/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16113185]

> Just noticed that I read more books in English than my native language.
> Just noticed that there are some great books in my native tongue
I can't believe this, I need to change this.

[Anonymous No.16113197]

t. Australian

[Anonymous No.16113200]

but me cant find any books in home langauge in the internet and pirate.

[Anonymous No.16113204]

>>16113185
are you american? that would explain it

[Anonymous No.16113224]

>>16113204
No, I'm Turkish living in Turkey. And I spend tons on English books because imported goods are taxed a lot, yet I bought and read so few Turkish books that are cheap.

[Anonymous No.16113254]

>>16113224
turkish is a based language desu

[Anonymous No.16113262]

>>16113254
Thank you bro, I think so too. I'm so sad that I'm just starting to improve my Turkish.

[Anonymous No.16113306]

>>16113224
Great Turkish books, you say?

[Anonymous No.16113329]

I mainly read in english too because it‘s easy to pirate. But i never forget that some things are still better read in german. The issue is that german books now feel strange and pretentious.

[Anonymous No.16113345]

>>16113306
Isn't he a politician?
>>16113329
>The issue is that german books now feel strange and pretentious
can you explain?

[Anonymous No.16113348]

In Lithuania we had (still have I think) to read 35 Lithuanian writers, like 28-29 of which are just awful. You inevitably starting hating Lithuanian literature.

>>16113224
Have you read based Orhan Pamuk yet?

[Anonymous No.16113383]

>>16113348
Yeah I read Benim Adım Kırmızı (My Name is Red) and I enjoyed it a lot. I'm considering reading his other books like Kara Kitap (The Black Book)
>You inevitably starting hating Lithuanian literature
Not one good writer?

[Anonymous No.16113513]

>>16113383
>Not one good writer?
Oh no, there is some amazing Lithuanian literature. Most of it is not translated to english unfortunately. I would recommend to check out Henrikas Radauskas and Antanas Škėma though. The former is a poet and much of his work in english can be found here: https://allpoetry.com/Henrikas-Radauskas-
Some of the translations are shit though (some are good), see for yourself.

Its just that of the 35 writers on the highschool curriculum, the vast majority barely wrote literature. They wrote political or religious propaganda with little to no artistic integrity. Among the ones who didn't, the majority are abhorrent on a technical level. Even writers which are generally liked (due to the general illiteracy and stupidity of the Lithuanian public) suffer from god-awful prose and inability to place themselves beyond the scope of their home village.

Definitely continue with Pamuk, he is a very consistent writer, if you liked one of his books you are likely to like the others. Any similar recommendations for Turkish lit?

[Anonymous No.16113522]

>>16113185
same. I can't read any new book in my native language, the worst part is that I'm Italian

[Anonymous No.16113575]

>>16113513
Well like I said I'm newly getting into Turkish literature so I have so few books to recommend from.
One book however I think is a masterpiece and one of my favorite books now that's in Turkish is Atlas of Foggy Continents "Puslu Kıtalar Atlası" by İlhan Oktay, unfortunately I can't find an English translation.
I'm planning on reading a book that has an English translation: Mehmet My Hawk by Yaşar Kemal. I think it's an American western style book but in Ottoman Empire setting.

[Anonymous No.16113585]

>>16113522
Do you know Italian or live in Italy, bro?

[Anonymous No.16113621]

>>16113585
I'm Italian

[Anonymous No.16113631]

>>16113585
I know that you are but do you one who lives in the US? Because that factor causes confusion

[Anonymous No.16113639]

>>16113631
meant for >>16113621

[Anonymous No.16113668]

>>16113639
I live in Italy

[Anonymous No.16115249]

>>16113585
voglio imparare più italiano ma non sono molto bene. Come?

Sorry if thats complete shit (I struggle a lot with "little words", di, l', etc). Do you have any tips to help learn Italian? What are some good italian books for beginners?

[Anonymous No.16115540]

>>16115249
"Mentre solcavamo l'immobile palude
Mi si parò davanti uno spirito coperto di fango
Allungò verso la barca entrambe le mani ma Virgilio pronto lo respinse
Dicendogli, "Via di qui, vattene a stare con gli altri maledetti!"
Ed io :" Maestro sarei molto, molto desideroso, prima di uscire dalla palude, di vederlo immergere in questa melma"
Poco dopo vidi gli iracondi fare di lui un tale scempio
Che per esso ancora glorifico e rendo grazie a Dio"
Ciao Dante, ti ricordi di me?
Sono Filippo Argenti
Il vicino di casa che nella Commedia ponesti tra questi violenti
Sono quello che annega nel fango, pestato dai demoni intorno
Cos'è vuoi provocarmi, sommo?
Puoi solo provocarmi sonno!
Alighieri, vedi, tremi, mi temi come gli eritemi, eri te che mi deridevi
Devi combattere
Ma te la dai a gambe levate, ma quale vate? Vattene!
Ehi, quando quando vuoi, dimmi dimmi dove!
Sono dannato ma te le do di santa ragione!
Così impari a rimare male di me
Io non ti maledirei, ti farei male Alighieri
Non sei divino, individuo, se t’individuo, ti divido!
Inutile che decanti l’amante, Dante, provochi solo cali di libido
Il mondo non è dei poeti, il mondo è di noi prepotenti
Vai rimando alla genti che mi getti nel fango, ma io rimango l’Argenti!

[Anonymous No.16115567]

>>16115540
divine comedy? Isn't that in a very different form of Italian than modern Italian?

[Anonymous No.16115583]

>>16115567
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TX_FP7QNEk

[Anonymous No.16115598]

English is the language of the gods. most other ones are objectively interior .. usually too clunky , or restrictive etc

[Anonymous No.16115611]

>>16115583
wow, incredibly based

[Anonymous No.16115618]

>>16115598
>etc
stop using latin words then faggot

[Anonymous No.16115628]

>>16115618
it's been incorporated into English

[Anonymous No.16115652]

>>16113185
I'll tell you something even more ridiculous OP.

I'm too fucking lazy to read books in my native language.
Why? Because I constantly have to use the dictionary due to the fact my native tongue's spoken and formal written forms are very different for some reason. Mainly in the use of names and adjectives.
Even admitting this is an embarrassment for me.

Thank God we have English!

[Anonymous No.16115686]

>>16115618
>English
>stop using latin words

At least now we know you have absolutely no clue about your language's origin.

[Anonymous No.16115717]

>>16115652
Arabic?

[Anonymous No.16115740]

>>16115717
Portuguese
Maybe it's the education system, or just the fact that I grew around computers all my life and developed a very good grasp on the English language while neglecting my mother tongue altogether. I swear to God that our most acclaimed writers (Modern ones as well) use words that I've never heard any one say in my entire life. It's just not fun to have to use the dictionary every five minutes.

Does this happen in Arabic as well?

[Anonymous No.16115822]

>>16113522
Since you're the first native Italian I've seen, can I ask, how commonly is Latin spoken in Italy and is it spoken to a good level of proficiency? Doesn't look like it would be that difficult at all for a modern Italian, seems like an easy way to access a huge trove of literature in the way it was supposed to be read

[Anonymous No.16115850]

>>16115822
>how commonly is Latin spoken in Italy

This is bait, right?

[Anonymous No.16115958]

>>16115740
Modern standard arabic is the written language but nobody actually speaks it, the spoken language is all dialects, so yea it's similar

[Anonymous No.16115968]

>>16115958
How ridiculous would you look if you started speaking the written language?

[Anonymous No.16116000]

>>16115850
I mean how commonly is the language of Latin known in Italy, not as in 'spoken' in the oral sense between people, you silly goose

[Anonymous No.16116020]

>>16115968
No idea I don't actually know arabic, my guess is that it might be useful where you want to communicate with someone who speaks a wildly different dialect

[Anonymous No.16116036]

>>16116000
Virtually no one knows and/or speaks Latin outside of the Vatican.

Just because Italian is the closest romance language to Latin, that doesn't make Italian and Latin mutual ineligible.
It's like comparing Proto-Germanic with English.

[Anonymous No.16116067]

>>16116036
Yeah, but surely it isn't a huge stretch? From the limited amount I've seen of Italian it looks like the similarities are much greater with Latin than what you see with English/Proto-Germanic, quite often anyway when I look up Latin vocab on Wiktionary I often get an Italian result before the Latin.
Even if it is a pain to learn, surely is it not seen as worth doing to most Italians? It's not like with us Anglos and "Old English", which beyond Beowulf is essentially all barbarian ooga booga tribe circle forest-people horseshit

[Anonymous No.16116092]

>>16116067
Italians are taught Latin in (their equivalent of) high school. But let's be realistic here, how much in Latin do you actually want to read in Latin? Everything worth reading has been translated to English or Italian or frankly any other language. There's plenty untranslated, but do you REALLY want to read two monks arguing over some incredibly minute point of trivia in an Aristotelian text on biology (that's not even scientifically accurate)? The Germans were publishing PhD theses in Latin into the 1920s, do you REALLY want to read some guy's dissertation on Kant?

[Anonymous No.16116133]

>>16116092
>how much of Latin works do you actually want to read in Latin
As much as I can anon, that is I would rather appreciate a work in its actual form than intake the bastardised version that has been unnaturally twisted and warped into something I can read in an alien language. Not to say that you have to be an autist and learn Bulgarian to read a single Bulgarian book, or Polish to read a single novel, but I just don't see why Italians wouldn't want to access the trove of literature Rome had to offer, especially if it's relatively easy for them to do so. Do modern Italians not revere the Romans then, is there not some kind of 'We wuz emperorz and shit' mentality?

[Anonymous No.16116162]

>>16116133
>is there not some kind of 'We wuz emperorz and shit' mentality
I'm not Italian, so I can't speak for them, but I know Greeks care far more about Constantinople than Athens and Sparta. The idea of Italy just being Roman Kingdom -> Republic -> Empire -> Fall -> Renaissace -> Mama mia pasta primavera ayyy I'm walkin' heyuh! is an Anglo conception.

Do we Anglos think of our history as just being WE WUZ CYNINGAS N' SCITE?

[Anonymous No.16116163]

>>16116067
>>16116133

The problem with Latin and its similarities with Romance languages is that they borrow virtually every word from it, but the meanings changed completely over time. And the changes will vary depending on the romance language. The languages' grammar has also changed dramatically over the centuries.

Just a couple of examples:
"Excelsis" means "High"
Italian: Alto
Spanish: Alto
Portuguese: Alto
French: haute


"Animus" means "Heart"
Italian: Cuore
Spanish: Corazón
Portuguese: Coração
French: Cœur

These examples are just a sample on how the languages evolved together. You might also have noticed that the word "Animus" is actually the origin for the word "Animate" which again, has a different meaning nowadays in some romance languages like "Bravo", "Let's GO!" etc...

>Do modern Italians not revere the Romans then, is there not some kind of 'We wuz emperorz and shit' mentality?
Not really, it was such a long time ago. But every one in Italy, France, Portugal, Spain and Romania takes pride in this. We all consider ourselves to be "Romans" to some degree.

[Anonymous No.16116183]

>>16116162
No we don't but I think that's mainly because there's not as much pride in that forest-dwelling origin of ours compared to something like Rome

>The idea of Italy just being Roman Kingdom -> Republic -> Empire -> Fall -> Renaissace -> Mama mia pasta primavera ayyy I'm walkin' heyuh! is an Anglo conception.
My sides are in orbit, thank you anon for the laughter

[Anonymous No.16116213]

>>16116163
To be fair the most common Latin adjective for high is probably 'altus' which just means high as you'd expect. With heart I think you'd most commonly see 'cor' as well, which is still some way off from the modern equivalents. With 'animus' it's most commonly used for the kind of life/lifeforce/consciousness meaning rather then the anatomical heart, I don't know what the equivalent for life is in Italian, but I expect it's kind of similar to animus?

[Anonymous No.16116241]

>>16116213
Life is Vita, as you could also come to expect (Vitae). Vida, Vie in other languages. Animus changed its core meaning I believe.

[Anonymous No.16116261]

>>16116241
Ah yes my mistake anima is less life and more like mind/soul/spirit, don't know if that's any closer to the Italian descendant. It's drawing to the late hour in Angloland and my faculties are increasingly deserting me with each passing bong of Big Ben

[Anonymous No.16118193]

>>16116163
in Romanian

inalt

inima

wew lad, we wuz Romanz and shieet

[Anonymous No.16118211]

>>16118193
anyways we use very frequently the "în" preposition
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%AEn
idk, why but we had a unique Cyrillic letter for it too, Ꙟ ꙟ

[Anonymous No.16118312]

>>16115740
Same. I only read books in Portuguese (I've done this only twice this year) if they were originally written in Portuguese.

[Anonymous No.16118366]

>>16113200
This. All thanks to piracy I now only read english literature, while before I bought my kindle it was at least 70% native language literature and 30% English.

The high point of my shame was when I started reading a Hindi classic's English translation ;-;

[Anonymous No.16118378]

>>16116163
animus is more like soul, their word for heart is cor, which you can clearly see the similarity to in the Romance descendants

and altus was high in Latin

[Anonymous No.16118404]

>>16115598
>English
>not clunky

[Anonymous No.16118765]

>>16113185
>tfw i can understand english books better than ones in my native language

[Anonymous No.16119513]

>>16118765
Why is this so surprising from someone who grew in the late nineties/early two thousands?

Internet culture was blowing up and every piece of media was in English.

[Anonymous No.16119603]

>>16113329
You're missing out, I used to be like you. Read Nietzsche, Kafka, Musil and don't forget about poetry.

[Anonymous No.16119638]

>>16113185
>>16113224
elif şafak ve zülfü livaneli memesine sakın düşme annem ve babam sevdiği için kitaplığımızda var okumaya çalıştım berbatlar.
irfan orga bir türk ailesinin öyküsü okuyabilirsin.
bana kitaplar önerebilir misin herhangi bir tür ve konu üzerine olabilir?

[Anonymous No.16119900]

I'm so glad my native language is German. You can read the best works if you know German and English. Only French or maybe Russian is equally useful when it comes to literature.

[Anonymous No.16119909]

>>16119900
It's still not a beautiful language. Useful and practical? Absolutely, but compounding words is just a hard cope for the lack of Latin in it.

[Anonymous No.16119937]

>>16119909
Jealousycoping at its finest.

[Anonymous No.16119951]

>>16119937
I'm a bilingual Swiss and that's not an argument.

[Anonymous No.16119956]

>>16119937
>Krankenwagen
>Shcmeterling
>Beautiful

LMAO

[Anonymous No.16119960]

>>16119951
>Swiss
Yikes.

[Anonymous No.16119996]

>>16119909
>>16119956
Read Goethe or even Hesse and you'll realise German is in fact a beautiful language.

[Anonymous No.16121160]

Keep languages alive

[Anonymous No.16121186]

>>16119909
How's it a cope? Latin does the same thing writ small, with words like eradico, supponere, subterfugio, etc. German has a beautifully intuitive habit of word construction, probably one reason why it became so valuable a philosophical language. The words themselves have clear metaphorical value, unlike most English/French/Italian vocabulary. I also don't see why it should be any less beautiful in a oratory sense than English or French. Its worst elements are precisely those which are adaptions from Latin, like musikalisches or basieieren.

[Anonymous No.16122633]

>>16113383
Read Pamuk's The White Castle.

[Anonymous No.16122757]

How do you keep reading book in another language without looking at the dictionary every pages? I mean i get the gist of whats happening but I can say for sure that I'am missing some undertones because I don't know many words. Does it gets easier with time?

[Anonymous No.16122769]

>>16119909
Filtered.

[Anonymous No.16122784]

>>16121186
The German lexicon is way smaller than Latin's.

[Anonymous No.16122793]

>>16119909
How hard and how long does one have to learn German before being able to reliably understand Goethe,Nietzsche,Heidegger, etc?

[Anonymous No.16123067]

>>16122793
5+ years, and even then you won't understand most of them.

[Anonymous No.16123098]

>>16122793
I dont think even germans understand them that well. Dont bother.

[Anonymous No.16123312]

>>16123067
>tfw just started learning German

[Anonymous No.16123327]

>>16113262
How are you a Turk living in Turkey, and you have a tenuous knowledge of the Turkish language?

[Anonymous No.16124512]

>>16122784
I mean that Latin doesn't compound its words to the same length that German does.
>>16122793
There isn't a hard and fast cut off point. 'Understanding' a writer too vague a concept, i f you mean being able to understand most of the words they use? It's not the hardest thing in the world if you apply yourself. If will take indefinitely if you keep looking at a stopwatch

[Anonymous No.16124530]

>>16124512
>I mean that Latin doesn't compound its words to the same length that German does.
That's why it's a more diverse and pleasant language to the ear.

[Anonymous No.16124600]

>>16123312
I will never understand why people commit themselves to learn any foreign language (other than English) if they do not plan to live on a foreign country for an extended period of time.

What is your goal really? Even you know you'll eventually quit and your level will be as good as none. Why waste time?

[Anonymous No.16125267]

>>16115740
>>16118312
Both of you are uncultured swine resulting from leftists fucking up the educational system.

[Anonymous No.16126090]

>>16125267
I'm >>16118312 and yes, that's true. Nowadays you can't even fail a year from 1st to 9th grade. As long as you show up at school, nothing will happen to you, not even if you consistently get retard-tier test scores.

[Anonymous No.16126462]

>>16113185
A few days ago that thought crossed my mind and I downloaded a book in spanish (Los Suicidas del Fin del Mundo). I don't read books in spanish because I live in fucking Japan and it's difficult to find them, at least at a reasonable price. I'd rather wait and buy them in my homeland for a fraction of the prices I've seen on Bookdepository, Amazon Japan and Kinokuniya (Although I don't know when I'm going to visit the motherland).

[Anonymous No.16126654]

>>16119900

You will never read a pure, non-translated Borges. How does it feel?

[Anonymous No.16127805]

>>16124530
How could pleasantness be a quality imparted by the shortness of words alone? Chinese hardly connects its syllables at all but that doesn't imbue any special quality of beauty into it. Quite the opposite from a Western perspective.

[Anonymous No.16128163]

>>16125267
>>16126090
A verdade é que muito pouca grnte hoje em dia lê literatura portuguesa porque as livrarias em grande parte também já não vendem (tanto) preferindo autores anglo-americanos que vendem mais. Claro, isto não acontece só em Portugal. Quanto a livros estrangeiros traduzidos, eles tendem a ter o dobro do preço dos livros em inglês. Por exemplo, o Guerra e Paz em Português vem divido em 2 partes, cada uma custa mais de 20 euros. Por outro lado compras facilmente a tradição inglesa por 15 euros na net (ou sacas de graça).