Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" Works For Pretty Much Every Other Language Too1/29/2016
George Orwell. Photo via signature-reads.com "If you've been following us on the blog here at Pantera Language Studio, you've probably noticed we're political junkies. Don't ask us why - politics can be a disappointing and often maddening process that no one seems to like. But perhaps our fascination with politics can be tied to our love of languages. After all, politicians everywhere in the world, whether in the east, west, left, or right, are all masters of using their own native languages (and sometimes others as well) to shape public opinion to suit their ends. No one understood this better than George Orwell, widely regarded as one of the greatest political thinkers of the 20th century, who died exactly 56 years ago last week. Political speech is a recurring theme of his, which he depicts with chilling precision in his dystopian novel, 1984. But his most direct attempt at tackling just what can be so frustrating about the way politicians speak can be found in his celebrated essay, "Politics and the English Language". Though the essay is long, it manages to cover a lot of ground - its technical nature has gained it recognition by both political scholars and style guide enthusiasts alike. Orwell begins by examining five sentences at random, picking apart unnecessary elements of these sentences. He gives advice to writers and speakers, some of which is specific to the English language (i.e. don't use too many Greek or Latin-based words as they often come off as needlessly complicated), and other advice that might apply to speakers of other languages as well. So far, nothing very political. But about midway through, Orwell launches into the political domain, coming out swinging with a bold statement: "In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing." Orwell criticizes the general vagueness he perceives in political writing, but above all, the intentional vagueness in describing atrocities and negative events. He points to the British occupation in India, where he offers this searing critique: "Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, "I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so." Probably, therefore, he will say something like this: Interestingly, he recognizes that his observations may apply to other languages as well. "I should expect to find - this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify - that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship," he notes. Finally, he closes with six main rules to abide by, for anyone willing to try to make political writing a bit more bearable: "(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Now that the horrors of Orwell's era - British colonialism, World War II, and the Cold War - have largely passed, today's politicians mercifully have a few less evil deeds to sweep under the rug. Nevertheless, the political turns of phrase Orwell decries in his essay are still alive and well, and not just in English. Take the recent escape and capture of brutal drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in Mexico. In the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, columnist Gustavo Esteva skillfully deconstructs the language used by Mexican politicians, who already have a reputation for misspeaking (for an English machine translation of the article, click here). Esteva writes: "It's true that the way the government is destroying our language only serves to discredit it further. The recent example of 'El Chapo' is a perfect example of this process. Social networks and political cartoonists were quick to mock the rhetorical excesses of authorities. 'It has been recognized that many still have doubts, and this helps,' says the Archbishop of Oaxaca, 'since this means there has been a loss of credibility. There is much talk of 'slip ups' to refer to events that in truth are incompetent work, rip-offs, and trickery by authorities. A highly respected Government official took it upon himself to say: 'There is no criminal outside the reach of the government of Mexico'... when everyone in the country knows that criminals like Ulises Ruiz or the Acteal killers roam the streets freely, and that 97 percent of crimes go unpunished. And in this era of complete government incompetence, he added 'The governability of this country is guaranteed.' Habitually discrete ambassadors, who listen to these and other ridiculous statements, break out in applause, sing the national anthem, cheer on the Mexican authorities and swear that this will completely change the outlook for the government and the country. Sic. That's what they say. The capture of a criminal, which was supposedly the outcome of 'an intense and careful process of intelligence and criminal investigation' - even though it actually appears to have happened thanks to whistle-blowing by an unnamed woman - has changed the outlook for the entire country!" Looking at this text, there's surprisingly little that gets lost in translation. English speaking readers might not know much about the Archbishop of Oaxaca or the Acteal killers, but if they've been paying attention to politics anywhere, they're sure to recognize the exorbitant claims and grandstanding by the country's politicians.
But though Orwell's perceptive essay may apply in many languages, maybe even all languages, Politics in the English language is still living up to the principles he laid out back in the 1940s. Next week, voting begins in the Iowa caucuses in the US presidential election, and there has been no shortage of spin, showmanship, and promises made by the candidates that will in all likelihood turn out to be false. This is bad news for people in the country, or any other country whose politicians routinely deceive for their own gain, who are expecting their politicians to deliver. But at least it gives plenty of good material for a new generation of political writers, writing in English or any other language, to pick over. Let's hope they keep Orwell's observations in mind. Master Yoda. Photo: Star Wars, Episode 1 The new Star Wars is out, and if you’re one of the bazillions of people who has seen it already, don’t tell me how it ends. I haven’t seen it yet. Though I have seen plenty of trailers featuring the cute rolling robot, BB-8. My best guess is that, in an homage to episode 5, it will be revealed that Luke Skywalker is actually BB-8 ‘s father.
But, since I have yet to immerse myself in the new, wildly successful world of Star Wars 7, I will nonetheless take this opportunity to make a few observations about one of the most beloved characters from Star Wars 1-6: Yoda. In the prequel trilogy (1-3) Yoda was a powerful public figure, in charge of the Jedi Council that maintained order within the galactic republic. In Star Wars 4-6, during the rule of the sinister Evil Empire, Yoda was relegated to the nasty, foul-smelling swamp planet of Dagobah, where he nevertheless managed to coach Luke Skywalker in the ways of the Jedi, enabling him to take down the emperor (with a little help from papa Vader) and banish the Sith from the galaxy for good – or at least until the beginning of Episode 7. At no point during his nearly 1000 year long life was Yoda ever a language teacher. And yet, his oddly formed sentences have an important lesson for language learners everywhere. As anyone who has watched any of the original Star Wars movies can attest, Yoda has a characteristically weird way of speaking. “Use the force, you will.” “Many dangers ahead, there are.” “Wars not make a Jedi great.” For copy editors, style guide writers, and other grammar Nazis who work exclusively in English, these sentences are a nightmare. But for those of use who work in more than one language, it points out an important truth about languages: that the order in which verbs are given isn’t that important. For linguists analyzing languages, one of the most important aspect of analysis is the order that the three most important elements of any languages: subjects, verbs, and objects, are given. This sounds hopelessly complex. But just sit back and let Yoda explain it for you. Take a classic Yodaism: “A Jedi, you will be.” Now, how would you say that in regular English? “You will be a Jedi”. Now let’s break this sentence down into 3 key parts: “You”, “will be”, and “a Jedi”. Okay now, what is it that these three blocks are doing? Let’s start with the first part: “You”. Pretty basic, right? “you” is a concrete thing, a noun, but more importantly, it is the central focus of the sentence. Linguist would refer to this as the “subject”. Now, the second part: “will be”. It’s not a physical thing, but an action. As you may already know, this is also known as a verb. Finally, the final part of the sentence: “a Jedi”. This is also a noun, i.e. a concrete thing. But unlike the first part of the sentence, it doesn’t stand alone. In the context of the sentence, “a Jedi” is dependent on “You”. It is what “you” will be come. Thus linguists would consider this to be the “object” of the sentence. English is what linguists consider to be a “subject-verb-object” language. In a typical English sentence, like the de-Yodafied sentence we just broke down, the order of these sentence elements generally falls in this order. But not all languages are like this. In fact, the most common type of language is the “subject-object-verb” language, where the sentence we just broke down would instead be written as “You a Jedi will be.” According to a study conducted in the 1980s, SOV languages make up 45% of the languages in the world. SVO languages, like English, are a close second, with 42% of all the world’s languages. As you may have noticed, both of these forms lace the subject first. This seems to be logical: the subject is the most important part of the sentence, so it makes sense to put it first. But Yoda’s way of speaking gives regular English a new structure, which would be considered an “object-subject-verb” language. Of the languages that exist on Earth, and not in a galaxy far far away, only 1% are OSV languages. But here’s the funny part: despite the fact that Yodafied English is a dramatic reshuffling of the conventional word order of English, English speakers can still understand it perfectly. And this raises an important point about the entire grammatical analysis we just did: there is actually a lot of flexibility in the order that subjects, objects, and verbs are stated. Take a famous example in German: Kennedy’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner”. Or in English, “I am a Berliner”. This is correct, but Germans could just as easily phrase it as “Ich ein Berliner bin”: “I a Berliner am”. As a result, German is mostly considered to be an SOV language. Romance languages are also considered SOV, but for a very different reason. Let’s take an example in Spanish. If you were to say “I ate a burrito” in Spanish it would translate as “Yo comí un burrito.” In both English and Spanish, the sentence is structured as SVO. But what happens if in the context of the sentence, it’s clear you’re already talking about a taco? Take this conversation: “Did you eat the burrito?” “Yes, I ate it.” In Spanish, when you translate this exchange, now the word order changes “Tú comiste el burrito?” “Si, yo lo comí.” In English, the second sentence here would literally translate as “I it ate”. And since this SOV ordering actually happens more often in Spanish, and other Romance languages, they are officially considered SOV languages. But despite all of these nit-picky grammatical examples, all languages exhibit a great deal of flexibility in how sentence elements are ordered. Just look at Yodafied English: despite the fact that Yoda has reshuffled English into a word ordering that only appears In 1% of the world’s languages, speakers of conventional English can understand it just fine. As Master Yoda himself would say, “Not very important, sentence structure is.” Image: custardbasket.blogspot.com Today is Christmas. It's a time when many of us come together with our families to give thanks for our friends and family, and maybe give each other a few presents. For those of us who don't celebrate Christmas, there are also a number of holidays, both religious and secular, that fall during this time of year and whose purpose is basically the same: a celebration of the good fortunes we may have had during the year, and of the happiness those around us bring to us all.
But though some of us may have the good fortune to be able to take time off to celebrate Christmas and other holidays, others do not. Recently, it was revealed that the crisis in Syria and other countries in the Middle East and Africa has prompted over 1 million refugees to seek shelter in Europe. In the United States, unrest in Central America has generated a new wave of migration from these countries similar to the spike of migrations experienced in 2014. And these are just two of the most visible cases of migration crises being felt around the world. Migration is a hotly contested issue worldwide. Some have seized on migrations as an opportunity to stir up nativist sentiments for political gain. And it is true that, among the immense number of migrants around the world, there may be a small percentage who are criminals or other people who pose a threat to those in the lands they come to. But even the most hard-hearted among us would admit that, despite these problematic refugees, the vast majority are not criminals but regular people like you and me, who are living through a time of extreme need and could use our help. This holiday season, some of us are lucky enough to be able to take time off and be with our families and friends. But others aren't. And there would be nothing more fitting for the holiday spirit than to lend a hand to those less fortunate than ourselves, living through one of the many crises going on in the world at this time. There are many ways we can help those in need. Many great, hard-working charitable organizations exist whose goal is to improve the lives of people in need, and you can help them by donating money or, depending on where you are located, showing up as a volunteer. But if neither of these are possible, there's another way you can help: by volunteering as a translator or a corrector. At first, the thought of volunteering as a translator may seem trivial. But Translators Without Borders, an organization dedicated to helping organize volunteer translators, issues a stark warning on its homepage about how essential translating can be in critical situations around the world: "Language barriers cost lives." If you happen to know another language, your ability to translate can help people around the world. Though it's true that machine translations can help bridge the gap, in certain translations (especially medical translations and translations of technical material) critical information can be misinterpreted or simply translated incorrectly by software, meaning that human translations are still essential in many cases. If you happen to speak or be proficient in another language, your ability to translate can make a difference, and you can choose to help by signing up with groups like TWB or many others. Even if you don't know another language, you can help translation efforts by volunteering as a corrector in your native language. Though this role is not as strongly emphasized by groups like TWB, correction is still a key part of translation, especially cases in which translators may not be native speakers of their target language, which can be the case in large scale volunteer projects. As a corrector, you can help to make sure the translated document is fully comprehensible in the target language, and also flag areas where essential details are written in a way that is unclear or unintelligible. And the other advantage of this work is that you don't have to be located in a crisis area to do it, you can easily work on it from wherever you are located. Of course, translating and correcting as a volunteer won't solve the massive problems the world faces overnight. But for every person in need of a translation - a refugee who needs his documents translated, a patient in critical condition in a conflict zone, or one of the millions of other people around the world who desperately need something written in another language - your work can make all the difference. You may never meet the people you're helping. But perhaps next year when the holidays come around, there will be one more person who is no longer in danger of sickness, grave injury, or even death, and can instead take time to celebrate with his or her family and friends. And that person will have you to thank. Newscaster broadcasting in Quechua. Photo: screen grab, TeleSur The American continent is something of a linguistic outlier. Throughout its massive expanse, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, almost no one speaks any of the thousands of native languages developed on the continent itself. Instead, most people speak just a handful of European languages, mostly English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
But one TV channel in South America is trying to help America - as in the continent, not the country - hold on to its linguistic roots by broadcasting news in one of the most widely spoken native languages in the Americas: Quechua. At the end of 2014, TeleSur, a channel supported by several South American countries that wears its left-wing populism on its sleeve, began producing occasional news segments in Quechua. Though this move is not without a bit of an ideological bent - the struggle for indigenous rights has been part of the platform that TeleSur promotes - it's also a practical move, given that there are nearly 10 million Quechua speakers in South America. Quechua actually originated before the rise of the Incan Empire, but was employed by the Incas to communicate across the lands they conquered. After the Spanish conquest of Peru and much of the rest of South America, many Spanish missionaries learned Quechua to be able to evangelize more effectively to local populations. Today, it is an official language in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Though some are reluctant to speak it, seeing it as something to be ashamed of in a context that all too often prioritizes Europeanized quasi-Spanish culture over native traditions, others are proud of the language. There is even a Peruvian woman who has become famous by singing covers of Michael Jackson songs translated into Quechua. But the Quecha newscast in particular also points to an interesting fact about broadcast speech styles in general: the way on-air speakers speak in pretty much every language is quite different from ordinary speech in that language. When we listen to a newscast given in our own native language, the difference between that speech style and normal speech is subtle, often going unnoticed (though not always - think of Ron Burgundy in Anchorman). But pay close attention and you'll hear it. But when listening to foreign languages, the difference becomes much more apparent. When I learned a foreign language, I found listening to regular conversations to be quite difficult at first. And when I listened to the news, the difference became clear right away: newscasters usually made a clear effort to annunciate every word, making sure the articulation was clear and straight forward. For me, this was a relief after trying so hard to decipher informal speech. But to native speakers, the intended effect was not just to be easy to understand, but to establish a tone of formality and seriousness, and therefore credibility. When comparing clips of newscasters in Quechua with others of everyday, colloquial speech in the language, it's clear even to non-speakers (like me) that there is a difference in the way words are enunciated. It also made it easier to hear some of the words that Quechua has borrowed from Spanish; at one point the anchor mentions "energia aeolica", Spanish for "wind energy", a term that understandably doesn't have its own version in Quechua. This is clearly something new in the language, but it may be a welcome change - there are many divergent dialects of it that make it difficult for speakers of one form to understand the other, and this move might help to standardize the language. Though we're still far from a Quechua version of Ron Burgundy, it will be interesting to see how Quechua newscasts evolve in the future. Cecily Strong delivers SNL's opening monologue in French last weekend. photo: screen grab. Last Friday, the world was shocked by a series of terrorist attacks in Paris that left at least 129 people dead, with many more wounded. Terrorists struck the Stade de France as a soccer match was playing out, as well as the well known Bataclan theater during a concert. France's president responded by immediately closing the country's borders and, over the weekend, launching a bombing campaign in Syria against targets associated with ISIS.
Immediately after the attack, people around the world began to show solidarity with the attacks. On Saturday, a day after the attacks took place, Facebook offered its users the option to change their profiles to the colors of the French flag. And Saturday Night Live, in lieu of its normal goofy opening gags, instead opted for an opening monologue by cast member Cecily Strong. Strong read a prepared statement, assuring Parisians that "Our love and support is with everyone there tonight." Then she repeated the statement, this time in a fairly convincing French. Americans are famously resistant to learning French, or anything that has to do with France. But last weekend they seemed to set all of that aside, in the name of remembrance for the victims, and perhaps, of hope for a more peaceful world. Rameses Sanguino. Photo: Youtube screen grab via LAist Learning languages has all kinds of benefits. But if a recent news story is any indication, doing so won't just give you the ability to read books in a foreign language, you might also be able to read minds.
Okay, so maybe that's a bit of a stretch. But, nevertheless, the story that inspired it is nothing if not interesting. It involves a 5-year-old boy with autism living in the Los Angeles area, who has mastered 6 languages, and may have an ability which defined broadly and without unnecessary levels of skepticism be thought of as telepathy. According to LAist, Rameses Sanguino, the 5-year-old in question, has mastered Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, Spanish - and of course, English. Here's a video they've found of him speaking Chinese. He also has quite the knack for algebra. But what about his mind reading abilities? LAist reports: "Nyx [Sanguino, Rameses's mother] believes that her son may also have other mental powers, including the ability to read her thoughts. She said that she can pick a number and that Ramses will guess it correctly, as many as 38 times in a row. Neuroscientist Dr. Dianne Powell has been testing Ramses' so-called telepathy, and said that it could be linked to the fact that Ramses has autism." So if average folks like you and I try to become mind readers by learning six languages, we might not have the same success. Nevertheless - assuming Rameses' rather limited mind reading display is genuine, which is still a hefty assumption to make - could there be some common root that connects these abilities? After all, they are both forms of communication. It remains to be seen if Rameses's mind reading is the real deal, though regardless of this, his language abilities in their own right are impressive. But even if you're not convinced that language learning and mind reading are linked, there are still plenty of other great reasons to learn another language.
Comedian John Oliver roasts Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto's use of the phrase "Ya chole". Photo: screen grab
As we've pointed out, popular TV newscaster/comedian John Oliver is fond of poking fun of goofy political stories, not just from his native Britain, or his adopted home country of the US, but around the world. And recently, he set his sights on the president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto.
Oliver took issue with a video released by Peña Nieto's handlers, responding to criticisms of the government's controversial reforms. The video shows two working class Mexicans talking, and when one complains about the reforms, the other shuts him down: "That's enough of your complaints". The video may have seemed like a good idea for the Mexican government when they uploaded it to the internet, but it quickly became a lightning rod for criticisms. Though it has been removed from official government pages, it has been reloaded to the youtube page of well-known Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui. John Oliver proceeded to rip the video. "We get used to politicians telling us: 'We've heard your voice,'" Oliver said. "But they don't usually follow it with: 'And it's annoying, so shut up.'" He also cataloged some of the responses by average Mexicans, including a GIF image saying "That's enough of your [poop emoji] Enrique Peña Nieto." The GIF later animates what appears to be an explosion emanating from the poop emoji. "When a government tells its people to stop complaining, they should know that shit is eventually going to blow up in your face," Oliver remarked.
But the video was noteworthy for the specific Spanish phrase it used. Instead of the more neutral "ya basta", the video uses the phrase "ya chole" (which later went on to become a popular hashtag on Twitter). This is actually a uniquely Mexican slang term, used particularly in and around Mexico City. In all likelihood, Peña Nieto's video included it to try to identify with average people - a move that backfired.
There's actually a fair amount to be said about the phrase "ya chole". First of all, from a linguistic standpoint, it's kind of an outlier. Whereas the more commonly used "ya basta" is based on the verb "bastar", which literally means "to be enough" or "to suffice", "chole" is not actually based on any verb at all. A Spanish-language entry on Word Reference suggests that it is actually derived from the nickname from the Spanish women's name "Soledad". In fact, there are a good deal of Mexican slang words that begin with the "ch" sound, including "Chilango", a term for residents of Mexico City. These have formed the basis for a song by the well known Mexican band Cafe Tacuba, "Ya Chole Chango Chilango". All in all, an important lesson in Mexican slang, which being featured by a well known comedian has perhaps helped to make a bit less boring. Let's hope Peña Nieto has also learned a lesson about trying to be folksy with slang words: it doesn't work. Canada's newly elected prime minister, Justin Trudeau. Photo: Alex Guibord, Flickr If there were a prize given out for the most famous person named Justin from Canada, it would have to go to Justin Bieber. But this week, another Justin has emerged who might steal that title, if only for a few days: Justin Trudeau, who earlier this week won Canada's election for prime minister.
Trudeau's victory has been attributed to many factors, including a generally liberalizing political climate in Canada, increasing skepticism about Canada's foreign interventions, more willingness to raise taxes in order to pay for social services, as well continuing ties between Trudeau's incumbent opponent Stephen Harper and scandal-ridden Toronto mayor Rob Ford. There may have been a few more unorthodox factors working in his favor too: his hair, his position on marijuana, and increasing fear among Canadians that the conservative Harper government has made it impossible to keep wearing those nifty Canada lapel pins they use to differentiate themselves from Americans abroad. But there was one other thing that helped Trudeau to his victory: his French skills. Canada is in a unique among countries in the Western Hemisphere. It's the only one where a significant portion of its territory is populated by speakers of a language other than the country's primary language - putting it in the same camp as countries like Belgium and Spain. This is a legacy dating from the Seven Year's War, fought in the 1700s, when formerly French Quebec became a British colony. Though Quebec would remain part of Canada even as it gained its independence from Britain in the 1900s, Quebec retained its distinctive identity, and a fierce pride in speaking French. As a result, Canada's government has taken pains to accommodate French speakers in the country. It has adopted a policy of nationwide "official bilingualism". And unlike the US, where presidential candidates who dare to learn French are ridiculed, speaking French is a critical skill for anyone in Canada who wants to throw their hat into the political ring. In fact, as part of the electoral process, candidates for prime minister are expected to take part in a debate held entirely in French. And during this election cycle, the results of the French debate gave Canada's political junkies plenty to pick over. Many concluded that Thomas Mulcair, whose party enjoys stronger support in Quebec than either Trudeau or Harper, went from being a secondary player to the center of attention, fielding more questions and spending more time defending his legacy than the top two. Not surprisingly, Mulcair actually outperforms Trudeau in the French-speaking department. The Montreal Gazette ranked his French as a 10 out of 10, noting that Mulcair is "at ease, he doesn't search for words, it's natural," when he speaks French. The other 10 out of 10 was Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Bloc Quebecois, a party with significant backing in Quebec and virtually no support anywhere else. Duceppe's party is so passionate about French that their website doesn't even appear in English. On the other hand, Trudeau's 8 out of 10 rank does edge out Harper, ranked at 7. While the Gazette notes that Trudeau isn't as natural while speaking French - "he thinks in English," the paper notes - they criticize Harper for being "much slower in French than in English." The paper points out another problem with Harper's French: he has been known to mispronounce "election" as "erection". Ultimately, in an election where candidates have to appeal to voters in Quebec while at the same time winning support in provinces like Alberta, which could easily pass as an Republican red state in the US, maybe an 8 out of 10 is the best score you could ask for. It's just enough French to show the Quebecois you understand them - in this case, literally. But it's not so much so as to inadvertently signal to the rest of the country, which still speaks mostly English, that you might forget about them. It's a delicate balance, that many of the world's linguistically polarized countries face. In others, such as Spain, things aren't going so well, and the country is threatening to split apart along language lines. Fortunately for Canadians, their political leadership relatively adept at holding things together. "Nuclear Energy Is the Energy of a Bright Future": Haunting Photos from Fukushima's Exclusion Zone10/15/2015
"Nuclear Energy is the Energy of a Bright Future". Street sign in Futaba, Fukushima, Japan. All photos in this article by Arkadiusz Podniesinski, www. podniesinski.pl "Nuclear Energy is the Energy of a Bright Future". During the heyday of the Fukushima nuclear power plants, this street sign may have made sense. But after the devastating nuclear accident that rendered the area virtually uninhabitable, the irony of the sign could not be more palpable, or more cruel.
Located on a strip of coastline in Japan's Fukushima prefecture, roughly 150 miles north of Tokyo, the two nuclear power plants once stood as shining pillars of modernity and prosperity amid their more traditional, rural surroundings. The plants were located near the ocean to have access to ample supplies of water for cooling purposes - a common practice for nuclear power plants worldwide. But the plants' costal location would prove to be their achilles heel. In 2011, a devastating earthquake and the tsunami that followed damaged the plants and unleashed destructive and potentially deadly nuclear radiation on many of the nearby towns. In response, the Japanese government created an "exclusionary zone" around many of the cities, restricting locals' access to the cities and in some cases prohibiting it entirely. The exclusionary zone has created a virtual limbo for many of the area's residents. Though many still maintain property rights within the area, they can't make use of their property. And given the alarmingly elevated levels of radiation that remain, many would prefer not to. Last month, Polish photographer Arkadiusz Podniesinski, known for his numerous photo essays of nuclear destruction in the Russian city of Chernobyl, was granted access to the exclusionary zone. He documented his experience in photos and in words, which were picked up by other websites and quickly went viral. We're going to run some of the photos here, the full set is definitely worth checking out. Podniesinski says that, after entering the zone, the first thing he was struck by were the rows and rows of trash bags filled with nuclear contaminated dirt. An aerial photo reveals these sacks filling up farm fields. In general, the area remains very rural; even before the nuclear plants' promise of a bright future was tragically broken back in 2011, many in the area preferred to stick to their agrarian roots. And some continued to stick to those roots even after the exclusionary zone was put in place. On his trip, Podniesinski met with Naoto Matsumura, a local farmer who still sneaks back in to care for cows and ostriches left stranded in the area. Unfortunately, Matsumura's efforts aren't enough; some abandoned cows in the area are becoming sick from the radiation, developing white spots on their coats. The five candidates for the Democratic Primary at the October debate in Nevada. Photo: CNN After two Republican primary debates, and significant difficulty in accommodating the massive Republican field - which ended up with the creation of a separate debate for unpopular candidates rather embarrassingly named the "kid's table" - it was finally time for the Democrats to have their own debate. And thanks to the fact that the debate was broadcast on CNN, we took the liberty of watching it (or at least part of it) on CNN's Spanish language affiliate. What we found out was truly astounding. Okay, not really. But here goes anyway.
1. "Debate" in Spanish is "debate". And "CNN" in Spanish is "CNÑ" Though many native English speakers balk at the idea of learning Spanish, learning to understand debates is surprisingly easy. And by that I mean that learning to understand the word "debate" in Spanish is surprisingly easy - it's spelled exactly the same in Spanish, though pronounced differently: "day-bah-tay". But for some reason, CNN has branded itself in Spanish as "CNÑ". What does that stand for, Cable News Ñetwork"? What is a ñetwork anyway? With the ñ, it would be pronounced "nyetwork" which makes it sound oddly Russian. 2. Bernie Sanders sounds weird dubbed with a Castilian accent For much of the debate, Bernie Sanders was shown as making his speech dubbed with a voice speaking in a Castilian (i.e. Spanish from Spain) accent. For me, it was a kind of weird cognitive dissonance - almost as if one of the candidates for US president had started speaking in a British accent. I joked on Twitter that Bernie en español was urging listeners that "nethethitamos mas regulathiones" (we need more regulations). And when asked about Wall Street, I was half expecting the Spanish dub to blurt out "joder, tío!" - which for US English speakers would be the equivalent of hearing "bloody rubbish, mate!" 3. Interpreting a debate is reallllly hard Sure, the candidates were all under pressure to do their best in the debate. But the Spanish interpreters had an equally difficult job of trying to capture distinctly English-language phraseology and slang in a way Spanish speakers could get. And often, it just wasn't possible, even for the seasoned team of interpreters CNN (or should I say, CNÑ) put together. At one point, it sounded to me like one of them was gasping for breath. 4. Spanish speakers outside the US are shocked that American women don't get maternal leave Later in the debate, Hillary scored a few points by mentioning the fact that, at the federal level, the US is sorely lacking in paid maternity leave for women. This is a fact that's staggering, especially when you look at how maternity leave is handled in Spanish-speaking countries around the world, most of which have more robust maternal leave laws than the US. 5. Latinos haven't made up their minds about the Democratic candidates yet CNÑ's post-debate coverage featured a number of interviews with Spanish-speaking Americans, pretty much all of them Latinos. And the overwhelming consensus among them was that they hadn't made their minds up yet. Though the Democratic party is generally seen as being friendlier to Latinos, Republicans have the advantage in that some of their candidates are actually Latino. However, it remains to be seen whether this actually means they will be better for the general Latino population - Ted Cruz, for instance, is know for his bombastic anti-Mexican statements (and also for trying to ingratiate himself to Republican voters by cooking bacon with a machine gun). |
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