Posts tagged "language":

Machine translation of Sanskrit

In 2022, Google finally added Sanskrit to its machine translation program: “Sanskrit is the number one, most requested language at Google Translate, and we are finally adding it”

Machsoum

I brought the Palestinian workers from the "machsoum" (army checkpost) in the morning at 6:15 as Tuesdays is the day I volunteer for that. They go back in the mid-afternoon but one of them, Issa, stayed behind to do a bit of side-work, gardening for my daughter, and I took him back at 6:15 in the evening, exactly 12 hours later. And that on a day that the temperature got up to 36°.

Pronunciation

I grew up in the UK and the US, but have spent most of my adult life in Israel/Palestine. I have done some studying in all three places. However, the majority of my learning has always been from reading.

Adventures in Wikipedia

Kennings are poetic compound-words used in old English and Icelandic literature. Thus, a word for the sea (appearing in The Anglo-Saxon poem, The Wanderer) is "whale road". Compound words are a feature of most Indo-European languages. "Himalaya" means literally "abode of snow". The various kinds of compounds (samasa) were carefully catalogued in Sanskrit, from Tatpurusha to Bahuvrihi. When Homer speaks of "the wine dark sea" (οἶνοψ πόντος) this too is a compound or epithet, rather than a metaphor, as the word "sea" does not appear in the original. The words literally mean wine + faced.

Creating a buzz: Turkish beekeepers risk life and limb to make mad honey

"History is littered with stories of the psychoactive properties of deli bal, still produced today in the Kaçkar mountains"

Affectation

Twice in 24 hours, I’ve come across news articles that muddle the use of the words effect and affect; today it was CNN: ‘Some protesters say this is their last chance to affect change before 2047, when the “one country, two systems” model that Hong Kong is governed by expires.’