Been working on Romance languages lately; trying to pin down the right name for the language of the expelled Spanish Jews, which has been called at least all of the following names: español; españolit; español ladino; franco español; romance español; sefardí; sefaradí; leshon sefaradim; lingua sefaradit; judezmo; judio; jidio.

Anyway, while reading up on this I came across the following funny story (translation follows):

Un español residente en Constantinopla había pedido la mano de una joven sefardita, de quien estaba enamorado. El padre de la chica, que era un hombre religioso, se opuso al casamiento por ser el joven católico. Pero la abuela no podía comprender aquello y seguía repitiendo: “¡Pero, cómo ha de ser Jaime cristiano…, si habla español!” Cuando, algunos años más tarde, la muchacha contrajo matrimonio con un “asquenazita”, la abuela estaba indignada. Dar calabazas a un español y casarse con un alemán… ¡Qué vergüenza! Era la deshonra de la familia.

In English:

A Spaniard living in Constantinople had asked for the hand of a Sephardic girl with whom he had fallen in love. The girl’s father, who was a religious man, opposed the wedding because the young man was Catholic. But the grandmother couldn’t understand this and kept repeating: “But how can Jaime be Christian if he speaks Spanish?” A few years later, when the girl married an Ashkenazi man, the grandmother was outraged. To turn down a Spaniard to marry a German… how disgraceful! It brought shame on the whole family.

(Story reprinted in Paloma Díaz-Mas, Los Sefardíes: Historia, Lengua y Cultura)

August 27th, 2010 | Category: linguistics | Leave a comment

Many of the soldiers who fought in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War were Jewish — perhaps more than one in five of the full 35,000 who came from abroad to fight for the republic.

One Yiddish-language company was formed inside a Polish battalion. Called the Botwin Company, it was made up mostly of Polish Jews but also had members from Palestine, Greece and elsewhere. It was named after Naftali Botwin, a Polish communist killed by the state in 1925. Their flag (shown in the terrible photo below) bore the slogan “For Your Freedom And Ours”:

The company’s song, written by Oleg Nuss, was the March of the Botwin Soldiers. My translation of it is below, followed by the Yiddish text in transcription and the original Hebrew letters:

March of the Botwin Soldiers

When the Republic’s battalions go to war
When the earth gets bloody and the dynamite roars
A song goes forth with the fluttering banners:
There go the Botwins to battle with a song.
A song of hope and victory for millions
Who want to live in freedom and justice,
Leading us to the storm of the enemy’s cannons
And sending us boldly to the final fight.
¡No pasarán!

Chorus:

With courage, forwards to the storm and attack
Go we, the Botwiners!
With the International Bridge,
With our people’s army.

We’re united by hate for the brown bandits
Who want to enslave the Spanish land
We want to preserve the red-green fields
With flags of unity and with gun in the band.
And our brother ranks of peoples and races,
Will have no more of slavery and want.
We’ll forge the weapon of the masses:
The popular front for freedom, peace and bread.
¡No pasarán!

(Chorus)

We’ll never let our weapons fall from our hands
As we learned from Botwin, the hero,
Until the future is ours
Until the world flourishes in peace.
And in those new and warless times
Some will still remember our contest
How the Jewish Botwin soldiers
Drove the fascist pest far away.
¡No pasarán!

(Chorus)

marsh der botvin-soldaten

ven s’geyen tsum krig republiks-batalyonen,
ven s’blutikt di erd un es knalt der dinamit,
bagleyt a gezang di tseflaterte fonen:
dos geyen di botwintses tsu der shlakht mit a lid.
a lid fun hofenung un sig fun milyonen,
vos viln lebn in frayhayt un rekht,
vos shikt uns sturmen dem soynes kanonen
un firt uns drayste tsum letstn gefekht.
¡no pasaran!

khor:

mutik, foroys tsum shturm tsum atak
geyen mir, botvinistn!
mit der brigade internatsyonal,
mit unzer folksarmey

undz eynikt der has tsu di broyne banditn,
vos viln farknekhten dos spanishe land.
mir veln di grin-royte felder farhitn
mit fonen fun eynhayt un mit biks in der band.
un in der brider-ray fun felker un rasn,
vos viln mer nisht farshklafung un noyt,
shmidn mir oys dos gever fun di masn
der frayhayts-folksfront fun sholem un broyt.
¡no pasaran!

(khor)

mir veln nisht lozn fun hant di gevern,
azoy hot gelernt undz botvin, der held,
biz s’vet undz di tsukunft in gantsn gehern,
biz s’vet a bafrayte zikh tserbliyen di velt.
un in di naye un krigloze tsaytn
vet men dermonen oykh undzer farmest,
fartribn vayt di fashistishe pest.
¡no pasaran!

(khor)

[EDIT: Yiddish characters not working here at the moment. Check the second link below for original Yiddish text.]

Sources:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/languages/yiddish/mendele/vol07.067

http://theyouthwillsleepnolonger.blogspot.com/

http://www.alba-valb.org/resources/lessons/jewish-volunteers-in-the-spanish-civil-war/jewish-volunteers-in-the-spanish-civil-war

http://www.marxists.org/subject/jewish/botwin/anthem.htm [an alternative translation, which I discovered only after finishing my own]

August 19th, 2010 | Category: politics | Leave a comment

I was reading through some old documents in preparation for my upcoming survey class on Native American languages, and I came across the following rather amazing letter, written in 1902:

(TO:) The Superintendent, Greenville School, California
 
Sir;
 
This office desires to call your attention to a few customs among the Indians which it is believed should be modified or discontinued.
 
The wearing of long hair by the male population of your agency is not in keeping with the advancement they are making or will soon be expected to make in civilization. The wearing of short hair by the males will be a great step in advance and will certainly hasten their progress toward civilization. The returned male student far too frequently goes back to the reservation and falls into the old custom of letting his hair grow long. He also paints profusely and adopts all the old habits and customs which his education in our industrial schools has tried to eradicate. The fault does not lie so much with the schools as with the conditions found on the reservations. These conditions are very often due to the policy of the Government toward the Indian and are often perpetuated by the agent’s not caring to take the initiative in fastening any new policy on his administration of the affairs of the agency.
 
On many of the reservations the Indians of both sexes paint claiming that it keeps the skin warm in winter and cool in summer; but instead this paint melts when the Indian perspires and runs down into the eyes. The use of this paint leads to many diseases of the eyes among those Indians who paint. Persons who have given considerable thought and investigation to the subject are satisfied that this custom causes the majority of the cases of blindness among the Indians of the United States.
 
You are therefore directed to induce your male Indians to cut their hair and both sexes to stop painting. With some of the Indians this will be an easy matter; with others it will require considerable tact and perseverance on the part of yourself and your employees to successfully carry out these instructions. With your Indian employees and those Indians who draw rations and supplies it should be an easy matter as a noncompliance with this order may be made a reason for discharge or for withholding rations and supplies. Many may be induced to comply with the order voluntarily, especially the returned student. The returned students who do not comply voluntarily should be dealt with summarily. Employment, supplies, etc., should be withheld until they do comply and if they become obstreperous about the matter a short confinement in the guardhouse at hard labor with shorn locks should furnish a cure. Certainly all the younger men should wear short hair, and it is believed by tact, perseverance, firmness, and withdrawal of supplies the agent can induce all to comply with this order.
 
The wearing of citizen’s clothing, instead of the Indian costume and blanket, should be encouraged.
 
Indian dances and so called Indian feasts should be prohibited. In many cases these dances and feasts are simply subterfuges to cover degrading acts and to disguise immoral purposes. You are directed to use your best efforts in the suppression of these evils.
 
Very respectfully,
 
(Signed: W. A. Jones)
 
Commissioner.

July 22nd, 2010 | Category: politics | Leave a comment

According to Hammond, who heard it out on a spree
From a man who had known the priest who was chaplain on duty
The morning the last man was hanged in Crumlin Road Jail,
What the man said as he shook hands and went to the hangman
Was, “Father, this is going to be a lesson to me.”

From Seamus Heaney’s poem “Ten Glosses”

July 21st, 2010 | Category: poetry | Leave a comment

Not sure how I ended up with two photos of anchors on my front page. Go figure.

June 23rd, 2010 | Category: uncategorized | Comments (5)

June 20.—To-day is my birth day—I am thirty-three years old. At that age Alexander had conquered the world; at that age Wolfe had completed his reputation, and expired in the arms of victory. Well, it is not my fault, if I am not as great a man as Alexander or Wolfe. I have as good dispositions for glory as either of them, but I labour under two small obstacles at least—want of talents and want of opportunities; neither of which, I confess, I can help.

Anchor from the French expedition to Ireland. Discovered in Bantry Bay, 1981.

June 22nd, 2010 | Category: politics | Leave a comment

Hilarious/bizarre intro paragraph Edelman and Christiansen, “How seriously should we take Minimalist syntax?”:

Lasnik?s review of the Minimalist program in syntax [1] offers cognitive scientists help in navigating some of the arcana of the current theoretical thinking in transformational generative grammar. One might observe, however, that this journey is more like a taxi ride gone bad than a free tour: it is the driver who decides on the itinerary, and questioning his choice may get you kicked out. Meanwhile, the meter in the cab of the generative theory of grammar is running, and has been since the publication of Chomsky?s Syntactic Structures in 1957. The fare that it ran up is none the less daunting for the detours made in his Aspects of Theory of Syntax (1965), Government and Binding (1981), and now The Minimalist Program (1995). Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, it seems that never in the field of cognitive science was so much owed by so many of us to so few (the generative linguists).

May 2nd, 2010 | Category: linguistics | Leave a comment

A poem by Ai.

So I have killed my black goat.
His kidney floats in a bowl,
a beige, flat fish, around whom parasites, slices of lemon,
break through the surface of hot broth, then sink below,
as I bend, face down in the steam, breathing in.
I hear this will cure anything.
 
When I am finished, I walk up to him.
He hangs from a short wooden post,
tongue stuck out of his mouth,
tasting the hay-flavored air.
A bib of flies gather at his throat
and further down, where he is open
and bare of all his organs,
I put my hand in, stroke him once,
then taking it out, look at the sky.
The stormclouds there break open
and raindrop, yellow as black cats’ eyes, come down
each a tiny river, hateful and alone.
 
Wishing I could get out of this alive, I hug myself.
It is hard to remember if he suffered much.

April 27th, 2010 | Category: poetry | Comments (1)

Or a stone’s throw away, anyway. Much to my surprise, I just got shortlisted for an academic job at a university near Ramallah. Skype interview to follow next week. Still in the “WTF WTF WTF?” phase at the moment, but we shall see how this unfolds.

April 26th, 2010 | Category: linguistics | Leave a comment