Faisons le point de ma vie

Je crois avoir découvert une autre langue de l'âme. C'est le persan. Je le considère le français oriental ! Je m'expliquerai plus tard.

Another use of à

J'ai appris un autre usage de la préposition "à". Il s'agit des expressions 'vivre à deux', ou bien 'une vie à deux'. Ne jamais dire "une vie de deux'. Je crois que c'est la même construction que "ménage à trois", que Nina m'a apprise.

Bonne découverte!

J-N-N

I was walking in the street today, listening to Nancy Ajram's Sheel 3oyounak 3anni, and figured out a new word, the root j-n-n. Not sure what the 3sg. past is but it seems to mean 'to drive mad'. She was passionately singing 'bitjaninni, ah ah ah ah, bitjaninni' which, according to the translation I had read, meant 'you're driving me crazy.' And I suddenly realised that it was linked to the epically famous name Mecnun, or Majnun which precisely means 'someone that has been driven mad', the past participle of j-n-n! Bitjaninni, however, can be broken down to bi-t-janin-ni. The prefix bi- is used in the Lebanese/Egyptian colloquial to denote present progressive, t- is the classic 2sg masc. marker.

I was thrilled at this discovery. I love moments like this when you just figure out how a language works without having to laboriously study from a grammar book.

Déclaration

Voilà encore deux mois sans que j'aie écrit quelque chose ici. Oxford is too hardcore. Couldn't really find time.

My linguistic life has basically fallen on two languages: French and Arabic. I'm not going to do language work of other languages for now, and maybe for the following three years. I'm not gonna worry about Italian or Greek until I *really* speak fluent French and Arabic. I already speak them and can use them whenever I need to. Greek, however, I'm planning on taking it up again at the earliest in my fourth year of university, and I should do a course in Greece.

I'm really glad to have decided to concentrate now. My life will be much easier.

Oriental Institute

Yes, I can do Arabic at the Oriental Institute and I'll have one lesson every day, doing it with students of Oriental Studies. It's £9/h and it has to be paid by the college. I can't do it this term now because 1. my Greek lessons at the Language Centre are paid for by the college; I doubt they'll pay for the Arabic course; 2. the students must have learnt a lot by now it'll be embarassing to get in knowing nothing. So I'm thinking of doing it in Year 2. I hope I can persuade the college because the tuition fee is quite dear. God told me Arabic is the right thing to do and if I deserve the course at the Oriental Institute, I will get in. :-)

French translation class HT Week 1

I'm going to put up notes to my weekly French translation homework here this year. I was gutted after the first translation class of Hillary Term, in which it was announced that I didn't get the prize for collections and my translation work, although 62, contained some embarassing mistakes and malapropisms. Farha got the most obscure vocabulary items that popped up in the mini revision test Jane gave us before class today. I must say my results were appalling. Lucky we were not marked. I should take French seriously now and putting notes up here will help me with my translation.

Ivor Winters met me...: my translation was rencontra, but apparently it implies that the person met me for the first time. What the English is really trying to say here is alla me chercher.

railway depot: I didn't know what it meant. It's gare ferroviaire. The French is clearer.

in early September/of late summer: I left the early out and translated 'late' into an awkward en déclin. Should be vers le début de septembre or au début de septembre and de fin d'été.

He took me to the room he had obtained for me...: my version was il m'amena, but a better one would be il me dirigea, because amener sounds literally physical.

a dinner he would make himself: tout seul vs. lui même (Farha's version)

young son: jeune fils. I don't know how the heck I translated it into petit fils. That didn't even sound like 'grandson' to me.. ><

I had been crossing the country... : was badly translated by me into Je vins de traverser le pais sans cesse. First, it should have been je venais de. But that wouldn't be right to use here either. Jane gave je traversais le pais depuis... So good! I should get used to the depuis + simple tenses instead of perfects. It's more French.

creative writing: création littéraire. I thought it would be écriture d'invention, which I saw on Profil study aids and was quite should would be right. But apparently, as a university course, 'creative writing' should be création littéraire. Écriture d'invention sounds too... juvenile. It's about writing stories.

... be working directly under Winters: sous la direction de. Directement sous sounds too hierarchical. If sous la direction de is used 'directement' can be omitted.

ramshackle car: voiture déglinguée (Alex's version), voiture délabrée (my version).

burned down to a gold: English. It meant to say the house is dried by the sun, not burnt by fire. The metaphore of burning can be kept in the French: brûlé en or. I really should learn to know how to use 'en' in the sense of 'become', and 'as'!! I translated 'a gold' to une pièce d'or which means a gold coin. So stupid.

he made me comfortable: il me mit à l'aise. Confortable is too literal to be correct.

the heat comes at you harder: as for the 'comes at', atteint is probably the best word. Farha remembered Camille's tapper from last term which would sound good as well. As for 'hard', I rendered it into a nice 'accablant' and changed the sentence a little but apparently you can just say fort.

half-orchard: moitié verger or être à moitié verger. The difference between démi (which I used) and moitié is that démi is mathematical measurement, whereas moitié is more abstract. Démi verger would literally be half a orchard, and the other half is set for other purposes.

giving me a drink... : m'offrant quelque chose à boire. Stop using donner!

chattering into vacancy: causer dans le vide. I used causer vainement because I didn't quite get the English.

On the 'why'

I've long been convinced that the reason why some people learn languages other than their own, is that they have lost identities to recover. Sadly we did not choose our race and birthplace, so for some of us, learning a different language draws you closer, linguistically and then even physically, to the culture you'd love to become part of. Everyone has a handful of languages that chime most sweetly in their heart; often, when your heart is enchanted by the sound of language, when you think its cadence has the most beautiful resonance, so beautiful that it seems it's about to move you to tears, then you know that's the language of yours that you were born without. Learning it is a process of completing your identity.

For me, they are French, Arabic, Greek and Italian.

New life!!

Right, I haven't put anything here for nearly a year and am rather shamed of this. I've been a legal Oxford linguist for four months now and have learnt a lot. This blog, which was intended to record my life as a growing linguist, must be revived.

I'm thinking of putting myself up for the Oxford Linguistics Society elections. The Society has been inert for quite a while, I have heard, and the linguists are thinking of re-establish it. I had a crazy thought of becoming the president, but am not sure if I'm good enough. I've never done anything like this before.

Also, painful choice was made between Arabic and Greek and as 2009 is a new chapter in my life, Arabic as a new language/my ancestral language should mark this significant start. I'm too much of a supporter of the Critical Period Hypothesis to forsake my young adulthood as my last chance of learning a completely new language. I should have learnt Arabic when I was younger. I should have learnt Arabic instead of Korean. But then again the benefit of Korean is my instinct for agglutinative languages such as Turkish which I'm going to learn some time in the future.

I almost see learning Arabic as home-coming. Arabic is coming back to me; or better, I'm coming back to Arabic.

Çok güzel!

First time I had ever heard Turkish spoken live! Today I was walking in George St. when I snatched a bit of alien-sounding conversation. A few seconds later I realised it was Turkish when I heard '-yorum' and 'benim' amongst a jungle of syllables with harmonised vowels. I was made ecstatic by this discovery and turned around to find two Turkish guys talking enthusiastically. At the lights I had a chance to listen to them closely because they stopped immediately after me and were talking rather loud. I could discern some words and suffixes. The people around were staring at them because Turkish is not a language you hear everyday in Sydney. Contrary to my preconceptions, it sounded really cute and nice, and moreover, it was to my ears a mixture of Korean and Japanese, especially the intonation. Maybe it is true that these three languages are related.

There Arabic '3'

After one whole day of straining my throat muscles, je suis enfin arrivé à prononcer le '3' en arabe. It is a funny feeling in the throat, I must admit. Mais il a certainement vallu la peine, even if I might have puzzled many a passer-by by my seemingly involuntary gaggings. Now I really enjoy doing it, although I still need the help of the 'H' in 'habibi' to initiate the muscle position. I'm almost there.

Marcel says it's his favourite sound. My favourite sound, however, is the 'H' in 'habibi' or the '7' as some people prefer to call it. It's so passionate, powerful and masculine.

Arabic is a great language and I believe I have all the genes for learning it well.

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J'ai appris aujourd'hui quelque chose de nouveau sur la langue française. Mais ça n'a pas dû être nouveau... C'est quelque chose de fondamental que j'avais si longtemps ignoré. Sacré français!

C'est la règle qui défend à un adverbe de se mettre après le participe passé aux temps composés. Selon M. Geldreich (notre prof de français), il est impossible de dire 'J'ai trouvé enfin', mais 'J'ai enfin trouvé' marche très bien.

Άσκηση Αρχαίων Ελληνικών I

Ancient-Modern word list of today:

κελεύω - παραγέλλω
πέμπω - στλένω μακρά, αποστέλλω
κωλύω - εμποδίζω, σταματώ (the modern word εμποδίζω is funny because it etymologically perfectly corresponds to the English word 'impede' which is exactly what it means. εμ- + ποδί.)
φιλώ <- φιλέω - αγαπάω (in Modern Greek φιλάω means 'I kiss'. I love the Ancient meaning and all the words derived from it, especially φίλος, friend. As the word says, a friend of yours is someone you love. There is always a fine line between friendship and romantic love.)
δηλώ <- δηλοώ - κάνω γνωστό, δείχνω
βασιλεύω - βασιλεύω, επικρατώ
βουλεύω - σχεδιάζω, αποφασίζω
δακρύω - δακρύζω, κλαίω
θύω - θυσιάζω
λέγω - λέγω, λέω
σείω - σείω, κινώ, κουνώ
ικετεύω - ικετεύω
λύω - λύνω
μνημονεύω - θυμάμαι, μνημονεύω (cite, εκκλ. remember)
φονεύω - σκοτώνω (in Modern Greek φονεύω carries the meaning of 'to murder')
ου - δεν
πού - πού
πώς - πώς
τίς - ποίος, ποίη
τί - τί, γιατί
τίνα - ποίον

Άστκησης μετάφρασης

λύειν. κελεύσειν. Τίς χορεύει; Τί θύουσιν; Λύσομεν. Ικετεύετον εμέ χορεύειν. Ου μνημονεύσουσιν. Ου βασιλεύσεις. Δακρύσετε. Τί κελεύετε; Τίνα φονεύσουσιν; Ου παιδεύσουσιν σε βασιλεύειν. Τί βουλεύεις; Πού χορεύσεις; Τίνα ικετεύσομεν; Πώς κωλύει σε;

Η ελληνική γλώσσα η γλυκιά μου

Τελικά έφτασε το βιβλίο Assimil!... Μα... δεν είναι ένα βιβλίο, αλλά τα CD του βιβλίου που πρέπει να χρησιμοποιώ (και εγώ αγαπάω αυτή την λέξη!!). Ο Francesco μου έχει δώσει το ηλεκτρονικό βιβλίο και δεν θα το αγοράσω - είναι ακριβό!

I also borrowed a Classical Greek grammar and a Ancient-Modern dictionary from the library. I've decided to spend the coming four years learning Greek, both Modern and Classical, and become an amateur Hellenist at the age of 25. Greek is a serious subject now when I try to study Modern and Classical at the same time. A great way to do this would be to translate Classical texts into Modern Greek. I hope I can handle this. No hurry. Petit à petit, l'oiseau fait son nid! I will post my translation exercises on this blog.

La ferveur

J'ai enfin empreinté à la bibliothèque deux livres sur la langue française. J'en ai empreinté beaucoup sur d'autres langues que j'ai décidé d'apprendre en quelques bonnes heures de ferveur, comme la langue ottomane. Oui c'est vrai que je vais l'apprendre mais dire que je le veux maintenant même c'est comme mentir. Il faut concentrer sur ce que je possède maintenant et achever une finition, une perfection surtout de la langue française que j'aime tant et que je traîte de ma propre langue littéraire. J'ai trop erré et il me faut avoir une ferveur pour le français. Il doit devenir ma propre vie, mon propre sang, mon esprit et mon propre être!

Et bien sûr ce retour en fils prodigue ne veut pas dire que je laisse tomber d'autres langues. C'est justement que le français est primordial. Je vais apprendre sérieusement le grec moderne suivi du grec ancien que je considère la langue la plus belle du monde. Aujourd'hui il a surgit en moi aussi un désir ardent d'un retour à l'italien. C'est drôle... quand j'apprenais l'italien il y avait toujours une nostalgie de l'espagnol et maintenant je travaille à la perfection de l'espagnol j'éprouve une forte nostalgie de l'italien. Il n'est pas juste de dire que l'italien est plus civilisé que l'espagnol, bien que ce soit ce que je pense. Mais je sais pas grand-chose de la culture espagnole et donc il ne faut pas de préjugé. L'Espagnole, ça ne doit pas forcément représenter une légèreté culturelle.

Quant aux langues du Moyen-Orient, je songe toujours à les maîtriser. Chaque fois que je vois ou entends de l'arabe je pense toujours à mes ancêtres lointains. Je suis un fils de l'Arabie et maintenant que j'ai tout perdu, je sens un fort regret deferler dans mon coeur que j'aie cédé ma langue à la cruauté de l'histoire rusée. Apprendre l'arabe, ça sera un projet honorable de ma vie. Ça sera un hommage aux souvenirs éthniques sibyllins mais véritables dans mes veines!

Μπορώ να επικοινωνώ στα ελληνικά!

Τελικά! Έχω γραψει σήμερα στο UniLang να τα μέλη αναβιώσουν το φόρουμ των ελληνικών και δεν ήταν πολύ δύσκολο για μένα. Χρησιμοποίησα το λεξικό αλλά νιώθω πως ελληνικά είναι αληθώς μέσα σε μένα. Περιμένω ακόμα όμως το μέθοδο Assimil για να τα μάθω καλά.

Motivé pour un blog uniquement linguistique

You could call me a conventionalist. Yet after viewing so many others I was still inspired to create a personal blog dedicated solely to linguistic issues. Here you won't read about my life (or... not that much of it). Instead, I'm sharing my craziest thoughts and subjective views on linguistics and languages. If you find I'm a person worth talking to, add me on msn I'd be happy to have a chat with anyone.

Warning: this blog will be quite multilingual but I mainly write in English and French, occasionally in other languages depending on my mood.

This is enough for a start.