Some time ago, I stumbled upon a paper (archived PDF) by Victor Friedman of University of Chicago where he analyzes the textual history of the legend and the linguistic peculiarities of its most popular recension. Now that it's cited on Wikipedia, it's too late for me to brag about the discovery, so just go and read the whole thing. And after you do, you might want to know this: it turns out that the incident was recreated for the 2009 Russian movie "Тарас Бульба". Watching the YouTube clip of the scene in question, you will note that while the imagery is quite faithful to Repin's painting, the language is not what you would expect from a bunch of Ukrainian cossacks. For one, the movie version replaces the Arabic/Turkish loan шайтан by чёрт and omits the reference to Devil's excrements the Sultan's army is allegedly in the habit of consuming ("... чорт сере/викидае, а твое військо пожирае..."). But most importantly, the language is - with some exceptions - quite obviously Modern Russian: Russian такой instead of Ukrainian такий, чёртово [t͡ʃortava] instead of чорта [t͡ʃorta], самого pronounced as [samova] instead of [samoho], ёжа (hedgehog-ACC) instead of їжака and so on. Even though, as Friedman notes, the language of the letter is not exactly pure Ukrainian, but rather a "Late
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
cossacks
Most of you probably know this painting by Ilya Repin and the (most likely apocryphal) story behind it: the Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV wrote a letter to the Zaporozhian Cossacks in which he commanded them to cease and desist any and all attacks on his army and territory and furthermore to submit to his rule. Uncharacteristically, the cossacks responded with a letter of their own. Quite characteristically, the letter is filled with profanities and denigrating comments on the Sultan, his character, combat abilities and personal hygiene and the only thing missing is an obligatory reference to his mother.
Some time ago, I stumbled upon a paper (archived PDF) by Victor Friedman of University of Chicago where he analyzes the textual history of the legend and the linguistic peculiarities of its most popular recension. Now that it's cited on Wikipedia, it's too late for me to brag about the discovery, so just go and read the whole thing. And after you do, you might want to know this: it turns out that the incident was recreated for the 2009 Russian movie "Тарас Бульба". Watching the YouTube clip of the scene in question, you will note that while the imagery is quite faithful to Repin's painting, the language is not what you would expect from a bunch of Ukrainian cossacks. For one, the movie version replaces the Arabic/Turkish loan шайтан by чёрт and omits the reference to Devil's excrements the Sultan's army is allegedly in the habit of consuming ("... чорт сере/викидае, а твое військо пожирае..."). But most importantly, the language is - with some exceptions - quite obviously Modern Russian: Russian такой instead of Ukrainian такий, чёртово [t͡ʃortava] instead of чорта [t͡ʃorta], самого pronounced as [samova] instead of [samoho], ёжа (hedgehog-ACC) instead of їжака and so on. Even though, as Friedman notes, the language of the letter is not exactly pure Ukrainian, but rather a "LateEast South South East Slavic" dialect heavily influenced by Russian, it still somewhat grinds my ears to hear sons of the steppe speak Russian. Ah well, it's still a pretty cool scene.
Some time ago, I stumbled upon a paper (archived PDF) by Victor Friedman of University of Chicago where he analyzes the textual history of the legend and the linguistic peculiarities of its most popular recension. Now that it's cited on Wikipedia, it's too late for me to brag about the discovery, so just go and read the whole thing. And after you do, you might want to know this: it turns out that the incident was recreated for the 2009 Russian movie "Тарас Бульба". Watching the YouTube clip of the scene in question, you will note that while the imagery is quite faithful to Repin's painting, the language is not what you would expect from a bunch of Ukrainian cossacks. For one, the movie version replaces the Arabic/Turkish loan шайтан by чёрт and omits the reference to Devil's excrements the Sultan's army is allegedly in the habit of consuming ("... чорт сере/викидае, а твое військо пожирае..."). But most importantly, the language is - with some exceptions - quite obviously Modern Russian: Russian такой instead of Ukrainian такий, чёртово [t͡ʃortava] instead of чорта [t͡ʃorta], самого pronounced as [samova] instead of [samoho], ёжа (hedgehog-ACC) instead of їжака and so on. Even though, as Friedman notes, the language of the letter is not exactly pure Ukrainian, but rather a "Late
Friday, September 11, 2009
german
On Monday at Steiner's, I picked up a biography of Ján Stanislav, one of the greatest Slovak linguists of the 20th century. When I finally got to reading it earlier today, I stumbled across an anecdote from Stanislav's student years. It perfectly illustrates languagehat's observations on the influence of German learning on Russian intelectual history and shows that's it's not just the Russians who owe German scholars a great deal:
Keď raz študent povedal Milošovi Weingartovi, že nevie dobre po nemecky - dostal nemeckú knihu do referátu - profesor povedal: "Němčina jest najdůležitejší [sic] slovanský jazyk" a boli sme odzbrojení ...
When on one occasion, one of the students told Miloš Weingart that his German wasn't so good - he had just been assigned a book in German - the professor said: "German is the most important Slavic language" and there was no more excuse for us ...
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
glagolitic
(Via SME via TASR) The August 12th edition of Népszabadság reports an incredible find: a shard of pottery (most likely a fragment of a bottle or a jug) with Glagolitic letters was found near Zalavár (aka Blatnohrad). According to Miklós Béla Szöke who is charge of the excavations, the letters iže and onъ (plus a cross) can clearly be read on the shard - but don't take his word for it, see for yourselves (source).
Even considering the history of the place (Pribina's and Koceľ's stronghold, reportedly one of the stops on Cyril and Method's way to Moravia and the site of one of the schools founded by the brothers), I'm filing this one under 'too good to be true.' Watch this space for more.
Even considering the history of the place (Pribina's and Koceľ's stronghold, reportedly one of the stops on Cyril and Method's way to Moravia and the site of one of the schools founded by the brothers), I'm filing this one under 'too good to be true.' Watch this space for more.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Rome
Unless I crumble from all the work dropped on me this morning, I'll be flying to Rome later this afternoon to attend the 2009 SBL International Meeting. I'll be presenting a paper which has very little to do with linguistics, so, um, you know, here it is (UPDATED) and here's the handout (UPDATED), just in case anybody is interested. It's all very beta, so comments are welcome.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
shm-
Damned if I know how, but earlier today, I ended up at the Wikipedia entry dedicated to the shm-reduplication and I was glad to see that it had been expanded considerably since the last time I checked it out. Among other things, the section on origin now cites a paper by Ghil'ad Zuckermann who points out a similar phenomenon in Turkish, the prefix m-, which conveys the meaning of "x and similar things". And that's when it hit me: "ketáb-metáb"! Jiří Osvald's Teheránská hovorová perština (Colloquial Persian of Tehran), one of the thin yet excellent language textbooks published in the 1960s through 1980s by Nový Orient, also briefly mentions this very phenomenon. I'm reproducing the chapter in question in full (note the typically tehruni "nīss" instead of "nīst"):
So there. Any guess as to which was first, Persian or Turkish?
UPDATE: In the comments below, Etienne provides some more examples from Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages (thx m8!). I'll just add two Google books hits, the first of which addresses the Dravidian part and the second one provides an extensive treatment of the shm- reduplication in Yiddish and English and similar echo phenomena in languages from Slavic through Turkic all the way to South Asia. Looks like someone has already written that thesis and it's a pretty cool one.
§ 106 - Ketáb metáb
Opakováním slova se změnou počáteční souhlásky na m se vyjadřuje "něco takového, podobného."
Ketáb metáb nadárín? - Nemáte něco na čtení? (knížku nebo něco takového)
Púl múl mohem níss. - Nejedná se o peníze.
§ 106 - Ketāb metāb
Repeating a word while changing the initial consonant to m expresses the notion of "something like that, something similar."
Ketāb metāb nadārīn? - Wouldn't you happen to have something to read? (a book or something like that)
Pūl mūl mohem nīss. - It's not about money.
So there. Any guess as to which was first, Persian or Turkish?
UPDATE: In the comments below, Etienne provides some more examples from Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages (thx m8!). I'll just add two Google books hits, the first of which addresses the Dravidian part and the second one provides an extensive treatment of the shm- reduplication in Yiddish and English and similar echo phenomena in languages from Slavic through Turkic all the way to South Asia. Looks like someone has already written that thesis and it's a pretty cool one.
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