Mirandese –the language of the countryside, of home and love

A couple of months ago, I read an article all about Mirandese (Mirandés), stating that it was the second official language of Portugal, after of course, Portuguese. I am incredibly embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of this language. I have worked in the localization industry for 16 years and I should know about this language. Nor had I heard of the other languages spoken in Portugal (Asturian, Barranquian, Caló, Galician, Portuguese Sign Language and Vlax Romani).

Mirandese is an endangered language spoken in the northeastern corner of Portugal and is spoken by just 10,000 or 15,000 people on what is known as the Planalto Mirandês (or Mirandese Plateau), who all also speak Portuguese. This region is geographically divided from the rest of the country by two rivers. This region is referred to as the Miranda do Douro principality and it is actually easier to get to Spain from this region than it is to get to Lisbon and other parts of Portugal.

The interesting thing is that Mirandese does not descend from Portuguese or Spanish, but rather, developed concurrently with them from the so-called mother of all the Romance languages, Latin.

However, Mirandese does have many similarities to Portuguese, as the two languages share a common ancestry and have been spoken side-by-side for centuries. Despite these commonalities, Mirandese has its own phonology, morphology and syntax and is more closely related to Asturian than Portuguese.

In the 1930s, the Mirandese language was outlawed by Antonio de Oliveira Salazar. Many people thought it was a rural and undesirable version of Portuguese but this is not the case. It is a distinct language.

In 1999, the Portuguese Parliament granted Mirandese the status of becoming the second official language of Portugal. In compliance with the Constitution, Portugal officially recognized the “linguistic rights” of the Mirandese community and the “right to preserve and promote the Mirandese language for cultural patrimony, as an instrument of communication and as support to the identity of the Terra da Miranda”.

As a member of the Astur-Leonese language family (the generic name for a group of closely related linguistic varieties in the West Iberian branch of the Romance languages), it is now taught as an elective in the region’s public schools, and bookstores sell a small amount of books written in or translated into Mirandese.

The entire region of the Mirandese Plateau once spoke the Leonese language (this language predates Mirandese) when the area was part of the kingdom of León in the Middle Ages. However, after Portuguese independence in the 12th century, the Mirandese region became isolated enough from the rest of Portugal that efforts to preserve the language began.

Three variants of the Mirandese language exist. They are border Mirandese, Central Mirandese and Sendinese.

Here are some basic greetings in Mirandese:

	Buonas nuites.	Good night.
	Buonas tardes.	Good evening.
	Buonos dies.	Good morning.
	Buonos dies.	Good afternoon.
	L miu saludo!	Greetings!
	Oulá.	Hello.
	Tie	Mrs.
	Tiu	Mr.
	nó	no
	si	yes

The Language of Hawaii (Ōlelo Hawaiʻi)

A friend of mine recently mentioned that he spent his early childhood growing up in Hawaii and was telling me a little bit about the Hawaiian language. I realized I know nothing about this particular language and my interest was piqued.

The Hawaiian language belongs to a family of languages from central and early Polynesia. This family also includes Tahitian, Tumotuan, Rarotongan, Samoan and Maori among others. It is most similar to Tahitian and least similar to Samoan.  While English may now be the language of commerce, business and the like; Hawaiian is the language of the heart and soul.

The arrival of Captain James Cook in 1778 began the change of the Hawaiian people and language but it wasn’t until missionaries arrived from New England in the early 1800s, that the language was really affected. Since the missionaries were determined to educate the Hawaiian people, the Hawaiian language needed a written form. They came up with a written language consisting of only 13 letters, 5 vowels and a symbol called the ʻokina,  which looks like a backwards apostrophe.

The Hawaiian people soon became very literate and in the 1890s, the Hawaiian language was the principal language spoken in the government and schools. It was also a community with a 90% literacy rate. However, once the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown, the Hawaiian language was banned in 1896 and suppressed by the new powers that be. Hawaiian could not longer be spoken or taught in schools. This suppression of the Hawaiian language would continue following U.S. annexation in 1898 and last for most of the twentieth century.

The increase in travel to and from Hawaii during the 19th century also brought the arrival of deadly diseases such as smallpox, influenza, and leprosy. These diseases killed off large numbers of native speakers of Hawaiian. Also at this time, speakers of other languages, such as English, Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese arrived. A dialect called “Pidgin” was actually established so that all these people could understand one another.

The good news is that the Hawaiian people would not let the language die and in 1978, Hawaiian became the official language of Hawaii once again. By the late-80s, schools were allowed to teach this language once again.

1996 was proclaimed the "Year of the Hawaiian Language." Many special language-related events were held throughout the islands, intended to "raise awareness in the general public about Hawaiian and encourage groups and individuals to study, use and respect the language."

Linguists consider Hawaiian to be an endangered language as Hawaii is the only place where this language is spoken.

Here are some useful expressions to use in the Hawaiian language (thanks to the Omniglot website):

English	ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian)
Welcome/Hello	Aloha
How are you? Fine, and you?	Pehea ʻoe? (sg) Pehea ʻolua? (dl), Pehea ʻoukou? (pl)
	Maikaʻi, a ʻo ʻoe?
What's your name? My name is ...	ʻO wai kou inoa?
	ʻO ... koʻu inoa
Where are you from? I'm from ...	No hea mai ʻoe?
	No ... mai au
Pleased to meet you	Hauʻoli kēia hui ʻana o kāua
Good morning	Aloha kakahiaka Aloha kakahiaka nui (early morning) Aloha kakahiaka aku (late morning) Aloha awakea
Good afternoon	Aloha ʻauinalā
Good evening	Aloha ahiahi
Goodbye / Good night	A hui hou / Aloha
Good luck	Pomaikaʻi! Maikaʻi Pomaikaʻi!
Cheers/Good health!	Huli pau!  ʻŌkole maluna! (bottoms up - considered vulgar by some)
Bon appetit	E ʻai kāua (dl), E ʻai kākou (pl) - Let's eat!
I don't understand	Maopopo iaʻu ʻole
Please speak more slowly	E ʻōlelo mālie
Please write it down	E kākau iho ʻoe
Do you speak Hawaiian? Yes, a little	ʻOlelo ʻoe ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi?
	ʻAe, he liʻiliʻi
Excuse me/Sorry	E kala mai iaʻu!

Valentine's Day, Japan-style

When I first started studying Japanese over 20 years ago, I learned how all the holidays are celebrated, Japanese-style. I remember being fascinated by the way that the Japanese people celebrate Valentine’s Day. Women have all the power!

Women give men presents (mostly chocolate but also candy and flowers). Because Japanese women were once considered “too shy” to show their love, it gives them the chance to comfortably express their affections. Men have their chance to return the gifts to women on “White Day”, celebrated on March 14.

Because the Japanese are so polite and do not want to offend, Japanese women often give gifts of chocolate called “giri-choko” or “obligation chocolates”. These confections are given to bosses, male friends and male colleagues.

Then there are the chocolates given out to men that Japanese women really don’t want to give chocolates to called “cho-giri-choco” or “ultra obligation chocolates”.  Imagine being the lucky recipient of that kind of chocolate?

When chocolates are given to a love interest or a special man these are called “honmei-choko” or “prospective winner or favorite chocolates”.  In more recent years, women also buy chocolates for their close female friends. These are known as “tomo–choko” or “friend chocolates”.  Men are also starting to buy chocolates for women called “gyaku-choko” or “reverse chocolates”. Some people also started to buy “jibun-choko”, literally “self chocolate” in English, as a gift to oneself in the past decade.

According to my research,  there are many different ideas and urban legends on just how Valentine’s Day was first introduced to Japan. One theory is that it started in the 1950s when Valentine’s Day was used as a marketing technique for American expatriates living in Japan. Another, is that it began with high school girls in the 1970s. Two other theories are that a Kobe confectionery maker started it in 1936 and that it started in Sony Plaza in 1968. Another urban legend is that a mistranslation led women to believe that the holiday was one where they give the gifts.

When of the things I love most about Japan is all the crazy translations of the chocolate names (among other things) such as, “Heart Warmy Chocolates”, “Love Love Chocolates”  and “Sexy Chocolates”.

It is said that more than half of the chocolates sold in a year is sold around Valentine's Day in Japan. Sounds like about half are obligation chocolates!

The Simplification of Chinese Characters

 "The written language must be reformed; it must move in the same direction as other written languages of the world, i.e. phoneticization." This is the right path for the work of reforming the written language, and it is also the ultimate goal.” -Chairman Mao

During my Mandarin class last week, my instructor and I got into a discussion of how and why the Traditional Chinese characters were revised to become Simplified Chinese characters.

I deal with Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese daily in my work day and I had already well understood that the words “Traditional” and “Simplified” refer to the written characters and have nothing to do with whether SPOKEN Chinese dialect is Cantonese or Mandarin. When mentioning Traditional and Simplified Chinese, we are strictly referring to the written language. I had also understood that in the localization industry, we typically translate Simplified Chinese for clients with customers in China (PRC) and Traditional Chinese for clients with customers in Taiwan. However, both Mandarin and Cantonese can be transcribed into either Simplified or Traditional.

In 1949, a political separation divided Taiwan from the PRC. In the 1950s, Chairman Mao and the Communist Party in China wanted to decrease the amount of illiteracy in Chinese, so a studious attempt to simply Chinese characters to a few strokes began. Many Traditional Chinese characters were replaced and the majority of the population was saved from illiteracy. This language revision is still touted as one of China’s most successful undertakings.

These Simplified Characters have been in use for over 50 years in China and are now the “standard”.  In Hong Kong and Taiwan, Traditional Characters are still in use. Singapore and Malaysia had adapted to Simplified Characters ages ago.

According to my research, most of the Simplified Characters were already in existence as found in very old manuscripts and medieval books. The reform in the 1950s legitimized these characters.

While the Simplified Characters (known as jiantizi) are easier to learn, many linguists feel that the Traditional Characters (fantizi) are more closely related and in tune with the rich history of the Chinese language.

According to my research, one issue of the simplification process of the 1950s is that it sometimes resulted in two different Traditional characters becoming identical in Simplified form. For example, the Traditional characters 發 (“develop”) and 髮 (“hair”) are both written as the Simplified character, 发. 

The major differences between the two written languages are terminology, characters, style and character encoding for computing.

I am learning Simplified Characters and those are difficult enough for a Westerner to learn and remember; I can imagine how difficult Traditional characters would be.