#it speaks volumes a latine person

[lunaescribe]

The anti-colonial power of Jim! What a gift to have a non-binary Latine rebel.

[thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai]

YOI-meta: Viktor's apparent insensitive reaction to Yuuri's love confession & what it might mean

There are several ways to read Viktor's comment on Yuuri's love confession depending on the level of his knowledge of the Japanese language and culture at this point in the series. While his words seem insensitive and blunt at first glance, plausible explanations for the choice the creators made here align rather with Viktor's character and the concept of the show than Viktor only caring about Yuuri's appearance in one of the most significant moments of their relationship.

So let's break this down!

1. Language barriers

The press conference of the Japanese Skating Federation, where the skaters participating in the Grand Prix Series present their season theme, is broadcasted on Japanese TV for a Japanese audience. Hence, Yuuri speaks Japanese in this scene. By now, Viktor has been living in Japan for about 5-6 months, and while he possibly knows enough Japanese to get along on his own and communicate with Yuuri's family about basics like food or the weather, complex speeches are probably still beyond his abilities.

Besides Russian, Viktor speaks English and French, so we can assume he has a knack for languages. But whereas Cyrillic and Latin characters have some resemblances, Japanese has three different types of characters (hiragana, katakana, and kanji), and these differ vastly from Western scripts. Beginners spend a hell lot of time learning these in addition to vocabulary and grammar. It's not a stretch to assume that Viktor understood parts of Yuuri's speech but not enough to connect the dots. Like "here, Yuuri presents his season theme which is about love... Oh, I heard my name! He's talking about me now! ... Was that something about a gold medal and Grand Prix Final? That's my Yuuri! He's so fierce! I love this! But ugh, he really needs a new tie! That hideous thing doesn't fit his new image at all!"

2. Utter shock

That face...

Looking at this scene, Viktor is either completely shocked because he didn't see this coming or trying hard to understand Yuuri's speech. While in my personal headcanon, language barriers keep him from understanding the speech, a person who is described as a genius and already speaks three languages might be able to follow the speech after living in the country for several months (I'm not sure about this though, but some people learn at lightspeed once they start obsessing over a subject). In this case, his reaction is a coping mechanism due to overwhelm. So far, Yuuri has said a few sweet things that showed Viktor how much he matters to Yuuri, but this is a whole new dimension of expressing affection, especially coming from someone so reluctant to voice their feelings. And while Viktor undeniably has been hoping for Yuuri to love him back, seeing his love confessing his feelings live on national TV is quite something to process.

Which leads me to...

3. Viktor doesn't take Yuuri's love confession seriously

This interpretation falls into the category of "Did we watch the same anime?" and I will briefly explain why using some past instances of Viktor's reaction to Yuuri using love language:

Episode 2 "I want to eat katsudon with you!":

Episode 3 "I'm going to become a super tasty katsudon. Please watch me!":

Episode 4 "I want you to stay who you are":

We see the occasional confusion, which is attributed to the fact that Viktoir is still familiarising himself with Yuuri's unique way of expressing his feelings and desires. However, in all these scenes, Viktor is genuinely happy that he means so much to Yuuri. Although Viktor can be insensitive at times, he never mocks Yuuri, which speaks volumes about his character. Not even when Yuuri says things like "Katsudon is my eros!" It's not in his personality. So far, throughout the series, Viktor has helped Yuuri become more confident and express his feelings. As soon as he understands Yuuri's speech and has processed the meaning, he would burst with happiness because Yuuri loves him back and pride because of how confident Yuuri became. But mocking Yuuri for his necktie when he just expressed the full dimension of his feelings? Just nope. He's not JJ.

Bonus: Viktor's reactions after episode 5 (the pattern continues)

4. The necktie is a metaphor

This interpretation came up in a Twitter discussion with @maetae2288 (kudos to her for bringing this up!) and it can coexist with interpretations 1 and 2. If you tell a story that needed to be condensed to 12 short episodes, you don't waste precious air time on throwaway lines.

For this interpretation, I would like to refer to Tumbleweed's translation errors master post. It's a super long post, so I quote the relevant part:

「 初めて自分から繋ぎとめたいと思った人、それがヴィクトルです 」 [...]'For the first time in my life, there’s a person I want to hold on to. That person is Victor.’ Also, while I think this word choice is the best choice, 'hold on to’ doesn’t quite get all the connotations of 繋ぎとめたい across. Tsunagi tomeru is composed of two words, tsunagi = bind and tomeru = stop. It means tying the subject to something and stopping it from going away. Since he added 自分から, 'from/by himself’ in front of it, it infers Victor being the first person Yuuri wants to reach out to and bond with, and with those bonds, bind them together so that they would never part.

I highly recommend reading the full post if you're interested in the linguistic nuances of translations from Japanese to English regarding Yuri!!!.

In his speech, Yuuri voices his desire to form an inseparable bond with Viktor (it's quite a lot like "stay by my side and never leave" if you think about it, although he uses a different vocabulary). Bonds are often symbolised by a knot. In this sense, the necktie comment would refer to the new bond Yuuri and Viktor will form henceforth.

It's unclear when Viktor learns Japanese love language and dating culture (you can read my post on Japanese dating culture in YOI here). In episode 9, Viktor correctly identifies Yuuri's (accidental) marriage proposal, but when did he brief himself on these things? In fact, he uses love language as early as episode 3 ("I love katsudon"), but was he aware of this? Whether or not he is, it's beyond doubt that the creators knew what they were doing when they gave him this line. In this light, his necktie comment suggests that he understood Yuuri's kokuhaku very well and gave a unique response that refers to their future bond and is true to his character. This is top-notch storytelling.

To sum this up, whether Viktor understood Yuuri at once and responded accordingly, or this line foreshadows that he will understand somewhere between episodes 5 and 6, his comment implies that they will start dating soon after. And we see the result in episode 6.

If you enjoy my meta posts, please consider giving my blog a follow or checking out my works on AO3(link in bio). You will find the results of my meta musings in there!

[fideidefenswhore]

"This Princess is not very tall, has a pretty face, and is well proportioned (disposta) with a very beautiful complexion, and is 15 years old. She speaks Spanish, French, and Latin, besides her own mother-English tongue, is well grounded in Greek, and understands Italian, but does not venture to speak it. She sings excellently, and plays on several instruments, so that she combines every accomplishment."

'Venice: August 1531', in Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 4, 1527-1533, ed. Rawdon Brown( London, 1871), British History Online

+

"She is a young woman, whose mind is considered no less excellent (bello) than her person, although her face is comely (gratiosa) rather than handsome, but she is tall and well formed, with a good skin, although swarthy (ancorchè olivastra); she has fine eyes and above all a beautiful hand of which she makes a display (della quale ne fa professione); and her intellect and understanding (spirito et ingegno) are wonderful, as she showed very plainly by her conduct when in danger and under suspicion. As a linguist she excels the Queen, for besides Latin she has no slight knowledge of Greek, and speaks Italian more than the Queen does, taking so much pleasure in it that from vanity (per ambitione) she will never speak any other language with Italians."

'Venice: May 1557, 11-15', in Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 6, 1555-1558, ed. Rawdon Brown( London, 1877), British History Online

[lone-rhapsodist]

My school is struggling to recruit my successor, and they are now thinking of cutting the subject. It's not just Latin, they are struggling with other subjects too, and they are now thinking of collapsing classes and what not. Last week I couldn't sleep because of this. Now I'm still very concerned, but the fact that the school can't recruit even for things like Geography or Languages is making me think that perhaps this was the right time to jump ship. The only thing is that, for those subjects, this doesn't mean that they will disappear, but for Latin, it would be the end of it. Apparently there are at least two other schools struggling to recruit a Latin specialist to run the subject as a one person department. It speaks volumes about how undervalued the subject is, and in general how poorly thought out the delivery of Classics is in school across the country, if all it takes is one person leaving the school for everything to come crashing down. It's not fair. All I wanted was a better commute, less stress, reasonable work-life balance, and because I put myself first for once, I'm being made to feel like it's my fault they're cutting the subject. It's unbearable. And all the joy I was feeling for the new job is now ruined by the thought that, with me going, it could really be the end of the subject at the school. It's heart-breaking. I can't stand it.

On a serious note, if anyone here is based around London, UK and looking for a teaching job in Latin/Classics, please do get in touch. Yes, I'm so desperate, I'm now recruiting on Tumblr -- I don't care, I'll do anything! And if you do know anyone who might be interested, please let me know. Thank you, and take care!

[rigelmejo]

So I like to find older language learning textbooks, or just specific ones. I could make some posts on them if anyone would be interested. I have some weird ones, and then some genuinely useful ones, and rather old ones which are a mix.

Some of my favorites:

German Through Pictures: learn like a child, or like me and my friend in high school translated to each other (with pictures!) when we didn't speak the same language. It is a simple book, but very easy and you WILL learn some basics. Its simple, its a nice idea.

This book is very cheap used, I found it at a library book store sale for 4 dollars.

Read Japanese Kanji Today: there's an older version of this book, equally good. This book is free in a lot of digital libraries (a lot of college libraries have it in ebook form, if you are on an app like Libby or Hoopla it's worth searching). A kanji mnemonic stories book that is not dauntingly huge. Good for beginners to wrap their heads around how to start studying Kanji. Be aware, it doesn't cover much, so don't spend too much time studying it if you're trying to make progress (not like perfectionist me in college who... was too obsessed with memorizing and so I never finished reading this).

https://archive.org/details/jensen-arthur-le-francais-par-la-methode-nature

Le Francais Par Le Methode Nature: I have this book to thank for getting comfortable learning French in French, for getting comfortable reading more, and I love the teaching style. I love textbooks written in The Nature Method, where they teach entirely in the language. The Arthur Jensen books in particular (and a few others of this time period) have 3000+ common words and a good overview of grammar taught, setting you up to transition to regular daily conversations and novel/news reading after The Nature Method textbook. My ideal. I wish desperately for a book like this in chinese or japanese. I've thought for hours about how to add pinyin for hanzi, romaji and hiragana below kanji for japanese, in order to make it still equally comprehensible to start seeing regular chinese and japanese text immediately. Chinese or Japanese would need more pictures for explanation, since there's less cognates. But i really think a similarly designed textbook would be very achievable. But I do not confidently know chinese or japanese grammar enough to try to translate English by The Nature Method into Chinese or Japanese. If someone does, I'd love to talk cost for that kind of translation job. I'd need that base text translation, then I could draw pictures and add pinyin and romaji/hiragana myself... (or also do what one great person did when he wrote a tiny Comprehensible Input japanese site - use emojis).

Anyway. I love these type of books. I wish more existed desperately. There's a French, English, and Italian one. There's also textbooks written with the same "all taught IN the target language" approach - a Greek one called Athenaze, and a Latin one called Lingua Latina.

Be aware because of the age of some of these, some language info is outdated. But for me the sheer VOLUME of nonstop practice reading the language makes up for a few issues of age.

French for Beginners by Charles Duff: I love the way Duff teaches, lots of practice reading immediately. He has a Beginner Spanish textbook I also got, and also love.

Chinese Grammar Self Taught by John Darroch: this book is NOT actually the nature method. I got a hard copy that's really old. Its lovely and has gold lettering on the cover. The book uses an old pronunciation system so its easier to go into this book if you already know how hanzi are pronounced or have an alternative source for that. If you're a nerd like me who Likes seeing the old pronunciation system, the older language features (like le being liao more, like the use of nin instead of ni more often), the print hanzi back then? Its really cool. The grammar lessons are also very easy to read - probably my favorite grammar explanations I've read. The section in the beginning explaining hanzi radicals and the types of hanzi, the sound+meaning type and symbolic type, on its own makes the book worth it. After reading that section, hanzi made so much more sense to me, got easier to remember and learn. I just think its a really neat book. It also has a dictionary of about 2000 hanzi in the back. Which serves as both a good vocabulary list and practice going through a/stroke order dictionary. The grammar book also teaches a decent number of words. A very useful little book.

Its the polar opposite of a chinese textbook I once had that only taught 200 words and made me so mad i donated it and forgot the name of it.

Japanese in Thirty Hours: this book is free on some univerity sites, if you search google itself or another web search. I bought a physical copy for 9 dollars. Its my favorite beginner grammar book for japanese - in particular, because it describes a few grammar points in a way that I found helpful. Also, like the chinese book above, this book pulls its weight! A lot of information in a small book. It has over 1000 words in the back vocabulary section you can study, a TON of grammar explanations and sentence drills to practice, easy to read, and the book's goal is to get you speaking (with the use of a dictionary/looking up key words you need to say) ASAP. It does it's job. The sentences are a bit unnatural, but so is Genki's sentences (like saying watashi wa so much even though in Japanese it wouldn't be explicitly stated so much).

Reading Japanese by Hamoko Ito Jordan, Eleanor Harz, Chaplin: I love learning a language by DOING. So I love this book. It's a bit slow paced for me (but only since I'm not an absolute beginner). It's a great, dense book of 624 pages. You practice reading all hiragana, katakana, 425 kanji, and a ton of example words and kanji. Even though I can read somewhat, the katana section of this book is intense even for me in that it makes me practice reading a TON of katakana words and situations in order to get the learner truly comfortable with encountering the writing system and reading it. There's also a companion grammar book by them, Beginning Japanese. Due to the very general title you'l need to search author names to find these books.

Weird bits: unique romaji system. I was fine with it, since I already knew the pronunciations of everything I saw in this book, from prior study. If you're an absolute beginner though, it would be worth it to learn the regular romaji system and hiragana/katakana romaji sound representations in it before starting this book.

Beginning Chinese Reader by John DeFrancis: note that you can find this cheap used sometimes, and very expensive other times. My copies were around 60 dollars a piece because the books were out of print and rare at the time. There's several books in the series: Beginning Chinese Reader 1 and 2, Intermediate Chinese Reader 1 and 2, and Advanced Chinese Reader. (Pdfs can be found online if you go searching).

The positive: 1200 hanzi are taught, and thousands more words (tons of combininations of the hanzi into many words). The main plus of these books is sheer volume of reading practice. Its TONS of reading practice, thousands of pages.

There's graded readers nowadays which are more entertaining with funner stories, but they are short. My mandarin companion stories were very short, my Sinolingua Books were quite thin, and most of my "beginner" reading in chinese ended up being easier novels in chinese (like tu tu da wang, xiao wang zi, sa ye and simpler written B)) because I just could not find thousands of pages of gradually increasing difficulty graded readers (although Pleco does offer a decent amount of some condensed versions of stories like Legend of the Monkey King, etc).

So yeah, the plus: huge amount of reading material to internalize hanzi and new words, and get really comfortable reading.

The negatives: its old. Old cultural details, old language things that don't all apply anymore, the technology words we have now didnt exist when it was written. And its written so dry and boring, unfortunately. For me, the elements that age it help me get interested in catching those, enough so that i can get myself to read it. But the material itself? Boring (at least in the beginning).

Regardless, I find the concept of these textbooks to be wonderful. I would love to find some modern chinese textbook series that provides over 1000 pages of graded reading, with words repeated at intervals to reinforce memory of them. If you know of any (even with just 400 pages practice reading that gradually teaches more words) please let me know.

Madrigals Magic Key to Spanish: I love this book. I have Madrigal's books for Spanish, French, and German. I read this spanish one over the course of a summer once, it probably helped me get better at reading Spanish. It works excellently in combination with Language Transfer Spanish podcast, and if you like learning materials that teach based on similarities to what you might already know in your native language (grammar similarities, cognates) and clear explanations of language patterns (showing how adjective word endings are sometimes X like -ent in english or french "intelligent") then this book's teaching style will work well for you. And, like many of my favorite books, it teaches a LOT of words.

So! That is a snippet of some of the language books I have. I've got a lot more... I love checking out textbook methods and the variety so I tend to look for them whenever I see used books.

[runwayrunway]

No. 26 - Copa Airlines

Over this weekend, I had you all fill out a questionnaire. Now, every question that's on there was on there for a reason, but some of those reasons are a bit more straightforward than others.

This one, for example, was something I had already been using a survey for, and I figured using my followers would meet a higher standard of science than using my coworkers and a few discord chats. If anything, it is needlessly biased in favor of the airline in question, since my followers include many Airplane People. And boy do the results speak volumes.

I removed the wordmark from this picture of an airplane and asked you all what airline she flies for. (Let's pretend the title of this post doesn't spoil the answer.) The answers were overwhelmingly consistent.

32 out of 77 responses, a stunning 45%, identified this plane as flying for United Airlines.

I mean, not hard to understand why. The only things that are different are a slightly darker shade of blue, minor tweaks to the logo on the tail, and the easy-to-miss detail that the mystery plane is registered in Panama. (In fact, the only way to recognize what airline it flies for, in my own opinion, is that the airline's ICAO code is in the registration. Again, not something the average person would spot, or indeed should be expected to.)

The second most common response was either not responding, or saying that you don't know. (Actually, a lot of people expressed unsureness, but these people outright refused to guess.) The third most common response was AT&T. The phone company. In a similar vein, another respondent guessed Euronews, the news show.

Then we have four people who guessed Continental.

This is completely reasonable, since their livery is just the old United livery - rather, United's old livery is stolen from Continental during their merger. I get the sense that the difference between people who immediately assume United and people who immediately assume Continental is whether they were over or under a certain age in 2012.

A handful of other specific airlines were guessed. I'm not going to touch on all of them, including the ones I've already reviewed - I'll just leave a little collage of the miscellaneous guesses.

Okay. So the answer is obviously that this is, as it says in the title, Copa Airlines.

Three people actually guessed this correctly, and two of them live in Latin America. Copa (Compañía Panameña de Aviación) is the flag carrier of Panama and one of the largest carriers in Latin America. I find Copa's livery to be almost powerful in how tragic it is. It wasn't always like this.

Back in the day Copa had its own livery, its own branding. And I'm not going to linger on the fact that these are Iberia colors, because a lot of airlines use similar colors but this says COPA on it in huge text in two places.

This might seem like a weird case of self-sabotaging plagiarism, but it actually came about in a way I find far worse. Copa and Continental had a marketing alliance, with Continental having a 49% stake in the company until 1999, when it was increased to 51%. Immediately, Copa, in addition to partnering with Continental, began to use the same frequent flier program and - what I care about - the same livery.

I don't even have it in me to care about how the livery is boring and the font is ugly, how it's a far worse version of it than what Continental and then United wore. That is like seeing a corpse and being disturbed that it has a bad haircut. This airline is wearing a livery almost universally recognized to be that of a different airline. What is even the point of painting your planes with your name if you care this little about having an identity? You might as well be operating as United Express.

The worst thing is that United has changed their livery now. They don't have a majority stake in Copa, and haven't for well over a decade. Copa has its own fleet, its own routes, its own holding company, its own frequent flyer program, its own history, its own name. So why is it still wearing a livery that was never its own to begin with?

Maybe they don't want to commit fully to the retro look. But there is so much room in the world for this vibrant color scheme, this large legible wordmark, and this adorable little airplane underline logo. If only they hadn't committed to having planes that, if identifiable, are identifiable as a completely different airline.

And that makes me angry. That defeats the entire point. It makes me feel a potent mix of disgust and pity. This is an empty, broken thing. Not even a husk. A little shriveled creature inside of a very large, empty, cold jar. Any life would be better than this, if it could just be alive again.

F.

I have opinions on its overall appearance, sure. And I am not factoring them into this final rating. You copy Continental's homework and change it a bit, you get failed for plagiarism.

Just...you're allowed to do more than breathing. You've had Continental's livery for decades. At any moment, you could say 'no more', and you could decide that you care about being Copa Airlines. I really hope you do that soon.

[dualcastimpact]

dawntrail impressions pt. i

Back when I first started playing FFXIV, I kept up a livetweet thread of my impressions of the game all the way from A Realm Reborn to Shadowbringers, and it remains one of my favourite things online. I didn't continue the thread with Endwalker since Twitter no longer supports updating a thread with multiple tweets (and that's a serious pain in the ass, thanks Elon), so for Dawntrail I thought I'd try doing it on tumblr instead.

So here it is: my journey through Dawntrail!

Spoilers under the cut, obviously.

Fun fact: everything here so far is non-canon to Raginmar. He's already in Tuliyollal by this point, having sailed there with his father's husband's crew, so this is more me reacting to the story in general.

Ojika Tsunjika: "It seems he's managed to secure passage to Tural aboard a guildship vessel."

Erenville: "It took some persuasion, but the gleaners' guildship has granted us places aboard a vessel bound for Tural."

I've already mentioned this in another post, but this tidbit got me excited because it allowed me to explain how Raginmar got to Tural before Wuk Lamat and co. did — getting themselves on that ship probably took some time and no small amount of bureaucracy and scheduling, so it's perfectly feasible that Raginmar could have gone back home to the South Sea Isles and then sailed to Tuliyollal before they did.

———

Krile: "That's fine, Erenville. I doubt anyone expected we'd have a ship all to ourselves."

I'm being a little nitpicky here but why even feel the need to mention that in the first place? Any traveller wouldn't expect that, so why did Erenville have to apologetically mention that they'd have to be travelling with other people as if that isn't how everyone travels? I'm not dissing the writing, mind — more that I think it speaks volumes about Sharlayan society in general, probably, that they maybe subconsciously expect to travel privately because they're the elite or what have you.

———

Wuk Lamat: "I'm sure there'll be a chance to speak with Papa. You can get your answers right from the source!"

This is an interesting localisation choice because in Japanese, she doesn't say パパ. She says おやじ, which you can probably roughly localise into "old man" and showcases a very different charm than "papa". Wuk Lamat is a very genki character, she's pretty much the closest thing this game's got to a shōnen manga protagonist, so I feel her saying "papa" feels a bit off for her character. Maybe it's more in line with the Latin American-inspired setting and localisation?

———

Erenville: "The golden city is a children's bedtime story. I am part of this expedition only because the Third Promise has commanded that I serve as guide."

You tsundere, you. But also who the Third Promise is became clearer as you go through the game, but I have to admit it threw me for a loop because I don't remember Wuk Lamat ever being mentioned with that title in 6.55?

———

This is non-canon, as previously mentioned, but the incongruity of Raginmar standing there in his summer vacation clothes while everyone else is in their travelling and/or battle garbs with weapons had me laughing for a good while.

———

Alisaie: "Well, for once the fate of the world doesn't rest on our shoulders. We might even get a chance to enjoy ourselves!"

Don't jinx it, Alisaie.

———

Erenville: "Though Tural may seem but a short sail away on a map, the vast seas between brim with peril. The treacherous waters of Shades' Triangle alone have claimed countless vessels."

Wuk Lamat: "Perhaps, but my voyage here was uneventful enough. Disappointingly so!"

WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT NOT JINXING IT, WUK LAMAT?

———

Hello, person garbed in custom clothing who's suspiciously focused on in this frame. I'm sure you'll be important to the plot sooner or later.

———

Alisaie: "I can feel my edge start to dull on these long sea voyages. How about some light sparring later?"

Good thing this isn't canon — and even if it was, Raginmar wouldn't have indulged her because Raginmar? He doesn't know how to spar. He takes combat too seriously to hold back, so if he ever fights in a duel you know it's going to be at least until someone has to yield from heavy injuries, if not to the death.

Also I like how they repeatedly mention this is a long voyage, which again supports my headcanon from before! It's such a mundane thing but I really like it.

———

Retired Mercenary: "...Gah, I've had enough of playing the simpleton. There was a time when we took great pains to maintain the deception, but with more of you Eorzeans coming to Tural, it's become impractical."

Wait, what do you mean deception? What even did you need to pretend to be simpletons for?? I'm halfway through the main story quest by the time of writing this and I still don't know why they thought they needed to pretend to be simpletons while they're in Eorzea.

Retired Mercenary: "I look forward to a long soak in the hot springs of Urqopacha. And no complaints when I dance the bathing dance."

WAIT, are you the Mamool Ja from that one fate in Upper La Noscea?? Outside the Warmwine Sanitorium????

———

Swarthy Sailor: "Wait, I recognize you—you're the champion of Eorzea! If the Third Promise has you on her side, then that shifts the odds a fair bit! I might have to change my bet..."

Man's a literal gamechanger at this point, that's incredible.

———

Self-assured Trader: "I'm a merchant myself, based in Ul'dah. Specially imports and exports, Eorzean and Turali both."

More confirmation that it is indeed possible for merchants and traders to sail to and from Tural! Raginmar's father's husband is the captain of a trading vessel primarily sailing between the South Sea Isles, but they do occasionally make the voyage to other continents.

———

Erenville's narration: "What an extraordinary life he must lead to be able to operate such a device with practiced ease."

There was a storm and all manner of shenanigans including the Warrior of Light rushing to operate the elemental shielding devices on the ship to protect them from lightning strikes, and this comment just absolutely had me in stitches because yeah! Yeah, you sure do get used to it when you have to keep battling the likes of Leviathan and Bismarck! It sure is an extraordinary life, yes sirree!

———

Erenville's narration: "In retrospect, of course, that battle against the storm would prove a fitting prelude to the coming contest for the throne."

Ooooh, how predictably ominous.

———

Wuk Lamat: "You'll find much here you never knew existed! There may be a sea route now, but visitors to Tuliyollal are still few and far between."

Wuk Lamat: "And as we don't build seafaring ships, only a handful of Turali ever venture abroad."

This was interesting to me because it highlights how isolated Tural is from the rest of the world, but when you really think about it — so was the Far East from Eorzea. Most Eorzeans had never seen an Au Ri person until Yugiri, and even Ilsabardians would rarely be found in Eorzea despite the continent being relatively nearby and I think connected by land? Travelling extensively between continents like the Warrior of Light is capable of just wasn't done.

More importantly, this reinforced my headcanon that Wuk Lamat has never met an Arkasodara so as open-minded as she'd be about it, she'd still be pretty surprised when she meets them in Thavnair.

———

Erenville: "Mamool Ja sellswords, mostly. Those willing to play the fool sail with Lominsan merchants to secure employment in Eorzea."

Why do they have to be willing to play the fool in the first place? This isn't explained anywhere! I think it might be explained in a sidequest somewhere but I haven't gotten round to them yet — I really hope there's an explanation for this somewhere because it's driving me nuts.

———

Mamool Ja Landsguard: "We will not abide interference from foreign agents seeking to foment trouble. What brings you to Tuliyollal?"

This made me laugh because we're not exactly seeking to forment trouble, but we sure are foreign agents, yeah!

———

Mamool Ja Landsguard: "The Third Promise! If you vouch for them, then all is well, of course!"

Sure is nice to have someone influential on our side for once, instead of having to prove ourselves at every turn!

———

Wuk Lamat: "N-No, not at all! Couldn't be better! The Third Promise does not get sick, no sir!"

That's a suspiciously specific denial there, Wuk Lamat.

———

And that's it for this round of impressions! Next up: Tuliyollal and meeting the Dawnservant.

[immortalmuses]

Just having myself a re-watch of The Old Guard for comfort purposes, and doodling headcanons like some stream-of-consciousness DVD commentary

Some Random Nicky Headcanons

Expression

Nicky does not have an ease with words that Joe does. He is silent more often than not, soft spoken when he does voice a thought, and rarely elaborates beyond the point he intends to make. But for all that silence, his eyes speak in volumes. Every look he directs at Joseph is akin to a 100 page sonnet, more effusive and poetic than anything Lord Byron might have penned. Not everyone sees this, but Yusuf does.

Caretaker

Nicky has a compulsion to care for others. He does so in a thousand small gestures, preferring acts that do not call attention. If someone comments on his giving nature, he will brush it off as nothing.

Languages

In the beginning of their shared lives together, Nicolò struggled to learn written languages. He was semi-literate in Latin, sure, but his penmanship skills were utilized only for copying holy texts and not for personal leisure or with particularly great understanding. Beyond Latin, the vernacular Genoese regional dialect he primarily spoke at the time wouldn’t have had a written component, so the only other language he might have learned to read would have been (possibly?) Florentine. But Nicky has always loved stories. It is perhaps his favorite pastime, to lose himself in a retelling, whether spoken aloud or written down or demonstrated through performance. And more than that, he loves Music. He might not have the level of comfort with writing or drawing tools that Yusuf has, but the same cannot be said about melody. Nicolò collected songs when they traveled, gathering the sounds in his head and using them to match words with meaning, to improve his education about the languages around them. Depending on the language, this means that the way Nicky speaks often sounds musical.

[darker-dc-dimensions]

Tim Drake Al Ghul

Heir of the demon

Emojis used:  ⚔️🕯️

(I know this is a picture of Damian but its just a placeholder for now)

General Information

 First name: Timothy

Middle name(s): Jackson

Surname: Drake Al Ghul

Age: early 20s

Date of birth: July 19th

Race: Wasian, Chinese from mothers’ side

Gender: Cis Male

Sexuality: Bisexual, leans towards men.

Current residence: Nanda Parbat. The hidden league bases in the deserts. Eth Alth'eban.

Relationship status: Single

Social status: upper class, head of the league of assassins, meaning he’s very influential and rich.

Universe (AU universe of origin): Heir of the demon

 Traits of Voice

 Accent (if any): Has no accent in any language, meaning he speaks languages perfectly.

Language spoken: English, Arabic, League Dialect, it depends on who he’s interacting with.

Other languages known: Romani, Spanish, Russian, French, German, Japanese, Cantonese, Turkish, Arabic, Farsi, League of assassin’s dialect, Swahili, Mandarin, Filipino, Korean, Polish, Latin, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Hebrew, Thai, Vietnamese, Swedish, Kryptonian, Atlantean, Ancient Greek, Tameranean, Sign language. (Most taught to him by Bruce Wayne or Ra's al Ghul')

Volume of voice: Has a low and flat voice, very few emotions are ever expressed.

 Physical Appearance

 Height: 6´0

Eye colour: Bright Green (Lazarus pit)

Skin colour: a mild tan from living in the sun.

Distinguishing features: Heavily scarred body, the sides of his hair (think sideburn area) are white (think like Ra's), Almost glowing green eyes thanks to the Lazarus pit, minor tattoos around his body, mostly in Arabic or league dialect, though there are a few small tattoos that are pictures that seem connected to some people.

Build of body: Muscular but not overly wide, lithe, and more flexible to allow more extreme and quicker moves.

Hair colour: Black and white

Hair style: hair is cut quite short, depending on time and place his hair is either cut with a razor or knife, or has been styled by professionals.

Tattoos: minor tattoos around his body, mostly in Arabic or league dialect, though there are a few small tattoos that are pictures that seem connected to some people. Has some tattoos in memory of Kon, Bart and Cassie.

Piercings: has multiple piercings all over his body, some are cosmetic, and some are for celebrations.

Typical clothing: traditional clothing for whatever area he’s living in, or league dress. Clothes fitting of the head of the league of assassins, so its practical, protects him, but allows him to move and store weapons. Tends to wear a mask or face covering of some type.

Is seen by others as: a threatening unknown figure, as very few people know who he is, those people are Ra's and Talia. As seen as a symbol of fear, but is deeply respected by his people since he treats the league of assassins members with respect but still has an iron fist.

 Health

 Sleeping habits: Sleeps very little, since he doesn’t need it much since being put in the Lazarus pit.

Energy level: Has an average energy level, not too much and not too little, but has more than enough to defend himself.

Eating habits: Doesn’t need to eat quite a lot, thanks to the Lazarus pit, tends to eat very well-cooked meals, created by the league’s personal chefs.

Memory: Has a perfect memory, trained into him from very young. The Drakes wanted him to be perfect, so they worked him to the bone to perfect his memory, and working with the bats and later the league it only get better.

Any unhealthy habits: probably has a couple but doesn’t seem them as unhealthy. Works out for hours and days on end to better himself. One of his training methods is different kinds of torture.

 Relationships

 Parents:  Jack Drake (birth father), Janet Drake (birth mother), Bruce Wayne (Adoptive Father), Ra's Al Ghul (Adoptive father/grandfather)

Siblings: Dick Grayson (adopted), Jason Todd (adopted), Damian Wayne (Adopted), Cassandra Caine (Adopted), Duke Thomas (Adopted), Stephanie Brown (Adopted), Jean-Paul Valley (Adopted in spirit but not on paper), Talia Al Ghul (Adopted)

Any enemies (and why): Way too many to count.

Children: none

Friends: none

Best friend(s): none, Kon, Bart and Cassie were his best friends, but they are all gone.

Important friends/relatives (explain): Kon, Bart and Cassie were his best friends, but he lost them over the years to different reasons, though they all died to villains or in battles.

Love interest (if there is one): Was dating Kon before he died.

 Combat

 Peaceful or violent: He tends to stay peaceful for the most part, as he treats his people with respect. But he doesn’t accept any disrespect or anyone trying to cross him, so he will resort to violence if he has too.

Weapon (if applicable): Can use pretty much any weapon. Tends to rely on his Bo staff, a straight bladed Chinese sword (given to him by Ra's), a ninjato (given to him by Ra's), other gadgets or smaller blades.

Style of fighting: Has mastered pretty much any style of fighting so there isn’t one specific he relies on, so he will simply use what is best suited for whatever battle he’s in at the time.

 Others

 Occupation: Head of the demon, leader of the league of assassins.

Current home: Doesn’t live in one specific place. Nanda Parbat. The hidden league bases in the deserts. Eth Alth'eban.

Favourite types of food: has a secret love for potato chips or other snack foods. Different middle eastern meals, though he prefers meals he can eat with his hands. Likes goat meat the most in his meals.

Favourite types of drink: To no one’s surprise he likes caffeine, no matter what drink form its in. Quite enjoys tea as well, though he prefers the type you’d catch people like Ra's or Alfred drinking. Secretly loves fast food sodas, like McDonald’s sprite.

Hobbies/past times: Doesn’t have time for hobbies for the most part, as he spends most of his waking time bettering himself or bettering the league of assassins.

Guilty pleasures: Junk food, looking through his old pictures that he took of batman and robin as a kid. He can’t help but check up on his old family every now and then. Sleeps with Kon’s old shirts.

Pet peeves: When people try to suck up to him or act too familiar with him. When people touch him without reason, or just in general.

Pets: Has multiple pets, though they’re more like attack animals than pets. Think big predator animals like tigers, wolves, and panthers. Even has nonearthly pets or fantasy pets.

Favourite colours: League of Assassins green, gold, black and red.

[werspinna]

CHARACTER  STUDY  CHART :  SPEECH- Wolfgund Waidmanns  

Tagged By: Walter von der Vogelweide Tagging: @novaragno @spinxeret @iobartach @goblinfire @wovendeath @the-rogue-dragon @h-osborn @hyenashub @books-and-right-hooks @kylo-wrecked !

► OF  SPOKEN  LANGUAGES    :  Lowgerman, Italian (although very much broken), Latin and eventually she learns english based on her old Lowgerman. Wolf had lived for over ten years in Pisa and naturally had learned the most spoken language enough that she can communicate with the people she lives with. However, although its still a few hundred years before the Hanseatic Pact, Lowgerman is already a wildly flourishing tradinglanguage that would through the hanseatic pact eventually a few hundred years later be reintreduced into english and the nordic languages in such a manner that english that already developted as german from lowgerman took in new terms and nowdays one can not hear a sentences In Bergen without hearing a lowgerman word in it. However just because she speaks lowgerman, does not mean everyone speaking lowgerman understands her as her dialect specifically is from around Cologne so someone who learned lowgerman by the Northsea or eastsea would have still great problems understanding her, let alone someone who would speak modern german. Wolf speaks her broken italian and lowgerman with the people in the convent, she speaks lowgerman with the people in the streets especially by the harbour and she speaks latin (or more over writes and reads it) when researching. The only person with whom she actually spoke latin was the Alchmemist / her Worlds Lizard and when he as a nobleman who had joined the Templarorder as a Brother in his youth eventually took her in as his “squire” (as a disguise for her) for her to join Friedrich the II , they continued to speak latin with eachother to keep their conversations private. Wolf will therefor be always understood, but she only seldomly talks to people where she has not to use hand and feet as a extra communicationtool.

► DEMEANOUR   :    Playful, friendly, restless.

► POSTURE    :   Leaning on her Dane Axe, leaning her chin on her hands.

► HABITS   :  Wolf has the habit of putting a singsang behind her voice, sounding as if she is permanently humming.

► ACCENT: “country” │ “backwoods” │ “sailor” │ “noble” │ foreign speaker  What should not be forgotten about Lowgerman in contrast to modern german is that its the language both english and german developted from (before both going pickpocketing in other languages grammar and vocabulary), so the words are sounding a lot of more “softer” and bleeding into eachother smoother than modern german would sound. Her accent is still very foreign for a modern english speaker but it would be also foreign for a modern german speaker as lowgerman is indeed its own language.

► ELOQUENCE: educated │ uneducated │ doesn’t use conjunctions │ shortens words │ just makes up their own words! │ old English │dependent on mood or setting 

► TONE: loud │ soft │ room volume │ high pitched │ low pitched │seductive │velvety │ speech impediment │ abrasive │ gruff │ shrill │ booming │ matter-of-fact │ toneless │ husky │ gravelly │ breathy │ nasal │ barking │ chatty │ condescending │ musical │ suave │ world-weary │ brash │ authoritative 

► HABITS: refers to self in third person │ incorporates different languages/terms/sayings │ uses gender-specific terms │ adapts to audience │ changes pitch around animals or children │ shifts tone when lying │ gives others nicknames │ uses terms of respect towards others 

► VOICE REFERENCE: Using the Actor Anna Demetriou speaking “Sophia”   as a Reference . While Wolf has a tad deeper womenly voice than average its still  mellifluous and the permanent singsang in her voice makes her appear friendly. Its the moments when Wolf stops speaking where she gets dangerouse.

► BOLD  ALL  THAT  APPLY    :    arse.    ass.    asshole.    bastard.  bitch. bloody.    bugger.    bollocks.    chicken  shit.   crap.    cunt.    dick.    dickhead.    frick. fuck.  horseshit.    motherfucker.    piss.    prick.    screw.    shit.    shitass.    son  of  a  bitch.   twat.    wanker.    pussy.    dipshit. in all honesty, have you ever heard a native speaking german go at it? Wolf does not know half the vocables, but she does frequently uses every version of ass (Including the very famouse Arschgeige) because lowgerman as much as modern german is full of vulgarity. And just because the vulgaritys she uses are not in english, does not mean that she does not mean them in a vulgar way because she sure does.

► GIVEN  PROPER RELIGIOUS  CONTEXT   :   christ.   christ  on  a  bike.   christ  on  a  cracker.  christ on a crutch.  damn.    goddamn.    godsdamn.   hell.    holy  shit.    jesus.   jesus  christ.    jesus  h  christ.    jesus  h.    roosevelt  christ.    lord  sithis  have  mercy.    jesus,  mary  and  joseph.    sweet  jesus.    seven  hells.  Wolfs frequently uses “ Harrijasses!” which could be translated to “Lord Jesus / Herr Jesus”. However, cosidering her struggles with religion it is only a manner of speak and not meant in a religious manner.

► THIS  OR  THAT    :    contractions  or  enunciation   ?    straightforward or  cryptic    ?    jargon  or  toned    ?    complexity  or simplicity    ?    finding  the  right  word  or using  the  first  word  that  comes  to  mind   ?    masculinity,  neutrality,  or  femininity    ?    formalities  or  abrasiveness   ?    praise  or equivocation    ?    frankness  or lies   ?    excessive  or  minimal  hand  gestures    ?    name - calling  or  magnanimity    ?   friendly or  blunt  nicknames    ? 

► IMPORTANT  QUESTIONS. 

DO  PEOPLE  HAVE  A  HARD  TIME  UNDERSTANDING  OR  HEARING  YOUR  CHARACTER    ?     almost  always.    frequently.   rarely.   never. 

DOES YOUR  CHARACTER’S ��POINT  COME  ACROSS  EASILY  WHEN  THEY  SPEAK    ? almost  always.    frequently.    sometimes.    rarely.    never.

WOULD  YOUR  CHARACTER  INITIATE  CONVERSATIONS    ?     almost  always.   frequently. sometimes.   rarely.    never. 

WOULD  YOUR  CHARACTER  BE  THE  ONE  TO  END  CONVERSATIONS    ?     almost  always.  frequently.   sometimes.   rarely.    never. 

WOULD  YOUR  CHARACTER  USE    ‘  WHOM  ’    IN  A  SENTENCE    ?  yes.    no.   only  ironically. 

YOUR  CHARACTER  WANTS  TO  MAKE  A  COUNTERPOINT,    WHAT  WORD  DO  THEY  USE    ?     but.    though.  although.  however.    perhaps.    mayhaps. 

HOW  DOES  YOUR  CHARACTER  END  CONVERSATIONS    ?   walk  away.    ask  if  that’s  everything.    say  that  that’s  everything.    give  a  proper  goodbye.   tell  their  company  they’re  done  here.    remain  quiet.    they  don’t. 

HOW  DOES  YOUR  CHARACTER  ADDRESS  OTHERS    ?     titles.   first  names. surnames.    full  names.   nicknames.  Wolf is not often talking with people with titles and surnames are not yet truely sticking around to people unless they are patronyms or matronyms. She would also not think about putting titles into her speech when referring to people with noble titles, unless its sarcastic. She either uses the first name or puts the persons Profession infront of the first name. “Schulze Heinreich!” with Schulze from Schultheiß, which would be the term for Mayor or “Fischer Frank” for that specific fisherman who is called Frank.

WHAT  SOCIAL  CLASS  WOULD  OTHERS  ASSUME  YOUR  CHARACTER  BELONGS  TO  AFTER  HEARING  THEM  SPEAK    ?    upper.    middle.   working.   lower.  In modern germany lowgerman is seen as the language of “the farmer at the edge of the country”. So to a modern speaker Wolf would sound very uncivilized, however for people of her time she would simply sound “Ah. Cologne with a bit of Frankenreich (france)” and thats about it. Wolf specifically is not a person who grew up as the lowest of the low- her father was a Hunter (Waidmann)  working for a king with a property frequently visited by a King to hunt, so she did grew up very safely  between noblemen visiting the property and later learned in a convent specifcally where children are send to to learn, so it is noticeable in her langauge for the people of her time that she is certainly above average educated.

IN  WHAT  WAYS  DOES  THE  WAY  YOUR  CHARACTER  SPEAK  STAND  OUT  TO  OTHERS    ?   accent.  vocabulary.    tone.    level.    politeness.    brusqueness.    it  doesn’t.

[ghost-hosts]

Corbin Astrophel

General Information

First name: Corbin 

Middle name(s): Astrophel

Surname: Obitus

Age: 35+

Date of birth: 10/31

Race: Spirit

Gender: indifferent/nonbinary

Sexuality: queer

Current residence: HK Manor, Peach, Louisiana

Relationship status: Single

Social status: Upper Class

Traits of Voice

Accent (if any): Irish

Language spoken: English

Other languages known: Gaelic, some Latin

Style of speaking: poised most of the time, depends on situation

Volume of voice: average

Physical Appearence

Faceclaim: Andy Biersack

Height: 6'2

Weight: 140 lb

Eye colour: Blue

Skin colour: pale

Shape of face: angular

Distinguishing features: eyes, cheekbones

Build of body: skinny but muscular

Hair colour: usually either white, black or lavender

Hair style: longer, to his cheekbones

Complexion: clear

Posture: decent if not over confident usually

Tattoos: several along his arms and on either side of his neck and down his ribs

Piercings: lip piercings, with several ear piercings and two eye brow piercings on the left side 

Typical clothing: suits during the night, otherwise wears pastel lavender and black, usually pastel goth when not working

Is seen by others as: intimidating, bold, confident, mysterious, carefree

Personality

Likes: the manor, morbid things, bones, the mausoleum under the willow tree behind the manor, farther away from the rest

Dislikes: drugs, abusers, pain, touch

Education: high school

Fears: demons, hallucinations, being held onto

Personal goals: To help others heal

General attitude: welcoming, patient, kind

Religious values: pagan

General intelligence: high

General sociability: low to moderate

Health

Illnesses (if any):

drug addiction

mild hallucinations

insomnia

anxiety

depression

PTSD

Allergies (if any):

Sleeping habits: horrible. Looks like he hasn’t slept in centuries

Energy level: moderate

Eating habits: used to struggle with eating

Memory: shockingly good

Any unhealthy habits: vaping, workaholic

History

Birth country: Ireland

Hometown: Dublin

Childhood: Really well, even if his mother struggled immensely

Teen years: tumultuous, his bio dad coming back into his life got him into drugs

Adult years: after losing his crush and four others, he ran away to Louisianna

Past places of residence: Ireland, LA

History of family: comes from a long line of witches, grandfather is Death

Relationships

Parents: Valdis Kemp-Obitus(mother), Vincent Renner(father), Annaline Kemp(great grandmother), Mortem Obitus(grandfather),

Siblings: none

Any enemies (and why): none

Children: none

Friends: Church/Rowan, Zera

Best friend(s): Ace (hiddcnself)

Important friends/relatives (explain):

Love interest (if there is one):

Combat

Peaceful or violent: depends on the situation

Weapon (if applicable): cane

Style of fighting: dirty street fighting

Others

Occupation: Ghost Host

Current home: Hannigan-Kemp Manor

Favourite types of food: sugar

Favourite types of drink: cherry soda

Hobbies/past times: cooking and baking, exploring the house

Guilty pleasures: drawing and listening to stupid podcasts

Pet peeves: loudness, interruptions

Pets: Church(???)

Talents: Singing, art, really good at lying

Favourite colours: lavender and black

Favourite type of music: punk, metal and classical

Biography

Corbin grew up in Ireland, with a mom who worked as a Dominatrix at a sex club. He grew up in the club, knowing the business and learned about safe sex, and what wasn’t okay, which was beneficial when they moved to LA when his dad finally decided to be in his life. It was hard the transition from Ireland to LA, and he got pulled into the wrong crowd pretty quickly. His dad wasn’t in his life for long though. 

His mother inherited HK Manor when he was seventeen from his great grandmother. A few years later, while on a particularly bad trip, he watched his crush and four of his friends summoned demons while high. He held onto his crush trying to keep him from going to hell. Corbin had to watch as he unknowingly sped up his crush’s life. He watched and felt his crush’s life be drained from him, as his skin wrinkled and greyed and his eyes faded, turning to bone and to dust. 

After the event he fled to Louisianna, and put his entire heart and soul into restoring the manor. Though when he turned twenty-five his body started failing him and he kept it quiet until he was visited by Mortem who offered him the job of ghost host when he was ready, once he had his affairs in order.

He believes he is dead now, but his body is in stasis tied to the house, fed by his uncle every few weeks through his own life force.

[jcmarchi]

Generative AI Is Not a Death Sentence for Endangered Languages

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/generative-ai-is-not-a-death-sentence-for-endangered-languages/

Generative AI Is Not a Death Sentence for Endangered Languages

According to UNESCO, up to half of languages could be extinct by 2100. Many people say generative AI is contributing to this process.

The decline in language diversity didn’t start with AI—or the Internet. But AI is in a position to accelerate the demise of indigenous and low-resource languages.

Most of the world’s 7,000+ languages don’t have sufficient resources to train AI models—and many lack a written form. This means that a few major languages dominate humanity’s stock of potential AI training data, while most stand to be left behind in the AI revolution—and could disappear entirely.

The simple reason is that most available AI training data is in English. English is the main driver of large language models (LLMs), and people who speak less-common languages are finding themselves underrepresented in AI technology.

Consider these statistics from the World Economic Forum:

Two-thirds of all websites are in English.

Much of the data that GenAI learns from is scraped from the web.

Fewer than 20% of the world’s population speaks English.

As AI becomes more embedded in our daily lives, we should all be thinking about language equity. AI has unprecedented potential to problem-solve at scale, and its promise should not be limited to the English-speaking world. AI is creating conveniences and tools that enhance people’s personal and professional lives for people in wealthy, developed nations.

Speakers of low-resource languages are accustomed to finding a shortage of representation in technology—from not finding websites in their language to not having their dialect recognized by Siri. A lot of the text that is available to train AI in lower-resourced languages is poor quality (itself translated with questionable accuracy) and narrow in scope.

How can society ensure that lower-resourced languages don’t get left out of the AI equation? How can we ensure that language isn’t a barrier to the promise of AI?

In an effort toward language inclusivity, some major tech players have initiatives to train huge multilingual language models (MLMs). Microsoft Translate, for example, has pledged to support “every language, everywhere.” And Meta has a “No Language Left Behind” promise. These are laudable, but are they realistic?

Aspiring toward one model that handles every language in the world favors the privileged because there are far greater volumes of data from the world’s major languages. When we start dealing with lower-resource languages and languages with non-Latin scripts, training AI models becomes more arduous, time-consuming—and more expensive. Think of it as an unintentional tax on underrepresented languages.

Advances in Speech Technology

AI models are largely trained on text, which naturally favors languages with deeper stores of text content. Language diversity would be better supported with systems that don’t depend on text. Human interaction at one time was all speech-based, and many cultures retain that oral focus. To better cater to a global audience, the AI industry must progress from text data to speech data.

Research is making huge strides in speech technology, but it still lags behind text-based technologies. Research in speech processing is progressing, but direct speech-to-speech technology is far from mature. The reality is that the industry tends to move cautiously, and only once a technology advances to a certain level.

TransPerfect’s newly released GlobalLink Live interpretation platform uses the more mature forms of speech technology—automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS)—again, because the direct speech-to-speech systems are not mature enough at this point. That being said, our research teams are preparing for the day when fully speech-to-speech pipelines are ready for prime time.

Speech-to-speech translation models offer huge promise in the preservation of oral languages. In 2022, Meta announced the first AI-powered speech-to-speech translation system for Hokkien, a primarily oral language spoken by about 46 million people in the Chinese diaspora. It’s part of Meta’s Universal Speech Translator project, which is developing new AI models that it hopes will enable real-time speech-to-speech translation across many languages. Meta opted to open-source its Hokkien translation models, evaluation datasets, and research papers so that others can reproduce and build on its work.

Learning with Less

The fact that we as a global community lack resources around certain languages is not a death sentence for those languages. This is where multi-language models do have an advantage, in that the languages learn from each other. All languages follow patterns. Because of knowledge transfer between languages, the need for training data is lessened.

Suppose you have a model that’s learning 90 languages and you want to add Inuit (a group of indigenous North American languages). Because of knowledge transfer, you will need less Inuit data. We are finding ways to learn with less. The amount of data needed to fine-tune engines is lower.

I’m hopeful about a future with more inclusive AI. I don’t believe we are doomed to see hordes of languages disappear—nor do I think AI will remain the domain of the English-speaking world. Already, we are seeing more awareness around the issue of language equity. From more diverse data collection to building more language-specific models, we are making headway.

Consider Fon, a language spoken by about 4 million people in Benin and neighboring African countries. Not too long ago, a popular AI model described Fon as a fictional language. A computer scientist named Bonaventure Dosseau, whose mother speaks Fon, was used to this type of exclusion. Dosseau, who speaks French, grew up with no translation program to help him communicate with his mother. Today, he can communicate with his mother thanks to a Fon-French translator that he painstakingly built. Today, there is also a fledgling Fon Wikipedia.

In an effort to use technology to preserve languages, Turkish artist Refik Anadol has kicked off the creation of an open-source AI tool for Indigenous people. At the World Economic Summit, he asked: “How on Earth can we create an AI that doesn’t know the whole of humanity?”

We can’t, and we won’t.

[rigelmejo]

Tour of Old Language Learning Textbooks

So I find old books fascinating, and I've collected a fair number of old language learning textbooks (from 1800s to 1980s, along with some modern ones).

The Nature Method textbooks teach language in my absolute favorite way of studying, and I wish there were more modern textbooks still teaching in this way (Lingua Latina for Latin is one nature method style textbook still used by some). There are also textbooks in this style found on archive.org and sometimes on youtube for: English, French, Italian, German (incomplete copy found), Latin (as mentioned, multiple volumes, newer versions available for purchase), Greek, and Spanish (Poco a Poco and All Spanish Method part 1 and part 2 are both not written as in-depth in this 'nature method' lesson style, but if you either know a similar language with some cognates like English or French, or have a teacher then they can still be used like the other nature method books), and supposedly there was a Russian version (I've found similarly-made lessons on youtube) but I have not found the old textbook yet. I used the French one to learn most of my basic vocabulary and grammar, and go from reading graded readers to regular novels in French. A warning that some grammar and vocabulary is out of date, and there could be racist undertones in some of the texts, due to the time they were written. I've seen some questionable vocabulary in a couple of them, so just be aware if you use these as a resource of the possibility of those issues.

There is someone who's recently been trying to design a similar 'nature method' learning material for japanese (their first 60ish lessons are edited by a japanese speaker, the later lessons are still being worked on), and I think this person did a fairly good job using emojis for the pictures. A basic understanding of japanese hiragana and katakana is necessary beforehand, along with knowing the language is subject object verb. Unfortunately I think the person has only taught 200-500 words so far, and a material for japanese would probably want to teach 2000-5000 words to get the learner to the point they could try to read other things (which was the official Nature Method's goal - to get learners to B1-B2, at least B1 in speaking and some intermediate level high enough to pick up novels and read to acquire further language).

There's a textbook called Chinese Self-Taught by the Nature Method (NOT actually in the nature method lessons style though) and Chinese Grammar Self Taught by John Darroch, and even though they're from 1930s, the Grammar Self Taught by Darroch is one of my favorite chinese learning books. The book explains radicals and hanzi in a way I found very easy to grasp, and although the grammar and vocabulary has aged (some of it is out of date now) the explanations FOR grammar in the book are very clear and easy to grasp. I've read modern online grammar explanations and like some, understood mostly, but this book's explanations just click well. The book also teaches over 2000 hanzi (I think it might even be 3000 or more - it's in a box right now or I'd check), has a hanzi dictionary in the back (and you can practice searching by strokes), and teaches a bit more vocabulary than that. It's shining point is the grammar explanations, but the clear presentation of hanzi used in those explanations is also nice. Pronunciations for the hanzi are an old system, not the current pinyin system, so if you ever learn from this book then I would recommend knowing common hanzi pinyin already, or at least not trying to learn pronunciations from this book. The hanzi are also traditional, and the biggest initial grammar differences I have seen in the book are le often being written as pronounced 'liao' even when it would be 'le' in most modern sentences, and ni being pronounced as 'nin' far more than it is in modern speech. I purchased a copy of this book years ago on ebay. This book can be found in OpenLibrary, Princeton link: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101067640563&seq=5

Another chinese textbook that's always seemed useful have been the DeFrancis Chinese books, in particular the Beginner Chinese Reader (2 volumes), Intermediate Reader (2 volumes), and Advanced Reader (1 volume). I haven't checked in a while, but recent searches say anecdotally that the Beginner Reader covers 400 hanzi in 1200 combinations (words), Intermediate covers 400, and Advanced covers 400, leaving the learner with 1200 hanzi learned (and 3600 2-hanzi words known, as the books attempt teach a TON of compound words). However some people are saying each book volume contains 400 hanzi taught and 1200 combinations, which would mean 2400 hanzi total taught and 7200 words total. As these books are dense (and I've got them), I'd say they teach closer to the higher amount estimated. I've not completed them, but they are VERY information dense. These books are out of print so buying a physical copy had to be done on abebooks or thriftbooks or ebay, and they often expensive. But there are free pdf copies floating around online if you want to get the digital copy free and browse them. The audio files for the book are also online, from the organization with the rights, so just search 'DeFrancis Beginner Chinese Reader audio files' and you should find them on itunes and the official site for free. These books are extremely dry reading (as some old textbooks are) akin to FSI courses, and they're very repetitive, but they do work and they do suit learners who prefer to learn by reading and reading a LOT to solidify knowledge. You WILL get tons of graded reading practice from the book, pick up tons of words in an organized and structured way, and get reading-review practice built into future chapters so you can simply read a chapter then progress to the next one (instead of constantly needing to review). These books do have some out of date vocabulary, and use traditional characters with only shorter simplified character reading sections at the end. However: if you've learned 1000 characters by now (or intend to) then you know how many simplified and traditional characters overlap, or are the same except for 1 radical being simplified or traditional, and you may be aware that the common hanzi which ARE significantly different in traditional may be worth learning to you if you plan to eventually read both simplified and traditional materials. I buy books from China and Taiwan so learning both is useful to me. (And a fun fact if you're a nerd who explores parallel-text reading options like me: mtlnovels.com is a site to read machine translated webnovels, with the option to display original chinese IN traditional as the only option, and I spent a lot of my first couple years learning chinese using that site to compare Modu by Priest chinese with the MTL and learn new words, since mtl often made mistakes I needed to see the chinese to look up words and get a bit closer to the actual sentences meaning... and the wonderful E Danglars translation of Silent Reading did not exist yet, so I was desperate to read and understand as much of the novel as I could. My point with this anecodote is: you may not realize how useful getting used to both traditional and simplified characters can be - from browsing online sites and not needing to worry, or buying books, or picking shows to watch, texting with people, etc).

For the learners out there who cannot suffer through DeFrancis's dry writing: fair enough, I struggled to as well which is why I never completed the textbooks. The modern Mandarin Companion graded readers are an adequate place for a beginner learner (knowing 50-300 hanzi) to start learning by reading, then you can move on to Sinolingua graded readers (or just get Pleco app and browse graded readers sold through them by unique word count, as Pleco's Reading tools will help you look up words and listen), and then around when you know HSK 4 level vocabulary and grammar (so 1000-1500 hanzi you know, and around that many words) go to Heavenly Path's notion site and browse their beginner recommendations. Around HSK 4 you should be able to start reading easier texts for native speakers, like the 1000-1500 unique words novel recommendations on Heavenly Path's site.

There are some Japanese textbooks made to learn by reading a lot, and by now you may realize I love and prefer to learn by reading. A Japanese Reader: Graded Lessons for Mastering the Written Language (Tuttle Language Library) by Roy Andrew Miller is a beast of an option. Reviews include people mentioning that this book got them to the level of being able to read the news. I am not sure this book has the most extensive vocabulary (compared to what it could have), but it is: intensely informational and condensed to be informational nearly constantly, full of useful information and reading practice, and it does help you improve a LOT. It's not the steady stream of tons of easy material slowly teaching you more words from context that I wish existed more in japanese learning materials (check out the free Tadouku books for that - someone on reddit made 1000 page compilation of many of them in gradually increasing difficulty and it was very useful and enjoyable to read personally, and this site I found recently https://jgrpg-sakura.com/ which has a bit more advanced material and recorded audio and is just a lovely site). But it is a book that prepares you for real reading. I have a personal pet peeve about how some japanese language textbooks teach very little vocabulary or things until you get to intermediate level (I wish each genki volume taught 1000+ words each, instead of the 1700 words total of both volumes... and there's other beginner textbooks that likewise sort of 'slow down' the pace of learning with less material). And so I've found this particular Japanese Reader refreshing for presenting the basics (although you won't have a good time if you start this book as a beginner, it becomes STEEPLY difficult), and also working through all the way to 'functional reading skill of normal japanese texts.' Some people are like me, and have goals of reading as soon as they can, and it's nice when a book that says they'll teach you enough to start reading... actually does.

(I have similar pet peeves with some Chinese books - the college course ones appear to be great and teach 2000 or more words to beginners, but I've seen MANY self-teach chinese books that include only 200-500 words for a beginner... when they are going to need at bare minimum, with much strain and difficulty, 1000 words to even begin to start watching shows and reading very simple webnovels and manhua... or even having simple survival conversations, that's why HSK 4 expects 1200 words known! I think some language teaching companies just think english speakers will give up at the difference in languages, the increase in vocabulary that isn't cognates, and so instead of giving learners all they need to know - and the same amount of information they'd give say a english speaker learning spanish - they instead just design materials that teach less so it doesn't 'feel' like more work. Then the students feel screwed when they finished material labelled 'beginner' just like the spanish learner, only to realize they can do MUCH less and understand much less than the spanish learner who supposedly studied the same level of material - but actually got to study more vocabulary and grammar points. Ignore me... I could go on about my issues with some of the self-learner materials I've found for ages.)

There is also a simpler Japanese Reader textbook, 400 pages each and 2 volumes, that is fairly similar to the DeFrancis chinese reader books in terms of teaching style. I have the pdfs on an old computer, and the hard copy books in a box. I'll need to go look up the author another time (the book title was something very generic like Beginning Japanese and it's 20-30 years old, so newer books show up in searches instead of the books I have). It teaches only 500 kanji per volume, and the first volume mainly goes over how to read hiragana and katakana (and many loan words) with EXTENSIVE practice and repetition. It's designed to make you VERY COMFORTABLE reading japanese and parsing sentences and words, with lots and lots of practice. I'll find what box it's in and post more information on it if anyone is particularly curious for extensive reading practice as a beginner. The print copies sold for 20 dollars a piece when I bought them, and free pdfs can be found online if you search. However: I think if you already have hiragana and katakana grasped at least to a basic degree, the Tadouku free books may be more appealing to you. The Tadouku books are: free, written to be somewhat interesting, use pictures to help you read extensively and look up less, get you used to japanese grammar and sentences, and introduce kanji at a reasonable pace that is easy to get used to.

Finally, Japanese in 30 Hours. Free on archive.org, I also have a print copy. A slim textbook, and an incredibly useful one. Someone also posted the lessons with their own audio recording read through on youtube. What these lessons are: a true basic grammar summary of japanese. This book has some of the usual flaws of japanese lessons made for english speakers: they're entirely in romaji, they include watakushi Wa or X wa as the intro to MOST sentences even though in natural japanese those would often be omitted, the -masu polite form is in most lessons and casual verb forms are only covered in the later lessons, and the distinction between wa and ga seems to not be understood by the author. This book also has some flaws usual of much older textbooks: the grammar is somewhat out of date (arimasen in modern japanese is not used NEARLY as much as this textbook, yoi "good" is now "ii" in modern japanese much more often), and the author has this somewhat racist somewhat touristic somewhat english-centered peculiar way of framing things. I am not sure if at the time it was how an author was supposed to 'make the student entertained' during the lesson, to sell the 'mystique' of learning another language or to try and make another language seem more like english to placate an egotistical learner or what. From a historical standpoint it's interesting to see how differently things were discussed, but from a modern learner perspective it gets in the way and can be frustrating. (I would suspect some other old Japanese textbooks I've found from the late 1800s and 1900-1920s would display similar qualities depending on the authors). The reason this book is useful, despite the romaji only aspect and it's extremely dated way of framing some topics: it truly does tackle covering summarizing basic grammar of VERBS quite well. This books explanation for te-imasu, strings of connected verbs, compound verbs turning into new verb meanings, rareru, sareru, and -shou verb situations, and is still probably the explanation I understand the most when trying to read and understand sentences.

I suspect the modern Tae Kim's Grammar Guide also has good explanations for these, but the explanations are NOT in the beginner section (despite these verb types being SO common in everyday japanese you'll read or hear), and while I like Tae Kim's guide I find the written explanations a bit hard to personally 'get' and usually just rely on the example sentences/translations and compare until I *think* I understand. Like I love that Tae Kim's guide DOES explain difference between wa and ga... and yet I didn't understand his explanation enough to decide when to use wa myself, only that now I grasped the difference between wa 'a topic' (As for students - students in general - I am one) and ga "the thing THAT IS" (THE student - you're looking for specifically - is me). But I still don't know when one would pick to use wa, and why. As for Japanese in Thirty Hours: the rareru and te-imasu explanation really helped me grasp a lot of reading materials where those forms are frequently found. If you do struggle with understanding some verb form explanations, this free book may help you look at the forms in a way you may grasp better. (Or not, everyone is different). The book also has a vocabulary of over 1000 words in the back, and was designed for students to do speaking drills in different sentence patterns, to learn to speak quickly (although in a learner-type way similar to Genki sentences and the 'watashi wa' start). I never learned the vocabulary in the back, and I suspect some of it is out of date while other parts may be useful. Regardless, as it's only romaji, you would likely benefit more from using a hiragana/katakana/kanji resource for vocabulary study.

[theoxenia]

“Thus baskanos can denote “someone who possesses or casts an Evil Eye.” It can also denote a “slanderous person” or “slanderous speech.” In this latter case, its malice is connected with the act of speaking and the tongue, thus illustrating the connection of Evil Eye, evil mouth and evil tongue. Ancient Akkadian texts connect Evil Eye and evil mouth, as do later Latin writers relating Evil Eye (malus oculus/fascinatio/fascinare) and evil tongue (mala lingua). Catullus (Poems/Carmina 7.12) refers to his kisses that the curious cannot count or “fascinate with an evil tongue” (mala fascinare lingua). Virgil links an evil tongue with praise and envy. He tells of a singing match between Thyrsis, a shepherd, and Corydon, a goat herder. The latter wishes to sing as sweetly as his idol Codrus, and Thyrsis responds, “Shepherds of Arcady, crown with ivy your rising bard, that Codrus’ sides may burst with envy (invidia rumpantur); or, should he praise me unduly, wreathe my brow with foxglove, lest his evil tongue harm (noceat mala lingua) the bard that is to be.” (Virgil, Ecl. 7. 21, 25; LCL trans.)”. The text illustrates the fear of praise coming from the envious and resulting in injury, and the link of envy with an evil tongue, identical to the association of Evil Eye and evil tongue.

Beware the Evil Eye: The Evil Eye in the Bible and the Ancient World, Volume 2 by John H. Elliott

[wyrmfedgrave]

Pics: Lovecraftian Humor Unleashed!!

1915: HPL Output - Part 2.

Text:

Her sister ships,¹ by Prussian threats delayed,... eager, yet... impotent to aid.

Thrice cursed² Goth!³

(Your) prey already down, Yet (you'd) have... hundreds drown!

...Crime accomplished,... the foe retreats, And in... craven flight re- counts his deeds.

Vengeance!

From kindred nations comes the cry. Shall mortals... for no offences die?

Shall rabid wolves... prowl the wave(s), & strike at (what) no man can save.

Laws of the world!⁴

Have (you) no force to blast, The... hordes... set(ting) the world aghast?

Shall man beneath... Prussian mad- ness fall, And black barbarity⁵ engulf us all?

Awake!

(You lazy) hemispheres⁶ (&) strike! This serpent... defies us all alike!

The snake... spreads his... poisonous coils, Over... fair lands & all he sees despoils.

Have (you) in your childhood heard, The mystic utterance⁷ of the Holy Word.⁸

That... the serpent who... bruise(s) our heel, Must in... turn our stronger bruises feel?

The time is here, our heel... (has) felt his sting; Let... righteous wrath his downfall bring.

Let man united, crush the hissing head, (Which) the world (has) learned to hate & dread.

Choke the vile threat that (speaks - just) to lie, And in his (own) poison let the adder die.⁹

To arms!

(You) nations & acclaim the dawn, (In which) a second freedom shall be born.

Footnotes:

1. The Lusitania was part of the fleet of ships of the Cunard Line.

Her 'sister' ships (of the same time period) were the Mauretania, the Aquitania & Fatherland/Leviathan.

By the 1950s, they had been totally replaced...

2. Three times cursed is quite the intensifier!

For 3 is a unique number with special powers.

Speaking 3 times empowers curses & charms.

And, 3 times anything is a favorite theme in literature & superstitions.

It all seems to go back to the Bible.

Where, in Genesis, God curses the serpent (G-3:14), the Earth (G-3:17) & Cain (G-4:11)!

3. Goths ("old barbarians") was the Latin word for anyone who was not Roman or Greek.

But, the tribal name might describe the Polish Gutones in particular.

In the late 300s AD, the Goths came under attack from the East - by the Huns.

Two branches of the Germanic Goths migrated West, seeking refuge under the Roman Empire.

Rejected, the Visigoths ("good" or "worthy" people?) defeated the Roman army (& killed Emperor Valens) in 378 AD!

Still, it took until 410 AD, before the Visigoths were able to sack Rome itself!!

They kept moving West & South, into (France) & (Spain).

Finally, they settled in North Africa, where they became successful pirates!

4. It sounds as if Howard is calling out the League of Nations.

But, that diplomatic organization was not erected until 5 years later, in 1920.

5. Leave it to Lovecraft to slip in some bigoted language in a poem meant to arose Americans to get involved in WW1!!

6. Since there's only 2 hemispheres at a time, Howard - in using the plural - must have meant the "whole world"...

The word itself, describes "half" of "a perfectly round ball."

Hemispheres are mostly used in the study of geology & in (making maps).

7. It's hard to believe nowadays but, the Bible was once thought to be a grimoire (magic spell book).

Common people couldn't legally own a personal Bible!

Worse, Bibles were written out in Latin - which only priests could read!!

This started to be undone by the Gutenberg press, which could print out many volumes.

Originally, these Mazarin Bibles were printed only in Latin.

Its 1st copy found its way into the Paris library of Cardinal J. Mazarin.

Henry the 8th, a 'devout' Catholic had the 1st English Bibles printed in England.

But, Queen Mary, his daughter, forbade their use - causing many Protestants to leave the country!

It took scholarly linguist, W. Tyndale, to go into hiding to translate the New Testament into English.

But, Tyndale was betrayed & then, convicted of heresy!

In 1536, Tyndale was strangled to death & his body was burned at the stake!!

And, all for nothing!

Since, Henry the 8th soon allowed everyone to own a copy of the King James Bible - which is 83% of Tyn- dale's work...

8. Lovecraft read the whole Bible as a youngster.

But, I'm not sure if he ever heard the Holy Word as spoken aloud by an orator or evangelist...

9. How appropriate for our times...

End.

[fortressofserenity]

Geeks and media analysis

Somebody on YouTube pointed one problem with geek/nerd culture is that it places more emphasis on knowing every little detail over analysing and understanding why would authors do things like that, because I feel if somebody did the latter that would risk reflecting badly on them. Not because they are bad people, but that they are possibly prone to human failings like anger, fear, shame and guilt. Sometimes it becomes more evident in stories where you have characters who either have powers driven by guilt or powers that induce guilt in its victims, coupled with angry characters and really unsettling content that might suggest an unhappy state of mind.

(If this author comes out as having depression, this might explain why their stories are the way they are.)

Sometimes media analysis would reveal unconscious racism on the authors’ part, sometimes it’s fetishisation of an ethnicity, sometimes it’s outright disdain and sometimes it’s mere ignorance. Sort of like the thing with Storm and how she’s pretty much a white person’s idea of an exotic black person, not so much an actual Kenyan like she’s supposed to be. Despite being ostensibly Kenyan, she hardly uses Swahili (or even Gikuyu) and she doesn’t even celebrate Boxing Day every 26th of December. Or how Karma’s built on prior authors’ ignorance of Vietnamese naming practices that this was eventually rectified in one story, perhaps this was overdue.

Or another one matter, one could say similar things about Sha Shan. Her surname is very Vietnamese, but her personal names might unintentionally be boy names by Vietnamese standards. Given the closest Vietnamese word to the second one’s actually a boy’s name, that it seems writers are really ignorant of what Vietnamese names are supposed to be despite Chinese influence. That Vietnamese is currently written in Latin script should tell you about how little they know about Vietnamese, that they don’t bother learning it speaks volumes about this. Or for another matter, going to Vietnamese language websites.

That’s not to say geeks don’t do media analysis at all, some of them do and sometimes a lot to do academic studies about it. But others don’t want their favourite stories and authors questioned in any way, for fear that it reflects badly on both of them. Not that they are flawless, but there’s the possibility of the authors having human struggles that colour their works. Sometimes they are racist, though in ways we don’t expect.