Boxed-Up Kanji
四 囚 回 因 団
four; imprisonment; counter for occurences; cause; group
図 囲 困 囮 国
map; surround; quandary; decoy; country
固 囹 圏 團 圓
harden; prison; sphere; association; circle / yen
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teach yourself: [scottish-]Gaelic (1993, 2003) including a cassette with dialogues.
Learning Irish (2012) including a CD
Indo-European Language and Culture (Fortson)
Introduction to Linguistics (Campbell)
Indo-European Poetry and Myth (West)
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I like how the character says “You know the thing we use like cowry shells, like a currency, but it’s round. And it’s easier to draw if I make it square.”
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Usually yen is written as 円, which means round. 丸 also means round, but isn’t used for currency.
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Here’s something we could try: kanji shiritori, where the transferable component is the radical.
What would you think of that?
Or you could do it by reading: choose a different kanji that shares a reading, e.g.
碁 (ご)→(ご) 五 (いつ)→(いつ) 斎 (とき)→(とき) 時
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Expand that to European languages where you take words that share a meaning:
Psychology (word) - Wörterbuch (book) - Library … okay, that gets really complicated.
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Right, time for that Pliny.
So… we have a very long sentence.
Alexandro Magno = Alexander the Great. He’s in the dative for some reason.
inflammato is a participle meaning “having been set alight”. So we are discussing his cremation?
rege? It could be the 2p. sg. pre. act. imp. of “reign”. Or it could be the abl. sg. of king. Neither make sense here.
So far, confused.
cupidine seems to be the abl. sg. of cupidus (“eager, passionate, greedy”). So this applies to rege as rege cupidine, “the passionate king”?
animalium is the gen. pl. of animal
naturas is the plural of naturus “about to be born / grow”. But it’s feminine, so it can’t apply to animalium, which is neuter.
noscendi is the plural of noscendus “which is to to be recognised”. No idea where this fits in.
delegataque is some inflection of “delegated”…
commentatione is the abl. sg. of commentatio “studying”
So we have… something about the birth of Alexander’s passion for animals and delegating his time to study Aristotle?
Looks like I have to spend more time on this. It really is different to read an inflected language, in which you have to “search for words and clues”.
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Yeah, the first part is tricky. The base units are:
Alexander magnus rex: King Alexander the Great
inflammatus: inflammare, -o, -avi, -atum: to set fire on sth; passive: to burn
cupido, -inis f.: desire
noscendi gerundium of noscere: to learn, to know.
We can also do some Caesar, if you prefer, or Cicero. Cicero’s sentences are long, but transparent, if you know what you’re doing.
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What about Martial? He certainly didn’t write in long sentences.
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Martial is great fun and probably a good entry for poetry.
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Alright then, daily Martial it is.
Perhaps @Vsotvep would like to provide a few daily Japanese haiku to go along with it, and we could put them together in a wikipost.
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Here is the first batch of Martial epigrams. No time limit.
I, IX.
Bellus homo et magnus vis idem, Cotta, videri:
Sed qui bellus homo est, Cotta, pusillus homo est.
I, XVI.
Sunt bona, sunt quaedam mediocria, sunt mala plura
Quae legis hic: aliter non fit, Avite, liber.
I, XXVIII
Hesterno fetere mero qui credit Acerram,
Fallitur: in lucem semper Acerra bibit.
I, XXX.
Chirurgus fuerat, nunc est vispillo Diaulus.
Coepit quo poterat clinicus esse modo.
I, XXXII
Nōn amō tē, Sabidī, nec possum dīcere quārē:
Hoc tantum possum dīcere, nōn amō tē.
I also prepared some haiku by Matsuo Basho.
一.
行春や
鳥啼き魚の
目は泪
二.
古池や
蛙飛び込む
水の音
三.
物いへば
唇寒し
秋の風
四. (this is one of my favourite haiku, perhaps because it’s not so “gentle and softly peaceful”)
旅に病んで
夢は枯野を
かけ廻る
五. (this one is pretty famous in Japan)
五月雨を
あつめてはやし
最上川
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I’m working on learning Japanese, and leaving Esperanto and Lojban on the backburner.
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My man :3
Ever thought about Volapuk? I think that would be the second conlang on my learnlist after Valyrian.
A charming young student of Grük
Once tried to acquire Volapük
But it sounded so bad
That her friends called her mad,
And she quit it in less than a wük.
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Time for a bit of vague linguistic tomfoolery.
Radical Spotlight: 山 (mountain)
Like many simply-drawn kanji, 山 is a pictogram. I think it’s fairly obvious.
出 (to exit / leave). This is an interesting kanji etymologically. Originally it was an ideogram of a foot and a cave, suggesting leaving a cavern. Later it was reinterpreted as a plant growing out of the ground. Finally, it assumed this double-mountain form.
仙. This means cent and is a Joyo kanji, but apparently the word is usually spelt in kana. Its original and now perhaps secondary meaning was hermit or wizard; it seems to have become cent by rebus (phonetic loan). There is some debate of whether this kanji was made as an ideogram (man + mountain, ie. mountain man) or as a phonosemantic compound.
辿 (to follow). The etymology looks like an ideogram (mountain path), but that could be an illusion.
This radical is used for a few hyogaiji actually to do with mountains, eg. 岶 (dense mountain vegetation) and 圸 (steep mountain slope).
疝 (stomach ache, hyogaiji). Here, 山 was the phonetic element.
岩 (boulder) / cliff. This is a simple ideogram (mountain + rock). At some stage it displaced an elaborate phono-semantic compound 巖, which is now a jinmeiyo kanji with an altered meaning.
The mountain radical is used in the fabulous patchwork hyogaiji 糶, meaning auction.
One of my favourite kanji is 島 (island), which uses the bird radical. It’d be nice to think that it was an ideogram, but in reality it seems to be a phonosemantic compound. It has a hyogaiji variant 嶋.
崩 (crumble, die, demolish).
嵐 (storm)
閊 (to be obstructed)
After working on this, I was inspired to come up with a list of some of the most complex kanji.
鑰 25 – lock. 金 + 龠
鬣 25 – mane. 髟 + 巤
鼈 25 – soft-shelled turtle. 敝 + 黽
黶 26 – mole / scar. 厭 + 黑
黷 27 – make dirty. 𧶠 + 黑
黌 25 – school.
鬮 26 – lottery. 鬥 + 龜
驪 29 – black horse. 馬 + 麗
鹽 25 – salt. 監 + 鹵
鸛 28 – stork. 雚 + 鳥
鸚 28 – parrot. 嬰 + 鳥
鱶 26 – shark. 魚 + 養
鱸 27 – sea bass. 魚 + 盧
In Latin, we’re going to do a Spotlight on Per-Verbs.
Wiktionary describes the per- prefix as having the function:
- Used to make adjectives or verbs that are “very” something.
- Used to form verbs that are intensive or completive, conveying the idea of doing something all the way through or entirely.
There are a great many per- verbs, of which these are only a small selection. Sometimes it seems like the distinction between a per- verb and its root is unclear, eg. between perfluo and fluo. Perhaps it is just a matter of emphasis.
peragro I wander
perbachor I revel throughout
percido I smash / cut to pieces
perdo I destroy / squander
pereo I vanish
perficio I complete
pergaudeo I rejoice greatly
perhibeo I hold out
perluceo I shine through
permaneo I stay to the end
pernego I refuse entirely
peroleo I emit a penetrating odour
perpello I strike or push violently
perquiro I enquire diligently
perrepto I crawl / creep through
persedeo I remain seated
pertendo I persevere
pervenio I arrive
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Commentary and translation
vis is 2.sg. of volo ‘I want’.
I don’t really get the joke here, so I made it into a pun. bellus has maybe the connotation of something wittwe and smaww and cute, I don’t know.
You want to seem a handsome and great man, Cotta;
But whoever is a “hand”-some man, is a thumbling, Cotta.
Translation
Some are good, a good amount are mediocre, most are bad,
of what you’re reading her. Otherwise, Avitus, it won’t make a book.
Translation
Whoever believes that Acerra smells of last night’s wine
errs! Acerra always drinks in plain daylight.
Translation
The joke here is that a clinicus is a nurse as well as a professional mourner at a wake.
Diaulus used to be a surgeon, now he’s a corpse bearer.
He started to work at the bed wherever he could.
Translation
I don’t like you, Sibidius, but can’t say why.
This, however, I can say: I don’t like you.
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Martial translations (WIP)
Vocabulary (Epigram 1)
| Word | Class | Pattern | Inflection | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| bellus | adjective | nom. m. sg. | beautiful / handsome / charming | |
| homó | noun | dec. 3 m. | nom. sg. | person |
| et | and | |||
| magnus | adjective | nom. m. sg. | large / great / important | |
| vís | noun | dec. 3 f. (ir.) | nom. / voc. sg. | force / strength / violence |
| ídem | [the same] | |||
| Cotta | noun | dec. 1 m. | nom. / abl. / voc. sg. | [cognomen] |
| vidérí | verb | con. 2 | pr. pas. inf. | see |
| sed | but | |||
| quí | pronoun | m. sg. / pl. | who / that | |
| est | is | |||
| pusillus | adjective | nom. m. sg. | very small / insignificant |
Translation
This is a joke about the size of Cotta’s genitals.
We have two readings, connected by double-entendre in two different words.
Cotta is known as a handsome and powerful (large) man; although he is indeed handsome, he is actually insignificant (very small.)
So we have to find an inventive way of translating the joke.
Cotta is the greatest of the elite and the handsomest member, but his own handsome member is the smallest.
Vocabulary (Epigram 2)
| Word | Class | Inflection | Pattern | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sunt | are | |||
| bona | adjective | n.v. fm. sg.; n.a.v. neu. pl. | good | |
| quaedam | various | someone | ||
| mediocria | adjective | n.a.v. neu. pl | medium / ordinary | |
| mala | adjective | n.v. fem. sg.; n.a.v. neu. pl. | bad | |
| plúra | adjective | n.a.v. neu. pl. | more | |
| quae | various | [relative pronoun] | ||
| legis | verb | 2p. sg. pr. act. inf. | choose / select | |
| hic | n. mas. sg. | this | ||
| aliter | adverb | otherwise / badly | ||
| nón | not | |||
| fit | verb | 3p. sg. pr. act. ind. | do | |
| Avite | [probably a name in the vocative] | |||
| líber | adjective | n.v. mas. sg. | free |
Translation
Some people are good, some are ordinary, and some are wicked;
You are not free to choose this, Avitus.
This is the best I could come up with without closer study, but it doesn’t make any sense to me.
Perhaps there is a pun or something.
Edit: turns out I misinterpreted legis.
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