To be or not to be?

Here's what Google Translate made of the famous speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet (English-Chinese Traditional, Back to English, into Thai and back to English again). I swear I never altered a single word, so how "pharmaceutical sciences" got in there I haven't a clue!

In order to survive or is this is a problem.
Whether it is a noble soul.
Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Or, armed with a sea of trouble,.
Opposition and end? Die: sleep;
Sleep and by sleep to say we end.
Heart - thousands of research in pharmaceutical sciences and natural shocks.
Texture those who succeed.
Pious hope that the dead sleep;
Sleep: maybe to dream: it is life threatening;
Death of a dream come true for sleep
When we roll this salad man,.
We need to stop: with respect.
This will cause a disaster for long life;
For those who would bear the whips and scorn of the time.
Oppressors wrong people proud of their disdain,.
Profane love, pain, the laws of the delay.
Office of arrogance and rejection.
The patient is not worth attention,.
But to make your own.
Simple small dagger?

International quiz ANSWERS!

NAME THE COUNTRY OR LANGUAGE...

1: CHINA

2: TURKEY

3: OK I know this was difficult; the pot contains beeswax ~ I had to use a foreign container otherwise the word would have appeared on the side: POLISH!

3B: GREECE


4: MOROCCO (Morocco leather)

5: FINNISH

6: ARGENTINA (means silver)

7: ECUADOR

8: SWEDE!

9: ICELAND

10: THAI!

Scots and Frisian

Continuing our survey of the dialects of Northern Europe, we come to: THE SCOTS LANGUAGE:
Here's my hilarity find of the day ~ The Scottish Parliament's official website in Scots ~ the stately language of Robbie Burns and Irvine Welsh.

Now I always thought "Scots" meant badly spelled English with a Scottish flavour, and that the Gaelic tongue ~ related to Welsh ~ was the "proper" language of Scotland.
But Gaelic never has been spoken in Lowland Scotland, where lots of people, including so it appears the Scottish government, believe Scots to be a proper language, distinct from English (and very distinct from Gaelic).


Walcome tae the Scottish Pairlament wabsite

Banner featuring images of the Scottish Parliament and Public Information Service leaflets

The Scottish Pairlament is here for tae represent aw Scotlan’s folk.

We want tae mak siccar that as mony folk as possible can finn oot aboot the Scottish Pairlament. Information anent whit we can dae tae help ye engaige wi the Pairlament gin ye arenae fluent in English can be haen at Langage assistance providit by the Scottish Pairlament (22.2KB pdf).

This pairt o the wabsite hauds information anent the Scottish Pairlament that we hae producit in Scots. Uise the link aneath tae find oot mair.

* Garrin the Scottish Pairlament Wark for You (1.59MB pdf)

Contactin the Scottish Pairlament

Gin ye hae a quaistion anent the Scottish Pairlament or the Memmers o the Scottish Pairlament (MSPs), ye can contact the Public Speirins Service in ony leid by post, email or fax.

Address:

Public Information Service

The Scottish Parliament

Edinburgh

EH99 1SP

Email: sp.info@scottish.parliament.uk

Fax: 0131 348 5601

See the above in Scottish Gaelic

And here, from Wikipedia's Frisian entry, are sentences in the Frisian and Low Saxon dialects.
Of all the languages in the world, the closest to English is said to be Frisian, a separate tongue from Low Saxon/German, spoken in the Eastern Netherlands and parts of Northern Gernmany up to Southern Denmark, where, according to Wikipedia, quadrilingualism used to be widespread (North Frisian, Standard German, Low German and South Jutlandic Danish)..
And there I was, thinking Frisian was a language moo'd by black and white cows...


Comparative sentence




Saterland Frisian
Die Wänt strookede dät Wucht uum ju Keeuwe un oapede hier ap do Sooken.

North Frisian (Mooring dialect)
Di dreng aide dåt foomen am dåt kan än mäket har aw da siike.

West Frisian
De jonge streake it famke om it kin en tute har op 'e wangen.

East Frisian Low Saxon
De Jung straktde dat Wicht um't Kinn to un tuutjede hör up de Wangen.

Danish
Drengen aede pigen på kinden og kyssede hende på kinderne.

Dutch
De jongen streelde/streek het meisje rond haar kin en kuste haar op haar wangen.

Dutch Low Saxon
De jonge strek 't dearntje um de kinne en gaf heur een smok.

German
Der Junge streichelte das Mädchen ums Kinn und küsste sie an den Wangen.

English
The boy stroked the girl on the chin and kissed her on the cheeks.

Lancashire dialect and accent
Th' lad strorkt 'lass on 'jib an busst er on th' cheaks.

Lancashire dialect and accent
Th' lad strorkt 'lass on 'jib an gev er a smeawch on th' cheaks.

Scots
The laddie straikit the lassie oan the chin an gied hir a smouch oan the chouks.

Notice Lancashire II: smeawch ~ just like one of our modern words for kissing: smooching ....

GERMANIC LANGUAGE MAP
Showing the High-Central-Low German to Dutch continuum in green and English-Frisian in orange...



FRISIAN LANGUAGE MOVEMENT
No gabbly Germanic dialect here ~ you can pretty much follow what they're getting at. They want road signs in the language, children to learn it at school and so on



FRISIAN VICTORIA'S SECRET SUPERMODEL DOUTZEN KROES
... speaks about Frisian in Lower Franconian (Dutch!)

Broiling hot

YES it's very hot indeed... I believe "broiling" is the word some of you Americans use when you mean you're putting something under the grill... and that's how hot it is today. I'm sweating like an amphibious swine, it's terrible. If I were going to be like a swine I would want to be something like a Japanese pig-dog, a buta-inu 豚犬 like those trotter Norfolk and Glen of Imaal terriers from the other day, who look like a wild boar, minus the little trotter tusks.
In all this heat I've been reading Grimms Märchen ~ meine Familie sent me a charming antique volume in the original German, so I've been reading that. It's from the early 20th century, printed in the curly blackletter type with the kind of Edwardian colour illustrations I really like (they remind me of my own childhood, reading handmedowns from my grandparents' era) ... nearly all German books were printed in Gothick type prior to World War II. I think it looks really funky. Why SHOULD everything look sanseriph and crap just because we're in 2010?
I've been trying to dig out youtube screens that teach Japanese for my language blog. There's plenty about, it's just a question of pasting up the good ones. I actually had better luck with Chinese, because the BBC ~ who usually do this stuff well ~ made some excellent teach yourself Mandarin videos for late night TV. I do want to learn Chinese as well, but don't want to overburden and lose my thread... Confucius, he say: he who chase two rabbits catch neither one...

This song reminds me of doing GCSE French at school... here in the UK it got to number 5 in 1988... in much of continental Europe, including the Soviet Union, it got to number one the previous year...

DESIRELESS: VOYAGE VOYAGE



And finally ~ how could I drop the dogs theme? ~ we have CARKIES ~~
Doggies who are Yorkshire-Cairn Terrorizer Cross




Did I say very much? Did I say what I wanted to say? Did I remember? My brainbox is too well broiled to know..!

PS I didn't think I was that fussy, but the two major doggie rescue centres I consulted had only one small mop mutt each: Eddie at Battersea Dogs' Home, South London and Scruffy (as mentioned the other day) at the Wood Green Animal Shelter, North London. I couldn't take either one as both have been rehomed, the lucky 豚犬 butas! Eddie is only about one and a half, but Scruffy is seven... I wonder what happened to them?... do you think their old owners died? Poor little swines. I hope they are happy now ... poor little furries :-)

The Littlest Old Cockney

I WAS ON THE BUS THIS MORNING minding my own business when a toddler ~ whose mother had the strongest cockney tones I've heard in a long while ~ totally distracted me with his entertaining exclamations.

This baby boy was at that certain toddling age when children's voices, in transition from babyhood, take on a hilariously loud cartoon timbre. This little boy had it full on, plus a cockney accent even stronger ~ as if that were possible ~ than his mother's.

I turned round and he was sitting there like a miniature old man, full of unspoken gesture and a certain stylishness. And I wished I was a talent scout and could have filmed him... and then it was my stop.

Good Day Sunshine II

IT'S BEEN ANOTHER GOOD DAY SUNSHINE AGAIN... still it has not sunken in that I "live somewhere else"... life is butter dream (life is margerine, as the song goes...)

I tried making my robos (these are my Mongolian trotting hamsters, Jumoke) a really tiny nest out of a swan filter tips box (not the cig pack shaped one; the proper box shaped one.) to see if they'd pile in like a warehouseful of quality fur coats with quivering pink noses... But they'd be literally stacked three deep if they slept in there... so of course they didn't risk it. (Bashful does, but sleeps alone though)...

Yesterday they were ever so funny. Poor Itchy (bottom peck, as ever) is fast asleep. Spherical, for some reason, decided to clamber on top of her to use Itchy as a living robo-pillow. And on Spherical dozes. Itchy was either fast asleep or squashed to sheer unconsciousness by Spherical's gargantuan weight... she's looking more enormous than ever these days. Were she not blest with those distinctively perky ears
and beady trotter eyes you could almost think she was a normal hamster, she's so enormous... anyway those two are double-decker stacked and dozing away then Bashful decides to climb on top of Spherical... and then the entire robo-tower fell down. I so much wished I had a video camera to youtube this; it was absolute classic!

I've been reading the Bible in GERMAN to try and improve my command of said language. Because I do know certain passages it makes the comprehension element far, far easier... unfortunately my German Bible is a 1912 edition and hence printed in the heaviest pre-WWII letter Gothick. You think "blackletter" is hard to understand? Try this traditional German print. A "k" has the kucky-bit at the TOP not bottom... Uppercase A, V and U all look the same, as go S and G. An L is dangerously similar to a B. (In other words all the letters look the same.) In fact, on perusing a page I was reminded more of those mysterious South-East Asian languages like CAMBODIAN than anything you'd think of as "German"... I racked my brains as to why, then realized it's because Cambodian, Thai, most Indian languages etc are printed in imitation of ancient scribal hand using the traditional writing implements (often a brush or oblique palette knife or split reed); this Gothick script is based upon traditional monks' writing too: hence a real (if bizarre) resemblance...

Yes I have itchy feet again (not athelete's foot: the desire to travel). It was all set off by my finding a distinctive green-and-silver "concert ticket" stub on the street. One of my worst habits is the constant examining of rubbish I happen to pass... what gig did they go to? I nosily wondered. Actually it was no concert ticket, but a train/tram/tube/bus ticket from FRANKFURT... and what got me was that on perusing the legalistic gobbledygook on the back I understood every word! "Thank you for choosing to travel with us. This ticket is printed on thermal paper so please keep away from direct sunlight, radiators, oils and solvents. Altered or damaged tickets are not valid for travel." This made me think: hey I really should think about going there (Berlin though. Not Frankfurt. If I'm going to Germany it has to be Berlin or if not Alpine cuckoo clock villages or the Black Forest (as long as there IS a forest still there. Maybe it's like Nottingham's Sherwood forest and nonexistent today!)... I'm thinking of picking up my subscription to my German magazine again (Stern). It's like a non-middle-aged version of Time... or the Sunday colour supplements all rolled into one. Quite a good read. I never got it delivered, just ordered it from the local papershop. At £2.80 a week I thought that was quite good value for "fluent German" (as if THAT's ever going to happen: ha!)

Take care everyone!!

Nothing for Xmas

LOOKS LIKE I'M DOING N O T H I N G for Xmas this year. Boo-hoo!

The girl in the local shop asked what I was doing. I said why? She said because I'm working here! I said well I'll bring you a turkey sandwich. I make very good sandwiches. She smiled at that.

Anyway she's a Muslim!!

I found another entertaining article in The Sun newspaper about someone who got a Chinese tattoo... only to discover several years later that it doesn't say what she thought it said.

"Stunned Joanne Raine had lover Andrew Blanche's nickname "roo" tattoed in Chinese on her tum - and found out after they broke up that it said SUPERMARKET.

Joanne paid £80 for the tattoo in 2004 but only discovered its meaning days ago when she flashed it in a Chinese takeaway.

The Darlington lass, 19, said: "My friends are laughing but I'm embarrassed."

Worried about your Chinese tattoo? Email us a picture to features@the-sun.co.uk

Silly cow. If she knew anything about Chinese she'd know they don't have the sound R in their language. (It's the Japanese who don't have L. Thais have both but still mix the two up even in their own native tongue!)

Who'd get a tattoo in a foreign language they can't even read. Aparently David Beckham's Hindi tattoo across one arm has a spelling mistake in the graceful Devanagari script.

I don't blame Chinese takeaway staff for writing down jokes:

Here's another one:

... Proud Vince Mattingley, 44, who thought he'd had his name tattooed on his chest for 26 years, just found out the actual words read Coca Cola!

The actual "Chinese traditional" for Coca~Cola is 可口可樂 so it seems even The Sun newspaper got that wrong too. (Maybe the original tattoo was too rude to repeat in English.)

By the way Coca~Cola in Japanese is コカコーラ. They use the katakana syllablary to spell out foreign words. (& incidentally for onomatapoeic words like su-zoom (スズメバチ) suzume-bachi, which means hornet!) A バチ bachi in Japanese is a bee or wasp type buzzing critter fly thing...

Wanna know more about the misuse of Chinese characters in western culture? Go to this website:
http://www.hanzismatter.com

IT HAS BEEN UTTERLY FREEZING COLD THE LAST FEW DAYS AND NIGHTS (down to -5C in Norwich, where I used to live). So cold I've been waking shivering under my psychedelic pink and yellow blanket (where on earth Mother Hubbs found that one I'd love to know...) and had had to turn on BOTH rings of the hob to warm up.

Even my drug dealer was complaining it was too cold to come out of his car. But then drug dealers just want extortionate heroin profits without ever feeling beholden to their customers (which they are - for all that spare Chinese takeaway, cigarettes, mobile top-up, Playstation games, CDs, DVDs and all the other ephemera they blow their profits on money ...

I HAVE STASHED MY ROBBIES back in their tartan washing bag to keep warm. As for people who say that is cruel (to keep them in a fishtank in a bag, or to shove the tank in a cupboard or something) how can it be? As burrow-dwelling rodents who only venture out under cover of thick darkness they actually feel far more comfortable wrapped up like that. Like most other rodents they are short-sighted (one olde Englishe word for short-sighted was "mouse sight") - so they don't appreciate views. Views are things predators use in the wild to catch and eat such scampery furry morsels.

That silly Itchy went nuts the other day. Twice actually. One time she was so severely spooked by the running of a tap she took to darting up and down my arms and threatening to ping off... the second time the rustling of a carrier bag actually did upset her so much she did a backflip onto that famous pink-and-yellow blanket!

BACK TO THE CHILLY WEATHER. We have no heating or hot water at all! The repairman spent all yesterday running hosepipes out of the house. Then seemed totally to give up at around 4pm (which gladdened my heart as I hate having workmen in the house. Leaving the front-door unlocked all the time as they do...)

... and leaving our house like an ICEBOX at the same time!

And how was YOUR day?

***

QUIZ OF THE DAY:
Do you think this baby is a boy or a girl?
Clickonthis and study the ultrasounds....
I really can barely see a baby let alone what sex!!

***

Lorrikeets on a Queenslander's lawn!
This comes from Bimbimbie's blog,
which means "gledeber of the birds" in a mysterious Aboriginal tongue!

***

VIDEO OF THE DAY:
Victoria Wood: Let's Do ItThis is 1980s comedy classic

Nonfunky Plonk-Plonk

THE ORGAN I FOUND is a Yamaha PSV19. Whoever they employed to plunk in the preset tunes was a mediocre nonEnglishspeaking person who had little feeling for the music and none at all for the lyrics (which, of course we tend to sing kind of subliminally on top as the song plays on. Well I do ...) Their rendition of Jinglebells - potentially the funkiest of Xmas tunes - is beyond tacky. Yesterday and Silent Night aren't much better. Ave Maria's OK. But Yamaha's own-brand Hey Jude is simply beyond the pale. I left said synthesizer plunking away as I speak. My threats to torture the neighbours with these at top volume highest (or, if I really hated them slowest-tempo) renditions were merely jokes. Though I did have some rafter-shaking cyder-drunken fun with learning to make the device work yesterday ...

I was a fugitive from justice yet again last night. What has my subconscious mind been doing that I should be every night on the run in ancient castles (cue: Enid Blyton) and clutching a bottle of Baileys (where did that come from? Maybe in the dream I'd hoisted the booze from a shop without paying for it ?...)

Yesterday's rendition of stew I rated a disaster at the time. The baby potatoes that I thought wonderfully cute and chucked in just chopping in three - I put far too many of them in. The lamb cooked so thoroughly it fell to pieces just leaving bones behind. And my Rajah extra hot chili powder, one teaspoon of ... well yesterday night that seemed exclusively to have spiced my baby potatoes to a blistering degree ... I forced self to eat a bowlfull of little else but these. So by today a more appropriate and less potatoey concoction remained and the spicing was wonderful. So I don't know whether I'd truly done anything "wrong" bar not giving it time to "mull" ...

Five on Kirrin Island Again is now safely in the hands of the Turkish lady in my corner shop who specifically asked if I had anything she could borrow to help her English. I did explain it was for ten year-old kids in the 1940s but that I had read it two nights before so she's tackling it quite possibly as we speak. The lady on the other till, who appears "Chinese" is actually from Kyrgyzstan and reads mysterious Cyryllic-type newspapers from time to time. Turks and Kyrgyz can understand one another because the language is similar. Even the Brazilian girl who sometimes gives my cyder for free seems to understand their speech. They've got a pan-Turkic federation going on in there ....

Big Brother's cussing our screens yet again. So far I've lost merely an hour of my life to this strange schlock. It's their seventh summer series, I do believe (not counting "celebrity" special editions). So far the house is only full of women. Which is bound to fascinate the tabloid press.

However tasteless the depths the present series descends to (as it's surely bound to do) they can never exceed the sheer bad taste of Endemol (the show's global producers') latest Dutch offering which they're calling Big Donor. It's a reality show where three transplant patients compete on daily near-live television for a new kidney ... People across the world were up in arms (including me) until the whole thing was revealed as a TV hoax ...

Thanks for all your messages. I've met some great people in the last few days especially since I struck out in a deliberately Aussie direction ...

(As I said before. I've so many relations Down Under it always kind of bemused me that I never met any Aussies online ...)

Here's a link you might want to click on. It's at:

http://velharias-traquitanas2.blogspot.com/ and has some amazing desert photos. I mean really amazing. The text is in Portuguese but you know what they say about a picture and 1000 words ...