#roman catalan

[mmepastel]

Grand grand plaisir de lecture.

Je n’avais pas envie de les quitter, ni Natàlia, ni Silvia, ni Marius, ni Joan, ni Encarda, bref, toute cette famille espagnole compliquée qui vivait sans le savoir les dernières heures du franquisme.

Roman catalan débordant de vie. Galerie de personnages plus vrais que vrais, avec des scènes incroyables (la séance Tupperware des femmes au foyer qui dégénère), drôles ou émouvantes.

Natàlia est partie de Barcelone en 1962, très jeune. On comprend que c’est en raison d’un conflit avec son père (happé par le dogme puritain de l’époque qui condamne tout dérapage), et d’un grand désir de liberté. Elle a vécu à Paris, puis Londres, s’est forgé son lot d’expériences, sa façon de se construire une féminité bien à elle, qui l’empêchera d’être corsetée comme la femme de son frère Lluis par exemple, malade de frustration. Elle revient douze ans plus tard, en 1974, et constate que ses proches ont changé, par exemple, sa tante, qui a perdu son mari s’en trouve étonnamment apaisée, libérée, que la bonne de la famille, assez âgée, a décidé de se marier… un vent de liberté se lève, imperceptiblement.

Ce qui est génial dans ce livre, c’est l’énergie qui circule, la vie même. Les dialogues, piquants, sont insérés dans la narration, englobés, et ça rend le récit plus vif, enlevé, rythmé de paroles qui sonnent justes.

On découvre des pans des histoires de plusieurs personnages, dont celle du père de Natàlia, et de son mariage d’amour avec l’étonnante Judit. Rien n’est lisse, simple, ni caricatural, tout est mouvement, paradoxe, surprise. Voilà sans doute pourquoi on s’attache vite et fort aux personnages.

Natàlia n’écrase personne avec des idées arrêtées sur l’existence, elle écoute, simplement, observe. D’ailleurs elle est photographe. Elle est finalement le personnage révélateur, comme un bain d’étape dans le développement d’une photo, des personnalités autour d’elle. Son exil a contrarié ou a été condamné, ou jalousé. Mais son retour, sans changer radicalement la donne, aide à des ajustements, des épiphanies. Et le secret qu’on voulait lui cacher, une fois révélé, donne lieu à un bel épilogue, qui célèbre l’amour et le pardon.

Superbe livre, qui a été traduit très récemment en français pour la première fois par les éditions La Croisée, qui décidément, ont le chic pour dénicher des voix fortes dans la littérature de partout.

[minglana]

WIKIMEDIA HAS PICTURES OF THE OLD CHURCH IN OUR VILLAGE????? THE PART OF THE CHURCH WHICH IS NOW A SOCIAL SPACE?? LIKE THE SPACE THEY CLOSED OFF FROM WHAT IVE ALWAYS KNOWN AS THE CHURCH? (AND LATER REALIZED THERE WAS A WALL PUT UP??????)

THATS CRAZYYYYYY OMG😭

[philoursmars]

Bon, n'étant pas très mobile, difficile de créer des posts avec de nouvelles photos. Je reviens donc à mon projet de présenter l'intégralité de mes photos, projet interrompu à l'année 2017. Je vais donc essayer de clore cette année 2017. Et elle sera close par Marseille aux vacances de Noël.

Les 2 premières : le Musée d'Histoire de Marseille:

pied féminin - Marseille , les Catalans, époque romaine

graffiti - Marseille Massalia, VIe s. av.J-C (on devine un profil barbu)

Puis le MuCEM avec une mini-expo : "Roman-Photo". Alors oui ,on reconnaît Mireille Mathieu !

("Ahh ! Salaud... Maudit salaud...")

[ernestdescalsartwok]

CASTELLNOU DE BAGES-PINTURA-SANTPEDOR-PINTANDO-PAISAJES-ROMANICO-ART-FOTOS-PINTOR-ERNEST DESCALS por Ernest Descals Por Flickr: CASTELLNOU DE BAGES-PINTURA-SANTPEDOR-PINTANDO-PAISAJES-ROMANICO-ART-FOTOS-PINTOR-ERNEST DESCALS- A la sombra de unos árboles y pintando sin camiseta para aliviar el fuerte calor del verano en CASTELLNOU DE BAGES, Santpedor, pintar en los lienzos el Románico Catalán del Medioevo en sus estructuras de piedra que han superado el paso de los siglos. Fotos del artista pintor Ernest Descals con el pincel en la mano. Plein air estival.

[useless-catalanfacts]

Someone has been sticking these printed papers on small local businesses that are closing down as a result of gentrification in Barcelona (Catalonia's capital city, greatly affected by touristic massification and the gentrification it brings). They're written in the Catalan language, so here I translate them to English for you:

2 world wars, 1 civil war, bombs, the 40 years "facing the sun" [=first line of the anthem of Spain during the Francoist dictatorship], 9 popes, 15 times Real Madrid won the Champions League, 2 pandemics. It has survived everything except speculation.

Maybe 10,000 bucks for rent was a little teeny tiny bit too much, wasn't it? Maybe. I'm not saying it was. I'm just saying: maybe.

If they open a Starbucks or something like that, I'm cutting off my dick. Bring back Versalles [convenience store]!

*A picture of Asterix and Obelix hitting two Roman soldiers. Asterix and Obelix are labelled Nou Barrix and Palomarix as a joke of Gaulish-sounding names for the working class neighbourhoods of Nou Barris and Sant Andreu del Palomar. The Roman soldiers are labelled "the fucking gentrification".*

My great-grandma used to come for coffee here, now she's asking me to do this from the Other Side. You'll understand that I'm so scared that I'm shitting myself and I must continue doing it (one can't say no to a great-grandmother)

Gràcia and Poblenou [two neighbourhoods of Barcelona that have gotten very gentrified by tourists] started like this and now not even their mother would recognise them.

Photos from Et felicito fill.

[psychologeek]

Free!

"Leave our country alone!" they say "This isn't your land - go back to where you came from!"

And as my brother's being shoot, And my sister's being paraded naked - For their great sin of: living [Re'im, Israel, 2023]

As my great-grandfather was pushed down in the streets And his beard was brutally shaved As they raped and enslaved and murdered- [Birkenau, Poland, 1943]

[just like in 1941 Farhud, Iraq ; Jedwabne pogrom;  1945 Tripoli pogrom, the 1946 Kielce pogrom, and the 1947 Aleppo pogrom]

In 1934 there were pogroms against Jews in Turkey and Algeria.

Other parts of my family were lucky enough to survive the 1929 Hebron massacre during the 1929 Palestine riots. [Mandatory Palestine under British administration]

In 1919, soldiers marched into the center of town accompanied by a military band and engaged in atrocities under the slogan: "Kill the Jews, and save the Ukraine." They were ordered to save the ammunition in the process and use only lances and bayonets during the Proskurov pogrom.

[Proskurov, Ukraine, 1919]

[100 years, and nothing changed, huh?]

You know, my grandma's arab. I still remember sitting in class in high school, hearing about the 1840 Damascus affair, and thinking: hu.

I'll skip several years and countries, but:

Their grandparents were there to witness as the outbreak of violence against Jews (Hep-Hep riots) occurred at the beginning of the 19th century.

The 1821 Odessa pogroms marked the beginning of the 19th century pogroms in Tsarist Russia

That's  Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648–1657 in present-day Ukraine.

So they said, during the attacks against Jews also took place in Barcelona and other Catalan cities during the massacre of 1391.

Their ancestors were cast away and murdered in Spain, 1492.

The same way we were banished and cast away from  Bern (1427) and Zürich (1436) for almost 400 years?

Let us not speak of  the alaughter on Holy Saturday of 1389, a pogrom began in Prague that led to the burning of the Jewish quarter, the killing of many Jews, and the suicide of many Jews trapped in the main synagogue; the number of dead was estimated at 400–500 men, women, and children.

Brussels massacre of 1370.

Or - do you want to hear about the 510 jewish communities that were destroyed? (1348-1350)  including in Toulon, Erfurt, Basel, Aragon, Flanders[16][17] and Strasbourg.[18]

Just like Rhineland massacres in 1096

Some of them made it to England, around 1060. It took less than 30 years for the first Podrom in 1189-90 in England, 

Oh, and let us not forget 1066 Granada massacre [again, in Spain].

Or the  Alexandria in the year 38 CE, followed by the more known riot of 66 CE.

The Jewish population of the land on the eve of the first major Jewish rebellion [66 CE] may have been as high as 2.2 million. The monumental architecture of this period indicates a high level of prosperity.

In 66 CE, the Jews of Judea rose in revolt against Rome, sparking the First Jewish–Roman War. The reverse seized control of Judea and named their new kingdom "Israel"

The revolt was crushed by the Roman emperors Vespasian and Titus. The Romans destroyed much of the Temple in Jerusalem and took as punitive tribute the Menorah and other Temple artifacts back to Rome. Josephus writes that 1,100,000 Jews perished during the revolt, while a further 97,000 were taken captive. The Fiscus Judaicus was instituted by the Empire as part of reparations.

[And here we come to a full cycle of blood, land, and pain].

And those are only those I found out about. Only those we have a record of. Only those we know to this day. They were so massive, or left enough impact so we still remember.

[I could go on, this is just a short list.]

It seems like no matter what we do, we'll always be accused for

Let me know, please - where can I be a jew, and just

Live?

[hopefulkidshark]

Temple Expiatori del Sagrat Cor, Catholic church, Barcelona, Spain: The Temple Expiatori del Sagrat Cor is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica located on the summit of Mount Tibidabo in Barcelona, Catalonia. The building is the work of the Catalan architect Enric Sagnier and was completed by his son Josep Maria Sagnier i Vidal. Wikipedia

[whencyclopedia]

Thessaly and the Duchy of Neopatras

Thessaly was an independent state in medieval Greece from 1267 or 1268 to 1394 CE, first as the Greek-ruled Thessaly and later as the Catalan and Latin-ruled Duchy of Neopatras. Under its sebastokrators, Thessaly was a thorn in the side of the Byzantine Empire and an ally of the Latin states in Greece and southern Italy. Following the death of the last Thessalian sebastokrator in 1318 CE, the Duchy of Neopatras was established by the Catalans and combined with the Duchy of Athens, with the two states mostly sharing the same rulers and fortunes until Thessaly was finally conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1423 CE.

Beginnings in Epirus

Following the Fourth Crusade's sacking of Constantinople in 1204 CE, the Byzantine Empire splintered into a series of successor states. Thessaly was originally held by the regional Greek leader Leo Sgouros, but when the Latin crusaders arrived, the territory was quickly taken over by Latin lords under the nominal leadership of Boniface of Montferrat, the new King of Thessalonica (r. 1205-1207 CE). Latin rule in Thessaly was short-lived, however, and in 1212 CE, Michael I Komnenos Doukas of Epirus (r. 1205-1215 CE) occupied central Thessaly, including the key city of Larissa, and the rest of Thessaly was conquered by his half-brother and successor, Theodore Komnenos Doukas (r. 1215-1230 CE). Epirus was one of the three long-lasting Greek (or rather Roman) successor states to the Byzantine Empire, and it was initially quite successful, conquering Thessalonica, restyling itself the Empire of Thessalonica, and advancing almost to the gates of Constantinople itself before Theodore suffered a horrific defeat at the Battle of Klokotnitsa in 1230 CE.

In the aftermath of Klokotnitsa, Manuel Komnenos Doukas (r. 1230-1241 CE) took up power in Thessalonica while his relative Michael II Komnenos Doukas (r. 1230-1267/1268 CE) became the ruler of Epirus. Thessaly was ruled by the Empire of Thessalonica during this decade of contraction, but when Manuel was ousted from Thessalonica in 1237 CE by the returned Theodore, he went to Thessaly, where he ruled the region as an independent state from 1239 to 1241 CE. Upon his death, Thessaly fell to Michael II of Epirus, being reincorporated into the Despotate of Epirus. The region was briefly occupied by the Empire of Nicaea in 1259 but was reoccupied by Epirote forces the following year.

Continue reading...

[alpaca-clouds]

Indigenous people of Europe

Let me talk about something that really is not talked and thought about in general: The indigenous people of Europe. Because, well, it is something that kinda tends to get ignored often enough, as we think of indigenous cultures as something that existed outside of Europe, before being settled by Europeans.

But it is a lot more complicated than that. Because there were indigenous people in Europe - and there still are to this day. The best known example are probably the Sami in northern Russia and the Scandinavian countries. And be it just because they got depicted in Frozen and in the Klaus Netflix movie.

To quote Wikipedia:

Some groups that claim indigenous minority status in Europe include the Uralic Nenets, Samoyed, and Komi peoples of northern Russia; Circassians of southern Russia and the North Caucasus; Crimean Tatars, Krymchaks and Crimean Karaites of Crimea (Ukraine); Sámi peoples of northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland and northwestern Russia (in an area also referred to as Sápmi); Galicians of Galicia, Spain; Catalans of Catalonia, Spain and southern France; Basques of Basque Country, Spain and southern France; and the Sorbian people of Germany and Poland.

Indigineity in Europe is a complicated thing, because even the non-indigenous people here have been around in this area for a long while. It also is closely related to the artificiality of "whiteness" (I am gonna talk about that a bit more next week).

In the end the "western European culture" as we know it is mostly a result of colonialism through the Romans. Only that this happened 2000 years ago and in a process that was not quite comparable to how colonialism of the non-European regions went.

Though then again, there was a phase during which similar genocide happened within Europe, when it came to the indigenous cultures and religions: The heathen hunts in the 4th century, which did involve the killing of followers of older religions, destruction of temples and religious places of worship and the forceful conversion of the "heathens" to Christianity.

But, again, this happened a long, long time ago. Which is why it tends to not be remembered as such. (In fact, I doubt most people know about this happening.)

There were more indigenous people in Europe before that, but one by one most of those cultures just disappeared.

Still, those that remained often face often similar problems to non-European indigenous people. As minorities they tend to be discriminated against, at times even by law. The borders often do not allow them to move through what has originally been their territory. And many have had their land taken away from them - or still get their land taken.

And given that most people are not even aware that those groups exists, this topic tends to get ignored by a lot of people.

So, yeah, I just wanted to talk about this. Because we really need to be aware about what is happening everywhere. And how those things have happened over thousands of years.

[beautiful-basque-country]

@landcrowe yep, it is!

But the history of this word is vert interesting in fact.

Gabacho/a comes from Occitan - of pre-Roman origin - gavach, which means "a person that suffers from goiter" or, more extensively, "a person that speaks wrong". But if we look at how the word is used in different languages we'll notice that it's also used to speak pejoratively of the people that live north from you. But why?

Because in the 16th century the area known as Granda Gavacheria - that included Bordeaux and Les Landes -:

was so decimated and impoverished after the plague that its lords relied on foreign handwork to work in the abandoned fields. These settlers came indeed from the north, and spoke French and not Occitan, so they spoke wrong. And locals started calling them gavaches. In fact, this area welcomed so many foreigners that it became an island of langue d'oïl in a sea of langue d'oc.

Some examples so we see gabacho actually means "someone from the north that speaks other language":

The Catalans from Pyrénees-Orientales to their Occitan-speaking neighbors from Òpol e Perilhons.

In Spain, it's used to call any French person.

Also in Mexico is used for the gringos, the neighbors from the north!

Another examples of gabachos would be the Swiss for the Italians, or the Romanians to the Bulgarians, or the Guianans to the Brazilians.

Use the word wisely!

[alatismeni-theitsa]

https://x.com/greece_heritage/status/1794733345127194752?mx=2

“(Greece is one of) The most invaded countries in history”

Just saying

======================================

My reply:

Anyone who knows basic Greek history won’t be surprised in the least. A few of the invaders: “Illyrians, Persians, Celts, Romans, Goths, Heruli, Slavs, Avars, Arabs, Bulgars, Normans, Crusaders, Latins (Catalans, French, Italians etc), Serbs, Albanians, Venice, Genoa, Ottomans, Bulgarians, Italians, Germans”.

But still for some reason westerners see us as some powerful force that has immense influence and we are responsible for not having the same “glory” as our dead ancestors they admire, when in reality we have been genocided, executed, enslaved and beaten down like a dead horse for centuries now. Those same nations who accuse us today of not being good enough were happy to plunder our ancient texts and anything precious we had before even the fall of Constantinople.

I think we should add the English (a little) and the USAmericans (much more) here because I don’t know what else to call them having military bases on Greek soil, using our soldiers for their purposes and us needed to take their permission to do literally anything. Your nation has been attacked and you want to attack back? Better phone Daddy US first. They “keep us free” after all. (Hell, this sounds so dystopian)

[huariqueje]

The Roman Blouse    -    Marc Figueras

Catalan, b.  1981 -

Oil on canvas ,  60 x 60 cm .      23 3/5 × 23 3/5 in .

[frenchlitclub]

Groupe 1: Notre lecture du mois de juin sera Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, d'Alexandre Dumas (tome 1 seulement)

Le roman raconte comment, au début du règne de Louis XVIII, le 24 février 1815, alors que Napoléon se prépare à quitter l'île d'Elbe pour les Cent Jours, Edmond Dantès, jeune marin de dix-neuf ans, débarque à Marseille pour s'y marier avec la belle Catalane Mercédès. Trahi par des « amis » jaloux, il est dénoncé comme conspirateur bonapartiste et enfermé dans une ge��le du château d'If, au large de Marseille. Après quatorze années, d'abord réduit à la solitude et au désespoir puis régénéré et instruit en secret par un compagnon de captivité qui lui donne une carte avec l'emplacement d'un trésor, l'abbé Faria, il réussit à s'évader et prend possession du trésor caché dans l'île de Montecristo. Rendu riche et puissant, Dantès se fait passer pour divers personnages, dont le comte de Monte-Cristo. Il entreprend de garantir le bonheur et la liberté aux rares qui lui sont restés fidèles et de se venger méthodiquement de ceux qui l'ont accusé à tort et fait emprisonner.

Pour lire en ligne/télécharger: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/17989

Pour rejoindre le groupe sur discord

[pleistocene-pride]

The Baudet du Poitou, also called the Poitevin or Poitou donkey, is a large French breed of domestic donkey. The exact origins of the Poitou breed are unknown, but donkeys may have been introduced to the Poitou region of France by the Roman Empire. The Baudet de Poitou and the Mulassière horse breed were developed together for the use of producing superior mules. In the Middle Ages, owning a Poitou donkey may have been a status symbol among the local French nobility. In the mid-1800s, Poitevin mules were "regarded as the finest and strongest in France", and between 15,000 and 18,000 were sold annually. In 1884, a studbook was established for the Poitou donkey in France. During the first half of the twentieth century, the mules bred by the Poitou and the Poitevin continued to be desired throughout Europe, and were called the "finest working mule in the world". As mechanization increased around World War II, mules became outmoded, and the Poitou donkey population fell dramatically. After a a breed census in 1977 found only 44 Poitou donkeys worldwide, conservation efforts were led by several public and private groups in France and Portugal. These efforts proved successful and today around 2,000 Poitou donkeys are known. With females reaching 4.6 (1.4m) tall at the shoulders, and males reaching 5.2ft (1.56m), the Baudet is a one of the largest breeds of domestic donkey with only the Catalan, Mammoth Jack, Andalusian, and Balearic breeds reaching similar or larger sizes. They have large, long heads, strong necks, long backs, short croups and round haunches. The limb joints and feet are large, and the legs strong.The temperament has been described as "friendly, affectionate and docile". In Poitou, the coat of the Baudet was traditionally – and deliberately – left ungroomed; with time, it formed cadenettes aka long shaggy locks somewhat like dreadlocks. The coat is typically dark brown to black but may also by silver, dark grey, or red.

[useless-catalanfacts]

Idioms in Catalan with a religious origin

There's quite a lot of idioms that we say in everyday life, outside of the context of religion, but that come from religious stories or events.

Most of them come from Christianity, and many of them are shared with other Romance languages or other languages from historically Christian countries. To keep this list accessible to everyone regardless of cultural background, I will include the literal translation to English and also an explanation all of them.

Let's see how many of these you can understand before seeing the explanation. Let us know in the tags!

1. Fer Pasqua abans de Rams = "to do Easter before Palm Sunday", meaning to get pregnant, have a baby, or to have sex before getting married. Nowadays it's used in a more general sense to mean to do something before it's time (like English "put the cart before the horse"). Palm Sunday is a holiday celebrated the week before Easter.

2. Per a més inri = "for more INRI", used to add a bad thing on top of something else, making a situation even worse or more humiliating. It's a reference to the sign that said "INRI" (stands for the initials of "Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews" in Latin) that Roman soldiers hanged on Christ's crucifix to make fun of him.

3. A la babalà = "in the babalà way", meaning to do something without having thought much about it. But what does "babalà" mean? This word doesn't exist in the Catalan language outside of this expression. It comes from the Arabic Alà bâb Allâh which means "in God's hands".

4. On Crist va perdre l'espardenya = "where Christ lost his sandal", or on Crist va perdre el barret = "where Christ lost his hat", meaning somewhere very far away and usually in the middle of nothing. I don't know of any story that has Christ lose his sandal or hat.

5. Perdut de la mà de Déu = "lost by God's hand", meaning a place in the middle of nowhere.

6. Ser un calvari ="to be a calvary", meaning that something is a cause of suffering. You can also hear quin calvari! = "what a calvary!". This is a reference to Mount Calvary, where Christ was crucified.

7. Endavant les atxes = "ahead with the candles!", meaning "keep going!", used to encourage to keep going in a negative situation with difficulties or a situation that you would have preferred to avoid. An atxa is a kind of big candle that the first people in a religious procession carry. This was the shout that would start a procession.

(Note: in recent years, Spanish media has used this idiom as supposed proof that Catalan independentists who said it are calling for violence, using a fake translation that assumed that "atxa" must mean the same as Spanish "hacha", meaning "axe" 🪓, because the pronunciation is almost identical. This is false, when people were saying "endavant les atxes" they did not intend any meaning related to "bring the axes". This was used to justify violence against Catalan activists, but has no ground in reality. "Axe"🪓 in Catalan would be "destral".)

8. Net com una patena = "as clean as a paten", meaning very clean. A paten is a kind of small dish used in Catholic mass, where the blessed sacramental bread in placed on.

9. Acabar com el rosari de l'aurora = "to end up like the dawn rosary", meaning to end very, very badly, usually in violence. The dawn rosary used to be a procession that was done in the early morning of certain holidays while praying the rosary. The idiom (which also exists in Spanish) comes from the year 1868. Around those years, there were many anticlerical riots, while the Catholic church kept doing the dawn rosary on the streets and often assigning it political meaning. In Barcelona and other cities, anticlerical protestors tried to stop the dawn rosary from happening, and it ended in violence and blood.

10. Plorar com una Magdalena = "to cry like a Magdalene", meaning to cry a lot and very desperately. This is a reference to Mary Magdalene, a character from the Bible's New Testament who cried when she met Christ.

11. Déu-n'hi-do! = "God gives!". This expression is difficult to translate because I don't think English has an equivalent (the closest I can think of are "wow!" or even "holy shit!"), but Catalan people use it a lot. It's an exclamation used to show surprise, awe or to mean a big quantity.

12. Ser més vell que Matusalem = "to be older than Methuselah", meaning that someone is very very old. Methuselah is a character from the Bible's Old Testament who is said to have lived for 969 years. This comparison is used for comedic value.

13. Rentar-se'n les mans = "to wash one's hands", meaning to say you're not responsible for what happens. This is a quote from the Bible's New Testament: when Christ is being judged by Pontius Pilate, the crowd is asking him to sentence him to crucifixion. He asks Christ to defend himself, but he doesn't. Pilate doesn't want to sentence him to death, but he sees he has no other option. Then, he sees his hands are stained with Christ's blood, and washes his hands as he decides that this situation will not be his responsibility.

14. Arribar a misses dites = "to arrive to mass [already] said", meaning to arrive late when something has already happened.

15. Ser com les palmes d’Elx, que vingueren el matí de Pasqua = "to be like the Elx palms, that arrived on Easter morning", this is used in the Valencian Country to mean to be late. Elx is a city with the biggest palm groove in Europe ever since the Middle Ages, and many of these palm tree leafs are used for making the palms used for Palm Sunday, the celebration that happens a week before Easter.

16. Va a missa = "goes to mass", meaning whatever is said is exactly what will happen, without complaining or second thoughts.

17. Endiumenjar-se = "to Sunday yourself" or "to Sunday up", meaning to dress up in your best clothes (same as "to wear your Sunday best" in English). Traditionally, people used to wear their best clothes for Sunday mass.

18. Alt com un sant Pau = "as tall as a saint Paul", someone who is very tall. Saint Paul was not tall, in his texts he describes himself as a "little man". The origin of this sentence is in Catalonia centuries ago. People used to celebrate the holiday of Saint Paul's Conversion (January 25th). In the Sant Pau del Camp church area in Barcelona, the tradition for this day had a man yield a huge sword. For this reason, the man had to be tall and strong.

19. Alegre/content com unes pasqües = "as cheerful/happy as Easters", meaning to be very happy and cheerful.

20. Discutir sobre el sexe dels àngels or parlar del sexe dels àngels = "to argue about angels' sex", meaning to endlessly argue heatedly about something insignificant where neither side will ever convince the other to change their minds. Also called una discussió bizantina="a Byzantine argument". This comes from the historical fact that Biblical scholars spent centuries arguing on whether angels can be male or female or not. Legends say that, when the Ottomans were laying siege on Constantinople in 1453 and getting ready to invade it, the Byzantine theologists were arguing about whether angels have sexes instead of doing anything useful.

21. Pagant, sant Pere canta = "if you pay, saint Peter sings". The person who hears it, might answer i sant Joan fa esclops = "and Saint John makes clogs". This means that money will get you anything, even the things that seemed impossible. It might be a reference to the Bible story where saint Peter was asked if he knew Christ after he was taken to crucify, and Peter lied three times and said he didn't know him. "To sing" in Catalan can also mean "to confess". Maybe, if they had paid him he would have confessed.

22. Perdre l'oremus = "to lose the oremus", meaning to lose control of yourself, or to get disoriented or lose memory. "Oremus" (which means "let's pray" in Latin) is the sentence that Catholic priests say during mass to lead a prayer. It's believed that this idiom comes from some incidents where a priest would start the sentence "oremus..." but then couldn't find the prayer he wanted to lead, which he might have misplaced somewhere else in his book. So he would say "oremus... uh... oremus..." while flipping the pages looking for the right one.

23. A bon sant t'encomanes! = "You entrust yourself to a good saint!", said with irony. It's said when you ask for help or rely on someone who is not competent.

24. Ser més papista que el Papa = "To be more Popeist than the Pope", meaning someone who is too dogmatic, too strict or extremist in following the rules, or who believes in or defends something in a more extreme way than the people most affected by it.

25. Qui no coneix Déu, a qualsevol sant li resa = "He who doesn't know God, prays to any saint", used to compare something very good to something worse that someone else likes, usually something worse but that is very popular.

And there's probably others that I forgot.

How many of these are shared with your language?

[mapsontheweb]

Maize 🌽 in European languages.

by u/porredgy

You can clearly see how the crop spread throughout Europe in two different directions: one through the Spaniards, who were the first to introduce the maize to the Old World, and the other through the Ottomans. But curiously, the word broadly used in Eastern Europe to refer to maize, which is presumably of Ottoman origin, has been dropped in Turkey for misir, "Egypt", and this adds more information about the route that the maize took after its introduction. Also, besides the two main terms shown in this map, there are a tone of other local words that I couldn't cover, although I tried to include as many as possible, and many of them are country-related terms and they refer to those who were believed to be the first to introduce the crop in that specific area (see Catalan blat de moro, Italian granoturco, Greek aravósitos) but they also refer to where the locals believed it came from (Irish Indian corn, which sounds more like something exotic rather than referring to its actual source). One thing that buffles me is Maltese "wheat of the Romans", as long as ir-Rum really means that and not something else. But what caught my eye was definitely the Balkans, which stand out with a very rich vocabulary regarding maize (Bulgarian has minimum 10 other ways of calling it), and for the same reason also Italy. This shows the huge importance that this single crop had in the past local agricolture, serving for a long time as the only sustenance for many households because of its resistance and profitability. Thanks America!