|
 |
Languages with rich literary traditions | ||
Tags: Literature | Multilingual | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| vuisminebitz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6565 days ago 86 posts - 108 votes  Speaks: Yiddish, English*, Spanish Studies: Swahili | Message 17 of 63 18 November 2007 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Yiddish has a huge literary tradition on the order of 600 years and many (but not most) of the great works of literature are available in translation. More than 5 million volumes have been printed in the Yiddish language, maybe 2 million survive today (more than 2 million were burned by the Nazi's, many were lost through disuse), most Yiddish books have been digitially preserved and are avalible in print on demand from the National Yiddish book center in Amherst MA. Yiddish writing has won two noble prizes and is very interesting, as a modernist literature (it's the ultimate of times changing and people confronting a modern world for the first time) and obviously for it's portrayel of the world of Jewish life in Europe which is pretty much gone forever. Translations are also widely available in Hebrew, Russian, German, and to a lesser extent French, Spanish and Japense. Authors include, Sholem Aleichem, Elie Weisel (won the noble prize for the Yiddish language memoir un di velt hot geshvign whcih was released as "night" when it was first widely published in French), Issac Bashevis Singer (won the Noble prize), Israel Joshua Singer, Issac Leib Peretz, Mendl Mokhr Seforim, Dovid Bergelson, Mendy Katz, Avraham Sutzeker, Issac Manger, The Ball Shem Tov, Bialak (wrote in Yiddish as well), Levik, Mani Leib (my favorite poet in any language), David Edelstadt (probably the best Yiddish poet, died at 26), Hirsh Glik (writer of Holocaust songs, murdered in 1942 at age 22), S Ansky (the Dybbuk, also a great film and play), Sholem Ash, Chaim Grade, Der Nister, murdered 1952. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_literature Here's Wikipedia's article on Yiddish literature, probably the most prominent literature of a murdered language in the history of the world. Most prominent Yiddish writers of the mid-20th century were murdered along with their readers either by Hilter or in 1952 by Stalin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Murdered_Poets Other prominent writers include Eshter Kreitman, Itzkhak Katz (murdered in 1944 in Aushwitz, memoir on his war years was discovered later in a bottle and published in 12 languages), etc etc etc. An interesting thing to remmeber about Yiddish is that it was a language of education, in fact the main one for Jews in public schools in four or five countries, Lithiunia, Poland, Ukraine, Moldova etc. People forget this, that in many ways Yiddish was the first major language of education and scholarship to be nearly wiped out since Latin.
In the English language Yiddish literature is available but pretty much ignorned for the most part (not as much as other literatures though). Unfortunately nobody reads things anymore (nobody reads any type of literature anymore), especially works from a dying language or stuff like Bengali lit (more on that latter that people aren't familair with the culture). This is especially true with Yiddish. Still it should be read. One of the coolest aspects of Yiddish literature are the children's books. We have the greatest in the world, hands down, bar none. I've read a ton of great books that aren't in translation in English that would amaze people. Yiddish children's stories are also the first in the world to widely employ magic realism, an influence which has crept strongly into Spanish and German fiction. A great set of children's stories from Issac Bashevis Singer is available in English under the title "Zlateh the goat". Ironically the book cannot be published in Yiddish because of copyright issues (not that I'm among huge swarms of people lining up to by it in Yiddish but I still found it absurd when I tried to get the book in Yiddish, the language after all that it was originally written in). Yeah, so that's about it for Yiddish lit, definetly worth looking into. Also, modern day Hasidim have their own Yiddish literature which is largely unread by people outside their world, most notable are dozens (last year hundreds) of children's books that are published every year. If you're going to read one Yiddish novel, the novel to read is "The Brothers Ahskenazi" "di brider ashkenazi" by Israel Joshua Singer, it's available in many many languages. There are also good (several thousand pages long) poetry anthologies that are bilingual. Yiddish American poetry, a bilingual anthology is one. For Yiddish books in the original and in translation the best source is the Yiddish book center http://yiddishbookcenter.org/ Another literature that I really enjoy and that also faced huge repression during the 20th century (like Yiddish most prominent writers being murdered) is Bengali. Obviously Bengali language and lit isn't going anywhere soon but it is certainly worth checking out in translation. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| xtremelingo Trilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6278 days ago 398 posts - 515 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi* Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written) | Message 18 of 63 18 November 2007 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Llyodkirk,
Hinduism is 7,000+ years old. Hinduism existed well before it was ever written down. The numbers you quote are the estimate "before common era" of when they expect the religion was formally written, but not when it was actually 'produced.' Hinduism existed well before Judaism and can be seen in the Archeology of India and Pakistan. Even Hinduism's written form is still older than Judaism. It is likely that even Zoorastrianism is older than Judaism as well. Don't get me wrong, just because a religion is old doeesn't necessarily give it any more credibility. It just should be clear that Judaism is NOT the oldest religion. It is also said that much of Christianity was stolen from Zoorastrian principles of gnosticism. The concept of a "Saviour" for mankind existed well before Jesus, there are many similarities of the stories of Jesus to the stories of Zooraster. Unfortunately, much of Zoorastrianism was wiped out during the Arab invasions of Persia, thus very few actually even know about Zoorastrianism which was for a long time the official religion of Persia -- for millions of people. The Abrahamic religions are relatively new religions in the history of mankind, Islam being the newest out of the three. Edited by xtremelingo on 18 November 2007 at 6:18pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lloydkirk Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6404 days ago 429 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 19 of 63 18 November 2007 at 6:32pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Perhaps elements of Hinduism existed 7,000 years ago but a far cry from what is known as Hinduism today. It can argued that Judaism goes a lot farther back by that same reasoning.
The Bhagavad Gita, commonly accepted as the holiest text in Hinduism is predated by the Hebrew bible. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| xtremelingo Trilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6278 days ago 398 posts - 515 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi* Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written) | Message 20 of 63 18 November 2007 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Lloyd,
No Hinduism, in it's CURRENT form existed 7,000+ years ago. If we can't accurately pinpoint an exact time, we can also look at the religion itself and see what it says about ITSELF along with other scientific methods of inquiry, such as archeology, carbon-dating, etc. Judaism actually does NOT go that far back compared to Hinduism, because Judaism has made it pretty explicit, the start of the Universe (or at least Earth) basically begins with Adam and Eve --> humans. So we know that there is a finite limit to the age of Judaism, because we know the Universe did not start with Humans, such as Adam and Eve. Whereas in Hinduism, there is no finite limit. In fact, Hinduism (according to itself) suggests its age as being infinite and existed millions of years before the first Human. Carbon-dating of old hindu scriptures show evidence of Hindu scriptures being many times older than Judaic scriptures. We know from Science, the Earth and the Universe existed well before Humans arrived on the scene. In fact, billions of years before humans arrived on the scene. Judaism does not account for this time. Hinduism does. In Hinduism, they account for the world and universe before Humans ever arrived and when they finally arrived. Not just 7-days of creation (as found in Abrahamic religions), but thousands of years of history that predate Human history. Hinduism actually claims to have been there in operation and practice before humans came around. This is very important because it illustrates a few things. There is really no 'founder' of Hinduism, it JUST EXISTS. And Hinduism was not created or made initially for people/humans. If you read the Bhagavad Gita, Vedas and more, you can read alot about the Universe before Humans surfaced. It also demonstrates another important fact, Hinduism was aware of a world that existed without humans. Many newer religions did not understand the possibility of a world that exists without humans. Because, much of their central philosophy focuses on the idea that God created Earth/Universe FOR humans. What would be the point of having a religion, when there is no one (humans) there to follow it? Hinduism wasn't actually made by the people for the people, or made by God for the people. But interestingly enough, it was a religion/philosophy made by Gods for the Gods according to it's scriptures. Humans started to follow it, and for good reason --who wouldn't want to model/copy/follow a God? Many creative theorists even suggest that this could explain the possibility of extra-terrestrials that may have practised Hinduism on Earth before modern Humans. Modern Humans confused these exta-terrestrials as Gods, because they possessed natural unique biological traits and abilities not found in Humans and thus were considered "supernatural." The extra-terrestrials left their mark on Earth and left, and with that left their religion of Hinduism, that was adopted by Humans -- perhaps in attempts for making them return. This is not something I believe in, but it is a very interesting theory. Edited by xtremelingo on 18 November 2007 at 7:29pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lloydkirk Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6404 days ago 429 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 21 of 63 18 November 2007 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | ||
|
---No Hinduism, in it's CURRENT form existed 7,000+ years ago.-xtremelingo
I've seen no evidence to suggest that and you've provided me with none. ---Judaism actually does NOT go that far back compared to Hinduism, because Judaism has made it pretty explicit, the start of the Universe (or at least Earth) basically begins with Adam and Eve --> humans.-xtremelingo Not at all, most Jews/Christians agree that the world existed for quite some time before humans were created(possibly thousands of years before). The earth could have been created in 7 days, there's nothing to prove it wasn't, but the figure may have been symbolic. ---We know from Science, the Earth and the Universe existed well before Humans arrived on the scene. In fact, billions of years before humans arrived on the scene. Judaism does not account for this time. Hinduism does.--- Correction, 'we' know from theory. Evolution is a theory not scientific law. What Hinduism claims and what is actually true are two entirely different things. I find your logic about Hinduism having an infinite age utterly bizarre. As far as documents, carbon dating is notoriously unreliable. As far as I know, Judaism has the oldest and longest continuously documented history. Not to mention, it is backed by other historical sources and archaelogy. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| xtremelingo Trilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6278 days ago 398 posts - 515 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi* Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written) | Message 22 of 63 18 November 2007 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Lloyd,
This is going to be a debate that isn't going to end. Lets face it. Religion is way too intangible. Trying to prove Religion is a absurd and will lead to a long-winded debate that will likely result in no meaningful conclusion. First, I'm not even a religious person, I still question the existence of God. So this is not a debate for me to fight, particularly because I am not Hindu and I'm basically an Atheist with a Sikh background. I don't agree much with what Hinduism says anyways, so it's hypocritical for me to try to advocate it. So I'm going to leave it here. I simply provided you what Hinduism says about itself. My goal isn't to prove it to you, but to let you see what they think from their perspective. As for evidence, a quick google search on "oldest religion", results in 57,000 matches. Rank 1 and 2 out of 57,000 results state that Hinduism is the oldest religion. http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=%22oldest+religion%22&me ta= Although, I wouldn't bet on it this way, I'm sure out of all the religions and such a diverse/large topic; that coming at top of 57,000 may suggest something in Hinduism's favour. ;) Edited by xtremelingo on 18 November 2007 at 9:33pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| xtremelingo Trilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6278 days ago 398 posts - 515 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi* Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written) | Message 23 of 63 18 November 2007 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | ||
Lloyd,
I didn't say anything about Evolution. In Hinduism, people POP UP like they do in the story of Adam and Eve. God(s) just creates them at will. And it is a SCIENTIFIC FACT that the Universe existed BEFORE Humans -- millions and billions of years. Not even a thousands of years as you try to quote here. The only GOOD arguement I ever heard about the creation in 6 days, and rest on the 7th day was that in God's 'world', a Godly Day is equivalent to thousands if not million of human years, and a 'day' is not to be interpreted as the 24 hour day we conventionally think of. However, even Christians don't have any evidence that suggests this inadventently. The only religion that makes a slight claim to this is Islam, and you can find this at Harun Yahya's website. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lloydkirk Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6404 days ago 429 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 24 of 63 18 November 2007 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | ||
|
And it is a SCIENTIFIC FACT that the Universe existed BEFORE Humans -- millions and billions of years. Not even a thousands of years as you try to quote here.
Scientific Fact? LOL, prove that one. The concept that the earth if millions and billions of years old is a tenet of the theory of evolution. Again, merely a theory. Nothing gives Evolution more credibility than Creationism. It's all a guessing game. Dating methods are very unreliable... 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
