Today, after far too long on hiatus, we have another MM!  Hey, LJ is one of the few outlets I have for language musings ( Read more... )

This is a fairly quick post, but I wanted it up here because a) I find it interesting, and b) it fits the criteria here! I, upon doing research on old printed materials and woodblock prints, and I stumbled into the Tripitaka Koraena, a huge collection of sutras in South Korea. The blocks were first carved in the 1000s and then once again in the ( Read more... )

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Yay another late one! At least I still post these, right?

There's a neat article on a Taiwan-Mainland China cooperative Chinese language dictionary in the works, as a gap has grown between Mandarin in both countries. I wasn't aware of this -- even if I more thoroughly studied Mandarin I think, as a student, I would just assume my lack of ( Read more... )

Adapted from the Russian jokes page on WikipediaA new Chinese ambassador is to meet Gromyko. When the latter enters, the Chinese ambassador puts his hand out and introduces itself: "瑞徽 (Ruì Huī)!" Gromyko, unperturbed, retorts "Жуй сам! (Zhui sam)!" The surprised Chinese asks: "Ah, nice to meet you; where can I find Gromyko ( Read more... )

So Carl and I went to a Chinese buffet over the weekend where they had multiple decorations for Chinese New Year. I see one cartoon rabbit holding the character 福, "fortune" or "good luck". Even if you don't read any Chinese (or Japanese) at all, you've seen this character repeatedly on lamps, in restaurants, on freaky plastic cats with paws that ( Read more... )

Because it's the start of Eurovision season, I am often found on the weekend watching webcasts of various countries' selections live via the internet -- even if I can't understand it! This week I was watching a webcast from Iceland and realised how little Icelandic I understand! Though it is related to other Scandanavian languages, several ( Read more... )

Yay, super late MMs ( Read more... )

It's a famous phrase -- "Et tu, Brute?" -- and it also illustrates today's topic: the vocative. The vocative is a case which means that a person is being directly addressed; in the aforementioned case Brute is the vocative of Brutus. The vocative can be found in English, especially older English -- see the title of the movie O Brother, Where Art ( Read more... )

Demonstrating that I'm a complete glutton for punishment, I've been volunteering -- albeit in small amounts -- to the Cherokee translation of Facebook, or as it's been "Cherokized", ᏞᏏᏋᎩ, hlesigwvgi. Many of the things that need translated are simple words or phrases for the interface -- "Profile," "Update", "Friends", etc ( Read more... )