-
The Sound of Ancient Languages
Have you ever wondered how Middle Egyptian, Hittite, Ancient Chinese, Gothic or Proto-Indo-European might have sounded like?
Wonder no more and enjoy:(Untitled)
Today I learned a folk saying from Padua I liked very much, here it is in the original:
L'oca del Bepi la traversa 'l canal par 'ndar a casa a bevare.
meaning: " Joe's goose crosses the ditch to get home to drink".
In my parents' dialect (near the border from Verona to Mantua) it would be:
L'oca del Bepi la traersa el canal par nar a casa a ( Read more... )Fascinating
...as one of my favorite characters would say.
Among the people and groups I follow on Twitter there is Medievalists.net (a wonderful resource on its own account), through them I discovered Unbound and a very special book.
Unbound is a British Kickstarter-like site, for books only, and the project Medievalists.net posted about is The Wake by Paul ( Read more... )(Untitled)
Today my mother and I started the family's batch of sourdough.
Up to now our home-baked bread was made using brewer's yeast, that's the most common and,possibly, easier way over here. Given the shared passion for baking we decided it was high time to try the oldest method and start what we both hope will become a family heirloom (seriously, there ( Read more... )(Untitled)
I'll never understand why some US publishing houses feel the need to 'translate' British books into American English: just yesterday I bought Whispers Under Ground, the third book in Ben Aaronovitch 'Peter Grant' series, I found that 2 different editions were available in my country, the British one and thre American one, I sampled both to try to ( Read more... )The Silk Road Allies Are Here
As you may know, a few prompts bouncing back and forth between thesilentpoet , ysabetwordsmith and myself started a conversation that originated the Silk Road Allies alternate history project. The project now has a community on Live Journal for discussions, sharing of resources, communal world-building and posting of 'in setting' material (including a couple of new poems of ( Read more... )Dead Language to Whom?
A few days ago I bought an e-book I had been eyeing for a long time, an anthology of international speculative fiction. As soon as it downloaded I settled down with my Kindle and dove in with a will... only to be completely turned off half-way through the first page of the introduction (yes, I have the habit of actually reading the introductions to ( Read more... )Let 1000 Cranes Fly
Today I had my last encounter with students taking part in my 'Mille Gru' (senbatsuru) school activity.
The thing is split in two two-hour 'labs', as we call them. In the first I introduce the life of Sasaki Sadako and a bit of origami history, then teach them how to fold origami cranes, with the aim to send a senbatsuru (a garland composed of 1000 ( Read more... )The Shadow of the Lion
Is a very interesting fantasy/alternate history novel by a three-writer team, Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint and Dave Freer.
I'm often wary of collaborations, but in this case as I was reading I kept forgetting that the book has more than one author, no mean feat, in my opinion.
I picked The Shadow of the Lion from the Baen Free Library, I was intrigued ( Read more... )Mulan Again
But this time the whole ballad...
木 兰 辞
Mulan ci
唧唧复唧唧，木兰当户织。
Jiji fu jiji, Mulan dang hu zhi.
不闻机杼声，唯闻女叹息。
Bu wen jizhu sheng, wei wen nü danxi.
问女何所思？问女何所忆？
Wen nü he suo si? Wen nü he suo yi?
女亦无所思，女亦无所忆。
Nü yi wu suo si, Nü yi wu suo yi.
昨夜见军帖，可汗大点兵，
Zuoye jian juntie, kehan da dian bin,
军书十二卷，卷卷有爷名。
Jun shu shier juan, juan juan you ye ming.
阿爷无大儿，木兰无长兄，
Ah ( Read more... )