I’m just wondering what you think of the wibiya toolbar I added to Omniglot this week – the green band that appears at the bottom of pages.
Do you find it useful?
Would you like to see other links or applications on it?
I also decided it was time to change the template of this blog. Do you like the new one?
I’ve been playing with Xtranormal today and have made a couple of new films:
Double Dutch (in Dutch and English)
Where’s my dragon? (In Mandarin and English)
When you use Mandarin the system refuses to accept some of the characters you type in, including some common ones like 谢 (thanks). I tried substituting pinyin for the problematic characters, but found that this only works in some cases. Then I came up with the idea of substituting other characters with the same sounds, and it works well. For example 谢谢 becomes 泄泄 (泄 [xiè = to leak) and 话 (huà) – language, becomes 画 (huà) – picture. It’s not ideal, but it works and I’ve learnt some new characters, or re-learnt ones I should already know.
If I can work out how to add subtitles, I might do so, but it should be possible to work out most of the non-English bits from the English bits.
I’ve also posted these films on YouTube.
Here’s a recording of a folk tale in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language and where it’s spoken?
Today’s post is an appeal for your help from Tim Brookes.
Dear fellow linguists, anthropologists and scholars in general all across the planet:
Having finished my original Endangered Alphabets Project, I’m now starting a similar carving project whose aim once again is to draw attention to the world’s vanishing scripts — and I need your help.
The project will have many different outcomes. If all goes well, it will result in endangered scripts being combined with an endangered languages poetry project, being carved and displayed throughout the U.S. and in other countries, and even being projected onto the sides of major U.S. buildings.
For this to happen, though, I need to be in touch with people who can read and write these disappearing scripts well enough to be able to translate a short text for me.
Here are the scripts in which I am especially interested, and as yet have nobody who can act as a translator:
Redjang
Bamum
Balinese
Manchu
Nushu
Ranjana/Lantsa
N’Ko
Buhid
Tai Dam
Javanese
Maldivian/Thaana
If you happen to be able to read and write in one or more of these scripts and are interested in joining me in this project by translating a four-line poem, please contact me at brookes@champlain.edu. Needless to say, I’ll credit you in all written materials.
If you think you may know of someone else who may be able to help, please forward this appeal to him or her.
Thanks so much, and best wishes,
Tim Brookes
brookes@champlain.edu
Tweak
verb – 1. To pinch, pluck or twist sharply. 2. To adjust; fine-tune. 3. To make fun of; tease.
noun – 1. A sharp, twisting pinch. 2. A teasing remark or action; a joke. [source]
Etymolgoy: From the Old English twiccian (to pluck), from the Proto-Germanic. *twikjonan.
We were discussing tweaking last night in French, and this got me wondering about the English word’s etymology.
French equivalents include modifier légèrement, if you’re talking about make small adjustments; pincer for tweaking the nose; tirer for adjusting hair or a moustache; réglage is used for tuning an engine or adjusting a machine, and tordre means to twist or wring.
The phrase tirer les oreilles à qn means to tweak sb’s ears, and also to give somebody a dressing down.
Often you find that one word in English has a number of possible translations in other languages, and vice versa. If you rely on online dictionaries and machine translation, you don’t necessarily get all those translations. When people write to me requesting translations, they often ask me to translate single words into other languages. Words like love, strength, pride, faith, and so on are popular. The trouble is that they rarely specify what kind of love, pride, etc they mean. However if they just spend a bit of time thinking about this and tweaking their requests, they’re easier to deal with.
According to an article I found today in The Telegraph, the British government have decided to tinker with the education system yet again and plan to reintroduce compulsory foreign languages in secondary schools up to the add of 16. Their plan is to make languages one of five core subjects along with English, mathematics, a science and one of the humanities.
I understand from friends who work in education that such reforms and changes rarely have much time to settle before the next lot come along. It’s only six years since the requirement for languages in secondary schools was dropped, for example.
Do you think it’s a good idea to make the study of languages compulsory in schools?
I came across the word nurdle in a book I read last week. Which of the following definitions do you think is the correct one?
Can you suggest any other definitions for this word?
Can any of you decipher the Chinese in this image?
The larger characters appear to be “仙露明珠方 朗潤松風水月北” (xiān lù míng zhū fāng lǎng rùn sōng fēng shuǐ yuè běi).
The smaller characters on the left appear to be “??扵甾香饭石生?” (??zāi xiāng fàn dàn shēng ?) – I’m not sure about the first two or the last one.
I know what parts of it mean, but not the whole thing.
[Update 21/11/2010]: according to a friend or a friend, the characters are “仙露明珠方明润，松风明月比清华。 于留香馆，石生画。” This is from 《小窗幽记》 (xiăochuāng yōujì) in 《醉古堂剑扫》 (zuì gŭ táng jiàn săo), Volume 12, Paragraph 121.
