Catalan
I am still going through the deuxième vague of Assimil Le Catalan Sans Peine up to lesson 86 now. It is difficult to go from French to Catalan because I'm not fluent in French tenses, but, I am getting by.
I haven't been watching Plats Bruts in the last couple of weeks. It might be because I'm reluctant to finish it, savoring the last few episodes, but I intend to get back to it. I'll finish it and move on. I'm dissatisfied with reading "L'home flac/The Thin Man" by Dashiell Hammett. I probably need to pick a new book in Catalan to read soon.
Haitian Creole
I am still going through the Book of Job/Jòb in the Old Testament. It's surprising me with its breadth of vocabulary, I have to look up a word or two from time to time. I've also picked up reading Papa Dòk again, getting an inside look into maniacal dictatorship in Haiti.
Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol
I finished reading Pasha in soletreo script. In the afterword it's revealed that it's a work of historical fiction. I thought the machismo of the narrator was a bit over the top to be real life!
Sephardic Horizons wrote:Dr. Jane Mushabac, associate professor of English at City Tech, City University of New York, specializes in American literature, New York City history and Sephardic culture. She wrote “Pasha” under the pen name Shalach Manot (which refers to the gifts of food given on the holiday of Purim to friends and family). It’s about a Turkish Jew who talks tough like a pasha.
Dr. Mushabac wrote the story in Judeo-Spanish/Ladino and translated it into English for publication in the
Jewish journal Midstream, where it appeared in Vol. 51, No. 4 (July/August 2005). Sephardic Horizons is
publishing it in the original for the first time...
This unusual work exemplifies Dr. Mushabac’s multidisciplinary approach. She was inspired to delve into her
Sephardic culture, she says, because, “It was my life. From the songs my father taught me, from studying
Spanish in high school, from my mother saying, ‘Let’s do a Sephardic cookbook,’ I was in the culture. I wanted
to communicate what was distinctive.”
So, some modern somebody wrote the solitreo version. I thought the solitreo script was a bit too neat and easy to read! Still, It was fun to read the solitreo script in such a long form.
This week on the video series Enkontros de Alhad will be a discussion with host Bryan Kirschen and guest Alicia Sisso Raz about the Judeo-Spanish language of Morroco- Haketia.
Bryan Kirschen wrote:Hake-what? "The name #Haketia probably comes from the Arabic root حكي (ḤKY) meaning 'speech' or 'chitchat,' as it is an oral variant that borrows many words from the local Maghrebian dialects."
I won't be able to watch it live, but I will check out the video later. I never got excited about Haketia because there are significantly fewer resources available for it than the Djudeo-espanyol of the Eastern Mediterranean with significantly fewer speakers. That, and it seems to have been "re-hispanicized"in the 20th Century. Proximity and better communication with Spain is probably behind that. Anyway, It will be interesting to hear what they have to say. Below is an example of spoken Haketia:
Spanish; Portuguese
They're just part of my life. I read, listen, chat, and write on occasion. I always read an article almost every day in booth languages. I spoke in Spanish last night over the phone with a business client in Puerto Rico. I speak in Portuguese two or three times a month.
Mèsi anpil pou li tou sa. Orevwa pou kounye a. M a wè nou pita!