Notes on Spanish

[okayophelia]

Top 5 things about space/space narratives

in no particular order whatsoever:

1. the horror/awe, longing/repulsion, striving/fleeing dichotymies

2. motherfuckin spaceships

3. the almost meta-level of fluidity in shaping the context of the story. the pure unknown chaos-stuff of what life in space would be like means that creating any space story is like drawing noughts and crosses across the void. which is what any storytelling is like - the selection of what you show the reader is so arbitrary - so in your hands as a writer you are godlike over your own creation. and in space stories that is doubly true because you are fabricating twin planets and quantum star clusters and seventeen branches of government and shining steel circles in the sky and living organism hull parasites and cthulhu black holes out of the narrative plasmic matter that is space.

4. humanism humanism humanism HUMANISM. not in the sense of ‘all about humans no aliens allowed’ but in the sense of ‘look at us living creatures throwing ourselves out of our natural context into the most hostile and terrifying of outside spaces just to push ever outward in the uniting discordant hope of finding something more. how we sketch our understanding of the universe like toddlers with fingerpaint and build upwards from there like priests like poets like precise and pure mathematician-magicians. all just in the pure hope of maybe finding something new. how fucking dreamboat.

5. humanism on another level in that any space narrative has to address humanity as a whole. what are we now? how are we what have we become? what has become of our selfishness and cruelties towards one another and each other as species, as nations, as races, as people? in what ways have we grown and what ways have we curdled and curled inward and become corrupt and rotten in same old ways in new contexts? and how do we see the hope and poetry of science and human understanding grow in leaps and bounds like the blazing light without seeing in exacting clarity the bleak shadow of all the people left behind or crushed under the heel of that momentum? how do we look the abyss of the universe in the eye when we can’t even meet our own (as a species) in the mirror? how do we dare? 

p.s. the visceral excitement of the physical/natural world, scientific endeavour as a spiritual experience, companionship and love in the face of utter oblivion, ridiculous outfits, being the setting melodrama was born for.

[corruptionasart]

[terpsikeraunos]

i keep seeing the stereotype that latin is a less poetic language than greek, and i’d like to push back on that. for one thing, i don’t think any language is inherently more poetic than another, though some use certain signifiers that we [modern english speakers] might consider poetic more often than others. secondly, poets and poetry flourished in ancient rome, regardless of modern aesthetic concepts of what kind of marked speech “should” comprise poetry. finally, the complexity and cleverness of the word order in latin poetry cannot be conveyed in an english translation because it must be converted into a language with strict word order. it’s like installing windows on a mac. look.

inter quas phoenissa recens a volnere dido errabat silva in magna; quam troius heros ut primum iuxta stetit adgnovitque per umbras obscuram, qualem primo qui surgere mense aut videt, aut vidisse putat per nubila lunam, demisit lacrimas… among them phoenician dido, freshly wounded, was wandering in the great forest; the trojan hero, as he first stood near her and recognized through the shades her gloomy [form]–like one who, early in the month, either sees or believes he has seen the moon rise through the clouds– let fall his tears…(aeneid  6.450-5)

we have two feminine nouns here, dido and the moon (luna), and they merge seamlessly into a metaphor via the adjective obscuram, which appears to apply to both of them at second glance; but at first glance, you don’t find out that vergil is describing the moon until the very end of the next line:

obscuram, qualem primo qui surgere mense aut videt, aut vidisse putat per nubila lunam

so as the audience you experience the same uncertainty as aeneas here, the subject of the metaphor suspended and unclear until the end. but vergil’s metapoetic word order is obliterated by english word order. 

all of this is also written in beautiful dactylic hexameter, which most english-speaking readers wouldn’t even realize is a meter, if they happened to be reading a translation that attempted it.

tl;dr: don’t call latin a less poetic language because it doesn’t conform to preconceived modern english notions of poetics.

[terpsikeraunos]

Ἄρτεμιν ἀείδω χρυσηλάκατον, κελαδεινήν, παρθένον αἰδοίην, ἐλαφηβόλον, ἰοχέαιραν, αὐτοκασιγνήτην χρυσαόρου Ἀπόλλωνος, ἣ κατ᾽ ὄρη σκιόεντα καὶ ἄκριας ἠνεμοέσσας ἄγρῃ τερπομένη παγχρύσεα τόξα τιταίνει πέμπουσα στονόεντα βέλη: τρομέει δὲ κάρηνα ὑψηλῶν ὀρέων, ἰάχει δ᾽ ἔπι δάσκιος ὕλη δεινὸν ὑπὸ κλαγγῆς θηρῶν, φρίσσει δέ τε γαῖα πόντος τ᾽ ἰχθυόεις: ἣ δ᾽ ἄλκιμον ἦτορ ἔχουσα πάντη ἐπιστρέφεται θηρῶν ὀλέκουσα γενέθλην. - Of Artemis I sing, gold-arrowed, clamorous, revered maiden, hunter of deer, arrow-pouring, sister of Apollo with the golden sword, who through shadowy mountains and windswept heights, delighting in the chase, stretches her pure gold bow, sending forth arrows of agony–and the peaks of the high hills tremble, the thicketed wood cries out terribly with the screaming of wild beasts, the earth bristles and the fish-filled sea–and she, brave-hearted, twists every way, destroying the kindred of beasts.

Homeric Hymn to Artemis, 1-10. (via terpsikeraunos)

[sisterofiris]

The Slightly Less Basic Basics of Ancient Greek

Are you interested in Ancient Greek but don’t know where to start? Curious about the basics of a long-dead language? A Hellenic polytheist who wants to learn a few phrases for worship? A Classics student who somehow managed to make it this far without understanding the language you’re studying? Fear not! In this post I will explain the basics of Ancient Greek conjugation, declension and grammatical structure, and give you a bit of vocabulary to work with on your own.

(Are you a complete beginner with no knowledge of the Greek alphabet and how it works? Click here for an introduction.)

Vocabulary

Before starting with anything, have some handy words:

παιδεύω I teach, I educate, I raise λέγω I say, I speak ἔχω I have, I hold, I own ἥκω I come, I am here λείπω I leave, I abandon χαίρω (+ dative) I rejoice, I am glad for εἰμί I am φίλος friend ξένος stranger, host οἶκος house, home βίος life θεός god θεά goddess τιμή honour ψυχή soul κόρη girl τέκνον child ἄστρον star ἱερόν sanctuary, sacrifice (pl.) ἀγαθός good κακός bad, evil καί and μέν… δέ on one hand… on the other hand γάρ for, indeed ἀλλά but οὐ, οὐκ, οὐχ not

You don’t need to learn them all right now, but they’re good to know.

The present tense

We are now going to pick the very first verb on the list, παιδεύω, and decline it. This doesn’t mean we’re going to refuse it or make it smaller. It means we’re going to write down its different forms depending on the person. Most English verbs don’t have this; they stay the same no matter whom the verb refers to (I take, you take, they take) except for the third person singular (he/she/it takes). In Ancient Greek, however, the ending of the verb changes for each person:

παιδεύω I teach παιδεύεις you teach (singular) παιδεύει he/she/it teaches παιδεύομεν we teach παιδεύετε you teach (plural) παιδεύουσι(ν) they teach παιδεύειν to teach (infinitive)

Fun fact #1: Greek verbs don’t require a subject. Everything is contained in the ending of the verb. You can also say ἐγω παιδεύω, I myself teach, but παιδεύω is just fine on its own.

Fun fact #2: this is great news for non-gender conforming people, because you don’t need pronouns. You can just say παιδεύει and it could mean he teaches, she teaches, it teaches, they teach or any other pronoun of your choice. Please don’t say παιδεύουσι to mean that a non-gendered person is teaching, though. The third person plural, as its name indicates, is specifically for a plurality of people, not for one single person of unspecified gender.

Fun fact #3: you see that ν in brackets after παιδεύουσι? That’s only used in front of a vowel. So if Socrates and Plato are teaching Aristotle, I’ll say παιδεύουσιν Ἀριστοτέλην, but if Socrates and Aristotle are teaching Plato, I’ll say παιδεύουσι Πλάτονα.

Fun fact #4: the accent is always three beats (I don’t really know what else to call them) away from the end of the verb. Short syllables like ε and ο count for one beat, long syllables like η and ω count for two. So for παιδεύω, count two for ω and place the accent on the third, the diphthong εύ. Diphthongs also count for two, so the same goes for παιδεύεις and παιδεύει: count two for ει and place the accent on the third, again εύ. For παιδεύομεν, count one for ε, one for ο, and place the accent on εύ. And so on. This is a really handy tip to know where a verb’s accent should be.

The other verbs in the list above work the same way. Try conjugating them!

Well, not εἰμί. Like in many languages, the verb to be is irregular. We’ll talk about irregular verbs another time, but since this one is important, here’s how it declines:

εἰμί I am εἶ you are (singular) ἐστί(ν) he/she/it is ἐσμέν we are ἐστέ you are εἰσί(ν) they are (plural)

All the forms of this verb, except for εἶ, are enclitic. This means, put very simply without all the linguistic jargon, that the accent jumps onto the previous word. Sometimes it’s replaced by a grave accent (ὰ instead of ά), because enclitic words are very serious business.

But what’s the point of knowing verbs without subjects to put them with? Hence I present to you

Nouns and their declensions

There are three types of noun in Ancient Greek: masculine, feminine and neuter. Masculine nouns generally end in -ος and their article is ὁ. This is important because ὁ φίλος means the friend but φίλος only means a friend.

Feminine nouns generally end in -α or -η and their article is ἡ. As for neuter nouns, they generally end in -ον and their article is το. I say generally because there are exceptions (ἡ ἐλπίς, ὁ ἔρως, τὸ στόμα..) but we won’t get into those now. This is the basics, after all.

This is how you decline the masculine noun ὁ φίλος:

Singular Nominative ὁ φίλος (there is only one friend) Vocative ὦ φίλε (friend, there is only one of you) Accusative τὸν φίλον (I have a friend) Genitive τοῦ φίλου (I don’t know the name of my friend) Dative τῷ φίλῳ (I will speak to my friend about it)

Plural Nominative οἱ φίλοι (there are many friends) Vocative οἱ φίλοι (friends, there are many of you) Accusative τοὺς φίλους (I have many friends) Genitive τῶν φίλων (I know the names of my friends) Dative τοῖς φίλοις (because I spoke to them about it)

As you can see, like German, Ancient Greek has many cases. I summarised their basic usages in the examples in brackets, but if you need another summary: nominative is for the subject; vocative is when you address the subject; accusative is for the direct object (I give my friend a hug) and for movement (I am going to Greece); genetive is for possession (not demonic, just ownership); dative is for the indirect object (I give my friend a hug) and for location (I am in Greece).

This is how you decline the feminine noun ἡ κόρη:

Singular Nominative ἡ κόρη Vocative ἡ κόρη Accusative τὴν κόρην Genitive τῆς κόρης Dative τῇ κόρῃ

Plural Nominative αἱ κόραι Vocative αἱ κόραι Accusative τὰς κόρας Genitive τῶν κόρων Dative ταῖς κόραις

And this is how you decline the neuter noun τὸ ἄστρον:

Singular Nominative τὸ ἄστρον Vocative τὸ ἄστρον Accusative τὸ ἄστρον Genitive τοῦ ἄστρου Dative τῷ ἄστρῳ

Plural Nominative τὰ ἄστρα Vocative τὰ ἄστρα Accusative τὰ ἄστρα Genitive τῶν ἄστρων Dative τοῖς ἄστροις

Most verbs demand the accusative, but some demand different cases. Ὀργίζομαι, which means I get angry against, is one: it’s followed by the dative. Ὀργίζομαι τοῖς φίλοις means I get angry against my friends.

There are also verbs which demand different cases depending on usage. Χαίρω is one. Its basic meaning is I rejoice, which demands the dative. An example would be the famous phrase χαίρω τῷ βίῳ, I rejoice in life, which is the Greek equivalent of carpe diem, which is the ancient equivalent of YOLO. But χαίρω, in the imperative form (singular χαῖρε, plural χαίρετε), can also be used as a greeting. Since you’re addressing someone, in this case, it’s followed by the vocative: χαῖρε Διώνυσε, χαῖρε Άφροδίτη, χαίρετε θεοί.

A small note on small words

Ancient Greek is full of small words, also known as conjuctions. These mean things like indeed, definitely, somewhat, if, but, because, and so on. Many of them, like εἰμί, are enclitic. They don’t serve much of a purpose in the text other than to structure it. For example, you’ll find a lot of ancient texts beginning with μέν and continuing with δέ… δέ… δέ, which can be translated as on the other hand, but, and, or simply nothing at all because they’re the Ancient Greek equivalent of paragraphs.

One important word to know is the negation οὐ. It means no or not. In front of a vowel, it becomes οὐκ, and in front of a rough breathing it becomes οὐχ.

Now that you know this, we can construct a sentence!

Sentences

Sentences are easy. Because of all these wonderful cases, we can construct them any way we like! We can put the subject first! We can put the object first! We can put the verb first! Yay!

Okay, so we can’t construct them any way we like. Groups of words (my friend’s child, the good stranger) need to stay together. Great classical authors like Homer and Herodotus are allowed poetic license, but not only that’s incredibly bothersome for people like me who have to translate their work, you’re not a great classical author. So keep groups of words and concepts together. Don’t separate prepositions (on, at, from, by…) from their nouns either. I know we haven’t looked at prepositions yet. We’ll get to that later.

Now that’s out of the way, here are a few sentences you can make with the vocabulary I gave you above:

Παιδεύω τέκνα. I teach children.

Λείπω τὸν οἶκον. I leave the house.

Φίλος εἰμί. I am a friend.

Αἱ τιμαί τῶν θεῶν ἀγαθαί εἰσίν. The honours of the Gods are good.

Εἰμι κόρη, ἀλλὰ Κόρη ἐστι θεά. I am a girl, but Korê is a Goddess.

Φίλος μὲν ἥκει, ξένος δὲ λείπει. A friend is coming and a stranger is going.

Finally, until next time, enjoy the fact that you can now tell people οὐκ ἔχεις ψυχήν - you don’t have a soul!

[interretialia]

Optime!

[martov]

Latin and Spanish

I started learning Latin over my holiday break, and it is fun (Latīna est gaudium!)

But why aside from amusement learn Latin, a dead language?

I was told that if someone asked, I might quip:

quot hominēs tot sententiae!

(There are as many opinions as there are men)

But seriously, the reason is that it is proving very helpful with my Spanish.

mē iūvit cum linguā vulgarī ex Hispāniā

('It has helped me with the vernacular language from Spain' - 'Hispania' as it was called during diēs gloriae imperiī Rōmānī - 'the days of glory of the Roman empire'.)

Of course, Latin requires more study when it comes to learning a verb or a noun. Firstly, a verb has four principle parts (usually)

eg the verb to praise

laudō, laudāre, laudāvī, laudātum

The first part is the first person singular of the present indicative.

The full conjugation in the present indicative is

laudō, laudās, laudat, laudāmus, laudātis, laudant

cf the Spanish to praise alabar

alabo, alabas, alaba, alabamos, alabáis, alaban

Note that Latin has long vowels - the bar ('macron') across the vowel indicates this. Latin does not have accented marks - you can use them for teaching and study, but they are not required. The rules for pronunciation in Latin are strict - the third last syllable is stressed, unless the second last syllable is a long vowel, or long by position (a good book on Latin will explain this latter). Unlike Spanish where it is the second last syllable if no stress is otherwise placed.

Also note that in Latin 'v' is pronounced as the English 'w', not 'b' as it is in Spanish. 'H' is also stressed in Latin, unlike Spanish, but not as heavily as it is in English.

And now we come to our old friend Haber

This is not an auxiliary verb in Latin. It is a substantive verb simply meaning to have.

habeō, habēre, habuī, habitum

habeō, habēs, habet, habēmus, habētis, habent

(tenēre in Latin can also mean to have/own/posess)

You might then ask, how are perfect tenses formed in Latin? Actually, I used this tense above for the verb iuvāre - to aid/help assist:

iuvō, iuvāre, iūvī, iūtum

(cf. ayudar in Spanish)

It is the third principle part iūvī that forms the basis for the perfect stem iūv- , with iūvī being the first person singular of the present perfect. The full conjugation of this present perfect is (I have helped, you have helped...):

iūvī, iūvistī, iūvit, iūvimus, iūvistis, iūvērunt

This resembles the preterite for -er,ir verbs in Spanish.  In fact, what is taken as the preterite tense also functions as the present perfect tense in Latin, and context will decide which is the best translation. 

As for the future and past perfect, these also use the third principle part stem.

Eg for the past perfect of to aid/help (I had helped, You had helped,...) :

iūveram, iūverās, iūverat, iūverāmus, iūverātis, iūverant

This has been formed by joining the stem of the perfect to the imperfect conjugation of the verb esse, 'to be' ( eram, erās , ... - I was, you were,...). We do the same for the future perfect, but using the future of esse.

While we're on the subject of esse 'to be' - ser is the corresponding Spanish verb, of course. Estar derives from the latin stō, stare,... meaning 'to stand' - the Spanish phrase 'estoy listo' - might translate as 'I stand ready'.  Also worth noting, the hay idiom using third person singular variants of haber for 'there is, there are' is expressed simply by use of the third person singular and plural of esse - 'there is, there are': 'est, sunt' - as one does in English.

Finally, the fourth principle part. This is to do with participles. Latin has four participle forms - a present active - "praising", future active - "going/about to praise", perfect passive - "praised, having been praised", and future passive - "(about) to be praised, fit to be praised". We are used to the perfect passive only in Spanish - eg. 'alabad-o/a/os/as' (The 'present active', eg 'alabando' is an adverbial construct, not a participle).

Departing from the hills of Verbs and into the jungle of Nouns and Adjectives... in Latin, these are declined. This is the toughest thing to get used to. If you're not familiar with declension, it's a bit like conjugation in that nouns (and adjectives) use a stem, and a different ending is placed depending on the role the noun play in the sentence.

There are about five declension classes in Latin (cf the -ar,-er,-ir verb forms in Spanish). For the first declension group (mostly feminine nouns), we have the following declension (singular), eg for the feminine noun for language:

lingua, linguae, linguae, linguam, linguā

The roles for these could be:

The language was poetic, I speak of language, I give praise to language, I speak a language, I derive strength with language

Note that for adjectives, they must agree with the noun in gender and number (as in Spanish), also in declension role - but there is not a one to one relationship between noun and adjective declension classes.

Declension aside, Latin also has a neuter noun. So more to remember! Oh, and before I forget - the participle forms above are also declined like adjectives are, with various adjective declension classes being used depending on which participle type (present, future, etc.) is declined :)

Anyway, I recommend learning Latin if you already know Spanish, or if you want to get a feel for the language.

valēte!

[martov]

Caber - a useful and quite irregular verb

I came across this verb recently

caber (en) - to fit (in)

(See also: http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/caber

Note that unlike many common verbs, it does not seem to have a pronominal variant caberse)

In the present indicative, it is irregular for the 1st person singular:

yo quepo

Hence in the present subjunctive mood:

yo quepa, tú quepas,...

It is also preterite irregular, with the stem cup- :

yo cupe, tú cupiste,...

(and hence the imperfect subjunctive stem is cupie- : + se, ses, ... or ra, ras, ...)

And the conditional and future tense stem is cabr- :

Future:

yo cabré, tú cabrás,...

Conditional:

yo cabría, tú cabrías,...

[martov]

Using 'Al' Followed by an Infinitive

As I continue to read more Spanish, I notice this construct cropping up more and more.

According to about.com:

"Al followed by an infinitive is usually the approximate equivalent of "upon," "on" or "when" followed by the gerund (the "-ing" form of a verb) in English."

http://spanish.about.com/od/sentencestructure/qt/al_infinitive.htm

[martov]

Ser or Estar with the complete passive voice?

It does puzzle me that the complete passive voice in Spanish be based on ser + past participle and not estar + past participle.

After all, a passive action on something is a very temporary thing, right?

Eg

El pájaro fue visto por ellos

The bird was sighted by them.

So why not estar? Perhaps the use here of the verb ser pertains to the existence of this statement itself - described by the whole sentence - and not the state of the thing (in this case "The bird") whose being is acted upon?

Update: I posted a question about this on SpanishDict.com, and the response is similar to the final suggestion I had - ser is expressing the existence of the passive Action, it is not to do with the state/condition of the subject.

http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/205381/complete-passive-voice

[martov]

Diminutives Catch Me Out

Whenever I see a word in Spanish that doesn't appear in the dictionary, it's probably because I'm forgetting that it has attached one of the diminutive endings. So they are worth committing to memory.

A discussion can be found here:

http://www.elearnspanishlanguage.com/grammar/diminutives.html

http://spanish.about.com/od/nouns/a/diminutives.htm

I've listed the common ones (masculine variants):

-ito -cito -ecito -illo -cillo -ecillo

And also:

-ico, -cico, -uelo, -zuelo, -ete, -cete, -ín, -iño

Also, let's not forget the superlative endings to an adjective:

-ísimo,-ísimos,-ísima,-ísimas

See more, here:

http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/100029/superlative-adjectives

[martov]

Another interesting discussion on SpanishDict, this time about llamarse and pronomial/reflexive subtleties.

[martov]

Oxford Spanish Mini Dictionary

This is an excellent excellent dictionary, and I highly recommend it.

Aside from the practical of it being very compact and light, it includes:

All the regular verb tenses

A table of irregular forms easily referenced

A pronunciation guide

A centre section with common phrases and usage for travelling abroad

[martov]

The regularity behind a lot of irregular verbs

One thing I've noticed about a good portion of irregular verbs in Spanish, is that they are conjugated irregularly to maintain consistency in pronunciation. What we see are orthographic changes required to maintain such consistency.

Good examples are:

Maintain the soft (or non sticky) g sound with an 'o' ending using 'j':

coger->cojo (1ps present indicative)

Maintain the hard c sound with an 'e...' ending using 'qu':

tocar -> toquemos  (1pp present subjunctive)

Maintain the soft c ('th') sound with an 'o' ending using 'z':

hacer -> hizo (3ps preterite)

Maintain the u sound after the 'g' for infinitives ending -guar 

averiguar -> averigüé (1ps preterite)

('gua' and 'guo', have the u pronounced, but 'gue' does not unless we use 'ü')

Another nice example is with the verb:

atañer (to concern)

This is irregular in the 3ps and 3pp preterite:

atañó, atañeron

Again, this makes sense from the point of view of pronunciation. The sound of the ñ means we can do away with the i here.

[martov]

Great comment on verbs to do with eg, sitting and the subtleties in difference in use between English and Spanish.

[martov]

A question I posted on SpanishDict about the use of Hubo vs. Había for "There was/were". What's interesting is the reason why Haber remains in the first person singular even if the thing it refers to the existence of is plural in number - As one response commented, the thing to which it refers' role is that of a direct object, not subject; and can even be replaced by a direct object pronoun, to prove the point.

[martov]

A quick note on using stress and the imperative

For the imperative mood, it is required to maintain the original pronounced stress of the conjugated verb when an object pronoun is attached.

Eg with ir and irse, for the nosotros imperative form:

ir: vamos!

irse: vámonos!

(remember also for the latter the dropped 's', it is not "vámosnos")

Actually, this applies in general when we want to maintain the original stress of something when object pronouns are appended: Estoy dándotelo

(I am giving it to you)

[martov]

Amusing translation of Kill two birds...

"Kill two birds with one stone", comes out as:

Matar dos liebres al tiempo

"Kill two hares at once"?!