Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

[Iversen]

IT: Ho letto oggi il log combinato di rdearman, il quale mi ha fornito di una fonte interessante di traduzioni multilingue parallele, le Tradicizioni di Farkas. Si tratta di un sito web dove si può vedere vecchie opere letterarie a fianco in un certo numero di lingue (tra le quale si può deselezionare sullo schermo e lo scaricamento le lingue non desiderate). Ebbene, io non sono un gran amatore della letteratura, ma tra le opea fittive si trova Il Principe di signor Micchiavelli, e questa mattina io leggi finalmente questo molto famoso testo del quale tutti hanno sentito parlare, ma pochi ebbero la briga di leggere. La versione italiana essendo la originale (salvo che infatti il libro si chiama non solo "Il Principe", ma "Il principe o De Principatibus"), si vede che questa versione è scritto in un italiano un po' antiquato, che include anche i titoli originali latini. Ma dato che si tratta di un testo dell'anno 1513 pare quasi troppo moderno nello stilo, e perciò ho trovato anche il testo espressamente originale su Wikisource. Un esempio (l'inizio dello 2. capitolo):

Farkas: Io lascerò indrieto el ragionare delle repubbliche, perché altra volta ne ragionai a lungo. Volterommi solo al principato, et andrò tessendo li orditi soprascritti, e disputerò come questi principati si possino governare e mantenere. Dico, adunque, che nelli stati ereditarii et assuefatti al sangue del loro principe sono assai minori difficultà a mantenerli che ne' nuovi; perché basta solo non preterire l'ordine de' sua antinati, e di poi temporeggiare con li accidenti; in modo che, se tale principe è di ordinaria industria, sempre si manterrà nel suo stato, se non è una estraordinaria et eccessiva forza che ne lo privi, e privato che ne fia, quantunque di sinistro abbi l’occupatore, lo riacquista.

Wikisource: Io lascerò indietro il ragionare delle Repubbliche, perchè altra volta ne ragionai a lungo. Volterommi solo al Principato, e anderò, nel ritessere queste orditure di sopra, disputando come questi Principati si possono governare e mantenere. Dico adunque, che nelli Stati ereditari, ed assuefatti al sangue del loro Principe, sono assai minori difficultà a mantenergli, che ne’ nuovi; perchè basta solo non trapassare l’ordine de’ suoi antenati, e dipoi temporeggiare con gli accidenti, in modo che se tal Principe è di ordinaria industria, sempre si manterrà nel suo Stato, se non è una straordinaria ed eccessiva forza che ne lo priva; e privato che ne sia, quantunque di sinistro abbia lo occupatore, lo racquista.

Non so come un errore di stampa ha potuto intrufolarsi nella fonte usata di Farkas, e le due versioni non sono identiche, ma almeno si vede che è davvero la scrittura originale che la versione di Farkas rappresenta. E dato che questo è un testo vechhio di 503 anni, quindi è sorprendente che è non sia più antiquato e difficile da leggere.

E il contenuto, è talmente scioccante quanto si poteva aspettare? No, si tratta di una discussione rinfrescante sobrio e sensato delle errori comessi dai governanti contemporanei e del passato, se il loro obiettivo avessero veramente stato di ottenere e mantenere il suo potere. E Macchiavelli non è vincolato per esempio di un rispetto e riverenza eccessiva e riverenza per il papato, che ovviamente ha avuto il suo proprio stato piuttosto grande allora e si è comportato come tutt'altra sinistra farza politica del mondo. Ma anche Macchiavelli ha bisogno di un amico, e forse è questo che gli indusse a scrivere che "Io non dubiterò mai di allegare Cesare Borgia e le sue azioni."

Non posso discutere in questo luogo le idee del libro e la loro rilevanza per gli eventi politici contemporanei senza diventare politico, quindi non lo farei - salvo che vorrei constatere che i governanti di oggi (compresi quei presumibilmente eletti in una democrazia) sono altrettanto malevolenti, subdoli, e talvolta sciocchi come quei nel passato. ... Ho detto 'talvolta'? No, diciamo "spesso"! Ed abbiamo permesso che la burocrazia sia diventata molto più pesante e potente dopo 1513, il che mostra quanto stupidi e deboli noi tutti - e soprattutto i nostri leader - siamo.

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[tarvos]

EO: Mi vidis, ke ankaŭ vi vizitos Thessalonikon por iri al la konferenco de poliglotoj! Mi ĝojas, ĉar ankaŭ mi ĉeestos. Ĉu mi vidu vin tie?

[Iversen]

EO: Estas certe ke ni renkontos unu la alian - kvankam okazos lauplane du prelegoj samtempe, estos paŭzoj inter ili kaj estas ankaŭ malpli partoprenantoj ol en Nitra.

EN: I have spent several days with my family, which also means that I haven't really studied. I had forgotten to bring along something to read in my 'minor' target languages, but I did read parts of Mrs. Byrnes Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous words, which I long ago gave my mother to keep her amused. I photographed a few pages in order to give examples here, and this include the page that starts out with ..

MrsByrne.jpg

In case you wonder what the 'Jumping Disease' is then the omniscient Wikipedia of course has an explanation:

The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine were a group of 19th-century lumberjacks who exhibited a rare disorder of unknown origin. The syndrome entails an exaggerated startle reflex which may be described as an uncontrollable "jump"; individuals with this condition can exhibit sudden movements in all parts of the body. Jumping Frenchmen syndrome shares symptoms with other startle disorders.

Contrary to Wikipedia I have a theory: there are critters that infect other animals with diseases that leads these to show unusual and deliberately lethal behaviours, like climbing up to the top of straws or branches where passing predators can see them and eat them, thus passing on the disease through their pooh. Maybe the jumping lumberjacks had been infected by such parasites?

I have just listened to English TV since I returned to my humble abode, right now a program with the incomparable Attenborough, who just told me that the eyes of trilobites were formed as extensions of their exoskeletons, og in other words: they were stony features, and some trilobites had up to 5000 single eyes, others had eyes all around their heads..

And now he has found a living animal that looks very much like the utterly extinct Aysheaia.

[Iversen]

EN: When I decided to 'digitalize' my tape collction in August last year I said goodbye to a large part of my language learning, since I from then on have spent thousands of hours listening to music instead of languages. But the process - including an extensive reshuffling of items - is now more or less finished, and even though I spend more time listening more to music now than before I can now return to the situation where I not only watch TV, but also listen to it. And today I have had one of the more important TV experiences by listening to a German-French program on Arte about Angkor Wat and other remnants from the Khmer civilization, which blossomed from around 802, where Jayavarman II cut the ties to Java and declared himself Chakravartin (god king), to somewhere around the death of King Barom Reachea I in 1576 - Angkor was however abandoned already in 1431, whereupon it was overgrown by jungle.

FR: L'une des informations les plus surprenantes était l'age de la ville fortifiée Angkor Thom. Les murs datent de la règne de Jayavarman VII (le dernier roi hindou - son successeur, qui le déposa, était buddhiste), et c'est encore ce que dit la omnisciente Wikipedia, mais dans l'émission sur Arte on soutient que la ville elle-même date de la 9. siècle - ou même la 8. siècle. On a (peut-être) même trouvé quelque chose comme un 'pierre commémorative' de sa fondation, mais dans la forme d'une branche sacrée soigneusement préservée plutôt que d'une pierre. Une statue s'avère aussi d'être beaucoup plus vieille qu'on n'avait cru jusque maintenant. Et moi, j'ai été là, sur les traces de Kilroy. Quand j'ai visité la région de Angkor j'ai embauché le chauffeur de taxi avec lequel j'ai fait le tour de l'aeroport à Siem Reap à me transporter dans les trois jours suivants. Á Angkor Thom je l'ai profondément choqué: quand nous sommes arrivés à la porte sud je lui dis de m'attendre à la porte nord du complexe une heure plus tard. Il ne croyait clairement pas que je puisse trouver la porte sans m'égarer, mais j'y suis venu exactement une heure plus tard comme convenu. Le bâtiment le plus connu de Angkor Thom est sans doute le Bayon, qui porte des portraits énormes du roi Jayavarman VII.

GE: Zu Beginn der Sendung besuchten die Wissenschaftler jedoch noch eine andere zerstörte Stadt, Koh Ker, wo es zuerst gelang zu zeigen, daß die Überreste einer Statue nicht wie früher angenommen den Stier ("Nandi Bull") von Shiva darstellten, sondern ein Büffel - und dann mußte die fehlende Figur obendrauf der Richter der Unterwelt Jama sein. Der gesamten Tempel war also ein Grabtempel, und dies erklärt, warum jeder Khmer-König seinen eigenen Tempel haben mußte - wie jeder Pharao der 4-6. Dynastien seine eigene Pyramide haben mußte. Koh Ker war nur Hauptstadt des Königs Jayavarman IV (928-941) und wurde danach verlassen, aber wenn er einen Totentempel bekam, dann ist es wohl logisch, daß auch jeder von der vielen Herrscher, die entweder in Angkor oder Roluos residierten, seinen eigenen Totentempel bekam.

Scots: Koh Ker wis thoraely plundered acause it wis so far frae Angkor and naebody gairded it. Erosion has aw sairiously malafoustert the remnants frae the auld Khmer civilization, but whan the Frenchman Henri Mouhot ... nae, he didnae discover it acause it had been niver reelly been forgat, but he popularized the awaureness aboot the auld ruins.. Luckily a French expeditien unner Louis Delaporte teuk casts ( 'moulages') in 1866-1868 o aroond 500 sculptures and reliefs, and mony a ane shows details or hale artwarks wilk hae perished sin syne. Some ended up in a laich room aneath the Abbaie de Saint-Riquier. And reivins frae the sites can o coorse be fund in mony museums - but at least they are siccar thare.

EN: Many of the ruins around Angkor have been restored (which includes attempts to stabilize the crumbling old buldings with all their paraphernalia), but it is doubtful whether all the missing details that can be gleaned from the casts and museum pieces ever will be added to the existing ruins. Maybe the more important (read: more wellknown) temples will be recreated as virtual reality experiences, and digital reconstructions are now common in documentaries on TV, but I would like to see something like a 3D virtual reality Wikipedia, where I can visit Angkor Thom and Tiryns in the morning, the cathedrals of Chartres and Reims while eating my dinner and then maybe see the best possible guess by the experts about the original appearance of Koh Ker in the afternoon. The question is however whether the creators of such digital reconstructions can resist the temptation to add irrelevant fictional elements in order to please the crowds.

Scots: Ah widnae appraise bein caucht in the middlens o a gamer battle in the througangs or meetin a dinosair in the digital Angkor Wat...

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[Tomás]

You can take 3D tours of a number of famous places:

http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2010/01/100-incredible-educational-virtual-tours-you-dont-want-to-miss/

[Iversen]

EN: I tried a couple of entries on the page proposed by Tomás, but they apparently linked to pages that have disappeared since the blog post was written in 2010. I have however seen virtual tours on several museum pages so I know what they look like. These tours are excellent because I can use them to visit or revisit places which I for obvious economical and logistic reasons can't visit here and now. However 3D is not really 3D here - it seems that the word is used because you can move around in a scenery, but you still see it in 2D. I do however look forward to visiting far away places in true 'stereo', maybe even with sound (as far as I know even the smells can be reproduced, but I don't want to experience the stench of a medieval loo or a 18. century nobleman). Given the speed with which electronical media develop these days that wouldn't be unrealistic to expect within my lifetime.

I once speculated about a system where you could hire a small rolling robot with a camera in any city you might want to visit. Then you didn't need to go there yourself, you could just roll it around in the same way as NASA use their Mars rovers. But I know what would happen: naughty children would chase the robots, turn them around and leave them lying upside down.

DA: Jeg kan ikke nære mig for at nævne at jeg tager stereofotografier selv - men desværre ikke har udstyret (eller tålmodigheden) til at lave rigtige film. Se den dansksprogede artikel på de Berejstes hjemmeside.

EN: My own stereo photos are of the 'parallel' type, where the left eye looks at the left picture, the right eye at the right picture, and then you move the eyes until the two pictures are on top of each other (pretend that they are far out in the distance, then the eyes move into the right position). Of course it takes some training to do it, but when I started out making that kind of photos many years ago I used to separate the two viewing areas with a piece of paper. Now it is enough that I block the view of the left photo from my right eye with my hand, then the stereo effect comes almost by itself. There are other systems, including one where the half-pictures are inverted so that you viewing directions cross - but I don't like that system. And then there are systems where you use glasses with red and green or with different polarity. The latter is OK (I last saw a dinosaur film in the "Dinosaur Valley" of the Bratislava zoo based on this system), whereas the system with red and green separation inevitably results in brownish muddy colours.

GR: Χθες σπούδασα μερικά από τα ελληνικά μεταγραφές μου, δηλαδή εκείνες που αφορούν στο ξενοδοχείο μου στη Θεσσαλονίκη. Τα κείμενα είχα γίνει ως το πολύγλωσσο δικτυακό τόπο του ξενοδοχείου, αλλά ως συνήθως όχι συνδυάζεταν οι μεταφράσεις. Ευτυχώς μπορώ να διαβάσω ελληνικά σχεδόν χωρίς βοήθεια, ετσι εκ τούτου αυτό δεν σημαίνει πολλά..

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[Iversen]

RO: Am în colecția de muzică a mea o înregistrare anumită "Estambul" lui Dimitrie Cantemir cu Jordi Savall, care este cel mai bine cunoscut pentru redarea muzicii din Europa vârstele târziu de mijloc și renaștere. Această lucrare nu se încadrează ușor în afara cadrului, pentru că se bazează pe muzica turcească. Apoi am citit ceva în Wikipedia pentru să știe cine era această persoană, care avea un nume românesc, dar a scris muzica turca. Și a fost de fapt o persoană foarte interesantă. De fapt, el a fost mai mult moldovean decât românesc, și a trăit 1673-1723, unde cea mai mare parte din Balcani se aflau sub dominația otomană. Tatal lui (Constantin Cantemir) a fost domnitor Moldovei, dar când a luat titlul după moartea tatălui său, turcii nu l-au recunoscut. Apoi a mers la Istanbul unde a studiat o mulțime de lucruri, inclusiv muzica. Mai târziu, de fapt, turcii l-au permis să conducă Moldova, dar numai aproximativ un an: în războiul ruso-turc a fost illoial la portul înalt (curtea otomanilor), și a trebuit să fugă în Rusia, unde a trăit restul vieții sale.

O viață ciudată...

În fapt Cantemir nu a mai scris o lucrare anumită "Estambul". Totuși a scris în limba turcă cartea "Kitab-i-musiki" ("Cartea muzicii"). Potrivit Wikipedia "lucrarea cuprinde un studiu aprofundat al muzicii otomane laice și religioase, primul sistem de notație muzicală al muzicii otomane". Că am putea fi folosit pentru să notează temele din muzica, în conformitate cu obiceiul meu, deoarece cu excepția unei imagini foarte mici pe web nu am văzut notele nicăieri. Cum se poate juca o carte teoretice despre muzică? Simplu - cartea conține aproximativ 450 de piese instrumentale, inkluziv 20 de compoziții originali lui Cantemir, probabil pentru a ilustra diferite fenomene în muzica otomană. Dar, cum se ajunge de aceasta la versiunea lui Jordi Savell, asta eu nu știu.

EN: Maybe I should explain: I made a tematic index already for my very first tape collection, updated it for my second one from the years 1991-92 - and now I of course want to update it again for my third and even larger collection (the digital one ). But it takes time away from my language studies. Reading about some of the more obscure composers is one way of combining those two hobbies. As for Cantemir he could have been king of Moldova some 300 years ago, but apart from two short periods the Turks didn't allow that - and instead he went to Istanbul to study music and languages and a lot of other things. If anything, you can say that this was a man who knew how to adapt to the circumstances. Even when he later had to flee to Russia.

And the Turks seem to have appreciated this and forgiven him - they have even named a park and a museum in Istanbul after their very own Dimitri Kantemiroğlu.

[Iversen]

I have now posted a thread with 6 posts about Google Translate. It is essentially a revision of the things I said about this topic in Berlin in May this year.

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[Iversen]

Yesterday and today I have tried to get through some of the Slavic languages which I haven't studied since my return from Czechia a couple of weeks ago - plus Russian in which I have written a few things for the paper bin, but nothing for the forum. And also Greek, where I have studied an article about the Eleusian Mysteries in an old edition of the train magazin Diadromés. Let's start with that one..

GR: για την Ελευσίνα ξεκινά με μια ιπεριγραφή στην σύγχρονη πόλη, μια ακμάζουσα βιομηχανική περιοχή. Η βιομηχανική ανάπτυξη εδώ ξεκίνησε με ένα εργοστάσιο σαπουνιού που άνηκαν δύο αδέλφια από τη Ρουμανία. Από εκεί ήρθε η βαριά βιομηχανία που κατέστρεψε το περιβάλλον, αλλά και ένα μεγάλο μέρος της βαριάς βιομηχανίας έχει κλείσει τώρα. Οι περίφημες μυστικές μυστήρια άρχισε πριν πάνω από τέσσερις χιλιάδες χρόνια, υποτιθέμενά κάτω το βασιλιά Δημητράς - επειδή η σύζυγός του πέταξε ένα κορίτσι αγαπημένο απó της υποκόσμης θεάς Περσεφόνης. Έτσι, ο βασιλιάς πήρε εντολές να χτίσει ένα ναό της θεάς. Ήταν ο φανατικός χριστιανικός αυτοκράτορας Θεοδόσιος που το 392 π.Χ. κατάργησε τα μυστήρια, ακριβώς όπως κατήργησε τη λατρεία των Δελφών. Σήμερα εγγενώς γνωρίζουμε πολύ λίγα για το τι πραγματικά συνέβη σε αυτές τις σκοτεινές σπηλιές κάτω από το ναό - εκτός από το ότι υπήρχε μια μεγάλη πολυήμερη γιορτή μία φορά κάθε χρόνο, όταν εγκαινιάστηκαν τα νέα μέλη.

RU: Я прочитал две вещи на русском языке: фрагмент из книги по истории о Ивана IV Грозного и статя из чешского журнала полета о желании итальянцев для крепкого кофе и о городе Венеции. Я забавлялся немного, когдá статья рекомендуется выпить кофе в кафе Флориана недалеко от базилики Святого Марка. Автор статьи будет зарабатывать слишком много деньги!

BU: И на български, прочетох половината от интервю в списание "Biograph" с певицата Бодурова.



I'm aware that not all members here can read each and every passage in this log, but can't really see the point in writing exclusively in English when one of my main incentives to write here is to train my writing skills in a number of languages. And it is boring to write the same things twice so supplying complete translations are not an option. So instead I'll write something about the books and magazines I have used this time. The Greek article is found in a train magazine which I grabbed in 2008. OK, at the time I had just started to study Dhimotiki so I couldn't read it yet, but I knew I would be able to use it later. And 'later' is apparently now.

I got the Bulgarian magazine "Biograph" (in Latin letters) from one of the Bulgarians who participated in the trip to Haiti and the Domincan Republic earlier this year. It's a celebrity magazine with short notices and somewhat longer internviews with Bulgarian and foreign VIPs. Because I have studied some Russian and a little bit of Polish and Serbian I'm at the level where I can get the gist of such a magazine - but once I sit down to actually copy and translate the text I discover how far I am from really mastering this language. After I had studied the first couple of excerpts from it I concluded that I needed to use bilingual texts first, and among other things I studied a selection of articles about archeology with Googe translations, and that has brought me somewhat closer to being ready to study the monolingual content of a magazine like "Biograph".

The Russian text about Italians and Venezia is found in the inflight magazine of Czech Airways, which I nicked after the flight home to Denmark from Praha a few weeks ago. It is trilingual (English, Russian and Czech) so if/when I decide to learn this language two I can use this magazine as a bilingual source with reasonably loyal translations. The passages about Ivan IV the Terrible are from a pedagogical Russian history book. I have already once read the whole thing, but regularly return to this book because it comes complete with stress markings as in a dictionary. And the position of the accents still often surprise me - like when the stress is put on the í in Anastacia (Анастасиа).

[arthaey]

I'm aware that not all members here can read each and every passage in this log, but can't really see the point in writing exclusively in English when one of my main incentives to write here is to train my writing skills in a number of languages.

I can't read any of your languages today, yet I'm still happy to see them! It's inspiring, and also a gentle nudge that I want to do the same on my own log.

If I really really want to know what you're writing, I'm sure Google Translate could be interesting (or at least entertaining... )