John McWhorter About the Untold History of English

I found the book at Coop in Harvard Square and I didn't leave it till getting to the last page. The title is as provocative as the whole book: Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English. The author, John McWhorter, is a linguist passionate for Creole and the way it orginated. Well, the book I've just read demonstrates that Mr. McWhorter sees English like Creole: a mixture of various languages.

Well, we all know that Old English was brought on the island by Anglo-Saxons, that after Hastings Normans brought all kind of French words and that after the Hundred Years War English gave up French and found Latin in his search for high cultured models. Thus we have now doublets like pig and pork, cow and beef, also triplets like to ask, to question, to interrogate.

What we forget is that the specific of a language is not expressed in separate words, rather in sentences, and here comes Mr. McWhorter to start (or to commence) a fight with all other linguists: English grammar was influenced firstly by the native Celts (the use of do in interrogative and negative sentences, not to be found in any other Germanic language; also the use of the Present Continuous, again specific only to English), then by the Vikings (the elimination of all endings for verbs).

Good, and if you read it up to the end (as I did) you'll find out that Proto-German was also kind of Creole: there are plenty of words that do not look at all like their correspondents in the other Indo-European idioms. Here the culprits seem to be the Phoenicians.

Is it true? Mr. McWhorter knows. It's a book you can read easily (if you jump sometimes on some tables of words in English/Welsh/Cornish), and it's very well written.


(A Life in Books)

Thad Wilson at HR-57

Thad Wilson

Louis Malle commissioned Miles Davis in 1957 to score his Ascenseur pour l'échafaud. The movie will be screened at HR-57 tonight, with the score performed live by Thad Wilson Big Band.

HR-57 is a musical center aiming to preserve jazz and blues at their highest quality. It is situated on NW 14th Street, where the great DC jazz world begins.

(from DCist)

And here is just a small excerpt with Thad Wilson Big Band at Bohemian Caverns (NW 11th Street in DC, the Soul Home for Soul):

(video by mollicknj)

(Washington, District of Columbia)

Osamu Tezuka: Memory (1964)

(video by chibura)

Ladies of the PQ: it feels like a segment from a Japanese version of Sesame Street aimed at sardonic adult swingers on drugs (Memory, 1964, by Osamu Tezuka).

(Osamu Tezuka)

A Japanese Cartoon From 1933

(video by miniTAIYAKI)

Ugokie kori no tatehiki by Ikuo Oishi.

In the temple that became ruins, the fox that disguises as the samurai does the fight of magic with Asian racoon's parent and child. It seems that it was influenced from the style of Max Fleischer's cartoons.
(miniTAIYAKI)



(Cinema asiatic)

Osamu Tezuka: The Drop (Shizuku) (1965)

(video by mazubak)

(Shizuku, 1965, by Osamu Tezuka).

(Osamu Tezuka)

Osamu Tezuka: Male (1962)

(video by Patic)

This is the story, as Patic tells it: a tomcat is admonishing his master for losing head over some woman (Male, 1962, by Osamu Tezuka).

(Osamu Tezuka)

Osamu Tezuka: Push (1987)

(video by steptb)

Push (1987): Osamu's vision of our world is not a happy one though it may be a true reflection.

(Osamu Tezuka)

Osamu Tezuka: Mermaid (1964)

(video by Patic)

A boy meets a mermaid, only in that country you cannot day dream as you like. Is the boy Le Petit Prince? Maybe :) (Mermaid, 1964, written by Osamu Tezuka).

(Osamu Tezuka)

Osamu Tezuka

(video by pineapple10)

Osamu Tezuka, God of Manga. Here is his Self Portrait. Other short movies by him will follow in the blog. He was a Medical Doctor who never practiced medicine. instead he gave us Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion, which was fair. A retrospective will be at Freer one of these days. I cannot be there, but I will offer you some of his finest creations. Just enjoy!

• Mermaid (1964)
• Push (1987)
• Male (1962)
• The Drop (Shizuku) (1965)
• Memory (1964)
  

(Cinema asiatic)

Autumn at Kamigamo Shrine

(video by HANAFUBUKI)

Then, Ō-namochi-no-mikoto said:
The Sovereign Grandhild will dwell peacefully in the land of Yamato.

It's autumn now, and it's beautiful. I'm watching this video of Yoko, and my journeys in the parks surrounding DC come to mind. I was coming by metro to Bethesda, I was taking the Capital Crescent Trail and after one hour of walk I was at Little Falls on the Potomac.

Thus saying, he attached his peaceful spirit
To a mirror of large dimensions,
Eulogizing it by the name
Yamato-no-Ō-mono-nushi-Kushi-mika-tama-no-mikoto,
And had it dwell in the sacred grove of Ō-miwa.

There is a small Japanese shrine in DC, on the 16th Street, not far from Rock Creek Trail. I was there only once. It was summer, it happened to be that day the Grand Finale in the World Soccer Championship. I was watching the game my weird way: I was calling Bucharest every fifteen minutes from my cell, and I was asking about the score. Eventually Italy bet France that day.

He caused the spirit of his son
Aji-suki-taka-hiko-ne-no-mikoto
To dwell in the sacred grove of Kamo in Kaduraki;

Here, in this video, Yoko is walking at Kamigamo Shrine, in Kyoto: the place that protects the city. The shrine is the Gate of Hell; okay, let me explain: the hell is outside Kyoto, devils cannot pass the gate.

Caused the spirit of Koto-shiro-nushi-no-mikoto
To dwell in Unade;

Autumn is beautiful, but our feelings are mixed: summer is no more and winter will come soon. The hope for next spring is what warm us up.

And caused the spirit of Kayanarumi-no-mikoto
To dwell in the sacred grove of Asuka.

(The Thousand faces of HANAFUBUKI)