A Picture from ‘Lataifa’
ChrestomatherI recently received this request from a university student who wrote to say that she was writing a paper on In An Antique Land: 'It would mean a…
A Conversation on Sustainability & Collapse at Stanford
On Dec 3, 2012, I visited a class on Sustainability and Collapse at Stanford. The course is taught jointly by Dr. Mark Zoback (Geophysics), Dr. Russell Berman (Comparative…
Of Fanás and Forecastles: The Indian Ocean and Some Lost Languages of the Age of Sail – 7 of 11
The Laskari dialect was profoundly eclectic in its influences, as befits a language that was used by such a richly varied assortment of people. Consider the names…
Of Fanás and Forecastles: The Indian Ocean and Some Lost Languages of the Age of Sail – 6 of 11
By the time Lieutenant Thomas Roebuck compiled his lexicon of the Laskari language (An English And Hindostanee Naval Dictionary, first published in Calcutta in 1811) the dialect…
Of Fanás and Forecastles: The Indian Ocean and Some Lost Languages of the Age of Sail – 5 of 11
Sampan, Sundarbans, 2005 Sailing vessels are perhaps the most beautiful, most environmentally benign machines the world has ever known. …
Of Fanás and Forecastles: The Indian Ocean and Some Lost Languages of the Age of Sail – 4 of 11
The lives of lascars are of more interest today than ever before - "A crew of bemused Lascar sailors in London" (http://www.bookdrum.com) for the…
Of Fanás and Forecastles: The Indian Ocean and Some Lost Languages of the Age of Sail – 3 of 11
Liverpool Harbour (Peabody Essex Museum) In Redburn, his autobiographical novel about his first voyage, Herman Melville tells the story of how he met the lascars of…
Of Fanás and Forecastles: The Indian Ocean and Some Lost Languages of the Age of Sail – 2 of 11
So what then did the word ‘lascar’ mean in 19th century English? When placed beside a crew list like that of the William Stewart, the Oxford English Dictionary’s…
Of Fanás and Forecastles: The Indian Ocean and Some Lost Languages of the Age of Sail – 1 of 11
'Dutch Galleon showing both a forecastle (left) and aftcastle (right) off Mauritius', 1600-1630, Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom (Wikimedia Commons) Bangladeshis, like Armenians and Gujaratis,…
Another Country: Writers and Censors in Burma, 15 years later – part 2 of 2
On Nov 17 this year, the Burmese writer Ma Thida and I went to visit the offices of the Press Scrutiny Board in Yangon, the seat of the…