Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

[Iversen]

EN: : I'm still waiting for the science-fiction novel which formed the basis for the Norwegian contribution to the language series, but apart from that there is only one painting left in the series, namely the one illustrating Russian - which I painted because I wanted that language in the language series, in spite of knowing little more than the alphabet at the time. When I commented on the series at HTLAL in July 2009 I only knew the title I had given the painting, and even that turned out to be slightly wrong as I had quoted a genitive form. However HTLAL member Anya recognized the work and gave me the correct reference: a collection of poems named "Мороз - красный нос" (Frost - red nose) by Nekrasov.

The part I had used was the first poem, which describes the death and funeral of a peasant women in the freezing cold Russian winter. OK, that's also what you can see in the painting, but you can also see a big face. Actually the title of the cycle is sometimes rendered as "Grandfather Winter - red nose" so in the personification you have the justification for the face - although the old man should have had a long white beard. Or maybe he has, and you just can't see it through the snow.

By the way, I have not found a suitable English online translation of the work. And I have no idea what I used in 1978 when I painted the painting, but I have a suspicion that I didn't get far beyond the first few stanze. I have looked through the rest of the poem today, and I can't see anything in the painting that unequivocally comes from that part of the poem - and it is a fairly long poem.

Kunst061.JPG

RU:

Савраска увяз в половине сугроба -
Две пары промерзлых лаптей
Да угол рогожей покрытого гроба
Торчат из убогих дровней.

Старуха в больших рукавицах
Савраску сошла понукать.
Сосульки у ней на ресницах,
С морозу - должно полагать.

Так начинается стихотворение «СМЕРТЬ КРЕСТЬЯНИНА" - и подозреваю, что я никогда не достигал еще в нем, чем несколько строк, приведенных выше. Cегодня я прочитал стихотворение (не вдаваясь в подробности), не находя дальнейшие мотивы из живописи. Таким образом, нет никаких оснований говорить о нем - кроме оценивая глубокую социальную ответственность автора и т.д.

Вместо этого, я расскажу вам о моей первой поездки в СССР. Визит в Москву и Ленинград состоялось в январе 1975 года - и стояли еще синие рождественские мужчин в некоторых местах - или Дед Мороз, так как наш гид сказал нам, что они назывались в русском языке. Я был там с Литературной Институтом Университета Орхуса, и это было пародией, потому что не было ни одного товарища в компании, которая может читать по-русски! Большинство, однако, был красны коммунисты различных формах, и очевидно, они хотели увидеть реально существующие коммунистического рая в России, - и я пришел с ними, потому что не было достаточно студентов из другой части.

Я присутствовал несколько выезды, когда они были достаточно интересны (например, Библиотеки имени Ленина в Москве и Института скандинавских исследований в Ленинграде), и в остальное время я побывал на моих собственных сайтах, таких, как Технический музей и Кремль в Москве, и Музей естественной истории и Эрмитажа в Ленинграде. Так, что это была хорошая поездка, хотя было немного прохладно от сезона.

[Iversen]

EN: With one exception we are throught the 'language series' of paintings, which are characterized by a literary theme and a common format. But I have learnt - or at least studied - a few more languages, which I might have illustrated in additions to the series if I still was active. But I'm not.

However I have a number of other languages which with a bit of good will can be associated with a certain language. For instance anything with an African elephant on it can be associated with Africa, and lo and behold, I just have such a thing - although with a Danish text on it which states that "De i dette lokale udstillede billede er kun lånt ud" (the paintings exhibited in this are only on loan). My mother had an empty white wall in the bedroom of her new house when she moved in there in 1995, and I filled the whole wall with surrealistic paintings - but she sleeps surprisingly well. However I just wanted to point out that the paintings still belonged to me, and then I painted this painting.

AF: Hoe kan jy 'n Afrikaans olifant vertel? Nee, hy praat nie Afrikaans nie. Een manier is om te kyk na die einde van die slurp: as daar twee 'vingers' is dan is hy 'n Afrikaaner. Groot ore wys in dieselfde rigting. Ek het lang geleden geweet wat die blou dier met die rooi oë moet zee, maar ek het nou vergeet. Die oulike bruine diere is die wyfie van een of ander bok, maar nie noodwendig 'n spesifieke spesie nie.

Kunst098.JPG

DU: In de bus vandaag las ik een boekje van een tentoonstelling van kaarten in 't MAS museum van Antwerpen, wat ik zag toen ik daar was vorige maand. "MAS" betekent het museum "aan de stroom" en is het nieuwe maritieme museum van de stad, de opvolger van de veel te kleine kasteeltje 'Het Steen'. Meestal is het niet interessant om tentoonstellingscatalogus te lezen uit een tentoonstelling, zonder dat je staat in het midden ervan, maar dit boekje is eigenlijk heel leesbaar zelfs na de thuiskomst. Bijvoorbeeld, zegt het på p. 15:

"1230: de Aarde is een bol. In 1230 publiceert de Englese wis- en sterrenkundige John of Hollywood zijn "Verhandeling over de wereldbol" ("Tractatus de sphaera Mundi"). Daarin bewijst hij dat de aarde een bol is. Holywood baseert zijn theorie op Griekse en Arabische bronnen. Hollywood is vooral bekend mit zij n Latijnse naam: "Johannes de Sacrobosco"

LA: Dominus Hollywood non vituperandum est quia nomen suum postea signum taeniarum molestarum ac iuridici inferioris fiat. Ille de Americae non sciebat.

[Iversen]

In Vogeltje's country game thread I have occasionally resorted to writing in non-English languages (just as I do in this thread), and occasionally I do think about the plight of those who haven't studied the languages in question. Luckily they can stuff the thing into the belly of Google translate, and by combining comprehensible elements from the text, the proposals of Google T and a bit of common sense and simple logic it should be possible to understand everything I have written till now (apart from occcasional outbursts of pure undiluted nonsense, for which I apologize). I have to do the same thing if people write in Hungarian or Turkish or Japanese, so we're all in the same boat.

To see what would happen I put my post about Xina (China) into the Google machine, and this is what it came up with:

Els xinesos escriuen amb gargots decoratius inventat per a realitzar accions d'endevinació usant closques de tortuga rostides fa diversos milers d'anys.
Google T: The Chinese invented writing with decorative squiggles for actions of divination using tortoise shells roasted for several thousands of years.
...should be
The Chinese write with decorative squiggles invented for actions of divination using roasted tortoise shells several thousands of years ago.

In HTLAL I wrote a thread named "The etology of Google Translate", based un scraps I had intended to use in New York - but for a number of more or less relevant reasons I won't be participating in the polyglot conference there and then I reused the material. I'm thinking about writing a new rant in several parts about the subject, but as a sample the sentence above should serve.

I don't blame it for seeing "rostides" ('roasted') as a verbal form, but this has apparently led to an unwarranted reinterpretation of "fa" - I wanted to say that the Chinese fortune tellers from the Shang dynasty did something many thousand years ago, not that they have continued roasting the same shells since time immemorial. There is another structural flaw in the translation which actually is more mysterious: how did "inventat" become the active verb in the head sentence: as far as I know I wrote that the Chinese write squiggles invented long ago for a specific purpose, not that invented writing with decorative ideogrammes. Actually they did, but that's not what I wanted to communicate.

Google T has a number of weak points: it has a tendency to forget negations, it doesn't always respect syntagm boundaries and if it has misunderstood just one word then it can't just get what function it should fill - instead it reinterprets the whole sentence to fit the error. Unfortunately humans have the same weak points. This points to one possible use of Goggle T - if Google T can't make heads and tails of what I write, then maybe a number of readers can't either, and then maybe I should reorganize the sentence to get a better result. So I tried

Els xinesos escriuen amb gargots decoratius inventat fa diversos milers d'anys per a realitzar accions d'endevinació usant closques rostides de tortuga.
The Chinese write with decorative squiggles invented several thousand years for actions of divination using tortoise shells roasted

Is this translation better? I'm not sure - in my mind "using tortoise shells roasted" is as misleading as "using tortoise shells roasted for several thousands of years", just for different reasons, and it baffles me that the machine doesn't insert "ago" in the passage " invented several thousand years". It is as if Google T hasn't got a rule saying that if there is a "fa" in Catalan then there almost certainly should be an "ago" somewhere in the English translation. The same kind of rule might prevent the wise thing from forgetting negations.

Now what happens in Spanish? Well, this translation is so much better than the English one that it seems it didn't ever pass through English:

Los chinos escriben con garabatos decorativos inventado para realizar acciones de adivinación usando caparazones de tortuga asadas hace varios miles de años.

But if you insert an English word in Catalan text, then it mostly gets translated into the target language along with the words in the base language, so somewhere in the mechanics English still has a privileged role ("invented" -> "inventado"). But "squiggles" instead of "gargots" doesn't get translated.

[Iversen]

EN: The last item in the language can now be shown. I got an email from the municipal library that Jon Bing's "Det myke landskapet" (the soft landscape) had arrived on loan from the State Library. I got it at 17 o'clock at the library, read some of it in a Chinese restaurant while waiting for my food, some more in the bus back home and the rest at home. At 19 o'clock I had finished it. It was written in fairly bland Norwegian, so it was almost like reading Danish. At that speed it would be a waste to buy books - hurray for libraries.

Kunst060.JPG

NO B: Boken foregår i en ikke så fjern fremtid der den vestlige verden har monopolisert all mat i verden, og resten av verden sulter ihjel - og det er deres egen feil og pavens, fordi de har fåt for mange barn. En politistyrke "Galakse fokus" med mye avansert teknologi holder ro og orden, og de gør det ved å gå gennem vegge og skyte problematiske typer ned uten dom. Hovedpersonen (så vidt det går å utnevne en) heter McCartney - og forresten virker det som det var en akutt mangel på ubrukte navnene i Bing's boble, for de andre tre Beatles og Sean Connery og andre kjente mennesker og tegneseriefigurer har osse måttet utlåne navnet sitt til boka - men Bing hevder selvsagt at alle karakterene er fiktive ..

MacCartney møter i en boble i Nigeria en dame som heter Michelle, og som ser alle mennesker som skjeletter - dette er vist på bildet. Det er også noen scener i Monte-Carlos casino og i et romskip med en innebygd levende hjerne og en galen vitenskapsmann som kan få verden til å falle fra hinanden - men han er ikke så sprø som Galakse Focus' agenter - og en idealistisk narkoprodusent som har sitt hovedkontor i bunnen av det Indiske hav, og som vil bekjempe den vestlige verden ved å forvandle alle i den til hallusinerende gærninger. Og det er i scenerne knyttet til ham at visjonene av verden som et gigantisk ansikt dukker opp. Men Galaxy Focus dreper ham, og deretter skjer faktisk ikke mer.

[Iversen]

EN: We are through the language series, but not through the paintings.

SP: Estoy escuchando musica del compositor español Enrique Granados (o más bien Pantaleón Enrique Joaquín Granados Campiña - ¡los españoles aman los nombres extensos!), incluso el suite para piano "Goyescas", que una vez en el pasado distante yo CASI podia jugar. Pero muchos años han pasado desde que yo dejé de tocar el piano - aunque la máquina sigue en pie en la sala de mi casa. Cuando ya no compuse, perdí también el deseo de jugar. La pianista de esta versión de "Goyesca" es Marisa Regules, que juega un instrumento llamado el piano de Siena - probablemente el instrumento más maltratado del mundo: ¡durante un tiempo estaba lleno de cemento! Lo sé porque lo dice asì en el disco, que todavía tengo - ya no tengo un gramofono que funciona, però tuve suerte en 1991 que podia transferir la musica a casete, que ahora transmito a nuevos archivos WAW. Sic transit gloria mundi. Mas tarde Granados escribió una ópera basada en la musica del suite de piano, y de esta tengo un intermezzo muy dramatico..

Kunst099.JPG

DU: In de bus naar huis van het werk vandaag, las ik een deel van de gids naar Antwerpen, wat ik samen met het "Bezoek Antwerpen"-kaartje kreeg. Gelukkig heb ik niet een woordenboek nodig om die soorten teksten te begrijpen, want anders zou het moeilijk om te zitten met het boek in een drukke stadbus.

GR: Επιπλέον, έχω κάνει ελληνικής λίστες λέξεων εδώ απόψε. Εδώ αισθάνομαι και όλο και πιό πολύ στα νερά, έτσι απλά πληκτρολογήστε μια δανική στήλη, την οποία έχω να συμπληρώσει με μια ελληνική στήλη.

[Expugnator]

Hi Iversen,

Seeing your sentence about the Chinese in Catalan reminded me of these lyrics:



Se todo chinês se anima e pula ao mesmo tempo
eu tenho pena do mundo, que se quebra no meio
e tenho pena de todos os mundos que se quebram todo dia
tudo girando rápido e isso até mete meeedo

Se todo chinês caminha, caminha ao mesmo tempo
em outro canto do mundo, o que parece com ele
e que caminha lentamente, como todo mundo lentamente
tudo girando rapido e ele fica no meio

mas tudo que é nego pulsa tudo que é nego vê jeito
seja ele alto ou baixo, modelo, bonito ou feio
quem olha o Pão de Açúcar ou corta um arroz no meio
quem tá no meio do mundo não quebra o mundo no meio
oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ooooh (3x)

Sorry for the intromission, but I promptly associated it to your paintings.

[Iversen]

No need to apologize for contributions to this thread - I like having reactions, especially when they are as funny as this one. The message about Xina is of course my contribution to the country game thread. But there is actually a question of physics involved here. The Earth would in fact move an infinitesimally small distance if all the Chinese suddenly decided to jump a meter in the air. But it would then be pulled back by their sheer weight and hit them hard under their feet.

Today I looked at my PC and decided to rearrange my myriad of downloads of articles, clips, downloads and backup files of HTLAL and LanguageLearner threads and god knows what, and then I found the following multilingual rant from 2012, which looks like a forgotten comment to Erard's book about hyperpolyglots. I may or may not already have used it at HTLAL, but it has definitely not been shown here, and nobody is going to ever reread it somewhere the middle of my log thread over there so here goes...

LATIN

Summarium multilinguale in lingva latina incipio
quia lingva ecclesiae catolicae est, cardinale Mezzofanti ita saluens
qui probabiliter summus magistris lingvas discendi umquam erat.
Mezzofanti dicitur circa septuaginta lingvas scire,
et forsitan trenta fluenter dicuit.

ITALIAN

Michael Erard è andata ad Italia per vedere coi suoi propri
se la legenda possa essere vera, che Mezzofanti infatti sapessi tante lingue.
E fortunamente in una biblioteca di Bologna si ha custodito le scartoffie di Mezzofanti.
Dunque Erard ha potuto affirmare che il inventorio di Mezzofanti
rappresentava almeno cinquante sei lingue.

CATALAN

Però el divino Mezzofanti va morir,
i nosaltres solament tenim els testimonis dels seus contemporanis
per a jutjar quant bé pogués parlar les seves llengues.
En aquest punt Erard es llança en una recerca frenètica de iperpòliglots vivents,
amb l'aïut de Dick Hudson, que vaig inventar la paraulla,
i el vell poliglot suec Eric Gunnemark.

SPANISH

El problema era que todos los poliglotos inventoriados
por Hudson y Gunemark estaban muertos - talvez recientement
(como Kato Lomb y Kenneth Hale y Donald Kenrick)
- atualmente el mismo Gunnemark murió durante las investigaciones de Erard.
Caramba, que hacer? Sin poliglotas viventes, el proyecto había terminado encallado.

PORTUGUESE

Um certo Ziad Fazah pretendia falar uma sesanta nove idiomas,
e a edição Brasileira do libro de recordes de Guinnes tenia aprovado isto.
Más depois de um espetàculo desastroso de televisão
a sua reputação estava em ruines, e Erard não o contatava.

FRENCH

Or, à ce point dans le quête dou sainct graal
Erard a trouvé Alexandre Arguelles, et à travers de lui son père Ivan.
Il parait que Erard a était profondément choqué par le régime austère d'études
auquel s'est livré Alexander Arguelles,
et il a essayé trouver une explication psychologique.
Il a également noté que Arguelles surtout ait appris ses langues
afin de pouvoir lire la grande littérature, pas pour les parler.
Arguelles a fait une vidéo où il donne ses propres commentaries.

ROMANIAN
Modul de viața de următorul descoperire al lui Erard a fost de tot diferit:
o femeie de carieră, Helen Abadzi, angajată de către Banca Mondială,
carea a călătorit în această funcţie în jurul globului.
Pretutindeni a invaţat limbe, dar fără să pretind ca să fie posibil
să tine toate limbile sale egal accesibile.

GERMAN

Aha, hat Erard dann gesagt.
Ich habe ein Problem: warum konnten die toten Polygloten
so viele Sprachen sprechen, und jetzt finde ich niemandem am Leben
der dasselbe leisten kann. Die Lösung könnte sein daß
eins: kein Polyglot spricht alle seine Sprachen gleich gut
zwo: die Sprachen die nicht permanent gebraucht werden, sind so zu sagen in Rücklage
und müssen aufgeputzt werden um wieder aktiv zu werden.

PLATT

Dit gedank is nich nee - Kato Lomb hett's segt, und Erard sien vorganger,
die Russe Spivak hett sien Gesett formuleert "van seven spraken".
Erard hett noch een idee - dat 't swöör sei twüschen Spraken dallig te wesselen,
nur Mezzofanti hett dat können doen, - aver dat glööp ik nich.

DUTCH

Zeer laat in zijn onderzoek het Erard nog een andere bron voor polyglotten gevonden:
twee polyglotte wettstrijds en Vlaanderen,
de eerste uitsliutend voor inheemse Vlaamse, door Johan Vandewalle gewonnen -
en de twede voor alle nationaliteiten, door Derick Hering uit de Hebriden gewonnen,
met communicatiëve vermogen en twe en twintig talen

AFRIKAANS

Erard het echter nie nodig sy skildery van polygloten te korriger, nie. Derick Hering ken dertig talen, maar hy praat normaal slegs tien of twaalf vloiend. En hy is linkshandig.

ENGLISH

Between round one with Arguelles and Abadzi, and round two with the competition winner, Erard has followed two trails, one leading to the brain of Emil Krebs, and from there to some speculations about brain structures that might beneficial for language learning. The other leading to a truly polyglot society in Southern India. Ordinary people here may speak four or five languages, but they only learn those languages to a functional level, not to a high degree of proficiency if it isn't necessary.

SCOTS

OK, whit can be saeed aboot the harns o' Hernn Kreebs, an excentric Germain maan
who warked as a diplomat and interpreter in Cheena -
and saeed tae spake mebby eighty languages ...
an Chineese so guid that the auld widower empress Cixi reely enjoyed a quiat chaat wi him ... itherwise he would atweel hae been fired for his unco manners.
An wenn he died, his harn wis chopped into slices and studied by scientists.
That maan had a greeat Brooca,
but also sejns of a wee bit o' warksharing with his right brain doing part of his bletherin.

ICELANDIC

Síðan fjallast um Geshwind-Galaburdas kenning, sem miðar að því að nokkuð testosteron
í fósturþroskun getur heilafrumur frá vinstra heilahveli að flytja til hægru helmings -
Hæfni til að læra tungumál auðveldlega er halla efri ávinningur af þessu heilkenni.

NORSK

Men du kan ju óg tygga tyggegummi
- Erard sir att det betyr tjuefir prosent forbedring av korttidsminna.
Det hjelper måske osse å sætte strøym til heilan. Vi kommer at høyre meira til detta.

SVENSK

Låt meg returnera til Erards besök i Södra India.
Där pratar vanligt folk utan vidra ansträngning 4-5 språk.
Jag gissar at Erard måste gå fra 6 språk til 11 språk i sit kriterium
när han såg hur lett det vora at lära sig många språk i de rätta omgivningar.
Erard söker inte normallfall, han söker undantag.

DANSK

Jeg så først Erards navn, da han indbød medlemmerne af forummet
how-to-learn-all-languages til at udfylde et spørgeskema,
hvis de kunne seks sprog eller mente at de var usædvanligt gode til at lære sprog.
Men nu hvor bogen er udkommet med henvisninger til materialet,
har det åbenbart vist sig, at det er for nemt at lære seks sprog.
Jeg kan selv lige akkurat holde trit,
men tærsklen skal helst ikke hæves alt for meget over de nuværende 11 sprog.

ESPERANTO

La problemo pri la alta limo estas tio, ke tre malmultaj personoj kvalifikas,
kaj Erard jam havas problemojn trovi aĵon ke estos kuna.
Kompreneble vi devas ŝati lingvojn,
kaj se vi povas esti kontenta pri ripetemaj taskoj estas eĉ pli bone ...
sed ĉiuj ĉi aferoj ne vere konverĝas en unu personeca tipo.

GREEK
Κάπου είναι κουρασμένος να πούμε ότι αυτό είναι ειδικό
για τους υπερ-πολύγλωσσοι απλά είναι
που αποφασίζουν να ενταχθούν σε μια νευρική φυλή.

RUSSIAN

Предшественник Erardа, Спивак, который написал книгу «Как стать полиглотом»,
провел большую часть своих страницах предложить методы для изучения языков.
Eric Gunnemark будет писать книгу о полиглотов, но написал книгу о методах.
Но методы играют небольшую роль в "Бабель no more"

INDONESIAN

Saya berharap Erard akan menulis buku lagi,
dan bahwa ia bahkan lebih akan menjelaskan poliglot-poliglot
dan metode mereka yang berbeda.

IRISH

Slán agus beannacht leat slaan agg-us ban-ocked latt

[Iversen]

I have noticed that there is a figure under all my pictures telling how many times it has been 'viewed'. But as far as I can see the figure only goes up when you rightclick and select "view" - and that serves no purpose since all uploaded pictures are shown at their actual size (as measured in pixels), and with a few exceptions I have always used 400 pixels to get a uniform layout. Pictures which 'only' are given as references to other sites don't have this piece of irrelevant information.

And speaking of irrelevant information: I have long been wondering at the absurd number of hits given for my HTLAL log - it has just passed 5.800.000 hits! Until somewhere around Dec 1 2014 the figure grew at a nice regular pace, but then suddenly the daily gain jumped to more than 10.000 pseudohits per day. Now it is lower, which suggests that there is some kind of coupling to the real visitor numbers. Maybe every view is multiplied by 10? Ah dunno. I don't believe for a minute that my log has several thousand daily visitors in the present situation.

Today's picture is called "Maleriets historie" ('The history of painting'), and from the left the ladies are painted by some unknown Roman, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Frans Hals, Ingres and Picasso.

Kunst012.JPG

[Iversen]

In the countries' game I have made a reference to the Serments de Strasbourg (or Strasburger Eide). Here first the oath given in early French by Carles the Bald of France and then the one in early German by Lothar the German:

« Pro Deo amur et pro christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d'ist di en avant, in quant Deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo et in aiudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per dreit son fradra salvar dift, in o quid il mi altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul plaid nunquam prindrai, qui meon vol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit. »

Translated as follows in Wikipedia:

« Pour l'amour de Dieu et pour le peuple chrétien et notre salut commun, à partir d'aujourd'hui, en tant que Dieu me donnera savoir et pouvoir, je secourrai ce mien frère Charles par mon aide et en toute chose, comme on doit secourir son frère, selon l'équité, à condition qu'il fasse de même pour moi, et je ne tiendrai jamais avec Lothaire aucun plaid qui, de ma volonté, puisse être dommageable à mon frère Charles. »

The funny thing is that while the French part has been quoted almost ad nauseam with reasonably correct translations, I still have to see a loyal translation of the German version - so here you get my own tentative adaption of the text found in the German Wikipedia :

« In Godes minna ind in thes christianes folches ind unser bedhero gealtnissi, fon thesemo dage frammordes, so fram so mir Got geuuizci indi mahd furgibit, so haldih tesan minan bruodher, soso man mit rehtu sinan bruodher scal, in thiu, thaz er mig sosoma duo ; indi mit Ludheren in nohheiniu thing ne gegango, zhe minan uuillon imo ce scadhen uuerhen. »

Für die Liebe Gottes und des christlichen Volkes und unser aller Erlösung, von diesem Tage an, soweit mir Gott Wissen und Können gibt, werde ich meinem Bruder Karl beistehen 'halten', sowohl in der Hilfeleistung als auch in jeder anderen Angelegenheit, so wie man seinem Bruder mit Recht beistehen soll, auf dass er mir genauso tue, und ich werde nie kein Abkommen mit Lothar in irgendwelcher Sache treffen, das willentlich ihm meinem Bruder Karl zum Schaden sei.

Der Lothar, der hier erwähnt wird, ist der dritte von drei Brüder, Söhne des verstorbenen Kaiser Ludwig der Fromme, sohn des Karl der Großen. Und Lothar besaß im wesentlichen Italien und gelegentlich auch Bayern, die anderen Frankreich resp. Deutschland minus Bayern (=West- resp. Ostfranken). Die komplizierte politische Vorgeschichte wird im Deutschen Wikipedia im Artikel über Lothar so übersichtlich wie möglich wiedererzählt. Hier liest man auch, daß "Auf Lothar geht der Spruch 'Tempora mutantur' zurück".

[Iversen]

FR: J'ai viens de retrouver un achat de mes vacances en France et la Belgique, "Les Cahiers Science et Vie, Histoire et Civilisations" avec the thème "La naissance des villes".

Mais que'est-ce qu'une ville? Sur la page 26 on commence avec une reference à Çatal Höyük, une colline turque sous laquelle les archéologues ont decouvert une ville vieille de 8000 ans, qui aurait pu abriter jusqu'à 5000 persponnes. Mais non, disent Léo Pajeon et Adeline Colonat, ce n'est pas une ville - eh ben, peut-être un village un peu plus grand que les villages typiques, et ils citent un certain Margueon, qui a écrit que "La taille, le nombre d'habitants et la présence de fortifications ne sont pas pas des critères suffisants pour définir une ville. (...) un village se définit par une activité agricole très localisée (de culture, d'élevage), alor que dans une ville, on assiste à une diversification des tâches, à l'apparition d'un secteur tertiaire et à du commerce sur de longes distances".

Mais il ne faut pas s'appuyer sur Margeon dans cette question. Un peuplement fortifié avec 5000 habitants n'est tout bonnement pas un village, et dans le cas de Çatal Hüyük on peut même prouver que le lieu a entretenu des liens de commerce avec des partenaires lointains. À vrai dire on n'avait pas encore inventé les rues: pour entrer dans une maison il fallait marcher sur les toits et entrer par un un trou dans le toit et des échelles - presque comme un nid d'abeilles (mais avec des échelles). Et il semble que l'économie était basée essentiellement sur l'agriculture et l'élévage, mais Çatal Hüyük était sans doute une ville.

La première ville acceptée des auteurs était Uruk, fondée par les Sumeriens autour de l'an 3500 avant JC. J'ai toujours admiré ce peuple, qui entre ses autres accomplisements a inventé l'écriture (avec les signes cunéiformes). Au lieu d'inventer la roue encore une fois je voudrais emprunter le commentaire en Occitan que j'ai donné à HTLAL en mars 2015:

OC: Lei Sumerians foguèron un pòble fòrça dessobtaire. De non tant ni quant acomencèt a enventar vilatges, culturas agricolas, cementèris, temples e un sistèm d'escritura. Mas d'aperaquí la segonda mitat dau sègle 2300 perdèron sa soberainetat al empèri d'Akkad. Lo estrany es que lei Akkadians contunhavan usant l'escritura cuneiforma sumeriana encara que sa lenga semitica estava fòrça diferent de la la lenga sumerian, que es supausat d'èsser un isolat. Un ministra dau rèi de Kish (Ur-Zababa) nomenàt Sargon prenguet lo poder del pòble akkadian e se foguèt fondator del primièr gran empèri conegut, quora ocupèt no solament las ciutats dels Sumerians, mas tanben el pais dels Elamites a l'èst e aquel dels Hurris al nòrd. Segon Wikipedia la casuda de l'empèri Akkad es supausada d'èsser lo fach de un pòple dels montanhas Zagros, leis Gutis. Gutis? Ièu coneissiái leis Elamites, leis Amoritas e d'autres póbles d'antan, mas no pas cap Gutis. Mas aquest poblé randol dels montanhas prenguét lo poder de Akkad e remplaçàron leis emperaires akkadians amb gutis, com per eissemble lo 'rèi' Gudea a Lagash. Mas leis Sumerians encara an dessobtat lo monde quora lo rèi Utu-Hegal d'Uruk vencét lo rèi Tirigan dei Gutis. Utu-H foguèt rebutat del governador de Ur, Ur-Nammu, mas la resulta foguèt encara un darrièr centenar quora leis Sumerians poguèren se regaudir coma un pòble independent.

FR: Sous les Akkadians et plus tard les Amorites Uruk a survécu, toujours comme une ville importante, mais pas la seule, et elle était habitée jusqu'à environs 1700 avant JC, où le successeur de Hammurabi, Samsu-Iluna, a écrasé une rébellion dans laquelle Uruk avait pris partie. Mais après quelques centaines d'annèes la ville a été repeuplée, et la Wikipédia française mentionne qu'elle était non seulement le premier lieu où l'on a écrit en cunéiforme, mais peut-être aussi le dernier (aux 2-3. siècles avant JC). Mais il faut attendre la periode des Sassanides (sous le roi Ardashir) avant que Uruk soit abandonnée, apparemment parce-que la région autour de la ville est devenue de plus en plus marécageuse.

EN: Strangely enough I don't have a painting with a Sumérian motive (though the Babel tower would have been an excellent and quite obvious choice) - but among the oldest Asian cities which still is occupied today are Byblos in Lebanon and the Syrian towns Aleppo and Damascus (alias Dimashq), which I have visited while it still was a good idea. Let me use that as a lame excuse for showing my painting "Palmyra", which in a way has antecipated the current gruesome situation. This town is also very old - according to the English Wikipedia "Palmyra entered the historical record during the Bronze Age around 2000 BC, when Puzur-Ishtar the Tadmorean agreed to a contract at an Assyrian trading colony in Kultepe ("Tadmor" is an old name for Palmyra), and later it was ruled by the famous queen Zenobia (until the Roman emperor Aurelian passed by and crushed her armies in 270). Now it has fallen into hands of the socalled Islamic State, who have destroyed several buildings.

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