Tag: languages

Global Names for the Same Melody | April 05 2025, 14:01

To my surprise, I discovered that our “Dog Waltz” is widely referred to here as “Shave and a haircut,” although in reality, Shave and a haircut is very well known as “knock! knockity-knock-knock… KNOCK-KNOCK!”.

I started digging. In Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Norway, it’s known as the “Flea Waltz” (Flohwalzer). In Bulgaria, it’s called “Cat March” (Bulg. Котешки марш), in Finland — “Cat Polka” (Fin. Kissanpolkka), in Korea — “Cat Dance” (Kor. 고양이 춤 Koyangi Chum), in Japan — “I Stepped on a Cat” (Jpn. 猫踏んじゃった Neko-funjatta), in Mexico — “Little Monkeys” (Spa. Los Changuitos), in Hungary — “Donkey March” (Hun. Szamárinduló), in Majorca — “Polka of Fools” (Spa. Polca de los Tontos), in China — “March of Thieves” (Chi. simpl. 小偷进行曲, pinyin. Xiǎotōu jìnxíngqǔ), in Spain — “The Chocolate Pot” (Spa. La Chocolatera), in France and Poland — “Cutlets (Chops)” (Fr. Côtelettes, Pol. Kotlety), in Switzerland — “Cutlet Waltz” (Ger. Kotelett-Walzer), in Denmark — “Meatballs Escape Over the Fence” (Dan. Frikadellens flugt over plankeværket), in Sweden — “Kalle Johansson” (Swe. Kalle Johansson), and so forth.

The piece is in 4/4 time, by the way. So it is something like a polka or galop. However, in the movie “Gentlemen of Fortune,” it is just the triple meter version found here and here.

Cultural Nuances in Chinese Piano Mastery | March 21 2025, 22:35

I recently heard an interesting thought about why there are so many Chinese on the piano scene, and why they are often associated with astonishing, virtuosic technique, but often lack emotional depth. The idea was that the Chinese language does not facilitate emotional intonation — this reflects on musical phrasing, artistic expressiveness. The tonal nature of Chinese, in which the pitch of vowels in four positions signifies different meanings of words, lacks what is found in the tradition of European languages — expression through intonation in speech as a reflection of human emotions. For the Chinese, expressing emotion through gestures, which in turn fit beautifully into the complex picture of national dance, Chinese theatre, is natural. But not in music. Moreover, for a Chinese person, copying what the best in the world do means much more than trying to create something own, individual. Indeed, we see this not only in music.

Denis Matsuev, when asked by a correspondent how China managed to create a real musical empire from virtually nothing, replied, “Because they present their culture as a national product. Today, if a boy is born in a family, he almost automatically enters a music school.”

The comment about weak intonation — weak compared to the very strong technique — applies to the average mass, but not to the top pianists, of course. But among these top performers, there are more Chinese than any other nationality. For instance, notable are Lang Lang, Yundi Li, Yuja Wang, Muye Wu, Haochen Zhang, and Ji Liu.

I’m thinking, maybe I should write about pianists and composers, as I sometimes write about artists. There’s a wealth of interesting stuff there, but musical videos don’t do so well on Facebook.

(The attached video features a 2.5-year-old)

Exploring the Secret Social Lives of Trees | March 05 2025, 00:14

I learned that trees exhibit a phenomenon called crown shyness, “застенчивость кроны” (see attached picture). Interestingly, it is observed only between the crowns of different trees (not different species, just different trees), but not between branches of the same tree. There’s no definitive explanation, only hypotheses. Apart from the mechanical theory, which inadequately explains its own branches but has weak evidence, there’s also a theory related to light exposure and a chemical theory. Both are somewhat questionable.

Furthermore, I found out that a vast clonal colony of quaking aspen is growing in Utah, USA. It’s the heaviest organism on the planet, all trees of which share the same genetic makeup and root system, covering an area of 43 hectares, and weighing approximately 6000 tons, making it the heaviest known organism. Its origins are estimated to be around 80,000 years old.

Additionally, I recently read that trees communicate with each other via mycorrhizal fungi. They warn their kin about animals that feast on them and pest attacks, and they also share nutrients and water with each other. In Africa, it has been observed that when giraffes start eating the leaves of acacias, the trees begin to release signaling pheromones, which “warn” neighboring trees downwind, and those trees start producing tannins and bitter chemicals. As a result, the giraffes find such tastes disagreeable and move on to search for another group of trees.

Navigating Life in a Spanish-Dominant World | February 25 2025, 23:50

Our half of the planet is primarily Spanish-speaking. 455 million (that’s 91% of all Spanish speakers) compared to 280 million English speakers. In other words, we, with our English, are in the minority here. Hence, it’s no surprise that during all my trips to Mexico and Colombia, my English was of no use to anyone. Even Portuguese is spoken almost as much as English, but Spanish leads the way.

Overall, I’m struggling here without Spanish. Nobody understands me. I have to explain complex concepts like “do you accept cards or only cash” or “how can I get to the library” using hand gestures.

It’s silly to wonder why they don’t teach English properly here. Probably, from their standpoint, we should be the ones learning Spanish, considering they outnumber us twofold, and Spanish is spoken in 19 countries, whereas English, or its variants, just in 13 (among them Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago).

Interestingly, in Canada French is an official language, yet it’s spoken throughout Americas as much as the Quechua language.

But the funniest thing is that the name of the city I’m currently in, Guadalajara, came from the Arabic Wādī al-Ḥijāra, which means “Valley of Stones” or “River flowing through stones.”

Exploring Ojibwe: Language, Cultural Heritage, and Translation Challenges | February 22 2025, 20:55

Interestingly, in the Toronto art museum, all labels are available not only in English and French but also in Ojibwe, also known as Anishinaabemowin (ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᒧᐎᓐ); in the USA, the language is called Chippewa. The ethnonyms “Chippewa” and “Ojibwe” originate from the same word with different pronunciations, meaning “puckered”. It is the language of one of the largest Native American peoples in North America, roughly equal in number to the Cree, and second only to the Cherokee and Navajo. However, only about 10,000 people speak it in the USA and about 48,000 in Canada.

Chipmunk, wigwam, totem – these are borrowings from this language. And as for geographical names – there are loads. Illinois, Mississippi, Ottawa, Michigan.

Did you know that half (25) of the names of American states are named in honor of Native Americans? I found this very surprising at the time.

I inserted into the image another example of original, not adapted for the English alphabet, writing. These are the circles and stars, triangles. This is the Evans syllabic system. I don’t know how one can remember it: it consisted of only nine symbols, each of which could be written in four different orientations to represent different combinations of consonant and vowel. This allowed for a complete recording of the Ojibwe language. However, Evans’ superiors disapproved of his invention and prohibited its use. Later, he adapted his system for writing in Cree. Today, it is still found among some Ojibwe communities in Canada, but its use is limited. It is more common in Cree. In the USA, Ojibwe speakers mostly prefer Latin writing.

ChatGPT recognizes the language, but is unable to translate anything at all. There are also no online translators, and online dictionaries are very poor. Interestingly, the language has enough words to describe modern concepts.

I tried to translate Native expressions, which, according to the author’s intention, were supposed to mean “Europe” and “dilemma”, but nothing similar resulted. Then I compared how different LLMs translate a piece about the historical period of 1910–1930 when “Europe was shaken by war and its consequences”. Each system produces its own version of the text: some talk about the war on the Great Lakes, some about “the great bay” or spiritual practices, somewhere it’s even about protecting the Indian population (I fed them a text about artists). In the end, “war” is somewhat uniformly recognized (apparently, there are fifty words for war there), but the overall meaning varies significantly.

Unique Characteristics and Historical Insights of the French Language | February 19 2025, 04:50

Amusing. It turns out that ù in French exists solely for one single word où (where). Also interesting, the accent mark ^ over a letter, like in û, effectively represents a shortened form of S. For example, forêt, hôpital – these essentially mean forest, hospital, where the s has flown away both in written and spoken language, into the heavens. Likewise, croûton (from croûte) fundamentally comes from the word crust. Similarly, île/isle, hôtel/hostel, bête/beste (beast), côte/coste (coast). Even château — it’s essentially related to castel/castle. The same applies to the beginning of words: école/school, épice/species. And yet, French almost lacks words containing the letter w (but the letter exists!)

Furthermore, it’s intriguing that French and Italian have a lexical similarity of 89%—which means that 89% of the words in these languages are very similar to each other. Hence, it is considered that if the lexical similarity exceeds 85%, they are not languages but dialects 🙂

Also remembering now, in the 18th century, at least in 1789, 50% of the French did not speak French. Predominantly, they spoke in languages of the “langue d’oïl” group and in Occitan dialects. France would need the development of schools to spread the French language. Also interesting, more people speak French in Africa than in France itself.

Exploring Generative Art with Raven Kwok | February 14 2025, 23:52

A fascinating Chinese comrade, Raven Kwok (郭 锐文). He calls himself a visual artist and creative technologist: his work focuses on exploring generative visual aesthetics created through computer algorithms. His works have been exhibited at international media-art and film festivals such as Ars Electronica, FILE, VIS, Punto y Raya, Resonate, FIBER, and others.

His biography also mentions education at the Shanghai Academy of Visual Arts, where he received a bachelor’s degree in photography (2007–2011).

Interestingly, this is not the first time I’ve seen Processing used professionally for such gadgets. I’ve run plotting software on it – a plotter that I’ve seen mounted on two motors at the corners of a large board, with ropes dangling from them supporting a pen. I should take a deeper look at this Processing.

The website has a lot of beautiful content

https://ravenkwok.com/