eine verdammte Fleißarbeit

Jongleur mit Wörtern
Deutschlandfunk, 22.08.2007

Der Indogermanistik-Student Sebastian Heine beherrscht knapp 35 Sprachen
Von Martin Koch

Wer in Deutschland mehr als drei Sprachen fließend spricht, gilt bereits als Ausnahmetalent. Der Bonner Student Sebastian Heine übertrumpft dieses Maß um das Zehnfache. Als sein Erfolgsrezept nennt er schlicht Fleiß und den regelmäßigen aktiven Sprachgebrauch.

"Mein Geliebter opferte sich fürs Vaterland, aus dem Haar der Locken webe ich ihm das Leichentuch."

Wenn Sebastian Heine paschtunische Gedichte rezitiert, verklärt sich der Blick des 22-Jährigen:

"Das Pashto ist süß, gleichzeitig sehr herb. Das Pashto kann unglaublich feinfühlig sein und andererseits sehr hart und männlich, das Pashto lebt, es schreit, es weint, es freut sich, es stöhnt, es stirbt."

Pashto ist seine Lieblingssprache: Und das will wirklich was heißen, denn alles in allem spricht Sebastian Heine etwa 35 Sprachen: Altpersisch, Sogdisch, Sakisch, Aramäisch - die Liste ließe sich noch lange fortsetzen. Das beeindruckt viele, doch der schlanke Mann mit den braunen Locken wehrt sich gegen zuviel Ehrfurcht: Er sei zwar ein Exot, aber auf keinen Fall ein Genie:

"Es ist nicht das Ingeniöse, das man das einfach so kann, es ist der Fleiß, die Arbeit. Ich sitze jeden Tag Stunden über diesen Sprachen, jeden Tag wiederhol' ich die Grammatik, jeden Tag lern' ich Vokabeln, ich treffe jeden Tag diese Menschen und über die Sprache im aktiven Gebrauch, es ist einfach eine verdammte Fleißarbeit."

Schon als 15-Jähriger las Sebastian Heine im Schulunterricht Homer im Original. Als er hörte, dass Griechisch eng mit Sanskrit verwandt sei, lernte er auch diese Sprache. In der Folgezeit tauchte der Sohn eines Historikers immer tiefer ein in die Welt der Sprachwissenschaft - und berichtet begeistert von unerwarteten Zusammenhängen:

"Konzepte, wie wir sie in den althochdeutschen Merseburger Zaubersprüchen finden: Das ist ein Spruch, wo es heißt Bein zu Bein, Blut zu Blut, können wir verknüpfen mit Zaubersprüchen in Griechenland und im alten Indien. Ein Konzept wie in den Merseburger Zaubersprüchen gab es also aufgrund des Sprachvergleiches vermutlich schon in der neolithischen Zeit!"

Dass er schon damals nur Wenige für seine Passion begeistern konnte, machte Sebastian Heine nichts aus. Jahr für Jahr lernte er drei bis vier Sprachen aus dem Nahen und Mittleren Osten hinzu. Das fand er spannender als Diskobesuche mit seinen Klassenkameraden. Auch bei seinen Kommilitoninnen und Kommilitonen gilt der gebürtige Thüringer als schräger Vogel (oder sympathischer Kauz?). Doch er ist glücklich, wenn er jeden Tag für Stunden in der Bibliothek Sprachen studieren kann. Und danach beginnt der andere Teil seines Studentenlebens:

"Ich verbringe Tage, Stunden mit Paschtunen, Persern, ich ziehe mit Menschen, die hier wohnen, die hier heimisch geworden sind, um die Häuser. Stellen Sie sich mal vor, Sie leben ganz normal, feiern Partys, treffen Menschen, erleben interessante Dinge, aber eben nicht auf Deutsch, sondern auf Pashto, Persisch oder Urdu."

Äußerlich unterscheidet sich Sebastian Heine von seinen paschtunischen Freunden vor allem dadurch, dass er zu jeder Gelegenheit einen Anzug trägt. Aus ästhetischen Gründen, wie er sagt. Allerdings: Eine kleine Annäherung an das Erscheinungsbild der Paschtunen sprießt, wenn auch noch etwas zaghaft, in seinem Gesicht.

"Diese Parodie auf einen Bart?! Ja, ich gebe zu, ich habe ihn mir ein bisschen stehenlassen mit dem bescheidenen Ergebnis, wie sie jetzt sehen, als kleine Reminiszenz, ja."

Über seine Zukunft macht sich der 22-Jährige viele Gedanken. Kein Wunder, hat er doch gerade seine Magisterarbeit abgegeben. Mit seinen Sprachkenntnissen hätte er angesichts der aktuellen Lage in Afghanistan beim Militär oder in Wirtschaftskonzernen sicher beste Chancen, doch Sebastian Heine will sich seine Unabhängigkeit als Forscher bewahren. Ende des Jahres wird er erstmal als Stipendiat der Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes nach London gehen, um an der renommierten School of Oriental and African Studies seinen Doktor zu machen. Und was danach kommt - dafür hat er schon einen ganz persönlichen Wunschzettel:

"Afghanistan wäre mein geheimer Traum, weil die Arbeit, die es dort zu tun gilt, rein wissenschaftlicher Art, die Dialekte aufzuarbeiten, die Sprachen, über die es noch keine Grammatiken gibt, ihre Geschichten, Märchen, Sagen, Dichtung, das wäre unglaublich reizvoll. Und so Gott will, 'Inshallah', wie meine Paschtunen sagen würden, ändert sich die Situation in der Zukunft und es ergibt sich eine Chance."

http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/campus/661053/

Between sixteen and three-and-twenty

"I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting," says the Shepherd in Shakespeare's Winter's Tale.

In an article on English yoofery (to coin a word), the Economist comments, "It is true that more teenage British wenches are got with child than other European ones, and that British teenagers are unusually prone to taking drugs, fighting, venereal disease and boozing..."; and "there is something else peculiar to British families, at least among Europeans—an oddity that is especially salient at this time of year. Visitors to piazzas or plazas are likely to see several generations of continental families happily talking, eating and even dancing together. British children, by contrast, spend relatively little time with their parents, and not only because the parents aren't around: many see fraternising with them in public as a fate worse than a mobile phone without a camera. Meanwhile, as that senior policeman complained this week, many British parents, whether there are one or two of them, seem indifferent to their children's antics, or incurious about them. Since the clubs and churches that once thrust them together have withered, unrelated youngsters and older people don't talk much either."

A caveat. The Economist also says, "But few who drink or smoke pot graduate to knife crime. Many do none of these things; most are better-off and better-educated than ever."

http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9653083

Reto–Romaans

Kunsttaal moet Reto–Romaans redden

GENEVE (ANP) – In tientallen gemeenten in het Zwitserse kanton Graubünden stappen de scholen maandag over van onderwijs in hun plaatselijke Reto–Romaanse dialect op de kunstmatige Reto–Romaanse standaardtaal, het Rumantsch Grischun. Op die manier moet de Reto–Romaanse taal tegen uitsterven worden beschermd.

Dit meldde de krant Tribune de Genève donderdag. Reto–Romaans is –naast Duits, Frans en Italiaans– de vierde officiële taal van Zwitserland, maar wordt nog maar door 35.000 mensen gesproken. Daarnaast is de taal, die verwant is aan Ladinisch en Friulisch in Italië, in verschillende Alpenvalleien versplinterd in vijf dialecten: Surselvisch, Sutselvisch, Surmeirisch, Vallader en Puter.

Het gebruik van het in de jaren '80 'gemaakte' Rumantsch Grischun, dat door niemand als moedertaal wordt gesproken, is echter omstreden. De recente beslissing om de nieuwslezers op radio en tv Rumantsch Grischun te laten spreken, stuit op verzet. Tot nu toe sprak iedereen op de radio zijn eigen dialect.

GENEVE (ANP) – In tientallen gemeenten in het Zwitserse kanton Graubünden stappen de scholen maandag over van onderwijs in hun plaatselijke Reto–Romaanse dialect op de kunstmatige Reto–Romaanse standaardtaal, het Rumantsch Grischun. Op die manier moet de Reto–Romaanse taal tegen uitsterven worden beschermd.

Dit meldde de krant Tribune de Genève donderdag. Reto–Romaans is –naast Duits, Frans en Italiaans– de vierde officiële taal van Zwitserland, maar wordt nog maar door 35.000 mensen gesproken. Daarnaast is de taal, die verwant is aan Ladinisch en Friulisch in Italië, in verschillende Alpenvalleien versplinterd in vijf dialecten: Surselvisch, Sutselvisch, Surmeirisch, Vallader en Puter.

Het gebruik van het in de jaren '80 'gemaakte' Rumantsch Grischun, dat door niemand als moedertaal wordt gesproken, is echter omstreden. De recente beslissing om de nieuwslezers op radio en tv Rumantsch Grischun te laten spreken, stuit op verzet. Tot nu toe sprak iedereen op de radio zijn eigen dialect.

GENEVE (ANP) – In tientallen gemeenten in het Zwitserse kanton Graubünden stappen de scholen maandag over van onderwijs in hun plaatselijke Reto–Romaanse dialect op de kunstmatige Reto–Romaanse standaardtaal, het Rumantsch Grischun. Op die manier moet de Reto–Romaanse taal tegen uitsterven worden beschermd.

Dit meldde de krant Tribune de Genève donderdag. Reto–Romaans is –naast Duits, Frans en Italiaans– de vierde officiële taal van Zwitserland, maar wordt nog maar door 35.000 mensen gesproken. Daarnaast is de taal, die verwant is aan Ladinisch en Friulisch in Italië, in verschillende Alpenvalleien versplinterd in vijf dialecten: Surselvisch, Sutselvisch, Surmeirisch, Vallader en Puter.

Het gebruik van het in de jaren '80 'gemaakte' Rumantsch Grischun, dat door niemand als moedertaal wordt gesproken, is echter omstreden. De recente beslissing om de nieuwslezers op radio en tv Rumantsch Grischun te laten spreken, stuit op verzet. Tot nu toe sprak iedereen op de radio zijn eigen dialect.

Reformatorisch Dagblad, 16-08-2007

http://www.refdag.nl/artikel/1312540/Kunsttaal+moet+Reto%96Romaans+redden.html

Road Trip

I'm off on a road trip to the south of France and the north of Spain with Véronique, Laura, and Yin the dog.

Annie Oakley

From A New Dictionary of Eponyms (OUP):

An Annie Oakley is a complimentary ticket to a theater. The ticket has holes punched in it to prevent its exchange for cash at the box office. This oddity came about in an unusual way.

Annie Oakley (1860–1926), born in Darke County, Ohio, was the stage name for Phoebe Anne Oakley Mozee. Annie was probably the greatest female sharpshooter ever. She got her professional start when, at the urging of friends, she entered a shooting match in Cincinnati pitting Frank E. Butler, a vaudeville marksman, against all comers. Butler gave no thought to this fifteen-year-old girl who dared compete with him. But upon seeing Annie's first shot, he paid strict attention. She won the contest, and a husband to boot, for Butler and Annie fell in love and were married. They then began a vaudeville tour as a trick-shooting team.

The Butlers joined Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show in 1885, but it was Annie who became the star attraction. She remained as the rifle sharpshooter for forty years. She thrilled audiences with her expert marksmanship and dazzled them with her trick shooting. In one of her outstanding feats, she would flip a playing card into the air, usually a five of hearts, and shoot the pips out of it.

But what, you might ask, has that to do with a free ticket? Circus performers were reminded of their meal tickets by the riddled playing cards, because their meal tickets were punched every time they bought a meal. Hence they came to call their tickets "Annie Oakleys." The idea of a punched card caught on, so that today a complimentary ticket to a show, a meal, or a pass on a railway has Annie Oakley holes.

Annie Oakley needed no encomiums during her forty years with the Wild West Show, but she was given one, nevertheless, by Sitting Bull, who labeled her "Little Sure Shot." In more recent times Ethel Merman, the star of Annie Get Your Gun, popularized Annie Oakley once again, making her for today's generation a "big shot."

Source:
"Annie Oakley" A New Dictionary of Eponyms. Morton S. Freeman. Oxford University Press, 1997.

In a New York bar

A letter to the Guardian, July 21, 2007:

SIR – One example of a subtle message being more effective than a loud government health warning is found in New York ("None so deaf as those that will not hear", June 23rd). Bars across the city display a plaque with the standard boilerplate that "Alcohol during pregnancy causes birth defects." In one establishment the message has been rendered brutally effective by a patron who has scrawled underneath, "Just look around."

Brigg Reilley
Albuquerque

MITOPENCOURSEWARE

Here's a gold mine from MIT:

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/index.htm

MIT OCW is a large-scale, Web-based electronic publishing initiative funded jointly by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation , MIT, and generous support of the Ab Initio software company.

MIT OCW's goals are to:

Provide free, searchable access to MIT's course materials for educators, students, and self-learners around the world.

Extend the reach and impact of MIT OCW and the "opencourseware" concept.

MIT OCW would not be possible without the support and generosity of the MIT faculty who choose to share their research, pedagogy, and knowledge to benefit others. We expect MIT OCW to reach a steady - though never static - state by 2008. Between now and then, we will publish the materials from virtually all of MIT's undergraduate and graduate courses.

We will be continually evaluating the Access, Use, and Impact of MIT OCW. With 1,550 courses published as of November 1, 2006, we are still in a learning stage of this MIT initiative and we will benefit enormously from your feedback, as we strive to make MIT OCW as rich and useful as possible for our users.

Visit:

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/index.htm

Harsh and guttural

A New York Times reader who calls himself "rrrrbyrnes" writes of Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth:

"...I had an unfortunate problem with what I perceived to be a harsh presentation of the Spanish language. It seemed to harsh and gutteral. This must be a problem with me - I don't see Spanish language movies often. But it nevertheless grated."

How anyone could think that Spanish, and particularly the Spanish spoken in this film, is harsh and gutteral (or guttural, for that matter), is a mystery to me. The New York Times' review can be read here:

http://tinyurl.com/yvgfbg

In a wonderful interview (about much more than movies) on NPR last year (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7031354), Guillermo del Toro said that the title of the film was changed in English because American viewers don't know what a faun is.

Critics around the world have praised this violent and disturbing and beautiful film. I wonder if it would have been stronger, and less graphically violent, if it has been told _entirely_ from the perspective of Ofelia. Her escape from fascist Spain into her dark fantasy world would have been just as powerful, if not more so. But it is a great movie nonetheless. It's certainly the most violent movie I've watched all the way through (over the years, I've stopped watching many violent movies half way through).

Behind bars

"Today, almost 7 million people are under the supervision of the U.S. correctional system, and roughly 2.2 million Americans live behind bars. In 2001, the United States spent a record $167 billion on its criminal
justice system, which equals 7 percent of all government spending on state and local levels, and is roughly as much as is expended on health care and hospitals."

From Juergen Martschukat's H-Law review of Marie Gottschalk's The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Sanskrit

The Christian Science Monitor reports that spoken Sanskrit is enjoying a big revival both in India and among Indian expatriates in the United States, mainly thanks to the "efforts of a private group, Samskrita Bharati, headquartered in New Delhi. The volunteer-based group's mission: Bring the pan-Indian language back to the mainstream and lay the groundwork for a cultural renaissance."

Some excerpts from the CSM article:

There were many reasons for the decline of Sanskrit," says Chamu Krishna Shastry, who founded Samskrita Bharati in 1981, "but one of the foremost was the unimaginative way it was taught since [British] colonial times." Later, in a newly democratic India, the language associated with upper-caste Brahmin priests held little appeal to the masses. The present movement to revive Sanskrit aims to teach the "language of the gods" to anyone who cares to learn it.
...
In 25 years, an estimated 7 million people have attended spoken Sanskrit classes offered by Samskrita Bharati in India and abroad, says Shastry. There are 250 full-time volunteers and 5,000 part-time teachers in the United States and India, and their numbers are growing.

Samskrita Bharati has chapters in 26 of India's 28 states. There are also groups in such places as San Jose, Calif.; Seattle; Pittsburgh; Buffalo, N.Y.; Dallas; San Diego; and Chicago. Requests are coming in from other US cities as well.

Source:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0705/p14s02-lihc.html?page=1

Sie trägt alles

Die Neue Zürcher Zeitung (30. Juni) über die neue Zürcher Bibel und die Kulturgeschichte früherer Bibelübersetzungen:

Sie [die Zürcher Bibel] markierte schon bei ihrem ersten Erscheinen 1531 einen Einschnitt, indem sie sich - unaufgeregter und sprachlich weniger ambitioniert als die Bibelübersetzung Luthers - als Gemeinschaftsarbeit von hochmotivierten, im Hebräischen und Griechischen versierten Theologen präsentierte. Seit einigen Tagen liegt die Zürcher Bibel in einer neu erarbeiteten Übersetzung vor, die jene von 1931 ersetzt. Sie ist noch untadeliger geworden, als sie schon war; ihr Deutsch, genau auf der Spur des hebräischen und griechischen Urtextes, ist wunderbar klar.
...
Die deutschsprachigen Kulturen stellten im Rahmen der Übersetzungsgeschichte der Bibel einen Sonderfall dar. Auch in karolingischer Zeit, da die Missionierung der germanischen Stämme sich der Volkssprache zu bedienen begann, galt die deutsche (sprich: fränkische) Sprache als ungehobelt, grobschlächtig und feinerer Ausdrucksnuancen unfähig. Dass sie das Monopol der drei «heiligen» Sprachen Hebräisch, Griechisch und Latein durchbrechen und selbst Trägerin der Heilsbotschaft werden könnte, schien undenkbar.

Einem anonymen Autor des 9. Jahrhunderts allerdings gelang es, das Undenkbare zu denken. In einem wichtigen Text - «De vocatione gentium» («Über die Berufung aller Völker») - hielt er fest, dass Gott nicht nur wegen der Sünden der Menschen Mensch geworden sei, sondern auch, um deren «erbärmliche Sprache» («propter lamentabilem vocem humanam») - in diesem Fall das Deutsche - zu retten: «Denn Gott liess sich um des Menschen und seiner erbärmlichen Sprache willen barmherzig herab, als er vom Himmel zur Erde kam, um menschliche Gestalt anzunehmen, Leiden zu ertragen und den Tod zu dulden.» - Damit war die deutsche Sprache legitimiert, im Interesse einer alle Völker umfassenden Mission, die Heilsbotschaft zu verkünden.
...
Die Inständigkeit der Texte jedenfalls hat die Jahrhunderte überdauert. Man höre das Hohelied der Liebe nach 1. Kor. 13, 4-6 in der Fassung, wie sie im schon zitierten Text «De vocatione gentium» aus dem 9. Jahrhundert eindrücklich erklingt: «Gotes minni dultic ist, / Frumasam ist, / Nist apultic, / Ni zaplait sih, / Ni habet achust, / Nist ghiri, / Ni sohhit, daz ira ist, / Ni bismerot, / Ni denchit ubiles, / Ni frauuuit sih ubar unreht, / Frauuuit sih ubar uuarnissu. / Dultic ist gauuisso diu gotes minni, huuanta siu ira uuidarmuoti ebano gatregit.»

In der neuen Übersetzung der Zürcher Bibel 2007 heisst das: «Die Liebe hat den langen Atem, gütig ist die Liebe, sie eifert nicht. Die Liebe prahlt nicht, sie bläht sich nicht auf, sie ist nicht taktlos, sie sucht nicht das Ihre, sie lässt sich nicht zum Zorn reizen, sie rechnet das Böse nicht an, sie freut sich nicht über das Unrecht, sie freut sich mit an der Wahrheit. Sie trägt alles, sie glaubt alles, sie hofft alles, sie erduldet alles.»

Quelle:

http://www.nzz.ch/2007/06/30/li/articleFAPYA.html

200 Proof

"Almost half of working-age men in Russia who die are killed by alcohol abuse, according to a new medical study which says the country's males die in excessive numbers not just because they drink lots of vodka but because they also consume products containing alcohol, such as eau de cologne, antiseptics and medicinal tinctures. Some products contain 95% alcohol by volume, equating to 200 proof."

That's from a recent Guardian article, which also says that in 2004 Russia's life expectancy was 59 years for men and 72 for women. Due to the low life expectancy and birthrate, the population in Russia is falling by 700,000 a year.

The Guardian, June 15, 2007

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2103841,00.html

Are native English speakers better English teachers?

Scott Sommer writes in his Taiwan blog:

"There is no place in the world with a high standard of English as a foreign language where a majority, or even a lot, of the teaching is done by foreign teachers.

Think of a few places you know where there's a high standard of English? It should be easy because there are a lot of them: places like Holland, Belgium, The Philippines, Switzerland, Sweden, to name a few. Not a single one of these countries has a significant number of foreign teachers. Probably every single one of those European and South American businessmen you know who speak flawless English was taught by a local teacher. The Filipino, Indian, and Malaysian students at you school were all taught by local teachers.

I know, I know, Dutch is very similar to English, and in the Philippines and India, English is the language of the professional class. Things like this make it much, much easier to learn a language. But not only is this not particularly true in some of the places where English is best spoken, but it's not even particularly important. What is important is that there are plenty of places where having been taught by a properly trained local teacher is not a significant handicap.

Let's look at the flip-side of this problem. Have foreign teachers made a big impact in the places where they are widely used? In Japan, virtually every school in the country is provided by either the JET program or other locally developed programs with a foreign teacher. The next largest foreign teacher programs are Korea and Taiwan. All of these countries are notorious for the poor standard of their English compared with, for example, Scandinavian countries. In fact, if you look at it this way, it's the countries with the worst record that have the most foreign teachers.

There are many excellent foreign teachers who have made a big difference to their students. But that's not the point. My point is that there is no place on Earth where English is spoken widely as a foreign language where most, or even a lot, of the teaching is done by foreign teachers. Being taught by competent and skilled local teachers will never be a disadvantage to a learner."

I would quibble with Scott that the standard of English in Switzerland is high (mainly because the Swiss have traditionally learned one or two of the four official languages as second and third languages in school). But other than that his point is well taken.

Source:

http://scottsommers.blogs.com/taiwanweblog/2007/06/are-native-spea.html

Immunity

The Observer recently published an extraordinary article about sex workers in Kenya who are immune to AIDS. A few excerpts:

...Agnes has, in effect, a callus: the first time she was exposed to the virus, her body produced enough killer T cells to fight it off. This part isn't unique - the body of every person who is exposed to HIV mounts some level of response, and sometimes manages to fight it off; a single exposure does not guarantee infection. But Agnes's body, it seems, not only produced sufficient and strong enough cells to fight the virus off the first time, it then produced a whole raft of those killer Ts, flooding her system with guardians whose sole brief was to keep an eye out for cells infected with HIV. The infected cells have a distinct pattern of little bumps on them, called epitopes, which act like a red rose in the lapel as far as the killer Ts are concerned, letting them know just which cells they want to hunt down. Then every subsequent time - probably thousands of times - that HIV got into Agnes's body, her killer T cells drove it back. A person does not normally maintain a large number of killer T cells for a long period - just long enough to kill something off, then production drops. But in Agnes, fairly constant exposure to HIV kept her killer T cell count high.

This conclusion was reinforced when Plummer and his team noticed that women who take a 'sex break' - who make a trip home to the village for a few weeks, or save up a little money and leave sex work for a while to try selling shoes instead, or hook up with a regular who keeps them in cash for a year or two - were far more likely to get infected, almost immediately, if they returned to sex work, even though previously they had had years of apparent immunity. On the break, their bodies stopped making the killer T cells, leaving them vulnerable again...

From the moment it became clear that Agnes and a handful of other women in Majengo - about 100 to date - really could fight off the virus, the researchers in Nairobi hoped that their biology would hold the secret of an HIV vaccine. Soon a team from Oxford University was at work on a vaccine that used the epitopes (the tell-tale bumps on infected cells) that triggered Agnes's killer Ts. They hoped it would provoke other people's bodies to produce killer T cells in the same way that the real virus appeared to trigger production in the sex workers. Trials began in Nairobi in 2001, and a second trial was mounted by Pontiano Kaleebu and his colleagues in Entebbe a couple of years later. But despite high hopes, the Oxford vaccine didn't cause that explosion of killer T cells. And so it was back to the painstaking work of trying to figure out the secret of Agnes's immunity. 'Sometimes a vaccine feels impossibly far away,' sighed Keith Fowke. 'All our knowledge about these HIV-resistant people is interesting and I feel it's important... but it is frustrating.'
...
Today, the research strategy in Majengo revolves around intense study of Agnes and the other resistant women (who make up about five per cent of the cohort at any one time), from analysing their genome to breaking down the chemical components of the mucosal membranes in their vaginas, in an effort to figure out what may be protecting them. So far researchers have not found anything present in 100 per cent of the women, so it may be that the protection comes from multiple overlapping factors, including some that are genetic. There is a strong family correlation - people related to an HIV-resistant woman seem to be half as likely to get infected as people who are not related.

Agnes is aware that she is a fascinating specimen. 'Most of the people have been very interested in me,' she said matter-of-factly. But she has no understanding of the biological basis for her HIV resistance. 'No one has told me,' she said with a shrug. She gets good, free health care at the clinic for the occasional sexually transmitted infection and also for respiratory infections which plague residents of the polluted slum. So she is happy to give them her blood a couple of times a year, and to enjoy a sense of contributing something to her community.

But Agnes's survival has served to highlight a disquieting aspect of this research. She has come to the clinic for more than 20 years. In that time, more than $22m in scientific grant money has flowed through the project, and many of the researchers have earned reputations as the top experts in their fields. Yet Agnes and a handful of other women are still selling sex, to an average of eight clients a day, still for a dollar or two each time - although they say they would like nothing more than to get out of sex work. When I asked her what she would like to do instead, Agnes's broad face lit up. 'Any kind of job I could do. I could be a cleaner or anything. But it's very difficult to get a job - you have to know somebody to get a job.' And Agnes said she doesn't know anybody who could help. With only limited literacy after three years of primary school, and no other skills, Agnes said she sees no other options. 'It's embarrassing, this profession,' she said. She refuses to discuss what she does for a living with her children, although she is sure they know. 'I've never told them what I do, but I think they can see it. I think they know what I'm doing is not good but they know I do it to provide for them.'

Agnes's frustration with her life in sex work raises troubling ethical questions about research, the kind that bedevil investigations into Aids vaccines, prevention technologies and treatment, all of which, by definition, involve large groups of poor Africans, the people most at risk. What obligation does a researcher such as Plummer have to the women who have given him their blood for 20 years? What does this project owe Agnes?
...
Agnes's mysterious immune system has garnered her considerable fame in the world of Aids, but little else. She lives a life almost totally unchanged from her first days in umalaya 30 years ago. 'I can buy our daily food out of what I earn, and that's all,' she told me as we sat in the shade of her bustling alley. 'I don't feel famous. It's only that my problems push me to do sex work. If I could find something else, I would.'

The Observer, Sunday May 27, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/aids/story/0,,2089312,00.html

Plant-based diets

The Orlando Sentinel reports:

"Studies have shown that people on plant-based diets tend to have significantly lower cancer rates than those on meat-based diets, according to a Cancer Project [a U.S. nonprofit health organization] handbook...

People in rural Asia and Africa, for example, where traditional diets are based on rice or grains and a mix of starchy vegetables, fruits and beans, generally avoid cancer, according to the handbook. When it does strike, they are more likely to survive.

Studies have also shown that diets rich in meat, dairy products, fried foods and even vegetable oils boost hormones such as estrogen, which is linked to breast cancer in women, and testosterone, which researchers suspect plays a role in prostate cancer in men, the handbook reports.

These hormone levels fall significantly in both men and women when they reduce the amount of fat in their diets.

If you're looking to trim fat, though, simply cutting beef and switching to low-fat dairy products won't do, Renideo said. Though the percentage of calories from fat is higher in beef than it is in chicken or fish, the difference is slight. The leanest beef, for example, derives nearly a third of its calories from fat, according to the Cancer Project, while white meat chicken and tuna derive nearly a quarter of their calories from fat.

And dairy products -- even fat-free or low-fat -- play a role in cancer growth as well, according to the Cancer Project. Studies have shown, for example, that drinking milk raises the levels of insulinlike growth factor in the bloodstream. IGF-I, the handbook says, is a powerful stimulus for cancer cell growth."

"Plant-based diet wages war against cancer"
Orlando Sentinel, May 27, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/36cpw4

Things Chinese

Since most of what I read is about China and Taiwan, I'm mainly going to blog at Things Chinese, which focuses on that universe.

"Let a Million Surnames Bloom"

"With most of the 1.3 billion people in China sharing just 100 surnames, the
Public Security Ministry is considering rules that would combine both
parents' family names to prevent so much duplication, state news outlets
said. So few names by so many often sows confusion and must presumably
hamper police work. 'By adopting both parents' names, 1.28 million new
surnames will be added,' the Xinhua News Agency said."

New York Times, June 13, 2007

The Book of the Hundred Family names (百家姓), compiled during the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127), listed 408 single-syllable surnames and 30 double-syllable surnames. The introduction of more than a million surnames would be something of a cultural revolution. I don't see it happening.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/world/asia/13briefs-names.html

Bananas

My daughter Laura, who's seven, prefers Max Havelaar bananas, which
happen to be organic and fair trade, to Chiquita Bananas' bananas,
which are tasteless. In an article about Max Havelaar, Time magazine
wrote in 2005, "The name may not be as globally familiar as Dole or
Chiquita, and has only been on shelves since 1998. Yet in Switzerland it
has a remarkable 78% brand recognition rate and every second banana sold
now bears a Max Havelaar label — probably the highest penetration of
any fair-trade product in the world."

In Coop and Migros, Switzerland's biggest supermarket chains, Max
Havelaar bananas are always numbered "1" on the scales used by buyers.
My guess is that their name recognition is higher than 78% by now. There
is another reason not to buy Chiquita. Kyle de Beausset, a Harvard
student who writes the Immigration Orange blog, reports that Chiquita
has been forced to admit to funding right-wing paramilitary groups in
Colombia:

<http://immigration.campustap.com/blog/entry/view.aspx?Iid=158956>

Harrumph

I've lost count of the number of letters I've written and never sent. Here's an unsent letter to the editor of The Independent:

I wonder what you have to do to be Beijing correspondent for The Independent. In an article about (of all things) education published a few days ago, Clifford Coonan informed his readers:

"Education has been highly competitive in China ever since the
philosopher Confucius helped formulate the exam system for public
service in the T'ang dynasty AD618 to 907."

Speaking of "public service" instead of the civil service or bureaucracy in the context of imperial China is careless. Spelling Tang "T'ang" shows that Coonan hasn't learned the difference between the pinyin transliteration system (preferred by everyone these days, including himself in the rest of his article and The Independent in general) and the old Wade-Giles system. And saying that Confucius was around during the Tang although the proverbial school child could have told him that Confucius died in 479 B.C. shows that Coonan didn't read the first few pages of his Lonely Planet Guide.

Harrumph,
Paul Frank
Huemoz
Switzerland

P.S. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2631527.ece

Forgetting June 4

This Reuters report indicates that it's possible to work for a Chinese
newspaper and have no idea what happened on June 4, 1989:

"A newspaper in southwest China has fired three of its editors over
an advertisement saluting mothers of protesters killed in the 1989
Tiananmen Square crackdown, a source with knowledge of the gaffe said on
Thursday....

Li Zhaojun, deputy editor-in-chief of the Chengdu Evening News in
Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu, and two other members of the
tabloid's editorial office had been dismissed, the source told Reuters
requesting anonymity...

On the 18th anniversary of the crackdown on Monday, the lower right
corner of page 14 of the Chengdu Evening News ran a tiny ad reading:
'Paying tribute to the strong[-willed] mothers of June 4 victims.'...

Hong Kong's South China Morning Post said on Wednesday a young female
clerk allowed the tribute to be published because she had never heard of
the crackdown....

She phoned back the person who placed the ad to ask what June 4 meant
and he told her it was the date of a mining disaster, the Post said.

It was unclear if the man who placed the advertisement had been
arrested.

The man also tried to place the same advertisement with two other
Chengdu newspapers, the source said.

'Staff at the other two newspapers also did not know what June 4 was,
but they phoned and asked their superiors and he walked away,' the
source told Reuters.

The Communist Party has banned references to the crackdown in state
media, the Internet and books as part of a whitewash campaign, meaning
most young Chinese are ignorant of the events...."

Reuters in The Globe and Mail, June 7, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/yohuvb

Bibel in gerechter Sprache

Das Bremer Sprachblog über die jüngst veröffentlichte Bibel in
gerechter Sprache:

"Die taz berichtet über die Bibel in gerechter Sprache, die im letzten
Jahr erschienen ist und deren vierte Auflage bevorsteht.
Presseschauwürdig ist das Übersetzungskonzept der gerechten Bibel:

>Die „Bibel in gerechter Sprache" hat drei fundamentale
>Übersetzungsprinzipien: Sie soll geschlechtergerecht formuliert sein,
>die Ergebnisse des jüdisch-christlichen Dialogs berücksichtigen und
>soziale Gerechtigkeit voranbringen.

Das ist schon ein sehr offenherziger Fall von „Was nicht passt, wird
passend gemacht". Eigentlich ist es ja die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,
einen zielsprachlichen Text zu schaffen, der den Inhalt des Originals
möglichst genau wiedergibt. Damit das gelingen kann, müssen natürlich
unterschiedliche Rahmenbedingungen in der Ursprungs- und der Zielkultur
berücksichtigt werden: wenn es Hintergrundwissen gibt, das bei den
Lesern des Originals als selbstverständlich vorausgesetzt werden kann,
das aber von den Lesern der Zielkultur nicht geteilt wird, muss dieses
Wissen in der Übersetzung mit vermittelt werden. Dadurch ist jede
Übersetzung natürlich ein Stück weit auch eine Interpretation des
Originals. Trotzdem: die Anpassung an die Bedürfnisse der Zielkultur
darf nicht so weit gehen, dass Unterschiede zwischen Ursprungs- und
Zielkultur einfach weggewischt werden. Sonst müsste man aus den Sklaven
in „Onkel Toms Hütte" tarifvertraglich bezahlte Angestellte machen
und aus den Frauen in der „Geschichte der Dienerin" Leihmütter, die
aus Idealismus kinderlosen Paaren helfen wollen."

http://tinyurl.com/3crqvf

Pelando la Cebolla

En la prensa alemana no he leído una reseña más mordaz y acertada, ni
siquiera los comentarios cáusticos de Der Spiegel, que lo que escribe
Agapito Maestre sobre el último libro de Günter Grass:

"...La metáfora de la cebolla de la memoria, que al ser pelada revela
verdades que hacen llorar, no deslumbra precisamente por su sutileza.
Porque más que hacernos llorar, insisto, nos encandila su fibra
poética, hasta caer en la sensiblería de quien confunde el trabajo de
la memoria con el de la imaginación. Poético, sí; pero muchas otras
veces no es ni espléndido ni impactante. La narración está llena de
frases hechas, obviedades y expresiones trilladas. Todo está
edulcorado. Cuenta muchas cosas, pero le faltan muchas más. Es el gran
límite de esta confesión.

Cuenta Grass su vida, especialmente de los 12 a los 32 años, cuando
publica El tambor de hojalata, a través de un ejercicio literario que
consiste en ir pelando artísticamente la primera capa de la cebolla. De
ahí sale a veces un libro hermoso, a veces un recuento de melancolías
de la vieja Europa en crisis. Magníficas descripciones de la madre y de
la intensa relación materno-filial, relatos magníficos sobre los
compañeros de colegio y reencuentros felices a finales de los 80. Pero
nunca hallaremos la crítica histórica, menos todavía la autocrítica
impía que se anunciaba en las prepublicaciones. Tampoco la crítica a
una educación que lo llevó a militar en las filas del nazismo.

Nunca me ha gustado cómo juega Grass el juego entre deudas (Schulden) y
culpa (Schuld). Es tramposo, porque sólo revela intención, mala fe,
pero nunca se atreve en su obra, no hablo de sus declaraciones
ideológicas, a pasarle a contrapelo el cepillo a la historia, al modo
benjaminiano. Su trampa, engaño o añagaza estética me resulta
insoportable, sobre todo si pensamos en un hombre con tantos recursos
literarios como tiene él. Recurrir a la imaginación para hacer un
ejercicio de memoria, de reconstrucción crítica del pasado, es
sustituir la literatura, la gran literatura como racionalidad pública,
por la censura o la autocensura; y, lo que es peor, el arte, la
literatura, sale tocado de este híbrido, a veces monstruoso y a veces
bello, entre la imaginación y el memorialismo.

Muchas cosas importantes hay en esta obra, pero yo destaco los recuerdos
de su madre y, por supuesto, pero eso ya no es mérito de Grass, la gran
traducción, debida a ese gran escritor que es Miguel Sáenz."

Agapito Maestre, "Grass no es Mann", Libros, 7 de junio de 2007
http://libros.libertaddigital.com/articulo.php/1276233487

"Nucular" in British English

Is the "nucular" pronunciation of nuclear gaining ground in the UK?
I've heard it three times in as many months from British speakers on BBC
radio. I heard it again on the June 6 edition of "BBC Radio News Pod"
(though in this last instance it was subtle and fast enough that I may
have misheard). I used to assume that "nucular" was an uneducated
pronunciation in the United States, but that was just an uneducated
assumption. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter (who served as an officer
on a United States Navy experimental nuclear submarine), Bill Clinton,
and George W. Bush have all used this pronunciation. Wikipedia has a
good entry on this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucular

And Geoff Nunberg's "Going Nucular":

http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/nucular.html

Nicolas Bouvier

The Guardian on a new English translation of Nicolas Bouvier's The Way
of the World (L'usage du monde):

"You probably haven't heard of Swiss-born Nicolas Bouvier if you live in
the UK. Yet across the Channel he is as influential as Jack Kerouac and
Bruce Chatwin, a cult travel writer whose books sell by the pallet-load,
even though he died more than a decade ago. Yet this month's new
publication of The Way of the World is the most important event in
travel literature this year.

As a child Bouvier's reading of RL Stevenson, Jules Verne and Jack
London made him impatient for the world. He recalled at the age of eight
'tracing the course of the Yukon with my thumbnail in the butter on my
toast'. His father encouraged him to travel and in 1953, without waiting
for the result of his degree, he left bourgeois Switzerland with no
intention of returning. In a small, slow Fiat, he and his friend Thierry
Vernet - whose stark illustrations are reproduced in this handsome Eland
edition - travelled across Europe and Asia over nineteen unforgettable
months, pausing in Belgrade, Istanbul, Tabriz and Quetta to paint, write
and wait tables, taking longer than Marco Polo - as Bouvier proudly
pointed out - to reach Japan.

Along the road no sensational, headline-grabbing event befell them. They
were not attacked by Baluch bandits or held hostage by an Afghan
warlord. They did not climb the Hindu Kush in search of lost treasure.
Instead they journeyed humbly, honestly and in near-poverty, failing to
get jobs in Turkey, dossing down in a provincial prison in Iran,
teaching French in Tehran to raise funds, and finding sanctuary in
Quetta in a bar run by a distracted, kindly ex-Welsh Guards officer with
'an air of something both luminous and shattered'.

Ten years in the writing, The Way of the World is a masterpiece which
elevates the mundane to the memorable and captures the thrill of two
passionate and curious young men discovering both the world and
themselves. Racy and meditative, romantic and realistic, the book is as
brilliant as Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts, but with its
erudition more lightly worn and as alive as Kerouac's On the Road,
though without a whisper of self-aggrandisement. The words of this
wandering poet have been lovingly and effusively rendered into English
by Robyn Marsack, his translator.

On every page a gem or two glitters, and the accumulation of colour,
detail and inspired metaphor produce an intensely hypnotic effect. Take
for example the description of young prostitutes in a Belgrade café who
had 'lovely, smooth, tanned knees, a bit dirty when they had just come
in from practising their trade on a nearby embankment, and well-defined
cheekbones where the blood throbbed like a drum'. Or the dancer who,
inclining his head 'listening to the keyboard as though it were a
stream'. Or the time spent on the road brewing tea and sharing
cigarettes, in the rare moments when intimacy borders on the divine. 'I
dropped this wonderful moment into the bottom of my memory, like a
sheet-anchor that one day I could draw up again. The bedrock of
existence is not made up of the family, or work, or what others say and
think of you, but of moments like this when you are exalted by a
transcendent power that is more serene than love.'

Martin Amis once wrote that young poets are forever taunted by subjects
which are no longer possible to write about in this ironic age: 'evening
skies, good looks, anything at all to do with love'. The fact that The
Way of the World is 40 years old works in its favour, coming fresh to
most English readers from a less cynical time. Through that distance
Bouvier enables us to rise above faddish celebrity and the sterility of
domestic despair, to remember that the world is a beautiful place and to
rejoice in humanity. He writes, 'Travelling outgrows its motives. It
soon proves sufficient in itself. You think you are making a trip, but
soon it is making you – or unmaking you.' If you read any travel book
this year – or indeed in the next forty years – this should be it.

The Guardian, 6 June 2007

For the whole article, go to:
http://tinyurl.com/2z9p84

Force them to learn English

Geoffrey Pullum writes in the Language Log:

In Australia the Indigenous Affairs minister, Mal Brough, declared on
May 24 that "he was considering a plan to restrict welfare payments to
aboriginal parents in order to force their children to attend school and
learn English." As if the linguistically fascinating but severely
endangered Australian languages were not under enough threat already.
Brough is concerned that there are some aborigines in isolated areas who
"can only speak their own language, which perhaps is only known to 200,
300 or 400 other people." Quite: these languages are at the lower
threshold of size with respect to having a sustainable populations of
speakers. So his idea is to cut their welfare for not learning the
language of the dominant majority. Will Australia never change?...

More here:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004567.html#more

My own view is that everyone in Australia would benefit from learning
English but _forcing_ Aboriginals to do so, and threatening to cut off
welfare payments to poor people who don't speak English, is outrageous.

Ihr Kleines und Großes

Zhuangzi (365 - 290 v. Chr.) schrieb:

"Sie sagen: Ein guter Mensch wirft (auf andere Menschen) keinen zu
strengen Blick. Sie machen die Dinge nicht zur Voraussetzung der eigenen
Person. Sie halten das nicht für nützlich gegenüber der Welt. Sie
halten nach außen am Verbot von Angriffskriegen und an der Abschaffung
der Waffen fest, nach innen an der Besonnenheit gegenüber den
Leidenschaften. Das ist ihr Kleines und Großes, ihr Feines und Grobes."

Deutsch von Karl Albert und Hua Xue

曰："君子不为苛察，不以身假物。"以为无益于天下
者，明之不如己也。以禁攻寝兵为外，以情欲寡浅为
内。其小大精粗，其行适至是而止。

"China embraces nuclear future"

From the Washington Post:

"Under plans already announced, China intends to spend $50 billion to
build 32 nuclear plants by 2020. Some analysts say the country will
build 300 more by the middle of the century. That's not much less than
the generating power of all the nuclear plants in the world today.

By that point, the Chinese economy is expected to be the world's
largest, and the idea that it may get most of its electricity from
nuclear fission is being met with both optimism and concern. Nuclear
power plants, unlike those that run on fossil fuels, release few
greenhouse gases. But they produce waste that can be dangerously
radioactive for thousands of years.
...
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology report said China may have to
add as many as 200 nuclear power plants by 2050 to meet its needs.
Academics from China's leading technical university, Tsinghua
University, said the country might need more, equivalent to the output
of 300 plants.

In comparison, the United States has just more than 100 operating
nuclear plants. Nuclear power has effectively been on hold in the United
States since the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania,
but, with encouragement from the Bush administration, companies are
thinking about ordering new plants.
...
In the desert of Central Asia, China is planning its own version of
Yucca Mountain, albeit without serious opposition. Some local leaders
have protested the Beishan Mountain disposal project, but their concerns
have been muted.

The Beishan Mountains are a lonely outpost, with the closest permanent
residents more than 60 miles away. The only people who venture here are
nomadic Mongolian herdsmen with goats and camels. They move from one
small oasis to another in what is otherwise a desolate, gray desert for
hundreds of miles around. The only signs of the nuclear waste site to
come are the dark tents that scientists put up and take down as they
test rock layers to find the best place for disposal..."

Source: Washington Post, May 29, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/3c6fo6

Bendita bagunça

Marcelo Coelho escreve no seu blog:

"Quem reclama de ter uma mesa atulhada de papéis pode encontrar alívio
num livro recém-editado na Inglaterra, A Perfect Mess: the hidden
benefits of disorder, de Eric Abrahamson e David Freedman. "A desordem
cria conexões", dizem os autores, cujo livro foi resenhado por Andrew
Stark no Times Literary Supplement.

Já Umberto Eco, em Como se faz uma tese, recomendava que o velho
método de acumular anotações de leitura em fichas de cartolina fosse
bagunçado de vez em quando, embaralhando-se todas as fichas para ver se
alguma aproximação casual de dados rendia frutos. Num mundo
bagunçado, uma informação específica pode ser difícil de achar, mas
conexões se fazem mais naturalmente.

O resenhista do "TLS" argumenta, contudo, que a oposição hoje em
dia não é entre ordem e bagunça numa mesa, mas entre mundo real e
virtual. Podemos encontrar informações isoladas num computador com
facilidade, já que cada "ficha" que antigamente estava ordenada em
ordem alfabética numa caixinha hoje em dia é acessível de várias
formas, através de várias "entradas" diferentes no computador.
Acontece, diz o resenhista, que as conexões acidentais que fazíamos ao
remexer papéis em cima de uma mesa agora não se fazem mais no espaço,
e sim no tempo. Pulamos de um link a outro, vamos nos enfiando cada vez
mais fundo no labirinto das conexões estabelecidas por nós (ou pelos
outros), e o difícil é refazer o caminho de volta. As conexões, ou
links, se sucedem no tempo, e não numa realidade sinóptica.

No mundo bagunçado da mesa, defendido pelos autores, conexões são
iluminações instantâneas do gênio, enquanto informações isoladas
são difíceis de encontrar. No mundo virtual, informações são
instantâneas mas as conexões são difíceis de fazer. Ou fáceis
demais, na ida, e difíceis na volta: a bagunça na mesa, conclui Andrew
Stark, é substituída pela bagunça na cabeça.

É como se esquecêssemos, ao longo de qualquer pesquisa no google, a
pergunta original, enquanto outras vão surgindo na cabeça."

http://marcelocoelho.folha.blog.uol.com.br/
30/05/2007

吃素以阻止气候变暖?

"近日，有消息称，英国政府正在考虑鼓励全体国民
吃素，从而减少温室气体排放，减缓气候变暖进程。
最近，英国环境署官员给一个宣传素食主义和保护动
物的环保组织发送的电子邮件内容被曝光，邮件中提
到，素食主义能够给全球环境带来较大的益处，尤其
是在阻止全球气候变暖方面将起到非常大的作用。
...
此前，有专家指出，包括牛在内的牲畜养殖会带来大
量的甲烷等温室气体排放，其中，地球上的牛呼出的
甲烷占大气中甲烷总量的20%。据悉，牲畜排放的温室
气体包括甲烷和一氧化二氮等，这些气体产生的温室
效应远比二氧化碳要大。还有专家推算认为，全球温
室气体的排放量的18%来自家畜。"

来源: 世界科技报道 (日期：2007-05-29)

http://tech.icxo.com/htmlnews/2007/05/29/1138061.htm

Algerian surprise

"Women make up 70 percent of Algeria's lawyers and 60 percent of its
judges. Women dominate medicine. Increasingly, women contribute more
to household income than men. Sixty percent of university students
are women, university researchers say.
...
Although men still hold all of the formal levers of power and women
still make up only 20 percent of the work force, that is more than
twice their share a generation ago, and they seem to be taking over
the machinery of state as well.
...
The women are more religious than in previous generations, and more
modern, sociologists here said. Women cover their heads and drape
their bodies with traditional Islamic coverings. They pray. They go
to the mosque - and they work, often alongside men, once considered
taboo."

"Algeria's quiet revolution: Gains by women," International Herald
Tribune, May 26, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/26/africa/algeria.1-62108.php