Languages: Norwegian (N) English (C2), French (C2), Spanish (C2), German (B2), Romansh (B2), Italian (B2), Catalan (B2), Russian (B1), Latin (B2), Dutch (B1), Croatian (A2), Arabic (on hold), Ancient Greek (learning), Romanian (on hold)
Serpent wrote:Very true... I sometimes get paranoid that a stranger on the metro will understand what I'm reading in Spanish or Portuguese based on their knowledge of English
As for Stelle's post, this was about reading, right? afaiu the similarities are more noticeable in the spoken language, because to recognize the French words in writing you need to figure out the pronunciation based on the spelling? (which is an additional step)
Yes, reading is certainly harder, because the orthograph is so different from standard French. When I first read things iguanamon posted in Haitian Creole I could not make any sense of it. However once I tried to read a couple of sentences out load, and suddenly words started to make sense. I realised that "beswen" is "besoin", and I discovered that the definite article is attached to the noun, like in "lasekirite" (la sécurité), lapè (la paix), "larichès" (la richesse). It is a thrill to be able to suddenly make some sense of a text in a language you don't really know at all.
Thanks for stopping by, Serpent and Ogrim. It's interesting how being experienced language-learners helps us to see patterns. I do believe that this is a skill that monolingual beginners lack or isn't as developed as is with those who have learned a second language to a high level.
Ogrim wrote:I discovered that the definite article is attached to the noun, like in "lasekirite" (la sécurité), lapè (la paix), "larichès" (la richesse). It is a thrill to be able to suddenly make some sense of a text in a language you don't really know at all.
Absolutely! I love being able to figure out Catalan, Italian, French and Romansh in that way too. As regards to the definite article- yes, and no. In certain French words the original French definite article has remained and is attached to the noun, however; it still requires a Kreyòl definite article following it which makes it completely redundant, I know, but that's how it works, ex: lak la (the lake); tanp lan (the temple); tifi a (the girl); tonton an (the uncle); legliz la (the church) - elatriye (etc.). The use of "a, an, nan, lan and la" depend upon the ending of the word and whether, and to what degree, nasal it is.
The plural is always "yo"- from the French "eux". In Caribbean English, which I hear everyday, the English Creole marker is "dem" (them), ex.: "De iguana dem" (The iguanas) . My favorite is "De people dem" (The people). I had already seen examples of how Creole grammar works from noticing the way English is spoken here in the VI. VI Creole is becoming more and more de-creolized.
Gramè Deskriptif Kreyòl Ayisyen wrote:Gen kèk mo kreyòl ki kenbe fòm difini pliryèl franse a <<les>> kole ak non an. Yo rele fenomèn sa a a aglitinasyon.There are some Kreyòl words which keep the French definite plural form "les" pinned to the noun. This phenomenon is called agglutination. Egz: Lèzengra(stangers; outsiders); Lèzanj/Ti lèzanj(angel; angels; little angels) Nou pa ka di detèminan defini pliryèl <<lè>> egziste an kreyòl pou sa. We can't say the definite plural determinant article "lè" (les) exists in Kreyòl by that. Paske lè aglitinasyon an fèt, de mo orijinal yo (detèminan + non franse a) tounen yon sèl mo an kreyòl. Non kreyòl ki vin fòme a kapab pran yon detèminan (egz. Ti lèzanj lan; Ti lèzanj yo) Because when ("lè" on its own means "when" in English and comes from "l'heure" en français) the aglutination is made of the original words (article + the French noun) is turned into a single word in Kreyòl. The Kreyòl noun takes an article (ex: The little angel; The little angels).
Which brings me to a point about learning similar languages. Serpent has always raised a good point about studying similar languages together, especially if you don't aim to speak straight away. She uses her knowledge of linguistics and experience with language-learning in general to aid her in this and his been quite successful with it. I'll let her speak for herself, but this is my perception.
When I first started learning Portuguese, after having learned Spanish to a high level, it threw me for a complete loop. Like Daniel Samper (Colombian journalist) wrote in Eu não falo português, I thought it was the hardest language in the world because it was so similar to Spanish in many respects and yet so different in others. I eventually found my way and this experience helped me immensely with Djudeo-espanyol/Ladino, which is even more similar to Spanish. Yet at the same time, it is just different enough to make it a separate language and challenging to learn.
I've been thinking about learning Arabic at some point. There is a small but important community of Palestinians (similar to Levantine/Syrian dialect), here on the island I could speak to, including some neighbors. Of course I know about the diglossia of MSA and "dialect". Benny Lewis learned conversational Egyptian Arabic in Brasil before traveling to Egypt and pretty much ignored MSA. Ogrim is learning MSA, the same as Luso. Lady Grey decided to learn both at the same time.
I never have been one to want to have two languages at a low beginner level going at the same time. I haven't seen any monolingual beginners who can do that and only a few esperienced learners (my hat is off to them!) who can successfully manage it. That being said, I can see where the experience of having learned closely related languages like Spanish, Portuguese and Djudeo/espanyol to a high level will help me to learn Palestinian and MSA. The only thing is, should I learn them simultaneously or one after the other? I don't know yet if I am even going to learn Arabic. Along the lines of James29, I have a lot still left to learn in all my languages. It seems you never stop learning, as we all know. Right now I want to learn some spoken Palestinian first in order to get conversational. I've already learned basic greetings and how to introduce and talk about myself a bit- ask people how they're doing, etc. Like I said, there are people available with whom I could speak. I may also try MSA at the same time. Probably concentrating equally on both at first and then using MSA for reading to improve my vocabulary and also to explore the cultures through literature and the news. It would be wonderful for me to be conversational in Arabic and satisfying to be able to explore a culture we know so little about (generally speaking in the West) except for broad and sweeping stereotypes and generalizations.
Enough of that, that's for the future- if it happens at all. Right now, I am hard at work improving my Kreyòl and have a way to go before I will be satisfied. In my next post I am going to analyze a song in detail and hope to show that there can be quite a lot to learn, even from a 4 minute song.
To my fellow Americans out there- Happy Thanksgiving/Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias/Feliz Dia de Ação de Graças/Buen Diya de Aksyon de Grasias/Bòn Jou de Aksyon de Gras- I think I can handle similar languages, hopefully! To everyone else, Bòn semèn, mezanmi. M'a wè nou pita. Até mais.
Last edited by iguanamon on Sat Dec 17, 2016 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Last week I said I was going to talk about a song and what I have learned from it intensively. I copied the audio to my phone and have been listening to it almost every day for almost a month in order to really hear the lyrics. The song is a cover of Papa Gede Bèl Gason by Naika Richard which I posted a few weeks ago. Naika is a Lebanese-Haitian-American. She learned Kreyòl from her mother. Serge Rodrigues of Lavwadlamerik (VOA Kreyòl) said in his interview with her: "W (Ou) pale kreyòl tankou rat", which is an idiom for "You speak Kreyòl like a native". I've also seen it and heard it as "W pale kreyòl pase rat". I never knew rats could say anything beyond "squeak" but, there you go. Now on to the song. Here's the video again, lyrics are a few paragraphs down:
There's quite a lot going on here in this song. The first 60% is a sad ballad. The song talks about the tragic life of one of the most famous Haitian divas of her time in the 1940's- Lumane Casimir- a legend of Haitian music. Sometimes a deep research of a topic can lead to many unexpected and interesting places. Lumane Casimir (Limèn Kazimi) has a Polish surname, yet obviously doesn't look like a European Pole. There's an interesting story behind the Poles in Haiti. The Caribbean is a great kallaloo (stew) of cultures from all over the world. Legend has it that the Poles were brought to Haiti by Napoleon to fight against the Haitians in the Revolution and that instead, they defected to the Haitian side and were allowed to stay on after independence, when the rest of the whites were either slaughtered or expelled- Polone. Of course, legends are often exaggerated and this seems to be the case here:
Bob Corbett- Webster University wrote:For years I have been hearing the stories about how Polish legions, supposedly fighting for Napoleon in the last days of the revolution, were said to have gone over to the Haitians and fought side by side with the oppressed blacks. The old story continued that the Poles then settled in Haiti and that even today there can be found Haitian Poles, blue eyed, blond, with European features. Thus when I ran across Pachonski and Wilson's book, POLAND'S CARIBBEAN TRAGEDY, I was thrilled to have a chance to get the story from the source as it were. ... In short, the story of the Poles as friends of Haiti and as settlers is greatly exaggerated to understate the case. However, Pachonski and Wilson do address the interesting question of how the myth grew, and they attribute it in great measure as being a creation of Jean-Jacques Dessaline (Jan Jak Desalin- great hero of Haitian Revolution) himself. On Pachonski and Wilson's view, Dessaline was much taken by the fact that the Poles tended to treat the Haitians better than other Europeans and to have less regard for the French. The Poles did not want to be in Saint Domingue and, in general, opposed the war, however, they did follow their own orders and fought for the French cause. At the same time they expressed strong criticism for the French, had great sympathy for the Taino/Arawak Indians whom the Spanish had eliminated, and were not at all as racist as the French. With Dessaline's prodding, the Haitians tended to treat the Poles much better when they captured them. On one Pole's account this meant that they killed them straight off rather than torturing them as they did the French! In sum there were about 5200 Poles sent to Saint Domingue by Napoleon. More than 4000 died, primarily of yellow fever. Some returned to France, some were subsumed into the British Colonial Army, and only about 400 remained in Haiti. Even then, 160 of those received permission from Dessalines in 1806 to return to France, and were even sent there at Haiti's expense. Thus, only about 240 Poles actually became and remained Haitian citizens. Likewise the stories of Poles deserting the French for the Haitian cause are grossly exaggerated with only 120 to 150 Poles ever going over to the Haitian cause, and those are more likely to have done so to save their own lives than as a matter of principle. ... source You can read more here The Great Deceit; The Polish Legion in Haiti
The lyrics of the song tell the life story of Lumane Kazimi. Translation, warts and all, is mine. So here, we have talk of "Epòk sa a se nan tan Bisantnè" / "The era was in the time of the Bicentennial". This confused me at first because Haiti's Bicentennial was in 2003- 200 years after independence from France. The song is talking about the Bicentennial of Pòtoprens/Port-au-Prince. There was a big exposition akin to a "World's Fair" erected in Pòtoprens where Marian Anderson, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Bebo Valdes and Celia Cruz, and of course, Lumane Casimir played and sang. The President at the time committed one fourth of Haiti's annual budget- a million dollars to build it. The neighborhood in Pòtoprens is still called Bisantnè today. Lumane's talent was discovered at the age of 13 and at 14 she moved to Pòtoprens to seek her fortune as a singer: Yon tifi, yon ti kòmè pwovens A girl, a young lady from the province Ki rive Pòtoprens Who came to Port-au-Prince Vini chache lavi She came to find a life Yon tifi, san zanmi san fanmi A girl without friends, without family Yon gita anba bra l A guitar under her arm Ak yon lespwa nan vwa l With a hope in her voice The song says that "Si lakansyèl te gen vwa, Si lakansyèl te ka chante. Se tankou Lumane li ta chante" / "if a rainbow had a voice, if a rainbow could sing, it would sing like Lumane". Sadly, not much of her music survives today, at least I can't find much of it online. I did find this one on youtube but the quality of the audio, I'm sure, doesn't do justice to her voice Peyi a si bel The Country is so Beautiful. The style of the song is a slow Mereng / Merengue singing about tourism in Haiti. The lyrics are in the comments section.
It all ends sadly for Lumane who dropped out of her career about 1951 (most likely due to her illness) and died in poverty in a two room hovel in Port-au-Prince from tuberculosis at the age of 35 four years later in 1955. The song ends by saying that on the day of her funeral, it was a day without sunshine but people swore they could hear her voice in the wind singing about Papa Gede- the lwa who stands between life and death ready to guide souls to the afterlife. I wrote about Papa Gede a page or two back. So, a stranded Polish legion, Napoleon, a great exposition in Port-au-Prince, a legendary singer of Haitian music who even the birds stop to listen to, a sad story and an introduction to Haitian Vodou and redemption... not bad for a five and a half minute song.
This is so interesting, thanks for sharing! I'm pretty sure I've been to Bisantnè. I actually started googling around to find out more and discovered this little gem, which you've probably seen: http://www.forumhaiti.com/ Lots of posts in HC!
Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol I've been reading a novel in Djudeo-espanyol in Rashi script- Un Kuryozo Ladron (Un Curioso Ladron/A Curious Thief) The book was printed in Estambol/Istanbul in 1922 (5682 by the Jewish Calendar) and sold for 30 Groshes! A "Grosh" was 1/40th of a Turkish pound at the time. The title and publisher name are written in "Meruba" script or "Block Hebrew". The book is from the "Guerta de Istorias"/Garden of Stories. The Rashi text says- "por el renombrado eskrivano Djordj Baloch"/by the renowned writer George Baloch- and in Meruba- "traduizido por Robert Negron"/translated by Robert Negron- "editado por Anri Saltiel"/edited by Anri Saltiel.
Transliterating Rashi script can be difficult at times because some letters have two and even three equivalents in Romanized letters.
George Zucker, Suggestions on the Transcription of Sephardic Texts into the Roman Alphabet wrote:...the word "discurso" could equally well be pronounced "descurso", "descorsu", "descorsu", "discorso", "discorsu", "discurso" if read by someone who knows "aljamiado" (Rashi) but has never seen or heard this particular word before. I suspect that one of the morphological curiosities of Judeo-Spanish preterite forms is due precisely to this kind of sound confusion with the contributing factor of analogy. ...
The scan by the Spanish Library (Biblioteca Virtual del Patrimonio Bibliográfico) isn't the greatest. Some letters are faint and some words have a gap where a letter was probably too faint to scan properly. To make things even more complicated, the printer made some typographical errors too! So, it's been a bit of a challenge but nothing that has stopped me from reading a chapter or more a day for the past couple of weeks. I mean, if you know the language and a letter is missing you can "f gure" it out- fairly well through context.
An idea I have, if I can ever figure out how to type in Rashi script in a word processor, is to make parallel texts of these public domain works to help future learners learn to read Rashi/Soletreo script. One day, after the last native-speakers pass on, there will be an inevitable interest redeveloping in the descendants of the Sephardim. Sadly there aren't many good materials available. You have to really want to learn Ladino to actually learn it. In other words, it would be hard work for them without good resources available. Maybe I can help. I will be looking into doing this in the New Year/Anyo Muevo.
At first I thought it was going to be a boring book- which wouldn't have mattered as that's part of the price you pay when you choose to learn a rare language. I tried googling the author, George Baloch (or Baloj/Balodj?) who was an American most probably from the 19th Century or early 20th, to no avail. I just started reading it anyway. It starts with a thief casing a house to rob- the narrator. He enters the house and runs into another thief robbing it too. Revolvers are drawn, they decide to carry on their argument outside of the house and eventually split the booty.
19th and early 20th Century American popular literature was often unnecessarily complicated and dramatic with several fantastic coincidences occurring which today would seem to be "formulaic", but hey, that's how it came to be formulaic in the first place. It had to start somewhere. The thieves meet again. The narrator thief starts working for the other thief in his horse stables. He meets Sinyorita/Madmozel Setson- the girlfriend. The rich thief had been robbing his girlfriend's house. There's a mysterious illness (the rich thief) and an equally mysterious Doctor involved (who has a mysterious Indian butler- and, no "the butler didn't do it!"). The narrator/thief ends up working for the rich thief as his "man Friday". His boss saves his life when he breaks into the Doctor's house to find out his secret. ... It's complicated but it eventually starts making sense. The pdf is 183 pages and I only have about 35 pages to go. Despite everything, I'm really enjoying it. It's a surprisingly good read.
There's several Turkish, Greek, Hebrew and Arabic words mixed in- "mupak" (Turk) = kitchen; "hazino/hazinura (Ar)" = ill/illness, "musafir (Turk)" = guest, etc. My dictionary has most of them and some of them I already knew. I have about 16 other novels to read in addition to both the Old and (go figure) the New Testaments of the Bible, along with other religious texts. The novels were translations of popular literature of the time- several from French. Just like George Baloch is obscure and practically unknown today, I suspect most popular novelists of today will fall into that category too in a hundred years.
Similar Languages All my languages are similar (Haitian Creole being a bit more of an outlier), to a certain extent, but here's a brief example of how they are not. Take the word "fork" for example. It's a common eating utensil shared across Western cultures. In Spanish a fork is a "tenedor"; Portuguese- "garfo"; Haitian Creole- "fouch la"; Djudeo-espanyol/Ladino- "piron" (from Greek). Four similar languages and four separate words for fork, with Haitian Creole being most similar to English (not surprising since both of the words came from French originally).
Portuguese Last week I happened upon a movie form Telecine while "channel surfing" on live tv streaming site from Brazil. It was called "Os 33"/"The 33" and it was about the Chilean miners' rescue. The film was a Hollywood/Chilean co-production and dubbed into Portuguese. They didn't dub "Don Francisco", the legendary Chilean/American presenter, just subtitles. I enjoyed the film and even forgot it was a dub.
I will soon be starting the second season of the HBO Brasil series Magnífica 70- about a group of people in the censorship/pornochanchada industry in São Paulo in the 1970's (see page 1 of this log).
Spanish I started the Spanish Group thread here on the forum. I hope all Spanish-learners of all levels, second language-speakers and native-speakers will drop in over there from time to time. Everyone is welcome. I shared a link to Todas las nuevas series españolas de TV que están por venir over there in a post which describes about 20 new series on Spanish TV premiering soon- with video trailers for most of them.
Fidel Castro's passing has been big news on this side of the Atlantic, obviously. He was a big part of my history with Spanish. I remember listening to his speeches on Radio Habana, reading Granma and trying to make sense of it all. I also read El Nuevo Herald from Miami. Cuba and the US have had a long, tortured and intricately intertwined history that is still evolving, especially with a new incoming US President who may roll the recent opening back. Vamos ver. The news has been interesting to follow from both sides of the Castro divide.
Haitian Creole Continuing to read and listen to my podcast Bible study- Atravè Labib. Also watching the Haitian newscast of VOA and reading their articles. I'm noticing big improvements in my listening skills with working with the podcast and transcript carrying over to other audio. I placed a big book order that I'll write about soon.
I know you said you've been able to find plenty of resources of Haitian Creole, but you did mention they're harder to come by. I was browsing around for a Haitian friend of mine who wants to teach his wife/future children Creole, and found out that Dunwoody Press had a Haitian Creole newspaper reader. On Amazon, it's $99 once you count in shipping, but I found it on Better World Books for like $18 with free shipping. Not sure if you would be interested, but it might be useful, so I figured I'd mention it.
Galaxyrocker. Thank you, but I've seen the newsreader and I'm beyond that now. I can read any news article easily and do so regularly. I really appreciate you thinking of me.
As we get near to the end of the year, it's time to take a look back and see what I've done with my languages. I've maintained my Spanish and Portuguese. My Haitian Creole has improved significantly. I can listen better, read easier, speak and write better. My work on the language is paying off in that regard. In Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol reading in Rashi script has become much easier because I am reading something in it every day.
Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol I just finished Los dos viajes de Guliver in Rashi script- the Lilliputians and the Giants. The original was by British author Jonathan Swift. The translation is more of an adaptation. In other words, you couldn't really make a parallel text out of it. This type of "translation" is common in Ladino. The other Rashi books I downloaded from the Spanish library, a majority of them are translations of books by Ponson du Terrail.
Wikipedia wrote:Pierre Alexis, Viscount of Ponson du Terrail (8 July 1829 – 20 January 1871) was a French writer. He was a prolific novelist, producing in the space of twenty years some seventy-three volumes, and is best remembered today for his creation of the fictional character of Rocambole.
So, a prolific mid-19th century French author, now largely forgotten after 150 years. I'll give his books a chance. I don't have many other options in Rashi script for secular literature... which brings me to a point. These days it is so easy for us to remain within our comfort zone of media. By that I mean things have gotten much more genre specific since the advent of the internet. When I grew up (and I'm not all that old, middle aged), there weren't 150 channels of TV. You couldn't watch just sports for example. TV and radio stations broadcasted a variety of programming designed to appeal to a mass market. Sure, there were specialized programs but there was much more of a mix. Nowadays we can all stay within our preferred genres of music and literature, news sources and authors. Of course, this has advantages but it also means that we lose a lot to serendipity.
Google wrote:serendipity: the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way
Right now, I don't have high hopes for Mr. Ponson du Terrail but I didn't have high hopes for Un kuryozo ladron either. I ended up really liking it. So, it remains to be seen. Serendipity doesn't always happen but you really just never know.
Portuguese I've been re-watching my dvd's of the HBO series Mandrake (MahnDRAHkee). I watched it a few years ago. It's a series about a lawyer, a real ladies' man, who handles extortion and blackmail cases for some pretty diverse clients who tend to, shall we say, "walk on the wild side" of life. The seires is based on books by Brazilian author Rubem Fonseca- which I have thoroughly enjoyed. It takes place in Rio and captures the vibe of the city quite well. I've always had some issues with the Carioca accent. Still, I'm enjoying it and have got through the first season again. I bought it because it was only about $10 (including shipping from Amazon- also has a Spanish dub) for 13 hours of Portuguese. There were also two "made for HBO" films which I managed to download online for another four hours. Watching it again after a couple of years has been good. I'm noticing some things I didn't notice before. The HBO Brasil series are all well produced, written and acted. I've already watched several of them.
I found a new streaming site where I can watch some of my shows. The streaming sites are getting more and more evil all the time. Some are more evil than others. Some of them have gotten so bad that you can't even watch the content for all of their ads blocking the player- click on the big "play" button and an evil ad pops up, over or under in another tab or window, some of them you have to click play multiple times before it will start. I'm thankful for good anti-virus and ad blockers. The legal sites have their own issues. They are usually geo-restricted and "on to" the "vpn trick". You can't buy anything online from Brazil as a foreigner- not happening, I've tried. So that, unfortunately, leaves little choice.
So, now, I want to finish the 5th season of 2 Broke Grils/Duas garotas em apuros , a dubbed American sitcom. I've already watched the other four seasons in Portuguese. I am also going to start an original comedy series called Vai que cola. it's a sitcom set in a pensão (residential "hotel"; room and board/lodging) in Rio.
Haitian Creole I ordered four books from Miami. I'm continuing with listening and reading "Atravè Labib".
Lesser Antilles French Creole/ Kwéyòl Sint Lisi/St Lucian Creole This joke came to me via twitter from Kwéyòl Sint Lisi An pasajè té abò an taksi lè i touché zépòl chofè-a pou mandé'y an kwèsyon. Chofè-a té soté tèlman, i fè yon kwi èk mantjé twouvé kò'y adan an aksidan. I tounen dèyè èk di pasajè-a, "Pa janmen fè sa ankò." Pasajè-a wéponn, "Padon misyé. Si mwen té sav ou té kay soté kon sa lè mwen touché zépòl ou mwen pa té kay janmen fè'y." "Sé pa vwéman fòt ou," chofè-a di. "Jòdi-a sé pwèmyé jou ng'a kondwi an taksi. Avan sa, mwen té ka kondwi an kòbiya pou ventsenk lanné." A passenger was on board a taxi when he touched the driver's shoulder to ask him a question. The driver was so startled, he screamed and almost got into an accident. He turned around and told the passenger, " Don't ever do that again." The passenger replied, "I'm sorry, sir. If I had known it would startle you so much I would never touch you on your shoulder." "It's really not your fault," the driver said. "Today is my first day driving a taxi. Before that I used to drive a hearse for 25 years.
The only word I didn't know was "kòbiya"/"hearse". There are subtle and minor differences between LAFC/HC- the acute accent, which doesn't exist in Haitian; " 'ng " for "mwen"/"m" (me); "an" for "yon"/"you" (a); "kon sa"/"konsa" (comme ça); "i"/"li" (he/she/it); "vweman"/"vreman" (really/truly); "èk"/"ak" (and/with- from FR avec); "mande'y"/"mande'l" (ask him/her); "wéponn"/"reponn"; "kwèsyon"/"kestyon"; "mantje"/"manke" (to lack, to barely miss). A big difference is the basic verb for "to have". In Kwéyòl it's "ni" and sometimes"ka/kay" which means can/house in Kreyòl. In HC "to have" is "gen/genyen". In the French-speaking Caribbean, the "w" for "r" carries over to standard French as part of the accent. I'm probably going to move LAFC to "basic fluency" (B2) because, well... that's where I'm pretty much at with it.
Spanish Spanish continues to take care of itself throughout the day and week. I speak every day, read and listen every day too.
Last edited by iguanamon on Wed Dec 21, 2016 5:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Farmer told us that he spent quite a while thinking about how a creole—usually a blend of a couple "substrate" languages and one dominant "superstrate"—would evolve in space.
He used Haitian creole as his guide, because its speakers all came from elsewhere to work on the island. Slaves taken from Africa combined their own native languages with the dominant French, and the result was a shared tongue that only the slaves understood.
Like Haiti, the Belt is dominated by a wealthy class of colonizers (in this case, Earthers who speak English). But all the labor is done by what Farmer calls "economic slaves" who risk their lives in mines. The resulting Belter creole is a crazy mix of English, Chinese, romance languages like French, German, Persian, Hebrew, Zulu, and a few other surprises.
Thank you for stopping by, DaveBee. The article was an interesting read. Yet another sci-fi conlang ... at least this one is human based. I haven't seen the series. Perhaps I may have a look for a Spanish or Portuguese dub.
I know sci-fi fans are attracted to conlangs (look at Kilngon!), but beyond the limited confines of interacting with fellow fans of a show, I don't really see the point of learning one for me. At least the zombies on The Walking Dead just growl . I do believe the logic of the premise is sound and that a creole could come to exist in such a futuristic situation. The history of Haitian Creole and other French lexifier creoles is interesting enough that books have been written about the subject. Me, I just accept them as languages.
Haitian Creole, Lesser Antilles French Creole, Louisiana Creole and also Mauritian Creole are interrelated and I can understand a great deal of Louisiana Creole and Mauritian Creole from my knowledge of HC and LAFC. They all sprang from a contemporaneous French colonization and slavery. There is a short youtube video about the similarities and differences between Haitian, Louisiana and Mauritian Creoles... though the presenter admits making some errors- HC "Mwen sòti" (similar to the other two versions) instead of "Mwen vini" for I come from "x". Though, the use of "Mwen" here would almost always be shortened to just "M" which has more in common with "Mo" of Louisiana and Mauritius. Of course the presenter goes out of his way to show the differences. almost every example has a pretty close parallel in the other creole- "M'ap boule" (in the video given as "N'ap boule"/"We (or you all) are getting along fine" can also be expressed as "M byen" in HC which corresponds to "Mo bien" in both Louisiana and Mauritius. He says in Mauritius they say "Mo koz" for "M pale"/I speak. "Koze" is Haitian Creole for "to chat". So it isn't too hard to get your head around. He's right that they aren't the same language but they have a lot of similarities despite distances involved. If you can stand the annoyingly loud background music, here's the video:
As 2016 fades away, I've been rather busy with work as I always am at the end of the year. I'm almost caught up now. I've managed to make some time for language learning despite the workload. On my morning walk, I listen to the RFI Brasil news magazine from France everyday for half an hour followed by Deutsche Welle's 20 minute program for Africa. I also work in about 15 minutes of Haitian Creole.
I believe that one of the keys to learning and maintaining a language (for me) is integrating it into my life, making it a habit. If you make it a habit, it's hard not to do it despite everything. If I don't get my morning exercise, listening and reading in, I feel bad. It's something I want to do, so I'll always make time for it. That doesn't mean that I don't take time off from it every now and then but it's never for longer than a few days.
Portuguese I made a detour into a new dubbed series from HBO Brasil- Westworld. I'd been seeing a lot of buzz about this series on twitter and hearing people talking about it too. All I knew about it was the original 1970's movie with Yul Brynner, although... Yul Brynner is majorly cool. The series has a lot of high powered people behind it- J.J. Abrams, Anthony Hopkins, Thandie Newton, Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Harris, plus the resources of HBO and created by Michael Crichton.
Of course, if HBO Brasil would let me watch the series legally, I would definitely take that option- but... digital fence. Not even a vpn will get around it. Brazilian websites won't take your money unless you're Brazilian with a CPF and Brazilian Credit Card or bank. So, I have to work around that with streaming sites. Still, it's worth the trouble involved. The series is very well done in every aspect- cinematography, casting, the story. Westworld plays with perception and reality, questioning both. It makes you think.
uai- Mariana Peixoto wrote:Todo dia ela faz tudo sempre igual. Abre os olhos, pensa como sua vida é perfeita, coloca seu vestido azul, beija o pai na varanda, vai até o centro da cidade. Com um cavalo, passeia pelo campo, por vezes com um rapaz por quem está apaixonada. Quando a noite cai, bem, a história pode mudar. Mas, no dia seguinte, ela vai novamente acordar, vestir a roupa, beijar o pai... A loira Evan Rachel Wood é a primeira personagem a ser apresentada em Westworld, a superprodução da HBO que tem estreia mundial nesta noite. Série em 10 episódios e grande aposta do canal norte-americano... A narrativa tem um início de western, com todos os clichês dos filmes do gênero (a mocinha, o vilão, os viajantes etc.). Só que nada ali é real. Estes personagens são robôs hiperrealistas que habitam um parque temático, chamado Westworld. No entanto, eles não sabem disto, acreditam em sua própria humanidade. Os humanos pagam caro para um dia no parque, onde podem fazer o que quiserem com os personagens-robôs, inclusive matar. O ambiente real, por assim dizer, é no futuro. O criador do parque e das centenas de robôs é Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins), que preside o local hoje disputado por outros profissionais. O mau funcionamento de um robô vai afetar todo o universo artificial.
My translation: Every day she does everything the same. She opens her eyes, thinks about how her life is perfect, puts on her blue dress, kisses her dad on the porch, heads to the center of town. On horseback, she rides through the countryside, sometimes with a young man with whom she is in love. When night falls, ok, the story can change. But, the next day, she wakes up again, gets dressed, kisses her dad... The blonde, Evan Rachel Wood, is the first character to be presented in Westworld, the super production of HBO that premieres worldwide tonight. The series in 10 episodes (60 minutes an episode) is a big gamble for the US channel... The story starts as a western, with all the cliches of films of the genre (the pretty young girl, the villain, the travellers, etc.) Only that here it's real. These characters are hyper-realistic robots that inhabit a theme park, called Westworld. However, they don't know this, they believe in their own humanity. The humans pay a lot of money for a day in the park, where they can do whatever they want with the robot characters, even kill them. The realistic environment, so to say, is in the future. The creator of the park and of the hundreds of robots, is Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins), who presides over the place today played out by other professionals. A malfunction of a robot is going to affect all of the artificial universe.
The story is interesting because of the theme of artificial intelligence, consciousness, the validity of reality, human nature (morality is what you do when no one is watching) and what makes us human. It's something I would watch anyway in English, and, since I don't have HBO, I might as well watch it in Portuguese. I've already finished eight out of the ten epsiodes. The dubbing is really good. The guy who does Anthony Hopkins sounds like a Brazilian Anthony Hopkins, as much as that is possible.
The pluses for language learners of a big dubbed series like this are many. Subtitles are easily available in many languages. A learner could make a parallel text- though they probably won't be exact in L2. There are plenty of individual episode recaps in English and L2 available. In addition there are sites devoted to speculation and theories about each episode including youtube discussions. Science-fiction and "science-fictiony" series seem tailor made for this- like "The Walking Dead". Despite being dubbed, this is something that natives are watching and talking about too.
One of the actors on Westworld is Brazilian, Roger Santoro who plays Hector Escaton- a real, murderous, bad guy. His character is basically the Yul Byrnner character from the original 1970's film. "Rodrigo Santoro comenta sobre Westworld no Programa do Jô (Soares)"
The recent passing of actress Carrie Fisher of Star Wars fame, got me to thinking about the iconic movie and I discovered that George Lucas was inspired by the legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa- Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Ikiru, Ran. The film that inspired Lucas was "The Hidden Fortress". I added Portuguese subtitles. In Brazil, the film is called "A fortaleza escondida". Fortunately I was able to find the exact rip of subs for the movie.
I love Kurosawa's films and have watched Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Ikiru before. The man was a genius. Watching a foreign film with L2 subs was fun. Obviously, I cannot understand Japanese. I just can't work out why everyone in samurai movies (or maybe just Kurosawa's samurai movies) is always shouting at each other. The landscape and costumes can be easily transferred to westerns. Samurais remind me of Klingons from Star Trek... so space is also not much of a stretch. I love Kurosawa's soundtracks, the cinematography and Toshiro Mifune is one great actor. I think I may watch "Yojimbo" again (also on archive.org) when I get time. It's a great film, basically copied by Italian director Sergio Leone in "A Fistful of Dollars" starring Clint Eastwood.
"The Hidden Fortress" shares a lot in common with "Star Wars"- a beautiful young princess needs to be taken back to her kingdom, the two peasants are tall and short and a lot like human versions of C3PO and R2D2, Toshiro Mifune's character could be Han Solo, and of course there's an evil empire after them. I enjoyed the film and it was a neat experience watching a Japanese film with Portuguese subtitles.
I don't have time to write about my other languages now but I will do so later.
Last edited by iguanamon on Wed Jan 11, 2017 9:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.
... at least this one is human based. I haven't seen the series. Perhaps I may have a look for a Spanish or Portuguese dub.