"A new study, conducted by Lara J. Pierce, Jen-Kai Chen, Audrey Delcenserie, Fred Genesee & Denise Klein of McGill University and reported in Nature Communications, suggests that one’s first language is never lost completely, even when a person completely shifts to a different language early in life. Traces of one’s mother tongue lurk somewhere in the brain, affecting how one perceives sounds of one’s dominant language."
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maitani
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Frankly speaking, my notions of neural processes underlying our language are absolutely inadequate, so I don't feel qualified to form a judgment on this subject.
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maitani
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"شب چله/شب یلدا Shab-e Yalda/Shab-e Chelleh, the ancient Persian celebration of the longest night, dates back thousands of years ago to the birth of میترا Mithra the god of light who was born on the eve of yalda (winter solstice). After the longest night of the year the days will gradually become longer symbolizing the victory of light over darkness. The word یلدا yalda means birth in سریانی Syriac language and for Iranians, the eve of yalda is a time for joyful celebration filled with poetry, music, and delicious food. For me, celebrating the Iranian festival of light is a meaningful جشن jashn (festivity) perhaps because it was always celebrated in our home growing up in Iran. The night of yalda is a time to reflect and appreciate how our ancestors kept this tradition alive for several millennia. Looking at our history, I can only imagine how many of those shab-e yalda gatherings took place amid uncertainties, unrest, battles and frightening dark times. However, they did not succumb to the madness of their times and held on to the belief that light will prevail over darkness. It inspires us to light the candles on this night, serve the traditional winter fruits, nuts and sweets, read poetry, share happy memories and pass on the tradition to future generations."
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maitani
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"In English, word repetition is a syntactic phenomenon; in Malay, it is used as a word-formation mechanism. Note, by the way, that many Malay nouns obligatorily consist of a double occurrence of the same sequence and have no simplex counterpart, e.g. biri-biri ‘sheep’ (singular and plural), while others change their meaning if doubled (mata ‘eye’ : mata-mata ‘spy, detective, police officer’). Root-doubling can also be used with adjectives to indicate intensity (her wild, wild eyes could serve as an English analogue), and with verbs to indicate repetitive or prolonged action. In those cases the doubling is definitely iconic. But duplicated verbs may also refer to a sloppy or leisurely execution of an action, e.g. makan ‘eat’ : makan-makan ‘peck at the food’ (showing lack of interest or appetite). Here the iconicity is less self-evident."
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maitani
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"I wanted to see for myself how life near the Syrian border was really lived, given all the uncertainty. Little did I know that less than a week later, Paris would be locked down due to terrorist attacks, Turkey would blow a Russian jet out of the sky, and this part of the world would erupt into an international war zone, the intensity of which has not been seen since the Iraq War. Gaziantep, where we were headed, is the closest big city to Raqqa, being less than 120 miles northwest of the de facto capital of Islamic State’s dreaded, self-declared caliphate."
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maitani
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"In this post I will hazard a prediction of results which are going to come out of remains from Indus valley sites in South Asia, which will confirm that there were two major demographic pulses which entered the subcontinent from the Northwest over the past 10,000 year."
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maitani
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yups, this is just predictions (which may or may not prove true), the hard facts (which are yet to come, as well) are from The Guardian :)
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Haukr
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"Archaeologists hope DNA from four skeletons will shed light on bronze age settlement as locals see chance to develop more than just site’s ancient heritage."
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maitani
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and of course, while I do love the Rig Veda, you cannot reasonably pretend it's "reliable as an historical record"
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Haukr
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"Many thanks to all of you who voted to help us choose our 2016 calendar; we are pleased to present you with the winner – the Bedford Hours. The Bedford Hours is a particularly apt choice for the beginning of the year, as it was originally intended as a Christmas gift; on 24 December 1430, the manuscript now known as Add MS 18850 was presented to the newly-crowned king of England, the 8-year-old Henry VI, by his aunt, Anne of Burgundy, the duchess of Bedford."
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"Thus, it is clear that the great wave of genomic change which swept from above the Black Sea into Europe around 3000 BC washed all of the way to the northeast shore of its most westerly island. At present, the Beaker culture is the most probable archaeological vector of this Steppe ancestry into Ireland from the continent, although further sampling from Beaker burials across western Europe will be necessary to confirm this. The extent of this change, which we estimate at roughly a third of Irish Bronze Age ancestry, opens the possibility of accompanying language change, perhaps the first introduction of Indo-European language ancestral to Irish. This assertion gains some support by the relative lack of affinity of non-Indo-European speakers, Basques, to the ancient Bronze Age genomes."
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maitani
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"After researching some alternatives, I'm trying to get "treasure language" adopted as a way of talking about disappearing or threatened or dying languages. I'm creating a new kind of storytelling event that brings immigrant/diaspora and indigenous communities together."
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I don't like admitting it but my language is all but dead, Turkish mainland language has dominated and taken over Turkish Cypriot language.
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Halil
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"In the Joux Valley, in the west of Switzerland, the traditional craft of watchmaking is flourishing. It's not just leading companies that have workshops in the Jura Mountains but also highly skilled, independent craftsmen, as John Laurenson discovers."
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maitani
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""We are at about 1,000m high," says Dufour. "In winter, it was closed because of the snow and people were stuck in that valley. And what did they have to do - milk one or two cows? In winter there is nothing else to do! So little by little they got organised. In nearly every farm you had a workshop and everybody used to work - the kids, the grandparents.""
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maitani
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"The Just So Stories began as bedtime stories told to ‘Effie’; when the first three were published in a children’s magazine, a year before her death, Kipling explained:
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maitani
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. . . in the evening there were stories meant to put Effie to sleep, and you were not allowed to alter those by one single little word. They had to be told just so; or Effie would wake up and put back the missing sentence. So at last they came to be like charms, all three of them,—the whale tale, the camel tale, and the rhinoceros tale."
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maitani
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"Bibliographia Iranica is a collective effort, continuing the work that Arash Zeini started at his blog over at www.arashzeini.com. This new website and connected social media share and distribute information on recent publications and events in Iranian Studies, understanding the field in its broadest sense from antiquity through to late antiquity and the early Islamic era with occasional excursions into neighbouring disciplines, geographies and eras."
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maitani
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"Winter has fully descended in this calendar page for December. Against a snowy landscape, a peasant is kneeling atop a pig that he has just slaughtered, bracing himself for the arduous task ahead. Beside him crouches a woman, holding out a pan to catch the pig's blood. Behind them a distant figure is crossing a bridge over a frozen river, while to the left two women are at work in an open-sided building. The only hint of welcome warmth comes from the fire blazing in the hearth."
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maitani
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Zum "Wort des Jahres" 2015: treffende Analyse der Bedeutung und Verwendung von FLÜCHTLING von Anatol Stefanowitsch (2012). Die Kommentare sind ebenfalls lesenswert.
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maitani
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Trying to translate one of my favorite passages into English: "Alongside the word "Geflüchtete", the use of the English loanword "Refugee(s)" can also be observed. It will likely find even less favor than "Geflüchtete", because of the widespread fear directed at foreign loanwords. But "Refugees" shouldn't be rejected outright. In my opinion, it has a distinct advantage over "Geflüchtete". Both "Flüchtlinge" and "Geflüchtete" foreground the idea of escape, whereas the English word places emphasis on people's quest for a SAFE PLACE."
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maitani
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"I finally figured out a way to test whether you have taught an idea or you have only taught a definition. Test it this way: You say, 'Without using the new word which you have just learned, try to rephrase what you have just learned in your own language. Without using the word "energy," tell me what you know now about the dog's motion.' You cannot. So you learned nothing about science. That may be all right. You may not want to learn something about science right away. You have to learn definitions. But for the very first lesson, is that not possibly destructive?"
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