#also korean sounds a lot like mongolian

[opashoo]

staring so kindly at your sluglang post,, as someone working on a language as well this looks fantastic (and is also. super organized compared to mine BHAHAH) Any tips for putting together a language? Like resources on how to go about it, or notes? /genq

You are staring kindly... (thank you)

As for tips... Wikipedia is actually one of my biggest, most useful tools, because I love to read articles about grammatical concepts, and they will usually have a varaiety of examples of use if you can figure out how to parse the academic language. There are some core ideas that pop up all over the place crosslinguistically, like case marking or converbs, and you can get a lot from learning how other languages might parse the same idea, both how they handle the idea grammatically and what kind of metaphorical language might be involved; like how in Scottish Gaelic, to say you have something, you say it's 'at' you, or how it doesn't have an exact equivalent of English's infinitive, or how Mongolian has so many word endings that convey meaning, and a bunch of them are literally endings stacked on top of other endings.

There's also really good conlang youtubers, like David Peterson, the one who made Dothraki and other pop media conlangs, Artifexian, Biblaridion. They have videos on both interesting grammatical concepts that don't exist in english AND how to integrate them into conlangs. Davide Peterson especially has interesting videos on things like sound changes, vowel harmony, phonological concepts that can really help shape your language and bring a degree of naturalism if that's what you're looking for.

Etymology can be extremely informative though, and really help you to understand exactly how creative people have gotten with language over the past thousands of years. Etymonline is a great website for that. Did you know that the word "next" was originally literally "nearest"? Or that that the suffix "be-" was originally "by", so words like "before" actually meant "by the fore", and very often these meanings are metaphorically extended to the way we use them today. It's great for helping to develop very important words that can be structural to your language, so that you're not just trying to raw make up a new word with no basis every time.

Aside from that, there's no single source I go to for making conlangs. Everything is on a case by case basis. Something that has been really helpful for me is constantly writing example sentences and finding things to write about, because similar to translating existing texts, it forces me to reckon with the way my conlang works, figure out how to convey certain ideas (or whether or not the language can convey the idea at all).

Usually I'll have a few languages that I keep in mind for inspiration for any given project and if I'm stumped or need an idea, I'll actually look up learning resources for those languages. My slugcat language has had me looking up a lot of "How to say..." in Korean, Arabic, Japanese Filipino, a little bit of Indonesian? Some Russian for verb stuff. Once I find resources, I spend a bit of time dissecting how it works in those languages and figure out how that can fit in the existing framework of my own project, or if it's something I'd even want in the project at all.

Once I have an idea, I'll just start iterating on it, usually on paper, basically brainstorming how the sentence structure and sounds might work until I find something that is both sonically satisfying and logically sound within the existing framework. If I'm feeling extra spicy, I might try to consider how the culture and priorities of the speakers might shape the development of the language. The important thing while doing this is, just like brainstorming, to be unafraid to keep throwing ideas onto the page no matter how unviable or nonsensical it may seem in your head. You NEED to experiment and find what doesn't work or else your brain will be too clogged to find out what does. Exercising your pen will help you get into the mindset of someone using the language (because you are), it'll help you form connections to other parts of the language you've already developed, and once you've developed enough, the language will almost start writing itself.

I've actually had some really interesting interactions happen my scuglang between the archaic system of suffixes, the position word system, and the triconsonantal root system, which actually gave rise to an entire system of metaphorical extension, letting speakers use phrases like "at a crossing of" or "at a leaving of" to mean across or away and also talk about concurrent events like "He talked while eating noodles" (He, at an eating of noodles, talked).

Anyway, I know I got kind of scattered but these are some of the big parts of how I approach conlanging! If I have questions or needs, I look to other languages, find learning resources, apply it, and then ask more questions. Spend time with your language and get familiar with it. There's the time I read "Ergativity" by Robert Dixon, but reading literal textbooks is not a requirement for conlanging. You just need to chip away at it and keep asking question.

Here's some photos of my own conlanging notes so you can see how serious I am when I say iterating and brainstorming are extremely helpful. You need to be throwing shit on the paper. I will handwrite three pages just to contradict myself on the next because those three pages were important for forming the final idea.

[indigostudies]

feeling enthusiastic tonight so i wanted to talk about my favourite things about the languages i speak/am studying!

mandarin chinese:

singular character words are fairly rare! unlike english, due to the high number of homophones in the spoken language, most words are comprised of two or more characters for clarity's sake. for example, while 孩 does by itself mean child, usually it's combined with another character (ie 孩子，小孩儿，etc.) due to it sounding similar to other words (还，骸).

in spoken language, you often need the entire context to understand the meaning. due to homophones, if you're missing the surrounding context, then it can be easy to misunderstand what someone's saying.

homophones generally! i've been known to love a good tongue-twister, and being a native chinese speaker is definitely part of that—there's just so many good ones! this also crops up in social media/memes, where a homophone is substituted for the original character(s).

the written language! i'm definitely more biased towards simplified chinese, but i can still read traditional chinese, and i think chinese is one of the most beautifully-written languages. it's just so logical! the strokes follow a certain order, and everything is contained in "boxed" that are very pleasing.

german:

poetry! german is known for literature, and i love reading poetry in german, even if not having studied it in a while means i have to look things up pretty frequenty ^^°°

the pronunciation! while i'm definitely at an advantage since i have an ear for languages and can nail german pronunciation at a natural level, i love speaking german—especially the longer words! i love the way the letters sound together (i'm definitely biased towards the eu/äu combination haha).

the ß!

gothic script—this appears a lot in historical german print, and i love it, even if it does make it a bit of a challenge to read anything haha.

kurmanji:

the various possessiveness contructions—there is no verb corresponding to the english to have, so instead you have to use the verb hebûn, to exist, so for example, two brothers of me exist (du birayên min hene, using the izafe construction) or for me two brothers exist (min du bira hene, without izafe, possessor is in the oblique case at the start of the clause) would be used instead of "i have two brothers".

the xw dipthong—i'm probably biased because i love "uncommon" sounds and letter combinations, but not only does the x in kurmanji sound nice (it's sort of like the ch in bach, or the ch in loch), when combined with the w it makes a sort of hissing sound which i'm very partially to.

mongolian:

sounds absolutely gorgeous!! central asian languages generally sound very pleasing to me, but i especially love the guttural sounds in mongolian.

the traditional script is one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen. i have yet to learn how to write in it (at least without a lot of tears on my part), but there's a user on xhs that writes in traditional script, and it's just. stunning. it's fluid, and curling, and just! aaaa!!! i love it. also it's written vertically, which is a fairly uncommon thing as far as languages go.

it's got a ton of different dialects! i'm a known enjoyer of dialects and regional language variations, so of course this is like a goldmine to me.

korean:

i know i said that the mongolian script is gorgeous, but look, i love writing systems in general, and korean is just. so orderly! so perfect for my pattern-obsessed little mind! also, it only takes, like, half an hour to memorise. 12/10 i love it.

a very specific point, but the various ways to say goodbye! you specify whether the person you're speaking to are staying or leaving.

turkish:

probably the most agglutinative language i'm aware of—a lot of words, especially more "modern" (ie new) words are formed by taking a base word and then adding on "meaning" or semantics to it, for example the word for a shoe cabinet is literally "that which stores the covers for the feet".

neutral pronouns! spoken mandarin is also neutral in pronouns, but in turkish both the written and spoken form of the third person pronoun is neutral. while it does make it a little bit frustrating if you're trying to, say, discuss feminist theory, it does mean that no gendered assumptions are made about, for example, a job position.

that's all i can think of right now! if anyone else wants to ramble excitedly about the languages they're studying/speak, please feel free to add on!

[irithnova]

Aph Mongolia appearance headcanons and other headcanons

This is what I'd say he would most likely look like if I were to picture him as a person rather than a 2d character. This is after hours of watching through videos of Mongolian people. So news, street interviews, podcasts, youtubers, wrestling matches, music performances, videos of nomadic people in the countryside, videos of people in Ulaanbaatar and other major towns etc.

This sounds pretty dramatic lol, I haven't just sat through hours of this in one go, I've been interested in Mongolia as a country for a while so of course over the years I've been interested in Mongolian media too (I am not stalking Mongolian people pls)

I just want to say that Mongolia, like all countries, is incredibly diverse in the way people look. I've seen some Mongolians who could honestly pass as someone who's South East Asian, others who have the more stereotypical Mongolian look, others who could pass as Korean/broadly East Asian and others who look a bit more Turkic. This isn't me trying to put Mongolians into one box but this is what I think he'd look like based off of what I've seen over the years.

Some of these headcanons will not be totally accurate too and I just put them there because I like them lol. Sorry!

When it comes to his face shape, I think he'd have a bit of a square jaw/masseter muscles that are developed slightly more compared to others. This is because of the traditional foods Mongolians eat. Traditional Mongolian foods are quite hard to bite down on and chew, and this helps with tooth/jaw development. I'm not saying he has a Chad jaw lol but it's a bit more square shaped than v line shaped if that makes sense.

When it comes to his eyes, they are evenly spaced/widely spaced. I haven't seen many Mongolians with close set eyes, they tend to be evenly set/ wide set. I like to say he has feline looking eyes because of the way Chinggis Khan was described by the Indian historian Juzjani "A man of tall stature, of vigorous build, robust in body..... with cat's eyes, possessed of great energy".

That was probably just them saying he had monolids but let me just have him be a catboy (man?) okay.... Also sorry, gonna be boring but his eyes are dark brown to me. I know Mongolians can have light eyes and hair but a majority of them don't.

Also thick eyebrows. Yesh.

Prominent cheekbones. Obviously.

Btw I headcanon him to look like he's in his late 20's, 27/28 ish.

When it comes to his nose, I think he has the classic Asian button nose and its a bit upturned (dunno if that makes sense). However I've noticed that nose bridges are more common in Mongolians so their noses aren't always so flat looking from a side on view?

When it comes to his lips, I headcanon them as being on the plumper side. No reason why, just like it lol.

His skin colour, I'd say it's tanned but not as tanned as it used to be, obviously because of government work but he does still go out to the countryside often. His cheeks also used to be a lot more ruddy when he was purely a nomad, some of the redness is still there but its not as obvious as it used to be. I think his cheeks can go quite rosy when it's cold/there's a dramatic temperature change.

I think his face is still flat-ish like most East/North East Asians. I know someone's gonna ask "how can he have a flat face when you just said he had prominent cheekbones??" well they aren't mutually exclusive.

I think his skin is naturally a bit dry. I've heard Mongolians say that Mongolians tend to have drier skin because of the climate so yeah.

Also I headcanon him to have two face scars bye its so hot,,,. I saw a hetalia artist draw him with them and fell in love instantly and there were two other hetalia artists who drew steppe nations with face scars. One of them drew aph huns with a face scar and another one drew aph Xiongnu with a face scar so yeah all major steppe riders have face scars now this is my canon 😍

When it comes to his hair, long, thick and dark brown, bordering on black, looks copper-y in the sunlight.

Also I'm sorry but I headcanon him as a tol man (6') 😢 I attribute this to his rapid growth as an empire. Not truly accurate as most Mongolians aren't really that tall but shhhhh

I've already touched upon these aspects of his appearance in different posts but I'll just get into it again for the sake of it.

Body wise I think he looks like this (at his peak when he's like, participating in sports, yes he is a jock...)

🥴

I also talked about what I think he wears on a regular basis in another post about East Asian fashion headcanons but I'll put it here again anyways plus it might have changed:

I don't think there's a colour he wouldn't wear but he tends to go for shades of blue/brown/beige/cream/black. Fave colour to wear is probably blue. The colours he wears tend to be darker in shade but he's not repulsed by brighter or bolder colours.

He wears his clothes more for function than fashion, not that he can't be fashionable and what he wears on a daily is a random mess haha not at all, but on a day to day basis he's more concerned about what will keep him warm/cool rather than what looks good.

Probably has a lot of nice wool/yak wool/camel wool/cashmere items of clothing. Makes some of his wool hats and scarves himself.

Wears accessories sometimes, I mean he most likely has his ears pierced (Mongolian men back in the day had pierced ears and wore earrings). Probably has some leather bracelets and necklaces with the soyombo symbol or Ulzii symbol (buddhist endless knot symbol). Doesn't really care about if what he's wearing is gold or silver but he tends to lean towards silver. Also necklaces with a horse pendant/rings with a horse design?? Yes 🐴 Probably has some bracelets/necklaces braided with horse hair in the design. Often wears boots.

Other headcanons:

Voice headcanon: I headcanon his voice to actually be on the soft side! Probably emphasised by the fact that he speaks a bit more softly but it's pleasing to listen to. In a lot of the videos I've watched of Mongolians, they tend to speak a bit softly? Unless I'm on a meme page where everyone in the videos are hollering lol.

I think he can sing quite well, I mean you need to have a good range to pull off a Mongolian long song. Probs shouldn't make him try to sing pop songs though.

Obviously can throat sing and is excellent at it this is out of the question ☝️‼️

He can braid his hair pretty quickly considering how long it is

Enjoys watching K-dramas and even C-dramas lol (Don't tell Yao). Also really likes Turkish dramas??

He has a pair of practical glasses for when he goes into the country but also switches between that and contacts for when he goes out there (breaking glasses is a pain in the ass)

Has a bunch of animals but obviously he cannot take care of them all the time so he has some people take care of them.

Diverse music taste but has a tendency to enjoy rock/metal!

Pretends like he doesn't know what Kpop is to annoy South Korea (he secretly does like some Kpop shhh)

Likes watching sumo on his TV and sometimes when he visits Japan, they both go and watch it together in real time (probably likes rubbing in how good Mongolians are at sumo to him, but then all Japan needs to do is mention the failed Mongol invasions of Japan to shut him up haha)

Actually enjoys bickering with China about stupid things and will send him videos of himself consuming ungodly amounts of dairy to make fun of China's lactose intolerance (Mongolians are genetically lactose intolerant but they've been consuming it for so long now, their gut has basically adapted to it. Really interesting)

Tibet helps ground him when he's feeling lost/worried <33 emotional support human fr. Often sends gifts to Tibet and checks up on him, likes getting hugs from Tibet.

Not as close to the central Asians as he feels he should be which he feels a bit of regret over

Though he and Kazakhstan do talk as they are *almost* neighbours. There's Kazakhs in Mongolias western province who have preserved traditional Kazakh culture before Russificafion (they essentially ran away from it) so he likes going there with Kazakhstan. Also Mongolia is literally a direct ancestor of Kazakhstan so yeah lol (daddy??)

For the love of God do not let him and Russia drink together alone because they do not tell each other to stop

Sharp shooter, even with a gun.

Lowkey hates the fact he has to wear glasses but also he's become attached to them??

Obviously still very much enjoys and feels comfortable with the nomadic lifestyle but ngl it feels good to just be lazy sometimes

Sends the groupchat (idk like East Asian gc?) videos of like. Baby goats or something when there's an argument going down in an attempt to calm it. Has like a bunch of recordings on his phone of animals it's eating up his storage!

He can be quite funny when he wants to be and its made more funny by the fact that he's usually reserved in what he says and is quite deadpan.

I think him being reserved in what he says gives off the impression that he has a shy persona but introverted/silence doesn't necessarily mean shy. He just is more observant during conversations and uh he has a lot of thoughts in his brain‼️ (aka, he's still trying to mentally recover from the fall of the Yuan chsxh JKJK)

Isn't actually bitter or like. Emo about his fall from grace. I'm sure he has melancholy moments, not just about his empire era but just his history as a whole (I headcanon that his childhood was insane xhjd). But honestly he knows it could have been so much worse and he very well could have ended up dead so the fact that he's still around is a testament to his resilience

He tries to be optimistic about things but with his current government it can be hard LMAO.

I don't headcanon him as like mega depressed about things all the time but eh life gets to us all (esp when you're landlocked between Russia and China haha)

When he gets drunk he gets really funny and then passes out

If he's eating something while talking to someone, he'll offer them some of his food (yassa laws who??)

Obviously very hospitable, you enter his home/apartment/ger and BOOM you don't even have to ask he's already made food and tea for you

Is surprisingly quite respectful of people's feelings/boundaries (I mean compared to when he was a teenager at least bahah)

Can be a bit superstitious. So if someone starts whistling indoors for example, he'll either get a bit on edge or straight up tells them to stop

Is still physically active, not doing anything for too long bores and kind of depresses him.

He also likes doing things that stimulates the mind too, so, chess, sudoku, mahjong, puzzles, reading etc. Yes he's a jock but he's a smart one! ☝️🙏

[mongolian-in-paris-2024]

Getting there

So my journey to the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games started with me applying for the Volunteer program all the way back in the Spring of 2023. I'd been looking for an opportunity to volunteer abroad and one of the options that came up was the Olympics. I found it the most interesting because 1. it's the Olympics, and 2. it was in France and that would allow me to visit my family and friends in Germany afterwards. I may be a Mongolian citizen but I was born in Germany, so getting to visit my birthplace was definitely a plus.

After a couple of months, I was given an offer to be a Information Desk Team Member, and I hopped on the opportunity. It wasn't after a few months after I accepted the offer did I have to do anything. I got some online training, applied for my visa, got my plane tickets and was set to go to Paris.

For my 18:30 flight I decided to leave my apartment in Ulaanbaatar at 10:00, expecting there to be a lot of traffic on the way to the airport as there usually is. Turns out I was wrong. My dad and I had time to go to the center of Tuv Province, grab lunch, get medicine, and we still arrived 5 hours before the flight check-in.

With all the extra time we decided to weigh my luggage and carry-on bag just in case. My luggage was safely below the maximum weight, but turns out my carry-on bag was...for lack of a better word, dense. It didn't look or feel heavy but somehow the scale was reading it was 9 kg when my allowed weight was a max of 5. Which was surprising since I only packed my clothes in there. We immediately got out the airport and back to the car to start taking out anything in the bag that could be heavy. Turns out the few clothes I washed the day before hadn't completely dried and was moist as hell. So what did we do? Well we started drying them in the parking lot like a couple of hobos, of course!

After taking out my bedsheets, stuffing my body towel inside my hoodie (like I was smuggling something) and drying everything out, we were miraculously able to lose 3 kg.

After that, there were no problems, though interestingly, while I was waiting in the boarding area, what appeared to be a Korean man came up to me and gave me a couple thousand Mongolian Tugriks (MNT). Couldn't say no to free money so I took it and was on my way to Beijing International and arrived there at around 21:00.

What was surprising when I landed in Beijing was over the intercoms it was announced that the outside temperature was 33°C...at night. I hoped that the inside of the airport would be cooler, but I was mistaken. I spent quite possibly the sweatiest night of my life in that airport. And I spent two years near Houston in Texas.

So after getting a bit of moist sleep and waiting for 7 hours, I got on my 11-hour flight to Paris. I sat next to the window which I was kind of happy about, but sitting next to me was an old couple and I felt pretty bad about having them move out of my way whenever I needed to go to the restroom.

To deal with the 11-hour flight from Beijing to Paris, I tried to do the best potato impression I could. I spent the entire flight practically merging into my seat while watching 9 hours worth of movies and TV shows. More specifically, Haikyuu, Les Misérables, and Guardians of the Galaxy while sleeping the rest of the time.

Anyway, I arrived in Charles de Gaulle airport's Terminal 2 safe and sound, though maybe a bit tired.

One thing of note is that the airport was confusing as hell to get through. The whole terminal is built like a cylinder, without any elevators, which meant that to get anywhere it seemed like I had to go round and round for forever. I must have taken an hour just to get out of the maze of red tape. Mostly because I found the way the signs were labeled confusing. Thankfully, the staff were nice enough to redirect me where I had to head though, so all was well at the end of the day.

After getting out of the terminal, I also got lost trying to get to the metro station to get to where I need to stay for the night. After all that was over though, I was finally able to get to my apartment at around 22:00 local time. I dearly needed rest since the trip took 2 days in total and my volunteer work was set to start the next day at 14:30.

[mydegreeofmurder]

I put some of the greatest love songs into Google Translate and the results were... interesting.

To get one thing out of the way, not everyone likes Valentine's Day. Some people are broke, some people are alone and some people see it as a moneymaking marketing scheme to play on your emotions. Damn you, capitalism! Curse you for making me feel bad if I don't spend my hard-earned money on expensive flowers that will die five days after I purchase them!

There's one thing I like about Valentine's Day though. We get to dig out those cheesy, lovey-dovey hits. The rock ballads, the pining sonnets, oh the songs of affection and romance and... love. Ick.

I could've dived into what makes Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You a good song, but does anyone actually care? We need cheering up. You shouldn't take love so seriously. So I didn't.

I put a handful of everyone's favourite love songs and threw them into the messy blender that is Google Translate. And while they were in there, they were massacred. Slaughtered. Murdered. I'm guilty of murder here, folks. The things I do for love? I digress.

‘God Only Knows’ by the Beach Boys

I put Brian Wilson's masterpiece through a translation of English to French, then to Spanish, to Japanese, to German, to Russian, to Malay, to Italian, to Japanese again and then back to English.

Shushing and psychopathic laughter ensues!

'She Loves You' by the Beatles

I dragged 'She Loves You' through to traditional Chinese, to Korean, to Vietnamese, then to simplified Chinese, then grounded it in Welsh. This was the final English result.

Still a sweet love song. Sounds a little antagonistic now though... YOU KNOW YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY, RIGHT?!

''Woman in Love' by Barbra Streisand

Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees famously penned this beautiful song for Barbra Streisand, and it became one of the most successful hits of her career. Let's see if it's still beautiful after suffering through Russian, to Polish, to Hungarian, to Ukrainian, to Mongolian, to Norwegian and finally, Dutch and English.

We think... holistically. Okay, Barbra.

'My Girl' by The Temptations

'My Girl' has been covered and re-recorded by lots of different artists over the years, from Otis Redding to The Rolling Stones; it is a timeless take on devotion and admiration. Ah who cares, let's translate it to Azerbaijani, to Lithuanian, to Romanian, to Estonian, to Punjabi, to Urdu, to Bengali and see what happens.

This was the best one. Some classic lines here. He ate the sun. Bye bye uncle! I'm not sure how the translation got so confused between family dynamics but I am very grateful.

'My Heart Will Go On' by Celine Dion

Titanic made millions at the box office, and this song is most associated with the perilous, doomed love story of Jack and Rose. And just like the ship, this song goes down very fast... translated from Bengali, to Urdu, to Arabic, to Sepedi, to Yoruba, to Samoan, to Kurdish, and finally to its native English...

I'm not sure why, but it sounds very argumentative. I opened the door again... IT'S IN MY HEART!! NO!!

'Make You Feel My Love' by Adele (Bob Dylan)

Adele's hit rendition of 'Make You Feel My Love' became a stepping stone to her almost endless curriculum vitae of modern love songs. She can thank the breezy, loving lyricism of Bob Dylan - the dying honesty of his words is what makes the song so emotional to listen to. I was curious but also worried to see how lost this one could get in translation, since the language is very transcendent and grounded. Anyway, here it is translated roughly seven times through Basque, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Portuguese, Romanian, Urdu and Hindi. Also bit of Yiddish for good measure.

I personally like the anticlimax at the end - I will, actually, do nothing.

'Your Song' by Elton John

Elton John's simple love song is in actuality one of his most popular, successful and recognisable pieces of music in his discography. So there must be some sort of redemption for these lyrics in Google Translate, right? RIGHT? Let's find out. I translated the song through around ten times, from Icelandic to Macedonian, Punjabi to Arabic, to both simplified and traditional Chinese, to Japanese, then to Arabic again, then to both forms of Chinese again.

I do like how it becomes less about the girl and more about living in the countryside. Maybe he was put off by the idea that she was stealing things from the street.

There we are! God, what a cesspool. What have I created?

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day and got spoilt rotten. This was just for a bit of fun, though I spent an embarrassingly long amount of time trying to get Google to operate with non-sensical mish-mashes of the English language...

[swissmissing]

I am totally living for my husband bingeing “Crash Landing On You,” a South Korean telenovela on Netflix. It’s like his favorite thing, he is so into it, talking back to the screen, walking away in frustration at the evil characters, trying to figure out how to say things in Korean. It’s adorable and makes me happy.

[ashes-and-ashes]

Dude oh my god I'm so happy you like poc HCs. Half Japanese and half Arabic sirius black is just y e s. And east or south asian james potter (specifically Arabic or Indian). I really want a character to be latinx (definitely not me projecting) but I cant think of any that come to mind immediately. Also!! Half Korean and half white lily. Maybe mexican remus bc I'm mexican and I love remus so much fkfbfkfbdj

YES TO ALL OF THESE!

To me, Sirius and Remus are both Chinese. I think that there’s a lot of internalized racism in there because Walburga always felt really insecure about being Asian and as a result they didn’t really get to learn that much about their heritage. It’s only afterwards that Sirius started learning more about his culture, speaking the language and finally gets over this internalized racism that his mum imposed on him.

Draco’s half Japanese because I think that would be gorgeous. Also because I’m writing a Hanahaki fic and I love the idea of him coughing up cherry blossoms and chrysanthemums.

Pansy is Chinese and absolutely badass. Luna is half Japanese/Korean, and Blaise is African American. I love Indian James Potter, POC Lily (Korean Lily sounds 👌👌 especially with that fire red hair? Like very Kpop style??) Which means Harry is half Indian, half Korean which would be gorgeous as well (though there would obviously be that racism coming from the Dursley’s and from Vernon...)

I HC Dorcas as Latina! And Benjy Fenwick is a POC (for some reason I thought Mongolian? But also African American!) Cho is Korean as well! (In Eighth year, she and Pansy go on epic Kpop karaoke sessions!) I also think Marcus Flint is Chinese/Japanese because I need more Asian HP rep!!

Seriously, I’m so happy to talk about my character hc’s ANYTIME (and I’d love for y’all to share yours!!)

[mheerdraws]

The reason why you can talk to me about anything

My book arsenal includes genres like:

Slice of Life

Fantasy and non-fiction

Shakespeare and some other classics, not all

Political biographies and autobiographies (Churchill, Hitler, Rasputin, and others)

English, French, Italian, Egyptian, and Russian royal history

Norse and Greek Mythology

a book or two on Mongolians and Vikings (because I’m interested in that shit as well)

Astrology and Paleontology (study of fossils), books on nocturnal animals and rainforests in general

I have an annoying interest in Linguistics, I’m currently (casually) learning Korean(I can read it, and understand the topic of a basic conversation) and want to learn Mandarin and Japanese since my cousin gave me a few books in those languages and I’m annoyed that I can’t understand them??

I love codes and symbols; if I could, I’d study hieroglyphics, Celtic and Norse symbols (no I don't have a reason why)

I basically know random facts about the weirdest shit like, the catacombs of Paris, or the volcanic eruptions of Krakatoa and Pompeii and what happened there, what medieval torture devices were used on prisoners in the middle ages and so much more

Like,,, I ask myself, would am I suppose to do with all of this knowledge?? It’s not like I can talk to anyone about it, it’ll bore them to death.

How do I talk to a guy without sounding like a complete nerd with no life, I’d basically have to act like a completely different person to pull some interest (and yes, I’ve thought about this a lot lmao, it’s sad)

But, I do know that you can come and talk to me about ANYTHING and I’d listen to you like you’re telling me the secrets of Babylon lmao.

P.s. I’m also only 26, so I have interests outside of the literary world as well

[anacaoris]

ATLA/LoK naming conventions

EDIT: updated 17/09/2020

Water tribes 

In contrast to the names in other nations, most water tribe names are entirely made up. Many names finish with -a, particularly women's, and with the exception of only one name, all water tribe names have what is known as the schwa phoneme. A lot of the names involve hard K sounds, with female names normally beginning with K and male names ending or having a K in the middle. Some examples are:

Female

Katara

Kanna

Kya

Eska (the only one of the women to break the beginning K)

Korra

Male

Kuruk (the only one of the men to break the middle or ending -k)

Hakoda

Sokka

Amok

Arnook

Iknik

Maliq (exception to the K theme, but has similar sound)

Noatak

Tarrlok

Sangok

Nuktuk (the name of the character Bolin plays in the film The Adventures of Nuktuk: Hero of the South, the name itself an homage/inspired by the 1922 docudrama Nanook of the North)

There are notable exceptions to the naming conventions, such as Yue (Chinese for “moon”), Senna (from the Inuktitut goddess Sedna/Sanna), Maliq (most likely from the Semitic name Malik, though possibly its Greenland Inuit counterpart), Malina (Uzbek and various Slavic languages for “raspberry”), Desna (etymology unknown, mostly likely an anagram of Sedna), and Nini (etymology unknown).

Despite their mostly fictional status, several names are also Inuit in origin, and other largely inspired by. The Twitter blog @LowArtic gives examples: Tonraq, Unalaq, Noatak, are some. The WordPress blog LJWritesDotCom also gives a comprehensive list of which water tribe names are inspired by or directly are Inuit-Yupik ones (they do give the disclaimer that some acclaimed origins and variants are sketchy, so take it all with a grain of salt).

As an aside, however, that Katara is written as 卡塔拉, with Kǎ (卡) meaning “to check, block or card”; Tǎ (塔) meaning “pagoda”; and Lā (拉) meaning “to pull”. Sokka is written as 索卡, with Sǔo (索) meaning “to search, demand, ask, exact or isolate”; and Kǎ (卡) meaning to “check, block or card”.

Air nomads:

All of the airbenders shown in-universe have been presented with Tibetan names, and thus likely follow Tibetan naming conventions. These names, known as personal names, are given to children regardless of their gender, with only a few being specifically male or female. Aang is the only exception here, his name written as 安昂, with Ān (安) meaning “calm, peaceful, tranquil”; and Áng (昂) meaning “to rise, to lift, to raise”.

Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation:

The majority of names in both nations are of Chinese origin. The Earth Kingdom in particular has the most diversity in naming, with characters also having names that are Japanese, Korean, Sanskrit, and Uzbek. As well, the Earth Kingdom is the first place we ever see characters with surnames in the series (bar the later appearances of them in LOK) with the Beifong family.

The Fire Nation also boasts names that come from Japanese and Mongolian. Something rather noticeable is the -Z sounds in Royal family names (Sozin, Azulon, Ozai, Azula, Zuko, Izumi) and I- names (Ilah, Iroh, Izumi). Whether its traditional or a naming trend is unknown.

In total only a few people have surnames, and nearly all of them are affluent: the Beifong family, the Sato family, former United Republic of Nations President Raiko and his wife; Iknik Varrick and current United Republic of Nations President, Zhu Li Moon.

Nine names in total are particular exceptions to the world's pan-Asian and pseudo-Inuit theme naming: Nini, as stated above; Poppy; Buttercup; Ursa (Latin for “she-bear”); Noatak's alias, Amon (Egyptian, from the god Amun); Korra (Greek, meaning “maiden”); Ginger, though it's possible it's a stage name; and Hope (though according to the creators in the extra for Serpent's Pass, her name was going to be Xi Wang, meaning "hope" in Chinese). Maliq is most likely from the Semitic Malik (meaning “owner” or “king” depending on the spelling), although it is also a Greenland Inuit name meaning “wave”. Malina is used in various Slavic languages, but it is also Uzbek (meaning “raspberry” in all of these languages).

[sirxelots-anime-land]

Manga Recommandations ...

Yeah, I am finally doing what nobody asked for. I am gonna give ya’ll a list of Manga that I think aren’t that well known but are great and worth a read (at least in my opinion), Sounds Good? Alrighty let’s get this going them! 

Groundless - Sekigan no Sogekihei       

Now that is one Manga that I would really like to continue and release chapters in english faster. But it seems like no one really bothers to translate it atm wich is sad :(                                                                                                                         Anyway, Groundless is set on an island in a somewhat modern fantasy world with a civil war rumbling on said island. The main character is Sophia who lost her husband and daughter after their arms shop got set up with a hughe order from the colonel of the army stationed there. All she has left is a sniper rifle her husband hid for her to sell in case something bad happens. Instead of selling it she decides to seek revenge and joins the local militia as a sniper. 

It’s got some pretty cool charakters, it’s brutal (not over the top brutal though) and the art is pretty good.

Afterschool War Activities

Alright, technically this is not quite a manga since it is a Webtoon but I like it and it is pretty cool ... yea.                                                                                              Set in a South Korean Highschool, the daily lifes of our class are dissrupted when strange things appear in the sky (strange and deadly). highschoolers and university students have to fill up the military ranks to fight this strange enemy off.

It has a lot of interesting characters in the school class we follow around and it gives a pretty good impression on the emotional stress and trauma the situation brings with it. 

Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad

Let’s switch our guns out for something different now ... how about a guitar. Beck is one of my favourite Anime and Manga out there and I’d say everybody should give it a try because it is so good. First of, the Anime ends around Chapter 29 of the Manga and it sticks pretty closely to it. So if you want to watch the anime instead for the first quarter of the Story, there you go :P                                  Since I don’t really know how I should summarize the story of Beck without going on for the next ten minutes I’ll make it short. Yukio Tanaka gets into playing the guitar and starts to set his sights on becomming a rock star (the absolute breakdown version of it).                                                                           It has a lot of good drama, is super fun and has pretty good music (Anime Only :( ). The only thing that might put you off on the anime at least is the animations. They can be a bit whacky in normal situations. The manga however looks gorgeous all the time. Two last words: JUST READ IT GOD DAMN IT’S SO DAMN GOOD OMG 

In This Corner of the World

Oh yeah baby, we’re back with the War stuff. Though this time we don’t really see anything of the fighting itself. 

Rather we’re following a typical japanese family through their daily lifes during the second world war. Sound glum and boring? Don’t worry thanks our somewhat clumsy but loveable main charakter and a wonderfull cast in general it won’t be that glum mos.. well ... not all the time. And if the cast isn’t enough, the art of it is also very beautifull and you learn a lot about how live was during that time in japan (there is a whole vocabulary list at the end of each volume explaining certain words and phrases in the context of the war). 

But wait that is not all, if you don’t necessarily want to read through the 3 Volumes of it you can watch the movie on Netfilx. It will definitly be worth your time (maybe don’t watch it when you want something happy go lucky though).

Maria: The Virgin Witch

I know it might seem like I only read stuff that is set during some kind of war but I promise you that that is not the case and just a coincidence. This time the story is set in the Hundred Years’ War.                                                                             Maria our young and ambitious witch wants to stop the war with her sex appeal... Do I need to say more to convince you? Yes? Well alright. She herself is still a virgin so she sends her domestic deamon to do the sexy time part for her. God on the other hand doesn’t really like the idea that Maria wants to end the war wich leads to our little conflict between our cute little witch and an arch angel. 

With only three Volumes it’s a nice and quick read and a very fun one at that. Or you know... you could watch the anime wich is also decent.  

Black Rock Shooter: Innocent Soul

Alright, now we’re really done with the War stuff i promise :D                                 So you might’ve already heard of Black Rock Shooter and you might have watched the anime/ short movie ova thing. BRS IS takes the charakters of Black Roch Shooter and puts them in a alternate story that has nothing to do with the anime stuff.  

Set in  Hazama, a world between heaven and earth where souls land that are not worthy of going to heaven nor hell, we follow a girl called rock who is a Black Star whose job it is to keep order.                                                                            Again a very short manga with three volumes it has a nice story (though it get’s a bit hard to follow in the very last bit from what I remember right now) and a very beautifull art style. Also it has some super funny moments in it thanks to the great dynamic between our main protaganist and her side kick. 

Prophecy

Another three volume Manga comming right up. Prophecy.                                    A man uploads videos on definitly not youtube Mr. Copyright man, where he promises revenge for crimes that didn’t get punished hard enough (and pulls through with them). Meanwhile a special divison of the police force specialized in cybercrime tries to catch the man.                                                                           It’s a nice cat and mouse detective criminal story with an interesting take on social media and social injustice. It can feel a bit silly at the beginning when they talk about the internet but that might just be the german translation in my case :P  If you have a thing for some good crime stories definitly check it out.

Aion

One of my favorite and first manga. A manga I would really like to see as an anime but probably never will. I kinda don’t wanna say to much about it here because I probably wouldn’t find an end. So basically mermaids are real and they try to F up humanity with worms that control them. Our main protagonist meets the girl who has her sights set out to kill all the mermaids.                           It’s a really cool story and unique (as far as I remember it ... I need to read it again) with some nice characters and I also did a drawing of one f the characters that turned out pretty dope ... ok that last part is probably not that convincing to you so just check the manga out ok? Good. 

Boku Girl

Ok, you’re almost done by now. To end this list I have something with a bit more bare skin that is also a bit weird and a 100% hillarious and caused me to cry of laughter more than the number of it’s chapters. And it develops into a cute little love story aswell.

Out main character is Suzushiro Mizuki who is far from a a very masculine guy, In fact he get’s mistaken for a girl more than he’d like to. Even his crush thinks of him more as one of the girls. Meanwhile, Loki the Trickster god get’s bored with playing tricks on other gods so he plays one on Mizuki ... (also Loki is a girl ... in this one at least). I guess you might be able to figure out what happens to poor Mizuki with this prank and if you don’t mind that stuff, you most likely will have a blast with it (I hope at least because I definitly had).                                               And I dont’t think I have more to add to that :D

 OH WAIT ... IT HAS SUPER CUTE MOMENTS ... that’s all 

The Afterword

Aight. that concludes my short list of manga that I want you to read cuz I like them and you better like them too OR ELSE ... 

Mind you I did this whole text in one sitting and it was very spontaneous and late at night. So if you can’t make sense out of my gibberish and  eventuall spelling/grammatik errors, I am sorry. I didn’t really prepare this as much as I could have and it’s been a while since I wrote a longer text in english.

I hope you enjoyed this list anyways and some of the Manga aswell. I might or might not do stuff like this again in the future, maybe a bit more prepared.

If you most definitly would like to see me stuff like this more, let me know :D 

Have a good one folks.

[houseki-no-suffering]

The Lustrous’ writing system

(contains minor and major spoilers from the manga!!)

Writing and reading are recurring elements in Houseki no Kuni. Phos’ first job is to write an encyclopedia and we know that the gems possess a vast library. Writing is so important that Peridot’s main occupation is making paper for other gems to use, just like Alex’s job is being a scholar and writing about Lunarians. 

Also, while Admirabilis, Lustrous and Lunarians seem to share a common language, they do not share the same writing system (when showed a dépliant of the Moon facilities, Phos is unable to read it). So which script do the Lustrous use?

Since it’s sensei that educates the gems in writing and reading, we can assume that he taught them a type of script that humans used when he was originally created, so we can try to identify it starting from the scripts that exist today.

First of all, there are many types of writing systems, each with their own conventions, and they are classified according to what the different symbols of the system stand for. While linguists still kill each other in their sleep over classifications criteria, for the sake of this post I’m going to adopt a simplified version of Daniels’ classification. So we have:

Logographic: like Chinese, each symbol is a morpheme (a single unit of meaning, like 王, king)

Syllabic: like Japanese kana, each symbol is a syllable (け, か and こ, ke, ka and ko)

Alphabetic: like our Latin alphabet, each symbol is a distinct phoneme, vowels included (like A, B, C etc)

Abugida: or alphasyllabary, it’s in between Alphabetic and Syllabic,  sequences of consonants and vowels are written as a unit like in Devanagari and Tibetan ( क् + प/ पे = क/ कॆ, K + a/e = Ka/Ke)

Abjad: like the Alphabetic, but symbols are only for consonants, like in traditional Hebrew and Arabic (ב‬ ,ג‬ ,ד‬, B, G, D)

Featural: the shape of the symbol resemble that of the sound, like in Korean Hangul (like ㅁ, M, that looks like a mouth) 

Another thing to account for is the direction of writing: when the gems write they go top to bottom, vertically and right-to-left like we can see from these pictures:

Pic 1 is of one of Alex’s drawings: the paragraphs align on the right side of the paper, while there’s room left on the opposite side of the sheet, at the end of the second paragraph. The second pic is of Rutile: while it looks like they’re taking notes left-to-right, they could also be editing what they just wrote because the entire page is already densely written. Also notice how they write with a stylus, not a brush, because this detail will be important later.

Similarly, here we have Ghost, Sensei and Phos reading right-to-left, starting from what would be the last page from a Latin script user’s point of view. Notice how the titles of the books are on the left of the binding. Sensei is also reading right-to-left: this is from the panel where he’s teaching a new book to young Phos so he’s reading the first pages, the ones on the right.

So we have a top-to-bottom, right-to-left script, which hints at the gems’ writing system being based on an East-Asian script, since they’re the ones most often written vertically&RTL. 

It would make sense for the Lustrous writing system to be Asian-based: the story is highly influenced by Buddhism and the mangaka is a Japanese woman. Yet, while I do believe that the script the gems use is Asian (or, well, similar to known Asian scripts) I don’t believe it’s Japanese. Let’s look at some examples:

(Lustrous script vs Chinese/Japanese cursive)

(regular Chinese/Japanese vs cursive form vs Lustrous script)

The gems’ script does resemble Japanese and Chinese cursive, but there are a few issues. First of all, cursive is hardly intelligible even for skilled readers, because it is regular writing that was drastically simplified and smoothed out to create a beautiful and abstract appearance: it’s more of an art form than an ‘actual’ writing system. Also, cursive is created by the movement of the brush never leaving the paper, so we would expect the gems to write with a brush when we know that they actually use a stylus. 

Finally, since cursive is just a type of calligraphy, we would expect some of the writing we see in the series to look like regular Japanese and Chinese, like the script on the left in the first picture, yet it never does.

(Lustrous script vs Traditional Mongolian)

What we do have examples of are the tidy and geometrical vertical lines that characterize the Lustrous’ script. They write vertically in a continuous swirl of characters that is similar not only to Chinese Cursive but also to another East Asian alphabet, with whom the Lustrous script also shares a lot of other characteristics: Traditional Mongolian, a script derived from the Old Uyghur alphabet, a distant relative of the Egyptian hieroglyphs.

I have a couple of examples to raise my point and they have to do with the few images of single letters/symbols that we see in the series, like the one below, from ep.12.

I couldn’t find a higher resolution picture, but look at the paper sheets on the wall of Alexandrite’s room: the one on the left is about the different types of Lunarian apparitions, while the one on the right is about the island where the gems live. 

If you squint your eyes a little, you can see that, above each portion of text in the image on the right is a symbol, probably a letter or a number to classify the different types of information. Same thing for the left image: there’s a symbol next to each ‘model’. 

When Alex tests Phos’ knowledge, they do refer to numbers to classify the different types of models, so let’s say for a second that those symbols are numbers. Even if the picture is not super clear they are not angular enough to be Chinese/Japanese numbers: 一 十 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). Now look at Mongolian numbers:

They look swirly and rounded like those in the picture. Also, remember how Mongolian writes top-to-down? If you stack these numerals up in vertical sequences (like in dates or two+ digit numbers) they will acquire the same length of the ones showed in the picture.

Finally, we must also take into consideration the type of script. Remember that very long list at the beginning of this post? Well, how do the gems differentiate among symbols and sounds? Do they use an Alphabetic script like Mongolian or a Logographic one like Chinese? Do they use something different altogether?

Thanks to Phos’ never-ending curiosity, we do have one example of how the Lustrous’ write sounds and it’s from when Phos tried to speak with the Lunarians and heard them saying ‘fu’ and ‘a’:

When they write those sounds down, they use two different characters: one for ‘fu’ and one for ‘a’. 

Now, the manga is written in Japanese and Japanese uses a syllabic script, so it can’t write single consonants. Instead, it attaches the vowel ‘u’ (or sometimes ‘o’) to a consonant to suggest that it should be read by itself. So we could think that the ‘u’ in ‘fu’ is mute and that the Lunarian said ‘f’ instead of ‘fu.’ However that ‘fu’ is used to make a joke just a couple of panels later, suggesting that it could also exist as a syllable on its own, not a single consonant.

This would change the type of script the Lustrous use, because if Phos wrote down ‘f’ and ‘a’ (instead of ‘fu’ and ‘a’), then it would mean that the gems use an Alphabetic script, like Traditional Mongolian. On the other hand, if Phos heard ‘f+u’ and wrote down the syllable ‘fu,’ then the gems’ script could be Syllabic, like Japanese or an Alphasyllabary like Tibetan.

As for other types of scripts, I don’t think they are using a Logographic one (like Chinese), because if they were, then Phos would have written all the different ways in which the sound ‘fu’ could be represented, just like when Japanese speakers tell each other which kanji to use to write their name correctly. This is because each symbol stands for a morpheme (a unit of meaning), not a phoneme (a single emission of sound), so the same unit of sound can be written in different ways. 

Phos is looking at the sounds they just wrote to come up with an idea about what they could possibly mean: it would make sense for them to write down all the possible combinations of sounds for ‘fu’ and ‘a,’ not just one.

What we can say for sure is that the Lustrous’ script is not Abjad, because the vowels (like ‘a’) have an independent symbol. And speaking of independent symbols, if we come back to Mongolian for a second, we can see that the symbols for ‘initial fu’ and ‘independent a’ do look a little like what Phos wrote down:  

If this were true, then the Lustrous’ script would work like Mongolian: an alphabetic script where letters have different forms depending on their position in a word (initial, medial, final or independent).

There is one problem with Mongolian, though: it’s written vertically, top-to-bottom like the Lustrous’ script, but left-to-right rather than right-to-left. So if the gems are indeed writing in some sort of descendant of the Traditional Mongolian script, then it was modified to allow right-to-left vertical writing, like in a mixture between Chinese cursive and Traditional Mongolian. 

For example, the two Lustrous letters above look like a mirrored version of the Mongolian letters below, and that could explain how one system writes RTL and the other LTR.

Among all the existing writing systems that I have analyzed, I think that Traditional Mongolian and Chinese cursive are the ones that resemble the way the Lustrous write the most. Among the two, I believe Traditional Mongolian shares more features with the Lustrous script than Chinese cursive, except for the fact that Mongolian writes left-to-right.

If the gems really did write in a parent script of Mongolian, then it would be interesting to know if they also spoke a descendant of the Mongolian language or if sensei taught them Mongolian script because he was created in Mongolia, but this post is already long enough.

I’d love to hear what you think about the Lustrous script though, and if I made some mistake or forgot to mention something, feel free to add to this meta.

[indigostudies]

hi!! 4, 6, 11 for the langblr ask game 💙

4: How many/which languages would you like to know in the future?

hmm well ideally i'd love to know every language in the world! this might sound like a cop-out, but i genuinely have an absurd amount of passion for languages generally (it's why all three of my majors are language-related lol). buttttttt if i had to narrow it down further, i'm most interested in asian languages, especially turkic, iranic, and sinitic languages. in the future, i hope i can manage to gain proficiency in kazakh, uyghr, kurmanji, persian, shanghainese, and cantonese. some languages that don't fit into these three families i'd love to become proficient in are vietnamese, korean, mongolian, and manchurian.

6: What’s the most difficult word for you to say in your native & target languages?

honestly i've never had a problem with pronunciation—my asd manifests as hyperlexical, and since i grew up trilingual, i had an early exposure to a relatively large number of phonemes on a native level, so i've never run into a word that i wasn't able to pronounce basically spot-on on the first or second try (though i've never interacted with languages that make use of clicks, which could be an entirely different matter). i also am someone who tends to speak fairly formally and with an emphasis on distinct enunciation when i'm in any non-familial setting, which i think probably helps with this? i also have an ear for languages generally, which also helps a lot. so........i guess not an applicable question?

11: What’s the funniest word in your target language(s)?

i can't explain it, but i find the word diskotheke, which is a very normal word, to be hilarious. technically english has the same word, but diskotheke just has a different vibe.

[industry365]

Complementary and alternative medicine  Market Size, Share, Growth and Industry Forecast By 2028

The global complementary and alternative medicine market size is expected to reach USD 391.32 billion by 2028 according to a new study by Polaris Market Research. The report “Complementary And Alternative Medicine Market Share, Size, Trends, Industry Analysis Report, By Intervention (Traditional Alternative Medicine/Botanicals, Mind Healing, Body Healing, External Energy, Sensory Healing), By Distribution Method, By Region; Segment Forecast, 2021 – 2028” gives a detailed insight into current market dynamics and provides analysis on future market growth.

Medical tourism, which draws people from all over the world and encourages them to pursue world-class alternative medical care, is also being promoted by regulatory bodies. In some Indian states, for example, regulatory agencies have invested heavily in settings standards of alternative facilities. “Ministry of Ayush” is established to oversee yoga, Ayurveda, homeopathy, and naturopathy education, product creation, research, and many other services in India.

Alternative treatments include the Alexander process, aromatherapy, natural medicine, homeopathy, reiki, naturopathy, acupuncture, and yoga. Not only industry players, but also medical settings, are implementing profitable business growth strategies to ensure successful marketing and promotion of alternative medicine therapies.

Get sample copy : https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/complementary-alternative-medicine-market/request-for-sample

Yoga and other modern medicines that concentrate on the mind are projected to benefit a lot of traction in the coming years. The growth of the mind healing intervention market of complementary and alternative medicine is expected to be aided by the expanding applications of yoga in chronic illnesses such as cancer, COVID-19, and cardiovascular ailments.

More than half of doctors in the United States have recommended at least one alternative health intervention to their patients, according to a report published in January 2020. Furthermore, many female physicians incorporate holistic medicine methods, while male physicians are more likely to prescribe osteopathic manipulation and chiropractic care strategies. The frequency of such surveys is projected to rise, allowing doctors, patients, and medical schools to learn more about the wide variation in alternative therapy use.

Some of the major players in the global market for complementary and alternative medicine include John Schumacher Unity Woods Yoga Centre, The Healing Company Ltd., Columbia Nutritional, Nordic Nutraceuticals, Herb Pharm, Sheng Chang Pharmaceutical Company, Pure encapsulations, LLC, Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute, and AYUSH Ayurvedic Pte Ltd.

Get Discount offer: https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/complementary-alternative-medicine-market/request-for-discount-pricing

Polaris Market Research has segmented the complementary and alternative medicine market report based on intervention, distribution method, and region:

Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Intervention Outlook (Revenue – USD Million, 2016 – 2028)

Traditional Alternative Medicine/Botanicals

Mind Healing

Body Healing

External Energy

Sensory Healing

Ayurveda

Apitherapy

Bach Flower Therapy

Naturopathic

Traditional Chinese

Traditional Korean

Traditional Japanese

Traditional Mongolian

Traditional Tibetan

Zang-Fu Theory

Autosuggestion

Hypnotherapy

Neuro-linguistic Programming

Self-hypnosis

Spiritual Mind Treatment

Transcendental Meditation

Acupressure

Acupuncture

Alexander Technique

Auriculotherapy

Autogenic Training

Chiropractic

Cupping Therapy

Kinesiology

Osteomyology

Osteopathy

Pilates

Qigong

Reflexology

Yoga

Magnetic Therapy

Radionics

Reiki

Therapeutic Touch

Chakra Healing

Bio-magnetic Therapy

Magnetic Resonance Therapy

Aromatherapy

Music therapy

Sonopuncture

Sound Therapy

Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Distribution Method Outlook (Revenue – USD Million, 2016 – 2028)

Direct Sales

E-sales

Distance Correspondence

Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Regional Outlook (Revenue – USD Million, 2016 – 2028)

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Central & South America

Middle East & Africa

U.S.

Canada

France

Germany

UK

Italy

Spain

Netherlands

Austria

China

India

Japan

Malaysia

South Korea

Indonesia

Mexico

Brazil

Argentina

UAE

Saudi Arabia

Israel

South Africa

Buy now: https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/checkouts/8691

[wearecelestialwarlock]

Sun, moon, mars, neptune, sirius!

This ended up being a bit longer than I originally thought so I’m going to put a cut. Thank you for the ask! :D

Sun: If you could live any past decade, when would it be?

Hmm, I feel like this would be one of those careful what you wish for situations. Honestly, I’m pretty happy living in this day and age. I feel like any time period I go back to would have some major downsides that I might not realize.Also, there are time periods where a person of color like me would have a much harder time and then there are so many things that just aren’t an issue nowadays especially as far as medicine goes.

 If I had to give an answer, I’d say whatever time period I could live a long happy life in. Being a solitary farmer in some safe remote land with a town full of good people nearby honestly sounds like a dream come true. So, a decade that’s farther back, I guess. XD

Moon: Do you play an instrument?

Nope, not really! I used to play bass guitar and I’ve got an old keyboard that used to belong to my grandmother lying around, but I’m just not that great when it comes to learning instruments. Maybe someday that’ll change.

Neptune: What’s your favorite music genre?

I hate to be one of those people, but my taste in music is kinda eclectic, to be honest. I have a lot of love for a lot of songs from a bunch of different genres and I’m 2000% ok with listening to them all together. XD

Here are a couple of my favorite songs and their genres to help paint a picture of what I like:

“What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye (Soul/Funk)

“Memoro de la Stono” by Nobuo Uematsu (Video game soundtrack)

“Cosmic Girl” by Jamiroquai (Disco)

“Duulal” by Sedaa (From what I understand it’s Mongolian/Iranian folk music?)

“Derlcha” by Anda Union (Mongolian folk) (Apparently this is named after the singing competitions done during Mongolian festivals going back many many years. That’s pretty cool.)

“Doncamatic (featuring Daley)” by The Gorillaz (R&B)

“Happen Ending” by Epik High (Korean Hip-Hop/Rap) 

“We Know the Way” by Lin Manuel Miranda & Opetaia Foa’i (Disney, I guess?)

“Cirice” By Ghost (Metal/Rock)

“HIGHLIGHTS FROM HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE” By Joe Hisashi (Soundtrack)

“Lost in Thoughts All Alone (Cover)” By AmaLee (Cover of a video game soundtrack song. God, idek)

“I Was Born For This” By Austin Wintory (Video game soundtrack)

I’m not super familiar with the lyrics for the non-English ones except “I was born for this” so forgive me if any of them are questionable.

Sirius: Favorite fictional character?

At the moment, Sir Aymeric de Borel from FFXIV. I really would love to talk on and on about him, but it’s starting to get late so I think I’m going to be brief. He is a wonderful leader who has done some really amazing things for his people. He has sacrificed a lot and has a bottomless well of charisma that fuels heartfelt speeches that end wars and stirs hearts. Also, he’s absolutely gorgeous and has a really great outfit. XD

[nonoboymusic]

Mitski Part I: Early Musical Influences Yumi Matsutoya and Miyuki Nakajima

One of the contemporary artists I’ve been researching recently is Mitski, a 26 year old “indie rock” musician who has found some success with a pair of excellent recent albums (Bury Me at Makeout Creek & Puberty 2) which examine youth and all its messiness through memorable melodies, striking vocal performances, while utilizing late 90s alternative fuzz guitar centric rock. Mitski uses her lyrics to explore different facets of her identity (youth, race, gender, sexuality) with great nuance and depth. Deservedly so, her single “Best American Girl” made many 2016 best of lists. The song, besides being a great, dynamic musical piece of power pop, articulates ideas about growing up looking or feeling different on the edges of the Richie Cunningham nuclear family ideal. The video--which features a Coachella girl stereotype making out with Mitski’s “best american boy”--does the song no favors and flattens out the complexity which her lyrics and the music can convey upon careful examination. 

Mitski’s background is what it is. People make too much it from surface level observations that she is 1.) Japanese 2.) mixed 3.) a woman 4.) a rocker. From my research (both reading articles and interviews and speaking to her fans), I’ve found that other people are keen to identify her as “an other” and then use this outsider position as a journalistic angle, or, in the case of some of her fans, they want her to be a political spokeswoman for marginalized people, specifically Asian-Americans. Certainly, Mitski looks different (and writes differently) from what we have seen and heard before in indie rock, and she acknowledges that.  In a surprisingly long email correspondence, Mitski was nice enough to write an essay length response to questions which aimed to flesh out Mitski as Asian-American rockstar, or Asian-American woman taking center stage, and add layers, historical, social and political, to who Mitski the human musician is. 

As someone who is studying “Asian-American” musical cultures, it’s frustrating when journalists or fans latch onto people because they’re Japanese or Korean or Vietnamese or whatever, and make that dominate the narrative. It assumes things that may or may not be true for the artist in question, and it also flattens them out. If that’s the lead line and there is no examination of what it means to be Asian-American, then that cheap analysis is an exoticizing tool meant to capture a reader’s imagination. Unfortunately, this exoticization associates one-dimensional images of whatever Asian things mean to you onto that person and further perpetuate stereotypes. Few of these articles seem to care even where Mitski’s Japanese family is from in Japan (Mie prefecture), while in the same magazine or blog you will find stories about how (mostly white) musicians really lay claim to a certain sound of a certain region where they’re from or grew up or moved to or visited once.

Mitski, like myself, and other Asian-American musicians I’ve spoken with recently has a complex and complicated background, and it’s kind of a bummer to see the “Asian” thing (or the “woman in rock” thing) used in such a shallow way, to just set up an “outsider makes good” narrative. Those narratives are important for political reasons, because there is still real racism and sexism and not enough songs like “Best American Girl” out there. But the real story lies in calling into question the idea of the outsider based on racial lines by actually taking the time to tell that artist’s story which in turn breaks down the validity of any kind of superiority of an “insider” culture. That’s what I hope to do in sharing Mitski’s interview here. In bits and pieces, I want to go through some of what Mitski wrote to me. She offers a lot, so I’ll unroll this over time, but let’s start with the basic introductory music journalist question:

What music did your mom and dad listen to respectively? 

“My mother was never really a music-listener, but she would hum or sing to herself often, and I found out later in life that she was singing Japanese songs of her youth - Japanese Pop songs of the late 70's-early 80's. She mostly sung songs by female singer-songwriters Yumi Matsutoya and Miyuki Nakajima, who I actually find my own songs sound a lot like! So I think a lot of my songwriting is subconsciously but greatly influenced by those two artists. 

My father was something of an amateur ethnomusicologist. His specialties were the local/traditional music of Latin America (especially Cuba), Irish/Scottish/American Appalachian folk music, and Tibetan and Mongolian traditional music, including throat singing. This sounds really pretentious, but he just genuinely liked that music, so that's what was playing in our homes all the time, and that's what I'm familiar with.”

The artists Mitski name checks are fantastic and certainly deserve recognition. As noted, they were foundational “J Pop” artists of the 80s and made some phenomenal music.Here is a brief introduction to a few choice Yumi Matsutoya and Miyuki Nakajima tunes. 

"Rouge no Dengon" was released in 1975 on the Alfa label under Yumi Matsutoya’s former stage name Yumi Arai. She was born in 1954 in Tokyo. This song, which was a big hit for her, trades in vintage 1950s American rock n’ roll. The strings and background vocals which sweep in during the second verse are joyous and push the song towards its truly outstanding chorus section. Yumi’s voice is controlled and understated for most of the track, soaring only when necessary. For all the camp of the production of the video, and the obviously cribbed greatest hits of American 1950s tropes, it still manages to feel exciting and not played out. The song has a sense of movement, a buoyant propulsion which never bores the listener.

By the late 1980s, Yumi Matsutoya’s work adopted the au currant synthesizer instrumentation which resulted in her most commercially successful work. “September Blue” from the 1988′s incredibly titled Delight Slight Light KISS is a synth feast of orchestra hits and a clave pattern which sounds pretty fresh now that we’re in this mid 2010′s tropical house moment in pop music production. By the time the song reaches its repetition of outro choruses and the background vocals are swelling and the horn hits are coming in and out, I am genuinely excited by the sweet jam unfolding before my ears.

Miyuki Nakajima, born 1952 in Sapporo, is first and foremost and incredible songwriter. “Wakareuta (The Parting Song),” has such a brilliant melody and cool vibe. The string orchestration (chunky 8th notes mixed with legato patches) and minor key harmonies create a slinky cool feel which is just, like, super hip. I love the upstroke guitar work and the threatening dramatics of the song which hints at Rocky type theme music. J Pop, or whatever you want to call this late 70s era of production in Japan, was smashing together so many cool sounds, and because of writers like Nakajima and Matsutoya, they had some really great material to arrange and orchestrate. 

[wordsparks]

Apropos of Nothing: My Foreign Language Knowledge

Discovered some interesting posts about foreign languages tonight so felt like bragging about my own language knowledge.

- I am fluent in English, which is also my mother tongue. But you probably figured that out already.

- I am proficient in French, Spanish, and Japanese. I minored in French in college, so I’m most proficient in that of these three. I can read, write, speak, and understand it. Due to my college only having French classes up to 300 level (I went to a state school with not much of a Languages Department), I’m basically at an intermediate level; when I took the e-TEF (the Test d'Evaluation de Français - basically the official proficiency test given by the French government) a few years ago I think I got B1 overall, which is lower intermediate.

Spanish I’ve only taken one class in, a Conversational Spanish class in 8th grade. But I’ve worked at a couple jobs where I was surrounded day in and day out by Spanish-speaking people, and somehow I managed to pick up a lot, enough to help customers pretty well in Spanish, and to be told by Spanish speakers that my Spanish is very good. I only know one verb tense, most of the words I know have to do with food, and I sometimes get my words mixed up, but I manage. I try to practice my Spanish on my Spanish-speaking coworkers, as well as trying to sound out the Spanish text on bottles and boxes. (Here in California, almost every product has text on it in English and Spanish).

Japanese I picked up from watching a lot of subtitled anime. Seriously. I also used to own Berlitz’s book Essential Japanese and would go through that. I’m able to speak pretty decently, and to recognize Japanese if I hear it spoken. Plus, I’m getting to the point where I actually understand a lot of the Japanese songs I listen to (both anime songs and regular j-pop). I can’t read or write Japanese though, but I would like to learn. I’m also very interested in the culture (beyond just anime and manga) and have done lots of research on it. There is a Japanese Garden near me that I visit fairly often; I went to their Cherry Blossom Festival earlier this year, and got to see some great cultural demonstrations (ondo dancers, a koto and shakuhachi duo, taiko drummers, and this guy doing a really old form of poetry) and eat under one of the many cherry trees they have there. Last time I went there, I got to make a teru teru bozu, this little ghost-looking thing that is supposed to bring good weather if you hang it in your window. I’ve also gotten into some vloggers who vlog about Japan, so I’m learning quite a bit that way culture-wise.

- In addition to those four, I can speak bits and pieces of Italian, German, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Hebrew. Russian and Hebrew I tried learning through podcasts - One Minute Russian and Learn Hebrew Pod respectively - but then gave up. I don’t recommend Learn Hebrew Pod because they make you get a paid subscription to get the most out of it, which kinda defeats the purpose of a podcast, and is probably why I quit listening to that one. I got into these two languages cause of my heritage - I am 1/8 Jewish (which probably is barely anything, and plus I’m not Jewish religiously) and my paternal great-grandmother was from Latvia, which was under Russian control at the time. Italian I picked up from I don’t know where, Chinese ditto. German I picked up a bit from a friend I had in junior high who was taking it; I’ve also been listening to some of the songs Super Moonies did for the German dub of the 90s Sailor Moon anime. (My fave is “Kämpfe Sailor Moon”).

- I can also sing songs or parts of songs in other languages - French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Hebrew, in addition to English of course. (This is mostly due to anime and to Josh Groban).

- I have tried to expose myself to films in other languages. I’ve seen several Chinese films, the most recent being one I got from the library last year called Balzac and the Little Seamstress, which is set during the Maoist period. I’ve seen Japanese films too, though mostly anime; the most recent one I saw was Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name. Last year, though, I finally saw Rashomon, the famous Akira Kurosawa film from 1950. I watched that at the same time as the Little Seamstress one; I was doing the Artist’s Way 12-week thing with some friends and did an “Asian Day” Artist’s Date in honor of Lunar New Year. I watched films in Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian, and Tibetan that day. I was also going to watch a film in Vietnamese and one in Korean, but I got tired after the first four. (I got all those from the library too…that library has a rather large foreign film selection). Other than this I have seen a few French films (like Au Revoir Les Enfants, Amélie, the animated film Kirikou et la Sorcière, and Cocteau’s La Belle et La Bête), a few Bollywood films, one in German and Russian called Europa Europa, and the sad Italian WWII movie Life is Beautiful, among maybe others that I forgot.

Ok, bragging over. I think I have made my point. Basically, languages come rather easily to me. Maybe it’s talent, maybe my autism, maybe inheritance (my dad’s grandmother knew 7 languages when she came here from Latvia). Not sure. Also, I think it’s sad being multilingual doesn’t seem to be a priority in the U.S. But that’s a whole other argument.