Albanian Clitics: Cracking the Code

Nearly all adjectives (and genitive nouns) in Albanian are accompanied by a small proclitic particle, which varies in form for gender, number, case, and definiteness of the head noun. There are only four possible realizations of this particle, but their distribution across these four axes is far from obvious. A few examples of how this looks in practice:

një qen i mirë "a good dog" (nominative, masculine)

macen e mirë "the good cat" (accusative, feminine)

një qeni të mirë "to a good dog" (dative, masculine)

prej maces së mirë "from the good cat" (ablative, feminine)

These Albanian adjectival clitics have bewildered me for years; I have had very little success in synthesizing the profusion of slightly differing forms. Cheered, however, by my recent discovery of a paper laying out Albanian stress rules to a point of nearly full predictability, I decided today to try to formulate a Grand Theory of Albanian Clitics that reduces some of the complexity.

First of all, the data. Here is the form of the clitic in all the aforementioned environments; note that the row labeled "DAT" corresponds to the three cases genitive, dative and ablative, which have experienced syncretism in most areas of Modern Albanian:

		Singular				Plural
	Masc		Fem		Masc		Fem
	Indef	Def	Indef	Def	Indef	Def	Indef	Def
NOM	i	i	e	e	të	e	të	e
ACC	të	e	të	e	të	e	të	e
DAT	të	të	të	së	të	të	të	të

My immediate reaction to this table is that it was clearly laid out by a conlanger who either had sadistic tendencies, a flair for randomness, or who was fairly inexperienced with reasonable linguistic expectations. After a few hours of analysis, though, it turns out that all of this can be summarized in a few bullet points, to wit:

• Masculine nominative singular indefinite is i, feminine is e; other than this, all indefinites are të for all genders, cases and numbers.

• Accusative for all genders and numbers is always të when indefinite and e when definite.

• Dative is të for all genders, numbers and definiteness EXCEPT feminine singular definite which has së. Note that the nouns to which these clitics apply have the unique ending -ës, which is highly mnemonic.

• Definite nominative for all genders and numbers is e EXCEPT for masculine singular, which is i.

Internalizing these rules to the point that I could produce them on the fly is a whole other kettle of monkeys, of course, but nonetheless I'm very pleased that the wall of intimidatingly bizarre Albanian grammar has been lowered by a few notches.

Amelia's World-Famous Eggnog

As served at last night's pre-Yuletide bash! Coming soon: my sugarless Lebkuchen recipe.

Amelia's Famous Eggnog

Yield: about 6 cups

INGREDIENTS

3 cups whole milk

7 large eggs

3/4 cup agave nectar

2 cups heavy cream

1/3 cup bourbon

1/3 cup brandy

1 tsp vanilla

freshly grated nutmeg

PREPARATION

Bring milk just to a boil in a 2-quart heavy saucepan. Whisk together eggs and agave in a large bowl, then add hot milk in a slow stream, whisking. Pour mixture into saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until mixture reaches 170F (6 to 7 minutes).

Pour custard through a fine-meshed sieve into a large bowl and stir in the cream, bourbon, brandy and vanilla. Cool completely, uncovered, then cover and chill until cold, at least 3 hours but no longer than 24.

Grate nutmeg over each glass of eggnog immediately before drinking.

A new name-related quandary in transliteration

As you may have heard, as of October 17th Amelia and I are both changing our last name to Birch, and for the first time in my life I'm faced with an option: do I want a middle name? Being as interested as I am in naming conventions, it seems like an opportunity in self-identification way too fantastic to pass up; but it does also bring up this question of choosing said middle name.

Since I'm giving up Brandt, my connection to my Jewish/Yiddish heritage, I've been thinking about...something I don't know how to write, which is indeed the main point of this post, so just pretend for the moment that there's a name here...almost since the inception of discussion about this whole Birch idea. This is my paternal grandfather's original Yiddish name, before he gave it up to avoid persecution in post-WWII Poland, and also the name of his uncle who protected him and helped him survive in hiding during the Holocaust and was killed in Russian-German crossfire in the war's final days. It's a good name, and it makes me feel proud to imagine carrying it around with me.

So that's not the problem; no, the problem is one of spelling. In various systems of transliteration, the name is as follows:

[ˈɡɛɾʃən] or [ˈɡɛɾʃn̩] - IPA
[`gErS@n] or [`gErS=n] - SAMPA
[gārshŭn] - American dictionary phonetics
[GAIR-shin] - Phrasebook English

I just discovered this afternoon that this is actually a Biblical name, and as such in English is generally spelled Gershon (from Hebrew גרשון, "gršun" in transliteration). When my grandfather learned to write, though, he was taught to spell his name גערשן, "geršn," which represents the way it's actually pronounced in Yiddish (Yiddish, unlike Hebrew, uses a phonemic writing system). Now, if I were going to transcribe the Yiddish גערשן into English, the standard system would give me Gershn. And just to throw some further confusion into the mix: since we're talking about Polish Jews, another possibility is the standard Polish transliteration of this name: Gerszon.

So which should it be? Gershon, as the English (and even the educated Yiddish) print standard? Or Gershn as representative of the way it was apparently written in the community of farmers in Eastern Poland to whom I'm paying homage in adopting this name? Or something else? Any input would be very much appreciated.

More lost and found

I just dug out of my wallet a crumpled and bedraggled but historically significant piece of paper: a list of ingredients in green ink on the back of a Port Townsend bed-and-breakfast receipt, being the toppings of a particularly extraordinary pizza that I once consumed in Great Barrington, MA. I'm excited to have found this, not only because now Amelia and I can try to reproduce it next time we make pizza crust, but also because I can now send this scrap to its long home after its five years of following me on my travels, and thereby lighten my wallet by a fractional but nonetheless meaningful amount. Here's the list:

DOLCE VITA PIZZA

tomato sauce
wilted spinach
mozzarella cheese
figs
Gorgonzola cheese
prosciutto
sprinkled with rosemary-infused olive oil and Parmesan cheese

I'll post some pictures if/when we get around to making this...

KEEP ANDREW JACKSON OFF MY MONEY

So Andrew Jackson is on the new dollar coins. I know it's a president-by-president progression, but I'm still incensed.

Part A:

What was wrong with Sacagawea, anyway? Why can't we have a woman on a single piece of U.S. currency?

Part B:

Andrew Jackson was a tyrant whose presidency was an embarrassment to the ideals this country is supposed to stand for. His actions against the Native Americans (with particular reference to his defiance of the Supreme Court and the Trail of Tears) were simply unconscionable and there is just no excuse for our condoning his actions by honoring him in this way. I object to...no, that's not strong enough: I am nauseated by being made to see this blackguard's face a hundred times every day.

That is all.

Why I love the propaganda

Polish Communist propaganda songs are spectacular, and the world deserves more access to this very unique and now sadly vanished art form. To this end, here's a quick on-the-BART translation of one of my favorites, Budujemy Nowy Dom = "We're building a new house." This dates from shortly after WWII when Warsaw had basically been razed to the ground, and in fact Budujemy Nowy Dom was the slogan of the reconstruction movement.

Note that first person plural verbs in Polish often do the job of the English hortative "let's..." even without an imperative ending, so the title of the song might be more accurately translated as "Let's build a new house," which is what I've done below. Try to imagine this being sung in fervent operatic tones.

Let's build a new house
Yet another new house
Unto our future better days,
O Warsaw

Multiply our work with us,
Come share our work with us
For this is our common goal
O Warsaw

From the basement to the roof
May the building joyfully rise
Into my dreams and yours
O Warsaw

May the walls leap skywards
Since the hands are willing
Let's build a new concrete house!

Who wouldn't be excited about a new concrete house? My absolute favorite for sheer ridiculousness, though, has to be Piosenka o Nowej Hucie = "Song about Nowa Huta." Nowa Huta is an enormous industrial suburb of Kraków (Cracow) built by the government in the late 40s and early 50s to try to balance out the intellectual population of the city and make it more amenable to Communist policy. Listen to a little bit of the recording to get the vibe, and then check out what they're actually saying.



My attempt at a reasonably idiomatic English version (thanks go to Jesse for his help with the incredibly difficult-to-translate second line of the first stanza):

On the Vistula, the wide Vistula,
The bricklayers' chatter fills the air in song
And the song of the bricklayer floats up high
And floats through nights and days.

CHORUS:
This is a song about Nowa Huta
This is a melody about Nowa Huta
It's so simple and pretty
And has such a nice melody.
This is a song about Nowa Huta
The words are about Nowa Huta
It's so simple and pretty
And new like Huta is new.

A hundred blocks have sprouted up along the Vistula
And a thousand roads straight to them
The bricklayer's song has grown out into the future
And joins the two banks like a bridge.

CHORUS

And there can be no other future now:
The peace and good that it sends us
And when you're in Huta with your girl
And hear this song, know that...

CHORUS

Remarkably (and sort of worryingly) this song is still reasonably popular today. But come on, is this not a paragon of...well, something we probably don't have a word for yet? The chorus in particular needs to win some kind of award -- a Rory, perhaps -- for the most gratuitous lack of content in a serious song. "And new like Huta is new." Dude.

Next time: Na Prawo Most, Na Lewo Most.

Oh no! Mr. Hat is dead!

From: Dr Usman Bello
To: Jazzschool
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:51:22 +0530 (IST)
Subject: My Letter to you reply immediately

- DEAR SIR,I AM DR USMAN BELLO, HEAD OF INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND AFRICA UNIT DU COTONOU BENIN REPUBLIC ,I AM WORKING AS PART OF A BIGGER TEAM THAT COVERS THE ENTIRE WEST AFRICAN REGION INCLUDING INSURANCE BANKS. AN INVESTOR MR HAT DIED WITHOUT NAMING ANY NEXT OF KIN TO HIS FUND IN THE UTB BANK COTONOU BENIN REPUBLIC.THE AMOUNT IS $14,525.000,00 DOLLAR ACCOUNT AND BANKING REGULATION/LEGISLATION IN BENIN REPUBLIC DEMANDS THAT I SHOULD NOTIFY THE FISCAL AUTHORITIES AFTER THREE YEARS.THE ABOVE SET OF FACTS UNDERSCORES MY REASON TO SEEK YOUR PERMISSION TO HAVE YOU STAND IN AS THE NEXT OF KIN TO THE DECEASED. THIS FUND WILL BE APPROVED AND RELEASED IN YOUR FAVOUR AS THE NEXT OF KIN IF ONLY YOU WILL ADHERE TO MY INSTRUCTION AND COOPERATE WITH ME IN ONE ACCORD.I HAVE ALL THE LEGAL AND BANKING DETAILS OF THE DECEASED CLIENT THAT WILL FACILITATE OUR PUTTING YOU FORWARD AS THE BENEFICIARY OF THE FUNDS AND ULTIMATELY TRANSFER OF THE $14,525.000,00 PLUS INTERESTTO ANY BANK ACCOUNT NOMINATED BY YOU.WE CAN DISCUSS COMMINOR PERCENTAGE AS SOON AS YOU REPLY MY EMAIL AFTER YOUR RESPONSE.REGARDS DR USMAN BELLO [emphasis mine]