before Shepard Fairey sues the publisher over the fair use of his poster on the cover? đŸ˜‰
with-all-due-respectsays
Fairey, I think, will applaud the further proliferation of Obama’s image and message. From what I gathered at Fairey’s website (just after the election) Fairey’s intent all along in creating the poster was to promote Obama. Bob’s book, with the HOPE image, published in Russian will no doubt delight him–as it does me. Congrats to Bob!!! I wonder if the Brookline Booksmith, in the heart of a Russian immigrant community, might be carrying the book in Russian–I can think of people I’d like to get it for as a gift!
p>Congrats. I may actually have to pick it up, just to drive myself nuts.
<
p>I always find it amusing to see western names written in Cyrillic: “Bob Nir.” Don’t know why.
edgarthearmeniansays
Will it be available at Amazon?
joetssays
or is Armenian itself a slavic language that is pretty close making russian very easy to pick up?
edgarthearmeniansays
During the days of the Sovok (slang for Soviet Union–it means dustbin) Russian was taught in all schools of the empire, and one needed fluency to deal with the powers that be and get ahead in life. No, it’s not a Slavic language; I think that it is kind of unique, like Basque, and may not belong to any “family” of languages. Ironically, the Armenian family that I lived with in the Caucusus (a beautiful town called Kislovodsk, birthplace of Solzhenitsn,) spoke only Russian because like many Armenians and Georgians they worked for the infrastructure in the spas and hotel industry serving the party members. The time that I spent there in 1989 was one of the highlights of my life, and I have named my alter-ego in their honor.
marcus-gralysays
Even though Mongolia was an independent country, they had close ties with the old Soviet Union. In fact, among older Mongolians “Russian” is a generic word for foreigner and they’ll call people of other nationalities, “American Russians”, “German Russians” English Russians”, etc.
p>One wonders what the ultimate fate of many languages in the former USSR will be.
with-all-due-respectsays
My beloved American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1973) has a rear cover chart of the “Indo-European Family of Languages, of which English is a member,…descended from a prehistoric language, Proto-Indo-European, spoken in a region that has not yet been identified, possibly in the fifth millennium B.C.” I’d recently learned that the Albanian language, like Armenian, is a distinct language. Both are reflected on this chart with separate lines emanating directly from Proto-Indo-European, placed on separate sides of the bold-faced Hellenic/Greek line on the chart. This chart further explains that “the principal languages of the family [are] arranged in a diagrammatic form that displays their genetic relationships and loosely suggests their geographic distribution.” Although the Basque language isn’t shown anywhere on the chart (perhaps because of its limitation to a small section of Spain and France), the dictionary’s definition of “Basque” states: “2. The language of the Basques, of no known relationship to any other language.” (Except, I would presume, also descended from the prehistoric Proto-Indo-European language.)
dcsohlsays
Not necessarily. The Indo-European language group is the largest group in the world (3 billion people speak an Indo-European language natively), but there are lots of other languages.
<
p>Mandarin, for example, is not an Indo-European language; it is a member of the Sino-Tibetan language family, which developed and evolved largely independently of Indo-European languages (at least until relatively recently).
<
p>Which makes sense. Language wasn’t invented just once. Prehistoric man probably came up with many languages in the same time frame (10,000-15,000 years ago), but through conquest and intermarriage, only the strongest languages and language families survived.
<
p>Basque seems to be an example of a language that was developed completely independently of any other language group, and somehow survived to this day without having any other “sibling” languages.
<
p>There’s one theory, at least, that says that Basque was a member of a much larger group (the Vasconic group) which got completely wiped out by the arrival of Indo-European peoples and languages. The evidence for this theory is supposed similarities between Basque and various placenames across Western Europe that have no known connection to the native Indo-European tongue.
<
p>But that’s neither here nor there, really. Just an interesting theory. To get back to the broad point, you shouldn’t presume. It makes a pre out of u and me. Or something like that…
amberpawsays
Eta xoroshi Knegi, ya dumaiou!
<
p>[Not sure about my transliteration or how to type here in Cyrillic]
<
p>The title is “Very good”
<
p>The other phrase I wrote is “It is a good book, I am pretty sure/think”.
edgarthearmeniansays
I just read the info on “NINA” site. Well done, and you have a highly regarded book store promoting it. Good luck.
The closest I have ever been was the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Armenia border. I went straight, to Georgia, instead of turning left, to Armenia. I hope I make it back there someday and have a chance to continue on to Yerevan.
amberpawsays
And as a coincidence, there is a concert of music from Georgia [the republic in the Caucuses – not the American state] this sunday and I took the liberty of posting about it.
before Shepard Fairey sues the publisher over the fair use of his poster on the cover? đŸ˜‰
Fairey, I think, will applaud the further proliferation of Obama’s image and message. From what I gathered at Fairey’s website (just after the election) Fairey’s intent all along in creating the poster was to promote Obama. Bob’s book, with the HOPE image, published in Russian will no doubt delight him–as it does me. Congrats to Bob!!! I wonder if the Brookline Booksmith, in the heart of a Russian immigrant community, might be carrying the book in Russian–I can think of people I’d like to get it for as a gift!
(Deb, how am I doing?)
<
p>Congrats. I may actually have to pick it up, just to drive myself nuts.
<
p>I always find it amusing to see western names written in Cyrillic: “Bob Nir.” Don’t know why.
Will it be available at Amazon?
or is Armenian itself a slavic language that is pretty close making russian very easy to pick up?
During the days of the Sovok (slang for Soviet Union–it means dustbin) Russian was taught in all schools of the empire, and one needed fluency to deal with the powers that be and get ahead in life. No, it’s not a Slavic language; I think that it is kind of unique, like Basque, and may not belong to any “family” of languages. Ironically, the Armenian family that I lived with in the Caucusus (a beautiful town called Kislovodsk, birthplace of Solzhenitsn,) spoke only Russian because like many Armenians and Georgians they worked for the infrastructure in the spas and hotel industry serving the party members. The time that I spent there in 1989 was one of the highlights of my life, and I have named my alter-ego in their honor.
Even though Mongolia was an independent country, they had close ties with the old Soviet Union. In fact, among older Mongolians “Russian” is a generic word for foreigner and they’ll call people of other nationalities, “American Russians”, “German Russians” English Russians”, etc.
Recent article on an atlas of dying languages.
<
p>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…
<
p>One wonders what the ultimate fate of many languages in the former USSR will be.
My beloved American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1973) has a rear cover chart of the “Indo-European Family of Languages, of which English is a member,…descended from a prehistoric language, Proto-Indo-European, spoken in a region that has not yet been identified, possibly in the fifth millennium B.C.” I’d recently learned that the Albanian language, like Armenian, is a distinct language. Both are reflected on this chart with separate lines emanating directly from Proto-Indo-European, placed on separate sides of the bold-faced Hellenic/Greek line on the chart. This chart further explains that “the principal languages of the family [are] arranged in a diagrammatic form that displays their genetic relationships and loosely suggests their geographic distribution.” Although the Basque language isn’t shown anywhere on the chart (perhaps because of its limitation to a small section of Spain and France), the dictionary’s definition of “Basque” states: “2. The language of the Basques, of no known relationship to any other language.” (Except, I would presume, also descended from the prehistoric Proto-Indo-European language.)
Not necessarily. The Indo-European language group is the largest group in the world (3 billion people speak an Indo-European language natively), but there are lots of other languages.
<
p>Mandarin, for example, is not an Indo-European language; it is a member of the Sino-Tibetan language family, which developed and evolved largely independently of Indo-European languages (at least until relatively recently).
<
p>Which makes sense. Language wasn’t invented just once. Prehistoric man probably came up with many languages in the same time frame (10,000-15,000 years ago), but through conquest and intermarriage, only the strongest languages and language families survived.
<
p>Basque seems to be an example of a language that was developed completely independently of any other language group, and somehow survived to this day without having any other “sibling” languages.
<
p>There’s one theory, at least, that says that Basque was a member of a much larger group (the Vasconic group) which got completely wiped out by the arrival of Indo-European peoples and languages. The evidence for this theory is supposed similarities between Basque and various placenames across Western Europe that have no known connection to the native Indo-European tongue.
<
p>But that’s neither here nor there, really. Just an interesting theory. To get back to the broad point, you shouldn’t presume. It makes a pre out of u and me. Or something like that…
Eta xoroshi Knegi, ya dumaiou!
<
p>[Not sure about my transliteration or how to type here in Cyrillic]
<
p>The title is “Very good”
<
p>The other phrase I wrote is “It is a good book, I am pretty sure/think”.
I just read the info on “NINA” site. Well done, and you have a highly regarded book store promoting it. Good luck.
The closest I have ever been was the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Armenia border. I went straight, to Georgia, instead of turning left, to Armenia. I hope I make it back there someday and have a chance to continue on to Yerevan.
And as a coincidence, there is a concert of music from Georgia [the republic in the Caucuses – not the American state] this sunday and I took the liberty of posting about it.
http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/s…
<
p>The where is the Concord Free Library at 3:00 PM.
Nice touch, publishing it in your fav author’s (ayn rand) native tongue…
<
p>I bought the kindle edition (released on my birthday no less).