Geamikoj

DEKKVIN MURDOJ

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Or perhaps the issue of life and non-life can become, speaking somewhat speculatively of course, a matter of degree -- that is, the qualitative leap from what is non-living in matter to what is living in a certain functional complexity is itself a matter of our wanting to categorically ascribe certain fixed boundaries for life and non-life.  But even that remains problematic because it raises the possibility that our understanding of matter in the cosmos through our mechanistic mode of thinking is wrong.  Perhaps we shouldn't be asking what is living and what is not, but whether anything can be non-living at all.  And the notion of an élan vital might seem more inviting. Up till the rise of mechanistic naturalism in modern science, there was a sense in which nature and the cosmos were living things (we can see this from the Greeks to the early moderns too).  In contrast to a sort of mechanistic naturalism, there was an organic naturalism of sorts.  Matter was not inert, passive and mechanistic in this sense, in contrast to the autopoietic features of living things; indeed, the difference between the allopoietic and the autopoietic was rather slim and notions of animus, psyche and pneuma were imbued within the notion of creaturely things.  The Pythagoreans, for instance, axiologically thought the sun the center of the universe because it was made of fire and fire was the most valuable and vital of things in the cosmos.

All this reminds me of something I've been reading about Heidegger's later work, with respect to his "The Origin of the Work of Art."  In this essay, Heidegger shows us that a significant and transformative communal work of art (such as a Greek temple) leaves us with a fundamental struggle between what he calls the "earth" and "world."  A world is merely the set of practices around which we focus our activities in a community and the ways in which we try and understand how our practices can be made explicit.  But the earth is that which resists being made explicit both in our worldliness and in our materiality.  And a significant art work presents us with this problem in such a manner that it orients the background of our world. The temple, for example, focused the community's efforts and sense of being in the world in such a way that it prescribed certain practices and attitudes, such as valor, strength, courage, misfortune, etc. and issued forth the worldliness of their demos.  Yet at the same time, it is no accident that the temple's material is made out of stone and not steel, reminding the community that there are certain features of their experience that are not entirely worldly but earthly and incapable of being fully dominated.  Not only that, but their own worldliness and cultural paradigms are presented  through the artwork with the same mystery that the earth has, leaving the background somewhat inexplicable. Such a significant art work prevents us from treating what is vital and living amongst us as dead, incapable of resistance.

Dreyfus gives us an analogy, via Kuhn, of a scientific paradigm where a certain novel work in the field revolutionizes the entire practice and makes all the micro-practices conform to the work that significantly resolves certain encountered anomalies. But once the paradigm is in force, there is no way of completely rationalizing the pure foundations and propositional beliefs that condition the practice. We can't break the paradigm down that way and even if we try the paradigm resists such explicit rationalization. Instead, the significant work and the paradigm it generates itself conditions the work -- there are no pure cognitive conditions, mere paradigmatic ones. But once the paradigm faces an anomaly, the paradigm breaks down as a sort of transcendental condition of scientific work and all the base assumptions once more emerge as problems to be cognitively tackled; once these anomalies are resolved, a new paradigm has to emerge to once more condition scientific practice. But even then, there is no guarantee at all of resolving all anomalies even if the scientific paradigm, unlike the Greek temple, conceals the struggle between the vital earth and the world of science. The anomaly once more awakens us to these tensions. 

Names I know found from English-based sites: Margeaux, Margaux, Margo, Margarita, Margarethe, Margret, Margarinda, Mussaret, Margred, Marguerite, Margrit, Margerie, Margery, Marjorie, Madge, Maegan, Maygan, Megan, Meagan, Meeghan, Meggan, Maidie, Mysie, Maisie, Mariane, Morgane, Morgant, Maggi, Maggie, Maggy, Mae, Mai, May, Maggie Mae, Meta, Peg, Peggy

German spin-offs: Gretchen, Gretl, Gretel, Greta, Grete

At the moment, I'm personally in love with 'Gretchen' -- both the English and German pronunciation.

1. Do you know any foods that have an interesting linguistic story behind their name?

2. What's the most common method of finding a name for a new dish?

3. Any name suggestions for my dish, summarized above?

The initial 'Ka' rhymes with 'sky,' the 'lin' with 'bean,' and the 'a' is like what the dentist says when he/she tells you to say 'ah.' Mostly it's the first syllable that's different with these guys than the other versions I hear.

I imagine this is telling as to where they come from. Their name is the 'Ural Cossacks,' if that helps. Is the pronunciation like that in the Urals? Or of the Cossacks? Or something else?

ugly_boy

( Some history. )
Some observations:

• The Flemish, whose mother tongue is Dutch, pride themselves on their knowledge of languages, and most of them are fluent in at least French and lately English. They'll go out of their way to speak them with others. The Walloons, whose mother tongue is French, are generally less-than-passable Dutch speakers, and tend to stick to French before they switch to another language. The effect is that introducing a francophone in a group of Dutch speakers results in many of them switching to French, while the reverse doesn't hold true.
• The linguistic borders that were instituted in 1962 have shifted, largely as a result of the growth of francophone Brussels, and many of the special facility communities on the Flemish side of the border now have a majority of French speakers, frustrated at the situation and the Flemish not budging on the issue of whose territory this is. A mayor of one of these communities cannot be provided by a party that belongs to the other state, which is a severe issue.
• Flemish people in the suburbs of Brussels are very jittery, most of them having seen their mother tongue get marginalized in their lifetimes. because of this, Flemish people tend to leave local organizations which have a reputation for being francophone-friendly, with predictable effects on both the organizations and Flemish social life.
• Even though the fortunes of the Flemish have changed, nobody else has noticed. I still get flash ads 'localized' into French for me, and Belgian towns will be referred to by their French names abroad, even if those have fallen into disuse. Alright, so that's a small issue. A bigger issue is, however, that foreign news reporting always draws from francophone sources, which often paint a distorted image of a hard-edged, intolerant Flanders on local issues. The reasons are partly historical - Belgium used to speak French - and partly out of convenience. French is the lingua franca of a whole host of people, while there are only about 17 million Dutch speakers in the world. It's far easier to find an translator for sources in French.
• Something that's not touched upon in the Herald-Tribune article, but which is definitely a factor, is that there is a Flemish organization that provides the majority of funding for speelpleinwerking and sports clubs. However, this is done at the state level, so they're required to have Dutch as the main language. With the habit of clubs becoming francophone after membership reaches a certain threshold's reached, many of them require a working knowledge of Dutch in order to join, or even organise Dutch lessons. This isn't always feasible, though. There's no francophone organisation that could fund you, so if you lose your 'Flemish character', you can basically close up shop.
• The Belgian state model works very mediocrely right now, but it does work. There is absolutely no ethnic violence, it still hasn't fallen apart. That doesn't mean there aren't extremists, on both sides, of course. But other multi-ethnic nations tend to send people here to see how we manage, and compared to "ethnic cleansing", "confusedly muddling along" isn't half bad. And personally, I'm pretty happy to know French.

Does this at all reflect current Greek cursive? Does anyone have a more recent image or an example of Greek cursive?

Does anyone know of a good site for basic Irish language study or a good pronunciation guide?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for any and all help!

Thanks!

Current Location:	Olympia
Nuna humoro:	curious

Anyone have any idea how to buy soundtracks for films in other languages? :)

Thanks

As someone who speaks moderate Mandarin/ lived with family in Taiwan 2 years, I have a question to ask speakers of English and Mandarin regarding the general tone and effect a language takes when translated.

For example, in history books and on TV, when English-based media translate something from Mandarin, that phrase always sounds overly poetic, (tiny example, the Hundred Flowers campaign), when, in Mandarin such a poetic, lyrical effect was not always intended; it is something rather more inherent in the vocabulary and means of expression.

I wonder if this characteristic makes the language seem more 'oriental and exotic' than it is, if you see what I mean.

Conversely, I wonder how English sounds to a Mandarin speaker when translated back to Mandarin: clunky, unexpressive?

How about cases with other languages? I know Italian -> English translation of tourist pamphlets always sound really verbose...

Sorry if this post is a bit unfocused, I hope I got the gist of the question across!

Thanks. :D

Liedekerke has only 12,000 inhabitants, but its elected council has caused a stir by insisting on the "Flemish nature" of the town. Not only must all city business and schooling take place in Flemish, true throughout Flanders, but children who cannot speak the language can be prohibited from taking part in holiday outings, like hikes and swimming classes.

"België barst!" says the graffiti on the bridge near the train station, or "Belgium bursts," the cry of the nationalists who want an independent Flanders. But here they also want to keep the rich, French-speakers from Brussels - only 21 kilometers, or 13 miles, away, and 15 minutes by train - from buying up this pretty landscape and changing the nature of the village.