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Philological Essayist

@pessayist.bsky.social

710 followers 1.2K following 940 posts

The site I share translations and thoughts of philological interest on: https://philologicaltryouts.substack.com/. Enjoys dabbling in Literary Chinese, Semitic Studies, Sanskrit, Pāli, Polemical Texts, and other stuff. Trying to discover Albanian & Burmese

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Philological Essayist @pessayist.bsky.social · Jul 27

Dear Everyone, Part 9 of the ongoing translation of a late 18th Century text from Neo-Confucian Korea, arguing against Roman Catholicism, has been published. philologicaltryouts.substack.com/p/argumentat... Comments, likes, and share/reskeets all appreciated!

天學問答 - Argumentative Text Against Catholicism by Korean Scholar An Chŏngbok 安鼎福 (from 1790 AD) - Part 9

Previous parts of the translation:

philologicaltryouts.substack.com

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Arthur Snell @snellarthur.bsky.social · 8h

Least important part but I always thought it typical of the whole thing that The Line had an official Arabic name of ذا لاين - a phonetic rendition of the English (“tha layn”) but meaningless in Arabic. Whereas Arabic has perfectly good words الخط (al khat) meaning “the line”. Everything’s fake.

Arthur Snell @snellarthur.bsky.social · 8h

Really good to see the media prepared to tell the truth about Neom. I wrote as long ago as July 2023 that it was more hype than reality - it wasn't going to happen then, it isn't happening now.

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open.substack.com/pub/arthursn...

Neom was never real.

This was obvious in July 2023. It's obviouser now

open.substack.com

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Philological Essayist @pessayist.bsky.social · 12h

Oh and if you can come by a Russian/Soviet method for Ancient/Koine Greek, by means of online "proletarian shopping," please let me know. Sobolevskiy, for instance, is based.

Philological Essayist @pessayist.bsky.social · 12h

Reto Schoch's "Griechischer Lehrgang zum Neuen Testament" (I got the second print) is good enough. Otherwise, we can use the Athenaze series (I have both books in my bookcase).

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Philological Essayist @pessayist.bsky.social · 13h

Ik zou je Griekse les in het Nederlands kunnen aanbieden ^^ Wij zullen al basis een methode in het Duits gebruiken: "Griechischer Lehrgang zum Neuen Testament" (as the title suggests, it's meant to learn New Testament Greek, but the explanations there are good and also on point for Classical Greek!

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Mark Shockley @shjsat.bsky.social · 15h

In Gulf dialect classes I learned to say ولهان عليك for "I missed you", between friends. ("Long time no see!" or Gulf English, people say, "long time!")

Lane says that وله means "he became bereft of his reason or intellect, in consequence of grief". 😧

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shaun @shaunvids.bsky.social · 16h

been having a chuckle about this. looking on that subreddit, the mods are constantly running searches for and deleting posts that mention mamdani. the posters have been saying things like "the frontrunner for mayor" and so on to evade getting banned lol

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 1d

The Reddit community r/Democrats has a conspicuous absence of any news about Zohran Mamdani today. But that's by design.

The moderators have rules that ban people from talking about democratic socialists.

www.reddit.com/r/democrats/

5. R5: NO POSTS ABOUT DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OR THIRD PARTIES
Posts & Comments
Reported as: R5: No posts about Democratic Socialists or Third Parties
• No posts about Democratic socialists
• Do not promote Independent politicians
• Do not promote events held by Independents or third parties
• Do not promote any form of Democratic socialism, socialism, Leninism, Marxism or communism.
• Do not promote other political parties or its members.
• Do not promote other political ideologies.
• Users that participate in a brigade will be banned without any warning

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Dr. Jeremy Swist @metalclassicist.bsky.social · 23h

Got the editors' blessing to share this news. My chapter "National Socialist Black Metal & the Usurpation of Greece and Rome" will appear in the forthcoming volume "Abusing Antiquity? Classics and the Contemporary Far Right," edited by Helen Roche and @denisemccoskey.bsky.social!

Abusing Antiquity? Classics and the Contemporary Far Right, edited by Helen Roche and Denise Eileen McCoskey

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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 1d

Here's another bit of conventional wisdom Zohran completely blew away: His speech was at well above a 10th-grade level. It was complex, erudite, punctuated by deep and fluent references. You don't have to condescend to voters with baby talk! Part of re-establishing norms is speaking like an adult.

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Philological Essayist @pessayist.bsky.social · 1d

Hello Bird, and hello kiddos: this is your daily reminder that the Democratic Party is an Ideologically Mixed Bag(tm) at best (and still veering to the right). (Brought to you by someone who has been branded a "Tiring Leftist"(tm) and has found his way on a BSky blocklist as such) ^^

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CedarBough T. Saeji @thekpopprof.bsky.social · 1d

Tomorrow
6 Nov 1:30 pm KOREA
#LGBTQIA+ #Queer in #Korea with #EliasAlexander
Send an email to thekpopprof @ gmail to get the zoom code.

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Peter Adamson @histphilosophy.bsky.social · 1d

The latest episode of the excellent "This Is The Way" #podcast, a series on Chinese philosophy, looks at Mohism and its arguments for impartial care. Recently they did the "White Horse Not Horse" dialogue because I suggested it, which was a thrill!

warpweftandway.com/episode-27-o...

#philsky

Episode 27 of “This Is the Way”: Mohism—Two Arguments for Impartial Caring

This episode examines the Mohist doctrine of impartial caring (jian'ai 兼愛) via two arguments in the Mozi -- the Caretaker Argument and the Filial Piety A

warpweftandway.com

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daniel s. @self.agency · 2d

andrew cuomo looking at the interviewer saying "as a jewish person i'm afraid mamdani is going to make me put my foreskin back."

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Benjamin A. Engel @benjaminaengel.bsky.social · 1d

Strong critique of Lee Jae Myung's pursuit of nuclear submarines from a progressive also interested in improving Korea's defense.

english.hani.co.kr/arti/english...

Korean military expert calls pursuit of nuclear submarine ‘vanity of a nation drunk on delusion of becoming world power’

Military expert Kim Jong-dae strongly criticized the move, calling it a step backward into platforms of the past and only adding to Korea’s reliance on the US

english.hani.co.kr

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Institute of English Studies @ies-sas.bsky.social · 17d

Interested in Greek Palaeography?

Join our LIPS Online Short Course with Dr. Laura Franco on the 4th-6th February 2026, from 14:00 - 17:00!

Sign up here: buff.ly/CcGO6QT

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Konsta Happonen @konsta.happonen.eu · 2d

It's 1637. The catholic peasants revolt.

Shogun: We hebben een serieus probleem.

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Zeta Of 1 @zetaof1.bsky.social · 2d

Still flabbergasted by the fact that when Japan was starting trading with the west they started communicating mainly in dutch and I have to keep imagining some serious Samurai and the Shogun going "Hallo, mag ik een lekkere frikandel? Ik wil graag appelkoekjes, ik spreek Nederlands"

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Peter Tarras @petertarras.bsky.social · 2d

#NewPublication
#Egyptology
#ReligiousHistory
www.brepols.net/products/978...

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samuelwa.de @samuelwa.de · 3d

Now reversed, but only after eight months of disruption, cancellation of some work, and threats of legal action. Appalling.

My former colleague @arthurkaufman.bsky.social interviewed @lauratmurphy.bsky.social about her work in 2022:

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Philological Essayist @pessayist.bsky.social · 2d

Another possibility is that these are goons that have no -formal- ties to any state security apparatus (*muttering something about "plausible deniability"*) and just came up with that name for themselves.

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Jules Suzdaltsev @jules.su · 2d

hey uhh just to be clear they’re just trying to cull the population cutting SNAP, shutting down the govt, killing healthcare - the end goal is a silent genocide of the poorest least enfranchised Americans so there’s more left for them - that’s it, that’s the whole plan

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JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 3d

This is quite a story: the US employed every strongarm tactic available, including personal threats against delegates and their families, to derail an agreement on reducing shipping emissions that was almost finalized. on.ft.com/47lq3dZ

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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 4d

"Have you ever actually talked to an AI... I mean really talked to one?"

There's something really perverse about these kinds of replies. I don't know or want to pathologize these people, but it's a mix of hubris, a lack of self-reflection, and bizarre notions of expertise.

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 4d

Every day it feels more and more like a zombie apocalypse over on LinkedIn, in which you start a conversation with someone who you hope is an ordinary person and then a couple of turns in discover that they have surrendered their brains to the "AI" mass delusion.

Comment on a linked in post, from user Kurtis Loken who presents themself as "Experienced Metrology Engineer | AI/ML real world experience | Patented Solutions | R&D | Mass Production"

Comment reads:

Emily M. Bender You are a linguist. LLMs have proven some theories disproved others about how language works. I would think that would be an amazing time to be a linguist.

Have you ever actually talked to an AI…I mean really talked to one? The Turing test has been passed. (Sonnet 4.5 has particularly impressed me when discussing ideas with it…definitely has passed my own Turing test.)

I would really love to see a conversation between yourself and it discussing your views. That would make a great podcast. Have these models explain to you why your idea to ban them may or may not be a good idea. These things probably have their own opinions on the topic if someone would listen to them. Maybe that’s you?

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Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv Weimar @gsa-weimar.bsky.social · 6d

"Macht es nur mit allen Menschen recht, verbindet euch mit den zuverlässigen, ergötzt euch mit den Unterhaltenden, und ertragt die Seltsamen und Langweiligen." #Goethe an Christiane, #otd 1808.

Tinte auf Papier, Briefausschnitt, Goethe an Christiane, 31.10.1808 (GSA 37/IX,4,2, Bl. 67).

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Philological Essayist @pessayist.bsky.social · 3d

On LinkedIn it is used quite cynically by large corporations that are also active in Europe as a business case to receive (in some cases -even more-) subsidies from the EU.

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Tim Hollo @timhollo.bsky.social · 3d

"Net zero" is a signifier with no actual meaning.

And that, of course, is why it is so beloved of the major parties and the press gallery. They can sound serious and committed without actually promising to do anything. Net zero commitment indeed.

--

Have you subscribed to my blogletter yet?

Net zero reality and the extinction of politics-as-usual

On words without meaning, meaning without worlds The sheer inanity, the ecocidal banality of our current political discourse was encapsulated perfectly this morning on the floor of the House of Repre...

in-between-days.ghost.io

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