genealogical languages

 A quick internet search reveals a situation in need of a term -- a person wants to learn the language of a distant ancestor, a language out of use in the family for generations. There is a term, "ancestral language," but it's used to refer to a linguistic ancestors rather than human ones, as in Proto-Indo-European being an ancestor of Hindi. "Recovered language" is usually used to mean languages brought back from the brink of extinction. "Heritage language" would seem an accurate way to talk about any language from someone's heritage, but in most of the recent literature it has a narrower meaning, specifically referring to a language spoken in the home, perhaps by the learner as a child, or by the learner's parents, and often imperfectly learned or later forgotten. It's often used in the context of minority languages or languages that are less respected by a privileged, majority community.  

I propose the term "genealogical language." Yes, it's sometimes used in the way "ancestral language" is, but it seems to be a much less common phrase. It also has the advantage of evoking searching for one's personal past as an intellectual hobby -- whether you disapprove of such a thing, or think it's self-affirming, or just harmless fun. 

It's possible (even likely) that someone else has thought of this, or that there is some other way of talking about this situation, buried in the tenth or twelfth page of the search engine. If so -- especially if it's bona fide linguistic jargon -- please let me know. In the meantime, I need a way of referring to this topic.

rare picture of a dragonmouse

Not that dragonmice themselves are rare. They breed like, well, rodents. But portraits of them are rare because they scurry around so fast. And if one does sit still enough, close enough to draw, chances are good it will singe your paper.

not-to-be-forgotten authors: james hilton

Not-to-be-forgotten authors -- some have a cult following, some have titles studied as classics, some you may never have heard of if you're under a certain age, but all have been popularly read for pleasure, and are worth a seeking out for a good read.

James Hilton (1900-1954), best known for Lost Horizon and Goodbye, Mr. Chips, both of which were made into movies (and in both cases, in my opinion, the novels were much better) was a British author of psychological novels. Some, such as Lost Horizons or Random Harvest have an odd twist, a hint of unreliable reality, and often the main character is touched by the trauma of World War I in some way, but even so, most are, overall, gentle reads.

There's a list of his works, including any alternative U.S. titles, on his Wikipedia page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hilton_(novelist)

blame it on the gremlins

Think about it: personal computers were first becoming popular in the early 1980s -- about 40 years after World War II, at a time when many of the last WW II planes were being grounded or scrapped. And we all know that those planes were infested with gremlins (I have it on the word of veteran who served in the Army Air Force in the war.)  So what was a gremlin to do when he was kicked out of his airplane home? The little guys have an affinity for machines, so I think they found new homes in PCs. In fact, I'm sure of it, because they're still up to their old tricks, causing trouble.

not-to-be-forgotten authors: daphne du maurier

not-to-be-forgotten authors: daphne du maurier

Not-to-be-forgotten authors -- some have a cult following, some have titles studied as classics, some you may never have heard of if you're under a certain age, but all have been popularly read for pleasure, and are worth a seeking out for a good read.

On windswept moors or tangled corridors and alleyways -- or in everyday, ordinary, homey settings -- British author Daphne Du Maurier (1907-1989) delved into the dark corners of the human mind. She's best known as the author of The Birds and Rebecca, which were made into movies by Alfred Hitchcock.

There's a list of her works, including any alternative U.S. titles, on her Wikipedia page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_du_Maurier

not-to-be-forgotten authors: nevil shute

Not-to-be-forgotten authors -- some have a cult following, some have titles studied as classics, some you may never have heard of if you're under a certain age, but all have been popularly read for pleasure, and are worth a seeking out for a good read.

Nevil Shute (1899-1960) was a British-Australian author who usually wrote about aviation and/or World War II and/or Australia. One of these, What Happened to the Corbetts, is a novel of The Blitz -- written two years before The Blitz. His autobiography, Slide Rule, is a fascinating account of his aeronautic engineering career.

He was quite popular in Britain, Australia, and the United States during the War and in the postwar years, and today he's best known now for his novels that were made into movies or television mini-series, including:

On the Beach (1959)
  starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, Anthony Perkins

A Town Like Alice (1981 television mini-series)
  starring Helen Morse, Bryan Brown, Gordon Jackson

The Thorn Birds (1983 television mini-series)
  starring Richard Chamberlain, Rachel Ward, Christopher Plummer

There's a list of his works, including any alternative U.S. titles, on his Wikipedia page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevil_Shute

fantasy libraries online: project gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is the granddaddy of them all. It started in 1971 at the University of Illinois, which is logical, as the U. of I. was the home of PLATO and touch screens and chat rooms and pretty much the general turn-of-the-millennium internet world except twenty to thirty years earlier. Now there are tens of thousands of public domain and creative commons e-books, and even some audio books.

One fantasy-library-like aspect of this site is that it allows for serendipity more than many online databases. You can search for specific items but you can also wander through the stacks browsing the catalog by title, author, category, or language (yes, there are lots of 'em). Or put in a key word in the search blank and browse by subject. Title and author browsing are true browsing -- you get a page with all the authors or titles beginning with your chosen letter, so you scan stroll -- uh, scroll -- around and see what's on nearby "shelves." Besides the obvious classics, there are pop-culture items, eyewitness testimonies of times past, and all sorts of odd and esoteric items in the shadowy nooks.

Project Gutenberg is truly free -- no money, no advertisements, no strings attached, no sign-ins or other hoops to jump through. And you can download the books and truly own your copies until your flash drive or computer burns out.

http://www.gutenberg.org/

what makes a good fantasy library?

Books, lots and lots of books -- pretty books, gorgeous books, rare books loaded with arcane knowledge from all over the world and all through history (and forgotten histories and alternate histories), neatly lined up on shelves or overflowing in untidy piles, in a cavernous space or a twisty, cramped nook that holds more than seems possible. It should be mysterious and  hidden -- or hidden in plain sight. It need not be located in a magical world (although books are inherently magical), but if it is, it might be guarded by a friendly dragrynix.

This is just opinion, which is, of course, perfectly appropriate for fantasy 'cause, by definition, it's all made up anyway.

alternatives to videocats: the gilcrease museum

Want to see more of the Old West? The Gilcrease Museum of Tulsa has put a rich treasury online. Much, although not all, of it is art and history of the western United States -- Article: The Life and Times of [Cherokee] Principal Chief John Ross, Browse: Native American Artists, Browse: Taos School of Painters, Browse: Frederic Remington Paintings & Sculptures, Paintings by Hudson River School Artists [western scenes]. There's even a 1777 copy of the Declaration of Independence handwritten by Silas Deane.

alternatives to videocats: the beryl collection at the tulsa city-county library

Oklahoma is a relatively new state -- which is an advantage in that its history (after statehood, anyway) is well documented in photographs. The Tulsa City-County Library is home to the Beryl Collection of historical photographs of Oklahoma.

To start browsing, go to the Tulsa City-County Library website and type "beryl collection" into the Search box on the broad red stripe near the top of the page. Or type "beryl" + any Oklahoma history topic of your choosing. For example,"beryl will rogers" yields 54 pictures of the famous humorist.

alternatives to videocats: the lincoln collection at the allen county library

Most people are aware that both Kentucky and Illinois claim Abraham Lincoln, but he also lived for awhile in Indiana. The Allen County Public Library of Ft. Wayne has a collection of photographs, letters and other documents.

https://acpl-cms.wise.oclc.org/research/lincoln-collection

alternatives to videocats

Has confinement given you too much time on your hands? Looking for a rabbit hole to dive into? Go to the library -- via your computer. Many public libraries have interesting collections that anyone can access online. In the days to come, I'll be putting up links to some fun and informative ones I've found.

beloved books online: the box-car children

Many of us across the generations of the 20th and early 21st centuries have fond childhood memories of reading Gertrude Chandler Warner's Boxcar Children series. For me, it was the gateway to a lifetime love of mystery series. I had read mysteries before, way back when I was a little-bitty kid, and was delighted, as a sophisticated older child, to discover that they could come in groups.

The first edition of the origin story, The Box-Car Children, was published in 1924, although the series, as a series, started with the revised re-publication as The Boxcar Children (very modern -- no hyphen!) in 1942. The original colorful illustrations are by Dorothy Lake Gregory.

This book is available for downloading or reading online at Project Gutenberg in plain text, HTML, EPUB, and Kindle formats.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42796

the cat has come back ...

So...
After a short (in geological time, aeons in cyber time) hiatus to heed the demands of the "real" world, this blog is up and running again.

dragonmonkey

Dragonmonkeys often have a face and arms like a monkey, and furry, hind feet, scaly and clawed with prehensile toes, a prehensile tail with a dragon's barb at the end, and dragon wings.

They breath fire, are highly intelligent, have a monkey's mischievous personality, and are very cute. They're very social with most animals, and like to snuggle, but be careful -- they may breathe a small burst of fire involuntarily when very excited or when they have hiccups. Most are skilled in the martial arts, and they teach each other. If angered or they don't like you, they fling flaming poo at you.

caddraig (cat-dragons)

The word is Welsh, compressed by centuries of use (in whispers around winter fires) from “cath-ddraig” (“cat-dragon”). No one knows when the Welsh Red Dragon first successfully procreated with a witch’s black cat, but the creature shows up in Dark Ages monastic illuminated books referring to earlier, even darker ages in which myth is difficult to separate from history.

There is some variation as to which genes are expressed in any individual, but unlike dragonmice, which are a cross between mice and a particular mouse-sized species of dragon, cat-dragons descend from full-sized dragons (don’t ask how; maybe by magic; this is obviously fantasy) and can have any random combination of genes. Which means that those which inherit dragon size can only be successfully born to female dragons, and female cats tend to have those which are cat-sized and in general have more cat characteristics. Before speciation fully evolved there must have been some painful, messy mistakes involving female cats or cat-sized caddraeigiau and large kits, but you don’t want to contemplate that.

The creatures are especially beautiful, with deep black fur or scales highlighted from underneath with bright red, giving them a crimson glow, sort of like a red velvet  cake. (In fact recent breeders have bred some down to mostly cat characteristics, producing the Red Velvet cat, a surefire hit at cat shows; they don’t always make very good family pets, tho’.)

In the wild they eat dragonmice and roasted fish (which they roast themselves with their breath). Because they can fly, they also hunt birds on the wing, killing and roasting them at the same time. (You know a caddraig is around if you see a fried robin drop out of the sky.) Those close enough to human habitation to steal milk or have humans willing to feed them like caramelized milk.

They're not as wary of humans as some dragons, especially if mother is a pet or semiferal cat. They cause some trouble in cities, getting into garbage bins and sometimes trying to roast food scraps in plastic packages, which melts and makes a gooey mess.

another critter -- the dragonmouse

Dragonmice may have the head and wings of a dragon, and body and tail of a mouse -- or  the ears, paws, and tail of a mouse, and body of a dragon.

They hoard, of course -- they get the trait from both parents, so expect small items to go missing. If you see droppings on the kitchen counter and your cat's whiskers are singed, you probably have dragonmice. If you keep one as a pet and carry it in your pocket, it'll burn holes in your clothes. They start fires in the walls of houses, not only by chewing wires, but also directly by their flaming breath.

remembering history

In honor of Black History Month, and at a time when the current government seems hell-bent on deleting every single thing our first African-American president has done, it's appropriate to remember some of the contributions the first African-American legislators in the 1870s made while they were in office.

Sen. Hiram Rhodes Revels fought against school segregation and other discrimination issues and supported amnesty for former Confederates as part of a general program of reconciliation, as did Rep. Benjamin S. Turner, who also worked against a cotton tax that caused hardship for poor farm workers. Josiah T. Walls introduced bills for education funding and veterans' benefits. Joseph H. Rainey and Robert Brown Elliot were instrumental in the passage of the Enforcement Acts against the Ku Klux Klan and in protection of voting rights and the 1875 Civil Rights Act.

By the way, they were all Republicans, which obviously meant something different at the time.

resolutions, part 2: conquering habit

They say that forming or breaking a habit takes about a month of constantly sticking to it.

This may be true for new, pleasant or neutral habits, where the main challenge is finding the time to do it. It may even be true for breaking a bad habit that has no intrinsic reward.

But realistically, building a new, good habit that goes against character or against immediate gratification requires constant attention for the rest of your life and can be broken by neglecting it even one time. The same goes for breaking a bad habit -- one slip and it's back.

It can be done. Just don't expect it to be easy.

the obligatory new year's musings on resolutions

Perhaps a useful way to understand the nature of resolutions might be to divide them into categories:

Resolutions of being
Attempts to change character (or attitude, if you prefer to think of it more flexibly)
Popular examples:  I will stop being lazy.  I will be more compassionate.

Resolutions of action (or restraint from action)
Attempts to change behavior.
Popular examples:  I will exercise every day.  I will stop smoking.

Resolutions of result 
Promise to reach a specific goal by the end of the year.
Popular examples:  I will lose 100 pounds. I will make $1,000,000 dollars.
-- Fuggidaboudit. Life has to co-operate, and life is a non-co-operative beast.

Clearly, resolutions of action hold the higher possibility for success, as they by definition include the element of deliberate control. But wait -- many of these are attempts to change habits, and many, if not most, habits stem from character to some extent (e.g.,  the inherent trait of laziness is sometimes a reason for not  exercising every day).

So maybe the trick is to define the task as a specific action you can force yourself to do, despite your lazy, selfish, cowardly, bad-attitude self, and which is physically under your control despite whatever time-and-energy-sucking gotchas life throws at you.

Good luck finding a worthwhile resolution that fits that definition.