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harmony of a different type, and curiosity as usual
Most people are aware of the fact that the majority of Asian language depend on tone as a crucial feature. Falling or rising tone within a single word is as distinctive as changing a vowel... so for example, the English words bit boat bat bait are all distinguished from each other exclusively by the vowel between the consonants. In different varieties of Chinese and Korean and other Asian languages, a word can have exactly the same sounds in a row and still mean different thing, depending on tone, or inflection. The classic example is ma in certain varieties of Chinese, which can mean horse or mother or a couple other things depending on how it's said.
Most people don't kinow about vowel harmony, which is a quirky thing that happens in a handful of languages, including Turkish. In the simplest terms, this means that if there's a certain kind of vowel in the first syllable of a word, it might have to change (or assimilate) to match the characteristics in a later syllable or even later in the sentence. If we did this in English it would work something like this: Round Midnight might become Rind Midnight -- so that the vowels harmonize.
If that makes any sense at all, I'll be surprised, but really I didn't mean to go into so much detail anyway. This was really just an intro to the odd fact that a writer in Turkey, a young man with the musical name Ömer Bahri Gördebak has a blog, on on his blog is a page about me. And on that page is an awful photo, in which I look like Jimmy Durante in the nose department. Now, I'm not vain about my looks because truthfully, there's not a lot to be vain about, but for some reason this bothers me. I know what my faults and strengths are. My nose is on neither list. My nose is on the could-be-better-not-too-awful list. I have never seen another photograph of me that made my nose look like this, so I assume it is some kind of fluke. Or a joke. At any rate, this public announcement: my nose was hijacked some time during the taking and development of this photo, and I disclaim any ownership of the one you see there.
Beyond this, I am consumed with curiosity because I don't have even a smattering of Turkish. I know about vowel harmony, sure, but otherwise, nada. I can usually puzzle out basics of things written in a European language I don't speak by some mysterious process that has to do with multiple historical and social varieties of English, German, Swiss German and Italian that I can shake up and pour out to use as a magic potion on, say, a French text or a Swedish one. What emerges is a basic picture of the content. But I have no idea about Ömer Bahri Gördebak, whether he is admonishing me for my frequently self-absorbed posts or what he considers bad advice on writing, or if he is claiming me as a long lost cousin, or if he is just posting photos of American women with big (or apparently big) noses.
Now that I've confessed my curiosity and straightened you out about my nose I'm going to go write some more.
December 11, 2005 03:52 PM
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Comments
Goodnight Mrs. Calabash ;)
Just kidding Sara! I don't get why you think your nose looks big, its a perfectly fine photo.
I can't help you with Turkish unfortunately, however from his sidebar, it seems to me like he's pimping your blog out as something prospective writers ought to take a look at. I'd agree with him there.
And look at that, you're right below Gaiman, what else could a girl ask for? Neil Gaiman = Mrowr.
Posted by: tzigane at December 11, 2005 05:24 PM
It's actually not a bad picture. It just looks nothing like you. But it's really rather a nice picture of someone else entirely.
Posted by: Joshua at December 12, 2005 07:53 PM
See! Joshua Corroborates: thus it's true, they stuck a fake nose on me.
Posted by: Sara Donati at December 12, 2005 10:08 PM
Tone and inflection are going to be two different things re: Chinese and Korean. Chinese is a tonal language; Korean can be inflected but doesn't have to be. Korean is contextual and phonetic except when using loanwords from Chinese (Hanma)--much like English.
Posted by: cw at December 14, 2005 01:14 PM
thank you for that clarification, cw. I should have been more careful tossing around those terms.
Posted by: Sara Donati at December 14, 2005 01:18 PM
Hi!
Sorry for the late answer, but I was a bit busy recently, I just saw the entry about me and your nose. (I could not figure out why on earth do you think something wrong with it!) I just wanted to tell what I wrote about you in my blog in English if you allow me:
"Sara Donati, a writer published many times, talks about writing in her blog. It is worth reading. (Link) I recommend it. The blog is categorized, so it is easy to find what you look for."
I am sorry I did not tell how witty you write. In the next entry, I hope... By the way, I know you do not know Turkish but I ported my blog to a new address.
If you ever want to write to a writer from somewhere else on earth -if there is not one- feel free to e-mail me please. I will be glad.
Have a nice day.
Posted by: Omer Bahri Gordebak at January 17, 2006 02:51 PM