Archives for April 2004

Michigan State University’s ASL Browser web site is “an online American Sign Language (ASL) browser where you can look up video of thousands of ASL signs and learn interesting things about them.” Extremely useful—film clips are far more helpful than verbal descriptions for learning sign language. (Via MetaFilter.)

Addendum. ASL poetry:

Prior to the 1970s, there are no published records about ASL poets or poetry. To be sure, the art of storytelling has a long history in ASL and Deaf culture, and skilled storytellers are revered as in other cultures. In the 1960s, William Stokoe of Gallaudet University began the first analysis of sign language based upon linguistic principles. As the understanding and acceptance of these ideas of ASL structure spread, so did the art of manipulating these structures for poetic effect. Valli reports that by the 1970s, there may have been as many as five ASL poets. At first, many Deaf people were resistant even to the idea of poetry; upon hearing of a poetry performance, one woman tells that she believed it was a performance for a translation of an English poem, much like a performance of music put to sign. In fact, the sign for POETRY in ASL is nearly identical to the sign for MUSIC. Realizing that he would need to overcome such misconceptions to gain acceptance, Valli stopped using the sign POETRY, and for many years fingerspelled P-O-E-T when speaking of ASL poetry. Now, a new sign has emerged into popular use, which clearly distinguishes ASL poetry from English poetry.

Via an AskMetaFilter thread “Does the concept of ‘rhyme’ exist in sign language?,” which also links to this article on Translating Shakespeare into sign language:

“The most difficult part is rhyming,” explains Novak, noting that rhyme is by definition a similarity of sounds, a concept that is inherently foreign to sign language. The way out of the paradox, he explains, is to find close visual images to translate the text. Sometimes, it can take hours to come up with just the right adaptation, he notes.

The Loeb Greek texts of the Apostolic Fathers (Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, et al) are online. As Chris Culver of Nephelokokkygia, from whom I take the link, says:

This collection is, I feel, among the best introductions to Koine Greek for students. Sure, the New Testament might be the most famous work in that dialect, but it makes a poor challenge because most people already have the translation of so many passages lurking in their subconscious. The Septuagint is full of idiosyncratic Hebraisms which are often quite charming but not the best representative of the majority of Koine texts. The epistles of Polycarp, Ignatius, and Clement, on the other hand, are unfamiliar works to the average student, and their prose is relatively free of solecisms.

The Glossarist is “a compendium of glossaries on various subjects”:

Looking for the definition of a term in a particular subject can be difficult and time consuming. That’s where the Glossarist can help you look. Just choose a subject or search for the industry you are interested in at the top.

The current Featured Glossary is The Alphabetary Heraldic: A Genealogical Glossary of the Matrices and Patrices of Familial Life/ Arranged as an Immodest Companion for Heraldic Visitation/ With Notations and Phrases Typical of Anthropology, History, and Biography/ Based on Saxon, Latin, and Greek, and Annotated with Comparative Expressions in Italian, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Japanese, and Chinese./ Editio princeps by John R. Mayer.

A few entries, to give you a feel for the wide-ranging coverage:

folio 3 usque ad folium 5 : from folio 3 through folio 5. Cf. folium.
a h-aon a’s a h-aon I ngaol : [Ir] literally one and one in blood relationship; brother and sister; a pair of siblings removed from the apical ancestor by just one step. Cf. a dó a’s a dó I ngaol.
a quibus : from which.
a quibus Leonello et Elisabeth filia processit nomine Philippa heres unica : from which Lionel and Elizabeth proceeded a daughter, one heir named Philippa.
A, a : [Sumerian] open vowel, one of the three primal Sumerian vowels.
abjure the realm : to exile oneself from the country and promise to never return except by leave of the king.
Absaroka : Absaroke : [MT, WY] the native tribal name of the Crow.
abstract : deed abstract, land abstract; a concise summary of the stipulations and the land plat of a deed; will abstract, an abbreviated record of one’s last will and testament showing the names of beneficiaries, witnesses, and executors. A clerk creates an abstract to record a document or transaction in a register. Cf. catalogus, register.

(Via wood s lot.)

Since I’ve complained about the shortage of translations of Arabic literature, I thought I should call readers’ attention to some books that the University of California Press very kindly makes available online as part of their Public eScholarship Editions (in this case, the Middle Eastern Studies) section: Mahmoud Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982; Bahaa’ Taher, Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery: A Novel; Ibrahim Muhawi (Darwish) and Sharif Kanaana, Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales. Other titles of LH relevance:

Brinkley Messick, The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society:

In this innovative combination of anthropology, history, and postmodern theory, Brinkley Messick examines the changing relation of writing and authority in a Muslim society from the late nineteenth century to the present. The creation and interpretation of texts, from sacred scriptures to administrative and legal contracts, are among the fundamental ways that authority is established and maintained in a complex state. Yet few scholars have explored this process and the ways in which it changes, especially outside the Western world.Messick brings together intensive ethnography and textual analysis from a wealth of material: Islamic jurisprudence, Yemeni histories, local documents.

Irene A. Bierman, Writing Signs: The Fatimid Public Text:

Irene Bierman explores the complex relationship between alphabet and language as well as the ways the two elements are socially defined by time and place. She focuses her exploration on the Eastern Mediterranean in the sixth through twelfth centuries, notably Cairo’s Fatimid dynasty of 969-1171. Examining the inscriptions on Fatimid architecture and textiles, Bierman offers insight into all elements of that society, from religion to the economy, and the enormous changes the dynasty underwent during that period. Bierman addresses fundamental issues of what buildings mean, how inscriptions affect that meaning, and the role of written messages and the ceremonies into which they are incorporated in service of propagandist goals. Her method and conclusions provide a pioneering model for studying public writing in other societies and offer powerful evidence to show that writing is a highly charged and deeply embedded social practice.

These free UCal editions are a tremendous resource; if you don’t already know them, be sure to investigate. The Middle East stuff is a drop in the bucket.

The Online Dictionary of Playground Slang. A lot of the entries don’t seem particularly “playground,” and the definitions can be haphazard, but the brio and Chris Lewis’s commentary make up for a lot. Examples:

man-of-atlantis: Useless swimming stroke based on Patrick Duffy in the television series.

manners: ‘Manners’ was a term used to point out that another kid was inferior to you, in the way they dressed, at sports, physically, or just in general. If you were ‘under manners’ this could also mean that you were in trouble, or being watched by a teacher in class, so had to be quiet. Obviously, it was used to tease and show that you could still continue to behave badly, whilst they were – indeed – ‘under manners’, I heard this all through secondary school. Incidentally, my school – Quintin Kynaston – was the school that Graham McPherson, ‘Suggs’ from Madness went to, and wrote the song ‘Baggy Trousers’ about!

(Via MetaFilter.)

Türkçestan, Orientaal’s links to Turkic languages, is an amazing resource, with links to texts in Altai, Azerbaijani, Balkar, Bashkir, Chagatay, Chuvash, Cuman, Crimean Tatar, Gagauz, Karachay, Karaim, Kazakh, Khakas, Kumyk, Kyrgyz, Nogay, Old Uyghur, Orkhon, Ottoman, Shor, Tatar, Tofa, Turkish, Turkmen, Tuvan, Uyghur, Uzbek, Yakut, and Yellow Uyghur, in all relevant alphabets and often with audio clips. Furthermore, the Orientaal site also has Türkçekent, pages for Turkish Language Learning; Arabistan, pages for Arabic Language Learning; Farsiabad, pages for Persian Language Learning; Russkograd, pages for Russian Language Learning; and Shqip, pages for Albanian Language Learning. I haven’t investigated them yet, but I imagine there’s good material there.

These riches come via Renee, whose interesting entry on “Negations and epic poetry” also links to material on Bashkir, as well as quoting a Bashkir epic in Bashkir, Russian and English.

A Man may make a Remark –
In itself – a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature – lain –

Let us divide – with skill –
Let us discourse – with care –
Powder exists in Charcoal –
Before it exists in Fire –

– Emily Dickinson
913 (1865)

Via the Eudæmonist.

I’ve begun reading The Shi’is of Iraq, by Yitzhak Nakash, and was struck in the first chapter by the mention of the Mamluk rulers of Iraq, who had virtual autonomy within the Ottoman Empire, and I started googling around to find out more about them. A tantalizing Angelfire page said:

The last Mamluk governor of Iraq, Da’ud Pasha (1816-31), turned increasingly to Europe for weapons and advisers to equip and train his military force and endeavoured to improve communications and promote trade; in this respect he resembled his contemporary in Egypt, Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha. But, whereas Muhammad ‘Ali’s Egypt drew closer to France, it was Great Britain that continued to strengthen its position in the Persian Gulf and Iraq.

The fall of Da’ud can be attributed in part to the determination of Sultan Mahmud II (1808-39) to curtail provincial autonomy and restore the central authority of his government throughout the realm…

Imagine my delighted surprise when I discovered that Abdelrahman Munif had written a three-volume historical novel, Ard Al-Sawad (‘the Dark Land,’ the tradition Arabic name for the Iraqi lowlands), about this very Da’ud Pasha and his times:

The life of Dawoud Pasha, the famous wali (governor) of Baghdad and one of the main characters in Ard Al-Sawad, is well known to historians. Born in Georgia in c.1774 to Christian parents, Dawoud came to Baghdad as a Mameluke, or member of an indentured servant or military caste, at the age of 10, changing masters until he reached the court of Soliman Pasha Al-Kabir, who was impressed by the boy’s intelligence and love of the sciences. At a fairly early age Dawoud had mastered Arabic, Turkish and Persian and excelled at mathematics and, in recognition of his labours, Soliman duly appointed him court treasurer (khazindar).

Dawoud went on to marry the youngest of Soliman’s daughters. In 1817 he became wali of Baghdad, but was defeated by the forces of the Ottoman Sultan Mahmoud II in 1831 and subsequently expelled from the city. Quite uncharacteristically, given the usual Ottoman practice, he was pardoned and held smaller governorships in the Ottoman Empire, including that of Bosnia (1833-35) and Ankara (1839-1840). In 1840 Dawoud retired to Medina, where he stayed until his death in 1850, being buried in the vicinity of the Prophet’s shrine in that city.

Such is a thumbnail sketch of the life of Dawoud Pasha… In order to understand the significance of Dawoud Pasha’s career, one needs to remember that the period 1775-1831 witnessed the relative breakdown of central authority in the Ottoman system, meaning that the administration in Constantinople lost effective control over many provincial governors, especially in the Fertile Crescent. This led to the rise to power of various local rulers, in many cases only nominally recognising the sultan’s authority, in Iraq and elsewhere, and foremost among these as far as the north-eastern part of Ottoman territories were concerned were the Mamelukes who gained power in Baghdad and, by extension, in Basra, which, then and now, was Iraq’s main port and the outlet of its trade to the outside world. The Mamelukes settled their affairs among themselves by force or by conspiracy, often leaving Constantinople with little choice other than to give its seal of approval to whomever had successfully seized power.

It is against this background of the deterioration in Ottoman power and the rising influence of the Western imperialist powers in the region that the events of the novel unfold. This backdrop, the properly historical part of the novel, must continuously be borne in mind when reading its narrative of events, which, with the exception of an introductory Prelude of a few, highly charged pages and occasional flashbacks, deal only with the first four years of Dawoud’s period in office in Baghdad. Its final chapter ends in the year 1821 with the departure from Baghdad of the British Consul-General Claudius James Ritch, following a period of bitter strife between him and Dawoud Pasha, a strife emanating from the latter’s eagerness to check the growing influence of the rising foreign powers over the political life of the country…

One of the main features of Ard Al-Sawad, in fact, and one that is likely to stick in the mind of any sensitive reader of the novel, is the meticulous care with which the details of the lives of ordinary people living at the time have been rendered. One leaves the novel with an abiding impression of these people’s daily struggles, and this impression transcends the boundaries of the historical period and lends the novel a universal significance. It is these ordinary people, the people of Iraq then and now, who occupy centre stage in Mounif’s narrative. Mamelukes, walis and the representatives of foreign powers may crisscross the historical stage, mostly wielding knives ready to stab into each others’ backs, but Mounif’s “love-song” to Iraq, as the novelist describes his work, is dedicated to these ordinary Iraqi people. The book perhaps may best be understood in these terms, for its true subject is the people of Iraq and the stern, yet all-embracing, natural environment in which they live: the overflowing Tigris drowning all about it; the clear springs of the north of the country flowing through the mountains; the burning sun of the desert, appeased only by torrential rains; the bewildering accumulation of the country’s smells and textures. These features are equally characteristic of the Iraqi national character; underneath the gravity and apparent grimness which beset the Iraqi people, there flow the tender springs of emotion.

Now imagine my bitterness when I realized that I will almost certainly never be able to read this novel, which in a better world would already have been translated (it was published in 1999) and would be informing our interaction with Iraq. But who will spend the money and take the risk involved in translating a huge novel from Arabic, when translations sell so badly in general and no one is interested in Arab culture? It’s a miracle that Cities of Salt was published, but I can’t imagine it made much or any money, and I seriously doubt any publisher would be tempted to throw more money after it. If Munif had won the Nobel, of course, things would be different—Mahfouz had a flood of English publications after his award. But without that kind of spotlight, Arabic literature is basically a black hole when viewed from the solipsistic shores of the US. I can’t tell you how much I wish that weren’t so.

I was pleased to learn, via a thread at Tenser, said the Tensor, that a lack of fricatives or affricates is “virtually universal for all Australian languages, of all families.” Furthermore, the phenomenon is almost entirely limited to Australia and the adjacent regions; the list given by The Tensor (created from the UCLA Phonological Segment Inventory Database) has only two outliers (AUCA: S. American, Andean; DINKA: Nilo-Saharan, Eastern Sudanic, Nilotic, Dinka-Nuer); as he says, “That’s an areal feature if I’ve ever seen one.” And yet another rebuttal to the universalists (who used to claim that all languages have fricatives).

I wasn’t expecting much when I visited the Illyrian language site (whose title bar reads “Who were Illyrians?”). It had all the earmarks of a crackpot site: bad English, shaky formatting, unsupported statements, uncertain grasp of the difference between myth and history. But when I scrolled down the (near-endless) page, I found (below the dynastic tables, king lists, “History of the Eagle,” &c) a heading Indo – European Etymological Dictionary. When I clicked on Part I, I discovered this was Pokorny’s Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, the basic tool of the Indo-Europeanist, in easily readable form.

The database represents the updated text of J. Pokorny’s “Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch”, scanned and recognized by George Starostin (Moscow), who has also added the meanings. The database was further refurnished and corrected by A. Lubotsky. Pokorny’s text is given practically unchanged (only a few obvious typos were corrected), except for some rearrangement of the material.

(It’s supposedly online here, but the interface is so annoying I never bother using it.) Additional material is highlighted in vivid yellow so that it can be distinguished; I don’t know who wrote it, but I suspect the author of the website (“An impact of illyr. on balt. languages has been felt through Estonian veli ‘brother’, Finnish veli ‘brother’. Clearly the Finno-Ugric group has met with Indo European family through Illyrians“). I can’t tell you how happy this resource makes me.
To save us all trouble, I’ll provide direct links to the sections of Pokorny so nobody has to keep scrolling down the Illyrian page:
Part I (*abh- to *dens-)
Part II (*deph- to *gou̯ǝ-/gū- ‘hand’)
Part III: *gou̯ǝ-/gū- ‘call, cry’ to *k̂ē(i)-)
Part IV: (*k̂ēko- to *pid-)
Part V: (*pik(h)o- to *su̯elplo-s)
Part VI: (*su̯em- to *ū̆d-, plus a few additional lemmas)

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