flemmings | (no subject)

I'm at the supermarket today when I suddenly register that the black jacket on the guy in front of me (grey blow-away hair, ancient hippie, rather like myself) has a pattern of the four guardian beasts on the back. Some HK import product, I assume, available maybe in Chinatown? A distinct step up, quality-wise, from the stock imports with mythical beasts on them. 'Scuse me,' I say, 'where'd you get your jacket?' 'I'd tell you but I don't know,' he says. 'Someone left it in a bar and never came back to claim it, so I took it. No idea where it's from except this--' and he shows me the zipper pull which, contrary to all logic, says Nike.

Yeah well- Nike it is. Or was. Googling about finds me only one online, available for a mere 150 euros, or 230 of our dollars. But ohh it would have been cool to have. No pictures do the colours justice, but this comes close. (The page for the original tattoo artist who designed the pattern.) I'd have framed it.

Otehrwise

daegaer links to Top Ten Dying Languages including Yuchi, indigenous to Oklahoma.

Yuchi nouns have 10 genders, indicated by word endings: six for Yuchi people (depending on kinship relations to the person speaking), one for non-Yuchis and animals, and three for inanimate objects (horizontal, vertical, and round).

I think I'm in love.

But c'mon, guys- what's so unique about Guugu Yimidhirr and its brothers?

Guugu Yimidhirr (like some other Aboriginal languages) is remarkable for having a special way of speaking to certain family members (like a man's father-in-law or brother-in-law) in which everyday words are replaced by completely different special vocabulary. For example, instead of saying bama dhaday for "the man is going" you must say yambaal bali when speaking to these relatives as a mark of respect and politeness.

So Japanese doesn't do it *to* relatives, but the existence of taberu and meshiagaru for different people is surely much the same thing?

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the jacket would have indeed been cool to have! It is very beautifully rendered. And how... how could anyone not have come back for it???? The mind boggles.

And that was an interesting link! It gives new meaning to the "Use It or Lose It" campaign we have for the use of second language which here means Mandarin of course ... although it would be nice if the other dialects were used more often. Use it or lose it indeed. Especially if it comes down to the last five or two folk speaking it!

No one uses honorifics in Malay anymore either unless you're royalty, or famous and deceased! @_@

Edited 2008-08-28 02:12 (UTC)

We were speculating (it was a slow-moving line) that the guy might not have remembered leaving it in the bar, or what bar it was he left it in, or even that he'd been to that bar in the first place, depending how far along in the evening it was.

Guy then tells me a news story he'd seen on TV about this English type who couldn't handle white wine (which is unusual but actually reasonable- white has more histamines than red, even if red is the famous migraine triggerer.) But at an art opening some pretty woman handed him a glass of white wine and he thought Oh well why not. Woke up two days later in Belgium with no notion how he'd gotten there.

That is an utterly gorgeous jacket.

And matching shoes to go along! SO COOL.

(Your ladies-or-candlestick icon at last resolves itself into a dragon instead of an I-know-not-what.)

Yes, but on the *soles*. I'd not want to wear mine lest I scuff the lovely picture. 'Tread softly for you tread on my White Tiger of the West.'

Wow, that is indeed a very cool jacket - with matching trainers, no less!! Loving the language article as well - some of those languages sound very interesting!

Interesting, you say?

"74 consonants, 31 vowels, and four tones (voice pitches.)" Abomination! Abomination! Let it die!

Haha! That's a bit harsh! You've gotta respect a language with that many vowels!! Plus the poor bastards trying to speak it. ^^;;;

If I (extremely hypothetically) were to own a pair of those shoes, they would be sitting in a display cabinet, in their original box, with the soles facing up.

three for inanimate objects (horizontal, vertical, and round)

I'm assuming the Yuchi didn't manage to invent writing instruments.

Soles up was my thought too.

I'm assuming the inanimate objects are natural as well. But then, the Yuchi definition of vertical or round might be as different from ours as their grammarians' notion of gender. Or maybe it's not masc-fem grammar gender at all but something else.