A Crazy Week

The last week has been insane - both in good ways and bad. This is what I did:

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Monday - Flew home from Dallas, Texas.

Tuesday - South Hall had a fire drill, which I had to help conduct since I'm a P.A. Afterwards I went and played Racquetball with Ju, Prite, and Zahra for two hours. :)

Wednesday - I put up a bulletin board, had a staff meeting with my CET, then ran straight to Rollins for dinner with Tabi, and we went to see Tulpan (a Kazakh film) at the Ragtag.

Thursday - One on One Staff Meeting, then helped Kevin with Spanish a bit, and then ran to Middlebush for the year's first Alpha Mu Gamma meeting. We had great turnout actually. I walked home with Lucy and found out that we have a lot in common, and that we both live in South. Don't know how we missed that before. :P Then I made an email list for AMG.

Friday - I went to the Mosque with Zahra for Ramadan, ate yummy food, and then hung out with her and Maria, her roommate, for a while. Came back to the dorm around eleven and realized that the canoe trip on Saturday started really early in the day. So I had to make a really fast run to Schnucks for Canoe Trip Food before it closed.

Saturday - I woke up at 5:30 for the canoe trip. Do the math - I didn't get much sleep. It was really fun though. Ju and Fangbai were there. The river was low but actually the canoe that Ju and I were using was light enough that we just managed to drift over spots where other people were having to get out and drag. We skipped rocks and went swimming a bit. The water was the perfect temperature. On the way home I got to ride in a cool convertible, and I got home just in time to be on call. (First I ran to Dobbs for dinner and Carole happened to be there, so I ate with her and two of her friends) It was a football night. The stadium was packed with about 60,000 people and they were all chanting and shouting. A bit scary. Oh, and someone peed in the elevator and I got to clean it up. Charming.

Sunday - I slept until noon without even noticing. Then I got up, got dressed, and drove to Fayette. The drive was lovely with yellow wildflowers and old barns. Kristel made vegetarian lasagna and garlic bread which was very good, and then we studied Faroese with Uni for a while, interrupted for forty five minutes by an oboe recital across the street and a quick tour of CMU's campus. Then I drove straight back to campus just in time to meet Laura, Laura, and Peter for dinner at plaza. They were late, though, so first I sat with Allen, Esther, Amy, and Tina for a while, which was also nice. Then I was on call again.

The Faroese Coincidence

So, it had been a while, pretty much all summer, since I had experienced any of the psychotic coincidences that characterized last Spring. Remember, the mutual friends I had in common with the Norwegian guy studying here, the many uncanny similarities between Danial and I, that I knew the exact area this one guy lived in Brazil, that I'd been to Elisa's Naantali, etc...

Another one just hit. And I think it will have more of a useful effect on my life than the others. You see, it turns out that I am not the only person in the world who is learning Faroese. I am not even the only American learning Faroese, or the only Midwesterner. In fact, there are two other people here in my home state of Missouri who are learning this odd but awesome language - and they live a short twenty minute drive from Columbia!

Enter Kristel and Zac. They approached Uni in Uni's Meebo chat, and Uni thought he'd put us in touch with one another, since we all live in the same state. As it turned out, we live close enough to meet weekly! Kristel even used to be an MU student, so we decided to meet at nearby Memorial Union, which we both knew well.

So far it's awesome. They're very nice and we've had fun together. We have the Lockwood text from the MU library (which they repaired over the summer - the new binding even matches the title on the cover :D), and they are planning to order the famous 'new' books any day now. What I'm trying to figure out is what's the most unlikely part of the whole situation:

A.) That I exist

B.) The they exist

C.) That despite living twenty miles away from each other, we met through Uni, who lives thousands of miles away from any of us

:)

Not only is this all fun, it is giving me the motivation to actually work on Faroese, both because I have people to be accountable to, and because I sort of take the whole thing as a sign. Faroese is not easy and it's not even always fun, but I'm starting to get there. I'm at least starting to understand the complicated framework on which everything hangs - and, once you can visualize the framework, the language becomes possible. I remember when this started to happen with Finnish.

Uni and I have put in a lot of long hours working on my pronunciation, and I'm actually starting to learn. It's a thin line, though, since I don't want to forget how to pronounce German and Norwegian on the way, so I'm trying to break it up and speak those every once in a while. The spelling doesn't seem quite as chaotic as it used to - patterns are starting to emerge. And it amuses me greatly that however I mangle a word initially, Uni always seems to say, "You sound just like people from ____oy!!"

Question Time with Miranda

Uni and I have decided to start a new feature on Life in the Faroes (Uni's blog, which I help him with). It is called Question Time with Miranda, and it is a series of interviews between the two of us, where I pretend to not know anything about the Faroes and he pretends to know everything (thanks, Wikipedia!). We are going to start off really basic, like I will think the Faroe Islands are in Egypt, and work our way up to more specific topics such as houses in the Faroe Islands, or traditional music, or whatever, really.

You can see the first one here:

http://roskur.blogspot.com/2009/06/question-time-with-miranda-issue-one.html

Right now we are working on making an icon for the feature, and on the translation to Faroese.

Life in the Faroes

I realized that I haven't yet mentioned my other blog, Life in the Faroes. I am the secondary writer/translator of this blog, which is primarily written by my friend Uni. Uni is from the Faroe Islands and he is the one who helps me with Faroese when I have time to study it! :D (Wish I had more, I love the language and Uni is so nice and helpful!)

Anyway, we started writing this blog together because we realized that, despite recent increases, the internet isn't exactly saturated with information about the Faroes, especially daily life there... and there is a marked lack of bilingual English - Faroese resources online.

The blog can be found at:

http://roskur.blogspot.com/

Àtjan

Wow. This takes the screaming thing to a beautiful and strange extreme...

Just what I needed right now...

What I Did Over the Break

It's kind of funny that the more free time I have, the less I blog. Even if I have just as much to blog about, it's as if I often blog as a stalling tool. :D Haha. Well, so lets have a summary of the dry period:

I swam a few more times in the lake. :D
I saw Christmas come and go, with a bit of angst.
We went to Branson and had some unseasonably warm weather.
My Catalan class was cancelled, which I was not at all happy about.
It's 2009 now, hurrah!
I went to Arabic Church once, but they don't do food anymore (losers), and I caught up with Olivia there.
I've studied a bit of Italian and a bit of Norwegian, but otherwise haven't used my time wisely.
I may have a nice new penpal (though Liisa is now and forever first and foremost :D)
I didn't get the R.A. position, but I'm not horribly upset about that.
I'm excited about next semester, especially starting Journalism classes, and learning a bit of Thai from Kanchana and Chaowalit.
I'm excited to meet the newcomers to Laws.
I'm worried about German class.
I'm peeved at Jorge for writing on almost everyone's walls except for mine during the break.
I'm angry with my own dreams - why are my conscious and unconscious warring?
I didn't make a New Years reflection over the last year post, so I might do essentially the same thing come my birthday.
Lucia and I beat Bjarki and Alberto on Geochallenge. :D
Stephanie told me all about her new boyfriend, Jack.
It's about 75% sure that we're going on the cruise this summer.
The recession is scary and is leading to more crime here at home.
We're weathering it okay so far.
I failed at sending Christmas cards, except a late one to Liisa, so I'm now planning on groundhog day cards.
Lucia and I got way ahead of ourselves planning a trip to South America when we're twenty one.
I have really, really neglected Faroese. :(
I discovered that I can concentrate and get a lot more done in Mizzou than here. Oh well.
I had a wonderful evening with Stephanie, Smith, and Lucia. :D
I had some seriously cool moments where I intuited languages.
I read a very interesting and funny (no, seriously) book on the history of English.
I read Lucky Child, essentially the sequel to First They Killed My Father.
I spent a lot of good time with dear little Tidbit. :D Who is doing very well, btw, though she's gotten very white around the face and paws.
I worried about the Costa Rican earthquake, which happened right by my family, though they seem to be safe.
Sra. Altadonna showed me a clip that came up on one of the instructional CDs in Spanish class one day, where a boy looking very much like Jorge, and was named Jorge, introduced himself and his friend Miranda from the United States. Which was too funny, except that she doesn't know that the two of us aren't going out any more. Well, I guess we're still friends. I guess. Except that his old and new girlfriend is being about 90-100x more friendly than Jorge.
I got together with Laura T. here in St. Louis, and I ran into Phil at the mall.
I bought two pairs of jeans, ZOMG. (And I found out that for skinny jeans, I wear a size 1 petite. Not a size 0. ZOMG I need to become anorexic lol)

And that's... about all... for a whole month. Not very good. XD

Faroese Progress

I understood this entire paragraph from a newspaper today:

- Hann er ein verulig hetja. Hevði hann ikki reagerað sum hann gjørdi, var hann ikki á lívi í dag. Eg kann ikki takka honum nokk, segði Randi Petersen.


Yay! :D I also kept working with my verbs and wrote some new sentences.

Týsdagur, 11. November 2008

1.) Eg andaði.

2.) Eg kóki teg.

3.) Órógvi eg teg?

4.) Læknin vigaði okkum.

5.) Rópti tú á meg?

6.) Hevur tú snúð?

7.) Hon náddi meg, og eg flýddi frá henni.

8.) Vit kókaðu hundarnar.

9.) Tey snúðu fra mær.

10.) Teir vaskaðu bátin.

11.) Tú órógvar meg.

12.) Hevði eg órógvað tykkum?

13.) Tað sveipaði teg.

14.) Vit styðja tey.

15.) Tey kóka seg.

16.) Tey dømdu okkum.

17.) Ringurin bráðnaði.

18.) Eg veiddi ein fisk.

19.) Eg kókaði og bræddi ringin.

20.) Eg kókaði ringin, so hann bráðnaði.

Faroese Progress

I'm also getting pretty good at Class 1, Masculine Nouns (which constitutes like... 5% of all nouns in Faroese, but oh well, it's a start). I can use nominative, accusative, singular, and plural forms of these nouns, and I can use possessive adjectives with them as well.

So:

Bátur Mín

Bát Mín

Bátar Mínir

Bátar Mínar

Like this: Eldur, Fuglur, Gudur, Hundur, Knívur, Prestur, Ringur, Soðspónur, Steinur, Stólur, Tindur, Næmingur, Føroyingur, Íslendingur, Onglendingur, Ólavur

Tín, Sín.

Also: Okkara, Tygara, Tykkara, Hansara, Hennara, Tess, Teirra.

I'm starting to study verbs. Here I'm practicing with At Kasta - To Throw.

Sunnudagur, 9. November 2008

1.) Kasta hund tín!

2.) Eg havi kastað hundar mínar!

3.) Vit hava kastað hund okkara.

4.) Hevur tú kastað hund tín?

5.) Eg hevði kastað hund mín.

6.) Eg kasti knívar.

7.) Hevði tú kastað ein knív?

8.) Eg hevði kastað knívarnar.

9.) Eg havi kastað knívar tínar!

10.) Kastaði hann knív mín?

11.) Kastaðu vit knívar okkara?

12.) Kastaði hundurin knívin?

13.) Presturin kastaði ring sín.

14.) Prestarnir kastaðu ringar sínar.

15.) Presturin kastaði ein knív.

16.) Næmingurin kastar pening sín.

17.) Ólavur kastar stól sín.

18.) Vit hava kastað steinar okkara.

19.) Gudurin kastaði fuglar.

20.) Tórur kastaði eld.

21.) Eg kasti soðspónin.

22.) Hann kastar stav sín.

23.) Tarvur mín kastar Onglendingin.

24.) Armur mín kastaði stól tín.

On Request from Lucía XD

Faroese Sentences

This is the last set of sentences I'm going to make with this _____ has ____ pattern. I've pretty much exhausted the verb "Hava"... to have. I even know that the past participle version is Havt, and that the present participle is Havandi. I could use them, except it doesn't often make sense to do so, and I didn't really know enough Faroese to come up with one of the weird sentences that would allow it. :)

I am also getting fairly familiar with bending masculine nouns, though I decided not to use Class 2 in these sentences for some reason... Not really sure why as they're pretty similar to Class 1. :D Well, next time. I also tackled the most irregular feminine class, class 4. Next time I'm going to learn 2 or 3 new verbs and write some sentences using those and perhaps the other feminine classes. I should probably get Masculine Class 2 out of the way as well, and then I'll just have Neuter nouns before I conquer the world of nouns completely! Muahahah. Okay, here they are.

Practicing:

At Hava

Masculine Class 1

Masculine Class 3

Feminine Class 4

Týsdagur, 21. Oktober 2008

1. Rósan hevur broddar.

2. Presturin hevði eina syklu.

3. Bankarnir hava pengarnar.

4. Eg havi fingrar.

5. Dómarin hevur eina byrðu.

6. Læknarnir hava stivlar.

7. Danskarin hevði gávuna.

8. Onglendingurin hevur ein arm.

9. Elsuba hevði eina dukku.

10. Fíggindin hevur ein kjallara.

11. Mánan hevur eina søgu.

12. Gentur hava dukkur.

13. Konur hava byrður.

14. Lundin hevði ein hala.

15. Jødin hevur eina tungu.

16. Vikingurin hevði ein knív.

17. Føroyingurin hevur ein næmingur.

18. Ein snigil hevði ein brunn.

19. Býttlingurin hevur ein bólt.

20. Gud hevur ein buss.

21. Kirkjan hevði eina gøtu.

22. Maðurin hevur ein stól.

23. Svenskarin hevur ein ring.

24. Hundurin hevur ein gaffil.

25. Ólavur hevur ein bil.

26. Hetjurnar høvdu fíggindar.

27. Hevur tú ein garð?

Don't Decline Nouns... Let Them Bend.

In Faroese, and, I suspect, Norwegian, you don't decline nouns. You bend them.

Well. Of course it's the same thing: changing a word in order to show it's case or number or whether it's definite or indefinite... all of that lovely stuff. :)

But they call it bending and no force on earth will compel them to use 'decline' instead when they speak English. And at first I resisted this. Oh, I never really pretended not to understand their talk of bending. But I considered it quaint. Foreign. Below me. I myself always said decline and made a point of saying it soon enough after they said bend that it almost stood as a correction - but not quite.

And to what purpose? Yes, decline is more correct. And who could think of bending Latin words... the very idea is ludicrous. Decline and it's lovely wife Declension are well suited to that language. They're all part of the same exclusive club. But why not bend Faroese? Declining is formal and distant. Faroese is living.

Abstract ruminations aside... it occurs to me that bend really does fit with Faroese, and decline with Latin, in a clear and incontrovertible way: namely, they're part of the same language family. And this line of thinking brings me somewhere I've been before - to the very nature of percieved linguistic superiority, and the making of compound words.

In English, compound words, especially once we move past the most basic and utilitarian of them (doorknob and bedpost seldom attract attention), are relegated to a somewhat lower level of speech than their more showy, or, shall we say, ostentatious counterparts. Firearm, for example, seems amusing if we pause to break it apart. And let no man combine two words to form anything more important, unless he doesn't intend to be taken seriously. It simply isn't done in English. The equivalent, a loquacious circumlocution, is almost as bad, though technically correct.

Which sounds more impressive, after all, which sounds better: To say something moved like a wave, or to say it undulated?

Put your finger on why. Obviously knowing the word undulated puts the speaker into a certain rank by merit of education. But is it so fundamentally superior to say undulate than to use some normal, Anglo-Saxon English counterpart? Precision, one may argue, gives it the edge - why say in four words what one can say in one? This argument holds some reason. But in this case we can simply say wave, using it as a verb.

And consider the case of the ultra sophisticated Optometrist and the utterly pedestrian Eye Doctor. Or the acceptable Dentist and the laughably ignorant Tooth Doctor. Here we only have two words instead of one, and imagine that, to further close the distance, it were acceptable in English as in German or Norwegian to form a compound word of Anglo-Saxon roots. Here: Toothdoctor.

But Dentist is only: Dent- (Tooth-), and -Ist (-Er) (Shows Agency). So with the mist pushed aside, we have only... Toother. Toothperson. Is it really so superior to Toothdoctor?

Well, yes, for two reasons - one definitively based on a long defunct hierarchy, the other merely snobbish.

The first is that French Based Words, and through them Latin based words, were brought to England by conquerers, and so through force perceived as the dialect of the more educated and higher class. Speech filled with Anglo-Saxon roots could hardly be anything but common. A lovely legacy to carry with us to this day, but there it is.

The second is that Toothdoctor or Eyedoctor would be immediately recognizable to anyone, whereas we don't speak Latin or Greek nowadays, nor even a language directly derived from them, so we don't recognize the roots behind words that are. It requires a base amount of education, and indeed, a completely separate morpheme, to learn Dentist or Optometrist, so they can serve as indicators of status.

I am not making a call towards any movement. (:D As if I could inspire such things) In my mind, as in many others, the variety that the Norman invasion, among other influences, has lent to the English language is more than payment for any strange or unfair hierarchy of roots that it may have introduced. But merely consider the reasoning, and the history, before you judge... Why force the subject, and decline a noun, when you could simply let it bend?

Bit O' Faroese Conversation

I received this message on facebook today:

Halló..
Nú tá tú dugir so væl føroyskt, so tonkti eg, at eg skuldi skriva tær eitt føroyskt bræv. Eg veit ikki rættiliga, hvat eg skal skriva, men okkurt stendur her..
Nú kanst tú stríðast við orðabók og øllum.. ella tímir tú kanska ikki tað, og spyrt bara meg, hvat eg havi skrivað til tín..

Alt tað besta,
Uni Johannesen ;)

And, to my utter shock and amazement, I understood it! :O
So I intelligently replied:

Halló!

Nú kan eg skriva okkurt til tín! Eg kan skriva...

at eg havi ertrar í livurin mín. XD

His Response:
Hahahahhahaha!!!!

So tú hevur ertrar í livur tíni?
Eg veit ikki rættiliga hvat eg skal svara tær.. men.. her er rímiliga óáhugavert at vera. Lítli beiggi mín, vinur hansara, og Senita, ein genta onkra aðrastaðni frá, hon er adopterað, sita í eina horninum, og hyggja í fartelefon Ariar... Senita leitar eftir sangum á telefonini, sum eg segði, ógvuliga óáhugavert.. Men hvussu nógv ritminni og hvussu stóran gerðil hevur telda tín?

(eg havi ertrar í livur míni)**

My Response:

Tað veit eg ikki. :(

Eg har pengar í stivla mìni. Eg tonkti, at tað var týðandi, at hava pengar í stivlum sínum. ;_;

Thank you for helping me, Uni! :D

Faroese Progress

So I haven't made much progress yet. :P Mostly because I've been busy, but also partly because... this stuff is hard! XD

Here are my first sentences.

Mánadagur, 13. Oktober 2008
1.) Tú ert fiskimaður.
2.) Eg eri fiskimaður.
3.) Hann er fiskimaður.
4.) Fiskimaðurin er týðandi og álítandi.
5.) Eg veit at fiskimaðurin er týðandi.
6.) Hvar i Ameriku býrt tú?
7.) Eg skilji teg.
8.) Hvat er so stuttligt?
9.) Hvat er so týðandi?
10.) Kanst tú vera ein fiskimaður?
11.) Kanst tú vera álítandi?
12.) Hvat sást tú?
13.) Eg skilji nú!
14.) Hvar i Føroyum býrt tú?
15.) Eg veit at tú býrt í Føroyum.
16.) Sást tu hundin?
17.) Eg sá hundin.
18.) Eg sá vikingin.
19.) Vikingurin sá hundin!
20.) Vikingurin sá ikki ein bát.
21.) Eg eri tín næmingur nú.
22.) Ert tú mín næmingur?
23.) Maðurin hevði ein stein.
24.) Vikingurin hevði ein bát.
25.) Hundurin sá vikingin.

1.) You are (a) fisherman.
2.) I am (a) fisherman.
3.) He is (a) fisherman.
4.) The fisherman is important and reliable.
5.) I know that the fisherman is reliable.
6.) Where do you live in America?
7.) I understand you.
8.) What is so funny?
9.) What is so important?
10.) Can you be a fisherman?
11.) Can you be reliable?
12.) What did you see?
13.) I understand now!
14.) Where in the Faroe Islands do you live?
15.) I know that you live in the Faroe Islands.
16.) Did you see the dog?
17.) I saw the dog.
18.) I saw the viking.
19.) The viking saw the dog!
20.) The viking didn't see a boat.
21.) I am your student now.
22.) Are you my student?
23.) The man had a stone.
24.) The viking had a boat.
25.) The dog saw the viking.

One Last Library Rant and some Random Stuff About Japanese Roommates

Went back to the library today to check out the Finnish and Synesthesia books. The Finno-Ugric language section blew me away. I'll be honest - I was expecting a display half the size of the Scandinavian one. Instead, it was easily twice as large. For a few minutes, I'll admit, I kept my hand on it as if I was touching earth, I almost couldn't bear to take my hand away and not touch them, afraid they would stop being real. They even had a few very, very poor books (by poor I mean very small and falling apart) on Sami. One was a sort of dictionary arranged in some non-alphabetical way that translated Finnish into four dialects of Sami. One would have to be really desperate to work with that.

But the Finnish books were much nicer. I picked a big huge volume, fully half the size of my Unabridged English Dictionary back home. It barely fit in my backpack. It's called a Basic Course in Finnish, but it's absolutely humongous. I giggled a bit to see that I could flip to the end of the book and still get the main idea of many of the readings. That's what even the tiniest slice of immersion does to language acquisition, I suppose. Still, I can learn A LOT from it, I can already tell.

Another surprise - I went looking for books on Sami culture and I found a big section and, here's the kicker, on the way through the eastern stacks I realized that I was staring at a whole block of encyclopedias in Scandinavian languages. ENCYCLOPEDIAS! That's the most glorious thing, which I haven't even begun to tap yet... the fact that here the books in foreign language extend far out of the foreign language section and into the main stacks! Oh, the awaiting fun! :D

And it occurs to me that the tight fear I've lived with for a while, that I would run out of materials, that I had to ration myself... all of that is over now. I no longer need to grasp at fragments, at anything. A few years ago I would carefully fold and save a candy wrapper if it listed the instructions in anything less common than Spanish. Of course in todays world it was always a little silly, because there's so much content available online in different languages, but there was something oddly respectful... almost venerating about it... a sort of waste not, want not attitude, that even this wrapping paper had worth... I could use it to learn perhaps two or three new words... like corn syrup or hazelnut.

It would be lovely if I could keep this sense of desperation, as ludicrous as it is now and has ever been, and apply it to the almost guilty excess suddenly available to me. I would tear through that library like no one has before. :D I seriously feel my mouth water a bit just thinking about it. I'm such a lazy little child polyglot, though... if I had more discipline I wouldn't even be taking the time to sit here and salivate and fantasize about it, I would be eating the books right now.

Unfortunately my brain does have it's limits and I spent 3 hours in class today, 4 hours studying stuff from class, 1 hour learning Arabic letters, 30 minutes smashing my head against the Faroese pronunciation guide, and 20 minutes chatting in Swedish-Norwegian. And at the Arabic lesson today Ashley seemed to have some sort of emotional bond with every letter... she couldn't let us move on without saying it again and again and cuddling it in her mouth like it was something precious or something sweet or occasionally (take Ain) something deliciously dirty. Given my reading material lately I almost felt like she had some sort of personality synestesia about the whole thing. Mah interdisciplinary erosion!!! But soon to bed, soon to bed. ^^ I am happy now and it's almost too much, it's too good for me and makes me feel a bit desperate. Let's be honest, I can't have all of them, ah, life is so finite...

Enough with that. Not that again. XD

In other news I love the Japanese roommates and how they constantly feel like they have to apologize and not only that but they are always asking me for help translating these bizarre apology phrases. Such as the traditional Japanese thing to say when, for example, you are at a friends house and the friend's husband or wife comes home and you say something bizarre to him/her like "I am sorry and grateful for intruding".

And I'm still trying to help them figure out the difference between a tan and a sunburn. I thought I made it clear but they keep arguing that both are bad for you, which is true but it's about the connotation and denotation damnit! :P

Funny Mispronunciations: Room - Loom, Rice - Lice.

I have too much imagination, see, I keep imagining Mayumi and I sharing a loom or they all eating lice out of each other's hair when they say the obvious things. :P There are a few others too... it's the kind of thing you can never think of when you want to but every time you hear it you giggle again. ;)

I totally <3 living with foreigners. And books. So far other than feeling slightly like a loser for really, truly, madly, and deeply not giving a shit about parties/drinking, I'm loving University.


P.S. - It was a strange feeling to find that they had an entire WALL in the library devoted to books about poultry. There was one huge shelf easily the size of the Scandinavian and Finno-Ugric shelves combined, perhaps even as much as 50% bigger, devoted to a series called "Poultry Science". And there were more "Poultry Nutrition" books than Icelandic, Faroese, Old Icelandic, and Old Norse combined.

It's none of my business, of course, why should I begrudge the poor student who is obsessed with feeding chickens as I am with languages his jollies? I shouldn't, of course, that's the easy answer, and of course agricultural science and stuff are actually majors here unlike all but the most famous of European languages, so they really have more of a right to be on the shelves, but it's also at once hilarious and a bit sad. :P

More About the Faroe Islands

We have to research study abroad options for our seminar thingy. On a whim, I decided to research two somewhat obscure places that I'm interested in on the microscopic chance that they have exchange programs. That's right: Bhutan and the Faroe Islands.

Apparently if you want to study in Bhutan you have the unlimited possibilities inherent in having to study Himalayan and Buddhist studies for a year at some Indian University and then being permitted to take a week long field trip in Bhutan. Interesting, but yeah, not really plausible. ;_;

After about half an hour of research, the Faroe Islands look a little more promising. They have a summer program (Wikipedia says it's annual, but some more official site said biannual) that accepts a small number of foreign students to study linguistic and cultural stuff. ^^ Which is actually kind of nice, because I probably wouldn't want to spend more than two months there anyways.

Next summer they have one, and then, if the one website is to be trusted, the next will be in 2011. Which is probably a decent thing to shoot for. Knowledge of Faroese is not necessary, but on the form you can check "none" or "some", so I figure it will give me a leg up (I might almost draw even with the normal Scandinavians XD) if I can honestly say that I've introduced myself to the phonetics and grammar and read a few texts.

I had the brilliant idea of using the Faroese Wikipedia to practice. I knew I was in trouble when I saw that they recommend going to the Faroese postal service website and reading their history of the stamp collection for practice. Sure enough, there were only a few articles on the Faroese Wikipedia long enough to merit 10 cents a page to print them out. I snagged the 8 page article on the Faroe Islands themselves, which in all honesty will last me a while. After that I can always combine a few articles to make a page. I've also found a dictionary for reading help... good old Freelang. :D We'll see how comprehensive it is.

Little Faroese Grammar

Today was a good day. :D I won 150 dollars from the Costa Rica photo contest (1st place! :D) and I had a Japanese feast with Mayumi, Mitsuki, and Linh. ^^

I also was able to introduce a few people to couchsurfing.com, which is lovely because I had such good experiences with it.

But this was the highlight of the day:

I checked out the Mizzou Library.

A few months ago (it seems like longer :P) I went with Lucia to the Wash U library for Smith research. I was amazed by the concept of a University Library. They had shelves that moved and foreign language books in every section! It was paradise. I totally geeked out about it with Mrs. McFarland when I went back to school. And since then I've been waiting, nervously, to see how the Mizzou library compares. I'd heard repeatedly that it wasn't as nice. But it was bound to be better than the Public County Library, right? Right?

It was. :D I went in to see if they had any material on Synesthesia. They did. About 6 books worth, plus some studies and stuff I didn't get into. This was just on the database search, btw. Then, although I had seen from a websearch at home that they didn't even have many NORWEGIAN books, I decided on an optimistic whim to see if they had anything about Faroese. And they did. A grammar book, and a few others. A GRAMMAR BOOK.

Just as in the Wash U. library, I found myself initially incapable of finding anything by myself, except the reference section. So I asked and asked and was redirected until they told me, ah, this number is on the second a floor... which is between the second and the third floors. Ah, perfect, so fitting... that such a book would be on a magic floor! :D To access it I went in a small door to the left, and up...

"It's in an old part of the building," they told me. "It's a bit dark up there". I went to the left and it was already very still and dimly lit. I was the only person in the entire wing. I climbed. After four flights of rickety stairs, I reached the magical floor 2a, where it was even darker near the books but by the windows that strange yellow and dusty light flowed in. I felt like I was in the secret garden or the beast's west wing.

Then I found what I was looking for. One entire shelf, from ceiling to floor, dedicated to that part of the world where I have spent half my heart though only a single month of my lifetime. They had an entire encyclopedic looking series called "Scandinavian Studies". It looked like it hadn't been checked out in a lifetime and I knew in a moment that I wanted to read them. All of them. And the History of Scandinavian Languages. And the thick book called, "How to Pronounce Norwegian". And the Icelandic Dictionary. All of them...

The old familiar image of an edible book came to my mind, like the book was soaked through in syrup and was in consistency not unlike a heart of palm, but with a taste as varied and fantastic as durian with none of the characteristic rotting-corpse smell. In its place would be that smell old books have, simultaneously clean and dusty.

I pulled myself back into reality and searched for that most rare of all the rare books before me... my little Faroese Grammar. I had to scan the shelf three times, I missed it at first. It was a small, grey volume titled simply, "An Introduction to Modern Faroese". I couldn't believe I was actually allowed to check it out. I looked all over the book for some indication that I could not. I flipped through it to make sure it was not, by some trick of whatever evil power exists, a mutant blank copy. But people were waiting for me, and I had to leave.

The weather was a wonderful cool and rainy and windy. No one, I am certain, has ever made the twenty minute walk from Ellis to Laws in such weather with a malfunctioning umbrella and such high spirits over a little grey book. :) I am very content.

Faroe Islands

Language Families

Very direct and interesting language family breakdown from Freelang.net. I've put in bold and commented in red on the languages I've dabbled in or am especially interested in learning. I've put comments in orange next to languages I feel a lesser but still viable connection with. I've put comments in normal text if I have anything else I feel like saying. Then I've bolded those comments if I refuse to learn the language for whatever made up reason I have in my head. :P Yeah, I'm kind of a freak.

Linguistically, I'm well on my way to conquering Western, Southern, and Northern Europe. ;)

Indo-European family

• Indo-Iranian group
  • Indic branch
    • GUJARATI - India
    • HINDI - India If I have time one day, I'd like to learn Hindi a lot.
    • PUNJABI - India
    • URDU - Pakistan
  • Iranian branch
    • KURDISH - Turkey
    • PERSIAN - Iran This would be fun. It's already taught me the "Q" from Hell...
• Greek group
  • GREEK - Greece I learned some for my trip to Greece. It's okay...
• Italic (Latin) group
  • CATALAN - Spain From what I've heard, it's cool Spanish. I'd be interested...
  • FRENCH - France (Say no to French!)
  • ITALIAN - Italy I LOVE Italian! It's Spanish but more beautiful! Learned some for Italy.
  • LATIN - extinct Latin 5 Next Year! Latin's the best dead language ever!
  • OCCITAN - France
  • PORTUGUESE - Portugal I can read it.
  • (BRAZILIAN) PORTUGUESE - Brazil I can read it.
  • ROMANIAN - Romania
  • SPANISH - Spain Spanish 5 Next Year! I do love my Spanish, my first second language.
• Celtic group
  • Brittonic branch
    • CORNISH - United Kingdom Like "Cornish Pixies!" Yeah, that's all.
    • WELSH - United Kingdom This would be my number one choice from the Celtic group.
  • Gaelic branch
    • IRISH GAELIC - Ireland Another "If I have too much free time I'lll learn a bit" lang...
    • MANX - United Kingdom Cool Name.
    • SCOTTISH GAELIC - United Kingdom Irish is better. Come on.
• Germanic group
  • Western branch
    • AFRIKAANS - South Africa
    • AMERICAN - U.S.A. Speak it! W00t!
    • DUTCH - Netherlands I can almost read it. It's very familiar.
    • GERMAN - Germany I'm taking this in school and want to focus on it in college.
    • OLD ENGLISH - extinct Similar to Old Norse...
  • Northern branch
    • DANISH - Denmark Yeah, Danes and I are sort of mutually intelligible... :P
    • FAROESE - Denmark This is like Norwegian but cooler! Not quite as scary as Icelandic.
    • ICELANDIC - Iceland This would be fun. It's like Norwegian on crack. Ja sounds great.
    • NORWEGIAN - Norway I've had an infatuation with this for a while.
    • OLD GUTNISH - extinct
    • OLD NORSE - extinct Heheh... Well... This is just useful. You know.
    • SWEDISH - Sweden Yeah, Swedes and I are sort of mutually intelligible... :P
  • Eastern branch
    • GOTHIC - extinct Tolkien liked this one! And I used to think Emo's spoke it...
• Baltic group
  • LATVIAN - Latvia
  • LITHUANIAN - Lithuania I can order drinks in Lithuanian! But that's all... :P
• Slavic group
  • Western branch
    • CZECH - Czech Republic (Say no to Slavik)
    • POLISH - Poland
    • SLOVAK - Slovakia
  • Southern branch
    • CROATIAN - Croatia
    • MACEDONIAN - Macedonia
    • SERBIAN - Serbia and Montenegro (Say no to Slavik)
    • SLOVENIAN - Slovenia
  • Eastern branch
    • RUSSIAN - Russia (Say no to Slavik)
    • UKRAINIAN - Ukraine Okay, if I had to learn *1* Slavik language...
• Armenian group
  • ARMENIAN - Armenia
• Albanian group
  • ALBANIAN - Albania
• Constructed languages
  • ESPERANTO - constructed (Say no to Esperanto!)

Basque family

• BASQUE - Spain If I ever have way too much free time.... Remind me...

Dravidian family

• Southern group
  • TAMIL (romanized) - India They have a cool alphabet.
  • TAMIL (spoken language) - India

Uralic family

• Finno-Ugric group
  • Finnish branch
    • ESTONIAN - Estonia
    • FINNISH - Finland For Liisa, Tolkien, and my own linguistic insanity...
  • Hungarian branch
    • HUNGARIAN - Hungary

Altaic family

• Turkish group
  • TURKISH - Turkey
  • TURKMEN - Turkmenistan

Japanese family

• JAPANESE - Japan Yay Japanese! Pretty colours, good food, video games...

Korean family

• KOREAN - Korea

Sino-Tibetan family

• Chinese group
  • CANTONESE - China
• Tai-Kadai group
  • THAI - Thailand

Austro-Asiatic family

• Mon-Khmer group
  • VIETNAMESE - Vietnam

Afro-Asiatic family

• Semitic group
  • HEBREW (romanized) - Israel

Nilo-Saharan family

• Nilotic group
  • KIPSIGIS - Kenya

Niger-Congo family

• Bantu branch
  • GBARI - Nigeria
  • KINYARWANDA - Rwanda I love the name of this one...
  • SWAHILI - Tanzania Swahili wouldn't kill me.
  • ZULU - South Africa Neither would Zulu.
• Kwa group
  • YORUBA - Nigeria We just learned about the Yoruba!!!

Austronesian family

• Malayo-Polynesian group
  • INDONESIAN - Indonesia This is supposed to be really easy. I wouldn't mind dabbling...

Andamanese family

• ONGE (ANDAMAN) - India

Creole

• English based
  • TOK PISIN - Papua New Guinea
• French based
  • HAITIAN CREOLE - Haiti
• Portuguese based
  • PAPIAMENTO - Netherlands Antilles Papiamentu is kind of the best ever. And so easy!

Amerindian family

• Quechuan group
  • QUECHUA (BOLIVIAN) - Bolivia Quechua would be fun. It's like Nahuatl...
  • QUECHUA (OF CUZCO) - Peru I mostly like the name... :P
• Uto-Aztecan group
  • NAHUATL - Mexico Nahuatl is WAY too much fun not to abuse with a dictionary.
  • OLD NAHUATL - extinct After all my Nahuatl fun, this excites me.
• Muskogean group
  • CHOCTAW - U.S.A
• Iroquoian group
  • MOHAWK - Canada Coolest name ever. :D
• Algonquian group
  • BLACKFOOT - Canada
  • CHEYENNE - U.S.A
  • MALISEET - Canada
  • NASKAPI - Canada
  • OJIBWE - Canada

Eskimo-Aleut family

• Inuit group
  • INUIT - Canada I randomly know some words of this for names. Amaroq means wolf.

New Freelang Dictionaries!

Freelang is this awesome free program that lets you keep dictionaries on you're computer. There are currently ninety languages you can load, and you can 'create' your own. Theoretically you could use the program for a conlang or to make flashcards for any subject... You could even start a 'stack' for words you've learned yourself in a certain foreign language class. It's kind of my favourite program ever.

http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/index.html

Anyhow, I just checked it today, and I realized that they added several new languages! I swear, this update was made just for me. The new languages include Old Norse and Old Nahuatl (!), Papiamentu(!!) and Faroese (!!!).

Old Norse is just plain useful. Old Nahuatl is just so much fun! I used the Nahuatl dictionary all the time - I didn't even know they had records of Old Nahuatl!

Papiamentu is also really exciting. It's a pigdin sort of language only spoken on the ABC islands in the Carribean. Those just happen to be my all time favourite vacation spot, and the home of our new family friends, the Chatleins. We met their daughter Natasha on the plane ride in last year, and the two of us got to talking (much about Papiamentu, which being a Romantic-Germanic hybrid interested me). She ended up inviting us to her families house for Christmas, which was really an amazing experience. The locals there go MAD if you speak Papiamentu... saying "How are you?" to the maids made them giggle or, alternatively, smile bigger than Missourians ever do. And when I said "Merry Christmas" on the way to the ice machine, I found 5 of them whispering and waiting for me! :P They were thrilled to death. And a dictionary means I can actually learn some for next time...

Faroese... Wow, this was how I became convinced they made this dictionary for me. I recently bought a crappy program with 107 languages, all 'phrasebook style', with another 30 languages thrown in 'flashcard style'. I bought the whole program because Faroese was one of the 'flashcard style' languages, and the only result for "Faroese" on amazon. I've wanted to taste Faroese ever since hearing Ormurin Langi... and just as with Papiamentu... a dictionary opens many doors.

Whee! I'm so excited! Honestly, try Freelang even if you just want it for a school course or something.