/lit/ - Literature

>>13177722
levantine arabic, but all the literature is in modern standard arabic which i have a hard time understanding

>>13177722
>English
Yes. Objectively the best language.

English.
Shakespeare. Melville. Wilde. Chesterton. Wodehouse. Chandler. Vance. Wolfe.
Yeah, I'm content.

>>13177864
arabic is based. are the dialects really so difficult to learn even for a native speaker?
>>13177868
imo it's a great language, but a shit mother tongue. you can learn it later anyway

Spanish. Cervantes, Calderón de la Barca, San Juan de la Cruz, Góngora, Quevedo, Baroja, Unamuno, Miguel Hernández, García Lorca, Sor Juana Inés, Teresa de Ávila, Borges, Gómez Dávila, de Cuenca, García Márquez, Becquer, Ortega y Gasset.... the list of based names is interminable.

My native language does not exist any longer nor does it have any means of preserving itself.

>>13177941
if it's not a shitpost, what's the language?

>>13177950
Memes aside, my "mother tongue" is from the north eastern side of India. More formally, its from the district side of the states there. Practically from a village in bum fuck forest. Only my grandparents seem to talk in it, everyone else after his generation adopted the more local language because it was a mix of the ones they had and the ones who were there. No texts whatsoever, our script basically borrows from roman letters because of the influence of Christian missionaries.

>>13177990
In all honesty, I was depressed at some point about the amount of dying languages, maybe like yours, a part of culture and possibly endless amounts of oral folklore lost forever.
Even speaking such a widespread language as Russian that certainly isn't dying out soon, I can feel the degeneration of speech. I used to talk to one girl (native russian speaker) who literally talked like a badly translated fanfiction and preferred English, spent all of her time on tumblr

>>13177990
do u live in delhi?

>>13178023
Yeah, it sucks knowing it'll be gone forever. Being the third generation of my family, we were brought up in the city so our exposure was even less than my parents. I'd go back and try to get back to it all but they're all too old and senile to get anything out of it. All I can do I just spend some time with my grandparents as much as I can.

>>13178046
Yes.

>>13177722
french, so it's alright

by the way, op, some people say 'Viktor Vavich' by Boris Jitkov is great, yet it seems to be never mentioned here. Is it actually big in Russia? and what about Ageev's Novel with Cocaine? are they underrated (or just obscure) outside Russia, or are they just not so great?

>>13177990
That's sad anon, I hope you find some way to keep your culture alive and protect it from being homogenized by Western influence

>>13178200
Zhitkov is mostly known as one of the founders of Soviet children book publishing, Novel with Cocaine has gained some popularity due to its approachable nature.

Viktor Vavich has only been unearthed fairly recently. Unlike previously banned works that had combined circulations in the millions in late 80s and early 90s, and are fairly well known to a general public, it might have interested much smaller audience. On the other hand, The Molussian Catacomb by Günther Anders, written in the same year of 1933, has only been published in 2012!

>>13177722
My native language is 'Welsh'
Only three people world wide speak it.
Clgmnwnxgghy mmngwxup!

>>13177722
TELL EVERYONE

>>13178359
ΤELL WHAT?

Pretty happy with German. I can speak and understand Italian as well but reading it feels like a chore and I'm too lazy to work on it.

>Spanish
Yeah it's great
>Japanese
Yeah I guess

>>13178371
what are some German books with easy structure and simple vocab? i'm learning it, but i'd rather practice on actual lit and not ugly training texts
>>13178372
spanish-japanese is an uncommon mix, where do you live?

>Dutch
Pretty content with it, our post war literature is quite phenomenal and we have some classics like Max Havelaar (Multatuli) and Lucifer (Joost van den Vondel). Flemish literature is also really underrated and differs a bit from the Netherlands. Our contemporary literature is kind of shitty though, except for a few exceptions like Tommy Wieringa en Ilja Leonard Pfeiffer.

>>13177722
Well Russian is my mother tongue, but it’s not the official language in my country, which thankfully doesn’t interfere in my life that much. I actually only now realize how lucky I am and starting to appreciate Russian language and culture more. Second language is English.

>>13178375
Ecuador
My dad is Japanese and met my mom when visiting here, they fell in love, and married about 6 months later. I grew up in Japan and came here when I was 10. I have returned to Japan once ever since

>>13178200
>native gaulish language is dead
>it's alright
LOL

>>13178391
True. I'm really proud of my language, and around the age of 16 I started to understand people who actively stand against loanwords (before that I was the usual "muh stupid patriots, language is a living thing"). Some people's speech, overflowing with anglicisms, makes me feel spanish shame
>>13178395
may i say BASE

Bengali, it's pretty lit yeah

>>13178409
Yeah but that is what will eventually happen more often unfortunately. You can’t deny that English culture is the dominating one in the world atm, so all resistance is futile I think. You should read Hopa Гaль - Cлoвo живoe и мepтвoe. It’s a bit dated cuz it was written during the soviet era, but the general idea is still very topical

>>13178439
Thanks for the rec, friend
I understand that loanwords and foreign influence aren't inherently bad and language is indeed a living and changing thing, but I still cringe at people who intetionally use too much retarded English slang ahem nixelpixel's horde

>>13178439
just downloaded it, from the intro alone i see it's just what i need right now, as i'm translating a short story collection
also the author's approach is comfy:3

>>13178465
>I still cringe at people who intetionally use too much retarded English slang ahem nixelpixel's horde
Yeah I totally understand that. But I cringe even more when I have no other choice but use English slang in certain situations.
>>13178482
Hope you enjoy it

>>13178375
It's a bit hard to judge desu. There are some pretty good children's books from Michael Ende like Die unendliche Geschichte or Erich Kästner.
If you're more advanced you could perhaps look into some of these:
Im Westen nichts neues - Remarque
Die weiße Rose - Inge, Scholl
Der Vorleser - Bernhard, Schlink
Der Besuch der alten Dame - Dürrenmatt
Die Verwandlung - Kafka
Siddhartha - Hesse
Schachnovelle - Zweig

>>13178465
I know I use way too much english when speaking in my native language, but it’s hard to stop. I spend so much time immersed in english I often think in it.

>italian
I’m happy with it but not completely satisfied. Most of our important literature (Dante, Leopardi, Petrarca etc..) is poetry and when it’s not poetry usually it is still heavily linked with poetry but I have no sensibility for it so I just end up reading about the overall message interpreted by scholars.

>>13177722
romanian

cioran & eliade

fair enough

>>13178524

>>13178524
And you got snubbed at eurovision again

>german
feelsgoodman

>>13177722
Lithuanian. My parents grew up in the Soviet Union so they are fluent Russian speakers but they never taught me it and for that I despise them.

>>13178524

>>13178600
Wtf is wrong with your parents? Are they Lithuanian nationalists of sorts?

>>13177722
hebrew
most of the good poetry was written when the language was actively being revived, and there's something youthful and blooming about a fresh language
it's deteriorating fast though, and it's not pretty
write all of my prose in english

>>13178605
No they seem pretty fond of the ussr, Ive even heard my dad praising Stalin before. No idea why they didn't teach me it.

>>13178622
No offense but Hebrew is one ugly sounding language

>>13178085
AAAA you need to save it you asshole, save the language

No, not at all. The thing about some states is that it needs literature to power it's nationalism, so any dimwitted writer gets to be praised.

Most of them are just poor wannabe social critics. They know how to write grammatically correct sentences though.

>>13178516
thanks, fren
i think it'll help that i've already read some of these books in russian

>>13177722
My native is no lit at all and there are no books worth reading in it except few poetry and nationalist books from hundreds years ago. There was no philosopher or thinker who spoke this language so I am not even going to mention it. It is hard and useless language.

>>13178729
is it a baltic language
i'm unironically sad seeing people call their language useless itt

>>13178738
>i'm unironically sad seeing people call their language useless
Yeah but at least it’s better than living life full of delusions

>>13177722
I think there are good works of literature in any language anywhere except maybe Africa
Im spanish so Im set with tons of great literature that takes full advantage of the strengths of Spanish.

>>13177722
My native is body language, so i can express very well with my hands and my eye contact.
It's too dificult to find literature related in body language

>>13178750
Ethiopia has a long literary tradition

>>13178771
pantomime/wordless plays? generally acting

>>13178557

>>13178771
some writers made silent films, like Jean Genet
certainly you will enjoy 'un chant d'amour'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3I9dv27PRk

>>13178794
Seeing your post i'm thinking about the documentary 'into the great silence'
https://youtu.be/sgNj2Sf_mgo

>>13178787

Slovenian, small country, good but few books. Thankfully I'm fluent in german and english.

My language only started being written 20 years ago but it has tons of internet slang, memes and swear words so it's great

>>13178375
Its really not

>Serban
>Pekic,Crnjanski,Andric,Selimovic,Selenic,Nusic....

ye im content

>>13177722
Italian and Romanian.
Basically yeah since none of our poetry has any worth when translated.
Also reading the Commedia in Italian is as lit as it gets.

>>13177868
what the fuck is MA

>>13177722
Italian and Romanian.
Basically our poetry is untraslatable.
Also reading the Comedy in Italian and Eminescu's poetry in Romanian is as lot as it gets.

>>13178775
I said @maybe" get off my dick man holy shit every time

>>13179158
Mandarin I guess

>>13179159
>Basically our poetry is untraslatable.
Even Montale is translatable.

Back on topic : french and english here. And more latin languages by now. So yea.

>>13179226

He wasn't even being rude it was a simple correction, calm down man.

>>13177887
>Vance. Wolfe.

korean, 0 worth

>>13177868
English is literally a creole language. The lowest form of language possible. That's why english grammar is shit, has little to no inflexion and also has useless words like "did".

An american study saying english is a great language is like a mokey giving himself a banana for having a tail.

>tfw Hungarian
>tfw picking a Krasznahorkai volume off the shelf
>tfw picking a Karinthy volume off the shelf
>tfw reading Madách

>>13178023
You have read Evgeniy Onegin, right?

>>13178210
>language with no texts or culture, using a western writing system
>you gotta protect it from being homogenized by Western influence maaan
come on

>>13179291
Satantango has been lying on my shelf for years and now in a few weeks Krasznahorkai will be at a book festival in my city, so I hope I'll finally read it.

>>13179236
If it doesn't retain the musicality there's no point.
At least imo.

>>13179289
And the "study" is anglocentric scientism. What is the "unitless information density" that is being measured here? And what are they considering as information? Does fiction "convey information" in the sense they mean? And, if it does, and all the subtleties of language are to be taken into account, it seems like such a study would require millions of participants and thousands of experts in the languages to have any kind of general validity. English is being strangled to death with increasing speed by mechanistic vulgarization.

English
Literally the worst mother tongue possible. Everyone else learns it, while it's impossible for native Englidh speakers to reach native level speaking in other languages.

Meow

>>13177722
Bulgarian
Good poetry, passable everything else. At least the other Slavic languages are easier to pick up.

>>13178808
looks super comfy.

>>13177722

Finnish. Great literary language with a strong tradition. However English has been steadily gaining a foothold here, especially among the youth whose speak is now littered with anglicisms and borrowed idioms. I am not against it per se as our language is somewhat lacking in vocabulary, but I don't like how it seems to deteriorate our spoken and written Finnish thus compromising the language as a whole.

>>13178622
Nobody reads in this country, I've recently started reading Oz and he's fun. I've neglected Hebrew lit most of my life for English sadly.

>>13177722
Russian

Haven't read anything of worth in Russian since, like, ever.
Classical Russian literature is an outdated shit concerned with meaningless problems, and modern one is just tasteless shit (with exception of Pelevin, maybe).
Russian philosophy literature is either a some kind of bizarre DLC to Christianity (pre-Soviet), meaningless quasi-Marxist gibberish (Soviet), or even more meaningless postmodern gibberish (nowadays)
The only things I've read in Russian were the translations from Ancient Greek and Latin classics (and only because I do not know these languages good enough, yet), and they surprisingly went much better than Tolstoy and other pretentious overrated authors.

So far, most of my read list - fiction and non-fiction - is in English.

>>13178529
>romanian
>only names cioran and eliade
I don't like you

>>13177722
Spanish. Cool narrative, good poets, great monography philosophers, quite few good original philosophers, pretty good rappers, quite lame trappers. Ah, great traductors too, but since I'm from Chile, I preffer the rythm of chilean and argentinean translations.

>>13179750
Spanish suffers from the same ill; I really hate how easily English is sneaking into our language. You have my sympathies, Finish anon.

>>13177887
>Wolfe

>>13178529
Cioran wrote in French for most of his life.
We have good authors man, don't stick to the memes

>>13180044
>"pretty good rappers"
>"traductors"
>"I'm from Chile"
That explains it.

>>13177868
>information rate
>syllables per second
i'm not sure who is more retarded, you for citing this graph, or the scientists who thought this was a good idea

>>13180139
What is wrong with that?

>>13178409
redpastillado y basado, OKEY??

>>13177722
Finnish, endless stream of memes to enjoy.

Not sure, actually. Is there any based philosophers in spanish? Would like any recommendations. Reading Stirner at the moment.

>>13179750
Yup, this blows.

>>13180157
They're called translators not "traductors" and liking rappers is for plebs, liking rappers in foreign languages is for überplebs.

>>13180044
>Pretty good rappers

>>13180215
Oh, shit, didn't see that.

>liking rappers is for plebs, liking rappers in foreign languages is for überplebs
Yeah, now i know you are a pretentious undergrad pleb. Have sex and get some culture, you illiterated fag.

>>13177902
I don't speak Arabic myself, but Darija (Moroccan Arabic), Egyptian Arabic and Standard Arabic are so different that they might as well be different languages, even though Pan-Arabism is the only thing keeping them from diverging further. Maltese is an example of an Arab dialect which was isolated and became its own language.

>>13180235
>muh rap is high culture
>"you illiterated fag."
No further discussion, pal.

>>13180195
most based philosophers you will read in translation

>>13180257
>still using high-low culture distinctions
bruh

>>13179990
My father reads a weeb called Akunin, know him? Is he good?

>>13180305
>he still doesn't get it
Turbo autist. Back to listening rappers.

>>13180257
>>13180286
>never knew any thing about philosophy
Hispanic brainlet teens who educated themselves with shitty 4chan reviews/pastiche of stereotypical intelectual standards, are fucking gross. Kys, retards.

>>13180320
>lemalnetjewmanmeme
How does it feel to have brain cancer?

>>13180338
unless you're familiar with roman and medieval latin, attic greek, german, french, most based philosophers you will be reading in translation

>>13180340
>he listens to rap in Spanish
You tell me, faggot. Top fucking keks.

>>13180311
>Is he good?
Average. Detective novels set in pre-revolution Russia, with little historical accuracy and no literary merit. But if you want some one-time entertainment, it should suffice. Not worth rereading though.

>>13180356
>bassed
You mean, validated by eurocentrist brainlets who preached Hegel for almost 200 years; validated by eurocentrist brainlets who tought there was a point on history where humanity would become god; validated by eurocentrist brainlets who obliterated his brain cells marrying his cousins for centuries in some shitty and smelly town.
Look it up, my undergrad fren. There is no "based" philosophy where there is no "based" critique.

Finnish. The language has inspired some good writers, and has some good works. Reading older books I have noticed how much the language has changed. Language nowdays has gotten strange influences in bigger cities and I don't like it. I have noticed that I treat people who mix two languages too much or can't speak properly more rudely.

>>13179750
We got the same problem in sweden

Czech and Russian (mixed background)
>Czech
Only K. Capek due to his warning about high tech. His brother actually invented the word "robot", which was then used in play "R.U.R."
>Russian
I don't read in Russian, and some time I may get to Russian classics, but I have aversion to pretty much everything Russian, so I'm not doing it anytime soon.

>>13179990
Sad!

>>13180410
wallah ma vanno

I speak Gallo, but there are like 15 books written in Gallo worldwide :x

>>13177902

Arabic looks good but sounds like absolute shit.

>>13179291
Could you please recommend me some good books by Hungarian authors anon?

>>13181998
Madách - The Tragedy of Man (Probably the peak performance of Hungarian literature. Take your time reading it. Get acquainted with "thesis-antithesis-synthesis", and read it with this in mind.)
Karinthy - A Journey Round my Skull
Arany - Toldi (Though I'm not sure you'd get much out of this epic poem in translation)
Petőfi - John the Valiant (This one is an epic poem too, but the translation is really fucking good. The style isn't really the same, it feels more trippy than the original's style, which resembles folk-poetry of the time. Same goes for Toldi. That was based on folk poetry and stories too, though the translation of that just feels kinda bland.)
Krasznahorkai's stuff is a given.
It's a shame, but nothing else comes to my mind right now.

>>13181906
You sound like absolute garbage. Arabic is a melodious language. And I have melodious poetry, if you want to listen to it.

>>13182095

You sound mad. Guttural noises in Arabic are disgusting.

>>13182108
No, you. Here, take this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQpRlI8CTOs

>>13182108
This is a Kuwaiti Shi'a Muslim poet, Badr Al-Duria. Also, ever heard of Al-Mutannabi, another Shi'a Muslim poet from al-Kufa, in Iraq?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PikRD0tsMU

>>13179289
>acting like pompous ass on 4chan

>>13182197
You not knowing what the word "creole" means doesn't make me pompous, but it does make you an ignorant lmaoo

>>13180241
هه مغاربة فينما، مشرفين انون. شحال عمرك افين كاتسكن؟

>>13178623
Based chad dad

>>13178409
I did eventually needed to learn kanji by my own which was annoying, but it still nice to be able to speak two completely different languages fluently.

>>13177923
>be Galician
>be able to enjoy all of these authors plus based bois like Castelao
>probably can read portuguese too

>>13179289
Nah that's completely bullshit in almost every way.

The only thing that true is that if you are monolingual brainlet you are the definition of uncultured unless your extremely well traveled and even then you should have pick something up.

>>13179507

>>13179289
>English is literally a creole language
You're literally wrong and a brainlet.

>be me
>linguist, passionate language learner, lover of culture
>monolingual because both sides of my family wanted to forget their past entirely when they came to america

It makes me so fucking sad bros.

>scottish gaelic
no

>>13182065
Thanks anon, much appreciated

>>13177722
Yes, it is. Spanish.

>>13181906
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lppooSFNiLQ
i'm sorry, how does arabic sound like shit?

Greek

except some Nikos Kazantakis books like Zorba or Captain Michalis (pic related), everything else is mediocre

The translation of some ancient books (i.e. Homer) from Ancient Greek to Modern Greek is passable as well

>>13177722
Indonesian and Javanese

Indonesian- literally nothing of value. I am not joking even once- this is one of the worst excuses for a language in the world. Indonesian/malay is an ugly mutt of an austronesian language, Dutch, Arabic and English with a tiny vocabulary of not very specific words and no high quality literary tradition. Where I live, the language spoken nowadays consists of 50% misused english words that people use to try to show off (imagine an american using poorly pronounced french as 50% of their speech "je nay say kwah on peteet puh amiright?") it's disgusting.

Javanese- nothing good that's modern but there's GOAT old texts, although none of them are read by regular people and are literally still only available in scanned manuscript form. The old language is a lot closer to sanskrit and nowadays fewer and fewer people can speak it, much less read it off manuscripts.

>>13184262
By the way I had to learn the much more beautiful language known as Modern Standard Arabic or Quranic Arabic in school and it really shone a light on just how bankrupt indonesian is considering how all the words filtered through Arabic into Indonesian turn out (hideous and simplified.)

>>13184059
>linguist, passionate language learner
>monolingual
¿Qué?

>>13184299
I'm guessing he means from birth and probably he learned languages after adolescence.

>>13179289
Do explain how a country historically mostly isolated until later speaks a creole language

>>13179990
>with exception of Pelevin, maybe).
Please die

>>13179593
What bulgarian poets do you especially like?

>Polish
A few authors worth their salt in international waters. I will relentlessly continue to advertise Gombrowicz novels and most of all his diary desu, which is top patrician taste and philosophy wrapped in erudition. The few 20th century poets, primarily Herbert and Miłosz (fuck Szymborska), and Leśmian, the grandmaster of language, for actually untranslatable poetry. Bruno Schulz too. Obviously Prus for one of the comfiest XIX-century novels. Contemporary writers fare quite well too, mainly Tokarczuk, although I feel she's overrated and simply signifies the absolute state of literature around the world.

>>13184575
I forgot to point out that Polish is a latinized Slavic language so it's easy to learn Russian or at the very least get translations of Russian lit that aren't bastardized as is the case for English. Italian is also surprisingly approachable.

>>13184575

what we lack in terms of /lit/ authors we make up in the amount of Polish kino that exists imo. Pociag, Faraon, Popiol i diament itd

>>13184575
read Boleslaw Leśmian in russian translation, now want to learn Polish, like, immediately, how hard it would be to russian native, many words feels familiar to extreme extent. Stefan Grabiński also very unique writer so to speak

>>13184592
What the case with italian though?

>>13184600

From Russian to Polish the leap isn't that big, you could probably manage it fairly easily.

>>13184600
Well, I suppose it may be easier to learn Polish for a Russian than in the other direction, because you already know the alphabet (unlike Poles who start learning Russian). The languages are similar and not really difficult after you account for certain splits that happened over time. The question is if it's really worth learning for you given the ease of accurate translation. Maybe the time is better spent on learning some other language, or simply reading those few good books in translation and moving on. That said, I'm learning Russian but I have more to gain in knowing an additional alphabet and having access to the classical Russian literature.
>>13184606
I'm not entirely certain as I am still learning Italian (and Russian), but they come much easier to me than say German which I already learned to a satisfying degree.
First thing to consider is that Poles (like Czechs and Slovaks) adopted the Latin alphabet after the old country's baptism and the Catholic Church played a very significant role for the cultural development. Then, after partitions, the intellectuals and authors were often forced to study and live abroad, mostly in France and Italy. If you were to go to Bologna or Padua, and visit universities there, you'd find lots of paintings of former students with Polish-sounding names. This absorption of Latin legacy is not instantly obvious, but it's there and I can feel it.

>>13180392
>europeans are eurocentric
damn dude

>Portuguese
I can read OG Book of Disquiet
That's all

>>13177722
Bangla. I don't understand them all as they get complex if the writer use Sanskrit words.

>>13183525
>>13184466
>a country historically mostly isolated until later
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. What we call England has been colonized by romans, germanic tribes, and heavily was influenced by Welsh, Irish and French . If this weren't the case, English wouldn't have 1/3 of it's vocabulary be Germanic, 1/3 Latin, and 1/3 French. It being a creole language also explains it's extremely simplistic grammar. You guys don't even have a plural of "You" (lmao.) Not only that, but your verb inflections either end with "ing", "ed", or "s" which is ridiculous if you actually knew what germanic languages are like. Also, the words "do", "does" and "did" are absolutely useless and inimaginable to appear in a non-creole language.

The only way you could argue that English is a non-creole language is by saying it wasn't a sudden phenomenom. To me, if a language has the characteristics of a creole language(and english most definetly does), it's a creole language. People like to think that linguists still aren't yet 100% sure about it, but this only happens with American/Brittish linguists.

Italian. Lmao

>>13184124
I just remembered.
People say Móricz Zsigmond's "Relations" is the quintessential modern Hungarian book.

>>13178375
other anon had some good suggestions, but i dont think it does that much for you if you read german literature. If you really want to get into the language, its better to watch some videos in german with english subs maybe. German is a language that you kinda have to expose yourself to directly, meaning verbally, instead of reading books that were written >50 years ago

>>13186845
Maybe in the initial stage of learning, but at some point of advancement literature becomes the best and really the only medium to acquire language.