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muckefuckMy eyes are bleary from hours of pouring over some really impossible seals that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu plans to bid on. I might not have tried so hard to decipher them, but he had a truly superb dinner waiting for me when I returned from the cemetery (by way of Meinl). First off, he roasted a duck with sauerkraut stuffing (flavoured with raisins, apples, and rosehip jelly from a previous trip to Meinl). For that alone he deserves a permanent place in the Boyfriend Hall of Fame. But he surrounded it with acorn squash (sweetened with honey and candied ginger) and saffron-basil pasta. A lot of earth tones on the plate, perhaps, but wonderful on the palate.
He suggested I turn my mind to something else so that I'll get some sleep before the trip to Pilsen tomorrow. (The epicentre of Dia de los Muertos in Chicago--though perversely and appropriately the home neighbourhood of many of the corpses we visited today.) My other big linguistic adventure was taking on the graves of Bohemian National Cemetery unarmed. That is to say, I didn't have time to stop off and pick up my Czech dictionary before heading out to meetbunj. When I walked through the ornate main gate, I was pleasantly surprised to find that e. had joined us. We set out toward the north, where the Masaryk memorial mausoleum stood, according to what bunj had found on the web.
Two hours later, we returned to their car slightly chilled and much wiser in the way of Czech gravestones. Some superficial observations:
e. was amazed at how many of the surname were familiar. Apparently, she's been surround by Czechs at work without knowing it. Many names could pass for Romance, like Viduna or Bruha; others appear German, particular when spelled in the old-fashioned wise. Enough had less-than-pleasant associations in English that we started our own Gallery of Unfortunate Czech Surnames. Early members include Kotek, Fucik (which e. did not initially read that way), and Smutný. (The last of these, it turns out, means "sad". You can well understand.)
She was also impressed with the vowelless or near-vowelless ones, like Vlk ("wolf"), Vrba ("willow"), and Hrba ("hunchback"). I made the mistake of repeating something I'd read years ago and only dimly recalled and designating Novák "the 'Smith' of Bohemia". This left me baffled when I came across Kováč, which looked much more like "(black)smith" to me. A little more research and I've determnined that Novák corresponds to 'Smith' in frequency only, being borne by about 1% of the Czech population. In meaning, it--like the also-frequent surname Novotný--more nearly matches "Newman", i.e. a newcomer to the area. Did the early modern Czechs move around a lot? Given the unrest in their homeland at the time, I wouldn't be surprised.
Sadly, I've been unable to find etymologies for such intriguing names as Wopat, Bruha, and Fucik. However, other mysteries have been cleared up. Fiala (which always looks Gaelic to me) is a viola (the plant, not the instrument, which may explain the prominent pansy design on the wall of the chapel--though I do like e.'s alternate explanation of an Order of the Pansy for Czech homosexuals). Svoboda, which I correctly translated as "freedom", designates a freeman as opposed to an otrok or "serf". Kučera is someone with curly hair, Pokorný is a humble man, and Jelinek, a little deer (cf. German/Yiddish Hirschl/Herschel). Bird names are represented by Vrána ("crow"), Čáp "stork" (Čápek is the same name, only with a diminutive ending), and Čermák ("robin"). (Of course, the hip kids already know what avian species a Kavka is.)
Moving into the area of regular Czech words, a háček (which e. called "a little hat") is, in fact, a "little hook" (hák). One of the devises in the chapel features a double-tailed Bohemian lion rampant holding an axe and the text [please excuse the lack of proper diacritics, but it's getting late] Spolek plzenskych rezniku. All I could make out in this on the spot was the adjective "Pilsner". It must be a cleaver in the lion's paw, since the organisation is the Society of Pilsner Butchers! Who would expect them to hold pride of place in a hall of cremated remains?
monshu plans to bid on. I might not have tried so hard to decipher them, but he had a truly superb dinner waiting for me when I returned from the cemetery (by way of Meinl). First off, he roasted a duck with sauerkraut stuffing (flavoured with raisins, apples, and rosehip jelly from a previous trip to Meinl). For that alone he deserves a permanent place in the Boyfriend Hall of Fame. But he surrounded it with acorn squash (sweetened with honey and candied ginger) and saffron-basil pasta. A lot of earth tones on the plate, perhaps, but wonderful on the palate.He suggested I turn my mind to something else so that I'll get some sleep before the trip to Pilsen tomorrow. (The epicentre of Dia de los Muertos in Chicago--though perversely and appropriately the home neighbourhood of many of the corpses we visited today.) My other big linguistic adventure was taking on the graves of Bohemian National Cemetery unarmed. That is to say, I didn't have time to stop off and pick up my Czech dictionary before heading out to meet
bunj. When I walked through the ornate main gate, I was pleasantly surprised to find that e. had joined us. We set out toward the north, where the Masaryk memorial mausoleum stood, according to what bunj had found on the web.Two hours later, we returned to their car slightly chilled and much wiser in the way of Czech gravestones. Some superficial observations:
- They're very fond of kinship designations. I've seen other ethnic groups mark stones with the designations "Father", "Mother", "Daughter", etc., but none with as much consistency. Since an English-language marker was a rarity, the appropriate terms were "Otec", "Matka", and "Dcera", respectively. If you can't figure out "Syn", you should turn in your thinking cap immediately!
- They're also very fond of log-shaped monuments. We're not sure if a lot of them were woodworkers and lumberjacks or if this was just a fad in the early part of the century.
- Membership in fraternal organisations was high. Graceland is lousy with Masons, but here we saw not only many of that ilk (including representatives of their corresponding sodality, the Order of the Eastern Star), but an alphabet soup of other organisations we only partially deciphered with the assistence of the sigils in the main chapel.
- The main chapel was also filled with columbaria, but these were unlike any I've seen before. They had glass fronts and tended to be filled with mementos, photos, fake flowers, and the like in addition to urns of ashes. More than anything, they reminded me of Mexican ofrendas.
- The Czechs also seem more fond of cameos on their gravestones than any race I know outside of Southern Europe. Quite a few graves had them, often with dainty metal covers to keep them protected.
e. was amazed at how many of the surname were familiar. Apparently, she's been surround by Czechs at work without knowing it. Many names could pass for Romance, like Viduna or Bruha; others appear German, particular when spelled in the old-fashioned wise. Enough had less-than-pleasant associations in English that we started our own Gallery of Unfortunate Czech Surnames. Early members include Kotek, Fucik (which e. did not initially read that way), and Smutný. (The last of these, it turns out, means "sad". You can well understand.)
She was also impressed with the vowelless or near-vowelless ones, like Vlk ("wolf"), Vrba ("willow"), and Hrba ("hunchback"). I made the mistake of repeating something I'd read years ago and only dimly recalled and designating Novák "the 'Smith' of Bohemia". This left me baffled when I came across Kováč, which looked much more like "(black)smith" to me. A little more research and I've determnined that Novák corresponds to 'Smith' in frequency only, being borne by about 1% of the Czech population. In meaning, it--like the also-frequent surname Novotný--more nearly matches "Newman", i.e. a newcomer to the area. Did the early modern Czechs move around a lot? Given the unrest in their homeland at the time, I wouldn't be surprised.
Sadly, I've been unable to find etymologies for such intriguing names as Wopat, Bruha, and Fucik. However, other mysteries have been cleared up. Fiala (which always looks Gaelic to me) is a viola (the plant, not the instrument, which may explain the prominent pansy design on the wall of the chapel--though I do like e.'s alternate explanation of an Order of the Pansy for Czech homosexuals). Svoboda, which I correctly translated as "freedom", designates a freeman as opposed to an otrok or "serf". Kučera is someone with curly hair, Pokorný is a humble man, and Jelinek, a little deer (cf. German/Yiddish Hirschl/Herschel). Bird names are represented by Vrána ("crow"), Čáp "stork" (Čápek is the same name, only with a diminutive ending), and Čermák ("robin"). (Of course, the hip kids already know what avian species a Kavka is.)
Moving into the area of regular Czech words, a háček (which e. called "a little hat") is, in fact, a "little hook" (hák). One of the devises in the chapel features a double-tailed Bohemian lion rampant holding an axe and the text [please excuse the lack of proper diacritics, but it's getting late] Spolek plzenskych rezniku. All I could make out in this on the spot was the adjective "Pilsner". It must be a cleaver in the lion's paw, since the organisation is the Society of Pilsner Butchers! Who would expect them to hold pride of place in a hall of cremated remains?
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The Czechs also seem more fond of cameos on their gravestones than any race I know outside of Southern Europe.
I immediately read this and thought of the wrong cameo ... "In today's episode, Nikolai Kučera dies! Special guest star Martin Landau makes a cameo appearance~!" :: chuckle ::
If you can't figure out "Syn", you should turn in your thinking cap immediately!
Well of COURSE we all know what that one means ...
It clearly refers to the "synful" one of the family. :: chuckle ::
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