Back from Beyond the English Language

I DIDN'T POST because my computer is still broken and I have spent all my time watching (rather listening to) the box set (all 5 seasons) of 6 Feet Under while marking up a notebook with every single word I do not understand from the French novel I'm reading. I've decided to better myself by reading novels and memoirs in French and German exclusively. I don't mark the books; as I said, I keep a notebook with every word I don't fully comprehend in the order it appears complete with page numbers. If a word crops up 45 times and I still don't get it, I look it up and write the definition all those times. The ONLY method of language acquisition that works is repitition.

Today I bought 3 new French novels (French literature outdoes German by a long way). They cost £2 each from a particularly eclectic charity shop with shelves and shelves of foreign crap.

I'm learning Spanish from a Linguaphone Plus course my Dad got me on ebay. It cost £35 secondhand; that's about $50. These cost about £300 new and bring you to a vocabulary of 2400 words. I know because I counted definitions per page in the glossary and multiplied up. 2400 words is about 4 times what a Teach Yourself book + 2 CDs course gives you. Plus you learn by listening. The handbook explains why it is as it is, line by line. But somehow it all goes in without much effort. Linguaphone is way better than Pimsleur. I tried Pimsleur Hebrew from the library and it's ridiculously repititious. Breaking down a simple sentence into constituent parts over and over on CD because it's designed for people who fear a simple textbook will make them feel like they're at school. I heard Pimsleur gives you a vocab of only 400 words; that wouldn't surprise me. Also Rosetta Stone level 3 gives only 1500 words ~ their customer services had to phone me back with that figure. I got the impression that neither the school-leaver who took my original call nor the supervisor who answered my enquiry had ever learned a foreign languge, let alone actually used Rosetta Stone.

Last week I was in a good mood but now I'm depressed. I decided that it's unnatural to live on psyche meds. Not to mention the fact that I want my meds CHANGED to quetiapine which has a more acceptable side-effects profile. Ever since I took risperidone I had episodic severe anxiety which I will NOT put up with. Surprise surprise anxiety is a side-effect afflicting more than one person in ten on that drug. I want quetiapine instant release. It might stop me needing to take zopiclone, which I mostly buy on the street as my doctor is too prissy to give a regular supply. I only take zopiclone as required. Every so often I go through a period, usually when I'm going manic, where I sleep 3 hours a day or less. Or just cannot sleep at night and sleep randomly during the day.

Now I feel down and out and pretty pointless. But I'm determined to be able to read these pretentious French novels in the original. Why not? They're not really pretentious. French literature is parallel to English literature. There's a huge international contingent in France, the language is used widely accross Africa. So French books are very cosmopolitan. My current one is about the last emperor of China and an ancient manuscript; the next one is called Le nègre du Palais by Thierry Pfister. Something to do with a rich man dying in a big house (wouldn't he be liable to dreaded French wealth tax?) and politics. Well it looks a lot better than it sounds. I haven't taken a dictionary to it yet so it's all a blur.

Isn't 6 Feet Under just about the best thing that's ever been on telly? I was wondering why Ruth, the mother, annoys me so much. That's because she's just like me: a mixture of prissy and adventurous. Meek yet not meek-willed. Just like me. I'm also like Phoebe from Friends. Hippy dippy on the outside; hard as nails on the inside. It's other people who call me hard. I don't think I'm hard. But when they say that I answer: well if I were as soft on the inside as I appear on the outside I'd be a fucking lump of jelly wouldn't I??

I hope y'all are OK. I didn't mean to worry anyone by not posting. If I ever do get to die I'll be a very lucky man. I know that will never happen to me. I am a born survivor. Don't want to be. But I am. Least I won't be a fucking monoglot when I do die. That would be WELL beyond the pale!

Huge Bag Found on Street!

SURELY THIS IS A SIGN! I found an enormous sports bag ~ almost big enough to hold golf clubs and hence lots of German books and clothes ~ with trundlesome wheels on the bottom at the end of the next road along from me yesterday afternoon, so I thoroughly enjoyed trundling it behind me, imagining I was on the way to the Saint Pancreas International for the beginning of my Berlin expedition.

I know what y'all are thinking: Let's wait and see what actually happens. I've heard enough bluster and guff from this blogger to keep a fleet of hot air balloons afloat!

Well I am going to Berlin. Berlin is one of my top three "most want to see" cities on earth, along with New York and Tokyo.

I don't know how on earth I'm going to get there, by the way. Not a single website I've found will sell me one all-in ticket London to Berlin return. I don't know why. Only last month I heard a government minister blustering about high-speed rail infrastructure. What's the point of all those whizzy trains and new tracks if you can't go where you want? I am NOT going by plane, unless I really have to. It's the stopovers along the way (and it's looking like Paris at the moment, with a €50 sleeper "couchette" each way, which would push the cost of tickets up to £170) that are half the fun. If I took the Eurostar out of London on a Sunday, I could see the Paris bird-market, which is amazing. All those feathery little pixies tweetling away on the pavements...

Today I found a book by my illustrious old German teacher, who (I found out years later) was being tipped as a potential Nobel laureate ~ until he died in a car crash in 2001. Austerlitz by W G Sebald. He was known to us at UEA as Max Sebald and he taught my German grammar class. OK, I seem to recall it might have been just once when the ordinary teacher was sick, but he did teach me German grammar!

Click here for a beautiful blogger's writeup on the marché aux oiseaux in Paris ...

Gledwoods Vogelein

HIER ist mein besonderer deutschsprachiger Artikel über den kleinen Vogel in meiner Straße.
Dieses Jahr, scheint es mehr Vogelarten als je zuvor zu geben, die von den Bäume und Dachern zwitschern.
Vor zwei wochen zeigte sich eine Ringeltaube, die auf der Fernsehantenne meines Nachbars sitzt.
Ringeltauben sind eher flatterhaft und schüchtern.
Sie gurrt und gurrt praktisch der ganzer Tag. Ich ahnte, dass sie in mir verknallte sich. Jedesmal wenn ich die Haustür öfnete, oder die Straße entlang trabte ~ da war sie! Hinter der Mülltonne meines Nachbars, hinter dem Kirschenbaum... immer hinter etwas. Sie tat, als ob sie im Gras pickte; dann sah sie ganz erschüttert aus. Sie klappte die Flügeln und auf dem Dach verschwand. Deshalb nannte ich sie "Flapper".
Letzte Woche fand Flapper noch einandere Ringeltaube. Sie sitzen einander gegenüber und girren den ganzen Tag lang.
Mein anderer Lieblingsvogel ist eine Nachtigall, die Chogstable oder Chogga heißt.
Ich nannte sie Chogga nach ihrem Lied, das geht:
twit twit twit
jug jug
mit vielen komplizierten Triller darin.
Als ich das Thema googlete, fand ich, dass die Nachtigall in England überwintert, und dann im Sommer nach West- und Zentralafrika fliegt.
Sie seht sehr unwichtig aus ~ ganz klein und braun. Aber ihr Lied ist eine der schönster aller Vogellieder.
Chogga lebt oben im Kirschenbaum neben meinem Haus, darin Flapper auch saß, bevor sie ihren Partner fand.
Im Winter sah ich Chogga im Gebüsch meines Nachbars. Heutzutage sehe ich sie nicht. Aber ich höre sie laut und klar!
Die ganze Nacht, und fast den ganzen Tag lang zirpt sie ihr tranzendent melodische Lied, und ich fühle, als ob ich von einem romantischen Gedicht träume!


J W VON GOETHE

WANDRERS NACHTLIED II

Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;

Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.



LINKS ÜBER ZWEISPRACHIGKEIT
Bilingual myths: http://www.nethelp.no/cindy/myth.html
Bilingual Confusion blog: http://bilingualconfusion.blogspot.com/
Multilingualism (Wikipedia; English): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingualism
Bilingualismus (Wikipedia; Deutsch): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilingualismus
Languages of Belgium (Wikipedia; English): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Belgium
Situation linguistique de la Belgique (Wikipedia; French): http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situation_linguistique_de_la_Belgique
Languages of Switzerland (Wikipedia; English): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Switzerland
Sprachen in der Schweiz (Wikipedia; German): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprachen_in_der_Schweiz
Langues en Suisse (Wikipedia; Francais): http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_en_Suisse
Code-switching (Wikipedia; English): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching
Code-Switching (Wikipedia; Deutsch): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-Switching

Fairytale: The Fisherman And His Wife...

I WAS LEAFING through my German Grimms' Fairytales when I suddenly came across this one: The Fisherman And His Wife, in an odd Low German dialect.
So I looked it up, and here's the start of the tale in English...
You can clickonit to get the full text...

BROTHERS GRIMM
The Fisherman and his Wife

There was once a fisherman who lived with his wife in a pigsty, close by the seaside. The fisherman used to go out all day long a-fishing; and one day, as he sat on the shore with his rod, looking at the sparkling waves and watching his line, all on a sudden his float was dragged away deep into the water: and in drawing it up he pulled out a great fish. But the fish said, 'Pray let me live! I am not a real fish; I am an enchanted prince: put me in the water again, and let me go!' 'Oh, ho!' said the man, 'you need not make so many words about the matter; I will have nothing to do with a fish that can talk: so swim away, sir, as soon as you please!' Then he put him back into the water, and the fish darted straight down to the bottom, and left a long streak of blood behind him on the wave.

When the fisherman went home to his wife in the pigsty, he told her how he had caught a great fish, and how it had told him it was an enchanted prince, and how, on hearing it speak, he had let it go again. 'Did not you ask it for anything?' said the wife, 'we live very wretchedly here, in this nasty dirty pigsty; do go back and tell the fish we want a snug little cottage.'

And it goes on and on... You can read the rest of this text here.

Here's a kiddies' TV version starring Rick Mayall:



Now for some comparative linguistics: here are the opening words in English, Dutch, the Low German original and standard High German which is the official language of Germany today... Apart from English of course, these languages form a dialect-continuum from town-to-town across Northern Europe. At no point does the spoken language suddenly change just because a national frontier has been passed...
Low German is sometimes referred to as Low Saxon and if you look closely you will see how familiar the vocabulary is: Fischer (fisherman) angeld (fished) blanke Water (clear water) deep (deep)... and so on.
Incidentally, the original does not appear to say they lived in a pigsty or a hovel but a PISSPOT!!

The Fisherman and His Wife
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Kidoons quaint online turnypage storybook version...

Once upon a time there were a fisherman and his wife who lived together in a filthy shack near the sea. Every day the fisherman went out fishing, and he fished, and he fished.
Once he was sitting there fishing and looking into the clear water, and he sat, and he sat.
Then his hook went to the bottom, deep down, and when he pulled it out, he had caught a large flounder.


DUTCH:
Van de visser en zijn vrouw
Grimm 019 - Van de visser en zijn vrouw, Piggelmee

Er was eens een visser en z’n vrouw, die zo arm waren, dat ze alleen maar in een pot konden wonen, vlak aan zee. De visser ging elke dag hengelen; en dan hengelde hij en hengelde hij maar.
Zo zat hij ook eens bij zijn hengel en keek steeds in ‘t blanke water, en hij keek en keek.
Daar dook de dobber diep onder, en toen hij ‘m ophaalde, had hij een grote bot.


LOW GERMAN (ORIGINAL TEXT)
Gebrüder Grimm
Von dem Fischer un syner Fru

Dar wöör maal eens en Fischer un syne Fru, de waanden tosamen in'n Pißputt, dicht an der See, un de Fischer güng alle Dage hen un angeld: un he angeld un angeld.
So seet he ook eens by de Angel und seeg jümmer in das blanke Water henin: un he seet un seet.
Do güng de Angel to Grund, deep ünner, un as he se heruphaald, so haald he enen grooten Butt heruut.

STANDARD (HIGH) GERMAN
Gebrüder Grimm
Von dem Fischer und seiner Frau

Es war einmal ein Fischer und seine Frau, die wohnten zusammen in einem alten Pott dicht an der See, und der Fischer ging alle Tage hin und angelte, und er angelte und angelte.
So saß er auch einmal mit seiner Angel und schaute immer in das klare Wasser hinein, und er saß und saß.
Da ging die Angel auf den Grund, tief, tief hinab, und wie er sie heraufholte, da zog er einen großen Butt heraus.

VOM FISCHER UND SEINER FRAU
Radio performance in German



Last part:



PS I've finally found a university course where you can study BA German and translation for the entire length of a 3-year course in Germany, at Gutenberg University, Mainz (which is a beautiful town on the Rhine)...

PPS: news from Germany ~ OAP plunges 15ft down lift shaft in wheelchair x

HERE is Plattdeutsch/Low German being spoken...
Notice how similar it sounds to Dutch and Afrikaans...
I did German for years and years and I can't understand a bloody word of this.



Learn Plattdeutsch online at plattmaster.de ~ lessons in English

HERE's something really hilarious I found ~ and yes it is for real ~ it's the Scottish Parliament's website in the "Scots language" (which looks like dreadfully spelt English to me)... Scots would be the nearest thing we have to Plattdeutsch here in the UK

Scottish Parliament's website in PROPER Scottish ~ ie Gaelic