The Linguist

In what language does rain fall / over tormented cities? —Neruda

[as-if-falling]

The best translations into English do not, in fact, read as if they were originally written in English. The English words are arranged in such a way that the reader sees a glimpse of another culture’s patterns of thinking, hears an echo of another language’s rhythms and cadences, and feels a tremor of another people’s gestures and movements.

Ken Liu, Translator’s Postface to The Three Body Problem (via as-if-falling)

[mesogeios]

Andrew Scott performing Hamlet’s soliloquy ( Act III, Scene I), from Almeida Theatre's 2017 production of Hamlet 

[mesogeios]

“The Chomskians viewed the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as the vilest slander—not just incorrect, but hateful, like saying that different races had different IQs. Because all languages were equally complex and identically expressive of reality, differences in grammar couldn’t possibly correspond to different ways of thinking. “Thought and language are not the [same] thing,” the professor said [...]

In my heart, I knew that Whorf was right. I knew I thought differently in Turkish and in English—not because thought and language were the same, but because different languages forced you to think about different things. Turkish, for example, had a suffix, -miş, that you put on verbs to report anything you didn’t witness personally. You were always stating your degree of subjectivity. You were always thinking about it, every time you opened your mouth.

[...]

There were things about -miş that I liked: it had a kind of built-in bewilderment, it was automatically funny. At the same time, it was a curse, condemning you to the awareness that everything you said was potentially encroaching on someone else’s experience, that your own subjectivity was booby-trapped and set you up to have conflicting stories with others. It compromised and transformed everything you said. It actually changed the verb tense you used. And you couldn’t escape. There was no way to go through life, in Turkish or any other language, making only factual statements about direct observations. You were forced to us -miş, just by the human condition—just by existing in relation to other people.”

— Elif Batuman, The Idiot

[mesogeios]

Describe yourself in three words?

Curious, attentive, inspired

[mesogeios]

'It's good coding': Computer science students drawn to classes on Sanskrit, a 3,500-year-old language

Libbie Mills, an assistant professor in the department for the study of religion in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Arts & Science, noticed something interesting this fall in her introductory Sanskrit class: computer science students.

[luxe-pauvre]

There is no good answer to how to be a woman; the art may instead lie in how we refuse the question.

Rebecca Solnit, The Mother of All Questions (via luxe-pauvre)

[martinajane]

Peter Haimerl

[mesogeios]

What makes you feel beautiful?

Being kind, making others feel at ease, creating...

[met-greekroman-art]

Gold earring with head of a lion, Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greek and Roman Art

The Cesnola Collection, Purchased by subscription, 1874–76 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Medium: Gold

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/242932

[da-da-sk]

12 museums that you can visit online

www.hermitagemuseum.org

britishmuseum.org

www.louvre.fr

www.museodelprado.es

collections.vam.ac.uk

www.moma.org

www.khm.at

www.digitalsculpture.org

www.tnm.jp

artsandculture.google.com

collections.lacma.org

collections.rom.on.ca

[neshamama]

metropolitan musem guide to virtual museum / collections / timeline of art / youtube / over 500 books free online / 360º project

the broad collections

tate collections

reina sofia collections / multimedia

rijkysmuseum collections

tokyo national museum e-museum / collections

detroit institute of arts collections

yale university gallery of art collections

harvard art museums collections

whitney museum collections / videos

israel museum jerusalem collections

jewish museum new york collections

walker art center collections

indianapolis museum of art collections

mfa boston collections / youtube

figge art museum collections

american folk art museum collections

museum of international folk art collections

art institute chicago virtual visit / collections / articles

van gogh museum virtual visit / collections

mfa houston collections

google arts and culture virtual tours, images, online exhibitions: national gallery d.c. / smithsonian portrait gallery / metropolitan museum / detroit institute of arts / j. paul getty museum / high museum of art atlanta / georgia o’keeffe museum to name a few of hundreds

[mesogeios]

I didn’t know you’re from Cyprus! I love your blog and have been following you for a long time! I find it very interesting since I studied translation and interpreting~ anyway, love from Greece! and good luck with all your projects 💛

Thank you, you’re too kind! I’m actually not Cypriot (by ethnicity or nationality), I was merely born there! 

[evocativesynthesis-blog]

Roma sotto la neve (by agennari)

[theminimalisto]

[mothersofmyheart-deactivated202]

The Welsh language has a unique character which reminds me of the country’s landscapes and history. For example, the Welsh version of describing something as “music to my ears” is “mêl ar fy mysedd,” or “honey on my fingers”. To me that’s so much more poetic and sensual than the English idiom, and it reminds me of Wales’ history of poetry and song, and the fact that living in Wales – with its huge mountains, long beaches and 365-day rain cycle – is often a very sensory experience. There is something ancient about that phrase: when I say it I can almost feel how old the Welsh language is. Perhaps the fact that languages are embodied with so much culture and history is why it feels so poignant to forget them, and so painful.

Ellie Mae O'Hagan, Losing my Welsh: what it feels like to forget a language (via mothersofmyheart)

[mesogeios]

What's been inspiring you lately?

The Hakone Open-Air Museum—Modern sculpture against a backdrop of mountains and autumn foliage, the films of Agnès Varda, and Geometric & Archaic Greek pottery.

[theancientworld]

The Rosetta Stone 

A Ptolemaic era stele with carved text made up of three translations of a single passage: two in Egyptian language scripts (hieroglyphic and Demotic) and one in the classical Greek of the country’s Greek rulers. It was created in 196 BC, discovered by the French in 1799 at Rosetta, and transported to England in 1802. Once in Europe, it contributed greatly to the deciphering of the principles of hieroglyphic writing, through the work of the British scientist Thomas Young and the French scholar Jean-François Champollion. Comparative translation of the stone assisted in understanding many previously undecipherable examples of hieroglyphic writing. The text on the stone is a decree from Ptolemy V, describing the repeal of various taxes and instructions to erect statues in temples.

Text Via

[mesogeios]

Favourite books of 2020?

The Last Man, Mary Shelley

As You Like It, William Shakespeare

Portraits: John Berger on Artists, John Berger

The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History, Norma Broude

Representing Women, Linda Nochlin

The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities—From Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums, Peter Watson

John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley: Essential Poems

The Idiot, Elif Batuman