Ani's 2017 Log

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Ani
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Tue Dec 26, 2017 7:25 am

Gemuse wrote:You're a Physicist Ani?

No, my degree is in math. I've just been a little obsessed with physics this year and day dreaming about a graduate degree in theoretical physics or maybe astronomy and astrophysics at the Sorbonne UPMC.. not like that's remotely realistic or anything but it combines my (current) two favorite things : French and physics :)
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby DaveBee » Wed Dec 27, 2017 8:46 am

Ani wrote:No, my degree is in math.
I've been reading about Raymond Queneau this morning, there might be something there that would interest you.
La curiosité de Queneau s'étend à tous les domaines de la science, notamment aux mathématiques. C'est d'ailleurs avec un mathématicien, son ami François Le Lionnais, qu'il fonde l'Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle en 1960; ce groupe se propose de créer de nouvelles structures poétiques et romanesques. Mais plus qu'un simple club littéraire, l'Oulipo veut dépasser la conception traditionnelle de la littérature pour lui reconnaître une vocation à créer de nouveaux langages.

À l'instar des mathématiques, la langue est à chaque instant pour Queneau un objet d'expérience, un champ d'application, un territoire illimité d'exploration. Curieux de tout, Queneau s'intéresse à tout; cette disposition encyclopédique combine chez lui deux penchants complémentaires : le goût pour l'acquisition du savoir et l'intérêt pour les méthodes de découverte.

http://classes.bnf.fr/dossitsm/b-quenea.htm

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo

http://oulipo.net
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Wed Dec 27, 2017 6:17 pm

DaveBee wrote:http://classes.bnf.fr/dossitsm/b-quenea.htm


You know you're a language nerd when...
...you misinterpret this as a French website with lessons in Quenya. :ugeek:
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Wed Dec 27, 2017 9:16 pm

Ani wrote:
MorkTheFiddle wrote:Pardon the belated interruption. You may say more about this topic later in your log, so I'll save commenting until I finish it. But what a stimulating set of observations and questions.


I'm so glad you stopped by and brought this up. I had forgotten that I posted about coming back to talk on this theme, actually. I keep thinking about it though, especially as we study history chronological and see what was happening all over the world at different times. It's love to hear your thoughts and if we have any others interested in the discussion maybe we can port my original thoughts into a discussion thread.

Merry Christmas everyone!! Hope you are all having a wonderful time with family and friends.

First of all, I hope the Christmas season is going well for you and yours.

Second, as for my "thoughts." First, I'll bring in Whitehead's overworked remark,
The safest general characterization of the philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
That used to mean to me that Plato was the more important part of the equation. But lately I wonder if the "footnoters" aren't the more important part. Plato may have laid the first course, but the rest of the building belongs to his footnoters. Without the intervening 2500 years of explanations and interpretations, how important would Plato be? Some of what Plato has Socrates say is downright nonsense. Socrates's "proof" of the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo is ridiculous (I'll look up the exact reference when I get through with this: it is Phaedo 70c-72a; there are so many editions of Plato, but here is one, starting at 70c: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DPhaedo%3Asection%3D70c). Further, though I have not read a great deal of Plato in the Greek (or any of the other Ancient Greeks or the Bible), I have read enough to believe that nothing gets lost in translation. Plato's style of writing does get lost, and he is a masterful writer, to which some of his longevity can be attributed, but not the ideas. I would leave aside the poetry, but I think what I have said about Plato is true for all the other prose writers and "thinkers" (excepting maybe Thucydides, but with him what gets lost is his lack of clarity :) ).
As for Latin, I must confess a bias here. I'm surprised that Latin literature has survived at all. But leave that aside, are there any ideas from Latin secular literature that we use unadulterated in their original form? Is what the Romans called a republic what we would call a republic? Haven't their ideas like the ideas of the Ancient Greeks substantially mutated with the passage of time and the application of interpretations?
And in that case, do we really need to learn Latin and/or Ancient Greek in order to understand their thinking and concepts? My answer would be no. The quantity of their literature is low, indeed, as you allude to, so if you spend 4 or 5 or 6 years mastering the languages, where are you and what do you read next? What is the point of it all? I have made a couple of serious attempts to learn Latin. I would be especially interested in being able to read Tacitus in the original. But Tacitus is so very difficult and there is so little else of Latin I want to read, that I just quit. I am in a similar position with Ancient Greek, except with Greek there is enough, just barely enough, to keep me interested and to keep me going.
Very recently a doctor told me he missed not knowing Latin for the help it would have given him learning medical terminology. So there is one reason to study Latin. Another would be just the pure simple pleasure of learning the language, which would apply to Greek as well, of course. But barring those two reasons as well as a religious reason, I can see no point in anyone's labor--hard labor indeed--learning either language.
I have a tendency to say too much, but I'm going to stop here(I haven't forgotten the reference to Phaedo; I'll come back with it once I find it in an English version).
It would be great to hear more of your opinions about this as well as the opinions of others. Thanks for inviting me in.

Edited once to provide the reference to Phaedo.
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Systematiker » Thu Dec 28, 2017 1:14 am

I have an awful lot I'd like to say in this, but as it's in the middle of Ani's log, I'd like to have her permission first, or, as she's suggested, take it to another thread - as she decides.
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Thu Dec 28, 2017 2:59 am

Systematiker wrote:I have an awful lot I'd like to say in this, but as it's in the middle of Ani's log, I'd like to have her permission first, or, as she's suggested, take it to another thread - as she decides.


Please go ahead. I love this discussion. I only feel a little bit guilty for keeping the fun content in here and not sharing with everyone else :)
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Ani » Thu Dec 28, 2017 3:15 am

MorkTheFiddle wrote:
Ani wrote:
MorkTheFiddle wrote: The quantity of their literature is low, indeed, as you allude to, so if you spend 4 or 5 or 6 years mastering the languages, where are you and what do you read next? What is the point of it all?


I think you hit at least one of the nails on the head here. I'm interested to know what the actual corpus size is for Latin in different periods.

I also agree with you about the need to understand the language not to miss the sense of the ideas. My impression is that what is translated is usually translated quite well. Further, for important works, you can usually find long expositions that containing all the analysis and translational considerations.


** Just to clarify for anyone that reads in, I'm not saying anything at all against learning Latin or ancient Greek for love or by choice of profession.
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby reineke » Thu Dec 28, 2017 7:43 am

Extracting Two Thousand Years of Latin from a Million Book Library

"The Internet Archive contains a smaller set of digitized works [than Google] (ca. 2 million), but all of them are publicly available for download, and 27,014 of these works have been catalogued as Latin from a range of authors, genres, and eras - the Classical Latin works of Vergil and Cicero, medieval religious authors such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and later scientific writings by the likes of Newton, Copernicus and Kepler. These 27,014 works contain approximately one billion words of Latin, far more than the extant corpus of Classical Latin up to ca. 200 CE (around 10 million words) and larger still than the largest existing Latin collection (J. Ramminger’s Neulateiniche Wortliste [23] at 300 million words), which includes works up to 1700 CE. These 27,014 works also span a total of twenty-one centuries, capturing not only the written native Latin of a Roman elite but also its use as a second language of writers for the two millennia that follow."

The Open Greek and Latin (OGL) Project

As of February 2017, c. 30 million words of Ancient Greek and 37 million words of Classical Latin — almost two thirds of all Greek and Latin produced through c. 600 CE...

https://classicalstudies.org/annual-mee ... -libraries
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Systematiker » Thu Dec 28, 2017 2:57 pm

So, Reineke did better than I would have about the extent of Latin, as I wouldn't have had numbers about the corpus - I'll leave that numerical bit to those who have the resources and desire :lol:

I'd also like to note that I speak a lot about the Western Canon below, and of Western tradition. This is not to denigrate any other tradition, nor out of any desire to deny anyone a seat at the table. I am very aware of those who have been excluded from said conversation, and the problems of inclusivity (and that's a whole 'nother tangent). Additionally, there are certainly many other traditions, each of value and rich in their content. Furthermore, I recognize that any written tradition across languages is shaped by the language community - the "canon" in the anglophone world looks different than other parts of Europe (NB, this is a large part of why I learn langauges!).

Working backwards:

Regarding the role of the conversation throughout the West
Ani wrote:The discussion evolved into the assertion that the thinking and ideas most valuable to the world came through Latin and Greek. I think that is kind of a dumb statement since it is unverifiable, but it prompted a great discussion.


I think here the assertion is about the "world" that took its path through Western Europe and into the Americas. Latin philosophy considered itself the inheritors of the Greek tradition (this is why e.g. Aurelius wrote his meditations in Greek, which he considered to be more fitting for philosophy), and much of the philosophical conversation has been a series of influences from the early Greek thinkers (Whitehead, who was mentioned before, is probably one of the first who is doing something novel; the positivists could be counted here but what turned into analytic philosophy did have to go through the collapse of logical positivism prior to it. Even as late as Hegel, it's essentially "hey, look at what Plotinus wrote, let's interpret that into my scheme"). If one is talking about, say, the Western literary canon, you can't really get away from either the direct or the indirect influence of those original thinkers, and, as has been noted, the use of Latin (and Greek! Look at Renaissance work in Greek!) as a second language, as a medium of educated thought or expression. Even today, across "pure" philosophical disciplines and "philosophy of" (especially phil of science), you'll find positions influenced by (or occasionally directly those of) the ancients.

Indirectly as well, in both the anglophone world and through Europe, we have a cultural tradition of education in these "classical" languages, and "classical" works. If one were particularly interested in that tradition, the modality is through the vehicle of the original, as it's been a bit of Western culture since the Renaissance that the source text in the source language expresses more than a translation.

Does everyone need this kind of background? Nope. Is it nice? I think so.

Ani wrote:Further, for important works, you can usually find long expositions that containing all the analysis and translational considerations.

This is true, however, I'd argue that the amount of time to become genuinely conversant with the literature explaining all the bits around translation and background and influence approximates (if it is not greater than) the time to learn enough Greek and Latin to read comfortably.

MorkTheFiddle wrote:Some of what Plato has Socrates say is downright nonsense.

For sure!

MorkTheFiddle wrote:Without the intervening 2500 years of explanations and interpretations, how important would Plato be?

Well, the thing is, it's not just Plato, right? It's the Neoplatonists or the Stoics, thinking they are the authoritative interpreters of Plato. It's Augustine, who reads Plotinus and thinks he's in conversation with Plato. It's Pseudodionysius and Boethius, it's Aquinas, it's Wolff and Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, and so on, each directly in conversation with Plato as well as those who came in between (apologies for a handful of theologians there, but you get what I mean).

Regarding translations, especially of Ancient Greek and Latin
MorkTheFiddle wrote: I have read enough to believe that nothing gets lost in translation. Plato's style of writing does get lost, and he is a masterful writer, to which some of his longevity can be attributed, but not the ideas.

This is problematic. The easiest example is the US-American claim of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", intentionally formulated on a particular translation using "happiness", which has become ambiguous (and probably was then to many). There are monographs on this term (eudaimonia, by the way) alone in Aristotle and Plato, and much modern virtue ethics is built on it. The ideas are still there - if you get the background of some terms explained (another one is the virtue-art-habit-work bundle), and are willing to do the digging in the secondary literature...and if every translator uses the same terms the same way (they don't). Arguably this is very specific, and not necessary to everyone, but the plain fact is that it's probably as much work to have a deep understanding of the Ancient Greeks in translation as it is to read them in Ancient Greek. I've made a fair amount of academic hay out of "you can't just do this in translation...you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means" :lol:

MorkTheFiddle wrote:But leave that aside, are there any ideas from Latin secular literature that we use unadulterated in their original form? Is what the Romans called a republic what we would call a republic? Haven't their ideas like the ideas of the Ancient Greeks substantially mutated with the passage of time and the application of interpretations?

I think here there's a lot of value in being able to make this distinction, and to "look behind" texts quoted in support of a position to be able to critically engage with it. Your question about the republic, sure, we can analyze that without learning Latin, but we can also get some insight by looking at the way it's spoken about, or we can learn the language and have an intuitive understanding of the concept. It's about the same work, if we're going to cast the net wide, just different starting points.


Regarding cultural signaling, comparative culture, and value by age
Ani wrote:To this end, how do we separate what is cultural signaling in educational choices from what has a quantitative value.. or is it even possible to quantify or analyze great thought across distinct cultures. And how does the idea that "the length of time a work has survived is indicative of the value of ideas it contains" relate here..?


I'm not entirely sure what cultural signaling is, to be honest. Something like virtue signaling, and the desire to belong to a specific cultural tradition?

I'm not sure great thought can be quantified at all, and even influence can be argued for anyone but the really heavy hitters. I think there's perhaps a lot in education that can't be quantified, but I tend to talk about education as both "imparting of knowledge, practical or not" and "formation" (again, something I have from not-English! :lol: ), so we may not be talking about the same thing here. My question when considering educational choices is more "what sort of person might be shaped by this" or "what sort of person might need to be exposed by this" and seeing of that (in my concept) lines up with my goal (ha, to say nothing of anyone else's goal!).

I don't think time has much to do with value, but within traditions, we do see ideas recur, and I think there's a lot of value in being able to look at a "literary conversation" across the ages, and the manner in which these ideas are taken up, modified, passed on, and have shaped our surroundings.

As one can probably tell, I have specific ideas about education and culture, and come from this viewpoint in much of the above. I've tried not to be pedantic or long-winded (which is difficult at the best of times, and more so when you figure that this is right in the middle of a conversation about stuff that I teach or discuss academically) - if I've been too unclear, or if I've offended anyone, please know I don't mean to, and I'm trying hard to have a nice conversation. My wife tells me not to go on and on and on and on, so I'm trying to not do that as well!
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Re: Ani's 2017 Log

Postby Cavesa » Thu Dec 28, 2017 4:31 pm

Ani wrote:
Cavesa wrote:
YES!!! Someone took my recommendation seriously! I told you so! :-D Of course it is not high literature, that is not the intention. But Harris knows the craft, unlike most people in this genre. The constant reintroductions are annoying (really, does she think anyone would start the series from book 9?) but she weighs it out with sense of humour and lots of blood :-)

The translators have done a good job in French and Spanish, I don't know much about the others. I have started a non-Sookie Harris in German, I'll talk about it later, when I am a bit more advanced (both in German and the books)


I *always* take your recommendations seriously. I think I've gotten more media suggestions out of your log and posts then any other. I have at least another book or two you've recommended on my shelf. L'ange du chaos, I think and something else. I'm glad you're working on German. In three years or so when I'm ready to commit, I'm sure you'll have tons for me :) I just need to make some progress on Russian first....


One more reason to work harder on my German :-D
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