Author: Gordon

Paschal Greeting

I led a brief multilingual Paschal Greeting in church this past Easter Sunday. When I was researching the greetings I found the Wikipedia article and various websites not very useful for getting actual pronunciations. With the help of more research and some native speakers I came up with the following list. The second line of each part is my attempt a phonetic transcription, and the third line is aimed at getting native English speakers as close as possible (for monolingual English speakers) to something resembling the actual pronunciation.

English
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
[ kʰɹɐʲst ɪz ˈɹɪzn̩ hi ɪz ˈɹɪzn̩ ɪn.ˈdiːd ]
Kraist ihz RIH-zen! Hee ihz RIH-zen ihn-DEED!

French
Christ est ressuscité! Il est vraiment ressuscité!
[ kʀist ɛ ʀe.ˌsy.si.ˈte il ɛ ˈvʀɛ.mã ʀe.ˌsy.si.ˈte ]
Kreest ay ray-SÜÜ-see-TAY! Eel ay VREH-mahn ray-SÜÜ-see-TAY!

Cantonese
基督復活了! 他確實復活了!
[ kei˦˥ tɔk̚ ˥ fɔk̚ ˨ wʊt̚ ˨ liuː˩˨ taː˦ kɔk̚˦ sʌt̚˦ fɔk̚ ˨ wʊt̚ ˨ liuː˩˨ ]
GAY DOLK folk wuht leew! TAA KOLK SUT folk wuht leew!

Spanish
¡Cristo ha resucitado! ¡En verdad ha resucitado!
[ ˈkɾis.to a ɾe.ˌsu.si.ˈtaː.ðo ɛɱ βɛɾ.ˈɗaːð a ɾe.ˌsu.si.ˈtaː.ðo ]
KREES-to ah ray-SU-si-TA-dho! En ver-DADH ah ray-SU-si-TA-dho!

Mandarin
基督復活了! (Jīdū fùhuóle) 他確實復活了! (Tā quèshí fùhuóle)
[ tɕiː˥.tu˦ fu˥˩.xu̯ɔ˩˥.lɯ̯ʌ˧ tʰaː˦ tɕʰy̯œ˥˩.ʂi˩˥ fu˥˩.xu̯ɔ˩˥.lɯ̯ʌ˧ ]
CHEE-DOO FOo-khwO-luh! TAA CHwö-shI FOo-khwO-luh!

German
Christus ist auferstanden! Er ist wahrhaftig auferstanden!
[ krist.us ɪst ˌau̯f.eɐ̯ˤ.ˈʃtan.dɨn eɐ̯ˤ ɪst vaˤ.ˈhaf.tiç ˌau̯f.eɐ̯ˤ.ˈʃtan.dɨn ]
KREES-toos ihst AWF-eya-SHTAHN-den! Eya ihst vaa-HAHF-teekh AWF-eya-SHTAHN-den!

Korean
예수 부활 하셨네! 참으로 부활 하셨네!
[ ˈje.su ˈpu.ɸʷɐl ˈhaɕːjɔnːɛ ˈtɕɐm.u.ɾo ˈpu.ɸʷɐl ˈhaɕːjɔnːɛ ]
YAY-soo BOO-hwal HASS-yon-ne! CHAM-oo-ro BOO-hwal HASS-yon-ne!

Arabic
!المسيح قام! حقاً قام
[ ɜl mɜ.ˈsiːʲħ qɑːm ˈħɐqː.ɐn qɑːm ]
El-ma-SEE-ehh QAHM! HHAQ-qan qahm!

Greek
Χριστός ἀνέστη! Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη!
[ xɾi.ˈstɔs aˈnɛs.ti a.li.ˈθɔːs aˈnɛs.ti ]
Hree-STOESS a-NESS-tee! A-lee-THOESS a-NESS-tee!

Noam Chomsky is like the Swamp King

When I first came here, this was all a swamp of structural linguistics. Everyone said I was daft to build a Universal Grammar on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show them.

First I built a Transformational Grammar. That sank into the swamp.

Then I built a Government and Binding. That fell over and sank into the swamp.

So I built a Minimalist Program. That burned down, fell over, and sank into the swamp.

But Recursion stayed up!

Until that pesky Dan Everett came up out of the Amazonian swamp…

Apologies to Monty Python.

Consciousness and Free Will

There has been a lot of literature recently, both scholarly and popular, about the fact that humans’ decision-making processes are not actually carried out in a conscious fashion. That is, experiments have shown that decisions are made in the brain some time — up to several seconds — before we are aware of making them. Google “consciousness free will” for many, many links.

This biological fact leads a lot of people to declare that we don’t have free will and are therefore “actually” mindless automatons, whatever that is supposed to mean. I’m a little bemused by this — I don’t think the fact has any bearing whatsoever on the question of “free will”, whatever that is (I have no idea).

The brain obviously makes a decision somehow, and the fact that we only percieve our brain’s having made the decision after the fact has little bearing on how exactly the brain makes it. Someone will have to define “free will” for me before I can opine on whether or not the brain has it. As to whether or not it’s “me” making the decision, why should I think of the parts of myself whose functioning I am not aware of as not being a part of me? I’m quite comfortable with the idea that my conscious experience of myself is really a summary, a newsreel, of the vaster collection of structures and activities that are me.

I think the real reason people have sensationalized this result is that the sophomore bullshitter in many of us would like to be able to say “since I actually have no free will at all, it doesn’t matter what I do” to get a reaction out of other people.