Remember Nicolas Flamel? If not perhaps you should (re)read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (or Philospher’s Stone if you’re not in the US). Better yet, perhaps you should pay a visit to Le Musée National du Moyen-Age in Paris, where there is apparently a statue of Nicolas Flamel. Turns out that Flamel was an alchemist in Paris during the middle ages. I think I’m adding that museum to my list of places to visit.

This piece of incredibly useful information was gleaned from the August 20, 2008, edition of Les Paris Sont Ouvert on RFI.

Most of you know by now that I have a slight language obsession, particularly with French and English.

I’ve always wanted an online resource that would tell me how to pronounce the more difficult French words I encounter. Finally, I found this Text-to-Speech utility that features both Metropolitan and Canadian French pronunciations, as well as American, British and Indian English, German, and Latin American Spanish.

And as long as we’re talking about Indian English, I usually find many of its particularities to be rather annoying (mostly because the cause confusion), but I love the word eggatarian. For French variations, I love the Swiss and Belgian septante and nonante and the Swiss huitante, as well as the Canadian clavarder.

Most English-speaking knitters are familiar with the word ’skein’ as a bunch of coiled yarn that has to be wound into a ball before it can be used. In trying to find the French word for skein using WordReference.com (my favorite online French-English dictionary), another knitter and I found two translations: écheveau (de fil…) and vol d’oiseau. The first translation makes perfect sense in the context of knitting. The second however, refers to the flying of birds, which is understandably confusing.

I recently learned, courtesy of Wikipedia, that the word ’skein’ also refers to a group of geese, ducks, or other wildfowl that are in flight (entry). Another site also provides this and other examples of relatively unusual names for groups of birds.

This post refers to:

WordReference.com’s translation of ’skein.’

Wikipedia’s disambiguation of ’skein.’

Bird group names.

Recently, the New York Times ran two articles about Indian education. The first presents it as the envy of even Japan, while the second highlights its weaknesses. It’s an interesting study in contrasts.

Also in the New York Times is this article about the rising price of cooking oil. Apparently it’s oil (of one sort or another) that makes the world go round.

This post refers to:

Fackler, Martin. Losing an Edge, Japanese Envy India’s Schools. New York Times. January 2, 2008.

Sengupta, Somini. Education Push Yields Little for India’s Poor. New York Times. January 17, 2008.

Bradsher, Keith. A New, Global Oil Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories. New York Times. January 19, 2008.

Hi! Remember me? No? That’s okay, I don’t blame you.

Really, this is just a quick stop in to say that Olivia Judson’s blog at The New York Times, called The Wild Side, is back. This time, she’s doing it once per week, on Wednesdays, rather than every day (as she did back in June of 2006). She points out that it’s easier for her to write that way, and it’s also easier for me to keep up with. Go check it out. There are already two entries for 2008, and if you get a chance, read the back entries from 2006, as well.

I’ve recently discovered BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time. It’s a radio show about ideas. I listened to one of the archived shows about the Celts, and it was fascinating. I only wish it had been longer.

I highly recommend listening and checking out what else the BBC has online.

Hmm… Maybe I don’t want to live in Switzerland someday.

For all its problems, I think the US–at least the Northeast–is still one of the best places in the world to be nonwhite. That’s not to say racism doesn’t exist here, especially if one is Black. Still….

This post refers to:

Sciolino, Elaine. Immigration, Black Sheep and Swiss Rage. New York Times. October 8, 2007.

I watched La Bûche last night. It’s a French film set during the four days before Christmas. It was entertaining and ended happily. I had trouble understanding the dialogue though, and I watched it without subtitles. I think I’ll rewatch it closer to Christmas, and I’ll turn on the subtitles at least once.

It’s strange, though, since I usually understand what’s going on when I listen to RFI. I guess the broadcasters really do speak much more clearly than is typical.

Well, I finished Identity, by Milan Kundera. I’d read it for a book club, but wound up missing most of the book club meeting. That’s neither here nor there, however. Most of the participants found the ending to be disappointing. For the most part, I agree. However, as I consider the book more, I wonder if somehow it isn’t more fitting than at first blush.

There are two main characters in Identity: lovers Chantal and Jean-Marc. The focus of the book, I realized later, seems to be Chantal. It’s her identity that’s really being questioned and changed. Jean-Marc strikes me as a static character. He serves as observer of Chantal, often observing at times when she doesn’t even realize he’s there, and as one agent of change in Chantal. His character, though, seems to serve mainly to help us in our exploration of who Chantal is.

It would have helped to see some of that while I was reading Identity. Alas I didn’t, and I will have to reread it someday. It probably won’t be too soon, however, as the book is infused with melancholy, and I find that melancholy is best in small, infrequent doses.

On a final note, Kundera’s voice in Identity is interesting. There’s a simplicity to the narration that contrasts with the complex ideas that the characters seem determined to discuss. I wonder how translation affects that, since Kundera’s native language is Czech, but he wrote Identity in French and I read an English translation.

Prepositions in German are an intriguing sort of torture. Prepositions on their own are often bad, since they rarely translate directly into other languages. Just try it with a handful of French and English ones.

German adds to this problem however, by tying prepositions to cases. There are prepositions which take the accusative case, prepositions which take the dative case, and prepositions which take either the accusative or the dative depending on whether there is motion. And if it confuses you to read that, just try putting it to use in a sentence.

English is blissfully simple in comparison.