Iversen's second multiconfused log thread

[Iversen]

Yes, the Capetiens. I'm glad that Tarvos has noticed my remarks about the last of the direct line of Capetians and the dynastic troubles that led to the 100 years war and ultimately to the emergence of France and Britain as separate independent nations. But I left things dangling in the air at the point where Philippe VI on a dubious foundation had taken over the French crown. And he got into problems from the start when his and king Edward III's armies met in a battle at Crécy, where the much larger French army was crushed by the British one (which Edward had tried out on the Scots first). Later on the Black Prince ,Edward of Woodstock, eldest son of Edward, roamed through Western France and won several times, but died of dysentery to the intense relief of the French.

FR: Le premier roi de la ligne des Valois Philippe mourut en 1350 et lui succéda son fils Jean II le Bon .. qu'on aurait plutôt nommé le "trop bon" ou le "pas assez bon", puisqu'il était attrapé par les anglais dans la bataille de Poitiers, et il fallait rendre beaucoup de territoire et un tas d'argent pour qu'il puisse être libéré (Édouard III exigea un acompte de 600 000 écus et Jean devait en outre en verser 400 000 supplémentaires avant un an, selon Wikipédia). Wikipédia en français n'est pas très claire sur ce point, mais celle en Anglais explique que (EN) ' Leaving his son Louis of Anjou in English-held Calais as a replacement hostage, John was allowed to return to France to raise the funds.". But then something extraordinary happens - junior has fled from his quarters, and the French king mounts a horse da-dum-da-dum and goes to Calais to present himself as hostage instead of his naughty son. The English wardens who saw the king standing outside the gate asking humbly to be arrested must have been tempted to lift an eyebrow, and I wonder whether king Jean (or John as he is called in English) could hear the roar of laughter from the royal quarters of the Brits when it became known there what had happened. But eventually the king is liberated and returns to his country, where he dies and is succeed by his son Charles V le Sage.

FR: "Sage", pourquoi "sage"? Eh bien, parce-qu'il avait comprit que ses armées médiévales ne pouvaient pas battre les armées des anglais, et alors il a utilisé la tactique de la terre déserte: chaque fois que Edouard III est dans une région française, les français ont retiré toutes leur forces dans la ville fortifiée la plus proche ou autre lieu fortifée sans se laisser impliquer dans une bataille, et les gens ordinaires ont eu l'ordre stricte de se cacher dans les montagnes ou forêts ou quoi que ce soit d'autre avec leurs animaux et tout etc., et par conséquent l'armée anglais d'a pas seulement pas reçu ses soldes, mais elle n'a pas eu rien à manger. Edouard a dont du laisser la France sans obtenir rien. De plus, Charles avait trouvé un maréchal excellent avec Bertrand du Guesclin, qui a successivement reconquis la plupart des territoires à l'Ouest. Donc à la mort du roi sage en 1380 les choses alaient assez bien pour les français, sauf qu'il existait un autre problème causé par le roi soi-disant bon: son quatrième fils Philippe le Hardi avait eu Bourgogne comme fief, et il s'est allié avec les anglais - et avec leur aide, la duché de Bourgogne est effectivement devenu un étât souverain.

Du moins Louis V avait compris que la méthode traditionelle de se battre avec une cavallerie composé de chevaliers en armure était désuète, mais il était apparemment le seul à reconnaître que la méthode traditionelle n'était plus suffisante.

EN: OK, in England Edward III had died, leaving the kingdom to Richard II who for all kinds of good reasons became universally hated, and the result was a revolt which brought a distant relative named Bolingbroke to the power as Henry IV (yes, a certain Shakespeare has written a play about this, but you shouldn't accept him as a non-biased historian - he isn't). His son Henry V came to France with an army that was packed with archers wielding a new and fancy weapon, the longbow, and his army massacred the impressive and colourful, but totally traditional French cavalry army in the battle at Azincourt, whereby a fair portion of the French nobility was killed off in one fell swoop. The French king at this time was Louis VI "le Fol". Why 'mad'? Well, think professor Lupus in Harry Potter III, and you get the idea. In one moment the French king was a sensible, reasonable person, and one moment later he became a murderous beast who only could be retained by the use of blunt power. And his attacks of folly became more and more frequent as he got older. Not good for a country at war.

FR: Après la mort du roi fou le dauphin Charles VII était dans une situation pitoyable - on l'a même dérisoirement nommé "roi de Bourges" au lieu de "roi de France", mais pendant un séjour à Chinon une jeune dame nomme Jeanne d'Arc s'est présentée devant lui et a demandé une armée pour sauver la France - et c'était Dieu lui-Même qui l'a ordonnée à ce faire, disait-elle. Charles a acccepté (ce qui prouve dans quelle situation désespérée il se trouvait!), et voilà, Jeanne gagnea la bataille d'Orleans, ce qui était en effet la première victoire des français depuis longtemps et marqua le début de la reconquête de presque toute la France pendant le règne de 40 années de Charles VII. Pourtant sa renommée a été sévèrement ternie par la manque totale de support de la cour française pour Jeanne quand elle a finalement été attrappée par les Bourguignons à Beauvais et extradit aux Anglais, qui l'ont fait brûler en 1431 à Rouen. Du moins il a effectué qu'elle a été acquittée dans un second procès .. ce qui était évidemment un peu trop tard pour sauver la pauvre pucelle. Mais comme le dit Wikipédia: "La bataille de Castillon eut lieu le 17 juillet 1453 entre les armées de Henri VI d'Angleterre et celles de Charles VII de France. Cette victoire décisive pour les Français met fin à la guerre de Cent Ans."

Et les Bourguignons? Et bien, leur quatrième et dernier duc était un homme impestueux, belliqueux et idiot nommé Charles le Téméraire, qui n'a jamais compris que l'ère des armées de chevaliers nobles en armure avait cessée depuis longtemps. Il a eu la tété fendue par des mercénaires Suisses en 1477 près de Nancy et mourut sans laisser des héritiers. Ses possession en Bourgogne ont été saisies immédiatement par le roi français à l'époque, Louis XI dit 'L'Araignée" (fils de Charles VII), tandis que ses possessions en Belgique - qui n'était pas un pays à l'époque - ont été usurpées par l'empéreur de la soi-disant sainte empire.

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[Iversen]

I would have written some more here now, but instead I have been reading a book about archeology, linguistics and genetics suggested in another thread. It is always nice to have one's preconceived ideas confirmed by people with more academical punch.

So let me just mention briefly that I had been on a short trip to Copenhagen this weekend, and I got through the cathedral book while I was over there. But since it is in French and I have written a lot in French and about France lately i'll not go into details here. And I haven't had much time for other types of language study since my forays into history have taken so much time.

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[Iversen]

And now I did it again - I spent the time I should have used on my own log to writing about the early history of the Indoeuropean languages in another thread. So let me just mention that I have been reading some stuff in different languages (but mostly German) about Christmas trees. They popped up in Denmark in a few households in the early 19. century, and now the goddam things are everywhere.

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I have however also studied some texts in Indonesian about zoos, including two on Java and one on Bali.

BA IN: Saya mengunjungi Sulawesi, Bali dan Jawa pada tahun 2002 dan sayangnya tidak mengunjungi Indonesia sejak. Itu hanya mungkin terjadi ketika saya telah belajar sedikit lagi Bahasa Indonesia. Saya mengunjungi negara itu dalam sebuah perjalanan berkelompok, dan di Sulawesi saya biasanya mengikuti kelompok dan pemandu kami yang sangat baik - termasuk pemakaman darah di Tanah Toraja, di mana beberapa ekor sapi dibantai untuk menghormati almarhum. Di Bali kami menginap di hotel resor lima-bintang di Sanur selama dua minggu, dan saya pikir itu terlalu banyak, jadi pada hari pertama saya membeli penerbangan ke Jawa dan tinggal di pulau ini selama sebuah minggu. Di Jawa, saya mengunjungi kebun-kebun binatang di Surabaya dan Yogyakarta, dan di Bali saya mengunjungi Kebun Burung di sebelah utara Sanur.

Saya pernah mencetak teks-teks dari web tentang tiga buha kebun ini dan banyak tempat lain, karena tentunya saya juga mengunjungi lanskap jenis lainnya - termasuk banyak kuil di Bali, termasuk sebuah kuil di sisi gunung berapi yang sedang meletus saat ini. Saya telah menyebutkan sebuah teks tentang air terjun, tapi haha - tidak melihat air terjun.

Ketika saya memutuskan akan mengunjungi taman burung di Bali, saya naik taksi, tapi sopirnya adalah seorang penipu dan penjahat - batas pajaknya berlari terlalu cepat. Lalu saya pergi ke sana - saya lebih energik pada tahun 2002. Itu tidak cukup besar - hanya 2 hektar, tapi bagus dan terpelihara dengan baik - devers juga cukup mahal untuk dikunjungi. Mungkin semua sudah tahu ini, tapi antara Bali dan Lombok (tetangga sebelah timur), adalah yang disebut jalur Wallace. Di Bali, fauna berasosiasi dengan Asia; di Lombok, berasosiasi dengan satwa liar di Papua Nugini dan Australia. Tapi Anda tidak menemukannya satwa liar sebagai turis. Turis tipik Bali menari dan minum minuman keras dan mandi di laut, mereka tidak belajar satwa liar. Mereka yang mempelajari satwa liar pergi ke Komodo untuk menyaksikan burung Komodo. Saya tidak melihat beberapa turis lain di buah dua kebun binatang di Jawa.

EO: Parentenze, mi iam subskribis por la Esperanta Universala Monda Kongreso en Lisbono, kaj post la Nova Jaro mi ankaŭ aliĝos al la Bratislava asembleo. Mi ne decidis concerne Ljubljana. Eble mi elektas vojaĝi al alia turista loko pli for ĉar mi jam havos unu vojaĝon en Orienta Eŭropo pro la asembleo de Bratislavo. Mi volus viziti Indonezion denove, kaj mi konsideras uzi Lisbonon kiel posibla saltotabulo al Brazilo, kie mi nur estis unufoje - Lisbono kaj TAP havas multajn interesajn flugliniojn al Brazilo..

[Iversen]

I have been making new printouts in a number of languages, and one set of 4 pages are articles about a mixture of astronomy and mythology from the Latin Wikipedia. The articles there don't have the interminable sentences of original old texts (including Medieval writings), and I think (or rather: I hope) that they are written by people who know their Latin. Another set is in Serbian, which I have neglected for some time because.. no, I shouldn't say "because" because the offense is impardonable. And finally I have made a set about Christmas customs in Romania, but the slightly irritating thing about this is that the English article in Wikipedia about the topic is much longer than the one in Romanian, but I could supplement it with the Wikipedia article about "Moș Crăciun" (Father Christmas) so I got 4 full pages net in Romanian (no translation).

RO: Nu am devenit un susținător al sărbătorilor de Crăciun. Dar, pe măsură ce citesc și articole despre războaie și boli și alte probleme triste, este firesc să studiez sărbătoarea care mă înconjoară din toate părțile - în prezent, cu o durată de aproximativ o lună și jumătate, dar în creștere. Într-un trecut foarte îndepărtat când încă picteam picturi, am zugrăvit un motiv de Crăciun în fiecare an ca un fel de acțiune de catharsis, iar pictura de mai jos reflectă reflecții mele despre locul în care l-ai salvat vechiul Moș Crăciun de din fiecare an. Oficial, Santa se întoarce în Groenlanda după Crăciun, dar agenția sa de publicitate și renul său sunt fără îndoială în Rovaniemi, Finlanda.

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[Iversen]

I have continued reading about Christmas related stuff in Romanian, and the scary part is that some Romanians of different ages apparently walk from house to house in their local area with a paper cross, singing Christmas carols, and you can only make them go away by paying them cash. I would call that blackmail, and I'm glad that I don't have to ward off such groups at my own frontdoor.

I also read the much shorter article about Christmas in Moldava, where it seems that the main thing there is the Epiphany aka Theophany or Three Kings' Day, which is celebrated on the January 6 rather than on December 25 or thereabouts, and it is mentioned that this habit is shared with Russians and Ukranians. But the article doesn't reveal whether the Moldovans also have a blue Father Winter/Christmas like the Russians, or whether he is red like the one in the rest of the world, including Romania.

I do appreciate epiphanies, but mostly those that occur to language learners. However I happen to know that for instance Spaniards also have a weakness for the 6. of January since I once spent some time in Spain to see how they celebrated New Year. Given that they normally like to make as much noise as possible I had expected to see a magnificent display of fireworks from the central square in Sevilla where I had placed myself, and it was full of happy people, but ... no fireworks. How come? Well, I spent the last day of my holiday in Málaga - and quite by chance that was January 6. When I left my hotel to find a supermarket in the late afternoon I heard some loud booming noise in the far and lots of people streamed towards the town center. And then I witnessed a long and colorful Epifanía procession march through the streets - and it was not exactly quiet, but I still didn't see any fireworks there either. Maybe Spaniards just don't like fireworks, or maybe generalissimo Franco didn't like to have powder in the hands of the population and forbade it and somebody forgot to lift the ban.

SER: У последњих неколико месеци нисам провео пуно времена у српском језику, али сада сам направио збирку студијских текстова о астрономији, а данас сам проучавао ћирилични чланак о сазвежђу из Википедије. Не желим дати детаљно коментаришем ту тему, али само напоменем да према синдикату астронома тринаест сазвежђа у зодијаку нису дванаест, али неки су заборавили да кажу астрологима. Шта би могло бити тринаести знак хороскопа?

GER: Ich habe heute ganz vieles deutsches Fernsehen gesehen. Eine der Sendungen handelte von den Nenets auf der Halbinsel Jamal in Rusland. Sie sind Rehntiernomaden und leben in runden Hütten. Es kann 30-40 Grad Frost im Winter geben, dort wo sie leben (arme Rehntiere, die draußen bleiben müssen!), aber im inneren der Hütten ist es schön warm - bis zu 6 Grad über dem Gefrierpunkt. Man kommt ja fast zum Schwitzen! Aber wenn die Leute raus in die Kälte müssen, kleiden sie ihre Kinder in so viele Pelzmantel, daß sie breiter sind als hoch, und man sieht nur die Augen durch das Loch vorne an der Haube. Die sehen tatsächlich aus wie kleine pelzgekleidete Babuschka-Puppen...

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[Jar-Ptitsa]

I will read your log again soon. You always write very interesting things.

I promised that I'd take a photo of the christmas hearts that I have made this year. I didn't do the measurements that you had told, but I cut the papers in various sizes.

[tractor]

Maybe Spaniards just don't like fireworks, or maybe generalissimo Franco didn't like to have powder in the hands of the population and forbade it and somebody forgot to lift the ban.

They do love fireworks, but their big night for firewoks is Saint John’s Eve.

[Iversen]

arrgh .. then I was half a year off (Saint John's Eve is apparently June 23). Time will tell whether we get dry weather here in Denmark on New Year's eve - it has been raining for most of a week now so I wouldn't bet on it. If it rains I'm not going downtown to watch any fireworks here.

And JarPtitsa's braided Christmas hearts are very beautiful - it is a good idea to make them of paper with multicoloured pictures. Here in Denmark we can (or maybe could) buy "glanspapir", i.e. slightly shiny thin paper in various colours. Since I still have several sheets lying around I haven't tried to buy it for a long time so I don't know whether such paper still is sold in the bookstores, and since I haven't visited thousands of private homes I don't know whether people nowadays just buy readymade stuff instead of making Christmas decorations themselves.

Apart from that, I have been celebrating Christmas with my family without computer access and with limited study opportunities. I had brought some texts along for my habitual goodnight reading, and one of them provoked a curious reaction. I had grabbed the Romanian Christmas selections (cfr my message from Dec. 21) and a monolingual set of texts in Latin about celestial constellations, but only read the first one. Nevertheless it was the second set that (maybe) caused me to have a dream about and partly in Latin. The first thing I remember was some rubbish about wooden sticks marked with numbers on their ends, but then I somehow changed subject and ended up dreaming about the new 'Letbane' (light rail) in my town ...

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LA: "Letbane" tramvarius aut currus electricus est qui et in urbe mea Arusio, et ad dua oppida vicina egere debet (Odder Grenaaque) ubi putatur lineas extantes ferroviarias reponendas esse. Quamobrem lineas ex servicio nunc sunt, et nemo sciat quando iterum agunt (cum contraptione nova in via). In urbe magna festivitas cōnstitūta erat in mense Septembris expectans partem lineae inaugurationis, sed unum diem antes epulas festivatas abrogata est quia societae constructionis iam permissio administrationis securitatae publicae non promulgata sit. Modo mensis decembri 21 permissionem adeptam est apud societatem proiecti viatores transportandem, et mihi non iam opportunitas fuit tramvariam experiri - salvo in somnio meo, ubi primo de nomine cum hominem politicum discutavi. Illi non placebat quod ego novam lineam "haematostichium levum" aut lingva danica "forkromet sporvogn" obstinater nominabam. Hodie in Wikipedia vidi quod "tramway" anglicae lingvae aut "tramvarius" aut "currus electricus" in lingva latina esse, sed nomen tramvarium novum nostrum "letbane" est - id quod ad verbum "currus levis" sit. Post discutioni, in carro fui qui per vicos arosienses currebat. Non altres viatores nec raedarium vidi, et cum nimis lentissime opinione meae currebat ego carri jubui (!) citius currere, et mox magno cursu cucurrit per vicos, satis ut in angulis quasi evertaret. Mihi valde placuit vectio, sed infeliciter mox experrectus sum (emotiones fortes stabilitatem somni nocent). Non credo quod tramvarius verus somnum meum superabit.

[Iversen]

Since I returned home I have made some Albanian wordlists based on words from my Assimil booklet, and I have read some texts in Greek, but I got tempted to have a look at my stock of old compositions. At first everything went well. I found that my Piano concert opus 28 wasn't quite as disastrous as I had feared, so with some minor corrections the old sheets from 1996 could be scanned and exported directly to the IMSLP site, which I did Tuesday evening. But then things went horribly wrong: I also checked a cembalo concerto and found that it could be rescued (well, at least the first couple of movements), although not without being heavily edited, and now the bulk of my linguistic study time has been converted into notes-writing-time for at least one week ahead. The first movement isn't bad - but in the old version the soloist came in way to late so I'll have to insert some passages to make it clear that there IS a soloist so that it doesn't look like a belated afterthought. The second movement also has some bright moments, but I'll have to make some changes in in the instrumentation to give the soloist more playing time (and more challenges to cope with). From the boring and worthless third movement I may be able to save a few themes, but not the general fabric of the piece, so right now I'm thinking about replacing it with a Wiener Waltz pastiche for cembalo and orchestra - maybe with a ritornello for four crumhorns and a pommer (everything goes since nobody ever will play the piece!).

NO: Sjakkspillere må ha blitt klar over att den nåværende verdensmester i sjakk er norsk (Magnus Carlsen), og heila Noreg er tilsynelatende blitt sjakkgalen. Han spiller just nu om også å bli hurtigsjakkverdensmester, og NRK sender time etter time med sjakk, og heila studiet heima samt spillestedet i Saudiarabien er fullt av sjakkgalne nordmenn av ulika kønn som spiser banankake og drøfter mesterens trekk. Det er fint, for eg kan da komponere mens eg har musikfritt TV på skjermen.

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[Iversen]

I have spent most of the time since the message above on the cembalo concerto mentioned therein. I was bold enough to assume the job revising that thing would take a week, and it did .. and it did so for exactly the reasons I mentioned: the first movement was not bad (although I did a bit of restructuring and reorchestration), the second was cut down to 2 minuts with a very sparse orchestration, and the last movement was completely discarded because it was boring beyond belief, and I didn't see the need to supply another. Instead I dubbed the microscopic second movement "επίλογος" (epilogue), which should tell people not to wait for a third movement. Job done, except that I now have to scan the score and tidy up the result so that it can be uploaded to IMSLP. And then I may possibly get back to the noble art of language studying.

GER: Heute habe ich das traditionelle Neujahrskonzert von Wien gehört. Und ich habe seit langem entdeckt, dass unseres dänisches Fernsehen (DR1) nur die zweite Hälfte sendet, weil unsere Königin ihre traditionelle Neujahrsrede vorerst abliefern muß, und dies muß aus einem unbekannten Grund unbedingt von 12.02 Uhr bis 12.15 am 1. Januar am Mittag geschehen. Zum Glück kann man das Konzert auch auf ZDF hören, und dort wird es in seiner vollen Länge und mit der Stimme einer echten österreichischen Ansagerin serviert.

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