Monthly Archives: March 2009
Wordcatcher Tales: Dappokusha/Talbukja
How widespread is the economic downturn across the globe? Well, it’s now affecting many North Koreans, because funds from South Korea that might help them escape their workers’ paradise are not as plentiful as they once were, according to an … Continue reading
Causative Makeovers in New Guinea Oceanic Languages, 3
In contrast to Austronesian languages almost everywhere else, the Oceanic languages on the north coast of the Papua New Guinea mainland show an unusual disinclination to make use of the morphological causative inherited from Proto-Oceanic and Proto-Austronesian. Innovative causatives derived … Continue reading
Filed under language, Papua New Guinea
Wordcatcher Tales: Kara-e/Kōmō-e Mekiki
I came across a few interesting terms, two of them new to me, while browsing through a beautiful and fascinating book: Japan Envisions the West: 16th–19th Century Japanese Art from Kobe City Museum edited by Yukiko Shirahara (Seattle Art Museum, … Continue reading
Filed under art, China, Japan, language, Netherlands, publishing
Kakania or Russia as “Versuchsstation des Weltuntergangs”
From The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West, by Niall Ferguson (Penguin Press, 2006), pp. 13-15: Czechs in particular chafed at their second-class status in Bohemia, and were able to give more forthright political … Continue reading
Wordcatcher Tales: Hamachi vs. Buri, Pāpio vs. Ulua
A delicious plate of hamachi kama (‘yellowtail collar’ [or ‘sickle’]), pictured below, serendipitously led me to discover that hamachi (魬) and buri (鰤) are merely different sizes of the same fish, the Japanese amberjack (Seriola quinqueradiata). Yellowtail is the usual … Continue reading
Causative Makeovers in New Guinea Oceanic Languages, 2
In contrast to Austronesian languages almost everywhere else, the Oceanic languages on the north coast of the Papua New Guinea mainland show an unusual disinclination to make use of the morphological causative inherited from Proto-Oceanic and Proto-Austronesian. Innovative causatives derived … Continue reading
Filed under Fiji, language, Pacific, Papua New Guinea, Polynesia
Causative Makeovers in New Guinea Oceanic Languages, 1
In contrast to Austronesian languages almost everywhere else, the Oceanic languages on the north coast of the Papua New Guinea mainland show an unusual disinclination to make use of the morphological causative inherited from Proto-Oceanic and Proto-Austronesian. Innovative causatives derived … Continue reading
Filed under Fiji, language, Pacific, Papua New Guinea, Polynesia
Mosquitoes to Mars?
A few weeks ago, RIA Novosti reported on a type of mosquito that seems preadapted to the possibility of suspended animation during long space flights. Cosmonauts who might fly to the Red Planet are learning how to survive in a … Continue reading
Funereal Language Revival in Northern Ghana
The occasion of the 1st International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation seems an appropriate moment to note a recent post by Mark Dingemanse of The Ideophone about an encouraging bit of language revival in Siwu, spoken in the Volta … Continue reading
The Failed Soviet Invasion of Romania, Spring 1944
From Red Storm over the Balkans: The Failed Soviet Invasion of Romania, Spring 1944, by David M. Glantz (U. Press of Kansas, 2007), pp. 372-378 (reviewed here and here): Strategic Implications Every officially sanctioned Soviet and, more recently, Russian history … Continue reading
