Ivan A Derzhanski's Personal Interests
(This is going to sound like Makura no sôshi,
but such is life.)
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Languages
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Natural languages (natlangs)
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Have been heard speaking (with varying success) Russian, Bulgarian,
Serbian/Croatian, Slovene, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Ukrainian, English, German, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, Greek (Modern), Irish, Persian, Hindi/Urdu, Hungarian, Estonian, Japanese,
Turkish, Arabic (Classical), Hebrew and Maltese.
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Have been seen reading (with the same reservation) Belorussian,
Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Old Slavic, Scots,
Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Roumanian, Scottish Gaelic and Tati.
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Have been known to be interested in Akkadian, Chinese, Egyptian,
Finnish, Georgian, Korean, Lak, Nivkh, Quechua, Romany, Sumerian, Welsh
… and all the rest of 'em.
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Constructed languages (conlangs)
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Some call them `made-up languages' and think them silly (which is a very
silly thing to think). I'm into:
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Have a look at Rick Harrison's essay `Farewell
to Auxiliary Languages'.
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And check out the profile of Universal,
a moderately a posteriori project with some very interesting traits.
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Writing systems, their history and typology.
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Here is what I have
to say on the Codex
Seraphinianus.
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Programming
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Yes, I enjoy doing that from time to time. Have programmed in Python, Prolog, Lisp,
Scheme, Icon and Unicon, Snobol, TeX & LaTeX, MetaFont, Awk, Logo, APL, Pascal,
C, PL/I, Fortran and Basic.
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Typesetting and fount design
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A new version of the eIAD
family of Computer Modern Irish founts available as of December 1998; get
it now if you are still using the old one!
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Apart from the
things that are already out, I also have two families of Georgian founts
(xucuri and mxedruli), but haven't got around to releasing
them yet.
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Reading
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Favourite genres:
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Fairy tales, from The Arabian Nights to Wilhelm Hauff's Märchen.
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Epic poetry, from The Epic of Gilgamesh to the Russian byliny.
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Historical novels. Georgij Gulia is very good at writing those.
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Fantasy. John RR Tolkien is unquestionably the king of the genre. (Here,
btw, are my translations of the Ring Rhyme into various languages. And
here
are my translations of three quatrains by Omar Khayyam into Quenya.)
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Detective stories, especially the works of Agatha Christie, Gilbert Chesterton
and Arthur Conan Doyle.
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Jokes, anecdotes and aphorisms (feel free to send me your favourites).
You've probably noticed a general preference for stories set outside the
here-and-now; on the whole, however, I care no less for the writer's lámatyáve
than for the genre and the content.
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Some more prosaic works that I count among my favourites:
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Terras do sem fim by Jorge Amado.
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Pierre Bellemare's short stories.
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Aleksandr Grin's novels and short stories.
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Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome.
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The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.
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Favourite Russian poems (one per author):
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Evgenij Baratynskij, «Vzgljani na zvëzdy ...».
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Valerij Brjusov, Assargadon.
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Rasul Gamzatov, Stoj, ljubov'!.
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Julij Kim, Shtatskij marsh.
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Mixail Lermontov, Smert' poêta.
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Leonid Martynov, Dialog.
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Bulat Okudzhava, Pesnja o moskovskom murav'e.
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Aleksandr Pushkin, «Ja vas ljubil ...».
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Igor' Severjanin, «Vsja radost' -- v proshlom ...».
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Stepan Shchipachëv, «My chasto ishchem slozhnosti veshchej
...».
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Konstantin Simonov, «Preumen'shajushchij bedu ...».
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Vladimir Vysockij, Oxota
na volkov.
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Favourite poetic works (other than Russian verse):
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Omar Khayyam's quatrains.
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Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac.
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Versification.
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History and anthropology
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Special focus on Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and pre-Columbus America. (Visit
the Mexican Heritage
Almanac.)
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Religions and mythologies. (Odd hobby for an atheist? Tough.)
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Intellectual
recreations
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Recreational
mathematics and mathemagics.
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Board games
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Visit the Chess Variant Pages.
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Games I described and/or implemented for Zillions
of Games:
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Hexagonal
chess, classical variant by Isaak Grigor'evich Shafran.
(Implementation.)
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`Nu, Pogodi!',
a hexagonal variant of Fox and Geese, also by Shafran.
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Shatra,
an ancient game from the Altai. A chess variant with draughts-style capture.
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Chamæleon,
another chess variant with men whose powers just won't stay put.
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Cambodian
Chess, a traditional game described in David Pritchard's Encyclopedia
of Chess Variants.
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ChoSen Chess,
a controversial game from The Jacket (Star-Rover) by Jack London,
Chapter
16.
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Games I invented:
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See also Ari Luiro's paper on the names of chessmen in various languages
(in
Finnish; or a shorter version in
English).
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Card games
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Here is another page for them.
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I am maintaining a growing collection
of names of court cards and suits in various languages. Contributions are
very welcome.
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Word games.
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Situation puzzles.
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Dancing
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Scottish Country, the best of
all styles.
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Navigating CyberSpace, the final frontier.
Notes:
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Makura no sôshi `Notes by the Pillow' (a.k.a.
The
Pillow Book): Book by Sei Shônagon (966-1017) which ought to
have been written as a Web suite.
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lámatyáve (Quenya, lit. `sound-taste'):
`individual pleasure in the sounds and forms of words' (John RR Tolkien,
Morgoth's
Ring).
Created and maintained by Ivan A Derzhanski.
Last modified: 12 March 2016.