Sankon

Letters and languages

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

@XueJia24682 it's called a rickshaw

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

Snickering at these naughty verses from Ubayd Zakani

[镜月指针 @JZhen72937]

学习古建筑的好视频

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

@maaria_waseem Called mukha in Urdu

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

@DrugGovoruna @cmhrrs So does Urdu: pad and phus

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

@SmokeStack13033 @s_m_marandi And if that only whets your appetite, move to the excellent Year amongst the Persians by Edward Browne. Longer but very well written, though the scholar dwells overmuch on the Bahai faith at times.

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

@SmokeStack13033 @s_m_marandi Try the Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron. A Westerner's view from a hundred years ago and tasteless in a few places but I liked it well enough

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

غالب کے شعر:

گفتم ایں ماہ پیکراں چہ کس اند
گفت خوبان کشور لندن

گفتم ایناں مگر دلے دارند
گفت دارند لیکن از آہن

Said I, Who are these moonfaced folk?
Said he, The lovelies of the city of London
Said I, Perhaps they have a heart
Said he, They do yet of iron

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

@swd2 @Grok where is this moment from?

[FischerKing @FischerKing64]

I’ve been an evangelist for Stefan Zweig as a writer more people should read for years, posted about him a lot on here. I’ve seen numerous people promote his memoir/history ‘The World of Yesterday’ over the last couple of years, and I’ve promoted it myself. His short stories and novellas are also excellent - as are his short biographies. Here are a few things worth reading from him:

1) Buchmendel - short story about a Viennese antique books dealer whose business falls apart after WW1;

2) 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman - contains one of the most penetrating analyses of the gambling compulsion you will read anywhere;

3) The Invisible Collection - describes a dealer in autographs and handwritten pieces of famous figures whose work is sold off by family to pay bills in post-WW1 Vienna. It’s a tragic tale. The man is blind and doesn’t know;

4) Schachnovelle - Chess Story - which is one of the best literary depictions of the chess mania in existence and its sometime relation to mental illness. It’s also a story of Vienna under the Gestapo after 1938;

5) The Struggle with the Daemon - a comparative biography of Hölderlin, Kleist and Nietzsche and their issues with mental health. It uses Goethe as a counterweight - an example of someone who overcame similar challenges. Whether you agree or not - it’s a breezy, interesting read.

All of these stories inform the elegiac tone of World of Yesterday - which describes in brilliant detail what a wonderful time it was to be alive in Vienna pre-1914. And of course the dramatic fall from that height that followed.

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

@FischerKing64 I read him in German and really loved the World of Yesterday. But while his writing style is very "smooth" and even - best way to describe it - his short stories do lack a certain charm, so that, while having read them once, one is not much inclined to read again.

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

@dinggangchina I always wonder, are Chinese not wary of this ease and plenty? Do they not fear loss of their roots and sapping of will?

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

@avtansa *rajneet to be more precise

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

@avtansa What is the difference between siyasat and neeti?

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

@iqtibaas88 the right one's cover looks AI-made

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

@nakujabadi A truer rendering by yours truly:

One might, having toiled, draw out a jewel from the tooth of a makara maw,
Even the heaving sea, full of wave wreaths, might cross,
Even an angered snake set upon the head like a flower
Yet would not win the mind of a stupid, stubborn fellow

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

Learn of the secret of steel in my new video:
https://t.co/FMuugruJkY

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

@re_man00 @guywithlibrary It's Urdu heavily flavoured with Persian, partly because of the stuff he deals with but partly also because those educated in Islamic sciences do tend to unnecessarily use jarring Arabic words rather than desi ones.

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

Old words pt.3:

Karaku کراکو: a type of hard tobacco

Darai دارائی: a type of silken cloth

Akas diya اکاس دیہ: a large lamp set atop a pole, lit at festive times

Mir Ab میر آب: the official in charge of all kinds of water supply, rivers, streams, reservoirs

[Sankon @Ashurnirari]

Old words pt 2:

Kahi کہی: gathering fodder for animals in armies. From grass (کاہ)

Dar-bast دار بست: wooden trellis for vines in gardens

Khushka خشکہ: plain boiled rice

Mul مول: the mango blossom

Sang-zor سنگ زور: stone on which wrestlers try their strength