rogue-academic

[rogue-academic]

I love you people going into "useless" fields I love you classics majors I love you cultural studies majors I love you comparative literature majors I love you film studies majors I love you near eastern religions majors I love you Greek, Latin, and Hebrew majors I love you ethnic studies I love you people going into any and all small field that isn't considered lucrative in our rotting capitalist society please never stop keeping the sacred flame of knowledge for the sake of knowledge and understanding humanity and not merely for the sake of money alive

[rogue-academic]

Learn something new every day, and you’ll soon be a decade ahead of everyone else.

[rogue-academic]

i was off work today so i spent my day studying, spending time with my family and making and drinking lots of coffee. ˗ˏˋ☕︎ˎˊ˗

[rogue-academic]

hello from my comfort/messy desk!!! it’s now 1230am. i mentioned awhile ago that i would be revising my study method. i wanted to be more efficient with my studying since it’s HARD to study before or after doing 12 hours of shift. i’m almost done with GIT so all is good so far! i’ll turn in at 2/3am.

for tomorrow i have a couple of chores to do but i’ll take them slow and not exhaust myself.

i’m also using ypt app to track and record my daily progress. it has a pomodoro timer, café background sounds, it blocks the other apps when you are on focus mode, and it’s FREE. 😭🫶🏼

[rogue-academic]

Heyo it’s back to school time and here’s a research tip from your friendly neighborhood academic librarian.When searching for any topic on the internet just type in the word ‘libguide’ after your topic and tada like magic there will be several  beautifully curated lists of books, journals, articles, or other resources dealing with your subject. Librarians create these guides to help with folks’ informational needs, so please go find one and make a librarian happy today!!

[rogue-academic]

[rogue-academic]

Duolingo is NOT what it used to be.

“Duolingo is ‘sunsetting the development of the Welsh course’ (and many others)”.

I’ve used Duolingo since 2013. It used to be about genuinely learning languages and preserving endangered ones. It used to have a vibrant community and forum where users were listened to. It used to have volunteers that dedicated countless hours and even years to making the best courses they could while also trying to explain extremely nuanced and complex grammar in simple terms.

In the past two years it feels like Von Ahn let the money talk instead of focusing on the original goal.

No one truly had a humongous problem with the subscription tier for SuperDuolingo. We understood it: if you can afford to pay, help keep Duolingo free for those who couldn’t.

It started when the company went public. Volunteers were leaving courses they created because they warned of differing longterm goals compared to Duolingo’s as a company; not long after it was announced that the incubator (how volunteers were able to make courses in the first place) would be shut down. A year goes by and the forums—the voice of the users and the way people were able to share tips and explanations—is discontinued. A year or two later, Duolingo gets a completely new makeover—the Tree is gone and you don’t control what lesson you start with. With the disappearance of the Tree, all grammar notes and explanations for courses not in the Big 8 (consisting of the courses made before the incubator like Spanish/French/German/etc. and of the most popular courses like Japanese/Korean/Chinese/etc.) are removed with it. Were you learning Vietnamese and have no idea how honorifics work without the grammar notes? Shit outta luck bud. Were you learning Polish and have absolutely no clue how one of the declensions newly thrown at you functions? Suck it up. In a Reddit AMA, Von Ahn claims that the new design resulted in more users utilizing the app/site. How he claims that statistic? By counting how many people log into their Duolingo account, as if an entire app renovation wouldn’t cause an uptick in numbers to even see what the fuck just happened to the courses.

Von Ahn announces next in a Reddit AMA that no more language courses will be added from what there already is available. His reasoning? No one uses the unpopular language courses — along with how Duolingo will now be doing upkeep with the courses already in place. And here I am, currently looking on the Duolingo website how there are 1.8 million active learners for Irish, 284 thousand active learners for Navajo, and even 934 thousand active learners for fucking High Valyrian. But yea, no one uses them. Not like the entire Navajo Nation population is 399k members or anything, or like 1.8 million people isn’t 36% of the entire population of Ireland or anything.

And now this. What happened to the upkeep of current courses? Oh, Von Ahn only meant the popular ones that already have infinite resources. Got it. Duolingo used to be a serious foundational resource for languages with little resources while also adding the relief of gamification.

It pisses me off. It really does. This was not what Duolingo started out as. And yea, maybe I shouldn’t get invested in a dingy little app. But as someone who spent most of her adolescence immersed in language learning to the point where it was literally keeping me alive at one point, to the point where languages felt like my only friend as a tween, and to the point where friendships on the Duolingo forums with likeminded individuals my age and other enthusiasts who even sent me books in other languages for free because they wanted people to learn it, the evolution of Duolingo hits a bitter nerve within me.

~End rant.

[rogue-academic]

Duolingo is NOT what it used to be.

“Duolingo is ‘sunsetting the development of the Welsh course’ (and many others)”.

I’ve used Duolingo since 2013. It used to be about genuinely learning languages and preserving endangered ones. It used to have a vibrant community and forum where users were listened to. It used to have volunteers that dedicated countless hours and even years to making the best courses they could while also trying to explain extremely nuanced and complex grammar in simple terms.

In the past two years it feels like Von Ahn let the money talk instead of focusing on the original goal.

No one truly had a humongous problem with the subscription tier for SuperDuolingo. We understood it: if you can afford to pay, help keep Duolingo free for those who couldn’t.

It started when the company went public. Volunteers were leaving courses they created because they warned of differing longterm goals compared to Duolingo’s as a company; not long after it was announced that the incubator (how volunteers were able to make courses in the first place) would be shut down. A year goes by and the forums—the voice of the users and the way people were able to share tips and explanations—is discontinued. A year or two later, Duolingo gets a completely new makeover—the Tree is gone and you don’t control what lesson you start with. With the disappearance of the Tree, all grammar notes and explanations for courses not in the Big 8 (consisting of the courses made before the incubator like Spanish/French/German/etc. and of the most popular courses like Japanese/Korean/Chinese/etc.) are removed with it. Were you learning Vietnamese and have no idea how honorifics work without the grammar notes? Shit outta luck bud. Were you learning Polish and have absolutely no clue how one of the declensions newly thrown at you functions? Suck it up. In a Reddit AMA, Von Ahn claims that the new design resulted in more users utilizing the app/site. How he claims that statistic? By counting how many people log into their Duolingo account, as if an entire app renovation wouldn’t cause an uptick in numbers to even see what the fuck just happened to the courses.

Von Ahn announces next in a Reddit AMA that no more language courses will be added from what there already is available. His reasoning? No one uses the unpopular language courses — along with how Duolingo will now be doing upkeep with the courses already in place. And here I am, currently looking on the Duolingo website how there are 1.8 million active learners for Irish, 284 thousand active learners for Navajo, and even 934 thousand active learners for fucking High Valyrian. But yea, no one uses them. Not like the entire Navajo Nation population is 399k members or anything, or like 1.8 million people isn’t 36% of the entire population of Ireland or anything.

And now this. What happened to the upkeep of current courses? Oh, Von Ahn only meant the popular ones that already have infinite resources. Got it. Duolingo used to be a serious foundational resource for languages with little resources while also adding the relief of gamification.

It pisses me off. It really does. This was not what Duolingo started out as. And yea, maybe I shouldn’t get invested in a dingy little app. But as someone who spent most of her adolescence immersed in language learning to the point where it was literally keeping me alive at one point, to the point where languages felt like my only friend as a tween, and to the point where friendships on the Duolingo forums with likeminded individuals my age and other enthusiasts who even sent me books in other languages for free because they wanted people to learn it, the evolution of Duolingo hits a bitter nerve within me.

~End rant.

[rogue-academic]

Handwritten draft of one of the last poems of Sylvia Plath ‘Sheep in Fog’

The hills step off into whiteness. People or stars Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.

[rogue-academic]

here r my personal fave irish learning sites, i like these ones bc im always looking for sites that teach using native speakers only or primarily and don't teach the standardized irish dialect & i try my best 2 avoid bearlachas. i havent seen these on any of thee posts goin around lately so i hope they are helpful!

the doegan records project - this is my FAVE hands down bc u can sort by COUNTY, it has a bunch of stories/audio files of native speakers the audio is all crunchy as fuck but theres english + irish transcriptions its really awesome.

Sgéilíní na Finne - this one is a bunch of stories from donegal, with audio and irish transcriptions and at the bottom of each one theres a vocab/idiom cheat sheet.

Peadar Ó Laoghaire Idiom Collection - a collection of irish idioms, descs are all in irish jsyk but this is really amazing theres like 400+

Cainnt na nDaoine - irish phrasebook, lots of rly good useful and natural irish idioms and everyday phrases! no audio and it's written in seanchló for the irish bits.

and of course RnG & TG4 are awesome as well i <3 those .. i like to catch nuacht a sé on RnG bc world news is kind of smth u already have context for so it can b easier to piece together

[rogue-academic]

"Béarlachas"

I've been meaning to write this post for some time now. As a person from the Galltacht (English-speaking Ireland) living and working in the Gaeltacht (Irish-language Ireland), and operating most of my life through the medium of Irish, I can honestly say that English-language Ireland, Second Language speakers of Irish and Learners of Irish tend to have a really skewered understanding of a) what Béarlachas is, b) the different forms it takes and c) what effects/damage/meaning each of its forms holds.

Contents of this post:

•Perceptions of Béarlachas

•Loanwords Vs Béarlachas

•Different Languages, Different Sounds

•Language Purity Vs Language Planning

•Conclusion

Perceptions of "Béarlachas"

Outside of the Gaeltacht, most people's understanding of "Béarlachas", or "Anglicisation" in Irish (which I am deliberately putting between inverted commas!), is the use of so-called "English-language words" in Irish. The usual list people like to list off include:

• Fón

• Teilifís

• Giotár

• Raideo

• Zú* (see Language Purity Vs Language Planning below)

• Carr*

*The ironic thing about the last item being that 'carr' (the word for a personal vehicle) is older than the English-language word 'Car' 🚗.

Second language learners with a bit more exposure to the language deride native speakers, particularly speakers from Conamara, for "using English words and adding '~áil' at the end to make a verb". Several examples being:

• Gúgláil (Google-áil)

• Sioftáil (Shift-áil)

• Sortáil (Sort-áil)

• Péinteáil (Paint-áil)

• Vótáil (Vote-áil)

• Focáilte (F*ck-áilte)

• Supósáilte (Suppose-áilte)

(⚠️NB: it is HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT that I spelt these words in these specific ways in Irish - to be explained below!⚠️)

Other so-called "English language words" in Irish include:

• Veain • Seit • Onóir • Ospidéal • Aláram • Cóta • Plaisteach • Leictreach, 7rl, 7rl...

And what about: "Halla" or "Hata" ??

Loanwords Vs Béarlachas

Before I explain where I'm going with this, I am going to introduce some words that have their origins in other languages, like:

"Seomra" from the Middle French "chambre".

"Séipéal" from the Middle French "chappelle".

"Eaglais" from the Greek "ekklesiastes".

"Pluid" from the Scots "plaide".

"Píopa" from Vulgar Latin "pipa".

"Corcra" from Latin "Purpura" (from before Irish had the sound /p/!)

"Cnaipe" from the Old Norse "knappr".

"Bád" from Anglo-Saxon "bāt".

ALL of these words, like the ones above, came into Irish via the most natural means a language acquires new words: language contact.

The reason WHY the word gets adopted is usually -and this is very important - the word is for something that the culture of the language Borrowed From already has, which is introduced to the Borrowed Into.

For clarification, what I am trying to say is that languages NATURALLY oppose cultural appropriation by crediting the culture they got a word from by using their word for it...

I.E. "Constructing" a new "pure" word for an item that has come from another culture, is, in effect, a form of cultural appropriation - which is why institutions such as Alliance Française and Íslensk málstöð are at best puritanical, and at worst xenophobic*.

*There is nuance here - there is a difference between institutional efforts to keep a language "pure" (re: those such right-wing English/British and American opinionists who claim that the English language itself is endangered 🙄), and language planning (which also falls under the remit of Íslensk málstöð).

Furthermore, there is also such thing as "dynamic borrowing". This is where technically a language has adopted a word from another language, but has changed its meaning/adapted it to its own need. Let us take two Irish language words for example: "Iarnród" and "Smúdáil"

Iarnród is made up by two words taken from the English language: Iarann, from English language "iron" and Ród, from English-language "road".

Together, these two words mean the English-language term "Railway" - but English has never had the term "Iron Road" to refer to this object.

Similarly, Smúdáil comes from the English-language word "smooth". Only adapted to Irish, and adding the Irish-language verb suffix creates a word which means "to iron (clothing)". 😱

Different Languages, Different Sounds

Every single language on this planet has its own sound system, or "phonology". It is VERY rare for a new sound to be introduced into a different language, and some languages are MUCH more sensitive to what speakers of another language would consider a "subtle" difference, or not a difference at all.

Now...

IRISH HAS DOUBLE THE AMOUNT OF SOUNDS AS THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!!!!!!!

(^roughly ~ish) I am making this simplistic statement to DRIVE home the fact that what English-language speakers and Learners of Irish hear as "the same as the English", Irish speakers hear a SIGNIFICANT phonetic difference.

All consonants in Irish [B, bh, c, ch, d, dh, f, fh, g, gh, h, l, ll, m, mh, n, nn, p, ph, r, rr, s, sh, t, th] - and YES, séimhiú-ed consonants and double consonants count as separate consonants - EACH have at least TWO distinct sounds. Ever heard of that old rhyme "Caol le caol, leathan le leathan"? Well, the reason why it exist ISN'T to be a spelling tip - it's to show how to pronounce each consonant in a word - which of the two distinct sounds to say.

What I mean to say by this is that, when we adopt a word into Irish, we aren't just "grabbing the word from English and hopping a few fadas on it"; we are SPECIFICALLY adapting the word to the Irish language phonetic system.

I.E. when an Irish language speaker is saying the word "frid" THEY ARE NOT USING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE WORD "fridge" !!!

The sounds used in the English-language word belong to the English language, and the sounds used in the Irish-language word belong to the Irish language.

As a linguist I get very passionate about this distinction - the AMOUNT of times I have come across a self-important Irish language "learner" from the East of the country come to a Gaeltacht and tell native speakers that they are not using the "official" or "correct" version of a word in Irish just GRATES me to no end. PARTICULARILY as these so-called "learners" cannot hear, or typically have made NO effort to understand phonetic differences between the two languages. (Though honestly, on that point, I cannot wholely blame them - it is a fault on Irish language education as a whole that the differences in sound are hardly, if ever, mentioned, let alone taught!)

Language Purity Vs Language Planning

Moving on, as I mentioned earlier, it is very rare for a sound to be adapted into a new language. As many Irish language speakers learners know, there is no /z/ sound in (most of the dialects of) Irish.

And yet, somehow, the official, modern translation given for the Irish language for "Zoo" is ...

Zú

Whenever I think on this given translation, I am always reminded of a good friend of mine, a lady from Carna, who used to always talk about "Súm" meetings she used to go on to talk with friends and family during COVID.

This woman only speaks English as a second language, having only ever learnt it at school and only ever used it in professional environments. She does not have the sound /z/, and as such, pronounces words that HAVE a "z" in them as /s/ sounds, when speaking in Irish OR in English.

As such, I often wonder how An Coiste Téarmaíochta can be so diligent in creating and promoting "Gaelic" words for new things, such as "cuisneoir" instead of "frid"; "guthán" instead of "fón" (which is actually pronounced "pón" in Conamara, as that suits the sound system of that dialect better); or "treochtú" instead of "treindeáil" ... And then turn around and introduce sound and sound combinations such as /z/ in "Zú" and /tv/ and /sv/ in "Tvuít" and "Svaedhpáil" 🤢

It's such this weird combo of being at the same time puritanical with regard to certain words, dismissive in regards to vernacular communities, and ignorant with regards to basic linguistic features of the language.

(Especially when, i mbéal an phobail, there are already such perfectly acceptable terms for these kinda words, like Gairdín na nAinmhithe for "Zú; Tuitéar and Tuít for "twitter" and "tweet"; and Faidhpeáil for "Svaedhpáil".)

Conclusion

This really prescriptivist approach by Irish language institutions needs to end. Not only is it not addressing or engaging with the Irish language as it is spoken by vernacular communities, it is creating this really twisted dynamic between second-language Irish speakers who apparently "know better" than first-language and native speakers of Irish.

This is what "Béarlachas" is. Not the natural adaption of words from a language with which Irish in the present day has most contact with. Not the dynamic inventions of native speakers, and even Second-language-as-vernacular speakers, utilising all the linguistic features available to them, whether that be their own dialects of Irish, English, or whatever OTHER languages/dialects are available to them.

"Béarlachas" is the brute enforcement of English language mentalities and an obsession with "purity" onto Irish, a language that has FOREVER adopted and integrated words, features and people into itself.

Gaeilge, like Éire of old, like the Ireland I want to be part of today, is open, inclusive, non-judgemental - knowing where it is coming from, and knowing that its community is its strength and key to how it has and will survive!

[rogue-academic]

23.10.2023

finally did some work, monday motivation and all that

40 min of social science: 20 practice questions and a bit of theory (the mistakes I made)

[rogue-academic]

[rogue-academic]

Here's THE masterpost of free and full adaptations, by which I mean that it's a post made by the master.

Anthony and Cleopatra: here's the BBC version, here's a 2017 version.

As you like it: you'll find here an outdoor stage adaptation and here the BBC version. Here's Kenneth Brannagh's 2006 one.

Coriolanus: Here's a college play, here's the 1984 telefilm, here's the 2014 one with tom hiddleston. Here's the Ralph Fiennes 2011 one.

Cymbelline: Here's the 2014 one.

Hamlet: the 1948 Laurence Olivier one is here. The 1964 russian version is here and the 1964 american version is here. The 1964 Broadway production is here, the 1969 Williamson-Parfitt-Hopkins one is there, and the 1980 version is here. Here are part 1 and 2 of the 1990 BBC adaptation, the Kenneth Branagh 1996 Hamlet is here, the 2000 Ethan Hawke one is here. 2009 Tennant's here. And have the 2018 Almeida version here. On a sidenote, here's A Midwinter's Tale, about a man trying to make Hamlet.

Henry IV: part 1 and part 2 of the BBC 1989 version. And here's part 1 of a corwall school version.

Henry V: Laurence Olivier (who would have guessed) 1944 version. The 1989 Branagh version here. The BBC version is here.

Julius Caesar: here's the 1979 BBC adaptation, here the 1970 John Gielgud one. A theater Live from the late 2010's here.

King Lear: Laurence Olivier once again plays in here. And Gregory Kozintsev, who was I think in charge of the russian hamlet, has a king lear here. The 1975 BBC version is here. The Royal Shakespeare Compagny's 2008 version is here. The 1974 version with James Earl Jones is here. The 1953 Orson Wells one is here.

Macbeth: Here's the 1948 one, there the 1955 Joe McBeth. Here's the 1961 one with Sean Connery, and the 1966 BBC version is here. The 1969 radio one with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench is here, here's the 1971 by Roman Polanski, with spanish subtitles. The 1988 BBC one with portugese subtitles, and here the 2001 one). Here's Scotland, PA, the 2001 modern retelling. The Royal Shakespeare Compagny's 2008 version is here. Rave Macbeth for anyone interested is here. And 2017 brings you this.

Measure for Measure: BBC version here. Hugo Weaving here.

The Merchant of Venice: here's a stage version, here's the 1980 movie, here the 1973 Lawrence Olivier movie, here's the 2004 movie with Al Pacino. The 2001 movie is here.

The Merry Wives of Windsor: the Royal Shakespeare Compagny gives you this movie.

A Midsummer Night's Dream: have this sponsored by the City of Columbia, and here the BBC version. Have the 1986 Duncan-Jennings version here. 2019 Live Theater version? Have it here!

Much Ado About Nothing: Here is the kenneth branagh version and here the Tennant and Tate 2011 version. Here's the 1984 version.

Othello: A Massachussets Performance here, the 2001 movie her is the Orson Wells movie with portuguese subtitles theree, and a fifteen minutes long lego adaptation here. THen if you want more good ole reliable you've got the BBC version here and there.

Richard II: here is the BBC version. If you want a more meta approach, here's the commentary for the Tennant version. 1997 one here.

Richard III: here's the 1955 one with Laurence Olivier. The 1995 one with Ian McKellen is no longer available at the previous link but I found it HERE.

Romeo and Juliet: here's the 1988 BBC version. Here's a stage production. 1954 brings you this. The french musical with english subtitles is here!

The Taming of the Shrew: the 1980 BBC version here and the 1988 one is here, sorry for the prior confusion. The 1929 version here, some Ontario stuff here, and here is the 1967 one with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. This one I'm not quite sure what it is or when it's from, it's a modern retelling.

The Tempest: the 1979 one is here, the 2010 is here. Here is the 1988 one. Theater Live did a show of it in the late 2010's too.

Timon of Athens: here is the 1981 movie with Jonathan Pryce,

Troilus and Cressida can be found here

Titus Andronicus: the 1999 movie with Anthony Hopkins here

Twelfth night: here for the BBC, here for the 1970 version with Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright and Ralph Richardson.

Two Gentlemen of Verona: have the 2018 one here. The BBC version is here.

The Winter's Tale: the BBC version is here

Please do contribute if you find more. This is far from exhaustive.

(also look up the original post from time to time for more plays)

[rogue-academic]

grabbing every 13 yo girl by the arms and yelling "YOU LOOK FINE !!!!!!! DON'T SPEND UR ALLOWANCE ON CONCEALERS GO SEE A BAD MOVIE INSTEAD !!!!!!!!!!! BEAUTY IS POETRY AND SONGS AND LAUGHTER W FRIENDS AND COLORFUL LEAVES !!!!!!!!!! GO READ A MARY OLIVER POEM AND YOU'LL BE OK!!!!!!!!!"

[rogue-academic]

what r u taking in uni

Mainly the piss

[rogue-academic]