That's not quite correct. There were also 'Latvian vikings', the Curonians. Latvia was also ruled by Sweden for centuries. There's not much difference there, apart from language. They were a mix of Baltic tribes, some combination of which formed the modern nation states.
Indeed, there are so many words of French and German origins in the Russian language, that linguists have lost their count. This is to do with the Russian nobility, at different periods, helming from those countries and/or it being the language of the court at the time (same as with French in England, however briefly). There is no shame in borrowing. Good languages copy, great languages steal.
I don't even really know Russian, I've never studied it; but I have learned the alphabet, and I can typically understand some part of newspaper articles etc simply because there are so many loan words from languages I know (English, German, Swedish and Finnish).
Yup, silly it is. I made a survey of preferential by understanding term for "widget" in Russian among Russian businessmen this January, and got about 90% "pro" votes for using the borrowed English term. Practical people do not care for "purity".
Why, thank you, I speak Russian fluently. It doesn't matter whether the text has been translated from Traditional Chinese or Sanskrit, the issue remains the same: Buddhist terminology is specific to the Buddhist tradition. You will face the same challenge, as long as the language that it is being translated to is not steeped in the same tradition.
You have a lot to discover in original Buddhism before making statements like that. I am fascinated and struggling with help of Roerich's Tibetan-English-Russian dictionary, and I must say, there is difference in meanings, whether its sutra in Chinese or Tibetan. Ancient translators had their own problems, and direction of tradition is more like India -> Tibet -> China. So Sanskrit originals prevail, and I am yet to learn the script.
I am talking about the general principle of translating a text with developed and precise terminology that is steeped in tradition for which no reference point exists in the language-of-destination. Therefore, it matters very little whether we're talking about translating ancient Chinese or Tibetan texts. The challenges are similar in scale. Case in point[1]:
"This is a major reason why the Daodejing, to take a famous example, is impenetrable to a few, enigmatic to many more, and highly allusive for everyone, and has been the subject of well over 150 translations of it in English alone."
Not much, since I came to Tibetan from English, and a course in Russian delivered by Mongolian and Tibetan native speaker. I can give a funny example on how difficult it is to keep conveyance of meaning in translation.
Tibetan རང་དབང is translated to English as "independence", when in fact it is itself translation of Sanskrit स्वतन्त्रः, which is in fact "self-empowering reliance", a bit different thing.
Latvian for "independence" is "neatkarība" which itself is wrong pair, because "independence" means not being dependent, and therefore free, while Latvian word means more like "impossibility to take by force". So it might be incorrect to use it in translating Tibetan term. What may be more suitable is to use 'patvaldība', but it is more about power, than reliance.
> Latvian for "independence" is "neatkarība" which itself is wrong pair, because "independence" means not being dependent, and therefore free, while Latvian word means more like "impossibility to take by force".
"Ne" is a negation (= "in" or "not"), whereas "atkarība" is simply "dependence". Thus, (in)(dependence) is the equivalent of (ne)(atkarība). I don't see where you got it to mean "impossibility to take by force". Independence can be lost, it's not an impossibility. Source:
OK. 'Atkarība' is literally state of land that one can 'atkarot', i.e. take back by force.
In old money being "atkarīgs" literally means being the one whose land was taken by force. Its a Normann to Saxon situation in a way.
> Latvian for "independence" is "neatkarība" which itself is wrong pair, because "independence" means not being dependent, and therefore free, while Latvian word means more like "impossibility to take by force".
Interesting, the Latvian word feels like a cognate of Russian непокорённость (nepokoryonnost'), which means something like "ability to resist conquest". I wonder if kor/kar is the same Balto-Slavic root, or is this a false cognate?
Calque of German abhängig (“dependent”), coined at the end of the 19th century from atkār(t) (“to hang down”) + -īgs (with atkārt from at- + kārt (“to hang”)), together with the related term atkarība.
The word for independence ("neatkarība") in Latvian is a calque from the German Abhängigkeit ("dependence")[1]. Thus, "atkarāties" and "karāties" ("to hang"). Thus, the English expression "it hangs in the balance". On balance, most of the things you've said about the Latvian language in this thread hang by a thread, and that thread is close to tear.
Please check your sources and brush up on whatever rudimentary Latvian skills you still posses. You will certainly not master the language by defaulting to what is, in essence, chauvinism. Rest assured, we can read between the lines of what you're implying ["Russian language superior! We have big words, words for everything! The best words!], but it's just not gonna fly here.
> You will simply have no words to express what you need
That is a challenge that all translators face, no matter the language pair. There are no direct equivalents of "अभिधर्म" or "Ānanda" in any of the Western languages either, be it Latvian, English or Welsh. Incidentally, both Lithuanian and Latvian happen to be closer to Sanskrit than the latter. Again, I don't quite see the point you're making. Care to elaborate?
You said it yourself - the lack of direct equivalents is nothing special. What is amusing however, is how in some languages you'll find a lot of "untranslatables" grouped around a particular concept or theme. Language X may have a curiously large amount of untranslatable words that have to do with describing how one feels, while language Y may have a plethora of quick, informal words and phrases that are very hard to translate.
As a native Latvian speaker, I have no idea what you're talking about. In comparison to other languages spoken on the European continent, Lithuanian and Latvian have retained more of the features of what linguists call Proto-Indo-European (PIE), a language spoken circa 3500 BCE. It was certainly not "designed by Germans as 'slave language'". Perhaps that's what you were taught during the "ommunist" times under the Soviet occupation. Incidentally, this was also a time of Russification[1], i.e., marginalization of languages spoken by the native population. You can see how this would fit nicely into their narrative. Latvian speakers today, though, would really appreciate if people could stop spreading such falsehoods. That'd be really nice too, Jevgēnij.
This is bullshit. I spoke about it with Edgar Leitan, who is native Latvian speaker, born in Rezekne, and is Professor of linguistics specializing in oriental languages, in Vienna University. Ask him yourself. http://edgar-leitan.livejournal.com
Latvian as a language never lived better under the USSR, because Russian revolution performance was much ensured by Latvian soldiers hired by Lenin, and that was never forgotten. Among the highest Soviet officials there always been Latvians. Boris Pugo being the last.
Learn your own history from professionals, not from tabloids full of hate speech.
UPD: By the way, its Latgalian that is PTE. Latvian is simplified Latgalian. It may look as a bit of exagerration, but truth is worth discovery.
(Disclaimer: I'm not Latvian. I just happen to speak the language rather well, run a small business in Riga and spend about 1/3 of my time there.)
"Latvian as a language never lived better under the USSR". I've seen such a rich cultural heritage from the Latvian Soviet Republic era. Have a look at wonderful things like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kzsO_w8XIQ . Often a very poor cultural landscape afterwards.
And clearly there is a minority of Russian speaking people in Riga neither able nor willing to speak even the most basic Latvian. Clearly, there are idiots on the Latvian speaking side too. I'll spare you the anecdotes.
But when it comes to cursing, they all seem to use Russian :-)
> I spoke about it with Edgar Leitan, who is native Latvian speaker, born in Rezekne, and is Professor of linguistics specializing in oriental languages, in Vienna University.
Nothing personally against him, but "South Asian, Tibet and Buddhist Studies" is pretty far from Indo-European linguistics. Also, it's not unusual that native speakers have craziest ideas about their own languages. You don't automatically gain a deep insight into the history of your language just by being a native speaker.
Indeed, Latvian is a somewhat formalized version of Latgalian, so I'm not sure how that can be "truth worth discovery [sic]". If you haven't kept up with news back home, it might be of interest to you that there are MPs in the Parliament that are delivering their swear-in ceremony speeches in Latgalian now. More power to them. The rest of your comment, however, is a non sequitur.
We are a bit offtopic, but you may know that you cannot write down Latgalian identity in the Latvian national passport. Latgalians are prohibited to officially exist in Latvia 2.0.
And you very well can fix officially your Latgalian identity in Russia, surprise! Isn't it strange?
I don't find it strange at all, it plays very well into the "divide and conquer" approach to ethnic politics that Russia has put to use both in the past and more recently in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and elsewhere. For what it's worth, I disagree with there being ethnic markings in the Latvian Passport to begin with. I am in complete favor of removing them, not least because it would prevent Russian state from winning such cheap propaganda points.
OpenBSD (+LibreSSL) folks have been uncomfortable with unpredictable compiler optimizations for quite a while too. Here's a previous discussion on compilers in OpenBSD: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9322259
It may be misleading but also in the sense that there's no recommendation to just drop VPN altogether. How about we just stop relying on terribly over-designed protocols such as VPN and IPSec? Complexity is the enemy of security.
