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�Must have languages� for polyglots? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5976 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes  5 sounds | Message 137 of 149 11 April 2009 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I remember when I was a kid, game-books were booming and at that time I've read a ton of Bulgarian game-books. None of them is available in English. Funny and interesting adventures like Zamaka na Talasumite ( that would be "Goblin's Castle" ), Zavrushtaneto na Talasumite ( "The Return of the Goblins" ) ans so forth. I just love these books and I still find them to be a source of inspiration, some 15 years later.
I think every language has this type of "hidden treasure" and it can be really extensive for "big languages" like French and German. Edited by Sennin on 11 April 2009 at 6:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6389 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 138 of 149 11 April 2009 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
ALMAKTABAH.COM 93,297 Books in Arabic from 180 Publishers They were around since ‘97. DHL delivers to Colombia. It was easy to find books in Amharic and other languages. Plenty of Indian sites collecting a large number of books and textbooks in Hindi and many other Indian languages. German book market is huge - the second largest in the world by dollar value and third largest in terms of production numbers (after English and Chinese). One in ten books published in the world today is published in German. The Frankfurt book fair is the world’s largest. After English German is the most prolific language of scientific journals. The French also publish an awful lot. Russian book production is recovering. Spain has an interesting book publishing industry and so do many other countries. Like Marc mentioned no language covers it all, especially if one has a taste for the exotic and the esoteric. Edited by reineke on 11 April 2009 at 10:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Juan M. Senior Member Colombia Joined 5841 days ago 460 posts - 597 votes | Message 139 of 149 11 April 2009 at 11:52pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I won't argue with the statistics you cite. Simply that, from direct experience, far too many books of great intrinsic worth and interest are no longer printed in French and German. It is lamentable and for someone like me, deeply saddening and disappointing. In view of this, it cannot be maintained that they enjoy a special status or preponderant position as languages of study and erudition. It doesn't matter to me that tonnes of cooking books or travel brochures might be printed in French and German each year if things like Geschichte und Klassenbewußtsein, Die Entwicklung des okzidentalen Rationalismus, an unabridged version of Promenades dans Londres, or most of the works of Henri Pirenne and Jacques d' Hondt, to mention just the random few I've happened to search for in the past week, are out of print and sometimes impossible to find even used. It is a scandal that the Germans can't even read Guicciardini in their own tongue. Even books that I bought a couple of years ago are out of print now and nowhere to be found even used. For an intellectual, this is a landscape of desolation.
Incidentally, most if not all of these books can be readily obtained either in English or Spanish. Perhaps with the advent of electronic devices such as Kindle will these two languages regain their relevance. About the Arabic bookstore, thanks for the link! Do you know any more? Also, if you can let me know about these Hindi and Amharic bookstores you mention, I'd be very grateful. Regards. Edited by JuanM on 12 April 2009 at 12:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6389 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 140 of 149 12 April 2009 at 6:13am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
It’s hard to argue with facts. It is a fact that France and Germany both translate and publish more than most other countries and certainly more than all Spanish speaking countries combined. Reducing French book production to a mountain of cookbooks is similar to saying that Spanish books are all about religious devotion, popular witchcraft and immigration. You’re dissatisfied with book availability in history and philosophy, two areas where one simply cannot run out of books in one of these languages – let alone both. One Indian link http://www.dli.ernet.in/ More Arab stuff http://www.arabsites.com/links/Arts_and_Humanities/Literatur e I will add more links to my blog - when I rediscover them and when I get to it. I've had quite a few then I deleted them all so they don't "distract" me. Arabic Amharic and Hindi bookstores - I just googled Guicciardini – pretty bad in German. Why do you look up Italian stuff in German and at that stuff that’s already available in Spanish? I did find free electronic translations of Storia d’Italia and other stuff about him in German. Available however in hard copy in French many books from several online stores – more different editions than in Spanish Translating Guicciardini Guicciardini, genèse d’une traduction http://www.editions-verdier.fr/banquet/indice/indice9_1.html Henri Pirenne/Jacques d' Hondt A lot of free books online I didn't look around but Amazon.fr and alapage have several new books from each author Die Entwicklung des okzidentalen Rationalismus http://www.mohr.de/philosophie/fachgebiete/alle-buecher/buch /die-entwicklung-des-okzidentalen-rationalismus.html Promenades dans Londres Free online Hard copy – several editions available from Amazon France Edited by reineke on 12 April 2009 at 6:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Juan M. Senior Member Colombia Joined 5841 days ago 460 posts - 597 votes | Message 141 of 149 12 April 2009 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
"Facts" devoid of discernment are useless. Your statistics become meaningless when direct experience shows that important books are simply not obtainable at bookstores anymore.
You'll be warranted to make such a characterization when the works of Calderón de la Barca or Miguel de Unamuno are no longer printed in Spanish.
I'm not looking for something or anything to read to pass the time. As a researcher, one needs access to specific titles that may be key to one's work; no matter how many thousands of books are claimed to be printed in French and German each year, there is simply no "substitute" for the ones I quoted above. Thus any language claiming a special status as a medium of learning must be exhaustive in the breath and depth of the materials it offers to the student. At this point, disturbingly and lamentably, unless you have access to their libraries, German and French are very far from doing so. By contrast, it is only very rarely that I'm stymied by the inability to obtain a work in English, either used or new.
Because you claimed German (and French) provide a window into world literature. If Guicciardini -a standard of Western historiography- is beyond German's purview, what hope is there for the depth and range of Arabic or Indian literature and thought available in that language? We already found that an important Muslim philosopher is represented in neither of those two tongues.
Again, those are electronic versions. My complaint concerns books in print. For someone like me, a computer screen will never substitute for the printed page. Kindle perhaps may, and I dearly hope that Bezos' claim of "every book ever printed in every language" will someday be approximated. And that they don't institute some form of cultural apartheid by restricting books by regions, the way they do with DVDs and other media.
Now, this is actually useful. I didn't know one could order directly from Mohr Siebeck books that Amazon.de shows as being out of print. Thank you very much for the tip! Regards. Edited by JuanM on 12 April 2009 at 6:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6607 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 142 of 149 12 April 2009 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
It's happened to me before that books were not available at Amazon.de, although they were not out of print. It's always a good idea to check with the publisher. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6389 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 143 of 149 12 April 2009 at 7:44pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Calderon de La Barca and Unamuno are VERY popular authors, especially in Spanish-speaking countries. Among the books you were looking for in German were a "Spanish-born Muslim philosopher and first known exponent in Spain of the Neoplatonic tradition of intellectual mysticism" and a Hungarian who was apparently into "klassenfetischismus" and some works connected with Marxist thought - ahem a still very popular topic in Latin America. The muslim philosopher only had about 30 records in Arabic, a dozen in Spanish and a few in English and French and that after sifting through bibliographic records of some 10,000 libraries worldwide - including the Library of Congress, BNF and others.. If an author is consistently out of print in his home country, which is incidentally the world's second largest book market (and a democratic one) it's of course a shame, perhaps a sign of the times but perhaps also an indication that you're placing too much value on a particular book. You are of course free to have your own opinion but most people would not characterize German and French book publishing as "decrepit" and France and Germany as "intellectual wastelands". Every sixth book published in the world today is either in French or German. You're in a Spanish-speaking country, looking for stuff you know is available in Spanish - this does not make any sense. I have mentioned several times that no language can cover it all. It's mathematically impossible with current book production and translation numbers. About half of all the translations are from English meaning that the rest of the world is shortchanged - you cannot hope to cover everything with Spanish and English. Therefore I am not advocating German or French only but a strong combination of languages. It's only by combining many languages that you will have a cathedral-type window into world literatures. BTW, I was able to find most of what you were looking for in either French or German. Promenade... plenty of bookstores sell different editions of this book (hard copy - paper). The ones I saw are apparently the 1842 edition and you're looking for the 1840 edition? The 1842 version is the "preferred" one and the changes were decided by the author. The only point "where the first edition presents an advantage is a chapter on Owen and Owenism". In any case it's not "abridged" in the usual sense of the word. In case it’s of any interest to anyone I’ve written about this extensively on my blog but here’s a few facts: Worldcat catalogue. This is different from the searchable online catalogue of 10,000 libraries I mentioned before. Number of libraries represented worldwide: 71,000 Number of bibliographic records: 135,306,603 Number of holdings: 1,423,659,099 Number of countries represented: 112 Number of languages and dialects represented: More than 470 records by language English OVER 40,000,000 German 8,765,000 French 4,490,767 Spanish 3,038,551 Dutch 2,319,000 Chinese 1,693,000 Japanese 1,600,000 Russian 1,312,934 Italian 1,180,937 Latin 796,829 Portuguese 773,000 ... Arabic 379,672 Hebrew 346,200 Swedish 320,000 Hindi 100,637 Top choices for translations Original language Top target languages (translations) Sumerian: German English Egyptian: French German English Greek (ancient): German Spanish French English Italian Latin: German Spanish French Italian English Sanskrit: Hindi German English French Spanish Hebrew: English German French Spanish Italian Chinese: Japanese English French German Japanese: French English German Korean: Japanese French German English Thai: Japanese English French Burmese: Japanese Khmer: French English German Japanese Vietnamese: French English Russian Indonesian: English Japanese French: Spanish German English Italian Japanese Italian: Spanish French German English Spanish: French English German Portuguese It. Portuguese: Spanish English French German It. Romanian: English French German Catalan: Spanish English French German Russian: English German French Polish: German English Russian French Czech: Slovak German English Hung. Russian Fr. Croatian: English German Italian French Bulgarian: Russian English German French Dutch: German French English German: English French Spanish Norwegian: Danish German English Finnish: Swedish English Estonian German Arabic: French Spanish English German Farsi: English Russian German French Turkish: German English French Hindi: English Russian German French Swahili: German French English Edited by reineke on 12 April 2009 at 8:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Juan M. Senior Member Colombia Joined 5841 days ago 460 posts - 597 votes | Message 144 of 149 12 April 2009 at 8:34pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
One cannot be conversant in sociology without having read Lukács and Ibn Bajjah enjoys a privileged position in the history of Islamic philosophy, literature and science. But this knowledge can't be glimpsed from a database. It's called culture, something for which apparently there is a waning demand, sadly even in nations which claim it as their main distinction. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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