Random language thread 6

[linguoboy]

The BBC, for instance, publishes news in a wide range of languages, including Chinese: https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp. It also allows you to toggle between Simplified and Traditional. I'm sure some other publications do, too.

[Antea]

Do someone know if people from Pakistan are specially interested in learning Farsi? and if so, is there a special reason, like economic, bussiness or cultural?

[vijayjohn]

Yes, I think lots of people are interested for cultural reasons. I think you can find this to a lesser extent among Indians as well.

[Yasna]

Could you find news sites that aren't specifically Chinese but have Chinese versions of the articles? I can't find the site now, but I've come across European news sites that will display the same article in multiple (European) languages. Perhaps something similar exists for Chinese?

I try to avoid translated material. It doesn't provide me with enough vocabulary and information relevant to the target language country and culture. Translation also tends to make the language of the text less challenging.

The BBC, for instance, publishes news in a wide range of languages, including Chinese: https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp. It also allows you to toggle between Simplified and Traditional. I'm sure some other publications do, too.

I have issues with this kind of news site too. They tend to have some combination of too many translated articles, credulity vis a vis any anti-CCP rumor, too much host country news, and not enough target language country content. One site I find tolerable is Duowei News, but they seem to self-censor a bit despite being based in NYC.

You can tell I've been spoiled for choice in the media of my earlier target languages.

[Saim]

Do someone know if people from Pakistan are specially interested in learning Farsi? and if so, is there a special reason, like economic, bussiness or cultural?

I'd say mainly cultural. It's associated with high-brow Muslim culture and especially poetry (it was the language of the court for all of the Indian Muslim dynasties as far as I'm aware, as well as for some non-Muslim polities like the Maratha and Sikh Confederacies). It's also the source of a massive amount of loanwords for most of the languages of the northern and especially northwestern parts of the subcontinent.

[dEhiN]

Do someone know if people from Pakistan are specially interested in learning Farsi? and if so, is there a special reason, like economic, bussiness or cultural?

I'd say mainly cultural. It's associated with high-brow Muslim culture and especially poetry (it was the language of the court for all of the Indian Muslim dynasties as far as I'm aware, as well as for some non-Muslim polities like the Maratha and Sikh Confederacies). It's also the source of a massive amount for loanwords in most of the languages of the northern and especially northwestern parts of the subcontinent.

What about Urdu? Has Farsi been a source of loanwords for Urdu? Or is it more that Classical Arabic / MSA has influenced simultaneously Urdu and Farsi?

[vijayjohn]

What about Urdu? Has Farsi been a source of loanwords for Urdu?

Gosh, has it ever! For most other languages of the Indian subcontinent as well. There are also Pakistani (and, to a lesser extent, Indian) songs in Persian, as well as some ethnic minorities who speak Persian natively (at least due to refugees immigrating from Afghanistan). Pakistani singers also sometimes do covers of Afghan songs in Dari (i.e. Persian). Apart from one instance of the native possessive particle (necessary to preserve rhyme and I suppose rhythm), every single morpheme in the national anthem of Pakistan is Persian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5uSpWG-_8U
(Nizam-e-sarzameen-e-pak doesn't rhyme with the next line quwat-e-ukhuwat-e-awam and also sounds kind of weird to sing to the tune of that line, so it became Pak sarzameen ka nizam. I'm not sure why the author picked Pak sarzameen instead of sarzameen-e-pak, maybe to avoid associations with this song that was the previous national anthem, which was written by a Hindu at the government's direct request and of course had way more native Indo-Aryan words:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVEHisQ1TfM).

[Saim]

Do someone know if people from Pakistan are specially interested in learning Farsi? and if so, is there a special reason, like economic, bussiness or cultural?

I'd say mainly cultural. It's associated with high-brow Muslim culture and especially poetry (it was the language of the court for all of the Indian Muslim dynasties as far as I'm aware, as well as for some non-Muslim polities like the Maratha and Sikh Confederacies). It's also the source of a massive amount for loanwords in most of the languages of the northern and especially northwestern parts of the subcontinent.

What about Urdu? Has Farsi been a source of loanwords for Urdu? Or is it more that Classical Arabic / MSA has influenced simultaneously Urdu and Farsi?

Yes, absolutely, Urdu has one of the highest amounts of Persian loans of any Indian language, if not the highest (don’t know enough about Pashto, Balochi or Kashmiri to say, but I’d say that Urdu has more Persian loans than Punjabi or Sindhi). Traditionally Arabic loans entered Urdu through Persian.

[Antea]

Thanks for the answers. As I am learning Farsi from some time now, I noticed that in conversation groups there are a lot of people from Pakistan who also wanted to learn Farsi, and I didn't realise why there was so much interest. But yes, I now see that there a lot of cultural influences between them.

[dEhiN]

Thanks for the answers. As I am have been learning Farsi from for some time now, I have noticed that in conversation groups there are a lot of people from Pakistan who also wanted to learn Farsi, and I didn't realise why there was so much interest. But yes, I now see that there a lot of cultural influences between them.

The phrasing, "as I am learning X for some time now", works in colloquial speech, I think. At least, I feel like I've heard native English speakers use that sort of phrasing before. But I associate that with a native speaker who maybe didn't finish high school, or something like that. Also, since you wrote, "who also wanted", you need to say, "I have noticed". If you had used the present tense instead, "who also want", then you could say, "I noticed". Both of these tense/aspect combos convey the idea that the act of noticing started prior to the specific realization that there are people who want to learn Farsi.

[linguoboy]

Thanks for the answers. As I am have been learning Farsi from for some time now, I have noticed that in conversation groups there are a lot of people from Pakistan who also wanted to learn Farsi, and I didn't realise why there was so much interest. But yes, I now see that there a lot of cultural influences between them.

The phrasing, "as I am learning X for some time now", works in colloquial speech, I think. At least, I feel like I've heard native English speakers use that sort of phrasing before. But I associate that with a native speaker who maybe didn't finish high school, or something like that.

Wow, judgy! It works IMD (and, FWIW, not only did I attend college, I even gradgiated.)

Also, since you wrote, "who also wanted", you need to say, "I have noticed". If you had used the present tense instead, "who also want", then you could say, "I noticed". Both of these tense/aspect combos convey the idea that the act of noticing started prior to the specific realization that there are people who want to learn Farsi.

The use of the perfect here is only mandatory in some dialects. For many speakers of American English (and not just those "who maybe didn't finish high school"), "I noticed" would pass without notice in that sentence.

[dEhiN]

Wow, judgy! It works IMD (and, FWIW, not only did I attend college, I even gradgiated.)

My apologies, I didn't mean to come across as judgy. I guess it's a dialectal thing then, since I even talked to another ULer before I posted that reply, and they live in a rural-ish area in the US and had never heard anyone use that phrasing either. But, I should've just left it at it's a colloquial speech thing, instead of adding any associations. In your dialect, would you say it's mostly a speech form, or would you find that in proper written texts (i.e., not social media or text speech)?

The use of the perfect here is only mandatory in some dialects. For many speakers of American English (and not just those "who maybe didn't finish high school"), "I noticed" would pass without notice in that sentence.

That I didn't know. I know the use cases of the perfect differ between North American and British English, but I didn't realize they also differ within various (North) American dialects as well.

[linguoboy]

In your dialect, would you say it's mostly a speech form, or would you find that in proper written texts (i.e., not social media or text speech)?

I'm not really sure what you mean by "proper written texts". (For instance, published novels often contain some very colloquial speech; increasingly, so do essays and other nonfiction.) I would say it's primarily a spoken usage, yes.

The use of the perfect here is only mandatory in some dialects. For many speakers of American English (and not just those "who maybe didn't finish high school"), "I noticed" would pass without notice in that sentence.

That I didn't know. I know the use cases of the perfect differ between North American and British English, but I didn't realize they also differ within various (North) American dialects as well.

Yeah, there are some significant differences within NAE, and it's as much generational as regional.

[Rí.na.dTeangacha]

Just had one of those moments when you realise you've been saying a word wrong for years. I always thought that when people in Portuguese say "I beat myself up about it" in the sense of feeling a sense of shame or embarassment after making a mistake that they were saying "Eu fico me martelizando", from "martelo" - "hammer", i.e. "I'm hammering myself". But they're actually saying "martirizando", "martírio" meaning "martyrdom", so they're "martyring" themselves.

[md0]

It's days like this that remind me why I eventually gave up helping Greek learners with their questions: other Greek speakers. Locked in an endless internet fight with another native speaker over my refusal to accept that a word that appears only 4 times in Google results is a valid word to teach to a learner who is not even able to ask a question in Greek yet.

[Osias]

Just had one of those moments when you realise you've been saying a word wrong for years. I always thought that when people in Portuguese say "I beat myself up about it" in the sense of feeling a sense of shame or embarassment after making a mistake that they were saying "Eu fico me martelizando", from "martelo" - "hammer", i.e. "I'm hammering myself". But they're actually saying "martirizando", "martírio" meaning "martyrdom", so they're "martyring" themselves.

But "martelando a cabeça" also exists.

[dEhiN]

Just had one of those moments when you realise you've been saying a word wrong for years. I always thought that when people in Portuguese say "I beat myself up about it" in the sense of feeling a sense of shame or embarassment after making a mistake that they were saying "Eu fico me martelizando", from "martelo" - "hammer", i.e. "I'm hammering myself". But they're actually saying "martirizando", "martírio" meaning "martyrdom", so they're "martyring" themselves.

But "martelando a cabeça" also exists.

With the same sense? Or does it mean something else? Like, maybe the English "beating one's head against a wall"?

[Osias]

Like the second one, as in "eu fiquei martelando a cabeça pra resolver o problema" but now I thought about it, it also means sometimes an idead that keeps popping up¹ in your head as in "aquilo ficou me martelando a cabeça durante a semana" and also the insistence of another person "minha esposa ficou martelando aquilo na minha cabeça".

¹ I don't use much phrasal verbs, I expect I got it right

[Yasna]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0cqI0HJQsI

[Rí.na.dTeangacha]

I just heard the governor of São Paulo at a press conference specifically addressing the female journalists there on account of it being Women's Day referring to them carrying out their work with "hombridade", here meaning "dignity, nobility" but which has the more transparent (to anyone who knows Spanish, at least) meaning of "manliness". I found it interesting that the connection to Spanish "hombre" isn't obvious enough to a Portuguese speaker to make that choice of words obviously akward in this instance.