Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

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Iversen
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Tue Mar 28, 2023 8:26 pm

In my opinion dreams are just something the brain does because it is bored and temproarilky overheated, and it serves no purpose to try to interpret them. They may have some distant connection to the dreamer's life, but more often not - although the brain of course has to reuse previous waking experiences because how the heck should it else know what things look like - and for that is uses the brain areas that normally process sensory input. By the way, I generally feel that I'm investigating realistic locations in my dreams - far less fantastic than my old paintings. Even the unrealistic sequences appear quite ordinary when you are in the midst of dreaming them up. And I'm sick and tired of hearing that dreams can be used for creative purposes - it's always Kekulé and his benzene rings that are used as an example, and maybe you can hear a melody in a dream and remember it well enough to write it up (I have done that too) - but it's much easier to be deliberately creative when you are awake.

In a previous message I wrote that I would read about the big bird Teratornis and its relatives in Czech which I don't study, but since both Polish and Slovak have been on my agenda for some time I assumed that it wouldn't be too hard to understand - especially not with a known topic, a German translation, a Langenscheidt Taschenwörterbuch and a Routledge grammar which I briefly looked through when I bought it several years ago. And this turned out to be the case - the first couple of sentences were almost comprehensible even without these assistive devices, but along the way there were some passages that were slightly more problematic. Nevertheless within reach - but right now I'm wary to start a new language. The problem with Czech is that it is so close to something I already study that it's likely to sneak surreptiously in behind my barricades - just as Croatian to some extent has done just because I have had a quick peek at Serbian.

SLK: Najzvláštnejšia vec na českom (a slovenskom) jazyku je nehorázne množstvo diakritiky - plus akcenty! Tri akcenty v tomto "rozšírené'"v slovenčine alebo češtine - a to sú nejaké zvláštne znamenia! Slovaci použivajú ako písmeno úvodzovky a Česi majú u s prsteňom (ako u skladateľa Martinů). A ty polaky mají jak z, ź a ż - je téměř nemožné poznat rozdil! Proto při práci s polskými texty používám lupu.. Řekněte mi - to je nějaká soutěž?? A toto všetko musím písať v Lexilogos, pretože moja klavesnica nevie nič o slovenskej abecede - je to trápenie!

Apart from that I have transcribed some Georgian, read about the clarinet in Bulgarian and about the composer Feliks Nowowiejski in Polish yesterday (and read around ten pages about Rhodes in Greek before falling asleep) - but today I had to move my car to a auto repair shop because the wipers are on strike - and there are several days of rain ahead. And then I made it into a touristical enterprise comprising visits to two libraries and one supermarket. Not much study time today.. unless you count it as 'studying' that I have read an entire book about gardening in Danish in one of the libraries and parts of three sci mags in Danish and English in the other.

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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Fri Mar 31, 2023 9:12 pm

Last week I did rundtour by car where I visited a couple of museums and one combined museum/aquarium and ate a fish with fries. It rained for most of the time, but stopped shortly before the last destination, But when I were ready to return home the windshield wipers didn't function - no warning, nothing I could do. If the rain hadn't stopped I would have been stuck. I got it back Wednesday and decided to take a couple of days on the island Fuhnen (Fyn). For the two nights I brought along three books: "2020 Vision" assembled by Jerry Pournelle, "Impossible possibilities" by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier and "Viscolul și Carnavalul" (in Romanian) by by Marian Popa. I got through 2½ of them during those two nights, and I can finish the Romanian snowstorm and carnival as goodnight reading. Besides I have visited two zoos and five museums and ten churches and one cliff and some other pitoresque nature locations - and finished off with a concert for brass in the last museum. And well, it rained some of the time, but not all the time -and with the car and its new wipers, so all in all it was an OK mini holiday. Now I just wait for the bill from the repair shop :shock: :? - it will definitely be higher then I had hoped.

The two books in English have one thing in common: they are predictions about the near future - a near future which we now have passed - and they were not better to do that then the weather people who told me that my mini holiday would be totally soaked in water. The 2020 thing from 1974 is - as the name suggests - a series of short stories about the year 2020. Most of the 8 stories predict that we now would live in the scary results of trying to construct an utopia - and well, there are tendencies in that direction, but we are not there. One little thing: all the stories see the world as basically USA and Europe and USSR - in some of them even with those three powers as close and confident allies, and here in 2023 we can see not only that this didn't happen, but also that China - which those eight stories hardly mention - has become a global superpower. A couple of the stories do mention computers, but none of them predicted that we long before 2020 would have a global internet and a generation of youngsters that live in a symbiotic relationship with their cell phones.

FR: Je connaissais déjà Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier grâce à leur livre "Le Matin des magiciens", que j'ai utilisé lorsque dans les années 70 j'ai écrit un essai sur l'occultisme français dans le cadre de mes études à l'institut romane. Cet autre livre fut apparemment publié d'abord en allemand (! - pourquoi ne pas en français?) en 1967 et puis traduit en anglais en 1971, et l'année qu'il essaye de prévoir et 1984 - connu aussi par le roman vraiment dystopique de George Orwell. Pauwels et Bergier sont moins pessimistes...

EN: In 1968 there were even more things that nobody knew than in 1974. One thing is the nature at the planet Venus. P & B see four possibilities: 1) a jungle like in the Mesozoic, 2) a windswept desert, 3) a layer of petroleum in which small organisms swim, 4) a global ocean with more carbon dioxide than an aqua selzer. Out of these no. 2 is nearer the truth, but in the late 60s nobody had guessed that the surface temperature of Venus would be around 464°C (867°F) - hot enough to melt lead. The image below come from a six-volume world knowledge overview which I have inherited from my late mother. P & B do discuss computers, but when they think bout storage capacites they think in terms of ferrit nuclei, and they describe output as follows: "several punch-card, ticker-tape, or modern telex machines can be connected to a single installation". So of course the two authors are caught in the late 60s, but on the other hand they are able to write about farreaching technical and scientific perspectives with references to researchers which have remained in total oblivion to anybody else. Most of these things hadn't yet materialized in 1984 - nay, not even here in 2023. But it¨s fascinating to read about such lofty things, so I devoured this book much more slowly that the rather depressing Pournelle book.

RO: Cartea românească a fost publicată în 1980 (adică sub dictatorul Ceaucescu) și este vorba despre un scriitor Fănuș Neagu, pe care nu-l cunosc altfel de loc. Am primit un teanc de cărți românești aproape de sfârșitul studiilor ale mei (unde eu eram singurul student de limba română - iar nu am fost înscris niciodată oficial și nu a existat niciodată o schemă de studii). Desigur, nu am înțeles toate cuvintele (inclusiv nu primul cuvânt din titlu ("viscol") - dar în cele din urmă mi-am dat seama că înseamnă "snowstorm". Cu toate acestea: am înțeles în general contribuțiele lui Popa - ceea ce mi-a dat probleme au fost citatele din cărțile domnului Neagu, pentru că el era unul dintre acei scriitori cărora îi place să uimească cititorii cu un viscol carnavalesc de cuvinte obscure.

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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Tue Apr 04, 2023 9:23 pm

Yesterday I focused on Ukrainian (plus gardening and car washing and pizza baking), and first I studied a Wikipedia text about the Varangians (Варя́ги, 'væringer' in Danish). It was somewhat unexpected that it tried to play down the viking angle on this. OK, the name may be of Slavic origin (though the Danish article abbout them claims that it comes from vára = oath in Old Norse), but it is well documented that especially Swedish vikings played an important role in establishing the Rus kingdom . and one of the early sources that tells about this, the socalled Nestor chronicle, is not even mentioned in the Ukrainian article. I generally see Wikipedia as a resonably trustworthy source, but this article has some serious defects. One detail: it claims 1034 was the first documented evidence of a viking presence in Byzan (called Miklagárd in Old Norse) - this date must refer to the period the later king Harald Hårderåde of Norway served in the imperial guard and where he engraved his name unto a railing in the Hagia Sophia, but actually there are earlier runic stones that refer to the travelling vikings in 'Østerled' (i.e. the area from the Baltic sea through Ukraine down to Konstantinople/Byzans and even further down to Georgia).

So I found the article skewed and not very trustworthy ... but it was in Ukrainian, and that was why I studied it.

However to cleanse my mind I afterwards studied a less controversial text about the onychophores (Первиннотрахе́йні or оніхофо́ри in Ukrainian), also called velvet worms in English - either precursors or distant relatives of the arthropods. The Ukrainian article mentioned Aysheaia and Hallucigenia as the most wellknown extinct members, but according to the English article about the same topic those two may not have been actual members of the of the onychophores, but precursors to it. Their are now placed in a group called Lobopodia - and guess what: the Ukrainian Wikipedia actually has an article about this group (Лобоподи), where Hallucinogenia is mentioned. I have even written about the critter here in this very thread because it looked so funny. However apart from this glitch the Ukrainian Wikipedia is one of the better ones, both regarding the number of articles and their quality.

UK: Галюциногенія була знайдена у сланцях Берджесс у кількох окремих шматках, і було невідомо, чи була це одна тварина. Але потім був знайдений екземпляр, який був неушкодженим, і тоді палеонтологи були шоковані. Вони виявили, що перевернули її догори дном і неправильно здогадалися, де її голова.

Hallucinogenia (Spanish Wikipedia).jpg

Today I have mainly worked on my Polish. I found a stash of wordlists which I hadn't done repetitions on - not with my good will, but because they had disappeared into the stash of papers on my notestand. And I knew that already last week, so there I had to start a new empty sheet. But when I found the lost lists I had to do something about it, and then I spent a sizeable part of the day revisiting the almost 600 words in them - the result can be seen below:

Polish-repetition-galore.jpg
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby vonPeterhof » Wed Apr 05, 2023 7:56 am

Iversen wrote:Yesterday I focused on Ukrainian (plus gardening and car washing and pizza baking), and first I studied a Wikipedia text about the Varangians (Варя́ги, 'væringer' in Danish). It was somewhat unexpected that it tried to play down the viking angle on this. OK, the name may be of Slavic origin (though the Danish article abbout them claims that it comes from vára = oath in Old Norse), but it is well documented that especially Swedish vikings played an important role in establishing the Rus kingdom . and one of the early sources that tells about this, the socalled Nestor chronicle, is not even mentioned in the Ukrainian. I generally see Wikipedia as a resonably trustworthy source, but this article has some serious defects. One detail: it claims 1034 was the first documented evidence of a viking presence in Byzan (called Miklagárd in Old Norse) - this date must refer to the period the later king Harald Hårderåde of Norway served in the imperial guard and where he engraved his name unto a railing in the Hagia Sophia, but actually there are earlier runic stones that refer to the travelling vikings in 'Østerled' (i.e. the area from the Baltic sea through Ukraine down to Konstantinople/Byzans and even further down to Georgia).

So I found the article skewed and not very trustworthy ... but it was in Ukrainian, and that was why I studied it.

The derivation of варяг from the Old Norse væringi is actually pretty transparent if you know about the phonological history of Slavic languages. Prior to the 9th century most Slavic dialects had a strict "open syllables only" rule, with syllable-final nasals in both inherited and borrowed vocabulary getting assimilated into the preceding vowel, turning it either into or , depending on whether it was a front or a back vowel. Hence the Old East Slavic/Old Church Slavonic spelling of варѧгъ/varęgŭ (the æ transforming to a simple a instead of a probably explained by its perception of being more of a back vowel due to the lack of semi-palatalization on the v, and the final i becoming an instead of an because that would have triggered the transformation of the preceding consonant into a *(d)z, as we can see in the historical plural form of the word варѧзи/varęzi with the long i). In the earliest written forms of East Slavic languages there's already evidence of de-nasalization, where the transforms into an a/æ sound that palatalizes the preceding consonant; indeed the modern letter я originated as a graphical variant of the old nasal letter ѧ.

As for the theories about the origins of the particular varangians who established the proto-state(s) in East Slavic territories, I'm not fully aware of what kind of discourse goes on about this in Ukraine in particular, but in Russia there's (a perception of) an old debate between "Normanists" and "anti-Normanists" about whether or not those people were actually Scandinavians or Slavs, most commonly posited to be West Slavs from the Baltic coast. A lot of this struggle originated as a proxy for the political struggles in the early Russian Empire between the native aristocracy and the Germans at the imperial court, with the former perceiving the "Normanist" theory of the origins of East Slavic/Russian statehood as a narrative serving to legitimize the presence of Germans at the court and in the ruling family itself (with the West Slavic theory also providing them the added bonus of justification for Russia's territorial ambitions in Poland and the Baltic at large). At some points the Soviet regime also heavily promoted the "anti-Normanist" view, this time as a proxy for the East-West split in the Cold War. Here's a good recent video by a historian that discusses the debate and how both narratives oversimplify the issue somewhat (the relevant part starts at around the 22 minute mark):
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Wed Apr 05, 2023 9:49 am

RU: Варяги не первый народ, якобы пришедший из Скандинавии. Название бургундов должно было произойти от названия датского острова Bornholm, но доказательств этому нет. Кимвры и тевтоны предположительно получили свои имена от Himmerland и Thy в Дании соответственно - но опять же: доказательств нет. И даже если походи тронутся на севере, то совершенно точно, что по пути в них попадут люди из регионов, через которые они проезжали. Ничего не известно о составе двух племен, когда они наконец достигли Италии.

Более свежий пример: прибытие Нормандии норманнами, которую датский (или, может быть, норвежский) вождь Ролло получил в феодальное владение от Карла III Простоватого — здесь первые правители сохранили связь с Данией, но правили франкоговорящим населением (хотя с местным диалектом), говорящими на французский диалект, и вскоре они сами говорили только по-французски.

В случае со страной Русь имеются подробные записи о родстве правителей и действиях, показывающие их происхождение в Скандинавии - и отсутствующий источник в украинской Википедии (Несторова летопись) даже говорит, что сами местные жители пригласил их - но не надо быть таким доверчивым. Однако форма правления, например, в городе Новгороде и законы в "Русской правде" (свод законов) показывают скандинавское влияние, даже после того, как королевство в остальном стало славянским.

А потом приходят монголы и все ломают. Очередное государственное образование (при Иване Калите) происходит с центром не в Киеве, а в Москве - и даже при сохранении названия Русь теряется культура царства Руси и тем самым скандинавская связь. А Иван Грозный, кстати, разрушает Новгород, где сохранилась самая демократическая форма правления в царстве. Как пишет von Peterhof, в историографии есть две тенденции: те, которые поддерживают скандинавскую связь, и те, которые ее преуменьшают. И можно было бы ожидать, что в украинских текстах преобладала одна точка зрения, а в русских - другая, - поэтому удивительно, что украинская Википедия так явно подчеркивает чисто славянские толкования.

Ювелирные изделия ниже были изготовлены в Киеве и экспонировались на большой выставке о Царстве Руси в музее Moesgård в Дании.

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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Sat Apr 08, 2023 11:59 am

Two days ago I did the usual things - I studied a text about Ordovicium in Greek and another about the philosopher Maimonides (1138-1204) in Indonesian. A large portion of the latter discussed the many versions of his name - Μωυσής Μαϊμονίδης (Greek), Moshe ben Maimon (Ivrit: משה בן מימון), Abu Imran Musa bin Maimun bin Abdullah al-Qurtubi al-Israili (أبو عمران موسى بن ميمون بن عبد الله القرطبي الإسرائيلي - apparently meaning Musa, son of Maimun), Rabi Moshe ben Maimon - and the more popular variant RaMBaM aka Rambam (רמב"ם) - all nameforms copied from Wikipedias Indonesian version. He was a Jewish judge, author, doctor and .. well, philosopher, lived partly in Andalusia (which was Arab Al-Andalus at the time - my next text in Indonesia tells about this area), but died near Cairo in Egypt (Mesir in Indonesian). I have never read any of his works and don't feel tempted to do so - except maybe the things he has written about medicin, but since he wrote them in Arabic I would have to do so in a translation. And after that I did a wordlist with some 100 Indonesian words from "cabang" to "cas".

Yesterday I went back to my old flat to empty the receptacle for superfluous and thoroughly irritating paper advertisements, placed there by a felonious distribution company that doesn't give a shit about the authorized "NEJ TIL REKLAMER" markers I have placed there - and I had also planned to stay for one night there. Because I have emptied the flat in order to get it sold I brought along a sleeping pad and some beddings, but it turned out not to be enough. So to save my back I returned home after just one day. However during that day I visited a triple-dome Rainforest in a neighbour town, and here I photographed the bird below. It was funny because it clearly was curious about whatever was on the other side of the door, and it didn't intend to move away so the human visitors didn't dare open the door and letting the birdie through to the next section. I knew it was a guineafowl of sorts, but had forgotten the exact name so when I had returned home I looked it up. And I found the Danish name "gribbeperlehøne" and the English name "vulturine guinefowl", but after some excursions through different versions of Wikipedia I also found a long article in Portuguese about the "pintada-vulturina", and it told about some reseach into its habits:

POR: Esta ave vive em grandes bandos na África Oriental, e alguns pesquisadores se propuseram a descobrir a estrutura interna de tal bando. Descobriu-se que estava dividido em subgrupos que em grande parte não interferiam na vida uns dos outros. O normal com os pássaros é que há uma hierarquia com um alfa grande e áspero no topo, e a hierarquia inclui todo o bando. E a questão para os pesquisadores era como um estranho pássaro malhado com um cérebro muito pequeno pode rastrear uma estrutura tão intrincada - e ainda não está claro (além do fato de que os neurônios nos cérebros dos pássaros são duas vezes mais densos que o neurônios no cérebro de um mamífero).

A propósito, toquei em um parente de português durante minha estada no apartamento - um dos livros que trouxe foi "Narracións e outras prosas" de A.R.Castelao em galego, mas não cheguei a lê-lo lá - em vez disso, li as primeiras 28 páginas como leitura-boa noite.

F6401a01 - Vulturine guineafowl.jpg

EN: Today I spent some time organizing my photos from yesterday, and I have watched some TV in Spanish - partly with sound, but always with subtitles turned on so that I can silence the apparatus when they start to sing. And that's a problem. For instance I watched ...

SPA: .. un programa donde una señora iba en bicicleta por el Camino del Cid (y ya es un poco inesperado que fuera una ciclista cuando se recorre a pie el más conocido Camino de Compostela). La ruta va desde Vivar del Cid cerca de Burgos hasta Alicante y, como su nombre indica, toma su inspiración del Cantar del Mio Cid, un poema español medieval datado a alrededor de 1200 que trata los últimos años de vida de un personaje histórico, a saber don Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar el Campeador. La última vez que vi ese nombre fue en un libro sobre la historia de Cataluña, y parecía que el Cid no era un puro campeón de una España cristiana -a veces se alía con gobernantes musulmanes locales en varios niveles (esto sucedió en un momento en que la España musulmana se había dividido en pequeños reinos). Sin embargo he leído el poema original, pero fue en los años 70 y no recuerdo los detalles, aparte del hecho de que el español medieval (y el catalán) es más fácil de leer que el francés de la misma época.

Cantar del Mio Cid.jpg
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Tue Apr 11, 2023 11:02 am

The last three days I have spent a lot of time on my garden. Actually I went out to buy food and visit a museum and a botanical garden Friday, and when I passed a horticultural nursery where I earlier have bought stuff I noticed that it was open. It may be Easter, but the weather was excellent and many people might be tempted to do something about their gardens - and by the way, we have a fairly liberal opening hours legislation here in Denmark (more than in for instance Germany with its stiffling Ladenschlußgesetz). Some supermarket chains were open, others not - but I did get my groceries. And then I thought that I had one possibly dead Rhododendron (out of the 12 I planted last year) so I decided to buy a replacement for it - but the shop also had an offer: eight perennials out of five species for 100 DKK (about 14€), so I bought eight of those also - plus 2x10 pansies from the supermarket.

When I got home I planted the pansies near my budding tulips and the perennials in a location where there are Primulae and Narcissusses plus some unknown flowers, so I have actually thought about making a perennial bed there (it's just a lawn with weeds there for most of the year). But 8 plants didn't look like much so I drove back to the nursery and bought 2 x 8 perennials more. And Saturday I bought 2 x 8 more plus one more Rhododendron and planted those, and now that area looked nice (my pansies also look nice, but they are in another area). However the area is close to a tree (a hornbeam), and now the ground looked sadly bare beneath another smaller tree so yesterday Monday I drove back to buy carnations plus 2x 8 perennials to start a new perennial bed, adjacent to the line of Narcissusses which have been trusty spring time decoration for years.

The problem is that as my mother's health declined the lawn grew at the expense of the perennial bed, so now where I own the garden I try to roll that back and make a really flowery and colourful garden with some smaller lawn areas. And that takes time, which could have been used on learning languages. Actually I have spent some time studying botanics - i.e. reading about the plants I think I have got in the garden and drawing a plan with the names I am sure of (and some where I'm less sure).

And since I mostly use Latin and Danish botanical names that should be commented upon in lingva latina, non in anglice sermone:

LAT: Quod supra scripsi, tempus mihi propter horticultura fugit - quater vendorem herbarum in tres dies exquiruit ut rhododendra, dianthes ac flores perennes (octo pretio centi coronarum danicarum) emerem, et porro violas tricolores ex superemporio emi. Hortus ad casa matri est, quam nunc mihi appartinet, et nescio nomina multae herbae, sed propter valetudinem eae diminuentem areae cum floribus contracerunt et pratulum crevit usque ad annum superiorem ubi de facto hortum solum gerui, et descensus suus obviam itus sum.

Exempli gratia, duodecem rhododendra emi (jam diu unum magnum cum floribus rubribus habebam), et undecim absumpti sunt hiemo - id quod satis bonum est. Liber antiquus quem matri appartinebat ex anno domini MCMLXXXVII habeo, et liber mihi dicit quod solum hiemalem non sustinent ... rogo quomodo tunc in natura superstent. Partes libri legi heri ut scirem quod de herbas novas expectandum est et quod ego facere debeo ut eas non interficere. Exempli gratia ibi vidi quod stulte fuit dahlias anno superiore emeret quia hiemo in olliis in loco non pruinoso hibernare debent - et ego hortum quaeret quis facile gerere sit, non hortum cui herbas teneres sunt.

In tempore paschali Rhododendra dua, Dianthes caryophylles sex ('carnations'), Arenca quattuor et LX flores perennes (Saxifragas, Iberes, Hutchinsias, Aurinias Aubrietasque) emi. Antea etiam inter alia tulipas, narcisses et (quam herbam inutilem) primulas vulgares, et non totes in libro magno sunt, haud dubio quia novas in commercio sunt. Hornungia alpina ('Hutchinsia' in taberna nominata) in libro non est, sed quam Hornungia in Wikipedia emergit.

Et quid de linguas dictu sit?

AL: Kam studiuar një tekst shqip për ndryshimet shoqërore për shkak të bronzit dhe hekurit, dhe kam shkruar një listë me 200 fjalë...

INDO: .. mempelajari artikel tentang Al-Andalus (=Andalusia di Spanyol) dari Wikipedia bahasa Indonesia ...

GR:... .. και μετά από πολλές εβδομάδες ανάγνωσης σε μικρά κομμάτια τελείωσα τον ελληνικό οδηγό για τη Ρόδο. Τα τελευταία επεισόδια ήταν μάλλον βαρετά και μειλίχια - ίσως επειδή ο συγγραφέας κουράστηκε, αλλά έπρεπε να υπάρχει κάτι για τη νυχτερινή ζωή και τον πολιτισμό - ό,τι κι αν είναι. Δεν πειράζει γιατί αγόρασα το βιβλίο πριν από χρόνια και τα πράγματα αλλάζουν. Ωστόσο, έχω έτοιμα πολλά άλλα βιβλία, όπως η ιστορία της Πορτογαλίας, μια συλλογή ημιλογοτεχνικών κειμένων στα Γαλικιανά (Galego), το βιβλίο για τα πρώτα ταξίδια των Ρουμάνων στο εξωτερικό και το ελληνικό λεξικό.

F6402a01_stauder_perennials (atque Narcissi Primulae vulgaresque).jpg
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allf100
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Languages: Hokkien(mother tongue, yet less fluent than my Mandarin)
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Persian (A little, completely forgot it.)
Sankrit (Just for alphabet, and forgot them all)
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby allf100 » Tue Apr 11, 2023 1:15 pm

When I got home I planted the pansies near my budding tulips and the perennials in a location where there are Primulae and Narcissusses plus some unknown flowers, so I have actually thought about making a perennial bed there (it's just a lawn with weeds there for most of the year).


My father had a green finger too. We had a very small yard in which he had all kinds of plants. Unfortunately I am a killer of plants. Almost every plant I bought 'past away' sooner or later, and I was sad. I wouldn't like to buy any of them.

Narcissus is the city flower of my hometown. In Chinese, we literally call it 'shui xian' 水仙(sweet shan) which means a fairy in the water, but it doesn't have any negative connotation in its name.

I don't like the name of narcissus that much, but daffodil which reminds me of the beautiful poem titled The Daffodils by William Wordsworth, though probably narcissus and daffodil are different breeds.

I wonder if you have sunflowers, which are my favorite flower, in your garden. It is a symbol of being sunny, simple etc in the flower language I define on my own.

Have a great one!
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Iversen
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Languages: Monolingual travels in Danish, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian and (part time) Esperanto
Ahem, not yet: Norwegian, Afrikaans, Platt, Scots, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Irish, Indonesian and a few more...
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1027
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Tue Apr 11, 2023 1:51 pm

My mother grew sunflowers (Danish: solsikker) successfully in 1996 and 1997, then for some reason she stopped doing so - maybe because she found them a tad overwhelming. I tried again last year: I put seeds in an egg tray, and they actually sprouted well - but as soon as I had moved the sprouts out into the garden we got a drought that lasted for 3 months, and that killed them. I haven't seen readymade sunflowers in the nurseries this year, but I feed the birds with sunflower seeds daily - so I might try to put some of those seeds in some earth to see whether anything comes up. The seeds can also be bought in small paper bags - maybe tomorrow..

M0810b04 _sunflowers 1997.jpg

PS: after I wrote the lines above I decided to print a couple of articles from Wikipedia about sunflowers, and I ended up with parts of the articles in Bulgarian and Ukrainian, both fairly long and informative ... and now I have studied those printouts. The Bulgarian one went fairly smoothly, whereas the one in Ukrainian turned out to be more demanding. It can't be just a question of dictionary size, but that's part of the problem - my Ukrainian 'slovnik' is OK (and I'm glad that I bought it), but the Ukrainian - English part makes only up a third of the 640 pages, it's written for Ukrainians learning English and most of the words I have tried to look up are missing. Actually Google translate seems to know more words than my dictionary, especially botanical terms (I translated the text into Italian), but by using that translation plus my own elucidated guesses I can get through the text.On the other hand: in Bulgarian I just have two small dictionaries (plus a translation into Swedish), but it seems to be enough at my current level.

And now I intend to read a few more articles extensively until I'm tired enough to get to bed. There are languages enough to choose from ...
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Iversen
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4759
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 7:36 pm
Location: Denmark
Languages: Monolingual travels in Danish, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian and (part time) Esperanto
Ahem, not yet: Norwegian, Afrikaans, Platt, Scots, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Irish, Indonesian and a few more...
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1027
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Re: Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

Postby Iversen » Fri Apr 14, 2023 8:52 am

The last week or so I have spent as much time on gardening as on studying - and even some of my study time is devoted to horticulture. For instance I mentioned to my sister yesterday that I intended to make Danish "frikadeller" (meatballs with an egg and some flour), and it seemed that she might not be adverse to getting a few of those. So I drove to her place, but then thought it might be interesting to visit another plant nursery than the one I have raided recently, and here they sold "horn violer" (horned pansies, Viola cornuta - though I fail to see the horn on them) at approx. 14€ for 10, so I bought ten of them plus one Hydrangea and .. well, something I didn't know existed until yesterday: an Astilbe. And since the tips from the nursery stipulated that it should be planted in halfshadow I planted it under a Syringa 'tree' (actually a megalomanic bush). Then this morning I read that this was wrong: it LOVES full sunlight, as long as the earth is wet - and when people say it should be planted in shadow that's because such places tend to be wetter. Besides it seems also to have the propensity for growing to absurd sizes. OK, then I had to get out this morning and move it to a more suitable position. I learn some Latin plant names (and a few in Danish and English), but nothing in my other languages, but it has to be done. That garden is my sole responsability now.

F6402a02 _Astilbe.jpg

But of course I also managed to study languages. I followed a link from Tastyonions' stroll through the Greek language to a Youtube channel called Καθημερινή Φυσική which has a lot of short videos about science, spoken at rocket speed in Greek with subtitles in Greek - and no back ground music or other disturbances. At that speed I definitely need the subtitles to keep track of what is said, but it gives me exactly the combination of listening and reading that I can use to learn to understand spoken Greek. Maybe I could have found the channel myself, but I didn't expect such a site to exist in Greek so I didn't look for it.

After something like an hour listening to Greek I switched as usual to Ecolinguist's channel, and there I found two videos with Afrikaans being served for a German lady and a Swedish man. As in some other cases they had made two videos, the first with just the examples in Afrikaans and the rest in English (so of course I skipped that), the second one In Afrikaans and German and Swedish, and I was slightly surprised at how little they understood. For instance in one case they should guess "stuurstok" (joystick), and they were even told that there was one behind the Afrikaanser, but their guesses were respectively billiard board and wall. To be fair: in another case they should guess a giraffe (which in Afrikaans is called a "kameelperd" (camel horse)), and they did get that relatively fast. Speaking about giraffes,...

AF: In 2002 het ek aan 'n groeptoer met 'n groot toerbus deelgeneem, maar omdat die gidse rock in die bus op all die plattelandse paaie gespeel het, het ek gekies die toer te breek in Bloemfontein, wat verskeie besienswaardighede en 'n treinstasie het. In hierdie dorp is daar ook 'n natuurpark op 'n heuwel in die middel, Naval Hill, en hier waad wilde diere rond - geen mensvreter spesies nie, maar as 'n kameelperd kwaad word, kan dit ook nogal onaangenaam raak. Niemand verbied egter die gaste om rond te loop en na die diere te kyk nie, so ek het natuurlik so gemaak. En daarna het ek 3-4 museums en die dieretuin besoek. Vanaf Bloemfontein het ek met die trein Kimberley toe gereis en die groot gat gesien waar daar eens diamante was, en toe koop ek 'n vliegtuigkaartjie aan de Kaapstad toe, van waar my terugvlug vertrek het. Terwyl ek in Bloemfontein en Kimberley in mooi weer gesit het, was die toergroep in die Karoo en dit het daar swaar gereën. Ek het die tour net op die regte tyd ontsnap!

F2144b01 _ Kameelperd op Naval Hill in Bloemfontein.jpg
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