Since at least the visit of the Emperor Ashoka in 249 BC (who left a pillar to mark the spot), Lumbini has been recognized by the devout as the fifth-century birthplace of Buddha and now it draws pilgrims from all over the Buddhist world. Coming from elsewhere in Nepal, though, you get dropped off at the Continue Reading »
For tourists, Pokhara is the second city of Nepal after Kathmandu. It is located 100 km west of the capital, next to a lovely (and remarkably clean) lake with several peaks of the Annapurna range visible on most days. The tourist hub of Lakeside is very similar to Kathmandu’s Thamel district, but it is less cramped Continue Reading »
When I first became acquainted with Persian some years ago, two grammatical features seemed unusual to me from an Indo-European perspective. One was the ezafe construction, which I eventually learned was the product of contact with Caucasian languages. But the other was the formation of the present tense with a prefix me‑ (indicative) or be‑ Continue Reading »
The Mari news site MariUver has reposted an interesting article originally published at PolitRUS about a recent political conference in Russia, which I’ve translated from Russian below. There’s an element of conspiracy ravings here; the “expert in Islamic studies” Suleymanov has drawn criticism for his claims of Tatar extremism. The last paragraph reveals something of Continue Reading »
The Thamel distict has been my base in Kathmandu. This tourist area has developed since the 1980s (replacing the smaller ‘Freak Street’ area further south that was popular in the days of the hippie trail). It consists of only two main streets less than 2 kilometres long but it is packed with hundreds of shops Continue Reading »
I got a fairly cheap Air Arabia flight from Istanbul to Kathmandu via Sharjah, my second time flying to the Subcontinent with this nice budget airline that gets you a day-long layover in the UAE. Since my flight arrived in Kathmandu late in the evening, I wanted a quiet place to stay for the night Continue Reading »
The main building of the University of Debrecen, open to the public, is well worth visiting for any tourist in the city. It is built around a large central atrium in Neoclassical style inscribed with the names of famous alumni. One can observe students at work on various storeys of the building, and the space Continue Reading »
So far I have been managing my linguistics blog, my travel blog and a grabbag of other subjects as separate WordPress platforms. In the coming days, I intend on merging these into a single blog for ease of maintenance. Those interested in only the linguistics posts will be able to subscribe to them separately from Continue Reading »
Adding to the list of Chuvash resources for foreigners, in a Warsaw bookshop I came across Język czuwaski by Anna Parzymies (Warszawa: Dialog, 2000) ISBN 8388238604. This is not a textbook really, but essentially a 30-page introduction followed by a grammar that drily lists paradigms, word-formation tendencies, etc. Still, I’m happy I bought it, because there’s Continue Reading »
Any student of classical languages with a linguistics bent will delight at discovering W. Sidney Allen’s books Vox Latina and Vox Graeca that reconstruct the pronunciation of Classical Latin and Greek, respectively. Cambridge University Press has published them in relatively cheap paperbacks. However, there are two more works by this scholar that that don’t get anywhere Continue Reading »