Most requested interface languages on Twitter: Catalan, Afrikaans, Ukrainian, Greek, Czech, Basque

This refers to currently unavailable languages, of course. Twitter has recently announced that it has begun translating these six (or rather, has begun allowing people to translate these six for them), which will mean 34 languages compared to the current 28.

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One more Greek translation, an old book on the history of French

Very little time to write today, so here are two things to note.

One - this blog post is the second Page F30 post translated into Greek. It's the one on Chinese learning French to immigrate to Quebec (and often then into English-speaking Canada).

The second thing to note is this book from archive.org called grammaire historique de la langue française from 1899, which turned up in a Google Alert of all places. I only glanced at it but it seems worth another longer look.

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Post on Persian language has been translated into Greek

On a blog here, a linguistic blog written entirely in Greek - so I am Μιθριδάτη there. The author (Glavkos) also knows English, Russian, and Esperanto. The post that has been translated is this one, a post I wrote in a quick burst of irritation when I noticed an article claiming Persian to be exceptionally difficult, which Persian is anything but.

Later on I took the time to write a longer post on the same subject here.

Seeing the translated post makes me wonder when the first written account of the Persian language written in Greek appeared. Even back in 500 BC when the continent looked like this there could have been a few:

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English with all the non-Greek words removed (seriously)

Check out this gem of a Wikipedia page I came across today. It seems that back in 1957 and 1959 a Greek economist and one-time interim prime minister gave two speeches in which he used words of entirely Greek origin, aside from words such as pronouns and particles that really can't be avoided.

In spite of being technically English, some of the words I've had to look up so I'll enclose their meaning in parenthesis. Other readers might already know some or all of these words, or have to look up some others on their own. So let's start with the first speech:

Kyrie (kind of a greeting but difficult to explain - see here), I eulogize the archons of the Panethnic Numismatic (related to currency) Thesaurus and the Ecumenical Trapeza for the orthodoxy of their axioms, methods and policies, although there is an episode of cacophony of the Trapeza with Hellas. With enthusiasm we dialogue and synagonize at the synods (ecclesiastical councils) of our didymous (paired) organizations in which polymorphous economic ideas and dogmas are analyzed and synthesized. Our critical problems such as the numismatic plethora generate some agony and melancholy. This phenomenon is characteristic of our epoch. But, to my thesis, we have the dynamism to program therapeutic practices as a prophylaxis (prevention of disease) from chaos and catastrophe. In parallel, a Panethnic unhypocritical economic synergy and harmonization in a democratic climate is basic. I apologize for my eccentric monologue. I emphasize my euharistia to you, Kyrie to the eugenic and generous American Ethnos and to the organizers and protagonists of his Amphictyony (religious co-operative between city-states) and the gastronomic symposia.

Indeed. Um...let's go on to the next one, shall we?

Kyrie, it is Zeus' anathema on our epoch for the dynamism of our economies and the heresy of our economic methods and policies that we should agonize the Scylla of numismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic anaemia (Scylla and Charybdis = two hazards, one on either hand). It is not my idiosyncrasy to be ironic or sarcastic, but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather cryptoplethorists (hidden-overabundance-ists?). Although they emphatically stigmatize numismatic plethora, they energize it through their tactics and practices. Our policies have to be based more on economic and less on political criteria. Our gnomon (indicator) has to be a metron between political, strategic and philanthropic scopes. Political magic has always been anti-economic. In an epoch characterized by monopolies, oligopolies, monopsonies (markets where there is only one buyer for a product), monopolistic antagonism and polymorphous inelasticities, our policies have to be more orthological. But this should not be metamorphosed into plethorophobia, which is endemic among academic economists. Numismatic symmetry should not hyper-antagonize economic acme. A greater harmonization between the practices of the economic and numismatic archons is basic. Parallel to this, we have to synchronize and harmonize more and more our economic and numismatic policies panethnically. These scopes are more practicable now, when the prognostics of the political and economic barometer are halcyonic. The history of our didymous organizations in this sphere has been didactic and their gnostic practices will always be a tonic to the polyonymous (having many names) and idiomorphous ethnical economies. The genesis of the programmed organization will dynamize these policies. Therefore, I sympathize, although not without criticism on one or two themes, with the apostles and the hierarchy of our organs in their zeal to program orthodox economic and numismatic policies, although I have some logomachy (about the meanings of words) with them. I apologize for having tyrannized you with my Hellenic phraseology. In my epilogue, I emphasize my eulogy to the philoxenous (love of foreigners) autochthons of this cosmopolitan metropolis and my encomium (praise, eulogy) to you, Kyrie, and the stenographers.

So that's kind of what an IAL based on Greek might sound like, aside from the English particles and grammatical words. English with only Germanic words on the other hand is much easier to intuitively understand for most.

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Origin of the word psephology

Nate Silver, psephologist.

Right here:

Psephology is the study of how people vote in elections.

A person who studies how people vote in elections is called a Psephologist. Both words are nouns. The "p" in the first syllable is silent when you pronounce the words.

In a sentence, the word would appear thus: Psephology is a specialised science.

To learn its spelling, divide the word into its syllables: pse.phol.o.gy.

The word takes its origin in the Greek word psephos (note: written ψῆφος) meaning "pebble, vote", from the Greek practice of using pebbles to vote.

The question of course is whether these words are actually English given that only a very small fraction of the English-speaking population understands what they mean. The word "election science" or "electionology" alone should be sufficient. If you take a look at the Wikipedia page on psephology (which is remarkably small by the way) you can see that it's available in three other language versions: Portuguese, Russian, and Turkish. Let's take a look at them.

pt: Psefologia <-- that's the same
ru: Псефология <-- also the same, just written in a different alphabet
tr: Seçimbilim <-- ah, this one makes sense to anyone that knows the language. Seçim is election and -bilim denotes an -ology or a branch of knowledge. Gökbilim for example (sky-knowledge) is astronomy. Turkish wins.

Of course, bring back the study of Latin and Greek (or at least their root words) in schools and the problem wouldn't be so great. One problem with English and a lot of other European languages is that they have thousands of terms that were brought in when a knowledge of Latin and Greek was necessary for the educated, but then all of a sudden nobody knows those two languages anymore and we're stuck with these thousands of terms that nobody understands at first sight.

Two new Greek words for me from reading Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus: homoeoteleuton (when you skip a line in text because the endings are the same in both and one is mistaken for the other) and that other one about skipping over a piece of text...periblepsis, I think.

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What does the Nicene Creed sound like in Greek?

I was curious about this and lucky for me YouTube has everything. I was able to find two videos with the Nicene Creed in Greek. First of all the original in Greek:

Πιστεύω εἰς ἕνα Θεόν, Πατέρα, Παντοκράτορα, ποιητὴν οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς, ὁρατῶν τε πάντων καὶ ἀοράτων.

Καὶ εἰς ἕνα Κύριον Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν, τὸν Υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ, τὸν ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς γεννηθέντα πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων·

φῶς ἐκ φωτός, Θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ, γεννηθέντα οὐ ποιηθέντα, ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί, δι' οὗ τὰ πάντα ἐγένετο.

Τὸν δι' ἡμᾶς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ διὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν σωτηρίαν κατελθόντα ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν καὶ σαρκωθέντα

ἐκ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς Παρθένου καὶ ἐνανθρωπήσαντα.

Σταυρωθέντα τε ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου, καὶ παθόντα καὶ ταφέντα.

Καὶ ἀναστάντα τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρα κατὰ τὰς Γραφάς.

Καὶ ἀνελθόντα εἰς τοὺς οὐρανοὺς καὶ καθεζόμενον ἐκ δεξιῶν τοῦ Πατρός.

Καὶ πάλιν ἐρχόμενον μετὰ δόξης κρῖναι ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς, οὗ τῆς βασιλείας οὐκ ἔσται τέλος.

Καὶ εἰς τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον, τὸ κύριον, τὸ ζωοποιόν,

τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον,

τὸ σὺν Πατρὶ καὶ Υἱῷ συμπροσκυνούμενον καὶ συνδοξαζόμενον,

τὸ λαλῆσαν διὰ τῶν προφητῶν.

Εἰς μίαν, Ἁγίαν, Καθολικὴν καὶ Ἀποστολικὴν Ἐκκλησίαν.

Ὁμολογῶ ἓν βάπτισμα εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν.

Προσδοκῶ ἀνάστασιν νεκρῶν.

Καὶ ζωὴν τοῦ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος.

Ἀμήν.

Then using this tool online converts most of it into Latin characters if you're more used to those:

pisteύomen eἰs ἕna Theόn, patέra, pantokrάtora, poihtὴn oὐranoῦ kaὶ gῆs, ὁratῶn te pάntwn kaὶ ἀorάtwn.

Kaὶ eἰs ἕna Kύrion Ἰhsoῦn Christόn, tὸn Yἱὸn toῦ Theoῦ tὸn monogenῆ, tὸn ἐk toῦ patrὸs gennhthέnta prὸ pάntwn tῶn aἰώnwn· fῶs ἐk fwtόs, Theὸn ἀlhthinὸn ἐk Theoῦ ἀlhthinoῦ, gennhthέnta oὐ poihthέnta, ὁmooύsion tῷ patrί, di' oὗ tὰ pάnta ἐgέneto.

Tὸn di' ἡmᾶs toὺs ἀnthrώpoys kaὶ diὰ tὴn ἡmetέran swthrίan katelthόnta ἐk tῶn oὐranῶn kaὶ sarkwthέnta ἐk pneύmatos Ἁgίoy kaὶ Marίas tῆs parthέnoy kaὶ ἐnanthrwpήsanta.

Stayrwthέnta te ὑpὲr ἡmῶn ἐpὶ pontίoy pilάtoy, kaὶ pathόnta kaὶ tafέnta.

Kaὶ ἀnastάnta tῇ trίtῃ ἡmέra katὰ tὰs Grafάs.

Kaὶ ἀnelthόnta eἰs toὺs oὐranoὺs kaὶ kathezόmenon ἐk dexiῶn toῦ patrόs.

Kaὶ pάlin ἐrchόmenon metὰ dόxhs krῖnai zῶntas kaὶ nekroύs, oὗ tῆs basileίas oὐk ἔstai tέlos.

Kaὶ eἰs tὸ pneῦma tὸ Ἅgion, tὸ kύrion, tὸ zwopoiόn, tὸ ἐk toῦ patrὸs ἐkporeyόmenon, tὸ sὺn patrὶ kaὶ Yἱῷ symproskynoύmenon kaὶ syndoxazόmenon, tὸ lalῆsan diὰ tῶn profhtῶn.

Eἰs mίan, Ἁgίan, Katholikὴn kaὶ Ἀpostolikὴn Ἐkklhsίan.

Ὁmologῶ ἓn bάptisma eἰs ἄfesin ἁmartiῶn.

prosdokῶ ἀnάstasin nekrῶn.

Kaὶ zwὴn toῦ mέllontos aἰῶnos.

Ἀmήn.

Okay, now for the videos. The first one is this one, recited by Benedict XVI and Bartholomew I. Too bad it wasn't just one of them recorded, because that's much easier to hear.



The second one is by someone learning Greek who has quite a few videos on YouTube of himself speaking it. Looking at the responses most say he's quite good. Here it is:

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Robert Graves the Greek Myths in English, French, Gothic, Ancient Greek, Indo-European, Latin, Sambahsa-mundialect, and Sanskrit

Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Phrixos_und_Helle.jpg

The ever-talented Olivier Simon, the creator of Sambahsa-mundialect, has sent me a translation of a paragraph from Robert Graves' The Greek Myths from French into Gothic, Ancient Greek, Indo-European, Latin, Sambahsa-mundialect, and Sanskrit. I put the French version into the automatic translator and fixed up the incorrect parts, though I'm not going to bother changing the names and place names.

Here they are:

English:

"This Phrixos was a handsome young man, which had Biadicé as a loving aunt, the woman of Cretheus; as he had refused his advances, she accused him of trying to rape her. The Béotiens, believing that what Biadicé told was true, approved the wise decision of Apollo to sacrifice an expiatory victim and demanded the death of Phrixos. Here, Athamas, crying heavily, led Phrixos to the summit of the mountain. He was on the verge of having his throat cut when Hercules came running and pulled the sacrificial flint from his hand: "My father Zeus, Herakles exclaimed, abhors human sacrifices! "Nevertheless Phrixos would have perished in spite of this intervention, if a ram golden winged hadn't suddenly rushed at the top of Mount Olympus to save him:

"Climb on my back," said the ram, and immediately Phrixos obeyed.

"Bring me also, cried Hellé, do not leave me at the mercy of my father! "

Texte original (d’après R.Graves, Les mythes grecs) :

« Ce Phrixos était un beau jeune homme, dont s’était éprise sa tante Biadicé, la femme de Créthée ; comme il avait refusé ses avances, elle l’accusa d’avoir essayé de la violer. Les Béotiens, croyant que ce que racontait Biadicé était vrai, approuvèrent la sage décision d’Apollon de sacrifier une victime expiatoire et demandèrent la mort de Phrixos. Là-dessus, Athamas, pleurant abondamment, conduisit Phrixos au sommet de la montagne. Il était sur le point de lui trancher la gorge quand Héraclès arriva en courant et arracha le silex sacrificiel de sa main : « Mon père Zeus, s’exclama Héraclès, a horreur des sacrifices humains ! » Néanmoins Phrixos aurait péri malgré cette intervention, si un bélier d’or ailé ne s’était soudain précipité du haut de l’Olympe pour le sauver :

« Grimpe sur mon dos », dit le bélier, et aussitôt Phrixos obéit.

« Emporte-moi aussi, implora Hellé, ne me laisse pas à la merci de mon père ! »

Gothic:

Sa Friksus was skauns juggalaù§s §izei sô fadarswistar is Biadika, Kre§iwis qinô, fria§wàmildei was ; untê §ôs bidôs afwarp, wrohida ei dugann ija gawaldan. Boiotans, §àiei galaùbi§êdun ei Biadika sunja qa§, andnêmun Appoljins snutrana mun afar hvamma tibr hunsli§ wàir§an skuldêdeiwa jah gabêdjun Friksaùs dau§u. §anuh filutagrjands A§ams tiauh Friksu du fàirgunjis giblin. Skuldêdeiwa §anna kusman is kappôn nibài Herakles duatrênni jah hunslasah us §àim handiwê is hniaùpi. « Tius, fadar meins, Herakles hrôpida, fijài§ manniska hunsla ! » Akei Friksus dau§nôdêdi auk mi§ §amma ingreipa nibài gul§eins fidleins wi§rus fram Olimpa draùsi swa-ei ina bàirgi.

« Hlaup ana §ata tiuhi mein ! » qa§ wi§rus, jah Friksus ufhausida andwair§o.

« Bàir mik auk mi§ §is, Hella ba§, ni lêtas mik in waldufnja §is fadrs meinis ! ».

Ancient Greek:

Houtos ho Phrixos ên kalos neanias, hô hê têthis autou Biadikê, hê gunê tou Kretheôs ealôkei ; hôs êrnêto tas aitêseis autês, katêgorêsen autou peirathênai tou biazesthai autên. Hoi Boiotes, pisteuontes hoti hê Biadikê êlêtheuen, epênesan to sophon bouleuma tou Apollônos tou thuesthai katharsion kai êtêsanto ton thanaton tou Phrixou. Meta touto, ho Athamas ho dakruôn aphthonôs êgagen ton Phrixon epi tên akrôreian. Emellen temnein ton larugga autou en tô ton Hêraklea prosedramen kai apespasen ton lithon tês thusias ek toin kheroin autou : « Ho patêr mou, ho Zeus, ho Hêraklês aneboêsen, bdeluttetai tas thusias tas anthrôpeias ! ». Homôs, ho Phrixos an apolôlê, kaiper paragignomenos, ei krios khrusous pterôtos mê embalê kata tês akras tou Olumpou pros to sôzein auton.

« Anarrikhêsai epi ton nôton mou ! » eipen ho krios, kai autika ho Phrixos hupekousen.

« Apofere kai se, hê Hellê apekalesen, mê lipês eme tê exousia tou patros mou ! »

Indo-European:

So Bhriksos êst kalos yuwenis leubhos p@truwiây swây Gwiadikây, esrey Kredheows ; tôy ksubhusey budhôns swôns emembhseto iskwusey yebhtum îm. Boiotes, kred didhêntes Gwiadikâm werobhânti@m, epriyer Apollônos dnsrom modom diprosio spendiosio eprkskerkwe Bhriksosio mrtum. Nâ plukwid plangonts Adhamas edukset Bhriksom gyorakrom. Êst temtusos eyos gutr kwôm Heraklewos drât adi ewouletkwe diprokestrom ghesrbhyôm eyos : « Diewi, P@teri menoy, Heraklewos ewoukwet, kados sont ghomenôs spondôs ! » Tou Bhriksos mryeto tâ@ gwmti@ nspktâ@ mê kenekos petrgtos wedhris okuptyet Olumpakrod salwe@tum im.

« Skande gurnom menom ! » wedhris bhât, kitodkwe Bhriksos klouset.

« Bhere emekwe kom, Hellâ emoldhet, mê linkwyes me kratoy p@tros menosio!”.

Latin :

Ille Phrixus pulcher juvenis erat cujus amita Biadica, uxor Crethei, amore capta erat ; quoniam is sollicitationes recusaverat, eum accusavit quod ei vim adhibere tentavisset. Boeoti, credentes Biadicam verum dicere, sapientem Apollonis sententiam piamenti immolandi approbaverunt atque mortem Phrixi poposcerunt. Tum Athamas abundanter lacrimans Phrixum summum ad montem duxit. Hujus jugulum secturus erat cum Herculus accurrit ac e manibus silicem sacrificii eripuit : « Pater meus Juppiter, exclamavit Herculus, sacrificia humana detestatur ! » Tamen Phrixus perivisset quanquam intercesserat nisi aries aureus alatus repente de Olympo se praecipitavisset qui eum salvaverit.

« Scande in tergus ! » ait aries, et statim Phrixus oboedivit.

« Aufer me quoque, Hella imploravit, ne me relinquas in arbitrio patris mei ! »

Sambahsa-mundialect :

So Phrixos eet un bell yuwen dia quom eis tante Biadike, esor os Kretheus, se hieb enliubht ; dat is hieb refusen ays beuds, ia accusit iom ob peitus dwinghyehbhe iam. I Boiots, credeihnd od quo Biadike lohg eet ver, approbeer Apollons hakime decision os maule un diber ed bud Phrixios mohrt. Itak, Athamas, plukwid plangend, duxit Phrixum ad id ghyorakro. Vahsit tehme eis gurgule kun Heraklais accurs ed rohv id maulflint ex eis hands : « Zeus mien pater, scricit Heraklais, hat menscen mauls in horror ! » Lakin Phrixos habiet nohcen speit tod intervention sei un golden pterct hamel ne se habiet stayg precipiten ud id Olympakro kay salve iom.

« Skand ep mien regv ! » iey is hamel, ed fauran Phrixos obedih.

« Behr meschi con te, implorit Helle, mae linkwas me ei mercie miens pater ! ».

Sanskrit :

Esa BhrikSo âsît sundaras kumaro yaM pitrbhaginî Biadiçâ, Kradhor jâyâ, avanat ; taM protsâhakân protikSiptavantaM paryavadîd yatanaM dûSayituM tâm. BoyotâH, manyanto BiadiçâM satyavâdâm, abhyanandiSur Apallño dakSaM niçcayaM medhyasya baler huvanîyasya câprkSaN BhrikSasya mrtyum. Ato bahu rodano ‘Dhamo BhrikSam anaiSîd giryagram. Tadâsît kartiSyams tadgalam yadâ Heraçravopâdhâvîc câgrhad asiM tadhastâbhyâm : « Pitâ me Dyaus, Heraçravo vyakrukSat, dveSti manuSyânâM homân ! » Tadapi BhrikSo ‘bhaviSyad huto yadapi Heraçravo ‘ntarjagâma mâbhaviSyad haimo garudurano âpapadvân Olumpâgrâd uddhartuM tam.

« Skanda prStham ! » avadîd uraNaH, ca BhrikSo ‘nvarodhiSta sadyaH.

« Bhara ca mâM samyak, ayâciSta Hellâ, mâ ricyâ mâM pitur adhikare ! ».

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