Re: Weekly Vocab Fifteenish

Isidora Zamora wrote:

> I've seen people making such adjustments...such as a tofu-like substance
> for cheese recently.  (Was that you?  I simply can't keep track of who has
> what language(s).
Guilty as charged.

  If it was you, then what color are the Kash, because I
> remember that the face was colored blackish with something like
> squid-ink.
Well they are black, of course, and furry. (Smooth and short-haired, like
your average kittycat).  Actually I think they'd find it odd to carve a
figure out of a foodstuff, unless it was meant to be eaten.  (It's Bad to
waste food.)  Perhaps it would be done as part of a whimsical or celebratory
feast. Now I'm trying to think of what such a dish would be called.  "kaç ri
tandi" 'man on the moon'-- the figure balanced on top of a big hemispheric
loaf of something? "harakaran i roçe" 'strolling on the sea'-- the figure in
a pool of sauce or soup, served on a big flat platter?

 My husband and I were trying to
> figure out how to render the idea of "anarchist" into other
> languages.
 Without going into all the philosophical aspects of anarchism, I simply
calqued it "tra/metrita" 'un-government'.  metrita is < vetrita 'to govern'
< vele tita 'give order(s)'.  One of my favorite Indonesian languages uses a
compound of "squash+press" for 'government'.


  What were you teaching?
Linguistics, of one sort or another.  And hopefully English by example.  The
students (at roughly the M.A. level)were prospective teachers of Engl., and
already very fluent; some already had experience teaching.
>
(snips)
> Is Indonesia a very muti-cultural country?
Yes, though the vast-majority Javanese tend to overwhelm everyone else.  One
rule of thumb:  if someone gives you a direct "No" in answer to a request or
proposal, they're not Javanese.

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