Sant Joan '08 - i manifestos i ciència i espanyols i francesos

La flama i les flames: Sant Joan '08.

[I en èpoques de fogueres, la flamerada cíclica del "manifest" "d'intel·lectuals" espanyols que intenta augmentar - encara més! - la desigualtat a favor del castellà - idioma de conneixement obligatori "gràcies" a la "constitución" - enfront dels idiomes minortizats, arraconats per massa feblesa dels seus parlants i per l'ofensiva a tots nivells de mans dels poderosos. Tot via diari madrileny amb pretensions "mundials". La cançó de sempre, que de tant repetir-la és la versió oficial dels desinformats.

Però deixem els espanyols amb les seves dèries i ofensives i la seva premsa ultranacionalista espanyola.

Llegim la revista Nature, per exemple. Que té més prestigi i coses més interessants a explicar. I que parla de la comèdia francesa dels idiomes minoritaris dels darrers mesos. I diu això: (la negreta és meva, especialment dedicada als salvadors de balenes que s'obliden del mínim respecte per a l'idioma del lloc on viuen)

Comédie-Française

Regional and minority languages should be protected, in France, and elsewhere.Quelle horreur ! The 40 élite members of the Académie française are jumping out of their fauteuils, incensed that legislation passed by France's National Assembly would put regional languages such as Breton, Occitan, Corse, Alsatian, Catalan and Basque into the constitution as part of the national heritage. The members are particularly outraged that the regional languages would get a mention in the first article of the constitution — which defines France as an "indivisible, lay, democratic and social republic" — ahead of the second article, which designates French as the official language. The academy, created in 1635 to guard the purity of the French language, voted unanimously this month to condemn the move as "defying logic", and being a threat to the nation.

Actually, "defying logic", is an apt description of the vote itself. Globalization is already threatening to extinguish half the world's 6,000–7,000 languages. That would be a tragic loss to humanity and our understanding of it, if only because knowledge and culture are inescapably interwined with the languages within which they evolved. Languages also enrich each other, and provide a trove of data for research in linguistics and history. The other main French academy, the Académie des Sciences, should make itself heard on the matter.

Multilingualism has other practical benefits. French scientists who speak regional languages in addition to the national tongue testify that early bilingualism has helped them go on to master English and other languages. Some even argue that the thought processes involved have helped them to be better and more creative scientists.

The Académie française argues that France's regional languages are so obviously part of its heritage that there is no need for constitutional safeguards. That is disingenuous. It is precisely the lack of constitutional recognition that has blocked France from ratifying key international treaties to conserve minority languages: the courts have ruled that ratification is forbidden by existing constitutional principles, such as the indivisibility of the Republic and the unity of the French people.

Indeed, if earlier French governments had had their way, Breton, which is spoken in Brittany, would have been eradicated long ago. Only stubborn Breton persistence has prevented this from happening, notably through the creation of the Diwan Breton-language schools from the 1970s onwards.

Yec'hed mat (to your health) to that — because regional and minority languages, like endangered species, merit protection. Languages that aren't revitalized through constant exercise die out. It's hypocritical that France, which is one of the first to staunchly defend its own elegant national language, should deny that same right to regions that wish to keep their own languages alive and vibrant. The National Assembly's legislation was rejected last week by France's conservative Senate. But it could yet be reintroduced, and should be: for the sake of both science and its own rich heritage, France should remove the constitutional obstacles as quickly as possible, and ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.]

'Les portes del passat'

Aquest país oblida massa la gent que tenia coses a dir. Com Pedrolo, que sapigué fer literatura - no només el 'mecanoscrit' que tothom ha llegit i del qual encara falta la pel·lícula que ja tindríem si fossim una terra normal - i apuntar als problemes de la nostra societat des del periodisme -han reeditat fa poc les 'cròniques'. Pels desmemoriats, informació de la viquipèdia aquí. Volen que desaparegui del record, malgrat la profunditat de tots els seus textos: ara ens omplen de chikilikuatres i pà-i-circ, i als diaris omplen les planes de molts gràfics i poques lletres, i a les ràdios sempre opinen els mateixos per fer tombs sense rumb ...

D'altres opten per no callar, i per recuperar els que parlaren clar, com la seva Fundació. També en concursos fotogràfics, per entreobrir (per allà, exposades no-sé-on, també aparegueren per aquí) les portes del passat ...

(La imatge del post s'ha de buscar al darrer link, perquè l'ordinador - junt amb altres coses - està fora de combat ...).

15 anys

"Demà, dissabte, farà quinze anys de l'assassinat de Guillem i milers de persones el recordarem i l'honorarem. Però cal que ho fem conscients que la violència neonazi creix, especialment a València, gràcies a la impunitat amb què actuen, puix que els jutges i la policia els deixen fer. I que, per això mateix, la millor manera de recordar-lo és de denunciar aquesta impunitat, d'exigir un canvi immediat i de combatre sens treva la ideologia que sustenten els nazis d'avui. (...)" L'article de Vicent Partal al Mail Obert de Vilaweb segueix aquí. Lectura recomanada!

Dear Architects, I Am Sick of Your Shit

"Dear Architects, I Am Sick of Your Shit,

Once, a long time ago in the days of yore, I had a friend who was studying architecture to become, presumably, an architect.This friend introduced me to other friends, who were also studying architecture. (...)

Architects love to discuss how much sleep they have gotten. One will say how he was at the studio until five in the morning, only to return again two hours later. Then another will say, oh that is nothing. I havenít slept in a week. And then another will say, guess what, I have never slept ever. (...)"

Funny text from a KoreanAmerican writter (blog here), talking about her architect friends who are always arguing about their sleeping time. You can read it all here (in a a funny blog on how to become a famous architect, you know, pay attention to the election of your glasses, or be born rich, or throw a brick to a famous head, or ...). The article was first published in an architecture publication from an American university ... and got to many discussion places; architects love to argue too. You can read some of them here ... after reading the article.

As you should know already, architects (or those who are studying architecture to become, presumably, architects) talk mainly about architecture.

Today no catalan translation ... Avui no hi ha traducció catalana ...

Kiran Desai - place, persons, reinventing ...

"For a long time I thought that the best love was the one that does not come. And I was looking at movies that were on that direction. I am interested in analyzing specially what happens with the feelings among two persons when they are separated geographically, when there are intervals of time in which they do not see each other. I am interested in the uncertainty of the love, this 'not knowing' what the other one is doing, the richness of this ‘waiting’."

"I believe that the emigrant never manages to find his place. Once you start moving you never finish. You think of a simple trip, but it is never like that. There is always a trip of return that makes you come back to your country, though it is for a few weeks, and it shakes everything. You rethink things every day. You are always reinventing yourself. But, you know?, it does not seems to me bad that not all the pieces of your life match perfectly, that something lacks to your existence. It helps yourself to choose your place in the world. Only the emigrants can choose wherefrom they want to be."


"Durante mucho tiempo pensé que era mejor el amor que no llega. Y miraba películas que cumplían con eso. Me interesa especialmente analizar lo que ocurre con los sentimientos entre dos personas cuando están separadas geográficamente, cuando hay intervalos de tiempo en que no se ven. Me interesa la incertidumbre del amor, ese no saber qué hace el otro, la riqueza de ese esperar."

"Yo creo que el emigrante no llega a encontrar su sitio nunca. Una vez empiezas a moverte nunca acabas. Tú esperas un viaje sencillo, pero nunca lo es. Siempre hay un viaje de retorno que te devuelve a tu país, aunque sea por unas semanas, y eso te remueve todo. Te planteas cosas diariamente. Estás siempre reinventándote. Pero, ¿sabe?, tampoco me parece mal eso de que no cuadren todas las piezas de tu vida, que le falte algo a tu existencia. Te ayuda a escoger tu sitio en el mundo. Sólo el emigrante puede escoger de dónde quiere ser."

Kiran Desai, al magazine de la Vanguardia del 30-12-2007