Interesting. But I cannot see any table with reference to mechanical properties of the new materials. MycoWorks instead shed some light upon it on their website. They are using strains of Ganoderma lucidim, and it can be tanned while it grows, not after.
I went down a rabbit hole, and stumbled upon http://www.mycoworks.com/ as well which is seemingly an earlier competitor. Particularly their resources & reading section at the bottom references a number of papers on the subject.
It however asks an important question about our internal wiring. During the lat two years I started to think that our wetware runs different AIs, when we think in different languages.
I shared room with two Lao students during my university years. I know that their script is very different from Bengali. How difficult was for you to learn to read Lao?
ROTFL. This is translation not from Sanskrit, but from Traditional Chinese. Dude, you really need to learn some languages. Try Russian. Latvian has many words taken from Russian in 19th century.
> You will simply have no words to express what you need
That is a challenge that all translators face, no matter the language pair. There are no direct equivalents of "अभिधर्म" or "Ānanda" in any of the Western languages either, be it Latvian, English or Welsh. Incidentally, both Lithuanian and Latvian happen to be closer to Sanskrit than the latter. Again, I don't quite see the point you're making. Care to elaborate?
You said it yourself - the lack of direct equivalents is nothing special. What is amusing however, is how in some languages you'll find a lot of "untranslatables" grouped around a particular concept or theme. Language X may have a curiously large amount of untranslatable words that have to do with describing how one feels, while language Y may have a plethora of quick, informal words and phrases that are very hard to translate.
Languages borrow words from neighbours, just as peoples get influences from neighbouring peoples, so it is hardly a surprise that Latvian language has Slavic words - and Russian language has borrowed lots from neighbours, as well as substantial amount of words from English, German and French languages. Not just in 19th century, but for the past 1000 years; a significant impact to Russian language was during the time of Peter the Great when cultural opening brought lots of new words.
Indeed, there are so many words of French and German origins in the Russian language, that linguists have lost their count. This is to do with the Russian nobility, at different periods, helming from those countries and/or it being the language of the court at the time (same as with French in England, however briefly). There is no shame in borrowing. Good languages copy, great languages steal.
I don't even really know Russian, I've never studied it; but I have learned the alphabet, and I can typically understand some part of newspaper articles etc simply because there are so many loan words from languages I know (English, German, Swedish and Finnish).
Yup, silly it is. I made a survey of preferential by understanding term for "widget" in Russian among Russian businessmen this January, and got about 90% "pro" votes for using the borrowed English term. Practical people do not care for "purity".
FWIW, Latvian is also more related to Russian than most other non-Slavic European languages, since both languages belong to the same top-level subdivision within Indo-European (Balto-Slavic).
Please stop posting uncivilly to HN. Several of your comments are interesting but that doesn't make it ok to be rude. We ban accounts that do that repeatedly.
Why, thank you, I speak Russian fluently. It doesn't matter whether the text has been translated from Traditional Chinese or Sanskrit, the issue remains the same: Buddhist terminology is specific to the Buddhist tradition. You will face the same challenge, as long as the language that it is being translated to is not steeped in the same tradition.
You have a lot to discover in original Buddhism before making statements like that. I am fascinated and struggling with help of Roerich's Tibetan-English-Russian dictionary, and I must say, there is difference in meanings, whether its sutra in Chinese or Tibetan. Ancient translators had their own problems, and direction of tradition is more like India -> Tibet -> China. So Sanskrit originals prevail, and I am yet to learn the script.
I am talking about the general principle of translating a text with developed and precise terminology that is steeped in tradition for which no reference point exists in the language-of-destination. Therefore, it matters very little whether we're talking about translating ancient Chinese or Tibetan texts. The challenges are similar in scale. Case in point[1]:
"This is a major reason why the Daodejing, to take a famous example, is impenetrable to a few, enigmatic to many more, and highly allusive for everyone, and has been the subject of well over 150 translations of it in English alone."
Not much, since I came to Tibetan from English, and a course in Russian delivered by Mongolian and Tibetan native speaker. I can give a funny example on how difficult it is to keep conveyance of meaning in translation.
Tibetan རང་དབང is translated to English as "independence", when in fact it is itself translation of Sanskrit स्वतन्त्रः, which is in fact "self-empowering reliance", a bit different thing.
Latvian for "independence" is "neatkarība" which itself is wrong pair, because "independence" means not being dependent, and therefore free, while Latvian word means more like "impossibility to take by force". So it might be incorrect to use it in translating Tibetan term. What may be more suitable is to use 'patvaldība', but it is more about power, than reliance.
> Latvian for "independence" is "neatkarība" which itself is wrong pair, because "independence" means not being dependent, and therefore free, while Latvian word means more like "impossibility to take by force".
"Ne" is a negation (= "in" or "not"), whereas "atkarība" is simply "dependence". Thus, (in)(dependence) is the equivalent of (ne)(atkarība). I don't see where you got it to mean "impossibility to take by force". Independence can be lost, it's not an impossibility. Source:
OK. 'Atkarība' is literally state of land that one can 'atkarot', i.e. take back by force.
In old money being "atkarīgs" literally means being the one whose land was taken by force. Its a Normann to Saxon situation in a way.
> Latvian for "independence" is "neatkarība" which itself is wrong pair, because "independence" means not being dependent, and therefore free, while Latvian word means more like "impossibility to take by force".
Interesting, the Latvian word feels like a cognate of Russian непокорённость (nepokoryonnost'), which means something like "ability to resist conquest". I wonder if kor/kar is the same Balto-Slavic root, or is this a false cognate?
Calque of German abhängig (“dependent”), coined at the end of the 19th century from atkār(t) (“to hang down”) + -īgs (with atkārt from at- + kārt (“to hang”)), together with the related term atkarība.
The word for independence ("neatkarība") in Latvian is a calque from the German Abhängigkeit ("dependence")[1]. Thus, "atkarāties" and "karāties" ("to hang"). Thus, the English expression "it hangs in the balance". On balance, most of the things you've said about the Latvian language in this thread hang by a thread, and that thread is close to tear.
Please check your sources and brush up on whatever rudimentary Latvian skills you still posses. You will certainly not master the language by defaulting to what is, in essence, chauvinism. Rest assured, we can read between the lines of what you're implying ["Russian language superior! We have big words, words for everything! The best words!], but it's just not gonna fly here.
You are very right. After learning the third, you start to feel a glimpse of some more universal structure in your brain, that pinpoints meaning to expression in languages you know. So you can tell "this cant be said in English, it is too Spanish", or something like that. And it is very useful to learn at least one Eastern Asian language with non-latin script, to get full experience of this kind. Your own depths are unfathomable, and every language pulls the cover, unraveling the abyss of your own mind.
> And it is very useful to learn at least one Eastern Asian language with non-latin script, to get full experience of this kind.
I find learning Han characters the height of tedium. I'll happily deal with any non-latin phonetic alphabet - but logograms do my head in. There's very little insight to be gained there IMO.
Do you know a substantail number of Indians speak atleast 3 languages. 1st is their regional language where they were born, another is Hindi and the third is English. And it's not considered out of the ordinary at all..
Maybe what you're saying is true, but I work for an Indian IT consulting company in Europe and from my experience Indians with IQ > 120 (or even > 100) are extremely hard to come by.
IQ is ortoganal to education; a person with high IQ with a good round education will probably excel while two people with no education or an education that lacks certain aspect will probably not be so different.
As a Latvian speaker, I must say, that particular language is very poor in expressing abstract concepts and expressing suspense. The language was quite literally designed by Germans as 'slave language'. It had major redesign in 20-ies, but surprisingly most of books in Latvian were published during Soviet times. I agree with hero, Latvian is 'sweet'. It is very good in expressing practical concepts, and as daily conversational speak is much more 'positive' than Russian or English with their multitude of meanings behind simple expressions.
UPD: Example of sweet positive character of Latvian. Latvian for "How do you do?" is "Ka labi iet?", means literally the same, but asking person is also telling that he is sure that everything is OK and somehow cheers up spirits of the respondent in this short expression.
UPD2: For those native Latvian speakers who care to read Russian and they are many, here is study summing up the first 400 years of Latvian books https://dspace.lu.lv/dspace/bitstream/handle/7/2152/Konferen... And you know, in 1956 there were 7.9 million books printed in Latvian language (!). Quite a figure for a nation of 2.5 mln people.
As a native Latvian speaker, I have no idea what you're talking about. In comparison to other languages spoken on the European continent, Lithuanian and Latvian have retained more of the features of what linguists call Proto-Indo-European (PIE), a language spoken circa 3500 BCE. It was certainly not "designed by Germans as 'slave language'". Perhaps that's what you were taught during the "ommunist" times under the Soviet occupation. Incidentally, this was also a time of Russification[1], i.e., marginalization of languages spoken by the native population. You can see how this would fit nicely into their narrative. Latvian speakers today, though, would really appreciate if people could stop spreading such falsehoods. That'd be really nice too, Jevgēnij.
This is bullshit. I spoke about it with Edgar Leitan, who is native Latvian speaker, born in Rezekne, and is Professor of linguistics specializing in oriental languages, in Vienna University. Ask him yourself. http://edgar-leitan.livejournal.com
Latvian as a language never lived better under the USSR, because Russian revolution performance was much ensured by Latvian soldiers hired by Lenin, and that was never forgotten. Among the highest Soviet officials there always been Latvians. Boris Pugo being the last.
Learn your own history from professionals, not from tabloids full of hate speech.
UPD: By the way, its Latgalian that is PTE. Latvian is simplified Latgalian. It may look as a bit of exagerration, but truth is worth discovery.
(Disclaimer: I'm not Latvian. I just happen to speak the language rather well, run a small business in Riga and spend about 1/3 of my time there.)
"Latvian as a language never lived better under the USSR". I've seen such a rich cultural heritage from the Latvian Soviet Republic era. Have a look at wonderful things like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kzsO_w8XIQ . Often a very poor cultural landscape afterwards.
And clearly there is a minority of Russian speaking people in Riga neither able nor willing to speak even the most basic Latvian. Clearly, there are idiots on the Latvian speaking side too. I'll spare you the anecdotes.
But when it comes to cursing, they all seem to use Russian :-)
> I spoke about it with Edgar Leitan, who is native Latvian speaker, born in Rezekne, and is Professor of linguistics specializing in oriental languages, in Vienna University.
Nothing personally against him, but "South Asian, Tibet and Buddhist Studies" is pretty far from Indo-European linguistics. Also, it's not unusual that native speakers have craziest ideas about their own languages. You don't automatically gain a deep insight into the history of your language just by being a native speaker.
Indeed, Latvian is a somewhat formalized version of Latgalian, so I'm not sure how that can be "truth worth discovery [sic]". If you haven't kept up with news back home, it might be of interest to you that there are MPs in the Parliament that are delivering their swear-in ceremony speeches in Latgalian now. More power to them. The rest of your comment, however, is a non sequitur.
We are a bit offtopic, but you may know that you cannot write down Latgalian identity in the Latvian national passport. Latgalians are prohibited to officially exist in Latvia 2.0.
And you very well can fix officially your Latgalian identity in Russia, surprise! Isn't it strange?
I don't find it strange at all, it plays very well into the "divide and conquer" approach to ethnic politics that Russia has put to use both in the past and more recently in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and elsewhere. For what it's worth, I disagree with there being ethnic markings in the Latvian Passport to begin with. I am in complete favor of removing them, not least because it would prevent Russian state from winning such cheap propaganda points.
Are the main characters in books, plays and movies called "heroes" in Latvian? I ask because it is so in Polish. In English a book has a protagonist, while in Polish it's the "bohater" ("hero") of the book.
I'm very intrigued by what you're saying, but can't imagine it. What makes it easier to express practical concepts? How is it more positive than others? How are others better at expressing suspense, and abstract concepts?
Learn Latvian, than Tibetan. Than try to translate a piece of classic buddhist text to Latvian. You will simply have no words to express what you need.
UPD: On other side of the coin, translation of iPad user instruction from English to Latvian is a breeze. All terms meet their pairs in translation.
@tikums. Of course they are. Read Aurobindo Ghosh, for English equivalents. I know, its a popular Latvian meme, that Latvian is close to Sanskrit.
Suppose the next time you're a painter bringing in a painting of yours into the country. Next thing you know they are accusing you of smuggling. Is the solution to hire people with background in arts?
Answering your question. You know, I worked as CITES expert on customs back 15 or 16 years. No sane customs officer can distinguish between crocodile skins. This is why there was (and still is) institution of advisors.
