Knowledge Needed for a Nation

     Throughout history nations have come to be and passed by, leaving their mark on existence. Some left legends of grandeur, while other left nothing but their bones to be found by others. Traditions have been passed down mouth to mouth; some nations have left scrolls and pictorial scripts. While others left only remnants of tools and craftworks for a clue about their ways of life. What helped these nations who thrived and chose to do more than just exist to become the beacons of knowledge? These nations became so much more because they were built on a foundation that knew how to purvey their knowledge from one form to another.

Montana & Shuan - Our Musings

For the preparation for the in-class salon, Montana and I decided to work together. We took the time today to look through all the blogs and selected 2 individuals to read through their experience in this class. We reminisced of all the projects and posts we have done. It was great fun to look back and see all that we've accomplished this semester.

Paper Again

So this didn't end up being as bad as I thought it would be. I managed to finish the paper although I didn't end up using all that much of my rough draft. I had talked with Morgan Mix on Saturday to talk about the project and she had had some very good Ideas. This paper was very challenging to write but that is what happens when you just randomly choose your topic from a list. Morgan and I had talked so that we could help each other figure out a direction to go with our papers and she had some very good ideas. Unfortunately the ideas didn't help me with writing my paper that much in the end because I stuck to writing on a bibliography instead of doing something more related to her subject. I'm glad that I finished the paper and in the end it wasn't as bad as I was thinking it was going to be when I posted and called the paper the paper of doom.

The Paper of Doom

While working on my paper on bibliography I have been having trouble finding articles that relate to the direction that I have wanted to go, which is that bibliographies are more than just a way to find the sources that others have used to write on their topics.

The only book that I have found that is truly useful is a book that was written in 1934. I found this really funny cause the book had stamped in the front April 4 1954. The fact that I was using a book that my great grandma could have been using really amused me.

The good thing that happened for me was that Professor Burton recommended a number of people that I could contact to interview them about bibliographies. I was able to contact Robert Means and he spent time with me discussing bibliographies. He made a number of really good points, which I shall let you know more about when I use them in my paper.

Here is the start of my paper I may end up changing it completely around after my interview but I wasn’t able to interview Professor Means before the rough draft was due. If anyone has any pointer on what I could do or use to better cover the topic of Bibliographies I would be happy to hear them.

While talking with some people who are not members of our class about the subject of bibliographies, they attempted to help me. Only after receiving some direction from them on where I could go with my topic did I realize that Biographies and Bibliographies can be easily confused. Many people don’t tend to think much about bibliographies. They will glance at the end of the book or at the footnotes to see where the information for the information that we are reading is from and that is as far as most people actually get on the topic. However, bibliographies have a rich history, and do much more than just point us to where writers get their information.

When we look at some of the first bibliographies we do not know who the compilers of the bibliographies are. These bibliographers spent many hours reading and attempting to find many books on the same subject. They would then compile what they had found into a sort of list or index. The few of the first bibliographies that we do know the name of the person who wrote the compilation, we only know because they included their name on the list.

Bibliographies come in a few different forms. We have the normal biography, which is just a list that includes the name and author of the work along with a number of other details. We then have something which when combined into a list on the subject is extremely usefully, the annotated bibliography.

An annotated bibliography is a summary of what the main points of the book are about. They include many of the same things that a normal bibliography has, such as the title, the author’s name, and the year it was published. The most important thing about the annotated bibliography though is the fact that it summarizes the thoughts of another author and allows for another to quickly search for what the book is about.

Bibliographies have come from

History of Bibliographies

As I have been working to figure out what to do for this project I honestly was confused for a time because everything I tried to search for to find some decent books on this subject were not really coming up. I finally found something about the history of bibliographies (which finding a subject that didn't already have the book checked out that I was looking at online was what became my hardest challenge). Funny thing as I was looking at bibliographies for some reason my brain kept thinking that I was trying to tell it that biographies and bibliographies are the same thing. Biographies- descriptions of people in history. Bibliographies- things used to cite documents and sources.


E. W. Padwick, Bibliographical Method, James Clarke and Co. Ltd., 1969
[I found this book when I was looking at the section Z 1001 where books on bibliographies are located.]
The Bibliographical Method discusses how some of the first printed biographies came about. They were not widely printed until Conrad Gesner, in 1545, Published Bibliotheca universalis.  A book which had over 1,264 folio pages with numerous author writings published in this book, including a bibliography of every author.
(link to where to find Bibliographical Method  HBLL website)

George Schneider(Translated by Ralph Robert Shaw), Theory and History of Bibliography, New York Columbia University Press, 1934
[This Book was also found as I scoured section Z 1001 looking for books that had titles that had to do with the history of Bibliographies]
The Theory and History of Bibliography talks about how bibliography's came to be the type of book that they are. Originally they were defined as the mechanical writing and transcription of books. Ebert is quoted as having said that bibliographies are, "in the broadest sense, the science that deals with literary productions." Ebert was one of the greatest German bibliographers.
(link to Theory and History of Bibliography  HBLL website)

D. F. McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts, Cambridge University Press, 1999
[Bibliography and the Sociology of Text was also found in the Z 1001 section of the HBLL.]
Mr. G Thomas Tanselle one said, referring to bibliographies, "a related group of subject that happen to be commonly referred to by the same term." Theory and History of Bibliography divides bibliographies into a number of categories; enumerative or systematic bibliography, descriptive, analytical, textual, and historical bibliography.
(link to Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts HBLL website)

D. W. Krummel, Bibliographies Their Aims and Methods, Mansell Publishing Limited, 1984
[Bibliographies Their aims and Methods was found on a shelf again in the Z 1001 section.]
Bibliographies Their Aims and Methods points out that bibliographies are not as Sir Walter Greg said, "it is convenient to students of any subject to regard bibliographers as a race of useful drudges-servi a bibliotheca-who are there to do for them some of the spade-work they are too lazy or too incompetent to do for themselves." D. W. Krummel discusses that the earliest bibliographies may be lost in historical records and that bibliographies themselves coincided with the origins of research during the time of Aristotle.
(link to Bibliographies Their Aims and Method Villinova Website)

Robin Myers and Michael Harris, Pioneers in Bibliography, St. Paul's Bibliographies, 1988
[Pioneers in Bibliography was found in section Z1001]
Robin Myers and Michael Harris point out that bibliographers who pioneered catalogues of medieval for the most part nothing is know about them. Very few bibliographers do we even know there names unless they signed their library catelogue. These men point out that only through bibliographers writings are we able to learn to about why these men compiled the works that they did.
(link to Pioneers in Bibliography HBLL website)

The Bible

When I visited the Life and Legacy of the King James Bible Exhibit I really thought it was interesting how bibles changed over time to fit the new medium and the changes in language. As was discussed in class originally the first bibles that were printed were made to look like the handwritten bibles of the past. 

The bible was translated from its original language into languages that for the most part the general population couldn't read. Later after King James the 1st comissioned the new translation of the bible(Madison Grant has a good blog about this specifically) and the translator did there best to make sure that there translations were accurate by going back to the Hebrew and Greek versions of the bible that they had to make the best translation possible. If we were to look at alot of the meaning of the words that the translators translated in the past we could find alot of things hard to understand because languages change over time. 

Some words today if I read from the King James version have a much different meaning than I would think was being refereed to. Such as, accursed which means devoted or amazement which means terror(More here). These word have a much different meaning and can really be confusing in today's world. 

How much do the differences in our language today affect the understanding of the Bible and in the future with languages changing how much will the changes affect the understanding further?

Our Own Rosetta "Stone" sort of

What I got to help with for the making of our Rosetta Stone was the writing of the 2nd half of the project. Alicia emailed me the translation for the Greek wax that we got from the other group and the translation said, 

"Equo ne credite, Teucri! Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.

Do not trust the horse, Trojans! Whatever it is, I fear the Danaans,

even when bringing gifts.

不要相信馬，木馬！不管是什麼，我怕希臘人，甚至帶來的禮物時," 

This project turned out to be a much more challenging thing than I expected. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to fit all of the project on this one medium so I first had to write it on the project lightly. My first attempt was to large. The Greek was not going to fit on the medium with the English and the Chinese on my first try. So i shrunk down the Greek to take up a smaller space and this time it was the proper size which was awesome. It took me a few hours to pencil out all the symbols and then another two and a half hours to paint over the symbols that I had made. When I got to the Chinese, my friend Rebecca came over and helped me cause she looked at my Chinese symbols and let me know that what I was doing did not really have the flow of Chinese symbols. My writing didn't have the curves that Chinese character should. 

Also I was lucky enough to be doing my writing around my friend PJ and had him read over the Chinese that I had written. He said that my symbols were correct but I didn't have some of the symbols grouped together correctly. Lucky for me I was able to fix the problem with my writing and so now my looks good with only a mistake in one spot, an ink smear. Over all I learned that some mediums are better than other at helping to write different languages. Luckily we chose a medium that even though the message is somewhat long it was able to include all three languages very easily.

Moving Forward and Back

This is the Tsunami  by Hokusai which was printed is a very interesting way by the Japanese people. They used wood block printing to make this picture of a wave. What is wood block printing?

Japanese Literature

Ancient Japan did not have its own written language until the Kanji was introduced by the Chinese as I pointed out in a previous post. Since the Japanese originally took their language from the Chinese their first works of literature had alot of the Chinese writing style once they started writing about Japan.

The First Novel

Romance, travel, encounters with the supernatural, and a hero so perfect he seemed to belong in a bygone age.

                                                                                                                          

Writing System? Really?

Japanese writing system is pretty unique and interesting. It uses multiple systems for writing Japanese.

Kanji	Hiragana	Katakana	Rōmaji	English
私	わたし	ワタシ	watashi	I, me
金魚	きんぎょ	キンギョ	kingyo	goldfish
煙草 or 莨	たばこ	タバコ	tabako	tobacco, cigarette
東京	とうきょう	トウキョウ	tōkyō	Tokyo, literally meaning "eastern capital"

The first characters that the Japanese used for writing were originally from China. The Kanji, are the characters that first came from China. The Japanese began using these characters between the 3rd and the 5th century. Using someone else's language to describe write things when you are speaking a different language is not that easy and so the Japanese have changed what they use for their writing system quite a bit.


From the original Kanji, which was not the same language as Japanese is what has come to describe the different aspects of the Japanese language specifically verbs, nouns, and adjectives. (Isn't it weird to think that there is a specific word out there that describes the word verbs, nouns and adjectives in most languages?) The Hiragana is used to describe things that are not included in the original Kanji. Word that are difficult to describe and just are obscure in Kanji are written in Hiragana. Katakana are word that are being translated from another language. For example names or elements are described with Katakana.

While the Japanese did take their language from the Chinese originally(Chinese language post) the Japanese did not decide to use the same amount of characters to be included in their written language from the Kanji. They only use around 1850 characters.

The Japanese did not have a real piece of literature for quite some time. When the did they wrote the, "Man'yōgana was initially used to record poetry, as in the Man'yōshū (万葉集^?)."

The Man'yoshu is translated to mean, the collection of ten thousand leaves, this is the oldest volume of poetry in Japan. It is quite and extensive collection of poems and contains 4500 poems in 20 volumes. The Japanese writing techniques are a unique blend of Chinese characters while at the same time having plenty of things that are used only in their language. Something to look at is how much your own written language is composed of many other languages from around the world.

Language Preserved

The Japanese are a culture who gathered many things from its neighbors. Some of the things that people believe are strictly Japanese originally were not. Sushi and the Japanese written language both have this in common.

Buddism

A jug fills drop by drop. 

All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain? 

An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind. 

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.
Buddha 

Bushido

"Japan was ruled by warrior for the better part of a millennium. From the twelfth to the nineteenth century its political history was dominated by the struggle of competing leagues of fighting men. These centuries left a lasting imprint on the country's values and society. Bushi, "fighting men," and samurai, "those who serve," developed a rhetoric with emphases of loyalty and courage and worked out a code that came to be known as "Bushido," the Way of the Warrior."(1)

Rice the start of a Civilization

While I was searching for the history of Japan I was having a hard time coming up with what to talk about since I am assigned to talk about civic life but what I decided to talk about is that the Japanese people didn't really come into their own and become a strong united people until they had rice and iron imported into the country at around 100 BC.

The Talk

"It may be the most important talk you will ever

have with your child! The "big talk" about sex should
come early (we recommend the eighth birthday), but
it is never too late! A "preemptive strike" can give your
child a healthy, positive, respectful view of human intimacy
that will stand up to all the garbage that will come from the media
and the peer group."(value)

I asked my roommate about something that is both folk knowledge and oral knowledge and he immediately said "The Talk." The talk is something that as far as I can gauge all parents

dread the time when needing to bring up the talk of intercourse. Some people prefer to avoid the topic and others tend to attempt to make a joke out of it. I am certain that this is one topic that has been both folk knowledge as well as oral knowledge. I know that for the most part until recently parents didn't have any help from outside sources to figure out what they were going to do tell their children. I think the most difficult thing for parents with this topic has been that they needed to figure out when to tell their children and how much to tell them. Today there are many books out there which can be used to aid in talking to children about intercourse.

I ran into these type of books when I helped out in a library on my mission in Canada. There are many different levels of books some are for children and some are for young adults and others still are for teenagers, I found this out as I re-shelved many of the library's books. The thing about these books is that while they can help to break the surface of the topic with children the way that parents are most likely to share The Talk is to give the same talk that they were given when they were young. Folk knowledge is something that with the technology advancements that has been happening is that people are attempting to convey all of the knowledge that was once only known because they were told from one person to another is now having the ability for people in random areas of the world to hear one group or persons opinion about life from someone else super far away.

Leaving You Mark

Through out history people have been leaving their mark on nature. Today we refer to some of these types of things as petroglyphs. What I decided to teach for this assignment was teaching how to leave your mark.

I started by first attempting to teach how to burn a letter or design into a piece of wood but right when Rebecca and I went to do this is the sun disappeared behind a cloud. So instead I decided to teach leaving a mark in a piece of wood by carving with a knife.

First off I started by explaining the things to do so that you don't cut yourself while carving. The first thing is to always cut away from yourself. Also the most important thing is to just not have your fingers in front of the blade but that is common sense so that didn't really take very long to do. So then we began carving.

The funny thing as you will see by the picture is that Rebecca's initials make for an interesting little piece of wood. As I was completely shown up by someone who didn't have any experience carving but happen to be gifted at art I will refrain from showing my piece of wood that I demonstrated the carving on.

Carving things into our surrounding is something that has been around for a long time. The natives of the America's recorded their history on cave walls and this is one of the longest lasting forms of self expression. Petroglyphs can be anything that you were willing to take the time to carve into the side of a mountain. These carving were how people passed down their history and folk knowledge. The images that they carved were not the complete story so the knowledge of what the artist who made the petroglyph had to be passed down through stories which is one of the main ways that folk knowledge was conveyed in the past.

(source http://www.mnhs.org/places/sites/jp/history.htm)

Make Up?

Well the assignment said to do something that was out of your comfort zone so what I decided on was to learn how to put on a little bit of makeup specifically eye liner and mascara. No just to let
you know how uncomfortable I was with this I will let you know that there happened to be a friend from my mission at my Rebecca's house while she was teaching me how to apply the
makeup. 

Giants Causeway

Have you heard the story about Finn MacCool picking a fight with the Scottish Giant Benandonner?

Well I'll tell you a synopsis of the story but if you want to read it told well I recommend this website Giants Causeway

Finn was an Irish giant who hated the Scottish giants so much that he decided to build a road way from Ireland to Scotland so that he could go and fight the Scottish giants. Finn build the road out of six sided cobble stones and laid his road down so that he could get to Scotland. After Finn had built the road he yelled and challenged the giant Benandonner to a fight. But as Benandonner came closer and closer to Ireland Finn realized that Benandonner was much bigger than he was and realized he was in over his head so he ran home and told his wife what he had done and about that time Benandonner got to the Maccool's house. Finn's wife was smart enough to have Finn hid in the baby carriage and tell Benandonner that Finn was out hunting and would be back later. She then preceded to tell Benandonner that Finn was huge by saying that trees

and boulders and all sorts of different things were Finn's weapons and rocks for playing catch with. Well when Benandonner realized how big a giant Finn's wife was describing he ran away and tore up the causeway that Finn had built to connect Ireland and Scotland.

Bagpipes

First off before you go and read the rest of my blog I want you to watch this video,(or at least part of it).