Laguages Matter!

EDL-Logo “Celebrating linguistic diversity, plurilingualism, lifelong language learning”

Today, September 26, is the “European Day of Languages” with its motto “Talk to me”, which I already wrote about last year (and added the language names now) – this year, it’s somewhat embedded into the UNESCO’s “International Year of Languages” and its motto “Languages matter!”. And they certainly mean more than just the 200 into which they translated that slogan – probably all 6000-7000…

If you take a look at this 200-language PDF you probably know hadly any of them… For the fun of it, I’ve picked a few languages here:

EDL 08 Onhu awe amaghami iyaar! (Abuan)
Mehɔˊ b, chǒm éche édé etógnέn bwǎmbwǎm. (Bakossi)
Po dabe sege yai nai dao. (Dadibi)
Ennimi za mugaso! (Ganda)
Naɠafik naíta gwamatàt! (Ik)
Jiɛmuye ga naforo ni ! (Jɛnaama)
Oporlu marong i tongotinangaran (Labuk-Kinabatangan Kadazan)
Tia’lejo ni okpo (Ma’di)
Kia ora te reo! (Pa’umotu)
Rimayninchiskunan ancha allin. (Quechua Eastern Apurimac)
¡Te re’o henua e hauha’a ro ‘ā! (Rapa Nui)
Ia ha’afaufa’ahia te reo! (Tahitian)
Ago zege’a boro taugi. (Uare)
Di langwij adem doz aalweiz mata. (Vincentian Creole English)
Wlu -wee’- klein” kɔn -tɩ’. (Wobé)
Kennem kennem yunjon wal kerma paiem. (Yu We (North Wahgi))
Ciiney gonda hinfaani ! (Zarma)

Testing, Testing…

I’m combining a few “personality tests” in this post:

First, the test for the “Wall-E” movie – probably I’m one of the last German bloggers to take it… sorry, it’s German only:

Wall-E-Test: Du bist EVE. Du bist neugierig, stets darauf aus, Neues zu entdecken. Du bist pflichtbewusst, aber kritisch und kannst dich durchsetzen. Für Freunde gehst du durchs Feuer und hast vor fast nichts Angst.
moviepilot-Banner


What Gender Is Your Brain? (this one’s in Englisch; via Tshalina.)1

Your Brain is 27% Female, 73% Male
 
You have a total boy brain.
Logical and detailed, you tend to look at the facts.
And while your emotions do sway you sometimes…
You never like to get feelings too involved.


And also via Tshalina these tests from Fit for fun (German; I didn’t translate the full result texts):

Liebesbarometer: Wie gut sind Sie im Bett? = Love barometer: How good are you in bed?

27 % The experts
73 % The epicures

Der Erotik-Test: Welcher Sex-Typ bin ich? = The erotics test: Which sex type am I?

40 % The pasha
30 % The forward
20 % The dreamer
10 % The gentleman


How accurate these results are, well, let’s leave aside that question…

And you? :mrgreen:

  1. I’ve taken the liberty to write the text directly, without the table and the brain drawing that’s the same for all results. []

Lessons in Love

The topic of week 39 in Sari’s photo Projekt 52:

Love

Lessons in love
When will you ever learn
Lessons in love
When there’s nowhere left to turn

(Level 42, “Lessons In Love”)

…or also…

Hey boy where did you get it from?
Hey boy where did you go?
I learned my passion
In the good old fashioned school of lover boys

(Queen, “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy”)

39: Love

Week 39: Love

Lessons in love in the good old fashioned school of lover boys…


Music Quiz 30

Musik-Quiz

Welcome to the new music quiz after the little break – this time I’ve got something new for you again: the question is Which doesn’t fit in the row?

Example: Brown Sugar — Eight Days a Week — Get Off of My Cloud — Start Me Up
Solution: Eight Days a Week is a Beatles song, not from the Rolling Stones like the rest

Some of the following riddles may be easy, some quickly to be solved with Google or Wikipedia, some are rather special – let’s see how well you fare. :)


So let’s start: What does not fit in the row? And why?

1.) Help! — Ticket to Ride — Yellow Submarine — Yesterday

Tip: Album…
Gelöst von Pierre: Yellow Submarine ist nicht vom Album “Help”.

2.) Ich+Ich: So soll es bleiben — Kid Rock: All Summer Long — Schnuffel: Kuschel-Song — OneRepublic/Timbaland: Apologize
Tip: Charts…
Gelöst von Pierre: Ich+Ich war kein Nr.1-Hit in Deutschland.

3.) Kings Of Leon — Queen — The Dandy Warhols — Weird Al Yankovic
Tip: Song…
Gelöst von David: Kings Of Leon haben keinen Titel, der das Wort “Bohemian” enthält.

4.) Back In Black — Rock’n’Roll Train — Touch Too Much — T.N.T.
Tip: Album…
Gelöst von Sebastian: Das (neue) Album, auf dem Rock’n’Roll Train ist, gibt’s noch nicht zu kaufen.

5.+6.) Bonfire — Helloween — Rammstein — Warlock
    Looking for two answers here.
Tip: In beiden Fällen ist dieselbe Band die Lösung (aus 2 verschiedenen Gründen)…
Gelöst von Sebastian: bei Warlock singt eine Frau; und der zweite Punkt war, dass es Warlock nicht mehr gibt, wobei ich ein paar Festivals vor ein paar Jahren aber nicht berücksichtigt hatte.

7.) Blind Guardian — Bonfire — Hammerfall — Helloween
Hinweis: Sebastians Vorschlag, Bonfire machen Hardrock statt Power Metal, ist hier nicht gemeint.
Gelöst von Sebastian: Hammerfall (nicht aus Deutschland, sondern aus Schweden)

8.) Bushido — Eminem — Samy Deluxe — Sido
Gelöst von Pierre (25 Sek. vor David): Eminem (ist nicht aus Deutschland).

9.) Anastacia — Cheap Trick — Fleetwood Mac — Whitney Houston
Davids Idee eines nicht selbstbetitelten Debütalbums von Anastacia war nicht schlecht, aber nicht ganz das, was ich gemeint hatte…
Tip: …aber die Idee war nicht schlecht…
Gelöst von David: Anastacia hatte keine zwei selbstbetitelten Alben.
Siehe auch engl. Wikipedia: List of musicians with multiple self-titled albums

10.) Another One Bites The Dust — Now I’m Here — Radio Ga Ga — We Are The Champions
Tip: Album…
Gelöst von Pierre: Radio Ga Ga war nicht auf Greatest Hits I.

Das war’s, danke fürs Mitmachen, bis nächste Woche zu (höchstwahrscheinlich) den Bilderrätseln…


Photo: Jason Stitt – Fotolia.com

Not just faith healing stuff

praying statue Small ads have been a source for mystic-miraculous things before – and currently there’s a brief two-line ad in the Bayrisches Taferl (38/2008) that just contains the web address www.urchristliches-heilen.de (“original Christian healing”) and “in 18 Sprachen” (“in 18 languages”).

Title of the website: “The Worldwide CENTER OF PRAYER AND HEALING BY FAITH of JESUS, the CHRIST”.

I really don’t want to get into the details of the website’s offers – including an “Emergency Service of the Long-Distance Healing by Faith”! – for it is basically just the usual fantasy notions of people believing in spiritual and distance healing, prayers, etc., though quite more mystic than I’d expect from Christians, and in this case it’s of course said to be the powers of Jesus and God that’s just channeled by the healers instead of originating from themselves. All that, by the way, for free, they just ask for donations.

:!: The essential point is, however, that these are not just your common commercial providers of mystic services, but instead – as can be seen on the site as well – a part of the “Universelles Leben e.V.” = “Universal Life”, the religious community of the self-proclaimed prophetess Gabriele Wittek. And they are no unknown people:

Translated quote from the info sheet of the Evangelischen Zentralstelle für Weltanschauungsfragen, the German Protestant center for ideological matters:

Assessment

The Universal Life is a group that is commonly underestimated in its conflict potential. Mrs Wittek sees herself as the “absolute law” not just for her followers, but for the entire world. […] Drop-outs mentioned a “climate of fear and terror” in the community. […]

The Christian elements in the belief system of the UL are, without exception, distorted from their original character and merely a façade. […] The vast majority of followers, however, leave UL sooner or later, often only after years of membership, though. Quite a few who placed the “common good” of UL before their own good also financially, as is expected, ended up financially ruined. In isolated cases, the danger of severe mental harm might be expected.

More in German Wikipedia; the English version is short and lacks the criticism sections.

So it can’t be wrong to think twice before turning to this “Original Christian Healing” or its superior organization…


There’s one detail I’d like to go into, though: on the page “Worldwide Original Christian Healing Prayer for Animals and Nature”, they write, among other things:

Therefore:

  • Help stop the murder of people!
  • Help stop war against people!

Basically, there’d be nothing to say against that. But with prayers? :roll: Keep on dreaming.

  • Help stop the war in woods and fields, in slaughter houses and laboratories!

War in slaughter houses? Rump steak versus side of pork, or what? ;)

  • Do not eat the meat of your fellow creatures!

Since you’re referring to Jesus that much: Where does the bible tell its followers to be vegetarians? On the contrary, the “feeding of the 5000” included fish (Mt 14:14-21), and the Passover (preparation in Mt 26:17-19) always contains a paschal lamb, explicitly mentioned in German translations. Or does this point of view originate from your “prophetess”?

Given their wording, they theoretically should be opposed to animals eating their fellow creatures, i.e. other animals, too…


Photo: joejoe77/sxc