LOIS-BUJOLD Digest 984 Topics covered in this issue include: 1) From the Sayouth, Honeh? by Marlene Wilson 2) Listserver Problems by Michael Bernardi 3) Accents, Alphabets & Other Oddities by "James M. BRYANT, G4CLF" 4) Not too OT - Starship Troopers by "James M. BRYANT, G4CLF" 5) Writing English in Cyrillic by "Ellen Blackburn" 6) off-topic; China and the female shortage by Blue 7) Re: Mark & kids by Kay Carrasco 8) yar suffix by Michael Bernardi 9) Kareen & Mark by Ramona Winkelbauer 10) Re: the girl shortage by Debra Fran Baker 11) Filling out forms - OT by "James M. BRYANT, G4CLF" 12) Re: Accents, Alphabets & Other Oddities by hvalli-+AT+-mindspring.com (Heather R. Valli) 13) Re: Not too OT - Starship Troopers by gryphon-+AT+-execpc.com 14) Re: rejection letters - slightly OT by stanley rosen 15) Re: Mark & kids by Paul May & Mel Harris 16) Favorite movies... by gov.legis-+AT+-saipan.com (doug muir) 17) Tolkein movie (OT) by philmfan-+AT+-net-link.net (Steve Salaba) 18) Re: the girl shortage by connery-+AT+-tanner.com (Kevin Connery) 19) Re: the girl shortage by robertaw-+AT+-halcyon.com (Robert A. Woodward) 20) Re: "Postman" by WALTDISNY-+AT+-aol.com 21) shoes, ships, sealing-wax, cabbages, Emperors by Anton Sherwood 22) alphabets by Anton Sherwood 23) Re: Mark & kids by WALTDISNY-+AT+-aol.com 24) Re: the girl shortage by David Samson ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 15:05:52 -0500 From: Marlene Wilson To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: From the Sayouth, Honeh? Message-ID: <3479DE20.7EA5-+AT+-total.net> >> I'd just like to ask >> whether these recordings date from a time when Americans thought >> it prestigious to imitate British pronunciation. >Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery ;-) A local Theatre Books Store (Toronto) has the most fascinating tapes for sale. They are "How-To" tapes on doing accents. Actors, con men, etc. can learn how to modify their vowels, among other things to successfully 'do' foreign accents in English eg: American Southern, Irish, Scots, Aussie... Sounds like the perfect Christmas gift to me.;) ------------------------------------------------------------ Marlene Wilson marwils-+AT+-total.net http://www.total.net/~marwils/Welcomepage.html anagram of the month - On small weiner. CD of the month - Hot - Squirrel Nut Zippers (Mammoth MR0137-2) And it's also a CD-ROM ! (Mac Only) ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 97 20:18:53 0000 (GMT) From: Michael Bernardi To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Listserver Problems Message-ID: <12578.mike-+AT+-dendarii.demon.co.uk> As some of you will know the listserver softwear died on Saturday, and so the list appeared to be suspended. Mel Harper has restarted the system and as you can see list traffic is moving one again. We now return you to your normal service :). Mike -- The Bujold Nexus is at http://www.dendarii.com for lovers of SF and the work of Lois McMaster Bujold. Mirrored at http://www.dendarii.demon.co.uk/Bujold/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 16:07:31 -0100 From: "James M. BRYANT, G4CLF" To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Accents, Alphabets & Other Oddities Message-ID: <3.0.16.19971124142541.40ff0082-+AT+-pop.wokingham.luna.net> Heather Valli says:- >I think that Hungarian is a Slavic language, like Russian, >so some of the words might be similar. Robert A. Woodward adds:- >IIRC, it is in the same language family as Finnish >(and possibly Turkish as well). Hungarian is NOT a Slavic language. It is a member of a group (Ulgarian, Ugarian, Ugaric - not sure and the relevant reference is in a box, and I don't know which box) which contains Finnish (expected you'd know this with your heritage, Heather!), Estonian and some languages used by some minorities in Russia and elsewhere in the old Soviet Union. The group is not related to Turkish if my sources are correct. No doubt Hungarian, and especially modern Hungarian, has a number of words imported from Russian but the two languages are not closely related. James - who can see the similarities in signs in Finland and Hungary (and who wishes his library was Finnish and the books out of boxes) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 16:07:29 -0100 From: "James M. BRYANT, G4CLF" To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Not too OT - Starship Troopers Message-ID: <3.0.16.19971124140402.40ff8c48-+AT+-pop.wokingham.luna.net> Quote from Starship Troopers:- >I added something to myself and Bennie said, "What did you say?" >"Sorry, Bernardo. Just an old saying in my own language. >I suppose you could translate it, more or less, as: >'Home is where the heart is.'" >"But what language was it?" >"Tagalog. My native language." Ivy Yap says:- >Ever since I read this, I've been trying to think of the Tagalog saying >Johnny was referring to. My mother and I have both drawn a blank. RAH may >have been making it up - was he a GI maybe who passed through one of the US >bases here? [A] I suspect that RAH was making it up. He probably rationalised that US influence in the Philippines had, by Johnny Rico's time, led to a Tagalog translation of the English (American) proverb. [B] Heinlein was invalided out of the US Navy - dunno if he ever served in the Philippines. I think GI refers to the Army only (can some American comment on this please?) James - whose library has been started. They have cast the concrete bedding pads near the top of the (100 year old limestone) walls which must now harden for a week before two 10 metre long, one tonne each, rolled steel joists are lifted into the roof space to rest on them. Building the library on them will be (relatively) easy. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 16:47:18 -0500 From: "Ellen Blackburn" To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Writing English in Cyrillic Message-ID: <9711241647.ZM7569-+AT+-clay> John Bishop wrote: u u u u u u u u > YAT A CNNCTEM! DYY NYY TbNHK NT YOPKC? AN DYY. > > -DbOH OK, I know enough about the Cyrillic alphabet to be able to translate this comment, but I am sort of confused about how it relates to the phonetic list that proceeded it. This may be due to my basic ignorance of the field of linguistics, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who could use some further explanation. I thought the list was meant to be show of which letter or combination of letters in each alphabet represents each phoneme in your system. But that doesn't match the way your sample is written. For example, in the list, you match up the 'n' phoneme with the English 'n' and Cyrillic 'N'. But in your sample, you use the standard Cyrillic N sounding consonant H, while N is a short i (also not matching the list.) The same situation applies in at least 4 other cases that I noticed, and there are some letters in your sample that don't show up anywhere in your list. (Or was I suppossed to know that an I-kratkoya is an N with a swoop over it?) Perhaps there is some other way to interpret this list which I am simply missing? Can you clarify this, please? Ellen -- Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on. - Sir Winston Churchill ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 16:47:38 -0500 From: Blue To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: off-topic; China and the female shortage Message-ID: <3479F5F7.AC3C6D45-+AT+-uky.campus.mci.net> For those who have been writing about the shortage of females in China, that is a particular interest of mine and I would appreciate any bibliography that you could give me. And, if anyone else has any information about this, e-mail me with it please. -- Som bicha le, bara tomtika mamichita. [o = owe; i = ee; a = awe; e = long a (like "lay")] If you know where this comes from, you've watched something way too many times. Blue 47/Annabel Leigh/Jhoto/RB ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 14:52:10 -0700 From: Kay Carrasco To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: Mark & kids Message-ID: <3479F70A.166-+AT+-rt66.com> Jean Cain writes, RE Mark and children: > I see his major problem being *fear* of not being a good father. I agree. Despite his many problems, Mark is not an inherently bad person, and he really *wants* to be a good one. He'd want to be a good husband, a good father too. But that damage is deep, and I think there are more fears than "just" the one of history repeating itself. There's also the probable fear of being close to a small child and dealing with what will surely be horrible flashbacks to his own life at those ages. Imagine what an ordeal it would be for Mark to take his child to the doctor for a simple vaccination, for instance; he knows it won't be that awful, just a tiny, temporary sting, BUT... when *he* was carted off to doctors, he was tortured! At every turn, with his own child, he'd be staring into the mirror of his own memories. Terrible! Jean adds: > And I think he will have no clue about disciplining his children. > Probably alternating inconsistently between the two extremes. > Discipline would be best left to Kareen. Probably so, or at least until Mark got a little more confidence in his own abilities with it, but I can't imagine either of them being content with this lopsided division of the parenting tasks on a permanent basis. Kareen certainly has observed marriage-as-partnership with her own folks, and Aral/Cordelia as a second, and reinforcing, influence. I think she'd want much that same pattern, at the very least. Mark, too, has seen at least a glimpse of it. Cordelia may have had to push him some, but Aral *did* make the effort to try to connect with Mark. He wasn't an absentee father, despite his killing schedule; remember him telling Mark that he'd quite ruthlessly carved time out of it to spend with Miles, especially early on. That's an important example and even if Mark might've reacted with a bit of jealousy over it, at the same time he was impressed by it. I believe he'll want to emulate it, too. What I wonder is whether Cordelia is thinking far enough ahead to see these parenting problems looming. She's very perceptive and all, but I got the impression that when she agrees to discuss Mark's problems with Kareen, that her focus is on only the immediate hurdle, the sexual and social difficulties. Is she just taking it one step at a time, or has she simply not thought of these further ramifications? Curious.... Another thing I've always wondered about: Why did Kareen make such an effort to befriend Mark in the first place? Just her nature to be kind and generous? (This one gets my vote.) Or pity? Or curiosity? Or an opportunity for social advancement? (Colder than I have her pictured.) Whatever is was that motivated her to try, I do believe that she genuinely came to like him, and that her fondness for him continues to be entirely real. I just wondered what, exactly, made her make that first step? Jump right in.... -- Kay ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 97 20:57:17 0000 (GMT) From: Michael Bernardi To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: yar suffix Message-ID: <12580.mike-+AT+-dendarii.demon.co.uk> In a message to the Lois-Bujold List Number Ten Ox said: > Being a native Russian/Ukrainian speaker, I guess I'll contribute. :) > 'Yar' has two meanings: it is either Ukrainian for 'ravine', or (if you > soften the final 'r' sound) it is a no-longer-used Russian word for > 'Fury' or 'Courage'. > Neither makes very much sense when substituted into the book usage, but > speculating about how the name might've come about is fun. Gotta love > literary etymology. :) I suspect that once again retroactive entymology strikes :). See also counts (accountant) and wasn't Vor russian for theif? Mike -- The Wrede Files is now at http://www.dendarii.demon.co.uk/Wrede/ For information on fantasy writer Patricia C Wrede ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 14:53:16 -0800 (PST) From: Ramona Winkelbauer To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Kareen & Mark Message-ID: <19971124225316.5181.rocketmail-+AT+-web4.rocketmail.com> Kay Carrasco wondered why Kareen "grabbed" Mark (in her message addressing Mark & his kids). IMVB&PO: Kareen latches onto Mark because: 1) His novelty ('brand new & Galactically educated' age mate) 2) Height (remember, Miles is in to "Mt. climbing" and Kareen is the shortest Koudelka) 3) He's not an octopus (at first he's too shy) 4) A Vorkosigan [Subversive note: who will guard whom? Kareen guarding Mark from the social sharks vs. Mark guarding Kareen from the physical threats vs. learning to guard each other] These may be the initial attractants, but I think Zsa Zsa has a point that "love" shouldn't be the single sole factor in marriage/divorce. And, I believe that Kareen had found other attractions in Mark after the initial impression. Ramona ************************************* Getting divorced just because you don't love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do. --Zsa Zsa Gabor __________________________________________________________________ Sent by Yahoo! Mail. Get your free e-mail at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 17:56:20 -0500 (EST) From: Debra Fran Baker To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: the girl shortage Message-ID: <199711242256.RAA27841-+AT+-panix.com> > I'd say all of the above. One important and vocal segment of the prolife > movement does seem to contain infertile couples. Those who are having > trouble adopting white infants (and can't adopt over racial boundaries in > this country, due to various reasons I won't get into for lack of > space/motivation/etc.) naturally feel a certain amount of unpleasant emotion > over abortion, though many of these people also end up working in pregnancy > counselling centers and probably try to guide some women into considering > adoption instead of abortion (when physical health reasons aren't the > problem, anyway). Not all infertile couples feel that way. My husband and I have religious reasons to A. not approve of abortion on demand but B. recognize that it needs to exist. I have no interest in forcing a girl to carry a baby just so I can be a mother. However, such babies are getting rarer and rarer, and are in hands of lawyers instead of agencies. That runs into money that isn't covered by insurance, money which may have been eaten up by fertility doctors. -- One sharp peppercorn is better than a basketful of melons. -- Tractate Megillah 7A ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Debra Fran Baker dfbaker-+AT+-panix.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 18:24:23 -0100 From: "James M. BRYANT, G4CLF" To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Filling out forms - OT Message-ID: <3.0.16.19971124180655.34bfb5b2-+AT+-pop.wokingham.luna.net> Nicolette van der Walt asks me for inspiration in completing a form which asks:- Population Group: __________ I assume that the question actually means:- Are you Black, Brown, White or Yellow? ___________ One problem here is that she may actually want to be accepted on her degree course. If this is not a consideration I might suggest that she choose the most offensive name for the race of which she is an ornament (I don't know South African slang well enough to suggest best usage here), on the grounds that since she is describing herself there is nobody with a better right to be offended, and if she isn't who else dare? Or she could assume they are asking about sexual orientation. Or advertisers' demographic groupings (but with South Africa's recent history these may well have a racial element). Or yuppy, dink, etc. (I dunno the full set.) Or personal philosophy (utilitarian, aquarian, manichean, etc.) Or religion (but in some places this gives a clue to race). Or political affiliation. Or family structure (i.e. "grandfathers", "youngest daughters", or "wicked stepmothers"). Or ancestry - in terms of geographic origin, not race. (This could be made to be very misleading in some cases.) Or she could write "Top of the food chain". Or she could claim (ObBujold) to be a member of the Dendarii. James - who would personally write "explosive" (as in "population explosion") EurIng. James M. Bryant, FBIS, MIEE, G4CLF 12, Redfield Road, Midsomer Norton, Nr. Bath, BA3 2JN, England. Tel: (+44)(0)1761-418214 Fax: (+44)(0) 1761-411695 (Not working yet) Mobile: (+44)(0) 385-305598 http://www.luna.co.uk/~jbryant/home.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 18:41:15 -0500 (EST) From: hvalli-+AT+-mindspring.com (Heather R. Valli) To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: Accents, Alphabets & Other Oddities Message-ID: >> >>> >>>(BTW for Steven Brust fans, in the Vlad Taltos books the language that >>>the Serioli use is (at least part) Russian. We only get a few words in >>>Brokedown Palace and in the Khaavren Romances, but they're there.) >>> >> >>-- >>>rblee-+AT+-pandora.physics.calpoly.edu - rblee-+AT+-impulse.net >>>All truths have a context. >> >>Are you sure it's not Hungarian? I think that S. Brust is very big on his >>Hungarian heritage, speaks at least a little of the language, and so forth. >>I think that Hungarian is a Slavic language, like Russian, so some of the >>words might be similar. >> > >Hungarian is not Slavic, or Indo-European for that matter. IIRC, it is in >the same language family as Finnish (and possibly Turkish as well). > >Robert A. Woodward robertaw-+AT+-halcyon.com >----------------------------------------------------------------------------- >"Did it never occur to any of you three young louts that _I_ would wish to >be informed?" >Lady Alys Vorpatril expresses annoyance in _Memory_. I've seen the Finno-Ugraic (sp?) branch on charts of the Indo-European languages, albeit on a little branch all it's own. I thought that the only language related to Finnish was some sort of Maygar gypsy language--not "regular" Hungarian. Anyway, Slavic or not, Brust is on record as being very much into his Hungarian heritage, and I believe that that's what he uses as the basis for his "foreign" language in his Taltos books. H. Valli ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 17:45:43 -0600 (CST) From: gryphon-+AT+-execpc.com To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: Not too OT - Starship Troopers Message-ID: <199711242345.RAA17737-+AT+-core0.mx.execpc.com> On Mon, 24 Nov 1997, Mitch Hagmaier wrote: >Ivy V. Yap wrote: >> RAH may have been making it up - was he a GI maybe who passed >> through one of the US bases here? >He was a naval officer in the '30s, and spent WWII in a bright-ideas >research group with other SF authors like Azimov According to a PBS show I saw, oh, too many years ago now, he was put to work designing aircraft carriers in WWII. The man was an engineer by training, IIRC. And yes, James, "GI" is strictly Army. IIRC, the "GI" stood for "General Issue". Marines are "Jarheads" and the navy guys were traditionally "Swabbies" (I'm not sure why; swabbing the decks, maybe?), although that term has pretty much fallen out of general use. Diane E Who grew up around far too many military bases in Puget Sound ;> "You know, Zaphod, if I had two heads like you do I could have great fun banging them against a wall." F. Prefect # D Echelbarger gryphon-+AT+-execpc.com # # WWW HomePage: http://www.execpc.com/~echelbar/ # ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 18:50:51 -0500 From: stanley rosen To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: rejection letters - slightly OT Message-ID: <1.5.4.32.19971124235051.006af1c8-+AT+-acs-mail.bu.edu> Kathy Bennett wrote: >Since several listees are frustrated SF writers, struggling writers, wannabe >writers, etc, I thought it might be interesting to share rejection letter >stories. If anyone has a good one, please jump write (erg, that was a >mistake, not enough caffeine this morning), right in. > >All my rejection letters fr5om publishers have been pretty straightforward, >along the lines of, "Thank you for your recent submission, but XXXXXXXX does >not have a need for whatever it was you sent us at this time." However, I >have a few classics from my legal career. And I from my career as a student an job applicant. Actually, most rejec- tions I've received have been polite, but when Princeton rejected me, I was offended by the psychobabble it contained. I don't remember the exact words, but there was some needless blather about this being the best time of your life. Harvard was at least to the point: Sorry, we don't have room for every applicant. My father later talked to someone in the Prince- ton admissions office, and the problem was that while I was academically strong, they were concerned that I wouldn't fit into the social life of the dormitories. >UT Law School -- besides declining to enroll me, they misspelled my name and >sent the rejection letter postage due. Ah, UT. I went there as a grad student after being graduated from Amherst. I remember that they had been sent my transcripts, but demanded another set, claiming not to have the first batch. I figured that I might have screwed up, the Amherst College bureuacrats might have screwed up, the UT bureaucrats might have screwed up, or the U.s. Postal service might have screwed up, so I sent away for another batch of transcripts, and hand-delivered them to the appropriate office at UT. Then I got yet another complaint that they didn't have my transcripts. I took the cancelled check made out to the Amherst College Registrar's Office to some senior official at UT, and to give him credit, I didn't have any more trouble. And then there was my rejection letter from _Sixty Minutes_. I had written suggesting that they do a story on land value taxation as an alternative to the usual land-and-buildings property tax, and got back a letter suggesting that I go elsewhere for help with my personal problems. Regards, Nicholas Rosen (not Stanley). ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 11:01:18 +1100 From: Paul May & Mel Harris To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: Mark & kids Message-ID: <1.5.4.32.19971125000118.0069cb58-+AT+-mail.atrax.net.au> Heather Valli said: > Anyway, Mark really has no idea of how parents should act around small > children. He knows how he was raised, but he probably figures that that is > not the gold standard in parenting. He can see how his parents treat him > now, but that's different from raising and disciplining a small child. Is > this something even Betan therapy could help him with? If he and Kareem get > married and have kids how do you all think he'll cope? I don't think Betan therapy as such would help, apart from calming down any tendency to go ballistic when the kids do something Bad - but what's to stop him and Kareen taking the Betan parenting courses? Mel the Redcap - Kax & Mel the Redcap | Paul May & Mel Harris - - MIB Operatives 1138 & 8129 | Professional Cat Ownees - - Guerilla Ontologists | c/- for Max McMurphy - - Convention games and Freeforms/LRPs done while you wait. - Never trust a prescription that has one pill in it. C. J. Cherryh ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 10:36:51 +1000 From: gov.legis-+AT+-saipan.com (doug muir) To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Favorite movies... Message-ID: > In my original post, I named my three favorite movies. What they >have in common is simple: They tell a *story*. They have *heroes* who >make *heroic choices*. They end *triumphantly*, if not (arguably) >happily ever after {well, _Shawshank_ pretty much does so}. Those are >the most important yardsticks by which I measure a "great" movie, and I >find it sad how few films even pass that preliminary test nowadays. > ObBujold: I love her books for the precise same reasons I love >those movies: Story. Heroes. Heroic choices. Triumph. > In-teresting. What about those of us who really, really liked "Brazil" (the original uncut version? Or, oh, "Dangerous Liaisons"? Story is very nearly a must... there are exceptions, but they are rare. I think that a movie needs a story even more than a book does. But I believe the other three -- heroes, choices, triumph -- are matters of personal taste. "Liaisons", for instance, has none of these but is still an excellent movie. Doug M. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 21:11:16 -0400 From: philmfan-+AT+-net-link.net (Steve Salaba) To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Tolkein movie (OT) Message-ID: <199711250205.VAA15591-+AT+-serv01.net-link.net> Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that a year or so ago my friends and I (collectively known as SpaceTime Theater) did a sketch at ConClave called "The Road to Mordor". It was a combination of "Lord of the Rings" and a Bob Hope/Bing Crosby "Road" movie. We hope to reprise it at some future con. And,to keep this a bit more on topic, we also did a "Vorkosigan" sketch at another ConClave (I played Miles - on my knees). We reprised it at last year's Windycon so Her Ladyship could see it, but unfortunately, she had to catch an early plane. We hope to send her a video tape of it someday... Steve "former leader of the Dandruffi Mercenaries" Salaba philmfan-+AT+-net-link.net ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 18:13:23 -0800 (PST) From: connery-+AT+-tanner.com (Kevin Connery) To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: the girl shortage Message-ID: <199711250213.SAA14688-+AT+-suntan2.tanner.com> Michael Watson wrote: > On a less morbid note: motherhood really agrees with my > friend, and daughter is cute as a button & smart as a whip. Maybe this better falls into the language discussion: Just how cute IS a button, and how much brains does it take to be a whip? --kdc ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 18:24:20 -0800 From: robertaw-+AT+-halcyon.com (Robert A. Woodward) To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: the girl shortage Message-ID: <199711250222.SAA17286-+AT+-smtp4.nwnexus.com> >Michael Watson wrote, RE a friend's adoption of a Chinese baby: > >> Here's a bizzare thought: she found out some months later that one of >> the attendants at the orphanage had fought like mad against the >> adoption, because she was convinced that the child was being bought as >> an organ donor. > > This is a rumor which also circulates in Mexico and Latin America, >causing problems for Norte Americanos who live there--it's said that >some of them are just fronts for the kidnapping rings, chanelling the >stolen children to the States. Ugly and scarey, huh? A rumor that appeared to have been spread (if not originated, I have my suspicians) by various agit-prop organs of the KGB back in the 80's. OBBujold note: I suspect that ImpSec under Mad Yuri acted a lot like the KGB (and predecessors) did in the Soviet Union. Robert A. Woodward robertaw-+AT+-halcyon.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Did it never occur to any of you three young louts that _I_ would wish to be informed?" Lady Alys Vorpatril expresses annoyance in _Memory_. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 21:25:41 -0500 (EST) From: WALTDISNY-+AT+-aol.com To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: "Postman" Message-ID: <971124212541_2027834483-+AT+-mrin52.mail.aol.com> I read the book in a SciFi english class (coincidently, the same class that introduced me to LMB, taught at her Alma-matter). The discussion about it led to the argument over whether it could be classified as SciFi. It was concluded that it was borderline social ScfiFi. They were talking about it being a Costner film back then. Who's playing the Villian Millitia-man? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 18:36:46 -0800 (PST) From: Anton Sherwood To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: shoes, ships, sealing-wax, cabbages, Emperors Message-ID: <199711250236.SAA15059-+AT+-netcom7.netcom.com> : >(BTW for Steven Brust fans, in the Vlad Taltos books the language that : >the Serioli use is (at least part) Russian. We only get a few words in : >Brokedown Palace and in the Khaavren Romances, but they're there.) : : Are you sure it's not Hungarian? I think that S. Brust is very big on his : Hungarian heritage, speaks at least a little of the language, and so forth. : I think that Hungarian is a Slavic language, like Russian, so some of the : words might be similar. Russian and English are much more closely related to each other than (if at all) to Hungarian. The Russian words for _two, three_ are _dva, tri_; the Hungarian words are _ketto", haarom_. But Hungarian may well have plenty of borrowed Slavic words. It also has some grammatic features (patterns, not actual words or word-elements) in common with Rumanian and Serbo-Croatian. -=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==---=-==-==- (for Starship Troopers) : Remember these kids are supposed to have just graduated from HS, : and as it was they looked like they were about 27/28. How about "Ricky" from My So-Called Life? =-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-= : I always figured that if he hadn't gotten over his shyness, : Cordilia would have helped him with it. Perhaps even to go : as far as arranging an rendezvous. She is after all one of : those twisted sex-crazy Betans!! On Beta, perhaps? (Had Gregor ever left Barrayar/Komarr space before tVG?) -==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-== (memorial ceremony) : > Did Cordelia and Elena do one for Bothari? : : ... I considered Cordelia's watching Miles dig : Bothari's grave her form of the ceremony (making allowances for Betan : traditions.) I don't remember anything about Elena performing one... Didn't Miles get a bit of hair from Elena Sr for her? Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher-+AT+-netcom.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 18:40:40 -0800 (PST) From: Anton Sherwood To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: alphabets Message-ID: <199711250240.SAA15397-+AT+-netcom7.netcom.com> (on the Japanese syllabary) : Yep, though I think there's one symbol which isn't a consonant-vowel pair : and that's the 'n' sound that sometimes gets stuck in places, as in 'Ranma' : (Ra-n-ma but of course I can't draw the symbols on here...check out your : local anime store for what they look like) except that _Ranma_ is written in kanji (it appears to mean `chaos horse'; anybody know what his father's name _Genma_ means?). Another special character is a small meaning that the following consonant is doubled - thus TEKKA (if not in kanji) may be written TE tu KA. katakana is the angular form used for foreign words (and for emphasis); hiragana is the cursive form used for Japanese words. ==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-= : > Finally, I blush to reveal that it wasn't until my most : > recent reading of _Shards_ that I realized there was a : > "-yar" suffix: : > Sergyar is named after Prince Serg, as : > Barrayar is named after the VorBarra family : > There must be other such plums waiting to be discovered... : : Is -yar Russian? Does anyone know what it means? (-land, -planet, ???) Doubt it. I'll bet it's a case of reverse etymology, like Jack Chalker's use of _were_ (to mean a shapeshifter in general) from _werewolf_. That is, LMB decided _yar_ was a suffix *after* she had named Barrayar. ==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==- One of the Esperantist magazines, maybe twenty years ago, received a letter from Bulgaria - in Esperanto, of course - from someone who couldn't get access to a Latin typewriter, so he used a Cyrillic one. The letter was quite legible ... to those who know Esperanto and the Cyrillic alphabet. (Given that Esperanto was invented by a Pole, it's not surprising that Cyrillic should be well adapted to its inventory of consonants.) : As far as how alphabets develop, I don't know much about it, but aren't : there several cases where alphabets have been deliberately switched? : Turkey for starters. And I think someone (forgot who, sorry!) mentioned : a location where in 3 generations people were using arabic, cyrillic and : english alphabets, not neccesarily in that order. I said that: Azerbaijan (article in the Atlantic Monthly, less than a year ago). Same goes for Kazakhstan etc, I believe: they're all Moslem, speaking Turkic languages, formerly using Arabic script; the Communists taught them first Latin then Cyrillic. Now the Azeris (at least) are hesitantly moving to Latin script, of the variety designed for Turkish. (Arabic script isn't really well suited to non-Semitic languages.) Mongolian, too, was written in Cyrillic during Communism; they've now reverted to their native script, which looks like Arabic sideways. Swahili was written in Arabic until the British showed up. : And isn't there also a relatively recent bunch of chinese letters : or figures to use for foreign or newer words that there aren't : characters for or for typing and such? There is a Chinese phonetic alphabet called Bopomofo. It's used in Taiwan as annotation, to help readers with unfamiliar logograms. I don't know what else it's used for. You might have a look for a slender illustrated book called WRITING SYSTEMS OF THE WORLD by Nakanishi. Being translated from Japanese, it has a few errors in phonology, but it's generally good. Each national script is illustrated with a page of a newspaper! : I don't know any details, but it seems to me that alphabets are : largely a matter of convention. Entirely. Like language in general, only more so. =-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-==-= : How does one write what is apparently English, yet use the Cyrillic : alphabet? It would seem to me that the two wouldn't be quite compatible, : if not outright clash. Isn't the purpose of different alphabets to : create the various subtleties of pronunciation in different languages? Strictly speaking, no: most languages are written in the native script of whoever taught them to write (as mutated over time) - thus Europe uses the alphabet of the Roman Church, the Romans learned to write from the Etruscans, the Etruscans from the Greeks, the Greeks from the Phoenicians ... (Note that while Latin and Greek are related, Phoenician was a Semitic language and Etruscan has no known relatives.) At each transfer, a script necessarily gets somewhat *adapted* to the requirements of the adoptive language (thus most languages that use Latin script add some squiggles to it), but there are *very* few examples of a script invented (by people who knew about writing in other languages) for a particular language, rather than adapting an existing script; the only ones that come to my mind are Korean, Cherokee, Cree/Eskimo missionary (19C) and Hmong (1970s). (All of these are syllabaries, by the way, though a Korean syllable-sign is made up of discrete phonemic parts.) If the Latin alphabet could be adapted to write English, Polish and Finnish, I can't see why any other couldn't likewise be adapted. Sure if you try to write English in Cyrillic *using Russian sound-values* you get a mess, but no worse than if you try to write English using Italian sound-values. So forget about Russian, and find a way to use Cyrillic letters that's appropriate for English. Cyrillic has nine to fifteen vowel-letters, which surely could be used to represent English vowels better than the five or six vowel-letters of Latin. Cyrillic has single letters for /ch/, /sh/, /zh/; none for /th/ or /w/, but then Latin hasn't got em either. (Cyrillic formerly had theta, pronounced /f/ as in Timofei; that could be revived for /th/. We needn't distinguish /th/ from /dh/, as there are only about three word-pairs in English where the distinction matters; "thy thigh" is one.) =-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-=-==-==-=-==-= Speaking of Dennis the syndicalist, the last time I saw him he was doing something I couldn't remember having seen him do before: he was walking by in the background (still talking) as Sir Robin was about to meet the Three-Headed Knight. This is not in the script (as I have it); could Comedy Central have been showing "the director's cut" that night? Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher-+AT+-netcom.com "I'm thirty-seven. I'm not old." ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 21:51:34 -0500 (EST) From: WALTDISNY-+AT+-aol.com To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: Mark & kids Message-ID: <971124215134_748807552-+AT+-mrin39> IMHO, if Mark can get his own problems under control he'll do fine. If he's stable enough to hold together a healthy, stable, relationship with Kareen, he'll do fine as a father. Men in general (IMHO) don't have many instinctive parenting skills, so I think they look to their mates for ALOT of guidance, especially in the early years. And by all accounts, the Koudelka Girls should be excellent teachers. Also, don't under-estimate Mark's negitive up-bringing. A person can learn alot from a negitive example. You merely have to do the opposite. I learned much from my parents that way (sorry mom). ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 04:15:24 -0800 From: David Samson To: lois-bujold-+AT+-herald.co.uk Subject: Re: the girl shortage Message-ID: <34796FDC.5005-+AT+-worldnet.att.net> Michael Watson wrote: > > >> But what then is being done to prevent families from > >> leaving girl babies at the door of the local orphanage, > >> where it will (most likely) die from marasmus, and the > >> family can then register as childless and try again? > >> > > I picked up a rumor than American single women and lesbian couples > >are adopting Chinese 'orphan' girls, and the Chinese government is not > >putting any obstacles in their way. Blessed are the adopters. > > > > I can confirm the rumor that American single women are adopting Chinese > "orphan" girls. An unmarried female friend of mine in Casper, Wyoming > recently adopted a little Chinese girl (age 6 or 8 mos. at the time). > There was even an agency that specialzed in making the necessary > arrangements. > > Here's a bizzare thought: she found out some months later that > one of the attendants at the orphanage had fought like mad > against the adoption, because she was convinced that the child > was being bought as an organ donor. This really bothered my > friend, who tried to send reassurances to the orphanage that > this was *not* the case, but the attendant remained unconvinced. > This is apparently not too uncommon a misapprehension in > some circles in China. Suspicions like this go all the way > back to the Boxer Rebellion (c. 1900), when all sorts of > inflammatory rumors circulated, including the rumor that > Chinese orphans were being killed by westerners so that > their body parts could be used in the manufacture of > medicines. Shades of Jackson's Whole! > > On a less morbid note: motherhood really agrees with my > friend, and daughter is cute as a button & smart as a whip. > > ************************************ > * Michael Watson * > * mwatso-+AT+-gopher1.library.lsumc.edu * > ************************************ This morning one of the recent Chinese PW's released said that some prisoners were being killed and their kidneys being sold.... David ------------------------------ End of LOIS-BUJOLD Digest 984 *****************************