Lingblr - Tumblr Posts

Oh and another poll! Though, to be honest, it has nothing to do with my previous one, I’m just curious about this. I was talking the other day with a family member about how I can’t really translate some Armenian words into English, or how some Armenian words just didn’t exist at all in English/have an English counterpart. So I started to wonder, how common is this?

If you’d like, talk about it in the reblogs, I love learning cool things about other languages

Help save the Yiddish Translation Fellowship Program

I wanted to ask my followers and fellow language enthusiasts to donate to the Yiddish Book Center so that they can continue to train translators and make Yiddish literature accessible (or at least share this post if possible) 🐐

The International Phonetic Alphabet consonants found in English, with keywords and relevant parts of the mouth highlighted and colour-coded. (Source.) 

Translating Amparo Dávila's "el huesped" into Vaakre: Part 1

first four paragraphs woo! I'm putting the Vaakre first, then the spanish it's translated from for comparison, then notes.

Vai, ank xakahcet alpe wektay par ue-al amer ne taelmek. Ne duae kehf ne atkone vai amer retuef-tarie. 

Egao-wek, ya aurs ne duae suadr arre wek-ponuc-vai, aurs neadr ayasai eee ne va ji-enfiretchne. Par ne duae ne taele eriead vikah tiore, alpe bihlce evtroe vai, xa kahcet dai xa ank tal ne. Egao-wek, ne taelmek vai nijke-ut vai - saúra e yamawa e vai va ahkahrer dai ánk, eee xa kehf xa gaos vai. Ne egao-wek taelmek ae xa dai libire*, e ae xa adurabayo tal aetrester par aeto.

(*so-so-do melody attached)

Dai nuc’yelum par linme, evtroe ue-al par wektay ane. Cikravpre dleram, fahriyn.  Hrap nuc eyrs sltiashr, vikah bayon ee xa hvetsl, evtroe vackuras nokbayo ya csilore - vikah vai e meire. 

Ne vitaele bilhce reasein fahriyn limuygul. Nishmuya egae-wek ue-al amer, palltei ne duae xa vai tal ue-al vai, par vikah puinoh. Dai xa ateirwe airmee; ne esah valiyhauh e pulihrk. “Retuef-al feinehr tauszo” ne duae dai, ci’prav nartatro eee evtroe nuc tal airmee. “Ta esah bilhce ya ne vai, ee ke kaena ta va erhas…” ank ne dai ne duae dai par ue-al xareactui. Ue-al vai ne taelmek.

~~~~

Nunca olvidaré el día en que vino a vivir con nosotros. Mi marido lo trajo al regreso de un Viaje.

Llevábamos entonces cerca de tres años de matrimonio, teníamos dos niños y yo no era feliz. Representaba para mi marido algo así como un mueble, que se acostumbra uno a ver en determinado sitio, pero que no causa la menor impresión. Vivíamos en un pueblo pequeño, incomunicado y distante de la ciudad. Un pueblo casi muerto o a punto de desaparecer.

No pude reprimir un grito de horror, cuando lo vi por primera vez. Era lúgubre, siniestro. Con grandes ojos amarillentos, casi redondos y sin parpadeo, que parecían penetrar a través de las cosas y de las personas.

Mi vida desdichada se convirtió en un infierno. La misma noche de su llegada supliqué a mi marido que no me condenara a la tortura de su compañía. No podía resistirlo; me inspiraba desconfianza y horror. “Es completamente inofensivo” —dijo mi marido mirándome con marcada indiferencia. “Te acostumbrarás a su compañía y, si no lo consigues…” No hubo manera de convencerlo de que se lo llevara. Se quedó en nuestra casa.

~~~

Translation choices:

First off I'm not starting the entire piece with a proper tonesetting, because if I wrote it out we would have a paragraph straight of "vai vai vai vedrai vai vedrai tihas" and nobody wants that. A single vai works in this case.

This is... primarily Balkour vaakre, for no other reason than I prefer writing it, and this is my stress relief translation. As such, ci'prav is used in place of cikravpre, and second-person-pronouns are geography-ized, and a few other things like that.

The guest is a "ue-al" second person for a couple reasons - first off being the... vague sort of communications disconnect between Northern and Eastern Balkour? They aren't fighting but there's a bit of historical separation, so a Northern storyteller might emphasize the distant ominous nature of the guest by using an overly-formal (double-emphasized) Eastern You. [the husband's use of "ta" clues us in that they're Northern Balkour]

duae for the husband instead of a more formal laume, one part because it's a more Balkour term, and one part because we're starting this story with a general... not-fully-hostility to the guy? Bear with me, okay I'm emphasizing the thematic difference between the husband and the stranger at the start by using the more endearing term for the husband at the start of the story, this will change.

Taelmek for the house as opposed to Virechek to emphasize that the house doesn't feel like the speaker's proprietary domain.

what else... the "libire" with so-so-do melody is reference to the Coupatre paier, so it's not saying the town is literally sickly but that it's just slowly fading into unpassable territory.

There's probably more but I can't think of it, so that's all for this installment!

(Obviously I am not doing the google translate "word for word translation" translation)

-Jakxy

Hello, if you are a learner of rare language shows you 👀, searching blog on Dutch and Indonesian learning , can you suggest resources too? 📚 📺 🎧

Introduction to linguistics

Language as medium

Sign languages

Basic facts

Sign languages are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning. They are full-fledged natural languages with their own grammar and lexicon. Sign languages are not universal and not mutually intelligible with each other.

Both spoken and signed communication are types of natural language, since both emerged through an abstract, protracted aging process and evolved over time without meticulous planning. Sign language should not be confused with body language, a type of nonverbal communication.

Although signing is primarily used by deaf and hard-of-hearing people, it is also used by hearing individuals, such as those unable to physically speak, those who have trouble with spoken language due to a disability or condition, or those with deaf family members, such as children of deaf adults.

It is unclear how many sign languages currently exist worldwide. Each country generally has its own native sign language, and some have more than one. There are somewhere between 138 and 300 different types of sign language. Some sign languages have obtained some form of legal recognition, while others have no status at all.

History

5th century BCE - earliest written record of a sign language

16th century CE - first manual alphabet

1620 - first modern treatise of sign language phonetics

1698 - earliest known printed pictures of consonants of the modern two-handed alphabet

1755 - first school for deaf children

1864 - foundation of the only liberal arts university for deaf people in the world

Characteristics

Sings are the equivalent of words, which are made up of three main components:

Handshape: different configurations of fingers that are extended or bent. Most sign languages have about 30 distinct handshapes.

Location: locations on or near the signer’s body (about 10 locations) or in the space around it (based on oppositions of left and right, up or down, and forward or backward).

Movement: the direction that the hands move in. There are six basic directions which are modified in a number of different ways.

Just as words in spoken languages can be described as combinations of a limited number of consonants and vowels, signs in sign languages are combinations of a limited number of handshapes, locations, and movements. Typologically, the grammars of sign languages combine features that are common in spoken languages but which do not usually co-occur. On the one hand, they are largely analytic and depend on sign order. Sign languages are basically SVO, but with some flexibility. On the other hand, they have very rich morphology which is only sometimes applied.

Their morphology is mostly based on two processes. The first one is reduplication, i.e., repeating all or part of a sign. In many sign languages, nouns can be made from verbs by reducing and repeating the movement, so that SIT means “to sit” and SIT-SIT means “chair”.

The other process is internal modification. This means that one component of the sign changes while other parts do not. Some verbs, for example, can show the subject or object through the direction of movement. In other cases, verbs can indicate information about number by changing the handshape.

These two processes can be combined. Adjectives in ASL have up to 12 different aspectual forms made by modifying the speed and manner of movement along with the number of repetitions.

Sign languages are also about a lot more than hands. Non-manual elements such as facial, head, and shoulder movements are an integral part of sign language grammars and mark types of sentences and different parts of sentences like relative clauses.

Classification

Sign languages can be grouped in the following families: French Sign Language family, German Sign Language family, Vietnamese sign languages & some Thai and Lao sign languages, Arab Sign Language family, Indo-Pakistani Sign Language, Chinese Sign Language, Japanese Sign Language family, and BANZSL family.