Monday, April 11, 2011

467th day of the Tens

Just a personal entry, nothing newsworthy... the last act of the day!
My 'the' favourite .gif artist, James Murray, aka Eraserhead, in his manifestation as a digital purveyor of vices that make you laugh alone to no one in front of a screen, on which there might feasibly be nothing at all (because it's virtual), makes you consider getting up from a chair, to stare, to stare at what might not be there. In fact, no one is sitting in the chair at all when you stand up to observe what has taken place but it does leave you with a sense that you might need to do something else instead. That's my review of Eraserhead.
A critical review of the artist, not my response, would lead one to discover that Murray stands on the frontier of this type of digital media. According to one idea. A professional artist who doesn't sell a commodity. Even some of his DJ mixes are for free. If I knew him I'd probably want to emulate him.
I'm reminded of the words of Hakim Bey, who said that immolation was preferable to emulation.
I have a very one tracked mind. If I end up repeating the sentiments of another writer, in such emulationary fashion, then I probably need to do something else instead. Like get to bed...
"Where did you come from?"
"I came from bed. He came from bed. She came from bed. Where did you come from? I came from bed."
I'm convinced that if you use Google Translate to transliterate any English text to make it an arcane one that is either Hebrew or Arabic then you can make it literally word perfect by going via the other arcana, Latin, and then into either of the ancient languages.
Going from one language straight to the desired outcome using Google Translate churns out a word-for-word translation, culturally inept. If you put one in between the two then it creates a cognitive dissonance similar to a local inner monologue vernacular that operates in a foreign speaking place.
Perhaps going via the arcana would make it too common, since Latin was the universal language of an entirety of occident populations once. Bless the Ostrogoths!
If we experiment with the English dialogue above, perhaps it would be more relevant to render a German translation by going via French, since, geographically, one has to travel through France to reach Germany from England.
"where did you come from?"
«où venez-vous?»
»Woher kommen Sie?«
The second conundrum for would-be transliterators, language traitors, and border stretchers is Google Translate's response to the occurences of capitalization within text and even punctuation. It alters the context entirely.
"Where did you come from?"
«Où êtes-vous venu?»
»Wo kommst du her?«
It requires discretion on behalf of the user to consider grammar.
Ah! Ah! The grammarye and the error'er, the bastardization and the corruptor, ever the linguistic phenomenonizer. Yiddish was the bastardization of the Malachiym Messianic Hebrew. It simply vocalized German ideas with Hebrew characters. Interference with Freyja's design for her people caused her great jealousy towards Michael and his people, hence the persecution. Hegel's church steeple. Wrong people.
I reckon a large percentage of Hebrew stored on Google Translate is the bastardized and Latinized vocabulary alongside the ancient portion of what could be words from the Chaldee lexicon added to compensate for the popularity of English in the western speaking world.
It requires discretion on behalf of the user to consider grammar. Or a Latin arcana to make it truly ancient. As above.
"I came from bed. He came from bed. She came from bed. Where did you come from? I came from bed."
»Ich kam ins Bett. Er hatte gerade gelesen. Sie hatte gerade lesen. Wo kommst du her? Ich kam ins Bett.«
I wonder whether we've even got half a translation? I didn't include the French mediatory translation for effect.
If you're German and you're reading this and you think it's bollocks then don't blame Google Translate. Blame me entirely.
Yours.
I'm off to laugh at virtually nothing.