Sometimes I find myself saying something where I suddenly feel aware that maybe this is the first time anyone ever needed to say that specific thing. I think of these as some kind of syntactical hapaxes (hapaces?). This awareness harkens back to the linguistic commonplace (due to Chomsky, maybe?) that one of the most remarkable features of human language and syntax is that they allow the creation of utterly novel meanings, on demand.
So yesterday, at work, I looked at the color printer on the desk in the staff room, and I observed: “There is a lego snake in the yellow printer ink.” How likely is it that someone needed to say this before?
You see, lego (the toy) includes a “lego snake” – it comes with some sets that include the lego crocodile (which I prefer to call a legogator). It is small – a single piece, intended for the same scale as the lego minifigures – about 2 cm long and 2 mm thick.
On my desk, there lives a small legogator with his lego snake – generally in the legogator’s mouth.
Meanwhile, the color printer includes a set of external ink containers that are a kind of universal post-retail hack that Koreans have turned into a business, that avoids the need to buy expensive ink cartriges for one’s ink-jet printers. The external ink reservoirs are openable and can be filled manually from bottles of ink, and small tubes snake (ahem) into pseudo-ink cartriges embedded inside the printer. This system is much cheaper and more practical than buying expensive replacement ink cartriges, though clearly not in the best financial interests of the printer-manufacturers, who have always been pretty honest about the fact that they make most of their money on selling refill cartriges rather than the printers themselves. But I have never seen an ink-jet printer in Korea that did NOT include this type of aftermarket add-on.
That’s a technical digression, for those interested. What I saw yesterday was my lego snake floating in the yellow color printer ink reservoir.
I took a picture after making my utterance, because I immediately felt the need to record this syntactical hapax for posterity.
You can see the lego snake clearly, enjoying a swim in yellow ink.
I notified our technical/maintenance guy, Mr Park, and he popped open the ink reservoir (I was afraid to mess with it myself, not knowing the details of the device’s operation). I then used a pair of scissors to fish out Mr Snake, who was now altered from red plastic to a more orangish hue, understandably.
I suspected a young 4th grader named Chaejun of the crime. He spends a lot of time in the staff room, because his mom works at the hagwon. And he’s a little bit mischievous. Mr Park agreed when I suggested that Chaejun was the culprit.
So I asked Chaejun, later, when I saw him. “Did you put a lego snake in the printer ink?”
His English really isn’t that good, but he understood what I was referring to immediately, which was already immediate confirmation that he was the guilty party – what non-native speaker would know what that was about, if they hadn’t engineered the situation in the first place? For that matter, none of my coworkers could wrap their minds around what I’d discovered, even when I tried to explain it to them later: there were too many unexpected, strung-together nominal modifiers: lego + snake, printer + ink.
Anyway, Chaejun didn’t bother denying it. He simply nodded, grinning proudly.
[daily log: walking, 6 km]
Category: Language & Linguistics
Caveat: Jared Tackles Japanese Origins
Not me. Rather, Jared Diamond, a famous some-sort-of-scientist, wrote this article quite some time ago, that I just ran across.
Any discussion of the origins of the Japanese, he points out, is ideologically fraught in a way that the origins of most other cultures on Earth is not. Korea has similar problems. This is because Japanese and Korean cultural identities, as modern constructs, rely overmuch on pre-modern myths that still undergird modern nationalisms. Many Koreans will tell you with a straight face that Korea was "founded" in October 3rd, 2333 BC. If such a precise date seems implausible, well… they don't care.
Anyway, I found Diamond's article interesting reading.
[daily log: walking, 6.5 km]
Caveat: Sou o louco por não conseguir deixar a louca que é você?
내가 지금 듣고있어요.
매드클라운, "화." I found the lyrics, accompanied by a translation into Portuguese. Just in case you needed that.
가사
Trouble Trouble Our destiny
Nosso destino é um problema
누가 더 아파?
nuga deo apa?
Quem está sofrendo mais?
누가 더 사랑해?
nuga deo saran'hae?
Quem está amando mais?
내게 미친 널 보고 있으면,
naege michin neol bogo isseumyeon,
Quando vejo você louco por mim,
난 웃지, 이렇게 웃지
nan utji, ireoke utji
eu sorrio, sorrio assim.
Rap)
들어봐 uh
deureobwa uh
Ouça
바로 어제 3년약정한 핸드폰 정신차리니 박살 나있고
baro eoje sanyeonyajeongan haendeupon jeonshincharini bagsal na'itgo
Ontem mesmo fez 3 anos que comprei o celular, após voltar
aos meus sentidos, vejo que ele está em pedaços.
바닥엔 할부 안 끝난 모니터 눈앞에 넌 계속 악쓰고 있고 uh
badagen halbu an keunnan moniteo nunape neon gyesog asseugo itgo uh
No chão estão as prestações do monitor
e na minha frente está você gritando.
젠장 뭐 답도 없지. 내가 널 밀치면 니가 날 밀쳐
jenjang mwo dapdo eopji. naega neol milchimyeon, niga nal milchyeo
Droga, estou sem resposta. Se eu te empurro, você me empurra.
서로 씩씩거리면서 더럽게 질척이는데 나 완전 미쳐
seoro shishigeorimyeon deoreopge jilcheogineunde na wanjeon michyeo
Ambos com raiva e você vem até mim, isso me tira do sério.
헤어지고 싶은 눈친데 날 시키지 말고 니가 직접 말하시던가
he'eojigo shipeun ninchinde nal shikiji malgo niga jigjeop marashideonga
Vejo que você quer terminar, mas não faça você mesma isso.
어찌됐든 나쁜 쪽 되기 싫다 이건데 알아서 그럼 꺼지시던가
eojidoetteun nappeun jog doegi shilda ireonde araseo geureom keojishindeonga
Enfim, sei que você não quer ser uma pessoa ruim, então suma.
어 그래, 잘가, 잘 지내. 니가 어디 어떻게 잘사나 두고볼건데 나
o geurae, jalga, jal jinae. niga eodi eotteoke jalsana dugobolgeonde na
Ok, tchau, se cuida. Vou esperar pra ver se você vai ficar bem
널 너무 사랑해서, 딱 한마디만 할게 너랑 꼭 똑같은 사람 만나 쓰레기 새꺄
neol neomu saran'haeseo, tak hanmadiman halge neorang
kok tok gateun saram manna, seuregi saekya.
Como eu amo muito você, vou te dizer uma coisa… eu espero
que você encontre uma pessoa igualzinha a você.
Trouble Trouble Our destiny
Nosso destino é um problema
누가 더 아파?
nuga deo apa?
Quem está sofrendo mais?
누가 더 사랑해?
nuga deo saran'hae?
Quem está amando mais?
내게 미친 널 보고 있으면
naege michin neol bogo isseumyeon
Quando vejo você louco por mim,
난 웃지 이렇게 웃지
nan utji, iroke utji
eu sorrio, sorrio assim
라리라라라 라리라라라
larilalala larilala
내가 미친 건지? 니가 미친 건지?
naega michin geonji? niga michin geonji?
Eu sou o louco? Você é a louca?
미친 너를 못 떠난 내가 미친 거지?
michin neoreul mot tteonan naega michin geoji?
Sou o louco por não conseguir deixar a louca que é você?
라리라라라 라리라라라
larilalala larilala
날 놓지마, 날 갖지마
nal nojima, nal gatjima
Deixa-me. Você não me tem.
사랑했던 건 진심 넌 내 맘에 별
saran'haetteon geon jimshim neon nae mame byeol
Eu te amei de verdade, você era a estrela do meu coração.
근데 별은 별인데 서울에 별
geunde byeoreun byeorinde Seure byeol
Uma estrela, mas como uma estrela em Seul
밤만 되면 아주 그냥 보이질 않어.
bamman doemyeon aju geunyang boijil ana.
Sempre que a noite vem, eu fico sem te ver.
내 속타서 그냥 보이질 않어
Nae sogtaseo geunyang boijil ana.
Eu fico frustrado por não te ver.
반짝 별님 어딜 가셨나? 땅 속에 꺼졌나 했더니 진짜 땅 속이데
banjag byeolnim gashyeonna? tang soge keojyeonna? haetteoni jinja tang sogide
Estrela cintilante, para onde você foi? Afundou no solo?
Você está, realmente, no subsolo.
참 신명나보여 클럽에서 아주 그냥 흥에 겨워 번쩍번쩍 빛나데
cham shinmyeona boyeo keulleobeseo aju geunyang
heunge gyeowo beonjeog beonjeog binnade
Parece que está passando um tempo
da sua vida em clube, se divertindo.
니가 뭐 그리 잘났어 날 감정이 없는 사람 취급하고?
O que você pensa que é, me tratando como se eu não tivesse sentimento?
또 그게 당연하다는 듯 굴어 huh 넌 알긴 할까 나도 사람이란걸
Agindo como se isso fosse natural…você percebe isso? Eu sou humano também.
찌르면 아파 간지럽히면 웃어.
Se me belisca, dói. Se faz cócegas, eu sorrio.
화를 낼 줄도 알고 슬프면 울어
Eu sei ficar com raiva, e choro quando estou triste.
엮였어 진심 더럽게 엮였어. 답이 있을 리 있나 없지
Eu fui jogado de verdade. E pra isso não tem resposta.
Trouble Trouble Our destiny
Nosso destino é um problema
누가 더 아파?
Quem está sofrendo mais?
누가 더 사랑해?
Quem está amando mais?
내게 미친 널 보고 있으면
Quando vejo você louco por mim,
난 웃지 이렇게 웃지
eu fico sorrindo assim
넌 망가질수록, 더 내가 필요해.
Quanto mais você se arruína, mais você precisa de mim.
니 속을 헤고 또 헤고 또 해도 널 진짜 모르겠어 못해먹겠다고
Eu procuro entender o seu interior, mas não consigo.
넌 나의 곁에서 가장 행복해, 외로움보단 괴로움을 택해
Você é mais feliz ao meu lado, mas opta pela solidão e a amargura.
겪을 만큼 겪었어 난 더는 볼 일없어 너와 나 사이? 일없어
Já vivenciei o bastante e não tenho interesse de ver mais coisas.
Entre você e eu? Nunca mais.
마지막 그 말 후회할 텐데
Você vai se arrepender destas últimas palavras
야 됐고 볼장 다 봤고, 넌 그냥 머리꼭지부터 발끝까지 최악
Eu já vi tudo o que tinha de ver, você é a pior dos pés a cabeça.
별 같은 소리하고 앉았네 불꺼
Estrela, apague as luzes.
그만 난 자러 갈래 수고
Parei. Vou pra cama.
Hurt me Love me Our destiny
Me machuca, me ama.
Esse é o nosso destino.
마음껏 욕해 하지만 가지마
Pode me xingar do que quiser, mas não vá.
Hurt me Love me But don't you say goodbye
Me fere, me ama. Mas não sei dizer adeus.
이렇게 비틀대지만
Eu estou balançado
라리라라라 라리라라라
larilalala larilala
내 말끝엔 또 칼끝이
O final das minhas palavras é uma faca afiada
라리라라라 라리라라라
larilalala larilala
니 손끝엔 또 눈물이
Em suas mãos há lágrimas de novo.
내가 미친 건지? 니가 미친 건지?
Eu sou o louco? Você é a louca?
미친 너를 못 떠난 내가 미친 거지?
Sou o louco por não conseguir deixar a louca que é você?
[daily log: walking, 1 km]
Caveat: Punningly
You may have heard that the Chinese government is has officially banned puns. I ran across some (serious) discussion of it on a linguistics site I frequent, Language Log. Ultimately, however, another site (Slate Star Codex) I have taken to frequenting nailed it, punningly:
China bans puns on the grounds that they may mislead children and defile cultural heritage. Language Log is on the story, and discusses the (extremely plausible) theory that this is part of a crackdown on people who use puns to get around censorship. Obligatory link to the Ten Mythical Creatures here. There’s no censor sensibility to the law, and it seems likely to cause Confucian and dis-Orientation among punks and pundits alike in its wonton disregard for personal freedom and attempts to bamboo-zle the public. It’s safe Tibet that dissidents who just Taipei single pun online will end up panda price and facing time in the punitentiary or even capital punishment – but those Hu support the government can Maoth off as much as they want and still wok free. I Canton derstand how people wouldn’t realize that this homophonbic bigotry raises a bunch of red flags. In the end, one Deng is clear: when puns are outlawed, only outlaws will have puns.
But even better was the following comment on Language Log by someone named Matt, in reaction to Slate Star Codex's punning:
You can definitely understand the Party's fears, though; after all, repurposing homophones or near-homophones in written Chinese has always resulted in radicalization.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Caveat: linguistics or hegemony, but never both together
Speculative Grammarian observed yesterday, "Today is Noam Chomsky’s birthday. To celebrate, discuss linguistics or hegemony. But never both at the same time! Why is that?"
More seriously, this is a Chomsky quote in linguistics that is worth remembering, and fundamental to linguistics.
The most striking aspect of linguistic competence is what we may call the 'creativity of language,' that is, the speaker's ability to produce new sentences, sentences that are immediately understood by other speakers although they bear no physical resemblance to sentences which are 'familiar.' – Noam Chomsky
What I'm listening to right now.
TV On The Radio, "Careful You." The lyrics aren't that interesting, but I like the song anyway.
Lyrics.
Oui je t'aime, oui je t'aime
À demain, à la prochaine
I know it's best to say goodbye
But I can't seem to move away
Not to say, not to say
That you shouldn't share the blame
There is a softness to your touch
There is a wonder to your ways
[Chorus]
Don't know how I feel, what's the deal?
Is it real? When's it gonna go down?
Can we talk? Can we not?
Well, I'm here, won't you tell me right now?
And I'll care for you, oh, careful you
Don't know, should we stay? Should we go?
Should we back it up and turn it around?
Take the good with the bad
Still believe we can make it somehow
I will care for you, oh, careful you, careful you
Oui je t'aime, oui je t'aime
From the cradle to the grave
You've done a number on my heart
And things will never be the same
Freeze a frame, freeze a frame
From a fever dream of days
We learned the secret of a kiss
And how it melts away all pain
[Chorus] x2
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: Waiting for the Verbs
Ciceronian humor:
A senator in Late Republican Rome is running late for the day’s session of the Senate. He comes into the senate chamber about 15 minutes late. Cicero is out in front giving a speech. The senator quietly sits down next to one of his friends, and leans over, quietly asking, “Have I missed much? What’s he talking about?”
To which his friend replies:”I haven’t got a clue… he hasn't even gotten to the verb yet.”
I feel this way about Korean sometimes. When listening to a conversation, I ponder: what was the verb? Did I miss it? Was one provided? The verbs tend to come at the end (as in classical Latin), but there are all these transitional forms that do coordinating and subordinating things that, in casual speech, don't always seem to get followed up on.
Unrelatedly, another joke:
What are you doing?
I'm maximizing the availability of my cognitive resources. [when you work this out, this means "doing nothing"].
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Caveat: vaa kári xás vúra kun’íimti poofíipha pa’áama.
Something was striking about this story. When they had the "dog salmon," (what's also called chum salmon), they had immortality. When the salmon were gone, then death returned.
[1]
A woman and her sweetheart loved each other very much. But the woman's brothers disliked (the man). Finally they killed the man.
[2]
You see, (the couple) had hid for a long time in a cave. So when they buried him (there), then the woman went there. And she lay on top of the corpse. Finally she got sick, the corpse was swelling. And she said, "I'm sick, let me go out!"
[3]
Then when she slept, she dreamed about him. And he said, "Is it true that you grieve for me?" And he said, "If it is true, let me tell you what to do. You must go there where we used to stay, in the cave. You will see a grave there. And you will see two eyes float around. You mustn't be afraid of me. You mustn't run.
[4]
So she went there. And she saw that. And suddenly (a voice) spoke. And it said, "You must weave a burden basket. And you must make many dresses. When you finish, you will see a buzzard sit there on top of a rock. You must follow it. You see, that is the bird of the dead."
[5]
And so then she wove. And she said to a woman, "Let's go together!" She was her friend. So she too wove and made the dresses.
[6]
Then they finished. So they left. And they saw the buzzard. So they followed it. And they traveled, it was many days that they traveled. They were following the buzzard that way. And sometimes it was a brushy place where they traveled, their dresses got torn.
[7]
Finally they arrived, the country was beautiful and green. And someone rowed to meet them and landed them on the other shore. And they saw two old women there. And (the old woman) said, "Look, the one you are wandering around for is making a deerskin dance uphill. Why is it that you have come here? People with bones (i.e., live people) don't come here. Come on, let's hide you! Let them not see you!
[8]
So they hid them. So they stayed there for a little while. Then they were told, "Go back home!" And they were given dried salmon. There it was dog salmon. You see, they call dog salmon "dead-man's salmon." And they were told, "When a person dies, you must rub this on his lips. You see, he will come back to life."
[9]
So (the girls) went back home. They traveled back again that way. The buzzard brought them back. So when they returned to this world, they are the ones who did as it is done in the land of the dead.
[10]
Finally no person died, finally the people filled up the earth. Then when the salmon was all gone, they died.
– Mammie Oldfield, in William Bright's The Karok Language (1957), pp. 266-269, Text 58
Found at Kuruk online texts. I didn't presume to include the original, although I was tempted.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: In Ur Ziggurat
I ran across this online on a linguistics-oriented website:
Akkadian Humor: We’re in Ur Ziggurat, Taking Ur Stuff
I thought it was really funny, but the evident imprecision bothered me. See, I really thought Ur was Sumerian, not Akkadian, and for a linguist to make that kind of error struck me as reckless.
I double-checked via the wiki thing, and Ur was definitely Sumerian, although interestingly, the name was later used by the Akkadians (who conqured and took over the Sumerian cultural legacy, much the same way that the Romans took over and adopted the Greek cultural legacy later on). Therefore, I wanted to humbly offer this slight revision of the joke:
Sumerian Humor: We’re in Ur Ziggurat, Taking Ur Stuff
But then I had a second thought: maybe that was part of the joke? Which is to say, the Akkadians conquored the Sumerians, and sacked the city of Ur (I think) several times. Therefore it makes more sense, in a way, if it's the Akkadians in the Ziggurat, taking stuff. That being the case, my objection to the apparent imprecision is ill-founded. Who knows?
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: bin-bin-bin-bin-aistu-aistu-bin-bin-aistu-mipl-mipl-mipl-aistu-bin-aistu-aistu-mipl-mipl-iz-iz-iz-mipl-iz-iz
"Language is magic: it makes things appear and disappear." – Nicole Brossard
I spent part of the day neglecting my commitment to avoid the internet on Sundays, because I became obsessed with surfing random linguistics and political blogs and websites. I'm not sure why I did this, but I did find a number of interesting tidbits which, rather than trying to preserve and convert into multiple blog-posts here, I will just spew out all at once for your untimely elucitainment.
From a linguistics blogger (satirist?) called Speculative Grammarian, I discovered articles about imaginary languages and, more interestingly, imaginary linguistic theoretical constructs. For example:
The first oddness among the Oboioboioboiwikantsitstil is non-distinctive reduplication. Many speakers repeat elements of words without apparent change in meaning. Consider the following example. (Note that Oboioboioboiwikantsitstil is polysynthetic.)
(1) bin-bin-bin-bin-aistu-aistu-bin-bin-aistu- mipl-mipl-mipl- aistu-bin-aistu-aistu- mipl-mipl-iz-iz-iz- mipl-iz-iz
Imperative-Imp-Imp-Imp-1sg-1sg-Imp-Imp-1sg- use-use-use- 1sg-Imp-1sg-1sg- use-use-toilet-toilet-toilet- use-toilet-toilet.
"I need to use the restroom"
The same author subtly satirizes the current state of syntactic theory by comparing it with a non-existant theory based on the belief that the gods make us talk. He also has a manifesto that I would like to sign.
Finally, if you've ever taken a formal semantics (i.e. linguistics-meets-mathematical-logic) course at the graduate level, you might appreciate this:
λP[λQ[∼∃x[P(x)∧Q(x)]]]
<e,t>,<<e,t>,t>
What part of ‘No’ don’t you understand?
Amid the weeds of politics (or is it political theory?), I found this:
"You’ve been taught to worship democracy. This is because you are ruled by democracy. If you were ruled by the Slime Beast of Vega, you would worship the Slime Beast of Vega." – Mencius Moldbug (evidently a pseudonym of some political blogger)
[daily log: walking across the room]
Caveat: Linguistic Categories Get Xkcded.
This reminded me of a graduate course I did with Prof. Ocampo at U of Minn in Linguistics and Syntax. Pretty good for a webcomic. And as a bonus, it's way meta.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]
Caveat: Killed by a Theory
We were talking about how the dinosaurs became extinct in my Honors class this evening. We read some paragraphs in our writing book, and filled in some blanks from a listening exercise about various theories of what killed the dinosaurs: giant volcanos, asteriods, or more gradual failure to adapt to climate change. We discussed some more, and then I had them write some summary of the different ideas. I said, summarize how the reading and the lecture disagree about how the dinosaurs died.
I picked up one student’s essay, and she had written, “Dinosaurs were killed by a theory.”
I don’t know why, but I found this quite amusing, and took far too long trying to imagine how this might have worked. Perhaps the dinosaurs were more sentient than we realize, and they developed some cultural trait that led to self-destructive behavior. For example, they had a theory that if they dug very deep holes, they could find true spiritual happiness. So they dug deeper and deeper holes, until finally they reached the earth’s magma, which erupted and destroyed them all.
This would be the sort of theory that killed the dinosaurs.
Meanwhile, I wonder… it may in fact be perfectly OK to say the Korean equivalent, because the relationships (agent, topic, actor, recipient-of-action, etc.) between the noun phrases in Korean sentences are clarified by the endings on those words, not by the inherent valences of the verbs, as in English (and largely, most other Indo-European languages, as I understand it). This is one of the linguistic differences that seems to cause so much confusion to Korean English learners, and why they are always saying things like “The dinosaurs died the asteroid,” when they mean “The asteroid killed the dinosaurs.” They know what they mean, they just don’t get that English verbs have these semantic valences that must be filled correctly.
That’s my theory, anyway. I’ll try not to let it kill me.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Caveat: A holiday in Tlön, via Khaiwoon
I have a hobby I don't talk about much – because it is not something most people can understand, and I don't always want to try to explain it. It does not even have a single term that describes it, but probably the most commonly used these days is "conworlding". This is derived from the noun "conworld" which is a contraction of "constructed world".
I have been doing it since childhood, when I called it "drawing maps", because that is how it started: drawing maps of imaginary countries. But by my teenage years it had become "writing encyclopedia articles about imaginary places." Mostly, I would fill notebooks with this material, as I was never satisfied (or expert enough) with the graphics software available for drawing maps, so I always drew the maps by hand.
This type of activity has a respectable side: JRR Tolkien apparently drew his maps and wrote his appendices for Middle Earth long before he wrote his novels. He also took very seriously the related pasttime of "conlanging" (inventing imaginary languages – not that he called it that, as the term came later). His complex Elvish and other languages are serious philological works. More recently, serious "professional" conlangers have even been able to make money: the guy who invented the Klingon language for Star Trek got paid something, and there's someone who works full time as a conlanger for the Game of Thrones TV show. I was always too perfectionistic, due to my linguistics background, to go very far with conlanging. Arguably, the the same thing that challenges me in learning Korean is what prevents me from being a serious conlanger. Setting that aside, however, I love to make maps and craft the fictional geographical data that accompanies them.
I remember when the wikipedia first appeared, I thought, "there should be a wikipedia for fictional places." Actually, this was an echo, updated for the internet age, of the themes in Borges' famous story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." I was so enamored of this idea that about a decade ago, I tried to use my database programming expertise to build a fictional online encyclopedia for myself, but that project lost momentum at some point.
Well, it turns out some guy in Germany has done it. Further, there is a google-earth-quality online mapping tool for it. Actually, the mapping tool was the thing created first, and I found it about 6 months ago – the wiki came just in the last few months. There are people who are much more serious about it than I am, creating fictional countries, with supporting encyclopedic articles, that are difficult to distinguish from reality. Tlön, indeed.
The collaborative aspect is what is genuinely new, and it changes things some. It is interesting to see what other people do. So I have been spending some time there – mostly crafting maps for my allotments (one can sign up for free, and receive a "country" by request – a terra incognita to do with what one wishes), but also writing some wiki entries for them. It has the same appeal to me of sim games like simcity or civilization, which I have spent plenty of time addicted to, but it is better: there are fewer rules, and the result is always cummulative and feels more creative.
I have attempted to attach a screenshot of a map of the downtown of the city state of Khaiwoon, a vaguely Singaporean nation created by one of the most prolific and talented conworlders. The site is called Opengeofiction – here is a link to his article about Khaiwoon. There are links from there to the mapping tool.
I will leave as an exercise for curious readers to find which countries are "mine".
[daily log: walking, 1 km]
Caveat: Hell for Leather
I ran across the expression "hell for leather" in the Halberstam book I've been reading, and had to admit I'd never seen it before – I had to look it up.
It apparently means to do something doggedly or recklessly – the latter meaning seems to be under the influence of a different, unrelated expression, "hell bent." The most plausible etymology was that it refers to the effects that an arduous journey had, in the 19th century, on shoes (i.e. "leather"). To take a long, dogged, difficult trip was "hell for leather." Hence the primary meaning of doing something arduous in a dogged fashion. The phrase "hell bent," however, had influenced the meaning of the expression by the beginning of the 20th century, and I think the soldier Halberstam is citing as using the phrase means it more as "to do something recklessly and at great speed."
Having finished the book yesterday, I will say I'm not as disappointed in it as my friend Peter (who gave me the book, I believe, if not quite intentionally). I think ultimately with a modified title it would have been much less disappointing. Halberstam's title is "The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War". I would only change the subtitle: "The Coldest Winter: How Douglas MacArthur's Mistakes in Korea Led to America's Disaster in Vietnam." That about sums up the book, and with that narrower title, one could be more comfortable with the book's many omissions.
[daily log: walking, km]
Caveat: ius linguae
There are two main systems for deriving citizenship, which, being essentially legal concepts, go under their Latin names: ius sanguinis and ius solis. The idea of ius sanguinis, or “right of blood,” is that citizenship derives primarily from the bloodline. This is the traditional way of determining citizenship in countries that are primarily monocultural, as the nations of Europe were in the early modern era. Modern Asian countries also mostly use this model. The alternative is ius solis, or “right of soil,” where citizenship is derived from where one is born. I’m not sure that any modern country has a strictly ius solis model, but most modern “Western” countries – especially immigration-driven countries like the US, Canada or Argentina for example – use a combination of ius solis and ius sanguinis to decide citizenship.
I have thought about the issues around these definitions a lot, first of all as someone who was something of an immigration reform activist in the US prior to my own somewhat unintended emmigration (I say unintended in that I never meant for my emmigration to be permanent or even so long-term, but it has definitely evolved that way), but also as someone who is intrigued by the slow, difficult path Korean society and government is navigating toward a more open attitude toward immigration.
I have been observing with some degree of fascination my recent coworker Razel, who is Philippine-Korean. She acquired her status via marriage, but the extent to which she is integrated into Korean culture and society is breathtaking, and although I have no doubt that she occasionally experiences racism and prejudice, she says it’s in no way the defining feature of her experience. I feel jealousy for her level of Korean Language speaking ability – listening to her on the phone talking to her friends, code-switching between English, Korean, Tagalog and Visayan (the latter being her “native” Philippine languages) leaves me in quiet admiration.
Korean culture is uncomfortable with the idea of immigration. They welcome ethnic Korean “returnees,” called 교포 [gyopo], because they can be more confident of their ability to integrate into Korean society, and they more-or-less accept the idea of mixed marriages as an inevitability, too – as in the example of my coworker. But Koreans resist the idea of foreign individuals or families arriving and simply becoming Korean. It doesn’t sit well with their traditional Confucian concept of the predominance of ancestry and their ius sanguinis model of citizenship.
The other day, however, I had a weird brainstorm as I was thinking about my coworker’s mostly successful integration into Korean society. What if we could define a new, third model of citizenship? Specifically, for a more culturally and linguistically homogeneous society such as Korea, we could grant citizenship rights based, essentially, on the ability to participate in the culture – which is to say, the capacity for the language. It wouldn’t be that hard to say something to the effect of “citizenship for those who pass the language test” – though this would require an ethical and corruption-free administration of a well-designed test, which I’m not sure is the current status of Korea’s de facto standard Korean Language test, the TOPIK. But it would be a workable goal. So that would be ius linguae, “right of language.”
One thought that springs to mind is that this is a model that many in the US would be pleased to adopt – force all those “damn immigrants” to learn English before they get a green card or citizenship! Yet even as I’m happy to propose ius linguae for Korea, I recoil at the idea of applying it in the US. What is the difference? Mostly, history. Korea is historically essentially a single language / culture / state – for hundreds at least if not thousands of years. The US, on the other hand, was almost from the beginning a state defined by some concept of essentially “right of arrival” – to recall one of my favorite quotes on immigration, from Herman Melville, “If they can get here, they have God’s right to come.”
There are tensions within this, but that is the essence. Further, the US project is complicated by the preexistence of linguistic minorities – both Native American and French, Spanish, etc. – groups of people who were in place when the US essentially appeared “over” them through war or annexation. The US is an empire, not a unitary state. It hardly seems fair to impose as a requirement for citizenship the imperial language, since to do so guarantees the possibility of stateless permanent residents within your country, similar to the horrific legal status of Koreans living in Japan even today, 70 years after the end of the War. That Japanese example is a perfect one: the inevitable consquence of applying a ius sanguinis citizenship model in the context of empire is inequality and injustice.
I think Korea, however, is sufficiently compact and homogeneous that applying this type of ius linguae model of citizenship might represent an excellent compromise path between the traditional and inevitably racist ius sanguinis and the more modern ius solis / sanguinis hybrids, the latter of which would lead to an increasintly multi-cultural society and the emergence of linguistic / cultural ghettos – Korea already is beginning to have these in places where there are large numbers of foreigners, such as the area I call “Russiatown” that I like to visit sometimes. Granting citizenship only to immigrants who have already shown a commitment to integrating into Korean culture via the acquisition of the language would be a great solution, maybe.
This is just a brainstorm – a first draft – that occured to me mostly while walking back and forth to work over several days. I’m sure it’s subject to plenty of criticisms and refinements, but I wanted to record my thoughts and put them down.
In other news: yesterday, I turned off the internet and my phone and did almost nothing. It was a lazy day but I think I needed it. I am in danger of social burnout given the teaching load I have taken on (willingly), so I’m going to nurse my off-time for maximum isolation, as my alone time is recuperative for me.
[daily log (1100 pm): walking, 5 km]
Caveat: speech created hatred
It's a little-known fact that I once took a graduate course in the Ancient Sumerian language. It was all part of my general interest in obscure and difficult languages, which continues unabated to this day.
I had to memorize archaic hieroglyphs, cuneiform logographs and vocabulary meanings, not to mention the bizarre Sumerian grammar (the agglutinative nature of which I am sometimes reminded of when I look at Korean).
I don't remember much of it – Sumerian is just not something one has much occasion to use.
Somehow I ran across a proverb that was allegedly Sumerian, the other day, and I wanted to find out if it was just an empty attribution or if it was really from Ancient Sumer. So I researched it a little bit. Apparently it's the real deal. I really wanted to find an image of the cuneiform inscription, but my googling skills have proven inadequate to that task. So here is the proverb and the transcription I found (at this website):
A heart never created hatred; speech created hatred.
Segment A: 1.105
71. šag4-ge šag4 ḫul gig nu-ub-tu-ud
72. dug4-ge šag4 ḫul gig ib2-tu-ud
Above right is an image of the archaic style (c. 3000 BC) I mostly focused on in my class but it's utterly unrelated to the quoted proverb. Below, likewise unrelated, is an image of the later, more refined style of the civilization at its height (c. 2000 BC – and note that the refined style below is just as likely to be Akkadian as Sumerian – the civilization was bilingual and used the same writing system for both languages, which were linguistically unrelated – actually, that's similar to the situation between Korean and Chinese in the pre-modern era).
Caveat: 어느 구름에서 비가 올지
This is an aphorism from my aphorism book.
어느 구름에서 비가 올지
eo·neu gu·reum·e·seo bi·ga ol·ji
which cloud-FROM rain-SUBJ come-FUTSPEC
[One doesn’t know] from which cloud the rain will come.
This wasn’t hard to understand, but I think there is something missing to make this an actual sentence. My grammar “bible” tells me that an ending such as “-ㄹ지” should come in a context such as “V-ㄹ지 모르다” [one doesn’t know V will happen]. I think the “doesn’t know” is missing but implied here. I didn’t know what to call the ending, so I labeled a “future speculative” – I have often struggled with what the “지” really is – it’s a kind of a “pre-negative” or subjunctive marker, in my linguistically semi-informed but Koreanically semi-ignorant view.
Caveat: Teach a Language
For many years, we've been hearing reports about the idea that bilingualism (and tri- and multi-lingualism) can give cognitive benefits and stave off mental decline and even prevent or postpone Alzheimers.
One weakness in the data has been that this research has mostly been done in countries where most bilinguals happen, coincidentally, to belong to immigrant populations (e.g. the US, Australia, Western Europe) - so there's always been a lingering doubt as to whether the brain benefits were being delivered as a result of bilingualism or were possibly linked to some other aspect of the immigrant experience / environment.
Now a major study out of India has narrowed the apparent benefits more specifically to multilingualism – see this post at Language Log for details.
Give a life-long gift to a child today – teach her or him a language.
What I'm listening to right now.
MC 900 Ft Jesus, "If I Only Had a Brain."
Lyrics
Suppose I accidentally got my shit together
Would I get a medal?
Or a pat on the back and a little feather
I could stick in my cap or pin it to my shirt
Go out in the yard and poke it in the dirt
Or leave it in the woods where it couldn't be found
If it fell over, would it make a sound?
And if it did, would it be the sound that you like?
Or should I do it over until I get it right?
You say everything I know is wrong
So do me a favor, and play along for a minute
As the rusty gears turn
Don't be alarmed if you smell something burning upstairs
It's a little BB rolling around in a box car
See us together
Maybe it wouldn't be hard to explain
If I only had a brain
[chorus]
Somewhere on a higher mental plain
(Somewhere On A Higher mental plain)
I might learn to come in from the rain
(I might learn to come in from the rain)
If I had a clue would I still be here with you?
(If I had a clue would I still be here with you?)
Gee whiz, if I only had a brain
(Gee Whiz, If I only had a brain)
Who's that?
Oh, my little friend cupid
Wearing a shirt that says I'm with stupid
Always nearby wherever I go
He's looking out for me, don't you know
Mr. excitement, never in a rut
Johnny on the spot with an arrow in the butt
Ouch! I guess your love is true
Now, if I could only get a clue
[chorus]
Had a brain
Had a brain
Had a brain
Had a brain
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
Caveat: C’est à dire, faith
Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of my favorite and most-visited bloggers. He writes over at The Atlantic. He's not the most polished – he often makes glaring or embarrassing typos in his entries (this seems to be one of the great challenges of frequent blogging), but he's a talented writer and sometimes he will drop the most profound and remarkable stuff in the most off-handed way imaginable.
Lately, Mr Coates has been in France, because he's decided to learn French. Deciding to learn a language while long past one's presumed youth is an undertaking near-and-dear to my heart, as most people who know me know well. His most recent blogpost, as many recent ones, is about this experience. His last two paragraphs about his efforts to learn the language are really striking, to me – they are the sort of pep-talk I need when I feel the despair and frustration in my own efforts to learn Korean. It hoves so close to my own experience and insights.
Before I came here everyone told me that the enemy was the French. It would be their rudeness, their retreat into English that would defeat me. But I am here now and it is clear that–as with attempting to learn anything–the only real enemy is me. My confidence comes and goes. I have no innate intelligence here–intelligence is overrated. What matters is toughness, a willingness to believe against what is apparent. Learning is invisible act. And what I see is disturbing. In class my brain scatters, just as it did when I was in second grade. I have to tell myself every five minutes to concentrate.
The hardest thing about learning a language is that, at its core, it is black magic. No one can tell you when, where or how you will crossover–some people will even tell you that no such crossover exists. The only answer is to put one foot in front of the other, to keep walking, to understand that the way is up. The only answer is a resource which many of us have long ago discarded. C'est à dire, faith.
Caveat: 왕따의 이야기
I was correcting essays and came across this depressing, anonymous work. I know who Jack is – he’s a student. I know who Ken is – he’s a teacher.
There was a boy who called Jack And he was 10 years old and he was Wangg TTa [왕따]. Because he always says “I’m most handsome!!” So his classmates hit the Jack. Jack was so tired to that. So he suicided by a bottle of sleeping pills. But he’s mother wasn’t sad. So Jack became ghost, and killed his mother and Ken. So they became ghost, too so they killed Jack one more time. The End.
As usual, the above was transcribed retaining errors, punctuation and orthography. The word 왕따 [wang-tta] deserves some comment: the word means a kind of outcast, maybe a word like geek or nerd or weirdo or loser would be a better translation than outcast. In verb form (와따시키다), it is the act of ostracizing such a person. Although we associate bullying with the school setting in Western culture, the word 왕따 can apply to all social situations, including things like work environments (see comic, above right).
caveat: running out of words
i awoke from a dream at about five am. in and of itself, that is a great sign, as with rare exceptions i dont sleep well enough at night these days to even be able to dream in my normal way.
but the dream was completely disorienting. they wanted to prepare me for a new surgery. the doctors were using these little tags to identify potential problems and to get a feel for my psychological state . . this last was important because the surgery was to be a kind of brain surgery.
but they were imposing a maddening rule – every word i used on the little tags could only be used once. over and over i would be confronted with a situation like this: i would write a word on the tag in answer to a question and be told, you already used that word. someone would point to the tag where the word was used in the vast proliferation of tags.
i kept trying to find multilingual synonyms. . i would write one time "pee" and be told nope you used that. "urine" id venture. . nope. hmm, "소변"? no look its written down here. why cant you do this?. . you need to help us to take care of you but how can we when you cant do this simple thing? finally, "orina" and a dismissive smile but quickly dissolving into a new unanswerable question.
the dream went on and on like that. . . a linguists nightmare hospital stay. do you realize how dangerous this will be if you dont have the right labels?
crying tears of impotence.
Caveat: Tea Poem On Cloth
As I mentioned, I went shopping last Sunday, where we stopped at the Buddhist bookshop next to the Jogye temple near Insadong. I mentioned that I had bought a Korean-English dictionary of Buddhist terms. Another thing I bought were some of what might termed “aphorisms-painted-on-cloth” – I guess I like these though I’m not sure what I do with them. I’ve gifted them to friends sometimes.
But first, I study them – I try to find out what they’re about. Here is one of them.
Here is a trascription. I could not find this poem or prayer (not sure which to call it) online with English translation, so the translation is entirely mine – please forgive defects (I welcome feedback to improve the translation)
차향기
Tea fragrance
차(茶)향기는
가까이 할수록 좋고,
The closer you are to the scent of tea, the better,
인간(人間)의 향기는
느낄수록 좋고,
The more you experience the scent of humanity, the better,
도(道)의 향기는
깨달을수록 좋은데,
The more you attain the scent of the right path, the better, too
여기에
당신의 향기를
그리워하는 이들을 위하여
Here, caring for those yearning for your scent
작은 흔적을 기록하여
남기고 저 합니다
Recording small traces, prepare to leave [it] behind.
부디
모두가
깨우치게 하소서.
Please let everyone find enlightenment.
I was so stumped by the second line of the penultimate stanza that for a time I had utterly given up. Googletranslate says “To leave me” which is just dictionary madness – look up some syllables and assign meaning then chain them together. But “저” as “me” is never a suffix. Googletranslate is useless.
Then I decided to break down and use the frustrating but exhaustive Samuel E. Martin book. I suspected -고저 is some kind of archaic verbal ending because then 남기 can be the stem of the verb 남기다 “to leave behind.” Sure enough, there it was: -koce “be willing to, intend to, get ready to, prepare to” with obvious examples using 하다 as the main auxiliary.
The very last verb+ending, 하소서, really stumped me too. It took a lot of dinking around the internet before I realized I could see if Martin had it, too – and it was there, alphabetized (in his crazy way) under the romanization -usose. Sure, that’s obvious. It’s a kind of super-high deferential imperative (“Let… “), common in e.g. Bible translations. And in Buddhist tea-prayers, too, I guess.
My lesson for the day: don’t avoid Martin just because his romanization is tedious and difficult.
Caveat: Stasera Che Sera
It was a strange, busy, up-and-down day.
I had to go to work early, because of an open house for parents. Not a lot of parents came, but some. Still, I never have much to do at these things – mostly it’s homeroom teachers meeting with them, after the director and sub-director make their talks. But they like to have me available, in the event some parent has a question or a complaint or a request, and I’m genuinely happy to be available for that – I sometimes enjoy playing a guessing game by myself, to figure out who is who’s parent, matching faces I’m seeing to the familiar faces of my students in my mind.
After this, we had a hweh-shik (회식, normally romanized as hoe-sik but that’s one case where the revised romanization is pretty inadequate to pronunciation and so I’m willing to break the rules) – the typical Korean business lunch or dinner. Hweh-shik lunches are more fun for me than hweh-shik dinners, normally, because less alcohol is involved.
We went to 보양 삼계탕 [boyang samgyetang], a fairly upscale samgyetang joint on the west side of Ilsan, with a really lovely view down a tree-lined boulevard of the Kintex convention center, in one direction, and the Goyang city stadium in another direction.
I normally really like samgyetang, which is a kind of whole-chicken-in-rice-and-ginseng-soup concoction, but both because of the sheer volume of it and the complicated spices and dismemberment of it, I really didn’t want samgyetang (remember that currently, because of my illness, eating is painful, for me). I’ve been preferring to stick to soft, squishy, somewhat bland foods, lately. I special-ordered some black sesame seed rice porridge, 흑깨죽, which was earthy and delicious. I also drank a cupful of ginseng liqueur by accident, thinking it was tea. I almost choked, and who knows how that will interact with my percocet. I survived and felt OK afterward.
Then it was back to work for a long afternoon and evening of mostly correcting things at my desk and playing around with various ambitious curriculum idea documents on my computer, which may never go anywhere but they help me to feel useful. I don’t have a dense teaching load on Fridays even on the normal schedule, and with the current test-prep schedule for the middle-schoolers (for first semester pre-summer vacaction final exams), I have even less.
I lurked at my cramped desk in the crowded staffroom and drank a lot of 보이차 [bo-i-cha = puer tea], of the teabag variety as opposed to the loose-leaf kind I like to make for myself at home. I cleaned my computer files. Next week will be plenty busy, because one of my coworkers is going on a short vacation and so I will be filling in quite a few of his classes. So I decided to just not be too stressed about not having a lot to do this day.
During my last class, I made the students do their homework during class. They don’t like this – but that’s my “punishment” when they all come to class with incomplete homework. So we were looking at a question to the tune of “Do you do volunteer work?” that was in their workbooks. One boy, Sangjin, wrote, “I don’t do this work.” That was his entire answer – it was supposed to be a short paragraph.
I asked him about it.
“I don’t do this work,” he insisted, refusing to elaborate.
“You’re not a volunteer, ever?”
“Yes.” Korean students inevitably say “yes” to English negative questions where native speakers might be inclined to say “no” or try to be less ambiguous by saying “right” or “correct.”
“It’s because you have a cold heart,” I teased.
“Oh no. I’m lazy.”
He grinned and made one of those silly two-hands-cupped-together-in-the-shape-of-a-heart gestures popularized by Korean celebrities.
When I was back in the staff room, my collegue Kwon-saem (the middle school division bujang, a Buddha-like figure who spends long periods of time playing Windows Solitaire at his desk) came over and stuck the text of a poem or song in front of me.
“Can you translate this?” he asked, good-naturedly.
It was in Italian.
“Maybe,” I shrugged. “Do you want me to?” I grabbed it back from him and handily translated the first two lines on the fly. Italian can be like that, for me, given my strong backgrounds in Spanish
and French and Romance Philology.
He was surprised – I wondered if he was testing me or if he had been joking. He laughed. “You are genius,” he surmised, in his laconic way.
I was pleased, and he and I spent about 20 minutes slapping together a translation into English using the googletranslate, which he then worked on rendering, in turn, into Korean. I never did figure out why he was working on it – it’s an Italian pop song from the 1970’s.
My mood was swinging up and down a lot, today. I’m sure it’s partly this feeling that life is being turned upside down while continuing through the same rhythms and habits as always. But I had a sort of breakthrough moment while walking home, that maybe it’s the percocet, too. It’s a pretty strong, opiate-derived painkiller (and believe me, I’ve been needing it).
What I’m listening to right now.
Matia Bazar, “Stasera Che Sera.”
Lyrics:
Stasera che sera
restare tutto il tempo con te
di notte l’amore l’amore
e’ sempre una sorpresa per me
poi respirare il profumo del mare
mentre dal vento tu ti lasci cullare
fare il signore o il mendicante
non scordarsi mai pero’
di essere anche amante
stasera che sera
restare tutto il tempo con te
di notte l’amore l’amore
e’ sempre una sorpresa per me
stringere il sole nelle mie mani
toglierti i raggi
come ad un albero i rami
per circondare il tuo viso in calore
non per fare un petalo intorno
al suo fiore
Na a ria na na na ria na na na
na na na na na na na na na na na na a
stasera che sera
restare tutto il tempo con te
di notte l’amore l’amore
e’ sempre una sorpresa per me
spegnere il germe del nostro gioco
sazi d’amore ma contenti di poco
chiedere all’aria i suoi tesori
e cosi’ nel chiuso
puoi sentirti sempre fuori
stasera “stasera” che sera “che sera”
restare tutto il tempo con te
di notte l’amore l’amore
e’ sempre una sorpresa per me
fare il conteggio dei giorni passati
sapere adesso
che non sono sciupati
e che tu sei sempre viva e presente
ora come allora
tu sei mia nella mia mente
Na a ria na na na ria na na na
na na na na na na na na na na na na a
stasera che sera
restare tutto il tempo con te
di notte l’amore l’amore
e’ sempre una sorpresa per me
stasera che sera
restare tutto il tempo con te
di notte l’amore l’amore
e’ sempre una sorpresa per me…
Caveat: Warring Romanization Rantings
Normally I enjoy the linguistics blog called LanguageLog immensely, but today a post by Victor Mair left a sour taste in my mouth. Doubly. Originally, I was going to post my complaints about his post as comments to the LanguageLog blog, but my past efforts to join the community at LanguageLog have been utterly ignored – I’m not the right sort of linguistics geek, apparently – so I decided to rant here, instead.
Firstly, Mair was posting one of his frequent examples of Chinglish/Konglish/Japanglish (which sometimes goes under the generic epithet of “Engrish” but that seems awfully Japanese-centric as a term, at least phonologically speaking). But the example he was sharing was from a sign posted in a Japanese lavatory, which said in English “Tap water may be used for drinking water.” Mair seems to think there is something wrong with this bit of English. But, at least in my dialect in of English, it’s quite common to use the preposition “for” with the same meaning as “as” – hence the sign’s text is equivalent to “Tap water may be used AS drinking water” which makes complete sense. The sign’s only linguistic crime might be stylistic – its slightly repetitive in its deployment of the noun “water.”
But what really annoyed me was when he decided, parenthetically, to devote several column inches – perhaps even a column foot or two – to the rant of an anonymous colleague against South Korea’s “Revised Romanization.” I suppose I shouldn’t complain – for my part, I’ve ranted more than once against Martin’s version of the Yale Romanization (which the cited ranter at LanguageLog prefers).
Certainly I can’t stand the old McCune-Reischauer system that existed in various incarnations prior to 1999. McCune-Reischauer was the romanization I learned when I first studied Korean (as badly as I did) in the early 1990’s, and with some modifications it is the system that North Korea still uses today.
What I found more odd was the reason (or reasons) this anonymous scholar bases his/her objection on. He/she claims the romanization of ㅓ as “eo” and ㅡ as “eu” under the revised system are linguistic “embarrassments.” Fine – I happen to agree. But when mapping a 14 vowel system to the five vowel symbols of the Latin alphabet, compromises are inevitable. To speak briefly of Martin’s romanization, in what way is “ceng” as a romanization of 정 (RR “jeong” IPA /t͡ɕʌŋ/) not an embarrassment, too?
For someone like this anonymous ranter, with supposed linguistic training, it seems remarkably naive. All romanization systems for Korean are going to involve tradeoffs, and the tradeoffs made with the revised system as adopted and promulgated by the South Korean government, as I see it, were focused on two objectives: 1) the system should be as easy as possible for non-speakers to “get close to” the expected pronunciation, or, at the least, habituate themselves to it over time; 2) the system should avoid all diacritics and special symbols (this is a major drawback of the popular McCune-Reischauer system, which has “ŏ” and “ŭ” for ㅓ and ㅡ respectively, among other frustrating diacritic and “apostrophe” rules). This latter requirement against diacritics is, in my mind, what led to the two “embarrassments” mentioned. Clearly digraphs were required, and settling on what digraphs to use for which vowels was going to involve some level of discomfort.
I seem to be the only Westerner with any background in linguistics who prefers the Revised Romanization over any of the alternatives. I would speculate that it is because of my background in computing and programming (and hence ASCII) – the rise of technology and the internet were part of the justification in 1999 for the revised system’s rejection of diacritics – they wanted a system that was transparently “ASCIIable.” In this way, I have a great deal of sympathy for the perspectives of the 1990’s committee – they wanted to move toward a romanization system that maximized their advantages vis-a-vis the inconveniently roman internet. It was of a piece with other government-directed manipulations of Korean cultural content oriented toward a remarkably forward-looking post-industrial policy.
Such a need has been utterly obviated by subsequent generations of technology, all now mostly based on the well-designed unicode system, which means that the Korean internet has begun to be mostly in unicode hangeul rather than any romanization at all. But in the 1990’s nobody could have predicted technology solving the ASCII dilemma so quickly and easily, and so, from the perspective of the committee desigining the Revised Romanization, their motivation to reject diacritics was exceptionally strong and very understandable.
Personally, quite early on I was able to overcome my discomfort with the digraphs “eo” and “eu” by reminding myself that they were no more “weird” than the very common use of the digraphs “oe” and “ue” for “ö” and “ü” in some European languages. Those examples are equally opaque, phonologically, yet widely accepted, and the underlying principle of the digraphs in both cases is almost the same – thus it could be understood that in the revised system, they’re using an “e” to mark the “missing” diacritic of McCune-Reischauer. In fact, without any inside knowledge, that’s how I suspect the committee choosing the digraphs saw it.
Caveat: Geek v Nerd
It’s good to see that important, important work is being done in this area of semantic analysis: “geek” vs “nerd” at the blog slackpropagation. I think the author (with some commenters) has a point in realizing that using Twitter as his data source possibly limits and no doubt skews his results. As he mentions, it would require work with the Ngram corpus or suchlike to be more thorough. Nevertheless, I appreciate the attention to detail in his work.
Caveat: nýdwracu níþgrim nihtbealwa maést
Swá ðá maélceare maga Healfdenes
singála séað· ne mihte snotor hæleð
wéan onwendan· wæs þæt gewin tó swýð
láþ ond longsum þe on ðá léode becóm,
nýdwracu níþgrim nihtbealwa maést.
So then over the sorrow of the time the son of Half-Dane
continually brooded; the wise hero could not
turn away woe; that strife was too strong,
hateful and enduring, that on the people came
fearfully cruel, violent trouble, the greatest night-evil.
Beowulf [lines 189-193], from parallel Old English / Modern English text.
Tolkien dated the poem to the 8th century – and this was Tolkien’s specific area of expertise, as he was a professor of English Philology. Other scholars have thought the poem Beowulf to be younger, but certainly it is at least 1000 years old.
I like the poem because it offers a window into such an ancient, different world, but I like it mostly as a fabulous exemplar of language-change. Presumeably, the first and second texts, above, are the same language, separated only by 1000 years of history. But what makes a language a language? And in that vein, in what way is, for example, the “Korean” of today the same language as the “Korean” used in the Silla Era (pre 900 AD)?
Caveat: 아는것이 병
아는것이 병
know-PRESPART-fact-SUBJ sickness
Knowing [is] sickness.
“Knowing is sickness.” It sounds like it could be the title of a Kierkegaard book.
There’s another proverb in Korean that is exactly opposite:
아는것이 힘
know-PRESPART-fact-SUBJ strength
Knowing [is] strength.
“Knowing is strength.” This sounds more like the title of something by Lenin.
It’s interesting to reflect on how these two opposite possibilites start quickly to take on ideological resonances in my mind.
The nominalizing ending -는것 is extraordinarily common. Not only is it used to construct a sort of periphrastic present tense with the copula (-이다), but it also seems to serve as a kind of periphrastic gerund (where the actual gerund is -기 and the more nominalizing -ㅁ). Both proverbs are missing an explicit copula after the second noun phrase, but I think it’s implied by the subject marker on the first. This strikes me as similar to the Russian present tense copula, which is normally absent in actual Russian, and merely implied by the case endings of the nouns.
Caveat: 백문이 불여일견
백문이 불여일견
百聞이 不如一見
hundred-hear-SUBJ not-same-one-see
Hearing it a hundred times is not the same as seeing it.
“Seeing is believing” or “A picture is worth a thousand words” or “The proof is in the pudding.”
I chose this proverb because I thought it would be easy, not realizing it was another one of those Chinese-masquerading-as-Korean linguistic fossils. Still, I’ve gotten a little bit competent using the online dictionary, flashing back and forth between the 영어 / 국어 / 한자 [English / Korean / Chinese] tabs, so I figured it out in record time. It was trivial to find the proverbial meaning, since that meaning is the only one conveyed in the Korean-English dictionary. What takes time is sorting out the individual syllables – and you don’t get to lean on Korean syntax in sorting it out, because it’s not really Korean, it’s Chinese, with its rather gnomic and aggressively un-analytical rules.
I wonder sometimes if the South Koreans’ current obsession with English (both as a language of “globalization” to be learned wholesale in schools and academies, as well as a never-ending source for neologisms for their own language) isn’t just a continuation of their two-millenia-long, one-sided love affair with Chinese. They just changed the object of their attention. Regardless, the language seems remarkably open to a certain style of lexical borrowing.
In this light, note, especially, that little Korean particle (이 =- subject marker) inserted into the above proverb. If Chinese is good, then Chinese with some handy disambiguating particles must be better.
Caveat: 도둑이 제발 저린다
도둑이 제발 저린다
thief-SUBJ most-definitely fall-asleep-PRES
The thief most defnitely falls asleep.
“A guilty conscience needs no accuser.” This is to say, the thief gives himself away, maybe. I’m not sure what that means about the thief falling asleep – there is a sort of karmic conception where in people who do bad things suffer health problems – is that what’s going on here?
Grammatically (or rather, lexically), I wonder about 제발. All three Korean-English dictionaries I consulted gave “Please” or a more strong “For god’s sake” as the only possible translation of this term, but my intuition was that it didn’t mean that, here. So I looked in the online Korean-Korean dictionary (the same dictionary, by the way, that I most frequently use the Korean-English part at: daum.net), and found the following additional meaning for 제발: “[반어적인 구문에 쓰여] 어떤 일이 있더라도 반드시.” Roughly, this seems to mean: “[used ironically] surely most definitely.” This kind of ironical “most definitely” seems to be exactly the meaning called for here.
Why are Korean-English dictionaries so bad? I understand that they’re all bad in basically the same way, since they all copy each other. But why was the original one that everyone is copying so bad, and why is there no stepwise incentive to improve the copies?
Incidentally, speaking of bad translation, sometimes after puzzling through the meanings of these proverbs, I will plug them into the googletranslate out of curiosity. The result of putting this one in was exceptionally amusing. Googletranslate gave “Please find my overcoat thief.”
Caveat: ათოვდა ზამთრის ბაღებს
ათოვდა ზამთრის ბაღებს
ათოვდა ზამთრის ბაღებს,
მიჰქონდათ შავი კუბო
და შლიდა ბაირაღებს
თმაგაწეული ქარი.
გზა იყო უდაბური,
უსახო, უპირქუბო.
მიჰქონდათ კიდევ კუბო…
ყორნების საუბარი:
დარეკე! დაუბარე!
ათოვდა ზამთრის ბაღებს.Snow Fell on Winter Gardens
Snow fell on winter gardens,
A black coffin was carried out
And the banners unfurled,
Swept up in the wind.
The path was desolate
Formless and dark.
Another coffin was carried out…
The cry of the raven:
Let the bells toll! Bury them!
Snow fell on winter gardens.
– Galaktion Tabidze (Georgian poet, 1892-1959)
The original poem is in the Georgian Language, written 1916. I actually studied Georgian once, but I can’t even remember the alphabet at the moment – it’s not like I make much effort to keep up on it. So I guess I include the Georgian here, above, just for the sake of completeness and as a linguistic oddity. Thanks to the googletranslate, I can even provide a fairly reliable romanization: at’ovda zamt’ris baghebs at’ovda zamt’ris baghebs, mihk’ondat’ shavi kubo da shlida bairaghebs t’magatseuli k’ari. gza iqo udaburi, usakho, upirk’ubo. mihk’ondat’ kidev kubo… qornebis saubari: dareke! daubare! at’ovda zamt’ris baghebs.
Caveat: We are made of the same wood as our dreams
The other day I was surfing the internet. In and of itself, this is hardly an uncommon experience. More often than not, "surfing the internet" involves a lot of returns to wikipedia, "because that's how I roll." Whatever that means.
The other day, though, was more than just a "surfing the internet" moment. I'm not sure why. It was just one of those times when everything seems to link along to everything else, and it feels like I'm following some kind of [broken link! FIXME] apophenic chain across a universe of memes amd meanings.
Thus it was that, starting with a lake in Patagonia, I ended up researching a quote by Shakespeare, via a Nabokovian interlude with an aging dictator in 1955. Hmm.
I had ended up at the lake in Patagonia because sometimes I hit the "random" button in wikipedia (sometimes in English, sometimes in Spanish, sometimes even in Korean). I try to do this at least once a day – just to keep my brain topped off with irrelevancies.
From that lake in Argentina, I found myself researching the 1920 labor union uprisings in Argentina, which led me, in turn, to Argentinian President Yrigoyen, thence to Union Civica Radical, thence to the Partido Justicialista (Peronist), thence to Perón himself. Then things got weird.
There was a reference to a certain character in the the Perón saga, Nélida Rivas. She was apparently Perón's teenage protogée during his first twilight, before the coup in 1955 that removed him. I say "first twilight" because he subsequently returned to the presidency, as a very old man, in 1973 – only to die promptly.
As I looked into this historical personage – she liked to be called "Nelly" – there were all these little glimmerings on the web, only glimpses, of a strange, May-December, almost Lolitesque something-or-other between the General and his protogée. Following, here are some things I ran across.
Firstly, I found brief references to the affair in the online archives (direct from 1970s era microfiche, I suspect, with nary a human hand involved) of many second-tier North American newspapers of the era (e.g. Ottawa Citizen, Oct. 3, 1955 or Spokane Daily Chronicle, same date). I find it fascinating that these are newspapers Nabokov may have read while, having finished Lolita, the book was being prepared for publication – because there are weird parallels, with a [broken link! FIXME] Garciamarquezesque overlay.
Secondly, I found this quite strange reference, in a book at googlebooks, Los bienes del ex dictador (The possessions of the ex-dictator). I quote at length:
En cuanto a la joven Nélida Haydée Rivas no me fue posible tener contacto directo con
ella, es decir, no tuve ocasión de conocerla personalmente pero siguiendo muy de cerca la
narración verídica de los hechos en mi paso por la comisión interventora, debo expresar
que en oportunidad de interrogar al Sr. Atilio Renzi, me dio una completa versión acerca
de la presencia de la menor en la Residencia Presidencial.
Al describirla, me refirió que se trataba de una niña de diecisiete años de edad que tomó
contacto con el Gral. Perón cuando tenía catorce, como integrante de la UES, no muy
hermosa sino más bien suave y candorosa. Explicó Renzi que poseía un espíritu travieso,
transformándose al poco tiempo en una suerte de "fierecilla indomatable" que llegó a
dominar completemente la residencia presidencial. Todos le temían. [Enfásis mía]
My own translation of the above is:
With respect to the young lady Nélida Haydée Rivas, it wasn't possible for me to get in
direct contact with her, which is to say, I didn't have a chance to get to know her
personally, but following closely is a the true narration of events I heard through the
inventorying commision, as I was able to interview a Mr. Atilio Renzi, who gave me a complete
accounting of the young woman's presence at the Presidential Residence.
He described that she was a girl, 17 years of age, who first met General Perón when she
was 14, as a member of the UES [a youth activity league, a kind of Peronist interpretation
of the Communist Youth Leagues or suchlike]; she wasn't very beautiful but she was gentle and
straightforward. Renzi explained that she had a bit of a mischievous spirit, and after a short time she became a sort of "little wild thing" who ended up completely dominating the presidential residence. Everyone was afraid of her. [Emphasis mine]
Lastly, however, I found the best write-up at a certain blog by someone named (or pseudonymmed) Sergio San Juan here
(in Spanish) – I am unable to decide if that text is a fictional (or fictionalized) bastard-child
of Nabokov and Borges or if it is, in fact, sincere journalism. I'm not sure that
it matters, as it is so very well done. Perhaps someday I will make a translation of that post.
Naturally, that last link sent me to Borges, eventually, who was lecturing (in Spanish) on the topic of nightmares and English literature – as was his wont.
That link also got me curious about the tagline at the top of Sergio San Juan's blog: "Estamos hechos de la misma madera que nuestros sueños." This, he has attributed to William Shakespeare.
Of course, finding a Shakespeare quote in Spanish is not the same as finding one in English – it becomes more difficult to get at the original text. So it took a bit of research, but I finally found it. I noted that the Spanish version contains some additional "meaning" that the English seems to miss, and I was reminded of Nabokov's comment that Shakespeare was better in translation (although obviously he was meaning Pushkin's famous translations).
The literal translation back to English of the tag-line phrase above is, "We are made of the same wood as our dreams." This is delightful – imagistic, metaphoric, what-have-you. The original Shakespeare, although famous and appropriately pentametric, seems wooden (pardon the pun) in comparison: here is the extended quote from The Tempest, Act IV, scene 1.
You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismayed. Be cheerful, sir.
Our revels are now ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. (4.1 146-158)
The two enchained half-lines are: "We are such stuff / As dreams are made on." There's nothing wrong with that, but it seems less striking. Perhaps it is rendered banal by four centuries of familiarity and citation.
En cuanto a la joven Nélida Haydée
Rivas no me fue posible tener contacto directo con
ella, es decir, no tuve ocasión de
conocerla personalmente pero siguiendo muy de cerca la
narración verídica de los hechos en
mi paso por la comisión interventora, debo expresar
que en oportunidad de interrogar al Sr.
Atilio Renzi, me dio una completa versión acerca
de la presencia de la menor en la
Residencia Presidencial.
Al describirla, me refirió que se
trataba de una niña de diecisiete años de edad que tomó
contacto con el Gral. Perón cuando
tenía catorce, como integrante de la UES, no muy
hermosa sino más bien suave y
candorosa. Explicó Renzi que poseía un espíritu travieso,
transformándose al poco tiempo en una
suerte de "fierecilla indomatable" que llegó a
dominar completemente la residencia
presidencial. Todos le temían. [Enfásis mía]
My own translation of the above is:
With respect to the young lady Nélida
Haydée Rivas, it wasn't possible for me to get in
direct contact with her, which is to
say, I didn't have a chance to get to know her
personally, but following closely the
true narration of events I heard through the
inventorying commision, I was able to
interview a Mr. Atilio Renzi, who gave me a complete
accounting of the young woman's
presence at the Presidential Residence.
He described that she was a girl, 17
years of age, who first met General Perón when she
was 14, as a member of the UES [a youth
activity league, a kind of Peronist interpretation
of Communist Youth League or suchlike];
she wasn't very beautiful but she was gentle and
straightforward. Renzi explained that
she had a bit of a mischievous spirit, and after a short time she
became a sort of "little wild thing" who ended up
completely dominating the presidential residence. Everyone was
afraid of her. [Emphasis mine]
Caveat: Τείχη
Τείχη
Χωρίς περίσκεψιν, χωρίς λύπην, χωρίς αιδώ
μεγάλα κ’ υψηλά τριγύρω μου έκτισαν τείχη.
Και κάθομαι και απελπίζομαι τώρα εδώ.
Αλλο δεν σκέπτομαι: τον νουν μου τρώγει αυτή η τύχη·
διότι πράγματα πολλά έξω να κάμω είχον.
Α όταν έκτιζαν τα τείχη πώς να μην προσέξω.
Αλλά δεν άκουσα ποτέ κρότον κτιστών ή ήχον.
Ανεπαισθήτως μ’ έκλεισαν από τον κόσμον έξω.
– Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης (1896)
I only ever studied Demotic Greek (i.e. post-classical, sometimes thought of Biblical). This poem is modern Greek and I didn’t even make an effort to understand it – I can figure out maybe 10% of the vocabulary (mostly function words as opposed to substantive), but at that, it might still be better than my atrocious ability in Korean.
I found the poem with English translation here.
Walls
Without consideration, without pity, without shame
they have built great and high walls around me.
And now I sit here and despair.
I think of nothing else: this fate gnaws at my mind;
for I had many things to do outside.
Ah why did I not pay attention when they were building the walls.
But I never heard any noise or sound of builders.
Imperceptibly they shut me from the outside world.
– Constantine P. Cavafy (1896)
Caveat: 양지가 있으면 음지도 있다
양지가 있으면 음지도 있다
sunny-spot-SUBJ have-IF shady-spot-TOO have
If there’s a sunny spot there’s a shady spot too.
“Every silver lining comes attached to a cloud.” This is the inverse of “Every cloud has a silver lining,” but the meaning ends up being the same. There’s a related proverb that goes,
양지가 음지 되고
sunny-spot-SUBJ shady-spot become-CONJ
음지가 양지 된다
shady-spot-SUBJ sunny-spot become-PRES
Sunny spots become shady spots and shady spots become sunny spots.
I think what I like most is the idea the Korean has special words that mean shady spots and sunny spots. It’s like a language invented by cats.
The picture below shows Bernie-the-Cat finding a sunny spot on the front stoop of my home in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, in 1997.
Bernie-the-Cat was the youngest of three cats that Michelle and I had, first in Minneapolis and later in Philadelphia.
Caveat: Rhopalic
A ‘rhopalic’ sentence is a sentence or a line of poetry in which each
word contains one letter or one syllable more than the previous word, according to Dmitri Borgmann in Language on Vacation. Here is an example given:
"I
do not know where family doctors acquired illegibly perplexing
handwriting; nevertheless, extraordinary pharmaceutical intellectuality,
counterbalancing indecipherability, transcendentalizes
intercommunications’ incomprehensibleness." – attributed to Ramnath Ragunathan
Each word is a letter longer than the preceding. The first word has one letter, the last has 20 letters – and there are 20 words.