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I am having such a good time in Murderbot TV fandom! It's been a long while since I was in a bigger, more active fandom, and it's just such fun: loads of fic, WIPs updating daily, activity/meta/gifs on Tumblr. I haven't fallen out of love with everything else, but I am having a great time with my new shiny.

I've read all of the books except Network Effect and System Collapse, which tbh I .... probably won't? I did a little skimming for context, so I know what happens, at least.

( More on that, and the general state of the fandom )

yhlee

Weirdly credible watercolor test of a comic page from Candle Arc #1 (image has slightly cleaned-up lineart as I wasn't sure this brand of paper was going to work out so why sink in more effort before the test).

I'm annoyed that I cannot for the life of me find a US-based (as a USAn) color digest size (5.5"x8.5") zine/booklet/comic printer that handles print on demand. I absolutely cannot commit to physical fulfillment as a business model even as a side hustle (health); but at-home color printers that do anything larger than US letter (8.5"x11") or MAYBE A4 are extortionately expensive, and I am never making back any money sunk into this.

I need to resign myself to hand-watercoloring like THREE copies for the very few interested friend/family people (and myself) and give up on trying to make physical color copies available because quite literally the ROI makes zero sense and I have orchestration homework waiting.

Why digest? Because I've found paper (...for now) I can print onto with my laser printer (which only goes up to US letter/A4) and then do watercolor on top of without (a) jamming my printer because it's too thick (b) destroying the paper once I do even a gentle wash because it's too thin.

Even if I could produce color comic zines at home, however, the bottleneck remains that I absolutely can't do physical fulfillment on a regular/reliable business, and I am never going to sell enough indie/hobbyist comics to justify HIRING someone to handle fulfillment, so this ends here. :p

(If anyone has leads on print on demand printers that work well for this kind of thing, I'm all ears, although I'm not optimistic. This is weirdly difficult to Google possibilities for as well.)

shipperslist

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flemmings

My weekend reading is the first of Charles Finch's historical mysteries. Finch is American so when his Victorian Londoners exit a house they stand on the stoop, and a housekeeper refers to herself as Miss Harrison. Unmarried people engaging in sexual relationships say they're having an affair, which could be Victorian usage for all I know to the contrary, but it sounds odd to my ear. And there's an earl who was a military man and is called Captain Lord James Grey, Earl of Deere, and I'm not even going to try to guess if that's kosher because the usage of British titles is a one-way ticket to madness or migraine or both.

My other book was The Gates, a kids' book about a, well, kid called Samuel Johnson and his dog Boswell, which was nicely Pratchetty with footnotes and all, until chapter rwo introduces some unlikable adults who are henpecked if male and domineering if female and fat, whatever. Ah yes, nasty fat people, a staple of children's literature. Pfui, as that other fat man used to say.

What I want more of is Clark's fairy tales, particularly Tom Brightwind's Jewish physician friend Montefiore. I thought there were two stories with Montefiore but there's only one.

languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=70282&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=boat-people

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=70282

"The endangered Tanka language in Hong Kong: phonological variations and lexical convergence with Cantonese", Cong Wang, Daxingwang Peng, Yanmei Dai & Chong Qi, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 12, Article number: 1133 (July 19, 2025)

The first thing we need to take care of is to discuss their name:

According to official Liu Zongyuan (773–819) of the Tang dynasty, there were Boat Dweller people settled in the boats of today's Guangdong Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The term "Tanka" (蜑家) may originate from tan (Cantonese: "egg") and ka (Cantonese: "family" or "people"), although another possible etymology is tank ("junk" or "large boat") rather than tan. "Tanka" is now considered derogatory and no longer in common usage. The Boat Dwellers are now referred to in China as "people on/above water" (Chinese: 水上人; pinyin: shuǐshàng rén; Cantonese Yale: Séuiseuhngyàn), or "people of the southern sea" (Chinese: 南海人; Cantonese Yale: Nàamhóiyàn). No standardised English translation of this term exists. "Boat People" is a commonly used translation, although it may be confused with the similar term for Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong. "Boat Dwellers" was proposed by Dr. Lee Ho Yin of The University of Hong Kong in 1999, and it has been adopted by the Hong Kong Museum of History for its exhibition.

Both the Boat Dwellers and the Cantonese speak Cantonese. However, Boat Dwellers living in Fujian speak Min Chinese.

(Wikipedia)

Abstract

The Tanka people, colloquially known as the “boat people”, are primarily located in Southeast China. Over time, their transition from a maritime to a land-based lifestyle has significantly influenced the languages they speak, particularly through contact with dominant languages such as Cantonese and Hakka. Despite this, the Tanka language in Hong Kong remains under-researched and is now endangered, with its use rapidly declining. To fill this research gap, this study examined the linguistic interactions between the Tanka language and Cantonese in Hong Kong, focusing on phonological and lexical aspects. The study yielded several key findings. First, a comparative analysis of the phonological systems of the Tanka language and Cantonese revealed striking differences in their rhyme patterns and tone evolution from Middle Chinese. These findings underscore significant phonological distinctions between the two languages. However, despite these differences, Tanka and Cantonese speakers can generally comprehend each other due to a shared linguistic structure. Second, a lexical comparison of the Tanka language, Cantonese, and Mandarin demonstrated a considerable connection between the Tanka language and Cantonese, especially among the younger speakers. This generational influence highlights the impact of Cantonese on the Tanka language. In contrast, the Tanka vocabulary diverged significantly from Mandarin, reflecting a unique linguistic development influenced by its historical and social context, while showing greater convergence with Cantonese due to prolonged contact and shared regional influences. Understanding the interplay between the Tanka language and Cantonese provides valuable insights into the origins of the Tanka people. It also contributes to a broader understanding of the typological characteristics of Sinitic languages in Southeast China.

Judging from Fig. 2, which shows the "Population of Tanka people over time (1961–2021)", there has been a steep decline in the number of Tanka from nearly 140,000 at the beginning of this period to 5,000 at the end, though levelling out during the last 20 years.

To give an idea of what the language looks and sounds like, here are a couple of colorful expressions:

打山口 [ta³⁵ saŋ⁴³ hɐu³⁵] “fishing near a recognizable mountain without using a buoy to prevent theft”

捕風尾魚 [pɔʔ³² foŋ⁴³ mei²⁴ ji²¹] “fishing after a strong wind and catching fish in the wind’s wakes”

A distinctive feature of the language is that it has a rich amount of repetitive affixes that deepen the degree of a trait or add additional meanings and emotional color to adjectives. For example:

青□□ [ts’ieŋ⁴³ koŋ²⁴ koŋ²¹] “vibrantly green”

紅□□ [hoŋ²¹ pɔʔ⁴ pɔʔ⁴] “blushing red”

乌□□ [wu⁴⁴ tsuiʔ⁴ tsuiʔ⁴] “very dark”

眼光光 [an²⁴ kɔŋ⁴⁴ kɔŋ⁴³] “glowing-eyed, very fresh”

眼濛濛 [an²⁴ moŋ⁴⁴ moŋ⁴⁴] “lifeless-eyed”

木□□ [muʔ⁴ k’a²¹ k’a²¹] “stale”

濛□□ [mun³² ts’a²¹ ts’a²¹] “dull-looking”

Other topolects have such affixes, though perhaps few have so many, especially for which no characters are known, i.e., they are simply sounds.

Theoretical framework

This study anchors its theoretical foundation in language contact theory (Thomason and Kaufman, 1988) as the primary framework for explaining phonological and lexical changes in the endangered Tanka language under sustained Cantonese influence. Building upon this core premise that prolonged language interaction drives bidirectional change, the framework strategically layers complementary perspectives to address multidimensional research needs.

It has been my honor to know personally the two leading American authorities on the Boat People, Eugene Anderson and John McCoy, both of whom are listed in the references to this paper, respectively (1970) and (1965)

Selected readings

"San Francisco Cantonese" (4/2/24)
"Dragon Boat Festival and moral abduction" (6/6/22)
"Rivers and lakes: quackery" (6/16/23) — NOT the Tanka, who are hardworking and honorable
"Roll out of here like an egg, Xi" (4/9/20) — see the references for the negative semantics of eggs, but also good and indifferent
Sarah Grey Thomason and Terrence Kaufman, Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988).

[Thanks to Ted McClure]

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=70282&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=boat-people

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=70282

princessofgeeks

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senmut

seekingferret

Oh, I wanted to ask if anyone here will be at Worldcon? Let me know if you want to meet up!

jazzfish

When I hit up the dollar store for wax paper for my Ogre gluing, so I wouldn't drip glue on everything, I also picked up a long roll of aluminum foil. For reasons that are unclear to me the grocery store will only sell foil in rolls that are slightly shorter than the short side of a (half-pan) baking sheet.

Normally when I make bacon I do it in the oven, on a baking sheet covered in foil. Normally I have to fold up the edges of the foil manually. Normally some bacon grease leaks out anyway and I have to carefully clean the baking sheet.

This morning I used the long roll of foil, and it covered the entire sheet with overlap on all sides. Near as I can tell no grease leaked through.

It's kind of astounding how having the right tools can improve one's life.

Ogres remaining: one that requires surgery, five more that require colour choice and thought, and three that require both. I'm honestly a little startled that it's almost done. This has been an enjoyable project: it's not so fiddly that I get frustrated at my inability to do fine motor work, and it's producing tangible objects.

This afternoon I decanted the vanilla extract I put up last summer. I'm less optimistic about this. The cinnamon extract I did in the fall was cinnamony enough but also pretty harsh, due I assume to using cheap vodka. Half the vanilla is likewise cheap vodka (though a different kind), so maybe that will turn out alright; the other half is spiced rum, and I have no idea how well that will do. At least it's only a dozen small bottles, instead of the twenty-odd of cinnamon that I need to do something with.

French toast tomorrow morning should give me some indication of quality, at least.

I also spent an hour or so scraping/squeezing "caviar" out of the beans to make vanilla sugar. This was an extremely annoying process that I do not recommend to anyone: removing sticky goop from slick wet beans is not a good time. But I am now prepared to make an awful lot of vanilla sugar. Just need to figure out where I'm storing it. Probably in one of my tall plastic bins: making one smell faintly of vanilla is unlikely to be a downside.

Next steps there are to let the scraped caviar sit until tomorrow so it dries out (possibly with an assist from the oven on low heat), blending it all into a small amount of sugar, and then mixing that into the full amount. The recipe I have calls for "one cup of sugar per vanilla bean". Online varies between one and two cups per bean, so that's a good starting point. Thing is, I undercounted woefully last time; I used eighty vanilla beans in the extract. These are small beans, so, sure, cut that in half. I used forty full beans to make the extract, that's twenty cups of sugar, at 200g a cup that's four kilos of vanilla sugar. That ... should tide me over for awhile. Get some pint or half-pint jars, that's much of xmas sorted.

Then I have the mostly-empty bean pods that I should do something with. I'm currently letting them air dry as well. I guess I could snip them up small and mix them into some (more) sugar.

Onward.

starwatcher posting in

fandom_checkin

This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Monday, June August 4, to midnight on Tuesday, August 5. (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #33464 Daily Check-in

Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 7

How are you doing?

I am OK.
5 (83.3%)

I am not OK, but don't need help right now.
1 (16.7%)

I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single.
4 (57.1%)

One other person.
2 (28.6%)

More than one other person.
1 (14.3%)

Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.

rogueslayer452

++ Critical Role posted official announcement the other day regarding developments for its upcoming fourth campaign, which features quite a shakeup. Among the news that Brennan Lee Mulligan will be the main DM for the campaign itself (which he further confirms in an interview), Matthew Mercer will be featured as a player at the table along with some familiar faces and newer faces as well, and that this will be a brand new world to explore.

( My further thoughts on the announcement. )

++ There is going to be a Hostel television series in development at Peacock, a bizarre choice given the subject matter of the incredibly violent and often polarizing horror franchise, however, I think if they play their cards right it could actually work.

( I have thoughts and opinions on this (caution: features one spoiler for the second movie). )

As a fan of horror, I know that not everything is going to be an easy sell for the larger broader audiences, and it's not usually a genre most want to watch on television unless it's of the right target demographic and the story and tone is interesting (see: Hannibal). It makes me wonder how they'll market this Hostel series to begin with, because even if one hasn't watched those films many know of them and their reputation.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: ATEEZ - Halazia