identify incorrect words more easily. then you can try to read it again

misreading words entirely -> don’t get hung up on it; take a break if you’ve been studying for a while

recently, I’ve read 二 as 人; puño as palo; and Verhandlung as Verständnis, and these are definitely more than careless mistakes. I don’t know what to say other than to be lienient with yourself. if you’ve been working for an hour, there’s a chance that you just need a break, but if it happens without reason, forgive yourself

simply can’t process the dang sentence -> skip it

you’ve read the sentence. you know that you should be able to understand it. but you just can’t… skip it. if you have to read something 4 times in you native language to get it, reading it 10 times in your TL will only frustrate you. it’s okay to just go onto the next sentence :)

your spelling is shxt -> sorry, I’ve got nothing (please leave comments if you have advice)

listening

just need a second to process -> ask natives to pause; pause whatever your listening to

you probably freeze even after hearing random sentences in your native language because you need to process. let yourself do the same in your TL. there’s no shame in pausing your netflix show because you need a second. also, make sure you know how to ask speakers to wait in your TL

they’ve said it 3 times, and the words still sound incomprehensible -> ask for the sentence to be reworded

this works decently enough for me. I’m not sure why. sometimes asking a speaker to slow down helps, too!

another sensory annoyance is keeping you from focusing -> try to eliminate the annoyance 

ask if you can move the conversation to a quieter room, turn off the lights, get a blanket, etc. if I’m hyperfocused on how terrible I feel, my comprehension goes out the door. allow yourself to feel comfortable

note: try to identify when listening comprehension is a processing struggle versus a language learner struggle. you’ll be better able to accomodate yourself after figuring that out

speaking

your mouth just won’t make the words -> speak slower, find synonyms

say the word syllable by syllable if you can. if you still can’t do it, you can also choose a synonym. (the number of words in my native language that I just can’t even say lmao) 

you realize the sentence you’re saying / just said is unintelligible -> try again from the begining

take a second in your mind to figure out what you want to say, then speak slowly to make sure your brain has the time to process it. I hate this because it makes me feel stupid, but it works… make sure you know how to say “let me try again” or something similar in your TL

Polygloss has you describe an image in your target language so another player can guess it. It encourages creative answers. The game works for people of all levels — you can describe simple pictures or try your hand at wordplay.

If you are also learning Japanese and would like more practice for writing and reading in Japanese, this app is really nice! You yourself can decide how complex your sentences are (though you will get more points the longer they are) and even if your matched partner uses some words you don't know, it's usually still possible to tell which picture they are talking about. Which is exactly how you will improve your overall reading comprehension actually!!

FOOD IN MOVIES

Abre y cierra con un guiño al cine. como que nos inmitam a una mesa en la que se servirñan muchos platos, o una pleícula con muchos episodios.

Estructura: historia de amor entretejida con la meta de ddominar el oficio del ramen,

Motivaciones de ella. Superarse, ser avalada.Desarrollar el oficio. Demostrarse a si misma que puede y asegurar el sustento de su hijo,

SEomenatrios de la sociedad: los riatiales en torno a la comida en la clase alta y entre profesionales caídos, convertidos en indigentes.

Escena del restaurante, ellas aprenden a comer a lo occidental-. Francias es el gran refenremte de gastronomía pero tambiénb de cine - Godard y Tati - y el que mejor hace elruido de ramen es un extranjero. Cuando se inaugira el rest. destaca Goro sobre la fila de extranjetros.

Sin aliento de Godard -

Viñetas que tratan sobre la exaltación de los senstidos, tacto, olfato, la vista. Donde el epsiodio no culmima, lo hace la cñamara. Travellings sugestivos, cargados de emoción evocadora.

Límites : practicas sexuales , experimentación del cuerpo para sentir.- Golpes, sangre, erotismo. Cronenberg - y Peter Greenway - El cocinero el ladron su mujer y su amante.

JÛZÔ ITAMI

Most people probably only remember it as a play that famously was staged with GRANADA actors aka Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes and Edward Hardwicke as John Watson.

However, it’s also a radio play (2022). Award-winning btw, it got The Blue Carbuncle aka the prize of the German Sherlock Holmes Society. Klaus Krückemeyer as the detective and Sebastian W. Wagner as his doctor, and a female (!) narrator, Carolin Freud.

I own a recording of the original, and I’m so excited about the changes, similarities,

and

…. how a country that never aired all of GRANADA (major flop, got cancelled, it’s been 35 years — never ever will there be a German version of all-season of GRANADA on TV) — therefore no mentions of its link in the radio play (they honest-to-God mention Inspector Barnaby and My Fair Lady) —

will treat it.

Because Jeremy Brett is definitely not a Sherlock Holmes of a generation here. Or a legend. Or an icon.

Germany produces all least 300 audio dramas about Sherlock Holmes yearly, we have German TV series and movies, musicals, theatre plays (watch one every other week, easy-peasy). Don’t get me started on books and pastiches. Oldest Sherlock Holmes Society in the Wold. We are obsessed with the detective.

But what is GRANADA Holmes?!?!

So excited! Stripped of its myth, who is the man behind The Secret of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes‘ Geheimnis)?!

A Fine Perchase

i've been itching to draw something new after i had to abandon a WIP i was so excited for. thankfully, the universe decided to pity me, and showed me an interesting picture that led me to @torillatavataan's blog to catch up on the delightful world of kuha meemi!

i hope i'm not a decade too late 😆

(1) Kvenfolkets dag is actually celebrated every March 16. i just thought it'd be nicer to have the comic set on his birthday considering his first appearance wasn't as cheery.

(2) i personally headcanon finland to have a fondness for kven, hence why he makes a bit of an effort to talk to him. also because his dad isn't sweden jk

(3) i got hungry looking at photos of bløtkake.

(4) i thoroughly enjoyed how cebuano and tagalog are the only non-finnic languages on the "kuha" wiktionary page. "kuha" means "to get" or "to take" in tagalog. so i can say, "nakuha ni kven ang kuha kay finland." :P

-"Wait, you know the word fjättrad (fettered) but not bindas (bound)???" (in my defense I had recently read a book about the Nordic Gods, and the section on Loki used the word fjättrad to describe his punishment.)

-My Swedish for Immigrants teacher once gave me a worksheet where I had to write down a Swedish word beginning with every letter of the alphabet. The first thing that came to mind for S was "syndaren" (the sinner) because it came up in a folk song I was really into at the time. Pretty sure he gave me a raised eyebrow for that.

-When I moved up a few course levels, a different instructor was very surprised that I knew the word "fjäll" (another word for mountain, "berg" is the much more common term). When she asked where I learned that, I said "it's on all those backpacks. Y'know, Fjäll Räven Kånken."