Plenty of Nothing

Waterloo in Four Languages

English. French. German. Swedish.

By other singers: Spanish. Polish. Danish.

Mr Actually: "Actually, Napoleon surrendered at Rochefort-sur-Mer."

Oh, That Katamari

I don't read Japanese, but with the help of my friend the internet I can sometimes construe a bit of it. But, man, what a language. There are three different writing systems at work in this panel. I think what's being said is, "Oh, that Katamari. Choir club?" Katamari is a video game publisher, so I imagine this character is reacting to the news that the school choir is going to rehearse a song from some video game. If this were Genshiken Kio Shimoku would have used a parody name for the company, but as the practice of Hashikko Ensemble is to reference real songs the reader will know he uses the company's actual name.

Figuring out Japanese texts is a rewarding mental exercise, but I will be very much obliged to the publisher who brings Hashikko Ensemble out in English.

Genji in Three Translations

    Genji arrived in the hour of the Monkey. He looked very handsome with his long childish locks, and the Sponsor, whose duty it had just been to bind them with the purple filet, was sorry to think that all this would soon be changed and even the Clerk of the Treasury seemed loath to sever those lovely tresses with the ritual knife. The Emperor, as he watched, remembered for a moment what pride the mother would have taken in the ceremony, but soon drove the weak thought from his mind.    (Waley)

At the appointed hour in midafternoon Genji appeared. The freshness of his face and his boyish coiffure were again such as to make the emperor regret that the change must take place. The ritual cutting of the boy’s hair was performed by the secretary of the treasury. As the beautiful locks fell the emperor was seized with a hopeless longing for his dead lady. Repeatedly he found himself struggling to keep his composure.    (Seidensticker)

Genji appeared at the hour of the Monkey. His Majesty appeared to regret that Genji would never look again as he did now, with his hair tied in twin tresses and his face radiant with the freshness of youth. The Lord of the Treasury and the Chamberlain did their duty. The Lord of the Treasury was plainly sorry to cut off such beautiful hair, and His Majesty, who wished desperately that his Haven might have been there to see it, needed the greatest self-mastery not to weep.    (Tyler)

 

Names of Earth

Aarde    (Dutch)

Alard    (Arabic)    الارض

Chikyu    (Japanese)    地球

Dìqiú    (Chinese)    地球

Earth    (English)

Erde    (German)

Erd-flanet    (Hebrew)    ערד-פלאנעט

Ge    (Greek)    Γη

Honua    (Hawaiian)

Jigu    (Korean)    지구

Jorden    (Swedish)

Maa    (Finnish)

Nuna    (Inuktitut)    ᓄᓇ

Prthvee    (Hindi)    पृथ्वी

Talamh    (Gaelic)

Terra    (Italian and Portuguese)

Terre    (French)

Tierra    (Spanish)

Yird    (Scots)

Zemlya    (Russian)    Земля́

Hanako to Anne

A still from the TV series Hanako to Anne about the life of the Japanese translator of Anne of Green Gables, Hanako Muraoka. Source.

Gaulish Words in Dioscorides

Below is a list of Gaulish words found in Dioscorides, De Materia Medica (trans. Osbaldeston and Wood, 2000). De Materia Medica is a compendium of plants, animals and minerals and their medicinal uses, compiled by Pedanius Dioscorides around 60 AD. He identifies each plant by its Greek name, but often gives a number of alternate names, usually in Greek or Latin, but sometimes in Egyptian, Syrian, Dacian, Gaulish, etc.

Each Gaulish word is followed by the book and chapter number where it appears, the chapter heading (a Greek name in Latin all-caps), the Linnaean or other taxonomical name as suggested by Osbaldeston and Wood, and a common English name. I have only listed the words that Dioscorides specifically credits to the Gauls; there could be other Gaulish words attached to phrases like 'some others call it'. Because Dioscorides credits the Latin phrase piper apum (bees' pepper) to the Gauls I have included it in the list.

albolon        3.36 GLECHON.    Mentha pulegium.    Pennyroyal.

baccar        1.9 ASARON.    Asarum euopaeum.    Hazelwort.

beliucandas        4.115 MURIOPHULLON.    Myriophyllum spicatum.    Water milfoil.

bilinuntiam        4.69 UOSKUAMOS MELAS, UOSKUAMOS LEUKOS, UOSKUAMOS MELOIDES.    Hyoscyamus niger.    Henbane.

corna        2.208 ARGEMONE.    Papaver argemone.    Pale poppy.

ducone        4.175 CHAMAIAKTE.    Sambucus ebulus.    Dwarf elder.

gelasonen        3.132 GNAPHALION.    Filago germanica.    Cudweed.

iumbarum        4.16 LEIMONION.    Pyrola rotundifolia.    Wintergreen.

jupisellusum        1.103 ARKEOTHOS MEGALE, ARKEOTHOS MIKRA.    Iuniperus minor.    Lesser juniper.

laginum        4.150 ELLEBOROS.    Veratrum album.    Hellebore.

merisimorion        3.118 MELISSOPHULLON.    Melittis mellisophyllum.    Honey balm.

ousubim        4.148 DAPHNOIDES.    Daphne mezereum.    Laurel.

ousubim        4-149 CHAMAIDAPHNE.    Prunus laurocerasus.    Dwarf laurel.

pempedula    4.42 PENTAPHULLON.    Potentilla alba.    Cinquefoil.

piper apum        1.2 AKORON.    Iris pseudacorus.    Yellow flag.

ponem        3.127 ARTEMISIA MONOKLONOS, ARTEMISIA MONOKLONOS ETERA.    Artemisia vulgaris.    Mugwort.

sapana        2.209 ANAGALLIS, KORKOROS.    Anagallis arvensis.    Scarlet pimpernel.

scobie        4.174 AKTE.    Sambucus nigra.    Elder tree.

scubulum        4.71 STRUCHNOS KEPAIOS.    Solanum melongena.    Eggplant.

sistrameor        3.82 IPPOMARATHRON.    Foeniculum vulgare.    Wild fennel.

subites        2.210 KISSOS.    Hedera helix.    Common ivy.

tarbidolopion        2.153 ARNOGLOSSON, ARNOGLOSSON MIKRON.    Plantago major.    Greater plantain.

theximon        3.6 ARISTOLOCHIA KLEMATITIS.    Aristolochia clematitis.    Apple of earth.

thona        2.211 CHELIDONION.    Chelidonium majus.    Greater celandine.

Source: Dioscorides, Materia Medica.

Further reading: Dottin, La langue gauloise.

lojmIt Search Results

Google Search recognizes lojmit as the Klingon word for door and provides the search results in Klingon.

The River Saar in Ausonius' "Mosella"

 

tuque per obliqui fauces vexate Daravi,

qua bis terna fremunt scopulosis ostia pilis,

cum defluxisti famae maioris in amnem,

liberior laxos exerces, barbe, natalus:

tu melior peiore aevo, tibi contigit omni

spirantum ex numero non inlaudata senectus.

Mosella, lines 91-96.

 

praetereo exilem Lesuram tenuemque Drahonum

nec fastiditos Salmonae usurpo fluores:

naviger undisona didum me mole Saravus

tota veste vocat, longum qui distulit amnem,

fessa sub Augustis ut volveret ostia muis.

Lines 365-69.

 

And thou, who after buffeting amid the gorges of crooked Saravus (the Sarre, or Saar) where its mouth frets at twice three craggy piers, when thou hast been carried down into a stream of greater note, O Barbel, dost more freely ply an easy stroke: improving with declining life, to thee alone of the whole number of living things belongs an old age not unpraised.

I pass by feeble Lesura and scanty Drahonus, nor turn to use Salmona's despised rivulet: long has Saravus, bearing ships upon the volume of his sounding waves, been calling me with all his robe outspread: far has he prolonged his stream that he might roll his wearied outfall beneath imperial walls.

(Trans. Hugh G. Evelyn White, 1919.)

 

Et toi, longtemps ballotté dans les gorges de l’oblique Saravus, où bouillonnent les bouches frémissantes de six piles de pierre, quand tu glisses, ô Barbeau, dans de plus nobles ondes, plus libre en ton essor, tu nages au large. Tu as meilleur goût dans le plus mauvais âge, et de tous les êtres qui respirent, tu es le seul dont la vieillesse ne soit pas sans prix.

Je passe la faible Lesura, et le pauvre Drahonus, et je ne parle pas du ruisseau méprisé de la Salmona. Chargé de navires, depuis longtemps le Saravus aux larges et bruyantes ondes m’appelle en déployant tous les plis de sa robe: il prolonge exprès son cours pour déverser ses eaux fatiguées sous les remparts de la cité impériale.

(Trans. E.-F. Corpet, 1843.)

Source.

 

Du auch, beengt an der Mündung des reichlich gekrümmten Saravus,

Wo er in sechsfacher Teilung erdröhnt an den felsigen Pfeilern,

Wann du gelangt erst bist in den Strom von grösserem Namen,

Regst viel freier dich, Barbe, in weithin kreisendem Schwimmen,

Besser, je älter du bist: so ward dir allein nur beschieden

Unter der Menge der Wesen ein nicht unrühmliches Alter.

 

Nicht den geringen Drahonus erwähne ich, nicht die geringe,

Lesura, rühme auch nicht der Salmona verachtete Wasser:

Schiffbar ruft der Saravus mit wellenertönender Hoheit

Längst mich im Flutengewande, der weit seine Wogen umherführt,

Um sie am Sitz des Augustus ermüdet zur Mündung zu wälzen.

 

(Trans. Rich. Eduard Ottman, 1895.)

Source.

 

Listen to Robert Bruch's translation into Luxembourgish.

The New York Goose Play Vase

This calyx-krater held at the Metropolitan Museum probably depicts a scene from a lost Old Comedy known as the Goose Play on account of the goose. For a discussion of which lost play it might be, see Storey, Fragments of Old Comedy, Vol. 3, in the Loeb Classical Library, which just came into print in 2011. The figure on the left holding the rod is saying "Noraretteblo", a nonsense expression, or so everyone thought until 2014 when it was identified as Ancient Circassian. He's saying, "This sneak thief is stealing from the man over there."

How the Greeks Learned Latin

Watch a Roman Society lecture by Eleanor Dickey on ancient Latin as a second language instruction.