Abu Muqawama: Post
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Rodenbeck and Fisk v. Ahmadinejad
I am not a big fan of politically-motivated translation services, but this MEMRI clip of Ahmadinejad getting grilled by Max Rodenbeck (The Economist) and a visibly sober Robert Fisk (The Independent) is well worth watching. Rodenbeck, in particular, lets Ahmadinejad have it. And Ahmadinejad, playing his part, is reliably creepy.
[h/t The Arabist]
The tie-less society you,
The tie-less society you, Nir Rosen and Craig Mullaney seek to inhabit would go over well at an Iranian press conference.
Neckties are decadent
Neckties are decadent symbols of the spread of Western culture!
SNLII would be shocked to
SNLII would be shocked to learn that I wear a necktie on most days. Fridays are "casual dress" days here at CNAS, but today I am in rebellion and wearing a suit and tie.today I am in rebellion and
today I am in rebellion and wearing a suit and tie.
I'll give SNLII odds that it's either a seersucker or leisure suit paired with a Colonel Sanders string tie.
The Iranians are still
The Iranians are still connected and are posting their own videos appealing for support on youtube. Meanwhile, people are writing online tutorials on how to set up an old Wintel box as a proxy server for the Iranians, using either Windows or Linux, and TOR traffic (from which I am posting due to AM's Ahmadinejadinian blocking of my IPs) has skyrocketed this week, either because the Iranians themselves are using it, or because everyone heard that the Iranians might be using it and are giving it a spin (much more of the later, I'll bet). And as of yesterday, Google added Farsi to Google Translate's capabilities.
FYI, in Farsi, "Abu Muqawama" ("أبو مقاومة") is "پدر مقاومت".
This has been a very interesting week from the perspective of self-organizing/swarming comms robustness. So long as Iranian phone lines are up, there is very little the government can do to stop the flow of information from sophisticated users, and thanks to the same network, smart users can become very sophisticated very quickly. Whether this matters in the end remains to be seen.
P.S. Farsi "Father" ==
P.S. Farsi "Father" == "پدر" == "padar" ("پ" = pa, "د" = dal, "ر" = ra).
Wikipedia says that Farsi is a branch of the Indo-European language, so it's not surprising that this is very close to the Latin pater. Are there any language experts out there that can support this hypothesis?
Happy Father (of the resistance) Day. I hope that we all receive nice ties, or at least ties that we can plausibly appear to be happy to receive.
P.P.S. Why doesn't Farsi use
P.P.S. Why doesn't Farsi use the ta marbuta? The final letter of "resistance" in Farsi is a regular ta ("ت") rather than a "tied-tee" ("ة") as in Arabic. Does this mean that the final Farsi ta is pronounced as such, rather than a soft ha as in Arabic?
Is this ordinary practice for Farsi words? It's a rather surprising appearance given that Farsi is Indo-European; I'd therefore guess that the word "resistance" ("مقاومت") is an import from Arabic, rather than an original Farsi word. Does this example also show that the Persians adopted Arabic before the Arabs adopted the ta marbuta? (Not knowing the history of the ta marbuta.)
Again, a reality check from any language experts would be appreciated.
Open question: How much of
Open question: How much of what is happening today in Iran is the result of bringing democracy to Iraq? It seems to me that the whole 'beacon of freedom' thing seems to be working.
"I am not a big fan of
"I am not a big fan of politically-motivated translation services."
See, I'm not a big fan of translation services that insist you view their web page in Safari if you run OSX.
Oh my gosh, AND you miss
Oh my gosh, AND you miss that Amadi tried to punt by cracking a Mullah Nasruddin joke!
Regarding the pronounciation
Regarding the pronounciation of 'muqawma' in Arabic vs. 'muqavamat' in Farsi: many of the words are spelled with a 't' in Farsi and pronounced as such vs. the Arabic 'a'. One of the many things that got changed in translation when we adopted the Arabic alphabet. Also, while we have the same letters, the pronunciation of many of them differ in Farsi. For example, we don't have 'w' in Farsi, it is pronounced 'v'. As an Iranian and native Farsi speaker, I say it's an improvement on the original. Arabic speakers may disagree. (BTW--that's how you can tell Farsi speakers apart from Arabic speakers in the US, Iranians say things like "Vhere are you going?" and "Ve are going to Vestvood."
Ahmadinejad reminds me of a
Ahmadinejad reminds me of a particularly mad algerian neighbour i used to have, who was always getting into fights, threatening to kill people and bringing the cops round.
one day two squad cars turned up, 7cops, 6 with a baton and a big maglite torch each, and one with a medical kit.
no trouble after that.
I actually live in San
I actually live in San Diego, and only go to LA for authentic Iranian food and art exhibits. San Diego has had daily rallies almost with varying levels of attendance (I haven't gone personally). Most of the major cities in CA are having similar events. Iranian.com has pictures submitted from people from the different events.
P.P.S. Why doesn't Farsi use
P.P.S. Why doesn't Farsi use the ta marbuta? The final letter of "resistance" in Farsi is a regular ta ("ت") rather than a "tied-tee" ("ة") as in Arabic. Does this mean that the final Farsi ta is pronounced as such, rather than a soft ha as in Arabic?
Is this ordinary practice for Farsi words? It's a rather surprising appearance given that Farsi is Indo-European; I'd therefore guess that the word "resistance" ("مقاومت") is an import from Arabic, rather than an original Farsi word. Does this example also show that the Persians adopted Arabic before the Arabs adopted the ta marbuta? (Not knowing the history of the ta marbuta.)
Again, a reality check from any language experts would be appreciated.
PGS has already gotten to this, but to expand a little bit (from a non-native speaker): Yes, the Persian ta is pronounced as such. The ta marbuta in Arabic -- which is always written the same but pronounced alternatively as a ta or a ha depending on the case, becomes either a ta or ha in both form and pronunciation when borrowed into Persian.
I don't think it's a matter of chronology, but I can't be sure. I think it's rather a way of Persianizing loan words. For example, the ha ending to a loan word in Persian (which ends in the ta marbuta in Arabic) becomes ee in instances where possession is being demonstrated; I don't know how the possessive works in Arabic, but this demonstrates that the letter is simply treated as a Persian ha and not as a special character.
And on padar, I think your hypothesis is reasonable (especially considering that "mother" is madar).
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