Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Movie Review: Avatar (but mostly Na'vi)

Those who know my obsession with languages, real or imagined, will not be astonished that I went twice to Avatar, once for the experience and once for the language (and the 3D). I do this with rented movies, too, rewatching them with the commentary on - as archaeologists well know, sometimes there are nuggets among the trash; of course, it's a lot cheaper with rented movies!

I shall first say that I was pleasantly surprised by the additional information and coherence that a second viewing of Avatar afforded (although the particulars would betray the plot too much). I may actually read the novelization of the movie for the extra anthropological/linguistic/historical information. What most interested me, of course, was the alien language, Na'vi, which was constructed with care by an accredited linguist. One thing that irks me about poorly written fantasy novels, such as that written by Tolstoy's great-greandson, even more than the hackneyed plots is the lack of effort which goes into the creation of believable languages. I would not expect anyone to top Tolkien, a genuine language professor, but it seems to me that if you wain the want to use a fictional language and are uninterested  in the details, you should crib a grammar of a real, possibly obscure, language rather than half-heartedly attempting to make one up, or else settle on differences in dialect and prosody to distinguish your fantasy races.

I was pleased at the extensive (for a film) use of Na'vi, by characters who would find it useful or necessary, even if the biosphere (and language) seemed a bit "It was raining on Mongo that day". Soldiers and anthropologists have competing but compelling reasons to learn the native tongue. Once I had seen Avatar once, I looked up the Na'vi language on Wikipedia, and was pleased and amused to see the list of features which were combined to form a language which humans could learn, but was unlike any human language. Na'vi features clusivity (which would make some the insider/outsider dialog of the movie particularly interesting), three grammatical numbers (singular, dual, and trial), Celtic-like lenition, Russian-like short forms (in combination with lenition!), Algonquin-style infixation, the bane of the English settlers of the New World. One can sympathize with the complaints of the protagonist about the difficulties of learning Na'vi! This particular combination of features renders the language natural but not transparent, which is one of the risks of a lazy movie linguist. The lyrics of the songs were in Na'vi, no doubt inspired by the use of Quenya and Sindarin in the LOTR movie trilogy, although there are songwriters here and there who have felt moved to sing in a language of their own. I would be interested to see the dialog of the Na'vi-speaking actors, since the use of clusivity and "attitude" infixes would make the disposition and political orientation of the Na'vi actors much clearly in their native tongue.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Bias

Given certain recent misunderstandings, I feel it imperative that I explain my position more clearly regarding the liberal bias of the majority of the media.

As an historian and classicist, and an attentive student of Mr Honick's high school history class, I am well aware that unbiased information does not exist. Even the most sterile scientific data has a bias, since human beings decided which data to collect, where it would be collected, and at what intervals the measurements would be taken. News scavengers have to choose which data to collect, and out of that information which data to present and how to present it (hard news? fluff story? scare tactics?). I actually have a soft spot for ancient historians, who wore their hearts on their sleeves; for the same reason, I feel more comfortable with Fox News than "liberal" networks and fundamentalist Christians than some "tolerant" liberals; I know where I stand with them, and I am sufficiently comfortable with my own opinions to not waver.

The existence of bias, however, does not means it is a positive thing, just as the existence of evil does not make it a perverse form of good. I take issue with extreme bias of all forms; despite the rather provocative sentence in the preceding paragraph, I am not a fan of either Fox news or fundamentalism. The difference is that the bias on the liberal side is better hidden, and therefore harder to ameliorate. The crevasses in Antarctica are dangerous because you can't spot them.

The increasing fragmentation of media makes the general populace ever more vulnerable to news that is heavily weighted to a single viewpoint. The weakness of human beings to a "confirmation bias", in which one listens more carefully to something with which one agrees, is well-known in media and advertising circles ("confirmation bias" doesn't seem evolutionarily beneficial, but that's a topic for another day). It's easy to become addicted to one news source, whether that be Fox or CNN or NPR, and let it color your world view.

Satire, although it is an ancient and potent solution and therefore dear to the heart of this Classics major, is only a partial solution. Satire is useful in several ways: it can be used even if (especially if) the satirist possesses the opposite bias of the satirized, and satire's acerbic nature makes it memorable. Satire, however, is a parasitic genre: it depends on its audience knowing something about the subject it satirizes, or else descends into uninformed invective, which is no better than listening to a non-satiric programs which shares the bias of the satirist.

The only solution (ut opinor) for avoiding bias as much as possible in an increasingly fragmented media landscape is a diligent effort to read news sources from different viewpoints. The problem here, of course, is that it takes mental effort to synthesize any thesis and its antithesis, and many people are unwilling to expend that effort, when it is easier and simpler to hold onto their beliefs.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Lesson 14: Interrogative Pronouns

 As the angels say unto men, "Do not fear!", for I have not abandoned my Hawaiian project. Lesson 14 is the interrogative pronouns. An interrogative pronouns is not one which strings you up for the bastinado, although the sorts who would do that do use a lot of interrogative pronouns; an interrogative pronoun is simply one that asks a question. Some of the "pronouns" in Judd strike me more as adverbs than pronouns, especially in a language with such a tenuous case system, but let us not quibble. The most striking feature of the pronouns in this lesson is the predominance of the element hea. This element is the latter component of a compound of which the former is a preposition or functioning prepositionally. The word heaha "what?" appears to display the inverse situation, but alas this is an illusion, and heaha is composed of he aha, in which he is the indefinite pronoun, and aha indicates "why?what?". The use of the indefinite here contrasts with the use of the definite ke in another interrogative, no ke aha, "why?", which is literally "for the what?", a phrase which corresponds in form and meaning with the archaic English interrogative "wherefore", whereof I have an inordinate fondness.

Another intriguing feature of the interrogative pronouns is the incorporation of time into the forms of the question "when?". Hawaiian does not depend on the tense of the verb to indicate the time of the question, but rather uses ahea for future time and inahea for past time; the present form has yet to appear. Although placing the burden of temporality on the interrogative pronoun may seem peculiar to the native English speaker, this placement is the most logical: the question is about time, after all, and without a doubt the existence of the future and past interrogatives allow a greater semantic load on the basic pronoun.

Now here's the proof 

Lesson 14
1. Hola ehia keia? How many hours is this?
2. E hele ana oe ihea i keia kakahiaka? Where (Whither) are you walking this morning?
3. Ua hiki mai lakou i Waikiki i keia awakea. They have arrived (towards the speaker)  in Waikiki this afternoon. (Still no sign of any past parfect ua ... e!)
4. Mahea oe i hele aku i keia ahiahi? Where are you running (away from the speaker) this evening?
5. Auhea oukou, e na ho[a]aloha o ka pono? Where are you-all, o friends of righteousness?
6. Mai hea mai oukou i keia auina la? From what place (whence, towards the speaker) are you-all this afternoon? (la here is "sun", not the deictic particle)
7. Pehea oe i keia wanaao maikai loa? How are you this very beautiful dawn?
8. He kakahiaka ino loa keia. This is a very bad morning.
9. Heaha keia mau mea iloko o keia mau pahu? What are these things inside my boxes?
10. No ke aha la oe e hana nei i keia mea? Why are you doing this thing (away from the speaker).

Friday, January 15, 2010

Fred DIckson: A Eulogy

I'm not a particularly eloquent eulogizer, but I feel ought to try on behalf the late Fred Dickson. I have not spent as many years as Fred as an Assistant Scoutmaster, but I can identify with his comfort in being a second banana to his Scouting partner and friend, Joe Ehrman, whose Distinguished Eagle Scout Award ceremony I attended last night at the Marines Memorial Club. Despite the aggression of contemporary society, not everybody feels the need to be dominant, and the position of executive officer to the commander or good cop to the bad cop is an important balance.

I remember talking to Fred many times in the old Troop Room, before the earthquake retrofit and the room's reestablishment in the diagonally opposite corner. When you entered the spacious Troop Room, there was counter on the left and behind it was Fred, always friendly and helpful - that counter was a less intimidating barrier than the physically less substantial one in front of you behind which loomed Joe's desk. Fred always had a piece of candy and friendly advice for any Scout who needed it, and was especially helpful in the transition from six to eight patrols which occurred the year I switched from the Flying Eagles to the Falcons.
Many problems, both disciplinarian and organizational, were resolved before they reached the Scoutmaster's desk thanks to Fred.

On the outings and at camp, Fred was friendly and helpful, qualities which do not solely apply to the Scouts of the troop. He was a major promoters of the annual horseshoe competition, a Royaneh tradition which has fallen into abeyance since his departure from camp; I remember the loud clanking of the horseshoes in the chapel, and the trepidation in crossing the field of competition - sure, the participants had stopped, but how much would you trust the twitchy arm of your fellow seventh-grader? Another area in which Fred's participation was greatly appreciated was the campfire program, and especially his promotion of the traditional songs of the troop. Then there was Kady-language, the troop's own Pig Latin: there was much discussion of it last night, and I must confess that it hasn't been heard around the troop campfires in quite a while. Many remembered how to use Kady-language, but nobody remembered all the lyrics to the song from which it was derived. In honor of Fred, I would like to recover the tune and the words for posterity.

One of the coolest things, especially to a boy, about Fred was his military experience as a World War II fighter pilot. An organization such as the troop places a great emphasis on tradition and history, and Fred's personal description of World War II provided a link to an earlier era which was becoming remote even by my days in the troop.

I shall always be thankful for Fred's generosity and good spirits, his ability to tie together generations of troop members, and his example of how to support the troop without being an A-type personality.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Lesson 13: Mind Your Pi's and Ke's

  I have gone over the particulars of Lesson 13, in which Judd presents the rules for using ka and ke as the as the singular definite article of the Hawaiian language. The form of the singular definite article in PNP (Proto-Nuclear Polynesian) is te, as in the name of the Maori opera singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, so I first tried to derive a rule whereby ke became ka under certain conditions (the definite ka has a short vowel, whereas the a-class possessive ka has a long vowel). Dissimilation of ke to ka before words which begin with front vowels (e, i) and occasionally the lower central vowel (a) makes evolutionary sense, but that cannot be the underlying model at the time Judd composed his grammar, since the back vowels also use ka. It is worth noting that Judd’s ‘okina-less orthography  does not appear to disguise a distinction between the two forms dependent on the presence or absence of the ‘okina for words with an initial u, but perhaps does for words with an initial o. The use of ke before words beginning with k appears to be linguistic conservation in a “potassium-rich” environment, and the use of both ka and ke before words beginning with p preserves a useful semantic distinction between ka pa ‘the yard’ and ke pa ‘the dish’ (both have a long vowel).  This utility hypothesis, however, is called into question by the widespread semantic homophony elsewhere in the Hawaiian language.

The rule which Na Puke Wehewehe ‘Olelo Hawai’i lists is the following: ke is used before words beginning with a, e, o, and k, and sometimes p and the ‘okina. I am not certain whether the use of ke or ka preserves any semantic distinction for the words beginning with the ‘okina, or whether the mixture there is due to the slide from historical and Kauai k to Hawai’i ‘okina. The rule I can derive from this is: the vowel of ke is lowered to ka before the high vowels i and u, and vowel of ke is preserved before any consonant other than k. The consonants p and the ‘okina are the logical outliers for this rule, since (quite aside from the semantic distinction between pa and pa) the ‘okina is the last step before a bare vowel, and the labial plosive p is often tied to the velar plosive k: examples include the development of Welsh pedwar ‘four’ from the Brythonic root kwet-, similar to Latin quattuor,. More generally, velars and labials are related: note the change of the Sumerian (nasal) velar g~ into a labial m in the Emesal, or women’s dialect.  Na Puke Wehewehe ‘Olelo Hawai’i also notes the pre-1850 documents in Hawaiian, before any official grammar had been published, allowed ke before consonants which were neither p nor k - sadly, it does not mention whether this situation also pertained to the ‘okina. This difference between the pre-1850 records and the official Hawaiian of today suggests the use of ka spread from the words beginning with vowels and perhaps the ‘okina to the other consonants. The use of both ka and ke in front of the ‘okina would be critical for the reanalysis, since it would give speakers “permission” to use ka in front of consonants. I also suspect that the influence of English grammar, specifically a more rigid distinction between verbal and nominal forms, may have pushed the educated Hawaiian speakers towards a more frequent use of ka with nouns, since ke is used in several verbal constructions. 

1. Ua ike makou i ka uila. We have known the lightning.
2. Ua lohe makou i ka hekili. We have heard the thunder.
3. Ke hoopaa nei oia i ka ukana. He ties fast the cargo.
4. Ke noho nei oia ma ke one. He sits in the sand.
5. Ua hiki mai ka elele. The messenger has arrived.
6. Ua hele mai ke kanaka mai Maui mai. The man has moved from Maui.
7. Ke hahai nei ka ilio i kona kahu. The dog pursues his provider.
8. Pehea oukou i keia mau la. How are you-all?

Friday, January 8, 2010

Our Doomed Century on the Onion

(This was composed the week of Jan 3-9, 2010)

It's been Apocalypse Week on the History Channel, which means I've been drawn to it like Mothra to a nuclear flame. I have an impatient fascination with the 2012/Nostradamus material, although it does provide a ready source of mockable material,  but my stronger, morbid fascination is reserved for the shows on asteroid impact (especially Apophis), gamma ray bursts, and other forms of environmental extinction or collapse.

I'm excited for the new season of Life After People, in which we will see what happens to a modern house without maintenance. Apocalypse Man seems like a series in embryo, a sort of bowdlerised television counterpart to The Road, but the show which most chilled my blood was Earth 2100. The narrative conceit of a single life makes sense outside of a setting, such as science fiction novels, in which multi-generational perspectives are possible and easier to portray. The shrill, strident tone is justified to some degree because the producers intended to portray a worst-case scenario, so that it might stick in the minds of the audience. One of the difficulties in persuading human beings to act is the rigid "flight or fight" response (the third option, giving up completely, is a literal dead end). Most people fail to react to creeping change (that's why you don't notice your own sibling aging as much as someone else's), so the most effective way to trigger the fight response is an atmosphere of threat. The fight response, however, was a development to allow survival when attacked, and does not last long. In terms of the energy spike, that is a blessing, since permanent panic would turn humanity into bipedal ground squirrels, but the brevity also means that the lesson is lost quickly and in the worst case engenders apathy or disbelief. The "Sleepers wake!" portion of the message is insufficient without a further portion outlining what steps may be taken to mitigate disaster. In this way, the gospel of environmentalism (after all, there is a green bible) is similar to other religions: faiths and philosophies which provide no guide on appropriate actions once you have accepted their premises are seeds which fall on rocky ground. Earth 2100 is a good first step, but I would welcome a series or special which provided methods of survival and eventual renewal.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Cliffside Contemplation

My good friends of the evangelical persuasion in Colorado once showed me a diagram relating a person and God. The person is on one side of the cliff, and God is on the other.  I suppose a broad river would be an acceptable in a land of non-swimmers. The zealous evangelicals either drew a bridge from God to the person, or indicated the transport of the person to the side on which God is standing. In cases where they drew the bridge, they asked me where I thought I was: my answer, which was deemed inapplicable, was to locate myself upon the bridge. The right location, according to my friends, is with God on the far side of the cliff. Dwelling near the presence of God is certainly the ideal place to be, but it seems misleading to draw a bridge and exclude it as a possible answer.

My attitude is more akin to the sojourn in Pilgrim's Progress, which I read at young and impressionable age. Certainly, we shall see God face-to-face in the end, but until then we can merely approach, but never reach, the Godliness which God desires of us. Unlike Pilgrim's Progress, however, I believe that the moral hazards, although serious, are not irrevocably fatal.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

The Cursing of the Irish

There was an article in Monday's Chronicle that reported that the Republic of Ireland has passed a new blasphemy law - the previous law was fundamentally unprosecutable, but this new one no doubt has the lawyers drooling, to the tune of 25,000 Euros. The godless horde of Eire has mounted an online campaign to mock and expose the futility of this law, but they need not bother: the combination of European kneejerk political correctness and modern litigiousness will undermine the admirable intent of the law. The text of the law states that one could be convicted of blasphemy if "he or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion." The italics are my addition.

So, here is my prediction. The attempt at tolerance which the italicized portion highlights will backfire as the overly sensitive members of each religious group, and particularly the legal minds among them, seek to find fault in the writings of other religions. This will force every group into a defensive position, and nobody will dare say anything on religion. The biggest victims, of course, will be the individuals who did not intend to offend and cannot afford the lawyers whom institutions hire.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

A Puni, Maluna, Malalo, Me Ma!

(Sorry about the delay - I was traveling most of yesterday)

Lesson 12 in Judd's grammar introduces the complex prepositions, those which contain multiple words, similar to the English prepositon in front of. The majority of the English prepositions are composed this way, although the attrition of language has disguised the etymology of many English words. The preposition above, for instance, which appears to the diachronically blind as a straightforward two-syllable preposition of uncertain parentage, has a long history of prepositional accretion and linguistic erosion. The original core preposition was uf, the Anglo-Saxon form of up. Some speakers felt that uf alone was insufficient to express the up-ness they desired, and therefore attached an "on" to form ufan, "up on" Eventually that was deemed too weak, and be "by" prefixed itself to ufan to produce bufan "by up on". After the users of bufan had forgotten the intial suffixation of an to uf, they prefixed another an, creating anbufan "on by up on", which attrition wore down to the two-syllable word we use today.

The structure of all but two of the prepositions introduced in this lesson follow this analysis: ma- or i- prefixed to the core word, usually followed by the inalienable preposition o. The core word can be adverbial, such lalo "downwards", or a fully realized noun, such as uka "interior". Although the prepositions shown in the lesson all bear the prefix ma-, the choice between ma- and i- reflects the difference between the accusative and the ablative. In Latin, certain prepositions, such as sub "under", take the accusative or the ablative depending on whether the intent is to indicate motion or location; the same distinction applies to the Hawaiian prefixes. The inalienable preposition o is the usual third component; presumably one can replace o with a when appropriate. I must confess that the sources I have consulted on the o-a distinction have further perplexed me.

As for the exercise, the first appearance of the Hawaiian dog ('ilio) is notable. Hawaiian dogs were hairless and non-barking and bred for food rather than to chase game. The muteness of the breed was such a defining characteristic that the mythical dogs of Barking Sands recieved the "gift" of making noise from a god. I can relate to the chickens in Sentence 8, since on my recent trip to Kauai, I crept down a steep trail to a lovely waterfall (Kilahiwai Falls, or Wailele Kilahiwai). On the other side of the pool which lay at the base of the waterfall a family of chickens lived under a log (although it may not have been gray - it was covered in foliage). Kauai has been infested with chickens ever since a storm in the nineties, when the farmers let loose many chickens to ride out the storm and some never came back. There are no large predators on Kauai (which might explain the lack of hunting dogs), so the chickens multiplied.

(In case anybody was wondering, the post title was referring to this)


Lesson 12
1. Ke ike nei au i ka lio eleele.  I know the black horse.
2. Ke noho nei ke kanaka iloko o ka hale ulaula. The man sits within the red house.
3. Ua ike makou i kekahi mau manu keokeo. We have seen some (kekahi mau) white birds.
4. Ke ku nei ka ilio haeleele mawaho o ka hale keokeo. The brown dog stands outside the red house.
5. Ke paani nei na keiki mawaho o ka hale oma'oma'o. The children play outside the green house.
6. Ke holo nei ka puaa ulaula ikai. The red pig runs toward the sea. (Gadarene swine?)
7. Heaha ka inoa o kou lio huapala. What is the name of his chestnut horse?
8. Ke noho nei na moa ulaula malalo o ke kumulaau ahinahina. The red chickens live underneath the gray tree trunk.