The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby vonPeterhof » Sat Dec 23, 2017 9:18 am

As far as I can tell "Meruba" ( כְּתָב מְרֻבָּע ; kəṯāḇ mərubbāʿ, or ktav meruba in modern Hebrew) simply refers to the standard Hebrew "square script". That script is itself an adaptation of the Aramaic script, which had apparently displaced the original Paleo-Hebrew alphabet during the period of Babylonian captivity. According to the Wikipedia article on the Rashi script, it was originally designed on the basis of Sephardi handwriting in order to visually distinguish Rabbinical commentary from the actual texts being commented on (which would be in the square script). Not sure about the extent to which the square script was/is used for writing Ladino.
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Sat Dec 23, 2017 1:09 pm

galaxyrocker wrote:Perhaps you've mentioned it somewhere in your log and I've forgotten about it, but do you know why Ladino has three Hebrew scripts that are still in use (on top of a Latin-based on, I assume)? I understand the connection you mentioned between Rashi and Solitreo, but how does Meruba fit in there? Were they all used at different time periods and/or locations, and I'm just wrong in assuming they're all still used (as much as Ladino is used, at least) today? Perhaps, if you're able, a post into the history of writing Ladino would be very interesting.

vonPeterhof wrote:As far as I can tell "Meruba" ( כְּתָב מְרֻבָּע ; kəṯāḇ mərubbāʿ, or ktav meruba in modern Hebrew) simply refers to the standard Hebrew "square script". ...

Von Peterhoff's research is correct. Solitreo is cursive Rashi script and was used in handwritten letters, notes and journals. Meruba script is Hebrew Square letters. Hebrew was considered the prestige language among the Djudeo-espanyol-speaking Jews. Hebrew was how God's words were relayed and was the language of religion. Djudeo-espanyol was common, "vulgar" (ordinary) and not prestigious. Religious texts written in Djudeo-espanyol almost always have a title page with Meruba Square script which shows the reader that it is a text to be taken seriously. This tradition passed on to secular novels as well which also often have their title pages written in Meruba, perhaps intended to confer a sense of "prestige", or literary quality to the work.

Today, Ladino is written almost exclusively in Latin script. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Turkish authorities adopted the Latin script for Turkish and forbade writing in other scripts for publication in Turkey. Ironically, Jews in Salonica (Thessaloniki), Greece were unaffected by this edict being outside of Turkish rule since the late 19th century and continued to publish in Rashi.

After World War I and the end of the Ottoman Empire, Turkish Sephardim wrote Djudeo-espanyol in a "Turkified" Latin script. Standardization came about through an Israeli magazine called Aki Yerushalayim. AY editor, Moshe Shaul, was largely responsible for standardizing Ladino spelling and pronunciation.
eseferad wrote:...Shaul’s greatest contribution to Ladino may have been the standardization of the language, which for centuries was passed from one generation to the next as Ladino dictionaries and grammar books didn’t exist, nor was it taught in schools.
At the end of the article he included a pronunciation table, from A to Z, to which more examples and words were added over time. From then on it was a fixture in each issue. The system was adopted almost unanimously around the world by writers and other Ladino publications, such as Şalom and El Amaneser, and La Lettre Sepharade, in France.
Appalled by the inconsistency in the spelling of the language among Ladino speakers around the world —influenced by French, Turkish and Spanish—, he decided to create a phonetic writing system in Aki Yerushalayim’s first issue that “responds to the needs of Judeo-Spanish,” as he explained in an article there. ...
"I am glad that Aki Yerushalayim’s spelling rules were accepted because now there is uniformity [to write]."...
The Aki Yerushalayim standard is what the forum "ladinokomunita" uses for writing Djudeo-espanyol.
I have heard of but not seen, examples of Sephardic writing in Cyrillic (from Serbian and Bulgarian Jews) and Greek scripts. I've also read Ladino written in modern Hebrew script

While Ladino can certainly be explored through the medium of the Latin script (I did that myself before learning to read in Rashi), knowledge of the Hebrew scripts opens over 400 years of Judeo-Spanish writing and literature. It provides greater access to, perspective and familiarity with the culture and history of the Sephardim. Having learned it significantly enhances my experience with the language. I get a special joy by reading the language in Rashi and Solitreo.

Just because I can read Djudeo-espanyol in Hebrew scripts, that doesn't mean I can read Hebrew language written in Hebrew scripts. I have a bit of trouble with proper Hebrew names in my Bible reading in Ladino, because I don't really know Hebrew pronunciation and the rules for writing Hebrew. I have to guess for missing vowels. Over time, it's getting a little easier for me.

The name of the language of the Judeo-Spanish-speaking Jews is also fraught with controversy. The word "Ladino" was used by the Sephardim in pre-expulsion Spain to refer to a sepcifc Latinized "calque" of Hebrew religious writing. The common language was Djudeo-espanyol. Today the term "Ladino" is used to encompass the common language as well. I use the term "Djudeo-espanyol" in order to avoid confusion with the Italian minority language spoken in the South Tyrol, Trentino and Belluno regions of Italy, Ladin. It's happened before.
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby Expugnator » Sat Dec 30, 2017 2:46 pm

Eu que agradeço, iguanamon. Que bom saber que você continua motivado para aprender depois deste ano difícil!

I should place a bet on who will go wild first, whether it's you learning an opaque language or PeterMolenburg making native French materials the bulk of his learning. There'd be no safe bet!

Brincadeiras à parte, um ano novo de muitas realizações e de reconstrução para você e a vizinhança, e de muita paz para toda a família!

As for the static article, I'm not sure I have anything new to say, other than just starting something and sticking to it, not in the most efficient way perhaps. I'll see if I manage to organize my ideas.
Last edited by Expugnator on Sat Dec 30, 2017 9:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sat Dec 30, 2017 7:56 pm

Expugnator wrote:Que bom saber que você continua motivado para aprender depois deste ano difícil!

.


I hardly know any Portuguese, but I can understand what Expugnator is saying, and these are my sentiments exactly.
Peace to you and yours and a quick recovery to your beloved island.
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Sat Dec 30, 2017 9:57 pm

Expugnator wrote:...I should place a bet on who will go wild first, whether it's you learning an opaque language or PeterMolenburg making native French materials the bulk of his learning. There'd be no safe bet!
Brincadeiras à parte, um ano novo de muitas realizações e de reconstrução para você e a vizinhança, e de muita paz para toda a família!
As for the static article, I'm not sure I have anything new to say, other than just starting something and sucking to it, not in the most efficient way perhaps. I'll see if I manage to organize my ideas.

Muito obrigado, Expug, por seus desejos! Te desejo Um Muito Feliz e Abençoado Ano Novo, para você e a sua família! Tudo está melhorando na ilha, lentamente, pouco a pouco. Pelo menos tenho a energia de volta. Sim, concordo, é um pouco chato aprender outro idioma do grupo de idiomas românticos, eu sei. Mas, depois de visitar Barcelona, queria explorar o catalão e realmente, quero muito visitar a Catalunha outra vez.

Quando comecei esta viagem de aprender idiomas, já faz sete anos, só queria melhorar o meu castelhano. Depois, aprendi o português, e o crioulo haitiano. Sempre queria falar o crioulo antilhano também porque posso falar estes idiomas crioulos aqui mesmo na ilha. O Ladino é a grande excepção. Ele aconteceu porque me fascina a cultura dos judeus sefardis. Se outro idioma me pudesse interessar na mesma maneira, então, sim, eu aprenderia um idioma opaco. Mas agora mesmo, neste momento infelizmente, não tem.

Acho que você tem muito que compartilhar para com a comunidade aqui. Tem muitos que estudam vários idiomas simultaneamente mas poucos que fazem com o mesmo progresso tão quanto como você faz todo dia. Por exemplo, as suas dicas sobre o seu uso de clozemaster, lendo e ouvindo seriam muito apreciados. Você pode ensinar técnicas para aumentar a produtividade, organização e gerenciamento de tempo, também. Te admiro muito no seu modo de estruturação da aprendizagem, que me parece ser imprescindível para lidar com tantos idiomas. Fico muito impressionado contigo nisso. Então, é por isso que acho que você deveria escrever um artigo para o site estático.
MorkTheFiddle wrote:...I hardly know any Portuguese, but I can understand what Expugnator is saying, and these are my sentiments exactly.
Peace to you and yours and a quick recovery to your beloved island.

Mork, thank you for your kind thoughts! Muchísimas gracias por tus buenos sentimientos sobre nuestra situación aquí. Como un Tejano, tu sabes bien lo que es un huracán. We are recovering, slowly, but it will still be a long time coming. The psychological wounds will also take their time to heal. Seeing my island and islands broken, every day, is very disheartening. Many, if not most, of us feel this way now. It takes a lot out of you. A Happy New Year to you and your family. To the rest of my readers here- Anyada Buena/Bòn ane ! M a wè nou pita nan lane pwochèn !
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Fri Jan 05, 2018 2:19 am

Bòn Ane, mezanmi ! Anyada Buena! ¡Feliz Año Nuevo! Feliz Ano Novo!

It's the start of a new year, which hopefully will be a calmer one for me. Most of the island has electricity back now, probably close to 80%. Wired internet, phone and TV cable will take another few months to come back. The weather here is perfect this time of year, relatively cool (warm instead of hot) and breezy. We are all enjoying the break for a few months.

My language experience takes a hit with less opportunity for watching tv or videos. Even downloading podcasts with my phone tethered to my laptop is painfully slow with "download failed" alerts cropping up routinely. AT&T keeps sending me "data usage" alerts in spite of my payng for so-called "unlimited internet", the hurricane and lack of internet here other than through my cell phone.

Portuguese
Still speaking, reading, listening and watching. I subscribe to Público, a leading newspaper in Lisbon. I regularly read BBC Brasil for interesting translated and original content. One recent article in particular made an impression on me: 'Eu estudo na Mangueira 6' - as árvores que são salas de aula para mais de 400 mil crianças em Moçambique I study at Mango Tree No. 6 - the trees that are classrooms for more than 400,000 kids in Mozambique.

Mozambique is one of Africa's and the world's poorest countries, still recovering from years of civil war following independence from Portugal in 1975. Money for education has not been prioritized by the government in a long time and, as such, many students have to have their classroom under a tree. When it's rainy season, the children can't have school.
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Amanda Rossi- BBC Brasil wrote:Em dias de chuva, não há aulas
Sem carteiras, as crianças se sentam em cima de capulanas - tecido tradicional africano, estampado e colorido - e apoiam o material escolar no colo. "Não é fácil. Se o aluno estivesse em uma carteira, bem sentado, a maneira de aprender seria melhor", afirma a professora Açucena Mabunda, que tem 55 alunos por turma. Sua sala de aula é a Mafurreira 2. Dois de seus filhos estudam na escola, um na Mafurreira 8 e outro no Cajueiro.
Sentar-se no chão não é exclusividade das salas-árvore. Das 14 salas de alvenaria da escola, 4 não têm carteiras. É o caso da turma do professor Acarias Langa, com 58 alunos. "É difícil, mas essa é a realidade que nós temos", fala o professor. "Pelo menos aqui tem boa cobertura, não pinga".
"Não pingar" é realmente um privilégio. Quando chove, não há aulas nas salas-árvore. Ao longo de um ano, isso pode representar até 20 dias sem estudar. Moçambique tem clima tropical, com precipitações frequentes entre o final de outubro e o início de abril. "Este ano fomos felizardos porque não choveu bastante. Mas, nos anos que chove sempre, a gente passa mal", afirma a diretora Joana.

My translation: On rainy days there are no classes- Without desks (with built in chair), the children sit on top of capulanas - traditional African fabric (an all purpose piece of fabric- sometimes a sarong, sometimes a skirt, sometimes a turban, sometimes tied as a "hoodie") stamped and colored and holding the school materials (books, pems/pencils/paper) in their laps. "It isn't easy. If the student were at a desk, seated well, the learning would be better", affirms the teacher Açucena Mabunda, who has 55 students in her class. Her classroom is the Mafurreira tree number 2. Two of her sons study in the school, one at Mafurreira 8 and the other at the Cashew tree. Sitting on the ground isn't exclusive to the tree classrooms. Of the 14 concrete block classrooms, 4 don't have desks with chairs. That's the case for the class of teacher Acarias Langa,with 58 students. It's difficult, but that's the reality we have, says the teacher. At least here we have a good roof (cover), it doesn't drip (leak). "Not to drip" is really a privilege. When it rains, there are no classes in the tree classrooms. Throughout a year, this can represent up to 20 days without studying. Mozambique has a tropical climate with frequent rain between the end of October and the beginning of April. "This year we were lucky because it didn't rain a lot. But in the years that it rains often. we have a rough time.", says the director (principal/head master) Joana. ...
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This paragraph is heartbreaking:
Amanda Rossi- BBC Brasil wrote:...Uma delas, Jessica, de 8 anos, aluna da 3ª série, estava encostada sozinha no tronco de uma pequena árvore, um pouco longe do resto da turma. Era o único lugar com uma sombra livre. Com livro e caderno sobre o colo, fazia a lição de português, sua matéria preferida - e idioma oficial de Moçambique. A menina contou que sua palavra favorita é escola. E que, quando crescer, quer ser professora.

One of them, Jessica, 8 years old, a third grade student (year three for the UK), was leaning alone against the trunk of a small tree, a little farther away from the rest of the class. It was the only spot with some shade that was free. With book and notebook on her lap, she did her Portuguese lesson, her favorite subject - it's the official language of Mozambique. The girl said that her favorite word is "school", and that when she grows up, she wants to be a teacher.

The article goes on to talk about a new experiment with "salas-machimbombos"/"salas-ônibus"/ bus-classroooms. "Machimbombo" was one of the first words I learned in Portuguese reading in a book by Mozambican author Mia Couto called Terra Sonâmbula, or "Sleepwalking Land". The "salas-machimbombos" are disused buses with the bus seats removed and school desks and chairs installed.
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Amanda Rossi- BBC Brasil wrote:...Se por um lado faltam salas de aula, por outro Maputo se transformou nos últimos anos em um canteiro de obras de prédios administrativos de ministérios, instituições de justiça, banco público e até um novo Palácio Presidencial. "Isso é um problema de falta de prioridade para aquilo que é importante, é essencial, como educação, saúde, saneamento", afirma Celeste.
"Moçambique acaba de adquirir automóveis Mercedes-Benz para dar dignidade aos deputados. Mas, neste mesmo país, há pessoas a serem transportadas em caminhonetas, porque não há ônibus. E crianças a estudar embaixo de uma árvore. Não é possível continuarmos a priorizar luxos em um país que é um dos 10 mais pobres do mundo. Não faz sentido", completa a pesquisadora.

If on one hand classrooms are lacking, on the other hand Maputo (the capital fka Lourenço Marques) has been transformed in the last few years into a job site of administrative buildings for Ministries, justice institutions, public bank and even a new Presidential Palace. "This is a problem of lack of priorites for that which is important and essential, like education, health, sanitation", said Celeste.
"Mozambique just acquired Mercedes-Benz cars in order to give dignity to the Deputies, but in this same country, there are people being transported in pickup trucks, because there aren't any buses... and children studying underneath a shade tree. It isn't possible for us to continue to prioritize luxuries in a country that is one of the ten poorest in the world. It doesn't make sense", said the researcher.


This kind of situation really shows me how privileged I am to live in the West, even if things here aren't up to mainland US standard. Sure, I've had class underneath a shade tree, but it was done as a treat not as a necessity. I was quite moved by this story. This was an original article written in Portuguese. It's thanks to having learned Portuguese that I'm able to read it and share it here.

Aside from the human hardship conveyed in the article, from a language perspective... there's some interesting things going on here. We have Mozambican words here, such as capulana; machimbombo. We also see in the last quote "continuarmos", a good example of the "future subjunctive" tense in Portuguese- which is disused in Spanish. We also see a difference in the use of the gerund "estudando/studying" in Brazilian Portuguese and "a estudar/studying" in African/Iberian Portuguese.

From a cultural perspective, the article also shows how Portuguese is indeed a world language and not just spoken in Brazil and Portugal. Africa often gets short shrift in international news coverage and our knowledge in the West of what goes on in one of the worlds largest continents is limited as a result. One way to remedy this is to seek it out. Deutsche Welle, Radio France Internationale, VOA, the BBC and GlibalVoices.org, all have extensive coverage of Africa. I listen to DW's podcasts in Portuguese for Africa every weekday on my morning walks. I also read a Mozambican newspaper online A Verdade. As an aside, it is interesting to me that one of the reasons given for learning French is that it is a world language, yet I see few people reading books written by African authors writing in French. Perhaps I'm missing something

Anyway, I have a particular interest in Mozambique because when I was learning Portuguese, I listened to a radionovela of African fairytales dramatized by Mozambican voice actors. I have read a lot of
Mia Couto's novels, for one. He is a Mozambican author with his stories set in the country. He is a true master of the Portuguese language and an excellent writer in any language- well worth getting to know even in translation. He has had an interesting life as a biologist, an author, and, as a white son of Portuguese colonists, joined the Mozambican Liberation Front, FRELIMO, during the country's war for independence and civil war. He has a unique talent and brings his vision of Mozambique to the world. He writes with an element of "magical realism" and could be considered as the "African García Márquez", which doesn't do his work justice as it stands on its own right. He doesn't like the comparison and says that in Mozambique, past and present, magic and reality are blurred.
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Fri Jan 12, 2018 1:33 am

I've been going over some of my old resources downloaded and saved. One such resource is a paper from the Summer Institute of Linguistics in St Lucia Cultural Dimensions of Translation into Creole Languages

Longtime readers of my log know that I have used the Bible in my language-learning in Ladino, Haitian Creole and Lesser Antilles French Creole. I'm probably going to use it for Catalan at some point soon. It is a book I know fairly well, and it happens to be the most translated book in the world. I have found the Old Testatment/Pentateuch highly useful in my early learning with the repetition, everyday simple language and numbers- ages, amounts, days. Not to mention that its also one of the few written resources available in some languages- such as Lesser Antilles French Creole and so far, only the New Testament has been translated into St Lucian Kwéyòl.

The paper above talks about the challenges and difficulties the translators of the Bible into Kwéyòl (St Lucian/LAFC Creole) had coming up with words to fit the cultural context of the Caribbean and the Kwéyòl culture in particular. The translator's challenge is not unlike what we have to do when we wish to sound natural in our L2's. I've often told beginners that a language is not a cipher code with a one to one correlation to our L1.
David Frank SIL wrote:Translation is much more than the substitution of the words of one language with the words of another language. To be meaningful and communicative, a translation must take into consideration mismatches between the source language and the receptor language. The translator must constantly make adjustments for differences in lexical range, for differences in word order, for differences in grammar, for differences in idiomatic and figurative usage, and in terms of what can be assumed and what must be made explicit.
Often, to translate an idiom word-for-word is equivalent to translating half-way. To translate a story from two thousand years ago and from half-way around the world without checking to see if it is understood is to translate inadequately. To translate the scriptures without making adjustments based on comprehension checking can be an exercise in futility, like throwing a twenty-five foot rope to a person drowning fifty feet off shore, and saying you will meet that person half-way.
The Greek New Testament source text contains references to geographical (e.g., lake, desert, winter), biological (e.g., camel, fig tree, wheat), political (tribe, emperor, tax), cultural (scroll, tunic, wineskin, cornerstone), and theological (justification, propitiation, righteous, holy, prophesy) concepts that are not natural to the New World tropical islander context. How do you translate words and concepts that are in Greek but not in Creole? This is indeed one of the challenges to be faced. In trying to make the translation not sound like a translation there are other, perhaps even greater, challenges. How do you make sure the grammatical patterns used are completely natural, and not carry-overs from the source language? How do you make sure to use only images, figures of speech, and idioms that communicate clearly and naturally in the receptor language? How do you recognize and use natural discourse patterns? The solutions to all of these problems can come from the right combination of training, effort, and natural aptitude, and there can be different levels of success. Even a native speaker cannot be expected to do a good translation into his own language without an adequate understanding of the source text, without a thorough orientation to translation principles, without consciously studying the patterns of his or her own language, and without testing the translation to see how well it communicates. ...
In addition to proper names, which constitute a problem area of their own, and everyday vocabulary, there are about one hundred key terms in the Greek New Testament that had to be rendered somehow in French Creole. For some of these like ‘to worship’, ‘Jew’ and ‘prophet’ a suitable word was already available to make the job easy. For others like ‘blaspheme’, ‘synagogue’ and ‘elder’, much study, thought, dialogue and testing were required before a translation was judged to be satisfactory. In many cases a phrase was required to translate what was a single word in the Greek. Following are some examples:

blaspheme = ensilté non Bondyé = ‘insult God’s name’
elder = ofisyé légliz-la = ‘officer of the church’
fast = wèsté san manjé pou adowé Bondyé = ‘remain without food to worship God’
Gentiles = lézòt nasyon ki pa jwif = ‘other nations that are not Jews’
idol = fo bondyé = ‘false god’
manger = an bwèt koté yo ka bay zannimo manjé = ‘a box where they give animals food’
scribe = titja lwa sé Jwif-la = ‘teacher of the law of the Jews’
Temple = Kay Bondyé = ‘House of God’

This in itself is a good reason to learn a second language, so much gets lost in translation. Those of us who have learned a language or two to a high level have seen that. If you've read a translated novel from your own language you can tell how good the translation is by the way they translate idioms to the TL. Literal doesn't work as well in TL as figurative does.
David Frank SIL wrote:Other times in translation, inasmuch as we are dealing with figurative language, it is more effective to abandon the imagery, or to change the image to a more familiar one. For example, there is a word for “snow” in Kwéyòl, but the word is, understandably, not too familiar to most people. One should consider, in translation, what sorts of similes are used in the receptor language. How would the concept of “whiteness” be expressed as a simile in Kwéyòl?
One suggestion that was seriously considered was “white as the inside of a coconut.” In Rev. 1:14, which says in English “His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow,” one of these two parallel similes was translated using an idiomatic construction that is not a simile, and the other translated as a simile but with a substituted image: “Pa dé blan chivé nonm sala té blan! I té blan kon koton!” (“Not two whites the hair of that man was white! It was white like cotton!”)

Another example:
David Frank SIL wrote:Luke 10:11 involves a symbolic gesture. Here Jesus told his disciples that when they leave a town that does not receive them, they are to announce, “Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you.” When we translated this and checked it for comprehension, we asked a naïve language helper why she thought they were to say this. She thought the disciples were putting a curse on the people, the way a practitioner of obeah in St. Lucia might use natural elements to manipulate the supernatural. So we translated this as “Jik lapousyè vil zòt‑la ki pwi an pyé nou, nou ka soukwé kont zòt pou moutwé kon sa Bondyé pa plè èk sa zòt ka fè‑a” (“Even the dust of your village that sticks to our feet, we are shaking against you to show that God is not pleased with what you are doing”).

The translators' work had to be tested. So they did surveys of native speakers with words and passages. One such word was the Kwéyòl word for nature "nati" which is "lanati" in Haitian Creole. In English (the official language of the island of St Lucia) "nati" sounds like "natty". "Natty" is a synonym for dreadlocks in Caribbean English.
David Frank SIL wrote:One of the words we tested in this survey and ended up rejecting was nati, which is supposed to mean ‘nature’. We had already gotten indications that people might misunderstand it to refer to dreadlocks. Our surveyors were testing nati with a group of villagers by reading First Corinthians 11:7. There was a young Rasta listening in from a distance, and when the survey was finished at that one site he called the surveyors over and said he was very happy to hear that verse, because it confirmed that God really does have dreadlocks. The verse in question had read An nonm pa ni pyès wézon pou kouvè tèt li, paski Bondyé ja fè’y menm kon i menm Bondyé yé, épi i ja ba li an nati ki menm kon sa li, or “A man does not have any reason to cover his head, because God has already made him just as he God is, and he has already given him a nati that is just like his own.” The surveyors, mother tongue translators Peter Samuel and Mano Leon, could not convince the man that that is not what that verse was supposed to be saying. The Rasta insisted that if the Bible said that then it must be true. It occured later to the surveyors that they might have quoted him Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians (2:13), which read, “When you were dead in your spirits because your life was a life of sin, you had not yet cut off and thrown away your sinful nati.”

Finally, the translators had to be assured that the translation was acceptable.
David Frank SIL wrote:Accuracy and faithfulness to the original text are of course of primary importance, but a translation cannot be judged to be accurate apart from consideration of the effect it has on its audience. And part from questions of accuracy and comprehension, the effectiveness of a translation depends on how the message is received. Is it in a language form that the intended audience will respect and to which they will pay attention?
Acceptability cannot take priority over accuracy, but still it is an important factor in judging a translation. We have sought in our translation to use a language form that is respectable and should have the salutary effect of not only attracting an audience but also reinforcing Creole as a language. Our testing methods have helped us determine what communicates and what is acceptable as good Creole.

I have tremendous respect for translators who take their work so seriously. In the case of translating the Bible, the translators' faith is an important guide to "getting it right". I don't know if my faith helps me to get it right when I read the Bible in translation, but I believe that it does add an element to my reading that I don't get when reading, say, Shakespeare in translation. Even the King James Version of the Bible I grew up with is indeed a translation itself. Kind of makes me interested in Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek now. Well, not enough to give it a go though :)

So even if you have no interest in ever learning a French Creole language, I found this paper gives a really good insight into what lies behind translators' work. It's worth a read if you have the time.

M a wè nou pita, mezanmi!
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Sat Feb 10, 2018 1:48 am

Listening: We often run through cycles of topics here on the forum. I thought I'd write about this here rather than cluttering up other members' logs. Frustration with listening seems to be one of the more common recurring cycles and a topic of late here on LLORG. I've written about it before in a more practical way and also in more detail here in this thread. I'd like to tell you all what has worked for me in the past in a more general way. With Portuguese it was the news at first plus a telenovela- something that can grab my interest to delve into the characters and the story. I like a newscast with only a few regular presenters. A telenovela allows me to also listen to a limited set of characters and get used to the actors voices over multiple 40-50 minute, 75-100+, episodes.

I think this aspect of "getting used to" a limited and regular set of voices is often overlooked by people who try to train listening while listening to random voices. In my experience, random listening doesn't allow me the opportunity to become accustomed- to learn to listen to one, two or three voices. I can't do it by listening randomly or with films. A series is always easier for me to use to train listening than films or random youtube videos. A series doesn't have to be a TV series. It can be a youtube video series. It can be a podcast (non learner-intended). It can be a newscast or current affairs program if the presenters are regular and few. Basically, I find that limiting my listening to just a few voices helps me to get better at listening over all. Transcribing can help with that too. Video series have important visual clues. Also, training listening, for me, means every day, at least until I get good enough at it that I can skip a day or two.

With Portuguese, it was listening to (and speaking with) my tutor twice a week plus daily listening to the most boring, dry and awful newscast on the planet- NHK World (it does have an accurate transcript). Hey, I can take anything for 10-15 minutes and familiarity with a topic helps listening. Then I started listening to RFI Brasil (- not dry, "just the facts" news but a format with culture, science, health and an interview) and watching a telenovela. I've explained the process before. With Haitian Creole, I didn't have much choice- I used Atravè Labib/Thru The Bible- starting literally "at the beginning" with Genesis. There's just one voice. Having been raised as a Southern Baptist, I knew it well. It has a transcript. The transcript/subtitles were there to use to check my listening comprehension and at first to read first then listen then read and listen. (Thru The Bible is available in a bunch of languages. Some languages have transcripts and some don't. Caveat: The content has a strong Protestant point of view.) Of course, you'll want to gradually wean yourself off of the transcript/subtitles. That's the point! Once I get used to the voice, that's when the transcript becomes unnecessary. In a weird, counter-intuitive, way, I find that getting used to one voice makes it much easier to listen to others. If a learner takes the time to train listening, and gives it as much importance as reading, it won't take a thousand to two thousand hours to get good at it, more like a few hundred hours.

I think one of the major reasons that learners have trouble with listening is (but not limited too): falling into the trap of use of subtitles/transcript only to read and listen and not to use them to train listening. I use them (when training listening) to read for comprehension first (looking up unknown vocabulary and sometimes reading aloud), then listen without reading, then consolidate by reading and listening simultaneously, then listen again without reading. Of course, this means listening to the same audio more than once (at least while training listening at first, anathema to some folks). It gets easier for me after a dozen or so times and the steps get cut back. Look at it like how "intensive reading" over time makes reading easier.

I also think that another major reason people don't succeed at listening is that they look at listening as an afterthought in language-learning. Course audio isn't usually at full native speed and isn't enough to train listening. Course audio, while important, can lull a learner into a false sense of security. Sure, in the beginning learners may have a goal of one day enjoying films but listening often gets put off in the process of learning a language because it's harder than reading. Reading is relatively easier in comparison. Emk has said that despite not being able to "speak" Spanish, his listening skills are his best skills in Spanish. His subs2srs experiment with Spanish is working with listening from the start- giving it equal importance to reading. It's also "native audio" (not learner-intended). The audio has a limited set of voices, since it's a cartoon series, which allows him to get used to them through the medium of the srs with native-speed audio.

So, if I can extrapolate this to some of my other observations from my time on the forum, regular readers know that I often say that I've yet to see an enthusiastic monolingual adult beginner who is learning multiple languages simultaneously succeed at learning any of them here to a high level on the forum. Well, learners who switch from random audio to random audio never get a chance to get used to one voice, so how can they expect to get used to dozens of voices? If a learner can't learn one language, how can that learner expect to learn two or three languages? In other words, I think they are setting themselves up for failure in listening without even realizing it, when with a little focused effort, they might stand a better chance. At least that's my opinion and my observation.

We talk about "having fun" a lot here on the forum. Yes, having fun is very important in language-learning, but it shouldn't be mutually exclusive with training. "Why do I need to go through all that boring listening training? Why I can't I just start watching films?" Sometimes we have to do some "boring" repetition and training before we can have fun. When I learned how to drive, I had to practice a lot. When I learned how to ride a bike, I needed training wheels. Before I could run eight miles, I had to start off with running for five minutes and gradually up my distance.

I don't count hours. Sorry, I know that some people do and they consider it to be important. There's nothing wrong with that. For me, I only care about the end result. I don't care about efficiency or the amount of time it takes. It takes what it takes. YMMV- there are always exceptions. There are many ways to learn a language and many ways to train listening besides mine, non-focused background listening is also important in that crucial "getting used to" aspect of listening, but this may help some people. Bòn chans mezanmi !
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby Xenops » Tue Feb 13, 2018 2:01 am

An excellent post on gaining listening skills, and one I needed to read. I thought it was an interesting point that you need to "get used so certain speakers", rather than drowning in a multitude of different speakers and dialects and manners of speech. This argument is helping me lean toward buying those seasons of the X-files. :D

A question for you: similar to the discussion of what percentage of comprehension do you prefer to have when reading a text, I imagine that trying to listen without subtitles or even visual cues should mostly be reserved for when you're at least intermediate level? I imagine that at my scanty A1-A2 level in French, trying to watch a show without subtitles would be mainly daunting, and often useless. What level would you recommend for going the hard-core of watching an episode without subtitles, understand as much as you can, and then watch with subtitles?
What sorts of listening activities do you try to do at various levels?

Thank you for your time. :)

Edit: Would you say that your methods are analogous to leosmith's post on HTLAL? http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=26634
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Re: The iguana's tale- Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Ladino

Postby iguanamon » Tue Feb 13, 2018 3:33 pm

Xenops wrote:... I thought it was an interesting point that you need to "get used so certain speakers", rather than drowning in a multitude of different speakers and dialects and manners of speech. This argument is helping me lean toward buying those seasons of the X-files.
A question for you: similar to the discussion of what percentage of comprehension do you prefer to have when reading a text, I imagine that trying to listen without subtitles or even visual cues should mostly be reserved for when you're at least intermediate level? I imagine that at my scanty A1-A2 level in French, trying to watch a show without subtitles would be mainly daunting, and often useless. What level would you recommend for going the hard-core of watching an episode without subtitles, understand as much as you can, and then watch with subtitles?
What sorts of listening activities do you try to do at various levels? ... Would you say that your methods are analogous to leosmith's post on HTLAL? http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=26634

You're welcome, Xenops. Thanks for stopping by. First, when you're reading advice here on the forum, you have to remember that most of us who have learned more than one language to a high level often forget what it was like to be a monolingual beginner, like yourself. One of the things I see here far too often is, as the economist Alan Greenspan described it, "irrational exuberance". Learning a language can be so exciting and tempting that we want to just go ahead and skip all that boring stuff and get straight to the fun part!

I have a lot of fun with what I can do with my languages, but I didn't start off doing all that. I started slow and worked my way up. I see a lot of people at your level who think they can jump start their language-learning and end up biting off way more than they can chew. I started in Haitian Creole reading a story aimed at 5th graders about a fictional raindrop's journey to the Everglades- "Wayne Drop". I kid you not. I had a Haitian friend record it for me so I could listen too. It was only 17 pages but it was just what I needed. I read Genesis to get a lot of everyday vocabulary. As a bonus, I know a lot about shepherding and animal husbandry! In all my languages, I have used the news. At the same time I was working through my DLI Basic Course.

At your level of French, I'd start off with something to listen to that is familiar and has a transcript. While the X Files would be fun, I don't think at your level it will be useful. Perhaps a cartoon series like emk's Avatar would be better, or Futurama, or listening to Montaigne's fables or the French version of Grimm's Fairy Tales. This is only general advice, I don't know anything about learning French, so, I hesitate to recommend anything specific, but you might want to try the Deutsch Welle Learning By Ear Radionovelas with downloadable mp3's and pdf's. There's also the English site to make a parallel text. I started with the African fables one in Portuguese Je vous raconte une histoire ? – Contes africains pour une culture de la paix. That should get you started.

In the link in my post that goes to PM's C1 thread, I described what worked for me in learning to listen to a telenovela in Portuguese. It was, as emk describes, "brain-melting" at first, but I stuck with it and it served me well, but, it's hard work.

I recommend leosmith's post a lot. Basically, a course's audio isn't enough and it isn't native-speed or what you'll encounter outside of course world. Also, passive listening helps as background but doesn't help to really train listening in an active way. For that you have to work at it. That's the bit that isn't necessarily "fun", but it's fun to me because I know it will help me get to where I want to be. A short newscast or 10-15 minute audio from the radionvela series would probably fit in well with his recommendations.

To sum up, don't try to bite off more than you can chew. Try to get used to a limited set of voices, until you know what you're hearing without a transcript. Keep moving and don't get hung up on every minor detail in every episode of audio. Words repeat. Look them up once or twice and move on. Some will stick, some won't but the important ones will stick better because you'll hear them more.

I spent several months listening to the most dry and boring newscast on the planet- NHK World Portuguese they also have the same newscast in French. It's probably easier than working with the RFI en français facile newscast. The NHK announcers are consistent so you can get used to them. NHK isn't easy to navigate but I have explained it here in my log if you'll search it. Granted, this stuff ain't the X Files but it can lead you there. I'm not saying that you can't try the X Files and see if you can work with it, maybe you can (especially if you know it very well), but I don't think just passively consuming it would help. What are they saying? How are they saying it? Why are they saying it- in what context, reacting to what? Noticing and paying attention are critical. It helps to have a good base in listening down before tackling a series, in my opinion. It probably makes it less frustrating, but motivation and familiarity certainly can make up for a lot.

I don't have enough time to really explain. So much of it depends on so many other factors not always mentioned or considered, motivation, physical ability to hear, tolerance for ambiguity, tolerance for not ideal materials, tolerance for work and tedium, experience in learning a language, etc. I'd read the NHK stories, then listen to them on my walk, then come back and read and listen to them again, then listen without reading... and repeat the process the next day for two or three months. That takes a lot of tolerance. What I've done isn't for everyone, but it worked for me to build a base and I still had trouble with watching my first series in Portuguese, despite already having a high level in Spanish. In other words, listening with ease probably won't just drop in your lap. Hope this helps.
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