Being a philologist… the story about sadness of native language

        We’re running through our studies learning so hard every single word from other language, trying to get new grammar but what about our native language? I must admit I caught myself on simple things like it’s just simpler for me to translate something into English or into other language rather than my own one. Why is that? Well, as for me English has better vocabulary as it comes to different ways of expressing feeling. There’s no 100% equivalent for ‘I’m freaking out’ or ‘that is so creepy’. Like I don’t feel it in Polish. And as for grammar, this is the language that I didn’t have to learn grammar in the way non-native are learning which means sometimes I don’t know why something is the way it is, but I know what form is correct. And what I think about it is the fact that it shouldn’t be like that. Oh c’mon how can we study other languages not knowing our own one well? This is sooo weird! I think we should all have polish grammar studying languages. Maybe it’s just my feeling, but I think that’s the way it should be. And actually the more I study Finnish grammar the more I’m curious about Polish one, honestly. I wonder if I should say: Chcesz herbaty? or chcesz herbatę? Finnish makes it different due to partitivus that we don’t have, do we? I think we have… residual one. Oh well, I have to start reading more books on Polish grammar or what so ever so Polish would not feel so abandoned, sad and lonely… What are yours points of view on it?

PEOPLE WAT R U DOIN? STAHP!- finding no word to express “nowadays”

            Aren’t you just sick of another shopping centre? I am. Actually I sooo am. I mean what for are they building them? For money? (Seriously- we live in Poland not in Qatar or Switzerland!) I actually miss my small townie. Quiet with green points… wait… not so much green points any longer, why?- because we all need more shops, yeeey! (no!) I mean seriously, I don’t have any free space, I’m actually trapped, surrounded by unknown people, having no air to breathe! There are many new shops to build or roads, meanwhile I have to shatter my knees due to bad surface for running in the parks… and of course why have parks so little trees?! And the funny thing is that even if you really want to stay in you native country, homeland, you can’t, being forceless by looking how you homeplace is getting destroyed. Like for instance there were trees on which I was climbing as a kid, playing there... now they had been cut. What for? Some for planting a new one (although the old ones were just high, not sick) or the rest for a place to build something. Ok, I can understand if it’s for making place for outside gym surrounded by trees because some having no money for gym payment prefer to go to such a place to exercise a bit. And the lake in my townie: it used to be used to get some tourist, because there was clean water, some beautiful boat to hire, clean beach where we were taking some sunbath and now… the water is unclean, jetty is underwater, because it was so old and unrenovated so it fell into the water. And I can’t stand the people who run our country/region/city/town that even if they are rich, they want more, not carrying of anything or anyone apart of their own business. Why does everyone want to be rich? What is so important in it? Having enough money to make their dreams come true isn’t enough? Dude, you will not take your money to the grave. The only things which will always be with you are memories (even if you are sick on something that cause you forgetting thing, you have some memories that left), love the ones that you took care of and satisfaction of who you was. Ehhh, I don’t get it…

Great pleasure to be part of something… about societies

         Are you a member of some society group? I am, well maybe more like society groups. Why? Because you can explore new things, get to know new, interesting people with whom you can share your interests, you can just feel that what you are doing is not totally pointless… This kind of society may well save something like saving language from being forgotten or even its death. Maybe that’s not so optimistic but I thing just because of some society groups we have what we have. What if some important things like science breakthroughs or poems would be forgotten if not people who took care of it. That is why nowadays we need that kind of group. And by making some project saving thing. I don’t know if you have already heard of a website called: languagesindanger.eu. This is the page made by students and teachers about “dying languages” in the world and actually it has been made by people from our university. Isn’t that great?! Maybe you should get involved into this project too to let people know something more about dangerous language that maybe you are familiar with? Try it… ;)

Replaying childhood

       

Do you remember you childhood? I do. Like watching Sabrina the teenage witch, Looney tunes cartoons or the Olsen’s twins movies, listening to the radio where Britney Spears, Backstreet boys etc. were on the air all the time and waiting to hear the song that I liked to record it on tape. Do you remember putting pencil into the hole in tape to rewind it? Or did you climb trees enjoying windblow in the hot summer, ridding bike, playing with friends? That was sooo cool!  And the way of thinking that we have so much to do, so much time to spend… And when the night was coming, sitting nearby the firebone with friends telling “scary stories” that made you a goosebumps all over your body or the other time when you, not being exhausted, were reading books enjoying the silent. Ohhh, great time!

         I remember myself with tons of book reading one after another, starting with “Konik garbusek” by Piotr Jerszow, through one of my favourites: Peter Pan- oh how I wanted him to take me to Neverland! And then Princess Bride with my lovely Westley. After that (being in the primary school) I came across Harry Potter. I was sooo happy getting to know the story of “the one who lived” life before movie and before that great fame. There was just my friend and I who knew that book and I remember well how we were talking about some parts of the book and no one else knew what we were talking about. Ehhh how I miss all of these things! The worst part of my present life is not having enough time for my books…

        And how about you? Do you miss something from your childhood?

Institution of magical power that makes you smarter (or not)… some words on universities

       I’ve always wanted to be a student of a university with an incredible, old-fashioned and mysterious building, like Hogwart way. But, unfortunatelly, Hogwart will always be only the dream of my live (I guess my owl, well ended up badly). Anyway have you ever wondered how your university would be like? I was searching throught the internet looking for the most beautiful university building, the one that we can see in the movies or we heard of and I found a list with 10 the most incredible university buildings. To be honest I don’t totally agree with this list, but anyway: 

1. Royal Roads University, Canada

1.     2. Royal Holloway, University of London, England

1.     3. The Peking University, the People’s Republic of China

4. University of Oxford, England

5. University of Salamanca, Spain

1.     6. University of Notre Dame, United States

7. Stanford University, United States

1.     8. University of Cambridge, England

1.     9. Furman University, United States

1.     10. Princeton University, United States

More: http://www.insignia-lb.com/2013/01/24/the-top-10-college-and-university-campuses/?fb_action_ids=10203130266629898&fb_action_types=og.likes

So, what do you thing about our university? And would you put another one to the list? I would but which one I won’t say ;)

Oh… BOOKS!

         Nowadays people prefer to read books via computer, ipod, ipad, ebook reader or what so ever. They’re losing the best part of books! The smell of new book, the fracture of a paper and the way, while reading, the book is becoming “smaller” with less pages than we’d expect until the very end. Oh how I love that part of reading. But actually I prefer the old books, you know the ones with yellowish paper and hard cover, with this old print and sometimes with old pictures. And when you still wonder how is it possible that this book is in one piece even if it’s old and read like thousands times and it’s still  in better condition than the new one that you read like twice and it already has missing pages and so on. I would love to buy my favourite book in old-fashion way of making cover and paper. Of course the most important is what is inside, but when the story is awesome you want to read it again and again and again… but then the book is damaged. That is why I stand for old-fashion books.

         Here are some samples of book covers made by Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classics series. I think this is kind of art :D

-Knock, knock!

-Who’s there?

-English!

-Liar! You don’t sound like English!

        …id est what did happen and what will happen to you dear English?

        Some time ago I came upon articles about English which I just want to share with you. The first one is about the way English sounded in the time of Shakespeare, Beowulf and… King Arthur?

Ok about King Arthur’s language you can find more articles because there no final statement on what language did he speak, however let’s get closer to the article:

http://theweek.com/articles/545166/what-english-shakespeare-beowulf-king-arthur-actually-sounded-like

pretty awesome, huh?

        Let’s change British English into American one a bit. I’ve seen some old movies in American English and I can tell that the language is different from the one we now today. And it is not about dialect or “states pronunciation”, but more about its evolution. Here’s the second article on it. And the question is how the American English will sound after another century…

http://theweek.com/articles/549557/what-americans-sound-like-2050

Whoa, English you bastard, you’re growing up so fast!

        Now, which “English” would you like to know and use? I think all of them sounds really beautiful and have something special. We just have to wait for another move from English speaking countries to show us the newest English… ;)

But I have one brilliant idea... let's speak the QUEEN"S! :D