Valencian policeman invents number-based universal language

“‘300’ is pronounced ‘di’ and means ‘liberty’, while ‘500’ and ‘900’ are pronounced ‘gi’ and ‘ti’ and are translated respectively as ‘crane’ and ‘tree’.” Juan Ramón Palanca says that Usik, his language, is potentially without limits, since there is no shortage of numbers, and that he already has 80,000 words. Children will learn quickly, he…

Lovedoves

Flash is the brothel basement of web design, so it’s good to see some on the site of Barcelona’s best-known fukifuki hotel, in the middle of Little Rumania.

Loera/Luera/Loire

Anthony‘s got an interesting last name, which he has been trying to source. I wonder whether the first hypothesis isn’t correct: a quick Corde search establishes that “Loire” was Spanished as “Luera” in the sixteenth century, and written, unaccented “o” is pronounced “u” in various Hispanic dialects.

Old prejudices

It’s not just what he says that makes me uneasy when democracy is explained to silly little us by village mayor Jean-Claude Juncker.

Spanish anti-Americanism

RMF@fum i estalzí makes the interesting suggestion, re Pew, that anti-Americanism is stronger in Spain than in prominent Muslim nations, which, we are told, have every reason for hating Americans. Maybe religion isn’t such an important determinant of attitudes after all.

Silvester Paradox meets Mr Macbeth

This is the promised translation of the chapter in Pío Baroja’s serialised novel The adventures, inventions and mystifications of Silvester Paradox / Aventuras, inventos y mixtificaciones de Silvestre Paradox (1901) in which Silvester takes up with an English conman, quack, amateur pugilist and exponent of inventions such as the translatoscope called Macbeth. The source is…

Why I like nineteenth century historical writing

Here’s Samuel Griswold Goodrich on Europe after the Goths in A History of All Nations, from the Earliest Periods to the Present Time (1856): When the wind had dispersed the dust of these countless armies; when the smoke of these blazing cities had ascended to the sky; when the vapors, arising from these murderous battlefields,…

Are all Slovenian bears crazy?

I imagine news of the Slovenian bear that has gone urseshit in greater Germany will do nothing to calm the nerves of Pyreneans re Slovenian bear releases here. Do remind me to send you a copy of that rivers of sheep immigration speech I made a while ago.

One of those mornings

The Auk: Quarterly Journal of Ornithology (1876): “At 6.09 am the female went on the nest, while the male continued to sing loudly from his perch, making no move to escort her on.”

Treatment of incontinence

It may not have worked, but nineteenth century medicine often sounds rather fun. This from An Epitome of Braithwaite’s Retrospect of practical medicine and surgery (1860): M. Lallemand, of Montpellier, has great confidence in aromatic bitters, to which a small portion of brandy has been added, followed by active friction of the loins… As internal…