Cúpla bliain ó shin, cheannaigh mé leabhar le Haruki Murakami i siopa leabhair i gCathair Chorcaí. Ba é Sputnik Sweetheart an teideal a bhí air.

Ag an am níl eolas ar bith agam ar teanga nó ar chultúr na Seapáine agus níor léigh mé aon leabhar seapánach. Ba é léamh an leabhair sin mo chéad turas i litríocht nua-aimseartha na Seapáine in aistriúchán agus caithim a rá go raibh mé an-tóghta leis an seánra.

Feictear dom gur d'imir Franz Kafka tionchar éigin ar scríbhneoireacht Murakami mar tá na plotaí agus na carachtair an-surreal agus an-deacair a leanúint agus a thuiscint. Má léigh tú The Castle le Kafka tá a fhios agat cad tá i gceist agam. Is amhlaidh is Kafka on the Shore an t-aimn atá ar leabhar le Murakami a fhoilsíodh i mbliain 2005 - is 海辺のカフカ (Umibe no Kafuka) an teideal atá an leagán Seapáinise, a fhoilsíodh i mbliain 2002 .

Tug mo chailín The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle mar bronntanas dom ar mo lá bheithe an bhliain seo. Níor thosaigh mé fós é ach tá cinnte go mbainfidh mé taitneamh as. Faoi láthair tá m'fhiacla i leabhar darbh ainm Out le údar eile ón Seapáin. Natsuo Kirino an t-ainm atá uirithi.

B'fhéidir go bhfuil tú ag smaoineamh cad tá i gceist leis an siombail i dteideal an phost. Is í an siombail seo an kanji don bhfocal 'lebahar' i Seapáinis. Léitear í moto (もと). Is í ほん (léitear hon) an kana ar 'leabhar'.

Feicimid an kanji 本 sa fhrása 本気？ (léitear ほんき honto ki) 'Bhfuil tú cinnte?' Ní hí 'leabhar' an t-aon brí atá ar an gkanji 本 ach ciallaíonn sí 'fíor' freisin. Nuair a chuirimid na kanji 本 agus 気 (いき iki, 'meabhar', 'giúmar', 'mothú', 'meanma') le chéile, sroichimid ar an mbrí 'meabhar ceart' nó '[bhfuil tú] cinnte?'.

~本~

A couple of years ago I bought a book by Haruki Murakami in a book store in Cork city. Sputnik Sweetheart was the title of the book.

At the time I didn't know anything about Japanese language or culture. Reading this book was my first foray into modern Japanese literature in translation and I must say that I was very taken with the genre.

It seems to me that Franz Kafka played a certain influence on Murakami's writing as the plots and the characters are very surreal and very hard to follow and understand. If you have read The Castle by Kafka you'll know what I am talking about. In fact Kafka on the Shore is the name of a book by Murakami published in 2005 - 海辺のカフカ (Umibe no Kafuka) is the title of the original Japanese version, published in 2002.

My fiancée gave me The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle as a birthday present this year and while I haven't started it yet I just know I will enjoy it. At the moment I am have teeth stuck in a book (Out) by another Japanese author by the name of Natsuo Kirino, a woman writer this time.

You might be wondering what that symbol in the post title means. It is the kanji for the Japanese word for 'book'. It is read as moto (もと). The kana for the word book is ほん, read as hon.

The kanji 本 appears in the question-phrase 本気？ (read as ほんき honto ki) which means Are you sure? The kanji 本 apart from meaning book can also mean 'real' or 'true'. This joined to the kanji 気 (いき iki) which means 'mood', 'mind' or 'spirit' leads to readings such as 'true-mind' or '[are you] sure?'.

läheme Soome and thesis update

Reedel me läheme Soome autoga. Ühel Eva isa sõpradest on suvemaja kesk-Soomes.
Reedel me läheme autoga Soome. Ühel Eva isa sõpradest on kesk-Soomes suvemaja.

On Friday we're off to Finland with the car. One of Eva's father's friends has a summer house in the middle of Finland. We'll be returning to Estonia on Monday. For the interval I'll run some scheduled posts.

In other news my thesis is going okay. I'm not getting as much work done on it as I would wish but things can't always be just as you hoped for. So far I have recorded two children and I have roughly 70 minutes of data between them plus some information from a background survey that the children's parents filled out.

I have a pretty good review of the literature but it's inside my head. I haven't written much down yet and I am unsure how my data fits/ will fit in with the literature. So far I have more questions than answers and as the days roll on I get more anxious and it becomes harder to concentrate.

It's likely now too late to find any more participants in Estonia (we leave on the 16th of July) but if you know of anyone there just might be enough time to do a recording or maybe I can organise a recording in absentia. If you know someone in Ireland there would be plently of time to do a recording.

My research is on child bilingualism, children between 3 and 4 years of age that have been raised through English and Estonian from birth where one parent is a native speaker of English and the other is a native speaker of Estonian. The research entails 30 minutes of recording and a background survey. Email me on corcaighist[at]gmail.com for further details if you are interested or know a family that might be.

suur eesti grillipidu

I won't go too much into the festival itself, information of which can be easily found by surfing the web. I will rather add to what has already been said by the likes of Kris and Giustino.

The Song Festival, otherwise known as the Big Estonian Grill Party (Suur Eesti Grillipidu - look it up on wiki if you don't believe me) took place last weekend, 4th and 5th of July 2009. It was the 25 time that the Estonian nation got together in one spot to grill and eat the very best (veri vorst?) of Estonian meat products and, in-between eating, sing a few of the nation's favourite tunes as well.

Okay, let's get serious...

On the whole we liked the festival. Eva and I just went to the final day of the song festival and watched the rest on telly-cat. I'll try not to go too much into the negatives of the festival though there are however a few points I wish to mention and maybe get some feedback on.

Number 1: The horrible bus journey we had on the number 5 Männiku-Metsakool. The city transport company should cop itself on a put on more transport for major events such as this. I am surprised someone wasn't trampled, squashed or didn't suffocate to death on the bus-ride from hell.

Number 2: The sitting arrangements (or lack there of) was annoying. Originally we organised a nice plot from where we have a nice view of the stage in a sitting position. Likewise everyone behind us with sitting too. However as the grounds began to fill more and more people stopped looking for places to sit down and just stood right in front of us completely blocking our view. Now, I like Estonian ass as much as the next foreigner but we did after all pay to see singers. We were forced to stand which meant we blocked the view of those behind us.

We moved to higher ground under the trees where we got shelter against the rain but it also left us without the sun's rays and it got very chilly very quickly. Plus we couldn't hear anything of the festival, just the clapping of the people below at the end of each song. Also if people can't hear what's going on they tend to talk which is terribly annoying. So we moved again to stand further down, ironically not far from where we left a nice plot on the ground a couple of hours ago. So we stood for the last two hours of the festival.

It was clear that there just wasn't enough space for everyone that came which forced people to stand and also clogged the passage ways. Thank god no-one got sick or injured before I have no idea how paramedics would have been able to move in such a mass of people.

Number 3: I understand the need of people to eat and does the air need to be that smoky? For a moment I thought there must have been two festivals on at the same time - the song festival and the grill festival. Perhaps there was. It's just that the smell of all that cooked meat was unnerving. Plus the smoke made the stage harder to see, not least of all to take pictures and videos of.

Number 4: The whole event felt exclusive. On the one hand you had people at the front who got seats a great view of the stage that was utterly interactive in nature. They saw and heard everything. Of course they payed up to 8 times as much for the tickets so I guess it's just fair that way. However surely there should have been some live screens and extra speakers so the people further back (us) would have been able to see the stage with its singers and actually hear the lyrics. There were times I didn't even know what song was on because all I heard was a faint murmur from down the valley. In a way the TV coverage of Saturday's festival gave us a better view of the festival than actually being there on Sunday. It seemed like the people at the front were at a concert and those at the back were re-enacting rush-hour traffic Manhattan style equipped with prams, buggies and camping-chairs. However as we got closer to the end of the festival the crowds stopped moving and people started to pay more attention to the stage.

Okay, that said there were lots of positive sides to the festival as well that I will now turn to just so you know I amn't a grump (all of the time).

The festival was really cheap. My ticket was 100eek (€6.39) and Eva's was just half that, 50eek. It was well worth the money because despite the bad points, we spent just under 6 hours listening to music and being actively part of the Estonian nation. Giustino has said that: Laulipidu is an exercise in identity building...[people] leave the Laulupidu as one of the Estonian masses while Kris has said that the Song Festival is practically a sacred duty (see links above). It's true that the festival holds a special place in the culture and history of the Estonian nation (which I wrote about here) and as the day wore on you could sense that oneness that I had heard about so many times and that I became hooked on from watching the docfilm The Singing Revolution. As the songs went by I got over my intial annoyances and just went with the flow.

I felt privileged to have been there, to have seen this great coming-together, this cultural institution that is the laulupidu. I did feel some of that laulupidu magic yesterday and no doubt during the next one I will feel much more.

I am not a tourist in Estonian, but neither am I a väliseestlane. Sometimes I don't really know my place here. Should I allow myself become swept up with this tide of Estonian nationalism? How does being an Estophile fit in with my being Irish? There is an old Irish saying: Ní féidir leat freastal ar an dá thrá (You can’t serve two masters).

I guess I felt all these questions yesterday. I have been coming to and from Estonia now since Easter 2006 and the country continues to grow on me. I have travelled her length and breadth and I have seen her great Egg Mountain. I have picked mushrooms from her forests and berries from her bogs. I have been to a song festival and I have seen her American dickie-bow wearing President three times with my own eyes. I have even eaten blood sausage and meat jelly!

And yet I feel like there is something missing. To me the ways of Estonians are still a mystery. Even after over three years I have still to master how to refuse a second helping of manna piimaga à la estonien let alone feel comfortable with the plural partitive case!

Yes, I have a lot to learn and maybe not understanding the lyrics of the songs (only their titles) was a factor that took away somewhat from yesterday. I wonder though in 2014 (when the festival shall next been around and I will be 29), attending the Laulu- Tantsupidu with my eesti naine of four years and our one pool-eestlane (or two pool-eestlast ?) if I will feel more a part of the Estonian nation. I don't doubt it.

So while leaving the song ground yesterday I bought myself a festival commemorative pin for less than €2 to mark the occasion of my first festival-attendance. I will be back and maybe next time I will understand to what I am singing along. Aitäh ja nägemist!

printsess

princess "Sachi"
Originally uploaded by *Rock Girl [Busy]

So I was on a road-trip of sorts with my kallis a few days back. When on a road-trip it is important to feed and rest yourself well, necessitating stop-offs for lunch, coffee and supplies in various kaubamajad along the high-ways and by-ways. And when you let women loose in department stories you lose them to the many clothes stores therein. As a broke student whose philosophy is to only look at clothes when 1) I have money, and 2) I have a particular item in mind and then to buy them somewhere cheap, I had plenty of time to pontificate and survey in these middle-of-the-market stores.

One thing that is very clear in clothes stores that cater the whole family is the divison between the sexes. Anyone that argues that societal gender roles are wholely a result of sexual differences at the biological level should take a look at how clothes (and toys) are marketed to our children.

In one section of the store you have the boys' clothes and in another the girls', and very rare should the two meet. In the boys' section we have pictures of boys looking mischievous and up to no good, as if they are about to hit you with a sling-shot. The girls are pictured looking innocent and pretty as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. And for some reason you find these stupid labels on some girls' and young women's clothes along the lines of: "Just for Girls!".

I can understand making a large distinction between mens' and womens' clothes. Simply men and women's bodies are different, not just in shape but also in proportion. However for children, often times the only way to know if the child running amuck in the park is a boy or a girl is by their clothes. And if the clothes are unisex the only clue is the hair. That girls have long hair and boys have short hair is a rule of thumb that has been institutionalised can be seen by the rule in force in many of Ireland's primary and secondary schools that specifies a maximum length of hair for boys and a minimum length for girls.

Turn back the clock two decades and it was common to wear hand-me-downs from older siblings or relatives. As a child my fiancée was often dressed the same to her younger brother. They were often taken for twins, her for a boy. Would it be so bad to blur the line between boy clothes and girl clothes? To sell more unisex clothes for children, even a unisex section in the store for children, perhaps for adults too?

It's not just clothes. Take footwear as well. Sure it's uncommon for men to want to wear heels and pumps but if you look at the way footwear such as trainers (runners) and hiking boots are marketed in sports and outdoor stores you find a clear distinction made between womens' and mens' shoes. I wasn't aware there was a difference between men and women's feet. I have often wandered around a sports store following the shoes and pick up a pair that looks cool and is my size. They turn out to be for girls' and for some reason I am made to feel weird.

Are the signs and boards up there above so someone can check if they are in the "right" section? Does it matter if a guy buys a pair of "womens'" runners? Does it make a girl less of one of she fancies a pair of "guys'" shoes? Surely the world would stop turning if people were able to walk into a store and not be guided by signs and pictures. It would instead be an interesting natural social experiment. What purchases would we make if we didn't know this item of clothing or footwear "belonged" to one sex/gender or the other?

Back to children. Ask yourself a question. As a parent would you buy your son a pink t-shirt or jumper? Would you buy it for him if it had sparkles on it? If it had the word "princess"? What about a dress or a skirt?

If your son wanted a doll for Christmas would you deny him it, even if it made him cry and upset for the whole day? Would you instead buy him a G.I. Joe (or other similar toy)? Would it depend on the age of the child, okay for a four year old to play with a Barbie, but not a ten year old?

Boys and girls are different. As are men and women. It is a distinction that is created in the womb, one that is inescapably biological. At the same time however I can't help feeling that alot of the tension and misunderstanding that exists between the genders in society is a result of an upbringing that exaggerates and emphasises differences that are not really there naturally. In a way boys and girls seem to grow up in different worlds and as a result of this cultural and societal conditioning this division continues into adult-hood.

What think you?

the power of sound

Recently I updated my iPod and swapped music tracks with podcasts. The major change though was that there is now no material in English on my iPod. I downloaded podcasts in Irish from the state broadcaster RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta and the independent blogger and podcaster Conn Ó Muíneacháin of An tImeall; in French from Radio France's France Culture; and in Estonian from Vikerraadio.

In Estonian I mostly just listen to the sound and the rhythm of the language and try and listen out for phrases and expressions that I know. In Irish and French I find listening to the podcasts a couple of times helps me keep in touch with the languages. The cool thing is that there is never a shortage of podcasts so when I get bored and tired with the ones I have I can always update with the click of a button. There is such a great choice as well between interviews, entertainment news, general news, chat-shows, short-stories...

I try and bring my iPod with me where-ever I go, be it on the bus, going for a run, or just sunbathing in the garden. I can relax and surround me with whatever language I wish. It really is an advantage to be able to combine ''study'' with another activity. That way I can let my brain soak up Irish/ French/ Estonian while I work on stretches or my tan. Excellent!

Irish: podchraoladh (sg.) / podchraoltaí (pl.)
French: podcast (sg.) / podcasts (pl.)
Estonian: podcast (sg.) / podcastid (pl.)

You really do need to create the learning opportunity with which to exposure yourself to the language if you wish to progress. It's my intention to become fluent in those three languages in so far as that I would feel comfortable reading, writing, speaking, interacting and listening. My goal therefore is to become a function quadrilingual.

lõpetaja

Yesterday my fiancée Eva graduated with a B.Sc. in Applied Chemistry and Biotechnology from Tallinn University of Technology. Fair play to her!

I love ya babes!

~ . ~

Bhain mo ghrá geal inné céim Baitsiléir Eolaíochta amach i gCeimic Fheidhmeach agus Biteicneolaíochta ón Ollscoil Teicneolaíochta Tallinn. Fair plé léi!

Is tú mo stóirín!

iron horses, blue lice and a finnish woman

What could iron horses (trains) and a Finnish woman have to do with lice, let alone lice that are blue? Well, I will tell you and it all takes place down a dusty road in Southern Estonia.

Today and yesterday I was down Lõuna-Eesti way with my naine and my naise vanemad on a road trip, one of the purposes of which was to visit an American-Estonian family to record a soon-to-be 4 year old boy. It was part of my master's research into Estonian-English child bilingualism. The visit was set-up for yesterday.

The family have a summer retreat in a very isolated area of southern Estonia and the journey really necessitated the logistical assistance of Eva's parents to reach it. About ten minutes before the appointed time we arrived at the intersection as mentioned in the instructions that the man of house had given me. He had told me (us) to turn down this dusty country road and go to the first farm house on the right. In my mixture of nervousness and excitement I asked Eva's father to pull into the first house on the road which happened to be on the left. Eva and I exited the car and I took my recording equipment with me, a small handheld dictophone and digital camera with video/ sound recording.

I walked up to the garden of the house and saw an eldery woman. At that point I realised we (I?) had the wrong house but I thought it couldn't hurt to ask. In my broken Estonian I asked the woman if she knew an American family on the road and gave her the name of the family. The funny thing was that it seemed like the woman popped out from somewhere in Finland. The intonation pattern of her language was much more similiar to Finnish than Estonian.

I'm not sure what her exact reply and I am not sure either what language it was in but I at least got the message she didn't know any foreign families on the road, let alone American ones. Maybe Northern Estonian but no other foreigners.

You see, Estonia has a north-south language-division. Similiar to how France is socially and linguistically split into the northern oïl-languages and the southern òc-languages, Estonia has two main languages: Northern Estonian, the official state standard; and Southern Estonian, a umbrella term for protected minority languages spoken in Southern Estonia such as Võro and Seto.

Contrary to what you might think because of geography, Southern Estonian is closer to Finnish than Northern Estonian. To see the differences between Estonian and Southern Estonian I have copied out the Lord's Prayer in standard Estonian and standard Võro (the q of Võro denotes a glottal stop).

Estonian: Meie isa, kes Sa oled taevas: pühitsetud olgu Sinu nimi. Sinu riik tulgu. Sinu tahtmine sündigu, nagu taevas nõnda ka maa peal. Meie igapäevast leiba anna meile tänapäev. Ja anna meile andeks meie võlad nagu meiegi andeks anname oma võlglastele. Ja ära saada meid kiusatusse, vaid päästa meid ära kurjast. Sest Sinu päralt on riik ja vägi ja au igavesti. Aamen.

Võro: Mi Esä taivan: pühendedüs saaguq sino nimi. Sino riik tulguq. Sino tahtminõ sündkuq, ku taivan, nii ka maa pääl. Mi päävälikku leibä annaq meile täämbä. Nink annaq meile andis mi süüq, nii ku ka mi andis anna umilõ süüdläisile. Ni saatku-i meid joht kiusatusõ sisse, a pästäq meid ärq kur’ast, selle et sino perält om riik ja vägi ni avvustus igävädses aos. Aamõn.

The woman might have been speaking a dialect of southern Estonian or she might have been speaking standard northern Estonian with a southern-Estonian accent but either way her speech was just so full of ä's, glottals and õ's. I don't know what she made of my crap Estonian, but anyway, at least we tried to make communication. So, no, I lied, this story isn't to do with a Finnish woman per se, but one that just seemed to have come from Finland!

We got back in the car and drove up the road for a little bit, took in the lay of the land and went back to the first house on the left, I mean, original right but now left...

We had finally arrived at the right house, and bang on time. We greeted the parents and the two children and proceeded to interview the parents and record the boy, after he had given us a nice tour of the garden.

The boy was very articulate and very intelligent. He loved trains and wanted to be a train-driver when he grows up. His favourite thing in the world, apart from trains, were whales. The boy educated me and his father about the diet of the blue whale which is his favourite. It was really an enjoyable and interesting visit because the family were very nice and I got good quality data for my project.

You might at this point be wondering where the lice come in. Well, the boy's father asked me how was whale in Irish. I'm not good on the names for animals, even in English so I didn't have an answer for him.

Today when I arrived home I checked online what was whale in Irish. I was in for a surprise. Whale translates as míol mór. Mór means 'big' but I didn't know the meaning of míol. It was a word I have never come across before. I looked it up and found out it meant louse! So the term in Irish for whale translates as 'big louse'. That was sure news to me and it is likely to be a term that I am unlikley to forget any time soon.

I'd just like to say thanks to the family for their warm hospitality, aitäh! and thanks also to the little boy for the lovely drawings that he gave Eva and Eva's father. For Eva he drew a picture of two blue whales and for Eva's father (who is a railway-engineer) he drew two pictures of trains. Picasso would surely have a run for his money if he were still alive today!