Bla bla bla

[tractor]

Yes, that was a lot more different.

[nooj]

At a medieval fair of all places there was an antique book seller and I liked the look of a book I found. I flicked through it and saw that it was Catalan poetry, so I bought it after haggling the price down to 8 euros.

When I went home I found I had bought the first volume of the 1888 edition of 'Lo Gayter del Llobregat', by the Catalan poet Joaquim Rubió i Ors (1818-1899). He was one of the most important authors of the Renaixença, the reawakening of Catalan literature and art in the 19th century. In fact 'Lo Gayter del Llobregat' is one of the earliest works of this movement.

This collection of poems was originally published in 1839, but Rubió i Ors went on adding new poems, and also soliciting translations for his poems from authors around Europe, leading to the polyglot edition that I bought. In this first volume, there is Catalan, Spanish, Occitan, German, Greek (in Katharevousa), Italian, French.



Later I noticed the dedication in the front page that was written in fine ink:

Al distinguido poeta bable D. Juan Acebal en testimonio de afecto y agradecimiento.

El Autor

Our Don Juan Acebal was Xuan María Acebal (1815-1895), was one of the greatest poets of the Asturian language in the 19th century. So this volume was in the hands of two very important poets in their respective languages. Actually for the 50th anniversary of the publication of 'Lo Gayter del Llobregat', several of Rubió i Ors's poems were translated into Asturian by poets like Marcelino Flórez de Prado, Bernardo Acevedo y Huelves and Teodoro Cuesta, all of which are conspicuously absent in my volume. Unfortunately I only came into this information later, and the medieval fair was already finished meaning I had no way to go back and ask about the whereabouts of the other volumes, which I would happily buy.

Here's one of the pages with Rubió i Ors's verses on the left and a translation into Provençal done by Frederic Mistral himself on the right.



In the original prologue (page 16), Rubió i Ors gives a stirring call for Catalan literature. I leave it in the original orthography. We are still a few decades away from the monumental work of Pompeu Fabra to create a standardised norm for Catalan.

Catalunya pot aspirar encara á la independencia: no á la política, puig pesa molt poch en comparació de las demés nacións, las quals poden posar en lo plat de la balansa, á més del volúm de llur historia, exércits de molts mils de homes y esquadras de cents de vaixells; més sí a la literaria, fins á la qual no s'exten ni se pot extendre la política del equilibri. Catalunya fou per espay de dos sigles la mestra en lletras dels demés pobles; ¿Per qué puig no pot deixar de fer lo humiliant paper de deixeble ó imitadora, creantse una literatura propria y apart de la castellana?

Catalonia can still aspire to independence. Not political independence, because Catalonia has little weight in comparison to the other nations that can bring to the balance plate, aside from the volume of their history, armies of many thousands of men and squadrons of hundreds of ships. But literary independence, yes, to which the policy of balance does not nor cannot extend. For two centuries Catalonia was the teacher of the other peoples in literature. Why therefore can it not stop playing the humiliating role of disciple or copier, by creating its own literature, separate from the Spanish one?

[nooj]

The Eskualduna newspaper (1887-1944) is a treasure trove of North Basque information, minutiae, opinions and notices, from a heavily traditionalist Catholic, anti-French Republican but still French nationalist perspective. If you're into that sort of thing. It was published in Baiona, in Basque and French.

The newspaper supported the Spanish Nationalist rebels during the Spanish Civil War and during the Second World War, it supported Pétain. It's pro-Nazi editorial line got it shut down by the Allies when they took over.

Here's a page from a 1908 copy - I don't know who the author is, but he's Zuberoan (he writes in the Zuberoan dialect using a Frenchified orthography), and he's talking about the phenomenon of thunder and lightning, and the dangers they bring. He also mentions a custom from traditional Basque culture.

Eta eztugu goure irakourzaler oharterazi beharrik, goure aitenganik jin zaikun uztantcha houn bat dela inhaziaren ikhoustiari zenhatzia eta othoitze egitia Eliza Ama Saintak lethariñetan ezari hitzen eraitez : durundatik eta aro-gaitzetik begira gitzazu Jauna !

And there's no need to warn our readers that it's a good custom that has come down to us from our fathers to make the sign of the cross when seeing thunder and to pray, using the words that the Holy Mother Church left us in the litany: Lord, protect us from thunder and bad weather!

Actually I'm not sure if this is something general to all of Europe. Thunder and lightning is scary to everyone. Did Catholics everywhere cross themselves after seeing lightning?

Most of the newspaper has been digitised and is available on this website.

[vonPeterhof]

Actually I'm not sure if this is something general to all of Europe. Thunder and lightning is scary to everyone. Did Catholics everywhere cross themselves after seeing lightning?

Don't know about Catholics, but at some point this was apparently enough of a thing in Orthodox Russia that it's been immortalized in the popular saying Пока гром не грянет, мужик не перекрестится - "Until the thunder strikes the peasant won't cross himself". I feel like it might have originally been intended to mean something akin to "there are no atheists in foxholes", but nowadays its most common use isn't as explicitly religious commentary, but instead as a general statement that people tend to start taking precautionary measures seriously only after the emergency they're supposed to prevent or mitigate actually happens.

[guyome]

There's a tale in Pourrat's Trésor des contes (Pourrat collected the tales in Auvergne during the first half of the 20th c.) about how the Devil created thunder to scare humanity but God circumvented him by creating lightning, to warn men beforehand and remind them of Light.

(...) Le diable est allé trouver Dieu :

Le tonnerre je ferai :
Tes enfants j'épouvanterai.

Et Dieu a eu aussitôt l'idée d'une lumière qui les éblouirait. Ainsi avant même l'épouvante, elle leur rappellerait la lumière.

Moi je ferai l'éclair : d'abord ils le verront :
A moi se recommanderont.

It doesn't say explicitely that people are crossing themselves but "se recommander à Dieu" implies something of the kind.

[nooj]

A sad/happy story from Castelao, from his 1929 book Cousas. Aside from being a magnificent cartoonist and politician, he was also a fine story teller.

A street in the port of Antwerp. The bars are filled to the brim with sailors. Through the doors wafts the hot breath of drunks. People from all walks of life, songs sung at the top of their lungs, the sound of out of tune pianos, the stench of tallow...

A sailor who speaks French meets another sailor who speaks English. The two promise to be friends, each in their own language. And without understanding what the other is saying they walk holding on to each other's arm, acting as each other's support.

The two sailors stumble into a bar served by a corpulant bartender. They want to lose their senses together in order to become better friends. Who knows if after they get very drunk, they might be able to understand each other! And when the sailor who speaks English no longer has bodily control over himself, he rests on a table and starts to sing:


Little boat, little sailboat
Bring fabric and skirts
For my Manuela

The sailor who speaks French opens wide his eyes, hugs his companion and starts to sing:

Little boat, little sailboat
Bring fabric and skirts
For my Manuela

A - ju - ju - ju!!! The two sailors were Galicians.

The bartender, corpulant like a true Flemish man, watched the two sailors stumble out of the bar, tears flowing down his red cheeks. And he then sang to himself in a longing sigh:

Little boat, little sailboat

The bartender too was Galician.

Little boat, little sailboat - this song is a real Galician traditional song called the Foliada de Negreira. You can listen to it here:



skirts - a refaixo is a part of the traditional Galician dress, actually the interior part, underneath a skirt.



A - ju - ju - ju!!! - the Basque have the irrintzi, the Galicians also have a high pitched ullulating shout. It's called aturuxo or aturulo, grixido, ufido in some areas of Galicia. In the Costa da Morte it's called agrúo. You can hear it in this song at minute 2:33.

[nooj]

I've talked about young Englishman Dylan Inglis before. Among other languages, he speaks Basque (several dialects), Mandarin, Georgian, all typologically extremely different from his native English. He's recently moved to Scotland, I think the Outer Hebrides and is learning/has learned Scottish Gaelic. I mean he's already speaking it with natives.

I asked him to compare the language situation of Basque and Scottish Gaelic. Previously he commented on the fact that a nurse learning Welsh to better communicate with her patients and how it became news (when it should not be news):

Erresuma Batuko hizkuntzen egoerak hobeki ezagutu ahala, jabetu naiz hizkuntza kontuan zeinen dinamikoak diren EHan eta, zer erranik ez, Katalunian

The more I learn about the situation of the languages of the United Kingdom, the more I realise that in the area of languages how dynamic they are in the Basque Country, and of course, in Catalonia.

Euskararekin alderatuta, nolakoa da gaelikoaren egoera: eta batez ere, zer ikasi ahal dugu, batek bestearengandik?

Gaelikoaren aldean euskara osasun betean zegok. 60.000 hiztun, erdia uharteetan dentsitate trinko samarrean (%20-60) bertze erdia Glasgow-Edinburgon. EHko Iparraldearekin konparaketa egokia duk, ustez: hein batean eskola gailekoztea lortu dute, baina haurrak ingelesez ari dituk.



Aldeak dagozan arren, Nafarroa Beherean ikusten dan bilakaeraren antzeko dok Eskoziako uharteetakoa. Barruko uharteak = Amikuze, Uharte Urrunak = Garazi aldea! (Atxiki dodan mapak aukeratutako koloreak lar baikorrak dozak, aitortu behar joat)

Irakaspenak ateratzea zaila duk, baina deigarria zaidak gaelikoa hiruzpalau hamarkadaren buruan uhartetar txiroen ezaugarri behinena izatetik eskoziartasun-eredu gorena izatera pasa izana.

Bestalde, hizkuntzaren modernizazioa gertatzen ari duk, irrati, telebista eta hezkuntza, gaeliko-tegi bidez. Estandar hori arrotz zaiek gaelikoa hobekien mintzo direnei: artzainei, arrantzaleei, sare-ehuleei.

Uste diat hizkuntza biziberritzeko neurrien aldetik, gaelikoak dena duela ikasteko euskaratik, nahiz eta hasieratik onartu bere ahalak urriagoak direla. Bestetik, apika euskalgintzari gogoeta eragin liezaioketek gaelikoaren sena edo nortasuna ulertzeko modu anitzagoek

Hau duk, euskalgintzak hizkuntzaren aldeko diskurtso politiko indartsu eta bateratua izatearen albo-kalte bat hizkuntzaren errepresentazioa zurruntzea izan daitekek, ustez.

"Euskara"k artikulu singular eta definitiboa hartzen dik eta diskurtso azpi-jazente horren arabera ulertzen ditiagu bere interazio guziak. Eskoziako gaelikoaren kasuan, borroka politiko hori leunagoa denez, hizkuntza nola ulertu dezakegun pentsatzeko askatasun gehio ematen ziguk.

In comparison with Basque, how's Scottish Gaelic's situation? And especially what can we learn from each other?

Compared with Scottish Gaelic, Basque is very healthy. SG has 60,000 speakers, half of whom are in islands in quite dense populations (20-60%), the other half in Glasgow-Edinburgh. I think it's appropriate to make a comparison with the North Basque Country, to a certain extent they've succeeded in Gaelic-ising the school, but the kids speak in English. Although there are differences, the evolution of the Scottish islands is similar to what we see in Baxe-Nafarroa. The interior islands could be Amikuze and the further out islands could be the area around Donibane Garazi. The map that I've attached has chosen colours that are too postive, I have to admit.

Getting lessons out of this is difficult, but I think it's noteworthy how Scottish Gaelic has passed from being the principal characteristic of the poor Islanders in a matter of three or four generations to becoming the highest model of Scottishness. The modernisation of the language is taking place via the radio, television and education, via the SG schools. That standard seems quite foreign to the speakers who best speak SG: shepherds, fishermen and fishing net weavers.

As for steps to take in order to revitalise the language, I think SG has everything to learn from Basque, although I have to accept that its (financial etc) capacities are fewer. On the other hand the diverse ways of understanding Gaelic identity and the meaning of being Gaelic could be a topic of reflection for Basque activism.

I mean that a collateral effect of Basque activism's potent and united political discourse in favor of the language could be the rigidification of the representation of the language.

The word 'Basque language' takes the singular and definite article and in function of that underlying discourse we understand all our interactions. In the case of Scottish Gaelic, as that political conflict is calmer, it gives us more freedom to think about how we can understand the language.

I find his comparison between Basque in the North Basque Country and Scottish Gaelic very interesting, and gives me a better appreciation of the very serious situation that SG in.

[nooj]

I'm reading a paper on how shipwrecks are represented in Galician toponyms. For a landlubber, the sea is homogeneous. For people who work on or near the sea, their knowledge must be as broad and deep as the sea itself. Many of these seamen/women didn't know how to swim. The author interviewed an old man who explained why: He told me that they didn't learn to swim because if a shipwreck happened, they'd take longer to die.

[nooj]

Over the last few weeks I've plunged back into the world of Astur-Leonese and Galician, after a long hiatus. As I do so, I'm reminded again and again how infinitely rich these two languages are, like all languages, and how bitter it is to have to divert attention from any one language to another one, leaving any one of them unattended. It's like having a treasure which you put in the corner of you room, it's a damn waste.

I say Astur-Leonese because this time I'm studying for the purpose of actively using and speaking Asturian, but I'm also reading and intensively reading Mirandese. For me intensive reading means noting down words and phrases and sentences and paragraphs, not just reading for pleasure. The purpose is to go to Portugal, go to the Mirandese land and speak it. From what I understand speaking with people who know Mirandese, it is unusual for Mirandese speakers to speak Mirandese to people who speak to them in Portuguese or Spanish, so if I want to hear any Mirandese at all, and given its minoritised situation, I have to make the effort to learn.

I am doing this using blogs, but like old school wordpress.com style blogs, many of which are inactive since the early 2000s, but which are written in Mirandese. Beggars can't be choosers. There's a lack of printed material in Mirandese, even less I find than in Aragonese, so the only practical way is using the internet, except the Mirandese speakers don't seem to use the normal social media that we use, like Twitter or Instagram. There are some groups in the old people's social media, Facebook, but not as active as I'd like. Still, I'm mining the heck out of it.

From my purely outsider's perspective, when Amadeu Ferreira tragically died in 2015 from cancer, the Mirandese language community not only lost their greatest public communicator, but also lost a voracious, genius author and translator. Ferreira eagerly spread his language on the internet. And since then things seem quiet.

Portugal finally signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages this year, so theoretically they now have to get off their arse and actually do something for Mirandese. We'll see, because it's not in a good place, decades after it's so called 'officialisation'.

For an example of a Mirandese blog, the most active one I've found actually (at a rate of one post per month), see this one, from a person who lives in Angueira, a town of 116 inhabitants in the municipality of Vimioso. The name of the town is interesting because I had just recently come across this word in Galician, where it comes to mean a duty or obligation to do, but originally came from the duty or obligation of a vassal to their lord, involving their load-bearing animal. The Estraviz dictionary gives as the etymology:
[lat. vulg. *agendaria].

Example of a post from September of this year about the regional elections:

Cada qual bei l mundo de la sue jinela. Assi, cumo nun poderie deixar de ser, cula sue çapata – ls mius eidiales –, ls sous tranqueiros – ls mius balores i percípios – i la sue troça – la mie postura i la mie prática de bida –, tamien you tengo la mie. Pa la abrir un cachico i quedardes assi cula éideia de cumo eilha ye, aporbeito para, tal cumo hai yá algun tiempo s’ampeçou a fazer, deixar eiqui la mie declaraçon d’antresses: ambora nunca tenga melitado an qualquiera fuorça política, solo ũa beç nun botei a la squierda i na mesma fuorça. Mas nun cuideis pori que fui por outra rezon que nun fusse tener que, debido a la “Covid-19” i contra mie buntade, m’abstener nas Eileiçones Presidenciales de 2020

Um what was I talking about. Well yes, I hope to visit that part of Portugal this year, or if not this year, soonish.

Did you know that in the medieval Astur-Leonese cultural area they also used the feira-system of counting days introduced by Martin of Braga? The only trace left of it is the concept of sestaferia, which is a communal cleaning of the roads, which was as the name suggests traditionally done on Friday, but when the day counting system disappeared, the idea of 'sixth' dropped as well and people didn't realise where the name came from, allowing people the freedom to create variations like estaferia.

I haven't visited the Valley of Xálima yet. But I asked my work colleague to take me with her when she next goes to visit her town.

I am writing this post from a tent, somewhere in the mountains between Sa Martín de Trevellu (2020 population: 766) and Ellas. Yes, I've finally made it here this afternoon. I've been talking in Galician while the inhabitants speak to me in the Fala, and it's such a freaking beautiful language/variety of the Galician-Portuguese language family. Tomorrow I'll walk to Ellas, and from Ellas to Valverdi do Fresnu. I've already made up my mind to come back, it's cold as hell up here but it's also incredibly beautiful. I'll take some photos and put it up. I feel like I'm starting to make a mockery of myself (never met a language I didn't like), but I also feel the urge to learn the Fala.

[nooj]

No published dictionaries, grammar, no media, very few published books or reading material means that this is a language that in order to learn, you really need direct contact with a speaker.

I spoke too soon. In September of this year, a Czech linguist, Miroslav Valeš released a dictionary of the Fala. He fell in love with a woman from one of the three towns, and learned her language. It's freely available here. It has more than 13,000 words, and the genius of it, given the absence of a standard variety, is that it classifies the words according to which of the three varieties it belongs to, which is useful because there are sometimes words that only belong to one variety, and sometimes the words have variations according to the towns. It's amazing that there's dialectical diversity in the first place, these towns are like 5 km apart! With the existence of this dictionary, learning to 'speak' the Fala (or a poor imitation of it without direct access to a speaker/immersion in one of the towns) is now possible.

Anyway before coming I emailed the linguist about what language to use when speaking with the inhabitants, and he told me:

U galegu se intendi (a vedis cun dificultais) pero a ixhenti nun se identifica comu galegus. Us tenin carinu pero nun chamis a lengua galegu, a algus nun le gusta que le peguin esa etiqueta, i cun radon. Siguru que pasaras mui ben pur ali. E un ambienti mui amistoshu.

So I felt safe to use Galician, although of course I don't call their language Galician (even if many linguists do) nor do I call them Galicians (because they're not). You might already notice that the Fala, unlike Portuguese or Galician, has lost enclitic positioning, e.g. se intendi and not entende-se/entendese like in Portuguese/Galician.

I'm in Ellas (2020 population: 901), in a bar, and EVERYONE is speaking Lagarteiru, the variant spoken in Ellas. From what a Mañegu (from Sa Martín) told me yesterday, the Fala is slowly being lost in Valverdi, whereas it is the strongest in Ellas and Sa Martín. Indeed, from everything that I've witnessed here in these two towns, there's more Fala rather than Spanish being spoken here than what I've witnessed in many parts of the Basque Country or Catalonia. It's wonderful, a linguistic island. The problem is that I've saved the 'worst' for last, I expect Spanish to be dominant in Valverdi...

The Serra de Gata at the foot of which are located the three towns:



Locals of Ellas proudly accept the denonym 'Lagarteiru' (supposedly because they used to eat lizards...?!).