Bla bla bla

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
nooj
Brown Belt
Posts: 1257
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:59 pm
Languages: english (n)
x 3358

Re: Catalan, Galician, Basque

Postby nooj » Mon Jun 03, 2019 12:32 am

In other news, one of my close friends, my Iranian friend who I met in Madrid, the one who taught me Persian and who I taught Korean, is getting married. She wants me to come to her wedding in Iran. I've always wanted to go. Here is a passage from the book Soraya in a coma by Esmail Fassih. Brutal. 20th century Persian prose writing has been unfairly overshadowed by its poetic counterpart.

“بیست و چهار ساعت در زندگی فاطمه خانم”

داستان کوتاه به قلم دال . الف . شفق . خلاصه اش چنین است : فاطمه خانم ، مادری که چهارده تا بچه دارد روزها می رود رختشویی و جزو کادر مستخدمین هتل انقلاب در خیابان آیت الله طالقانی است . خودش مجبور است کار کند چون شوهر و پسر اولش شهید شده اند . خانه شان در جنوب شهر ، دو تا اتاق کرایه ای ته بیست متری شهید مصطفی عبادوز است . مادر صبح قبل از وقت شرعی سحر همه را بلند می کند . همه وضو می گیرند و پس از شنیدن اذان از بلندگوی مسجد نماز می خوانند . بعد دعای روز پنجشنبه را می خوانند . مادر آخرین هفت هشت دانۀ خشک چای را در قوری می اندازد و آنها را با سه تا تافتون تازه که یکی از بچه ها گرفته است می خورند ، در حالی که به پخش برنامه های رزمندگان در جبهه که قبل از اخبار صبح پخش می شود گوش می کنند . دو تا از پسرها در جبهه اند . پسر دیگری هم که دوازده سال دارد امروز با بسیج عازم جبهه است . مادر قبل از اینکه به سر کار برود او را از زیر قرآن رد می کند و دعا می کند که شهید شود ، و به بهشت برود . دو تا از دخترهای سیزده و چهارده ساله هم که مدرسه را ترک کرده اند در کلاسهای بسیج و تجوید قرآن نام نویسی کرده اند . آنها امروز همچنین می خواهند در یک کمیتۀ مسجد محل ثبت نام کنند که نامشان جزو داوطلبین برای ازدواج با معلولین بنیاد شهید منظور شود و مادرشان نیز رضایت داده است – چون این کار هم اجرش اگر بیشتر از شهادت نباشد کمتر نیست . وسط روز فاطمه خانم مشغول ملافه شوری است که نامه ای از جبهه برایش می آید . از خوشحالی بند دلش پاره می شود . در نامه به او با تبریک و تسلیت مژده می دهند که یک پسر دیگرش در جبهه شهید شده است


Twenty four hours in the life of Mrs Fatemeh.

Mrs Fatemeh, a mother of 14, spends her days at a laundry, as a member of the cadre of employees at the Hotel Revolution. She herself has to work because her husband and oldest son were martyred. Their house in the southern part of the city is two rented rooms.

In the morning, the mother wakes everyone. They all do their ablutions, and, hearing the call to prayer from the mosque loudspeaker, they do their prayers. Then they listen to the Warriors of the Frontline programs that are broadcast before the news. Two of her sons are at the front. Another son, twelve years old, today is on his way there with the Basij. Before she goes to work, his mother has him pass under the Qur’an, praying that he will become a martyr and go to heaven.

Two of her daughters, thirteen and fourteen, have also left school and enrolled in Basijh and Qur’an recitation clases. Today they likewise want to register with the Comittee at the local mosque so that their names will be in the pool of volunteer brides for the war-wounded at the Martyr Foundation. Though the reward for this act is no more than martyrdom, it is also no less.

In the middle of the day, Fatimeh is busy washing bedding when a letter addressed to her arrives from the front. Her heart bursts with joy. In the letter, they congratulate and console her with the tidings that another son of hers has been martyred at the front.






The last words of this story reminds me of a similar, honestly soul-shattering story that the singer-songwriter and master banjo picker Abigail Washburn tells at 13:00. I come back to this video time and time again, because it's one of my most treasured ones. The entire thing. Before an audience of over 1000 Chinese language educators at the Asia Society's National Chinese Language Conference in 2014, Washburn talks about why China has made her love America and why Chinese music has made her love American folk music.
3 x
زندگی را با عشق
نوش جان باید کرد

nooj
Brown Belt
Posts: 1257
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:59 pm
Languages: english (n)
x 3358

I don't hate tourists, but I definitely hate tourism

Postby nooj » Mon Jun 03, 2019 11:31 pm



Watch this documentary, Tot Inclòs. Danys i conseqüències del turisme a les nostres illes. It will have the curious effect of reducing your desire to step foot in the Balearic Islands. This documentary is the scariest movie I have seen this year, and it's all terribly real.

The environmental, social and economic effects of tourism on the Balearic Islands can only be described as destructive. The last fifty years of mass tourism has irreversibly changed the nature of these islands and of the livelihoods of the people living there, for the worse. And do they actually get richer? Do they benefit? The documentary says...no. And has data to back it up.

Thousands of residents are forced out of their homes and onto the streets as property speculation and the greedy property owners push out the working class. Up goes the tourist housing. It is up to us to stop participating in touristic practices like AirBnB that help in this process. Gentrification, predatory practices, call it what you will, it's a grave problem. In Ibiza, the problem is so grave that doctors cannot get affordable housing, and many choose to not live and work there, leaving hospitals short-handed. We can all do our part, for example never stepping foot on the polluting behemoths known as cruise ships.

None of the political parties, whether they are right, centre or left in the spectrum, question the logic of focusing the economy of the Balearic Islands solely and wholly around tourism. The idea that something has gone terribly wrong and that we are all on a train hurtling off a precipice does not seem to occur to any of them. In fact, numerous people interviewed state clearly that it is not the government who governs. It is the hotel lobby who basically makes or breaks a government.
8 x
زندگی را با عشق
نوش جان باید کرد

User avatar
iguanamon
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2354
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:14 am
Location: Virgin Islands
Languages: Speaks: English (Native); Spanish (C2); Portuguese (C2); Haitian Creole (C1); Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol (C1); Lesser Antilles French Creole (B2)
Studies: Catalan
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=797
x 14196

Re: Catalan, Galician, Basque

Postby iguanamon » Tue Jun 04, 2019 1:16 pm

Thanks for sharing the video, Nooj. I recently read a book you may like to read by Pedro Bravo that goes into great detail about this phenomenon, worldwide, and in Spain in particular. Exceso de equipaje: Por qué el turismo es un gran invento hasta que deja de serlo. Vale mucho la pena leerlo.
4 x

nooj
Brown Belt
Posts: 1257
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:59 pm
Languages: english (n)
x 3358

!مبروك عواشركم

Postby nooj » Wed Jun 05, 2019 2:02 am

Today, wine, Islamic poetry, God, and Ramadan.

It is the Fira del Llibre de Palma: a week long orgy of book related activities organised by the city's booksellers - and I don't mean those big bookshop chains either, I mean bookshop owners, llibreters, who are doing it tough in this environment but surviving. I have been coming to Palma every single day to listen to music, read books, buy books, talk to authors, listen to conferences...

Today I found a book that I did not buy, but which I read right there on the spot: Els poetes àrabs de les Illes Balears, a book published by the Institut d'Estudis Baleàrics, who publish all sorts of brilliant things about the Balearic Islands. You're interested in the sea birds of the Balearic Islands, the construction of houses, traditional dancing and clothing, the making of musical instruments, the traditional art of creating stone walls without the use of mortar etc, the toponyms of Eivissa etc? This is your publishing house.

Anyway, this book is about the Andalucian Arab poets of the Balearic Islands before the Christian conquest. The poems are presented in bilingual Arabic-Catalan format. The late Arabist Maria Jesús Rubiera Mata collected and translated these poems that bring glory and honour to a little known part of the Islamic history of these islands.

This one is by the Ibizan poet Idrīs b. al-Yaman, sometime in the 11th century:

Image

The Catalan translation:

Eren pesats es tassons, quan vengueren a noltros, però quan els omplirem de vi pur
s’ageugeraren i a punt de volar estigueren, com es cossos que s’ageugeren amb sos esperits.


My (non-literal) English translation:

The empty cups were heavy, when they were brought to us, but when we filled them with pure wine
They became light with their contents and were on the point of flying, like how bodies become light when filled with souls.


In Islamic divine love poetry, the cup is the metaphor for the lover's heart, and the person who fills this cup is God. Wine is the intoxicating love. Paradoxically, the cup is heavy when it is empty, the cup is light when it is full. Similarly, our heart is leaden when God's love is absent from it, and our heart is light when God's love fills it to the brim.

Here is poetry from the opposite side of the Islamic world, from Rumi:


در راه طلب عاقل و دیوانه یکیست
در شیوه عشق خویش و بیگانه یکیست
آنرا که شراب وصل جانان دادند
در مذهب او کعبه و بتخانه یکیست

Dar rāh-e talab aql va divāneh yekist
Dar shiveh-ye eshq khish va bigāneh yekist
Ānrā ke sharāb-e vasl-e jānān dādand
Dar mazhab-e ū ka'abeh va botkhāneh yekist



On the seeker’s path, Reason and Madness are one.
On the way of love, Self and Stranger are one.
For the one who is given the beloved's wine of union,
In his religion, the Ka'aba and the Tavern are one.

Also check out this Rumi poem, put to music by the famous Iranian musician and singer Mohammad Reza Shajarian. In the opening lines, Rumi talks to the sāqi, the cupbearer, and asks him/Him to bring him some more bādeh (wine).



After nearly eight centuries of oblivion in Mallorca, Idrīs b. al-Yamān has become more well known due to some very literal and real wine, the kind you can drink.

The winery Can Majoral owns a vineyard in what is now called Son Reus. According to the Arabist Guillem Rosselló Bordoy, before the Christian conquest, it was an Arab farm called Beneiza Alualenci. When King Jaume I conquered the island, he rewarded his followers by splitting the island amongst them. There was a certain Bernat de Tortosa who was in his service. The land that was given to him was Beneiza Alualenci, and this name was transformed progressively into 'Butibalausí'.

In a stroke of marketing genius, the winery decided to call their youngest wines by this name and on the back label, they printed the Catalan and Arabic version of this poem. The Arabic version eventually was dropped after some people complained after the September 11th terrorist attacks...

Image
3 x
زندگی را با عشق
نوش جان باید کرد

nooj
Brown Belt
Posts: 1257
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:59 pm
Languages: english (n)
x 3358

Re: Catalan, Galician, Basque

Postby nooj » Wed Jun 05, 2019 10:51 am

iguanamon wrote:Thanks for sharing the video, Nooj. I recently read a book you may like to read by Pedro Bravo that goes into great detail about this phenomenon, worldwide, and in Spain in particular. Exceso de equipaje: Por qué el turismo es un gran invento hasta que deja de serlo. Vale mucho la pena leerlo.

Moltes gràcies per la recomanació el meu estimat iguanamon, el cercaré a la biblioteca.
1 x
زندگی را با عشق
نوش جان باید کرد

nooj
Brown Belt
Posts: 1257
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:59 pm
Languages: english (n)
x 3358

Re: Catalan, Galician, Basque

Postby nooj » Thu Jun 06, 2019 12:01 am

من بنده ی قرآنم اگر جان دارم
من خاک در محمد مختارم
گر نقل کند جز این کس از گفتارم
بیزارم از او وز این سخن بیزارم


man bandeye qor'ānam agar jān dāram
man khāk (-e rāh) dar mohammad mokhtāram
gar naghal konad joz in kas az goftāram
bizāram az u vaz in sokhan bizāram

I am the slave of the Qur'an so long as I have breath
I am the dust (on the path) of Muhammad the Chosen
If one quotes anything but this of my utterances
I am disgusted by them and I am disgusted by those words

After reading these words from Rumi, I suggest reading this article The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi. Rumi's poetry is denatured when he is taken out of the Islamic context in which he was born and lived. If Rumi is interesting at all and worthy of interest for people of many cultures and many religions, it is because he was a Muslim, and not in spite of being one.

An argument against contextualising thinkers like Rumi is that 'his thought is universal, so I don't have to care that Rumi had suckled Islam from his birth to his death, I can imagine him as a 21st century millenial living in my city and his thought would still be valid'.

To that, I would reply that there is no such thing as a universal universal. There are only local universals. Shakespeare is a universal dramaturgist because he was composing locally. If he had really tried to imagine writing for a 21st century audience for example, he would not be as great as he was for being a 17th century playwright.

Trying to imagine a non-Islamic Rumi is like trying to imagine a Jesus who wasn't a Jew.
2 x
زندگی را با عشق
نوش جان باید کرد

nooj
Brown Belt
Posts: 1257
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:59 pm
Languages: english (n)
x 3358

Re: Catalan, Galician, Basque

Postby nooj » Sun Jun 09, 2019 11:56 pm

Reading Seneca Epistle 41. The Romans and the Greeks liked to build their shrines in certain places in nature where divinity or a sense of awe (not to be taken in the Romantic sense) impressed upon them.

Si tibi occurrerit vetustis arboribus et solitam altitudinem egressis frequens lucus et conspectum caeli densitate ramorum aliorum alios protegentium summovens, illa proceritas silvae et secretum loci et admiratio umbrae in aperto tam densae atque continuae fidem tibi numinis faciet. Si quis specus saxis penitus exesis montem suspenderit, non manu factus, sed naturalibus causis in tantam laxitatem excavatus, animum tuum quadam religionis suspicione percutiet. Magnorum fluminum capita veneramur; subita ex abdito vasti amnis eruptio aras habet; coluntur aquarum calentium fontes, et stagna quaedam vel opacitas vel immensa altitudo sacravit.


If you run into a grove that is thick with ancient trees reaching up to an unusual height and which leaves you bereft of the sight of the heavens because of how some of its boughs overlap with others, the bearing of that forest, the solitude of the place and the wondrousness of its shade, so thick and unbroken, will engender your belief in the divine. If a cave holds up a mountain, although the rocky interior has been deeply eaten away, and not formed by hand but hollowed out by natural causes into its great spaciousness, it will impress itself upon your mind with some sort of notion of awe. We venerate the sources of the mighty rivers; the sudden eruption of a broad river from its hiding place - there you will find altars; the fonts of hot springs are worshipped, and the unplumbable depth or darkness sets some pools apart as sacred.
1 x
زندگی را با عشق
نوش جان باید کرد

nooj
Brown Belt
Posts: 1257
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:59 pm
Languages: english (n)
x 3358

Re: Catalan, Galician, Basque

Postby nooj » Tue Jun 25, 2019 5:58 pm

Too much has happened to me over the last weeks to really report on.

For example, I was an extra on a television show and I traveled to Menorca.

Menorca is a paradise in more ways than one. I spent days mountain biking and bushwalking. It is breathtakingly beautiful, and I don't mean just the picture perfect bays with blue-green water, but the mountains, the ancient talaiots that previous civilisations built, the rural countryside (mostly untouched), the forests, the still existent Muslim irrigation systems, the camí de cavalls that loops across the entire coastline. And it is a linguistic paradise.

It is in the only place I've been in the Balearic Islands, heck anywhere, where the presence of Catalan felt near universal. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. Not only could I speak Catalan to all of the locals and not have anyone switch on me, in the streets, in the shops, everywhere I heard more Catalan than Spanish. Even or especially so in Ciutadella, the biggest city. Which is how it should be. And Menorcan dialects are beautiful.

Bit by bit, I suppose I will write some more about my experiences there. But I'll put out the word. Forget about Mallorca, Ibiza, Formentera. Go to Menorca!
3 x
زندگی را با عشق
نوش جان باید کرد

User avatar
Maiwenn
Orange Belt
Posts: 243
Joined: Mon Jan 25, 2016 11:26 am
Location: Grand Est, France
Languages: English (N) & French
focusing on: MSA & Moroccan Arabic
backburner: German
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7321
x 777

Re: Catalan, Galician, Basque

Postby Maiwenn » Tue Jun 25, 2019 6:17 pm

nooj wrote:For example, I was an extra on a television show and I traveled to Menorca.


That's so cool!!! You are such an inspiration to me. :)
0 x
SC reading: 3819 / 10000 AR
SC reading: 3334 / 5000 FR
SC reading: 65 / 2500 DE :?

Corrections are always welcome. :)

User avatar
Querneus
Blue Belt
Posts: 836
Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2016 5:28 am
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Languages: Speaks: Spanish (N), English
Studying: Latin, French, Mandarin
x 2269

Re: Catalan, Galician, Basque

Postby Querneus » Tue Jun 25, 2019 8:40 pm

nooj wrote:Reading Seneca Epistle 41. The Romans and the Greeks liked to build their shrines in certain places in nature where divinity or a sense of awe (not to be taken in the Romantic sense) impressed upon them.

Si tibi occurrerit vetustis arboribus et solitam altitudinem egressis frequens lucus et conspectum caeli densitate ramorum aliorum alios protegentium summovens, illa proceritas silvae et secretum loci et admiratio umbrae in aperto tam densae atque continuae fidem tibi numinis faciet. Si quis specus saxis penitus exesis montem suspenderit, non manu factus, sed naturalibus causis in tantam laxitatem excavatus, animum tuum quadam religionis suspicione percutiet. Magnorum fluminum capita veneramur; subita ex abdito vasti amnis eruptio aras habet; coluntur aquarum calentium fontes, et stagna quaedam vel opacitas vel immensa altitudo sacravit.


If you run into a grove that is thick with ancient trees reaching up to an unusual height and which leaves you bereft of the sight of the heavens because of how some of its boughs overlap with others, the bearing of that forest, the solitude of the place and the wondrousness of its shade, so thick and unbroken, will engender your belief in the divine. If a cave holds up a mountain, although the rocky interior has been deeply eaten away, and not formed by hand but hollowed out by natural causes into its great spaciousness, it will impress itself upon your mind with some sort of notion of awe. We venerate the sources of the mighty rivers; the sudden eruption of a broad river from its hiding place - there you will find altars; the fonts of hot springs are worshipped, and the unplumbable depth or darkness sets some pools apart as sacred.

Nice passage. I am reminded of this other passage in Lucan's Pharsalia (book III, 399-426), which shows those Romans could be similarly creeped out by shrines like those, instead of feeling awe:

    Lucus erat longo numquam uiolatus ab aeuo / obscurum cingens conexis aera ramis / et gelidas alte summotis solibus umbras. / Hunc non ruricolae Panes nemorumque potentes / Siluani Nymphaeque tenent, sed barbara ritu / sacra deum; structae diris altaribus arae / omnisque humanis lustrata cruoribus arbor. / Siqua fidem meruit superos mirata uetustas, / illis et uolucres metuunt insistere ramis / et lustris recubare ferae; nec uentus in illas / incubuit siluas excussaque nubibus atris / fulgura: non ulli frondem praebentibus aurae / arboribus suus horror inest. Tum plurima nigris / fontibus unda cadit, simulacraque maesta deorum / arte carent caesisque extant informia truncis. / Ipse situs putrique facit iam robore pallor / attonitos; non uolgatis sacrata figuris / numina sic metuunt: tantum terroribus addit, / quos timeant, non nosse, deos. Iam fama ferebat / saepe cauas motu terrae mugire cauernas, / et procumbentis iterum consurgere taxos, / et non ardentis fulgere incendia siluae, / roboraque amplexos circum fluxisse dracones. / Non illum cultu populi propiore frequentant / sed cessere deis. Medio cum Phoebus in axe est / aut caelum nox atra tenet, pauet ipse sacerdos / accessus dominumque timet deprendere luci. /

    Hanc iubet inmisso siluam procumbere ferro.

A prose (not to mention prosaic) translation:

    'There was also a grove that had never been defiled since ancient times, enclosing an ice-cold utter darkness by removing the Sun with its intertwined tree branches. No rural Pan nor forest-ruling Sylvanus nor nymph occupied it, but the vessels of gods from a barbarous cult. The altars held hideous offerings, and every tree had been ritually applied human blood. And if you ever had doubts about whether antiquity and its love for the gods deserved to be believed, even the birds and the beasts were afraid of perching on the branches or lying down under the shade. No wind blew against that forest, nor thunderbolts struck it when shot by black clouds. The foliage of the trees rustled even when exposed to no breeze; water ran down from dark springs in abundance. The grim, appalling statues of the gods had been made without skill from felled tree trunks. The horror of seeing such neglected, rotting timber troubled the men enough, but, although they would not have feared consecrated deities in more common forms, not being able to recognize the gods they dreaded added true terror. It was widely reported that underground caves would make loud noises during a tremor, that yew trees leaning down would rise upright again, that woods that were not on fire would glow as if they were, and that serpents would slither around by hugging the stems. The people did not normally approach the place to worship nearby, leaving it to the gods. When Apollo [the Sun] is in the middle of the axis, or when dark night holds the sky, the priest himself is frightened of coming close and finding the lord of the grove.

    He [Julius Caesar] ordered that the forest be cut down by the stroke of the axe.'
3 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests