In what languages are Library Genesis books?

There have been a few changes in Library Genesis. The Advanced Search feature has become more prominent and the website now puts a number to search results.

I have been playing with Advanced Search to find out what language books are the most pirated on the website. Not surprisingly, English grabs the top position. There are currently a shade less than 726,000 pirated and public domain books.

Second comes Russian. There are more than 234,000 books available in the language of Dostoevsky. Third comes German. German speakers can choose between 93,000 books.

The website claims to have over one million books. Together these three languages add up to more than that. This leaves only a tiny room for the remaining languages. 

There are less than 14,000 books in French and only 8,900 in Spanish.

A Chinese reader's choice is limited to only 1,500 books. The biggest surprise is Japanese. Japanese books number only 800.

There are six books in my native Punjabi. Korean fares no better. Hindi (100) and Urdu (200) have together 300 books available in them.

English in Chinese characters and Hangeul

作天我去투他임투說으바우트天文學。

That's how English written with a mixture of Chinese characters and Hangeul will look like. I just created this new script. What I have done is I have written prepositions in Hangeul. To make 他임 (him) of 他 (he) I have added 임 (-im) to 他.

作天 yesterday
我 I
去 went
투 to
他임 him
투 to
說 talk
으바우트 about
天文學 astronomy

Sexism and language

Does it make me sexist if I use "mankind" or "chairman" instead of "humanity" and "chairperson"? I think it does not and I have reasons to believe it. 

Hindustani is less sexist than English. "Vo hai." in Hindustani can either mean "He is." or "She is." Feminists may take delight in the fact that English "he" and "she" are translated as "vo" in Hindustani. So when I say "vo pagal hai." there is no way to know if I am questioning "his" or "her" sanity - unless there is a context.

Does the use of "vo" makes Hindustani speakers less sexist than English speakers? I do not think. The inability of men to consider women as their equal - even many women have been indoctrinated by this propaganda - points out to how sexist the current Indian (and Pakistani) society is.

Let me support this argument from these two true incidents: 

(1) Friend one: I saw your sister there.

Friend two: And?

Friend one: You are a man. You ought to know what women are doing.

Friend two: I don't care. They have got brains. I don't know where my cousin brothers are.

Friend one: I am not talking about boys. Your sister is a woman.

Friend two: So what? Don't you think they are equal to men?

Friend one: Of course they are, but women are easier to fool. They need constant guidance from men.

Friend one is a government officer.

(2) Woman one: You people like only used things. 

Man one: What do you mean by used things? 

Woman one: Zahil has a new girl friend. That woman was someone else girl friend a months ago. 

Man one: So?

Woman one: I don't understand why you people fall for second-hand objects

Man one: She is not a "thing" or an "object." 

Woman one: Whatever! Can't you people find something fresh? 

Woman one is a post graduate in econmics and a teacher. 

I am not using names even though I know all the participants in these conversations very well. They are normal people - and somewhat liberal. Friend one in the first conversation will gladly wear the robe of a communist if it comes to his salary. Woman one is a die-hard liberal, when it comes to her rights. This is stupid. Everyone wants freedom, but only for themselves.(Here I go again!)

Anyway, let's return to our topic - "does exclusion of sexist words makes a society less-sexist?" I think "no." I think it has more to do with education and development than some tweaking with language.

Until a hundred years ago, there was only one word - 他 (ta1) - in Chinese for "he" and "she." And I have read that society was so sexist a century ago that if a man were to knock at door, a woman would reply "There is no one home." Women did not even consider themselves human. I can still witness women saying the same thing here in this part of India - a part whose language does not even differentiate between "he" and "she."

12,200 word families

Took this 140-question test after watching Extensive Reading and Vocabulary Range (part one) of ProfAsAr. 

The speaker in the video knows around 28,000 (I have forgotten the exact number) word families. That is significantly better than my disappointing performance of 12,200.

Regested beauty parlaur

I went to my grandmother's this Saturday. She lives with my uncle in a village named Sanaur near my city  of Patiala.

The thing that struck me the most, besides the primitive marketplace and poor internet coverage, was the near absence of English in everyday Punjabi. Also the dialect of Punjabi they use sounds rather queer.

Despite the near absence of spoken English and prevalence of desi Punjabi, the shops signs were nearly all in English. 

Here is the one I particularly liked. 

I clicked it while walking because I didn't want to get beaten by a bunch of villagers. I feared what they would think, and do if they saw me with a camera in front of a ladies' beauty parlour.

In Punjabi they write de instead of te in kiraye te mildi hai (available on rent). The English text shows a Punjabi influence. On rent basis.

Indian English - use for 'only' for emphasis

Some time ago a friend on Lernu! asked if there wasn't an English based creole in India. I said no. Thinking about that now, it seems rather strange that even after 150 years (the English conquered the last powerful Indian state Punjab in 1849 after the Second Anglo-Sikh War and eight years later, in 1857, the country came under the direct rule of the British royal family) you don't see any creole taking birth here. Nonetheless, there are some constructions unique to the Indian (include Pakistani and other sub-continental versions too) English.

One of the most popular such Indian constructions is the use of 'only' as an emphatic particle so that instead of asking 'Did you really come today?', people say 'Did you come today only?' 

Here are a couple of sentences that will give you an idea of how 'only' is used in the Indian English: 

(1) I did do it. = I only did it. 

(2) He only speaks Punjabi. = He speaks Punjabi only.

(3) Isn't wasn't only me? = It wasn't me only.

(4) The exam is on Monday. = The exam is on Monday only.

There are more idiosyncrasies. I made a list of ten of them. That list is lost and what is wrote there is wiped out of my memory. What a pity! 

English Written Fonetikalee!

Today, after reading this post at Stephen's blog I was inspired to develop my own phonetic system for transliterating English into Latin characters in a sensible manner. English looks really weird, not to mention ugly too, when written phonetically!

Still, I had fun when I put this stuff taken from the Jan-Feb issue of BBC Knowledge in Fonetik Inglish. See for yourself if you can make a sense out of it:

Wat meiks Chweeing Gamm Söu Stiki?

Wail mäni kleim dhät chweeing gamm helps dhem riläx, traing tuh praiz öupan a lamp ov dha staff frawm dha botam ov a shu or a chaild's heia iz not söu kahlming. Dha gamm stiks fo dha seim reezan äz möust glooz: iläktrostätik intaräkshans bitween molekiulz, or Van der Waals föursis. Chweening gamm is söu plaiabal, it flöus into evari maikrosköupik krivis, wich inkreezis dha kontäkt eiria fo Van der Walls aträkshan. Wet chweeing gamm dazant stik tuh ior fingar bikawz wahtar molekiulz fäsan tu dha gamm's söfeis, bloking dha stiki molekiulz.