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pessayist.bsky.social
Philological Essayist
@pessayist.bsky.social
710 followers 1.2K following 970 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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pessayist.bsky.social
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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cambup-linguistics.cambridge.org
"These conversations with lexicographers are ablaze with passion for the history and culture surrounding the creation of dictionaries for more than a score of languages."

Out Now!

Conversations on Dictionaries, edited by Ilan Stavans

cup.org/4hYqK0t

#Linguistics #LangSky 🐦🐦 #Lexicography
cambup-linguistics.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press - Linguistics @cambup-linguistics.cambridge.org · Sep 8
A global collection of conversations revealing how dictionaries have evolved and influenced language across twenty different traditions.

Conversations on Dictionaries edited by Ilan Stavans

Pre-Order today!

#Linguistics #LangSky 📚

https://cup.org/4mGjF6m
November 13, 2025 at 5:37 PM
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acbm.bsky.social
A classic
menalib.bsky.social MENALIB @menalib.bsky.social · 1d
#Catchoftheday
#OpenAccess on
#MENAdoc:

"Handbuch der nordsemitischen Epigraphik nebst ausgewählten Inschriften" by Mark Lidzbarski

[Weimar: Felber, 1898]

dx.doi.org/10.25673/98377

#westsemiticlanguages #inscription
December 1, 2025 at 2:21 PM
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petertarras.bsky.social
As a little treat for you, here's an #ArabicBible Advent calendar 🧵. Every day I'll post a verse from the Christmas story from one of the oldest Arabic Gospel lectionaries, Sinai ar. 71, dated 897 CE (and a few other texts in between).
December 1, 2025 at 9:49 AM
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silvermansecurity.bsky.social
Not only is this 100% correct, but because of the ultra-high net worth individuals we’re dealing w/what you have is a gigantic insider threat & counterintelligence problem. 1/
seva.bsky.social Seva @seva.bsky.social · 3d
one reason "great power competition" is a bad description of the emerging order is that an interlinked global kleptocracy does not care about national interests or rivalries
bgrueskin.bsky.social Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 3d
Extraordinary WSJ reporting today that unveils the extent to which Trump, Witkoff, Kushner and US business executives are salivating over business deals with Russia while Putin’s forces kidnap Ukranian children and bomb civilians in their apartments.

🎁 www.wsj.com/world/russia...
November 30, 2025 at 6:18 PM
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rebeccasolnit.bsky.social
So many people who are otherwise so committed to good things are on Substack, which is very nice to bad people, ideas, and lies. My own newsletter was launched on Ghost because the bad news about Substack isn't new.
charlottereads.com Charlotte Moore-Lambert @charlottereads.com · 3d
I am once again telling everyone to get the fuck off Substack leavesubstack.com
November 29, 2025 at 8:35 PM
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crisortunity.bsky.social
Meanwhile
watershed-i.bsky.social WATERSHED Investigations @watershed-i.bsky.social · 3d
Professor Hannah Cloke told us,“We should be focusing on water reuse, using less water in the first place, separating drinking water from those recycled waters that we could use, using nature-based solutions + thinking about the way that we’re building".
4/6
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Revealed: Europe’s water reserves drying up due to climate breakdown
Exclusive: UCL scientists find large swathes of southern Europe are drying up, with ‘far-reaching’ implications
www.theguardian.com
November 29, 2025 at 11:20 AM
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seva.bsky.social
one reason "great power competition" is a bad description of the emerging order is that an interlinked global kleptocracy does not care about national interests or rivalries
bgrueskin.bsky.social Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 3d
Extraordinary WSJ reporting today that unveils the extent to which Trump, Witkoff, Kushner and US business executives are salivating over business deals with Russia while Putin’s forces kidnap Ukranian children and bomb civilians in their apartments.

🎁 www.wsj.com/world/russia...
WSJ Gentry Beach, a college friend of Donald Trump Jr. and campaign donor to his father, has been in talks to acquire a stake in a Russian Arctic gas project if it is released from sanctions. Another Trump donor, Stephen P. Lynch, paid $600,000 this year to a lobbyist close to Trump Jr. who is helping him seek a Treasury Department license to buy the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from a Russian state-owned company. One sign that he may be serious is that some of his most-trusted friends, sanctioned billionaires from his St. Petersburg hometown-Gennady Timchenko, Yuri Kovalchuk and the Rotenberg brothers, Boris and Arkady-have sent representatives to quietly meet American companies to explore rare-earth mining and energy deals, according to people familiar with the meetings and European security officials. That includes reviving the giant Nord Stream pipeline, sabotaged by Ukrainian tactical divers, and under European Union sanctions. Earlier this year, Exxon Mobil met with Russia's biggest state energy company, Rosneft, to discuss returning to the massive Sakhalin gas project if Moscow and Washington gave the green light.
November 29, 2025 at 2:42 PM
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scriptingjapan.bsky.social
My blog is always 100 percent written by a human! And free! That's why you should subscribe to it (certainly not because of the writing or content quality)!
November 28, 2025 at 3:38 AM
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glynmoody.bsky.social
these are fabulously joyful: do read them and cheer yourself up: "Hatless and barefoot under my parasol on a summer day, I watch a burly fellow working a well-pump and singing Suzhou folk songs. The water comes up in a sudden burst, like a spill of silver coins or a gust of snow"
bokane.org Brendan O’Kane @bokane.org · Nov 8
In 1657, Jin Shengtan 金聖嘆 broke off from his commentary on 'The Romance of the Western Chamber' to list "33 Nice Things" 不亦快哉三十三則.
It's one of the most likable things I know of in any language. I translated it to cheer myself up a while ago, if anyone could use it. www.burninghou.se/p/whats-good
空齋獨坐，正思夜來床頭鼠耗可惱，不知其戛戛者是損我何器，嗤嗤者是裂我何書。中心回惑，其理莫措，忽見一狻貓，注目搖尾，似有所覩。斂聲屏息，少復待之，則疾趨如風，唧然一聲，而此物竟去矣 —— 不亦快哉！ I'm sitting alone in my study with a mouse on my mind. I’m wondering which of my things that nibbling sound is coming from, which book's destruction is the source of that chewing noise, and quite at a loss for what to do — when out of nowhere I spot a vicious-looking cat, eyes blazing, tail lashing, gaze fixed on something I can’t see, and I hold my breath and watch as it darts forward, quick as the wind, and with a piteous squeak that little critter is gone for good — — ahhhh, you love to see it. 飯後無事，翻倒敞篋。則見新舊逋欠文契不下數十百通，其人或存或亡，總之無有還理。揹人取火拉雜燒淨，仰看高天，蕭然無雲 —— 不亦快哉！ Rummaging through some old chests after dinner for lack of anything better to do, I discover dozens of unpaid promissory notes, more than a hundred maybe, from borrowers variously living and dead, and uniformly unlikely to repay, and so when nobody's looking I pile them together higgledy-piggledy, set them on fire, burn them clean away, and then look up at the sky, where they leave not even a cloud behind — — if that's not a good feeling, I don't know what is. 冬夜飲酒，轉復寒甚，推窗試看，雪大如手，已積三四寸矣 —— 不亦快哉！ Drinking on a winter's night, I feel a sudden sharp chill and push open the window to see snow falling in flakes the size of my hand, three or four inches deep already — — if that isn't nice, I don't know what is. 夏日於硃紅盤中，自拔快刀，切綠沉西瓜 —— 不亦快哉！ On a summer’s day, take a sharp knife, slice up a bright green watermelon, and set it out on a deep vermilion plate — — Well! 春眠初覺，似聞家人嘆息之聲，言某人夜來已死。急呼而訊之，正是-城中第一絕有心計人 —— 不亦快哉！ I'm just waking up one spring morning when I seem to hear someone in my household sighing and saying something about somebody dying the night before. Startled awake, I ask who. It turns out to be the schemingest bastard in town — — if that doesn’t cheer you up, nothing will.
November 8, 2024 at 8:38 AM
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mariazielenbach.bsky.social
Dutch "gebeuren" 'happen' is cognate to German "gebühren" 'sb/sth deserves/is due sth'.
The unprefixed verb "beuren" 'to lift' is still used in Dutch.

#LessObviousDutchGermanCognates
November 27, 2025 at 6:23 AM
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timhenke.bsky.social
I like that French has a whole wikipedia page on fancy synonyms for various languages

fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_d...
November 27, 2025 at 1:59 AM
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alexdrace.bsky.social
My article "Obiceiurile de căsătorie ale țăranilor români" (1837): O lucrare necunoscută a lui Mihail Kogălniceanu și soarta ei ["The Marriage Customs of the Romanian Peasants": An unknown work by Mihail Kogălniceanu and its fate] now #OpenAccess (in RO, w EN+DE abstracts)
aiix.ro/tomul-lxii-2...
Tomul LXII, 2025 - Anuarul Institutului de Istorie „A. D. Xenopol”
STUDII ŞI ARTICOLE MEDIAEVALIA » SUZANA SIMON, ALEXANDRU SIMON, Doamna Clara și Papa Inocențiu al VI-lea în vara anului 1360: înainte și după apariția Mitropoliei …
aiix.ro
November 25, 2025 at 10:57 AM
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lotfielhamidi.bsky.social
Ziekelijke oorlogszucht.
November 26, 2025 at 5:44 AM
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menalib.bsky.social
#Catchoftheday
#OpenAccess on
#MENAdoc:

"Disputatio pro religione Mohammedanorum adversus Christianos" by Abu'l-Fadhl as- Saʿūdī

[Lugduni Batavorum: Brill, 1877-1890]

dx.doi.org/10.25673/97683

#islam #christianity #conflict
November 25, 2025 at 3:49 PM
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chiaweilin.bsky.social
Today I stumbled upon an open-access article in the new edited volume "Connected Philology" by someone who has the exact same name as me and also works at the Université de Lausanne. Very suspicious 👀
#shamelessselfpromotion

www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
Connected Philology
Even though the similarities of philological methods and traditions across various cultures have been the subject of scholarly research, the reasons for these occurrences usually remain obscure. The p...
www.degruyterbrill.com
November 25, 2025 at 11:25 AM
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kirbyconrod.bsky.social
hey #linguistics peeps! have you ever taken (or taught) a syntax class? we want to hear your opinions (good or bad) about it! We're doing focus group interviews (on zoom, or in person at select conferences) - if you're at all interested, you can fill out our interest form: forms.gle/nhBtz78hQXNA...
SynTeach Focus Group Interest Form
SynTeach is a project researching peoples' experiences teaching and learning syntax in higher education. We have conducted surveys of the field including syntax instructors and students, and we are pl...
forms.gle
November 24, 2025 at 5:05 PM
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lauropea.bsky.social
A bilingual Dano-Norwegian/northern Sámi catechism from 1728, afaik the first printed book in Northern Sámi
book title page in gothic print, dano-norwegian and sami facing one another
November 25, 2025 at 10:01 AM
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malwaretech.com
Founders on LinkedIn still seem to be struggling with the difference between telling people about their humble beginnings and admitting to straight up committing fraud.
November 24, 2025 at 11:17 PM
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hopesteffen.bsky.social
Related to this: A favourite point of mine to make when I'm teaching source criticism to students is that we have had newspapers for the better part of five centuries, & this is a media technology that we as a society still do not properly understand.
hopesteffen.bsky.social Steffen Hope @hopesteffen.bsky.social · 8d
Frankly, I'm not sure people have the brains to manage the technology they've got

- Hobbes, Calvin & Hobbes 28.12.89
November 25, 2025 at 1:05 AM
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nathanielbdemiller.bsky.social
I made a little app to help myself remember German vocabulary. In the interest of efficiency and correct pronunciation, it uses the Google speech-to-text API.

It asks you for an English word and you respond with the German in the format

article + noun + pl or just the verb or uninflected adj.
Streamlit app UI with ASR widget for German "city" Streamlit app UI telling me I said die Stadt correctly
November 25, 2025 at 1:19 AM
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gorgiaspress.bsky.social
Calling all #AARSBL delegates interested in Mandaeism, remember to attend this session today at 5PM. #Mandaean #ConferenceSession #Boston
November 24, 2025 at 2:11 PM
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digitalorientalist.bsky.social
There's still time to apply to join our #socialmedia team!

📅 Deadline: November 30th.
🔗 More information: digitalorientalist.com/2025/10/27/j...
digitalorientalist.bsky.social The Digital Orientalist @digitalorientalist.bsky.social · Oct 27
📢 We're seeking #volunteers to join our social media team!

Help shape and expand our online presence and connect with our community.

🗓️ Apply by November 30
🔗 digitalorientalist.com/2025/10/27/j...
November 24, 2025 at 10:50 AM
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kmichaelwilson.bsky.social
it's amazing that in this iteration of "AI" they've managed to develop truly anti-social media, media actively antagonistic to the very notion of a public space and the public use of reason
November 21, 2025 at 3:40 AM
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joehodson.bsky.social
Shout it from the rooftops!
alanlester.bsky.social Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 12d
This is explosive stuff. Evidence that Jeffrey Epstein not only ran a child sex trafficking operation for powerful men, he also seems to have advised & supported Farage’s far right political projects in Europe and the UK, including Brexit, via Steve Bannon.

bylinetimes.com/2025/11/19/d...
Dinner with Mr Brexit: Bannon’s European Revolution – Planned with Farage, Backed by Epstein
Nigel Farage was the figurehead and his partner Laure Ferrari started it. Steve Bannon and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were providing almost daily support
bylinetimes.com
November 20, 2025 at 8:10 AM
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dieworkwear.bsky.social
The people who make Shein's clothes labor for ten to twelve hours per day (in violation of China's labor laws), some up to seven days a week, and earn as little as 15 to 30 cents per t-shirt.
Excerpt from a BBC article: ""We usually work, 10, 11 or 12 hours a day," says a 49-year-old woman from Jiangxi unwilling to give her name. "On Sundays we work around three hours less." She is in an alleyway, where a dozen people are huddled around a row of bulletin boards. They are reading the job ads on the board, while examining the stitching on a pair of chinos draped over it. This is Shein's supply chain. The factories are contracted to make clothes on order - some small, some big. If the chinos are a hit, orders will ramp up and so must production. Factories then hire temporary workers to meet the demand their permanent staff cannot fulfil. The migrant worker from Jiangxi is looking for a short-term contract - and the chinos are an option. "We earn so little. The cost of living is now so high," she says, adding that she hopes to make enough to send back to her two children who are living with their grandparents. "We get paid per piece," she explains. "It depends how difficult the item is. Something simple like a t-shirt is one-two yuan [less than a dollar] per piece and I can make around a dozen in an hour.""
November 20, 2025 at 12:07 AM