Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 69

Bulgarian root: Mah “wave”

In Bulgarian class yesterday, we were reading about eagles (like you do) and came across the phrase: Размах на крилете –  Raz-mah na kril-e-te – “Wingspan” (lit. apart-wave of wing-s-the). But while English span comes from a root meaning “to stretch” (other cognates include spin, spider, and pendulum) the Bulgarian word comes from a root meaning “to wave.”

мах – mah /max/ – “a wave of the hand” “a swish” (I bet it’s imitative)

The verb is  махам – maham – “I wave” “I get rid of”, which combined with the prefix raz (”apart”) produces размахам – razmaham – “I wave around” “I flap” “I whisk”. You can combine this verb with many other prefixes to tweak its meaning, e.g. zamaham  – “I lash”, pomaham – “I shake”, and otmaham – “I take away” and premaham – “I remove”.

Those last are because maham can also mean “get rid of,” (probably from the same logic as “wave something away”) which, when made reflexive becomes махам се – maham se – “I get rid of myself” “I get out of here” “I scram”. The imperative mahay se! is rather rude.

Molasses Empire

Many cultures spread along with their crops. Wheat and Barley east and west from Mesopotamia, Rice west from China, and the agonizingly slow crawl of Maize north and south from Central America. But no spread of crops and ideas was faster — or more transformative — of sugar cane.

Saccharum officinarum was domesticated in New Guinea around 6,000 BCE. Around 1500 BCE, the Polynesians adopted sugarcane as a ready source of calories, propagating it around the Pacific. All might have ended there if not for the semi-mythical Mamamy, who famously turned “back” toward Malasia. His descendants established sugar-growing culture there, as well as, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Madagascar, and finally the eastern coast of Africa.

Sugarcane grew well in these places, and while Rome was rising around the Mediterranean, the Mamamian Empire had claimed much of the coast of the Indian Ocean. It was in Africa, however, that the full flowering of Molasses culture was achieved.  Fueled by their abundant crop, with a large and technologically savvy population, the Bantu States extended from the Sahara to the Cape of Good Hope, with cultural influence felt as far north as Scandinavia.

The collapse of the Mamamy Empire, however, cut the Bantu trade routs. Cut off from lucrative markets in the Far East, Sub-Saharan traders pushed north. The Molasses Rout through Byzos is the most famous example of this trade, but this link, too, was cut by invading nomads from the Eurasian Steppe.

Frustrated, the Bantu kings opened their books of Polynesian sea-craft and turned their eyes west, across the Atlantic.

The Bulgarian of Moana

Yesterday my wife and I took our older daughter to see Moana ( Смелата Вайяна – Smelata Vayyana – Vaiyana the Brave). It was a great movie, my favorite since The Princess and the Frog, and I really enjoyed the translation. Here are a few highlights.

Пътували сме! – Patuvali sme! – “We (apparently) traveled!” This one comes after my favorite song in the movie (and perhaps of all time?) And it’s interesting in a couple of ways. Pat is cognate to English “path” and Russian “sputnik.” Patuvam is its verb form – “I travel.” The -li sme ending is a present participle (i for plural subjects, sme is “we are”) that indicates that the speaker did not see an event, but inferred that it happened from evidence (which is why it’s called the inferential evidential mood). In English Moana might have said “We used to travel” or “We must have traveled” or just “we traveled” (I don’t know, I haven’t seen the English version yet), but in Bulgarian patuvali sme exactly indicates the extent of her certainty.

Пак заповядай – Pak zapovyaday – “You’re free to ask again.” In English, Maui says “You’re welcome,” which presented a problem for Bulgarian translators. The usual translations of “you’re welcome” is моля – molya – literally “I pray,” “I beg,” or “please” and за нищо – za nishto – “for nothing” (similar to French de rien). What the translators, chose, however, was zapovyaday, the singular imperative form of zapovyadam – “I command.” Zapovyaday (zapovyadayte if you’re being polite) is a formula you say when you give someone something, similar to douzo in Japanese or (sort of) “here you are” in English. If you’re in a restaurant in Bulgaria, your server might say “zapovyadayte Vi vino” or “here you are your wine” or literally “command-you your wine.” When you leave the restaurant, you might here “pak zapovyadayte” literally “again command-you” or “thank you, come again!” In English, Maui is being presumptuous by saying “you’re welcome” before Moana has a chance to say “thank you.” In Bulgarian, he’s even worse, saying “Feel free to ask for my help again” as he steals her boat.

Ще ме научиш да плавам. – Shte me nauchish da plavam. – “You will teach me to sail.” Shte means “will” (derived from a verb that meant “to want”) me means “me” as a direct object of the verb nauchish which is “toward/completely-learn-secondperson” (na-uchi-sh), da is “to,” and plavam is “I sail.” Plavam is interesting because it’s very similar to pluvam, which means “to swim.” In many other Slavic languages (Polish and Russian for example) “swim” and “sail” are expressed by the same word, but Bulgarian just barely distinguishes them. I predict that Tokelauan distinguishes the hell out of those words.

 

Merry Dinosaurs! Get your free book

Merry Dinosaurs!

In celebration of the season, Groom of the Tyrannosaur Queen is free this week as an ebook on Amazon. Once you buy it, the audio book (of which I am very proud) will be available for just $2. So really this is me giving you a chance to hear the sweet sweet voices of a cynical future soldier and a blood-crazed philosopher warlord (and all their friends!) for less than a price of a coffee at Starbucks. The sale ends on Friday, at which point the book will go back to being a whole 99 cents, and the audio book will still be $2.

So go out, slay your enemies, and be merry, my little velociraptors!

 

Five Star Reviews: “Black English as the New Lingua Franca”

Oh my God I have a new linguist hero. His name is John McWhorter, the author of The Language Hoax, the Story of Human Language, and I guess a whole bunch of other stuff I have to track down and buy now because everything he does or says is just delightful? That’s the assumption I’m going with right now.

Anyway, I just listened to the most recent episode of Lexicon Valley (the first of many that I will download, let me tell you) that talks about how Black English (i.e. African American Vernacular English) influences General American English. It’s fascinating, it’s funny, it’s insightful as all hell. I think it made me a better person for listening to it? I’ll let you know.

Go listen to it.

Birds and Beasts

The wormhole casts harsh rainbow light across the moon rocks, and the Ambassador of the Dominated Parturitions of the Fwit Earth struts through. In his environment suit , he looks like a character from a children’s cartoon — a puffy sack on two stilt-legs, surmounted by a ribbed hose for his neck and a gaily-patterned artificial beak with various tools folded back along its length, Swiss-army style. The Ambassador cocks his head at us, looking through first one eye-bubble, then the other. The beak opens and closes on the Lunar near-vacuum, and my radio crackles with the clacking warble.

“Hello,” says my interpreter. “I come in peace on behalf of all fwit-kind.” Or, as she’d told me in our pre-mission briefings, “I am helpless. I am being sacrificed by my court to you as a gesture of good will. Kill me if you will.”

Just the sort of thing a damn bird would say. It’s been almost a year since First Contact with the fwits, but I still have to bite down on my disappointment. The first data had looked very promising. Fwit Earth had a very recent Point Of Divergence with the human, hnak, and 6rra-rra-rra Earths — right around the Ice Age. Back at Turtle Bay, we had hoped, secretly, that the newly contacted fwits might turn out to be our cousins. Hominids, or at least primates. Someone we could relate to.

But no. There were lots of creatures sitting on the brink of sapience a million years ago, and in the fwits’ timeline, plains-dwelling apes had lost out to flightless horn bills.

The fwits, regardless of their  individual language-groups, religions, or paturitions, care more about eggs than infants, establish social hierarchy through careful torture, and tend to bite. They also hate isolation.

“Your Excellency, on behalf of the United Nations of Human Earth, welcome to the moon of Human Earth,” I say. I’m not sure what the translation for that might be. Probably something like “We have decided it is not in our interest to kill you,” or something equally creepy and avian.

“Good,” says Hnqhaagr on my private channel. “Now, just like we’ve practiced.”

Technically, as emissary to the fwits of the World Government of Hnak Earth, Hnqhaagr is my equal. In real life, though, his species has been part of the Union for a century longer than humans, and they know how First Contact is done.

Hnqhaagr genuflects, squatting with his arms stretched out toward the fwit Ambassador, palms and tail turned up. He bows his head and smacks his lips, then proclaims welcome on behalf of his baboon brethren. Meanwhile, I bow in the human fashion, torso straight, face down, and hope that stupid bird hops toward me.

He doesn’t. The goggle-eyes of the fwit Ambassador glide right over us sweaty mammals and alight on the transport globe of the third member of the Union delegation.

“Welcome,” squawks General Rgaa, “on behalf of the Most Elevated Mob of 6Rra-rra-rra Earth. Forward!”

That last was a command to her mount, which dutifully trudges forward on its treadmill, piloting the transport globe forward. 6Rra-rra-rras also evolved during the Ice Age, but their homeland was the Eurasian taiga. By the time early hominids expanded out of Africa, there was a thriving population of giant ravens waiting to domesticate them. The mount of General Rgaa is the size of a 15-year-old boy, hairy, slope-shouldered, small-skulled, with floppy ears and an empty expression. It jerks to a halt when its rider pecks it hard on the cheek.

I wince. I imagine Hnqhaar does too.

The fwit Ambassador doesn’t seem to have any problems with cruelty to primates. He ducks his head and waggles his tail in deference while General Rgaa puffs up her pie-bald feathers and shimmies to show off the pearls and woven-titanium net that decorates her breast. The birds have their rapport.

Damn it.

7 8 9

Oh my God, I am so sorry.

http://danbensen.tumblr.com/post/153552863425/bogleech-pemsylvania-idk-why-im-confessing

(in case you can’t see the embedded text)

I made up stories about (numbers). 5 is a neurotic authoritarian who wants everything just so. 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. Ah, so orderly. Like a marching song.

6 is a freewheeling artistic type. 6, 12, 18, 24. You can almost hear the scatting. At 30, 6 is forced into 5′s harsh discipline, but at 36, two sixes come together in a beautiful mandala.

Then comes 7, that asshole. 7, 14, 21, 28, 35. It’s an impossible mess, only somewhat bound even by 5′s iron dictates (35 just seems like a stupid number). 6X6=36, but 6X7=42. Oh, what a hideous corruption of 6′s song! A mockery of all even numbers!

And of course that was only the beginning. The appetizer, if you will, to the blasphemous feast that ended the life of poor, damaged 9.

And thus began the War between the Primes.

Petrolea’s on Amazon!

Yay! And it has (if I’m not mistaken) my novella’s first review:

What could be better than dragons? Or aliens? Or giant robots? How about giant alien robo-dragons! An entire ecosystem of mechanical monsters has evolved from ancient self-replicating robots abandoned by their makers, but humans – as usual – are set on destroying it with their short-sighted greed. A programmer and an ecologist stranded when the creatures suddenly turn against the human invaders manage to befriend a family of jet-powered dragons and discover there’s more to this world than meets the eye . . .

This is the sort of gleefully fun, fast-paced idea-heavy sci-fi I find the most enjoyable. My only crits are that I would love for it to be longer, the robotic jungle is such a fascinating place to explore I’d love more details on how it functions, and the romance that seems a bit like an afterthought and doesn’t really add much to the plot. These are only minor niggles about a really terrific adventure.

Man, why do I like that review so much? Especially that “more than meets the eye part.” It feels so…transformative.

Robot Dragons in the Mail

Guess what came in the mail today?

I’m a Real Author! I have A Book!

(you can also have a book)

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32701981-petrolea

Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/672552

The Publisher’s website http://store.albanlake.com/product/petrolea/

The Lotus Blooms: The Rise of Buddhism in Western Eurasia

The Roman conquest of Greece was perhaps the most important mistake in history. If the legions had acted sooner, perhaps the Mahayonic Empire would have been content with its territory from the Bosporus to the Indus. If later, perhaps internal division between Bactria, Parthia, and Pontus would have left the successors of Alexander less able to mount a resistance. If not for the collapse of the Selucid empire a century earlier, the Mediterranean Hellenes would have been entirely without allies. But in fact it was precisely during negotiations between King Milinda IV of Mahayona and Archelaus of Athens that Rome invaded the Greek Peninsula. Unfortunately for them, they succeeded.

Roman rule in its new territories was as brutal as it was brief. Waves of rebellion swept from the Himalayas to the Mediterranean, carrying with them dangerous new ideas. Previously a minority in the western Ecumen, Buddhists became the nucleus of local resistance movements that spread to Rome, itself.

By the time Kanishka the Kushan proclaimed himself the head of the Second Macedonian Empire, more than half of the population of Rome was Buddhist, with significant Stupas in Iberia and North Africa. This ratio was even higher in among the rank and file of the eastern legions, giving Emperor Experrectus a simple choice: his empire or his soul. Yoking the dharma of his duties as emperor to his karma as a weary soul progressing through the universe, Experrectus publicly took monastic vows and lead his legions with a shaven head.

But by then it was too late. Rome’s eastern provinces had joined Second Macedonia, and their clients in Arabia and the Levant were embroiled in the religious upheaval that would produce Abrahamism. The great metropoli of Byzos and Persopolis scarcely noticed when the Huns sacked Rome, busy as they were fighting off the Abrahamists in the south and the Hindus to the east. This struggle would continue for nearly a millennium with no clear victor until the Mongols swept through and claimed all the Veil of Tears for themselves.

Even today, the east/west split in western Eurasia is stark: the so-called “Western Stupa’s” principal holiday is the Vesachia in May or April, celebrating the birth, enlightenment, and death of the Buddha, while the Eastern Stupa emphasizes of Aphipnisi in December, when the Buddha sat under the bodhi tree and became enlightened.  The Arbahamists fast a lot, and nobody likes to talk about those ritual burnings they do up north.

This timeline is dedicated to Melissa Walshe