me: "Do you know any numbers for a taxi to Karakol?"
all: "Taxi? Take a marshrutka. They're cheap and fast."
me: "Aren't taxis faster?"
Leo: "Yeah, but do you really want to go that fast?"
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me: "Do you know any numbers for a taxi to Karakol?"
all: "Taxi? Take a marshrutka. They're cheap and fast."
me: "Aren't taxis faster?"
Leo: "Yeah, but do you really want to go that fast?"
"I think back in Soviet times, the brake must've been on the steering wheel or something."
Anara, Palao isn't Kazakh for plov, plov is Russian for palao. Don't ever forget that.
Jonathan: "Kazakh isn't that hard—I don't know why all the materials that teach it are so bad."
Ardak: "I think it's because the Soviet system made things unnecessarily complicated."
Jonathan: "I mean, I've heard bad things about the place."
Lara: "What sorts of bad things?"
Jonathan: "That people tried pizza for the first time there and never wanted to eat pizza again."
Thatcher: "Yeah, 'cause it doesn't have mutton fat in it."
One note on Imart's grammar: when I said it was hard to use in class today, I meant it--there are no page numbers, but instead about 3500 bullet points, and the index is too short to have anything useful in it. But at the same time, it is very thorough on a lot of critical issues, and by far the best existing reference on the language. I wish I'd had access to it as I was learning the language, though I guess using my "teachers" as elicitation subjects to figure out some of this stuff developed useful skills. And no doubt built character and grew hair on my chest. Just like trying to find something again that you read in Imart's grammar if you didn't bookmark it.
Jonathan: "Yeah, I remember being in the dark about stuff a lot when my Russian and Kazakh weren't very good: ‘Where are we? Why're we here?’"
Tekla: "‘Why's there a sheep boiling in the front yard?’"
"You are not the only victim of the Russian language."
"I had this wack dream where somehow we acquired a Soviet starship."
Tristan: "You should get that [dripping sink] fixed. And when the plumber comes, you should get him to fix the hot tap [in the bathroom] too."
Jonathan: "Yeah, maybe I'll call my landlord."
Tristan: "But he'll probably come and try to fix it himself."
Jonathan: "What gives you that impression?"
Tristan: "Just the over-hereness of this sort of place."
"Kazakh is sweet piece of cake comparing to Russian.. Russian is even more harder than English..."
1c a song? That explains the pricing of Apple hardware---somewhere in their books, they're confusing dollars and cents!
"The mountains were nice and clean—there were all sorts of restrooms. I used marmot holes."
18:14:37 kesuari: ummm. they have a holiday on the first day of classes?
18:14:56 kesuari: how can you have a day of classes on a holiday?
18:15:11 kesuari: isn’t that like going to work to celebrate a day off?
18:15:46 kesuari: soviets are weird.
Jonathan: "Whoa, there's a Russian Passport Helpline! And it's a 1-800 number."
Rianna: "1-800-BRIBE-US?"
Leyzer: "I should drop International Relations and take Georgian."
me: "The Georgian language is like international relations."
Shoshana: "Georgian wine maybe…"
(16:00) Анара: Ok, come here and не болтай по-кыргызски, а то мой папа тебя из дома выгонит и будешь спать на улице.
"You don't know Central Asia if you think eating trumps toasts."
02:35:08 [Tristan]: i hope your health insurance covers your tongue
Shoshana: "What did he mean by ‘претензия’?"
Jonathan: "I don't really know."
Shoshana: "Maybe he meant ‘bribe.’"
05:23:50 [me]: (I'm rather fond of pre-revolution Russian. It's almost proto-eastern slavic)
05:24:29 [Tristan]: yeah, well just wait till the english languages break up, our spelling will be proto-english :)
"Пока это не срочно, а утром будет срочно."
06:28:24 [Tristan]: so what, you're saying that if the russians had've invaded australia & america, they'd try and pretend we spoke different langs? :)
06:28:35 [me]: yes
Jonathan: "Hey, look, the eternal flame's going. That's good to know."
Lara: "Yeah, that's different."
Я: "Алло?"
Телефон: "Пойдите на выбор!"
Я: "Но я не могу, я иностранец."
Телефон: "Хозяйка есть у вас? Ей можно сказать."
Я: "Нету хозяйки у меня."
Телефон: "Вообще нет? Тогда пожалуйста, всем скажите."
Я: "Ладно."
(15:17:35) [me]: you just have to think like me is all, and then you'll understand things like this :-P
(15:17:46) kesuari: yeah
(15:18:06) kesuari: i, on the other hand, got my thinkingways from a more reputable dealer than you, i think
(15:18:14) kesuari: you probably got yours from a kyrgyz bizarre
"It [the bottle of vodka] is not a microphone. Drink."
[a woman cuts ahead in line at store to get a dirty, brown, unappetising-looking root vegetable weighed]
guy at head of line to woman: "Это бесплатно, наверно."
"There's something about mountain people and alcohol—you know, they're not strangers."
(18:56:03) Altynay: Bishkekte emne kylyp atasin
(18:56:32) [me]: кыргыз тилин жакшылоо үчүн практика кылып жатам
(18:57:14) Altynay: abdan jakshi
(18:57:41) Altynay: sen ushul Bishkekte kalip Kyrgyzdarga Kyrgyzcha sabak beret okshoysun :)
"It sounds like if you had a lisp in this language, you'd end up saying something you didn't want to say."
Thatcher: "So what was that half-hour-long toast about?"
Tamunia: "It's about love; it doesn't translate into English."
"There's almost as many crows as there was percent alcohol in that beer."
"You know what I don't understand about bribing people to buy things—why don't you just lower the prices to what it would've been...?"
"You see, it's different for you: Kyrgyz and Kazakh girls are actually attractive."
"Well, he just came from America, where people have jobs and have to do stuff, but now he's in Central Asia, where people drink tea."
Баха: "Ты исследователь?"
Jonathan: "Да."
Баха: "Или шпион?"
Jonathan: "Ладно, я шпион."
Баха: "Где ты учился тогда?"
Jonathan: "Назвается ‘Шпионский Институт Америки.’"
Баха: "А! Мы всегда знали!"
Jonathan: "Ты знаешь как сокращается называние этого института? C.I.A.—‘Шпионский Институт Америки.’"
"The leader of Turkmenistan—what does he call himself again? Turkmen Bob?"
(00:47:17) Rianna: i had a dream last night that i was on a train to georgia with a bunch of people from high school
(00:49:05) [me]: which Georgia?
(00:49:24) Rianna: the boring one :-p
Derek: "Something about the word ‘Kyrgyz’ sounds agressive."
Jonathan: "What about [qr̩ˈʀz̩] sounds agressive?"
Anara: "There's naked girls in these music videos."
[everyone continues playing poker, but half watches for a while]
Jonathan W: "So she's not naked yet."
Anara: "It's Alsu."
Jonathan W: "Oh, she's Tatar. She'll never get naked."
Jonathan C: "That's my experience. Unless you start dropping the blue chips." [tosses in a blue chip, worth the highest value: 100]
(23:14:08) [Sarah]: Yeah...I can see me in Poland...I'll have to remember not to go out and get drunk.
[Jonathan shows Aaron a book on Qaraqalpaq written in French]
Aaron: "This orthography is.. what?"
me: "Inconsistent."
(03:12:51) [me]: I think they decided the klingons weren't Russian or Chinese enough anymore and had to rethink a new race to fit that type of society
(03:13:07) Derek: yeah
(03:13:21) Derek: they started Russian-Mongols and ended up Vikings
"It's always unfair to the women! Especially in Central Asia.."
Jonathan: "People never write on your wall. They write on my wall all the time."
Derek: "Yeah, that's because you're friends with an entire country."
"She was small enough to fit in my backpack, but I don't know if I could've gotten her through customs."
Jonathan you make kazakh people go WOW!
"Why is it that the Kazakh flag strikes me as Romulan somehow?"
Leslie: "[In Central Asia], at least as a girl they don't make you drink."
Chay: "Go to Kyrgyzstan."
Jonathan: "Это маленький мир."
Руслан: "Это большая деревня."
"So the Russians are still trading in squirrels? That could explain the value of the rouble."
"Come on, nobody cares about the Ukraine—they just have nuclear melt-downs and become the butt of jokes"
(03:19:15) [me]: I like tech support to know more than I do
(03:19:27) [me]: instead it's just this number I call to try to convince to flip a switch for me
"I think when you hit a human being, that's sub-standard driving."
(22:53:40) [me]: it's the cheapest wine I've seen
(22:53:59) [me]: it's cheaper than like soda
(22:54:02) [me]: and bottled water
(22:54:30) Rianna: I some how doubt Jesus has been active in their area :-p
(18:11:23) Amanda: you meet the most random people in the most random countries
(18:11:49) Amanda: like, i've never met a norwegian person EVER, and you meet one in like, east bum, planet jupiter
(18:11:58) Amanda: ... i say this bc i forget which country you're in now
(23:10:36) Jóhann: no thong?
(23:10:39) [me]: no
(23:10:54) [me]: but at the bazaar right next to the cards at one place they had a big pile of women's underwear
(23:11:04) [me]: probably including thongs; I didn't check
(23:11:10) Jóhann: im glad you didnt check
(23:11:42) [me]: why?
...
(23:13:44) Jóhann: because thats just perfectly normal for a guy who looks straight with red hair to go through a pile of women's underwear in a middle of an unorderly marketplace in Kyrgryzstan...nothing strange about that
(17:54:49) Brenda: a card is better than a red satin thong. i like you. you have class
...
(17:55:26) [me]: anyway, try giving a Central Asian girl a thong and see what happens
(17:55:40) [me]: actually, I'm not sure what would happen
(17:55:57) Brenda: she would floss with it
(04:38:57) Jóhann: youd like this song :P
(04:39:03) Jóhann: kazakh weird music is the genre
(02:21:33) Rianna: i'm hungry for something, but i'm highly unsure what
(02:22:20) Rianna: but i dunno, i don't wanna cook up pea soup now
(02:22:40) [me]: well, bawırsaq might be good
(02:22:46) [me]: I had some really good boorsoq today
(02:23:01) [me]: bog'irsoq isn't too hard to make
(02:23:05) [me]: I have a recipe
(02:23:09) [me]: though I've never actually tried it
(02:23:19) Rianna: mitä vittuu toi o?
(02:23:30) [me]: a type of fried dough / bread
(02:23:31) [me]: kind of
(02:23:37) Rianna: hahaha
(02:23:38) Rianna: nice
(02:23:41) [me]: ?
(02:23:50) Rianna: you answered my question :-p
(02:23:54) [me]: ..?
(02:23:55) [me]: so?
(02:24:08) Rianna: it was in another language..?
(02:24:13) [me]: oh shit
(02:24:15) [me]: wtf
(02:24:19) [me]: okay
(02:24:26) Rianna: i just asked you what the fuck is that
(02:24:30) Rianna: and you just answered that
(02:24:30) [me]: I guess I'm just used to guessing what people are saying half the time anyway
(02:24:46) [me]: don't really pay attention to how they say it unless I'm in linguist mode
(02:24:47) Rianna: you should put that on your quotes page to show off your mad skillz
(02:25:16) Rianna: you're a....demigod among linguists, Jonathan
Лазат эже: "‘Тийишүү’, мисалы, бир бала кафеде отурганда бир кызды көрөт. Кыз ага жагат. Ал кыз менен сүйлөшөт, ‘Окуйсузбу, канчанчы жылкысыз’ деп сурайт. Бала кызга тийишет, бирок аны экинчи жолу көрбөйт."
мен: "А өзбөк кино болсо, экинчи жолу точно көрөт."
[ўзбекча менен кыргызча билген Араб менен сүйлөшкөндө]
Гүлмира: "А казакча билесизби?"
Араб: "Жок."
Гүлмира: "Бирок казакча менен кыргызча почти бир тил."
Араб: "Разница бар!"
Гүлмира: "Ии, кечиресиз. Разница бар десеңиз, сизге ишенем."
Жыкы: "Америкада ушундай свободность жок."
Jonathan: "Туура, биз көчөдө пиво ичсек, полиция көрсө, биз сразу качып кетиш керек эле."
Жыкы: "Быякта наоборот, милиция көрсөң, сразу "Ооо!" деген..."
Жыкы: "Орустарда, ‘семья-мемья’ деген бар."
Jonathan: "Сиздерчи? ‘Үй-бүлө—сүй-бүлө’?"
Тралик: "Чай ичесиңби?"
мен: "Уф, жок, болдум."
Тралик: "Давай, паслений стакан."
мен: "Макул. Элүү грам."
Elmira: "Oops, I think I did something to [i.e., spilled something on] your pants."
Soviet: "That's okay, you're the one who's going to wash them [by hand]."
[Пирожки сатып алган киоскта турганда]
Эже: "Пирожки [что-то что-то орусча]?".
Мен: "Кетти, азыр келет."
Эже: "Нет, пирожки [что-то что-то орусча]?"
Мен: "Көрбөй турасызбы? Пирошки бар, ээси азыр келет."
Эже: "Нет, Вы меня не поняли. Пирожки [что-то что-то орусча]?"
Мен: [Жарайт, деп ойлоп атам.] "Түшүнбөдүм. Орус эмесмин."
Эже: "Почему?"
Мен: "Орус эмесмин го."
Эже: "Неге?"
Мен: [ийинимди көтөрөм]
Эже: "Чынында орус эмессизби? Анда сиз кимсиз?"
Мен: "Америкалыкмын."
Эже [өзүнө]: "Мм, орусча билбейт экен."
Мен: "Жок, орусча билем, сиздин айтканыңызды эле түшүнбөдүм."
"I've found that mayonaisse enhances the flavour of a lot of things."
"So I was reading this ethnography written by this Russian guy who went to what's now Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in 1913. Apparently, in the jayloo, the women do everything, even up to herding the animals; the men sit around on a rock or sit around and sun themselves; when they get bored, they pull out their shotgun and shoot a marmot, and skin it while the women cook dinner. All they've done is brought that system down into the city."
"Where's the rice at? No, the good rice, this is the rice with rocks in it."
Lara: "Hm, it smells like animals in here."
anonymous: "It's all the Kyrgyz."
(14:04:28) Michaela: but the central asian/tajik dating trick i learned is that the guys just gradually start attaching pictures of flowers to emails and see how the girl reacts
(16:48:45) kesuari: a place where not only it snows, but it gets to 30 °
(16:48:48) kesuari: that sounds awesome
(16:48:54) kesuari: do they keep any of them in civilised countries?
(16:49:00) [me]: heh
(16:49:05) [me]: much of the U.S. is like that
(16:49:22) kesuari: as i said, in civilised countries?
(14:15:48) [me]: every time I think back to how I thought about things in high school, central asia makes a lot more sense
(14:15:56) [me]: very provincial and uninformed about things
(14:16:12) Michaela: heh
(14:16:55) Michaela: you know, it's true--even thinking about things like the way people used to write in middle/high school--the quality of their writing makes a lot more sense
(14:17:45) Michaela: i remember telling my mom, "It's like, there's no one here that knows how to think outside the box." she said, "Honey, they don't even know that there is a box."
Тралик: "Түнкү канал эрте көрсөтүлүп калган экен."
мен: "Анткени азыр саат 12ден кийин эч кимде шам жок."
"But Vanya from the provinces is just as clueless about that sort of stuff as Timurbek."
Jonathan: "I mean, in Kazakhstan a cellphone is like a toothbrush, but in America, it's more like a bicycle."
Michael: "I donno, I knew some people in Kazakhstan who didn't brush their teeth, but you can bet they had a phone."
(22:16:04) jonathan: though the ty/vy forms are taking over :\
(22:16:40) jonathan: (hint: ty/vy = Russian)
(22:17:29) [anon]: wow
(22:17:36) jonathan: wow?
(22:17:58) [anon]: russians
(22:18:15) jonathan: russians = wow?
(22:19:40) [anon]: yeah.. . they are so sneaky.. conquering by inserting pronouns into other languages.
(22:21:11) [anon]: though i guess that's probably not all that gets inserted... and languages are probably not the only thing that gets err.. penetrated.. umm.. anyway
(20:47:07) Michael T: well every dictionary needs a little chuvash
(20:47:08) Michael T: that's a feature
(03:00:00) Аймона: i was sort of writing this cover letter. i mean, why on earth you would need a cover letter for fin. aid from the person who comes from KG
(03:00:05) Аймона: KG speaks for itself
(04:34:55) kesuari: "What the country's political opposition doubts is whether it was an accident at all." well given the way people in kyrgyzstan drive, i doubt *any* crash could be described as an accident
(03:46:50) Michael T: why do you think rice-a-roni was such a big hit ?
(03:46:52) Michael T: it was based on plov
(22:46:00) kesuari: but yeah, i get the idea from wp+google's awfully projected world map
(22:46:22) kesuari: seriously, russia looks like it's as big as all the rest of eurasia combined!
(22:48:37) kesuari: altho i suppose that "only" makes it look twice as big as it is
Baatar: "I wonder what happened."
Jonathan: "They're probably just being Central Asians."
Baatar: "Yeah, they'll show up really late."
Jonathan: "‘We'll be there on Monday.’"
Baatar: "Yeah, but they wouldn't say that."
Jonathan: "Yeah, they'd probably came up with some excuse."
Baatar: "They'll just show up three days later on their microbus and say, ‘We couldn't cross river.’"
...
Baatar: "‘We made good time across Russia, but then we got to the Atlantic.’"
"I ego-attach a little bit to Mongolia: I'm jaded and I drink a lot. The good things about Mongolia."
CB: "There's one rule about language comparison—"
Niko: "Don't trust a Russian?"
"For Indiana, Irkutsk is gay-friendly."
"In Azərbaycan when someone is stupid we call them a Mongol."
(22:46:56) Анара: хотя снова я скажу это что
(22:47:05) Анара: Kazakh girlz rulez!!!
(22:47:24) Анара: больше чем кыргызки и другие номадки
(10:55:17) spectie: it's saturday
(10:55:29) spectie: i am permitted to eat breakfast of blinnchiki and nutella after 4pm
(03:08:57) firespeaker: it's like there's 3 or 4 different encodings being used here
(03:09:01) spectie: :(((((((((((
(03:09:08) spectie: this is my multi-encoding file face
(03:10:38) spectie: i've done it before with a russian girl
(03:10:41) spectie: so i know the principles
(17:30:52) spectie: you know, ((we) = you) could write a better bashkir grammar than the one in TTL
(17:30:55) spectie: in a week
(17:31:31) firespeaker: I'm aware, but I don't know bashqort
(17:31:47) spectie: neither do the people writing the grammar!
Fran: "You've convinced me that it's time for me to learn a real Cyrillic keyboard layout."
Jonathan: "Yeah, I can't believe you still use a transliterated keyboard. How do you do non-Russian Cyrillic letters?"
Fran: "I copy-paste them. It sucks."
Jonathan: "But how many languages have you worked on that use Cyrillic?"
Fran: "Most of them."
Андрей: "А почему свинину не кушаешь?"
я: "Моя мама еврейка, и поэтому у нас такая семейная традиция есть."
Андрей: "А мой дед был Удмурт, и поэтому я все кушаю."
я: "Здесь, когда хотим повернуться нет никакого светофора, а раньше, когда хотели просто побыстрее ехать, полно было. Вот закон подлости!"
Илшат: "Да, вот единственный закон который в России работает."
[чаң]
[...]
мин: "Бер генә булдымы? .. Юк, сәгать өч икән! Нигә бер генә ди?"
[чаң]
мин: "Аа, ике икән."
[... чаң]
мин: "Өч. Булды."
Ростәм: "Белмим, чиркәүдә дүрт тә булырга мөмкен."
мин: "Нигә?"
Ростәм: "Чиркәү булса, һәр ничек була"
(2011-10-14 16:41:03) Christopher: In Yoshkar-Ola there are ethnofuturist young people who record pop music CDs and put on stage productions in Mari, but I don't think their efforts reach the villages they came from.
(2011-10-14 16:41:30) Christopher: Essentially they are a small elite who live in a bubble while their language is dying across the republic.
"It was framed within Marxist—... I was going to say ‘theology’—which I think I'll stick with."
[shows slide with poster]
"I don't have to say much about this poster. You can all see who's handing who the baby."
(19:14:27) firespeaker: "10 or 20 most important languages" :(
(19:14:30) spectie: yeah D:
(19:14:33) spectie: borrrrrrrrrrrring
(19:14:36) spectie: give me a U
(19:14:39) spectie: give me a D
(19:14:43) firespeaker: U D
(19:14:49) spectie: give me an M U R T
(19:14:52) firespeaker: M U R T
(19:14:59) spectie: U D M U R T !!!!!
(19:15:03) firespeaker: U D M U R T ! \o/
(19:15:11) spectie: \o/ \o/ \o/
(13:06:16) Derek: I wanted to say thanks for speaking Kazakh (etc) around me all the time
(13:06:41) Derek: I think it's giving me a big edge in my Uighur class right now
(13:07:28) Derek: Turkic seems familiar to me instead of something strange, which is something the other students I would say definitely lack ;)
(17:15:49) spectie: what's the frst rule
(17:15:52) spectie: of turkic language grammars ?
(17:17:16) spectie: the first rule is
(17:17:27) selimcan: hargle bargle
(13:28:05) Brenda: can i be a subject? i promise i have a highly unique dialect in Kyrgyz
(13:11:51) spectie: қ:ғ {а}: ь: {☭}: >: {S}: ы: ь:ь {n}:н ы: __HFST_TWOLC_.#.
(13:12:00) spectie: uh oh, communism in our transducer
(13:17:45) selimcan: Фонологи всех стран, объединяйтесь! :)
"The name of this chapter is ‘Sentient Ecology’, but sadly it's not about Ents."
"But they're Russian tourists—they'll drink anything. It was probably petrol."
(21:25:55) faggot: We and 200 guys are going to send in you in an inexistance
(21:26:01) faggot: with a special DDOS app
(21:26:10) faggot: except debian.org to be down for hours
(21:26:47) faggot: it begins in a half hour
(21:26:53) faggot: also we`ll take down freenode after that
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(21:27:23) faggot: we have already lavished the money from the Debian`s paypal account
...
(21:27:33) faggot: it was like 4000$ there
(21:27:35) faggot: poor guys
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(21:28:38) faggot left the room.
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(21:29:28) firespeaker: we should DoS him ourselves
(21:29:48) gnarface: he's in romania you'd DoS the whole country