Talk:Arg-é Bam

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[edit] Copyright status?

The end of the article states:

This is a translation by A.R. Mamdoohi of the article "Bam-Citadelo", originally written in Esperanto language by Asad Mahbub, first appeared in Irana Esperantisto (Iranian Esperantist), No. 4, Year 2, Summer 2003, 40 p., pp.5-7.

I'm just wondering whether this is therefore a copyright violation, or whether A.R.Mamoohi placed the article in the public domain or allowed it to be licensed under the GFDL? --snoyes 14:53, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I suspect Mr Mahbub's permission (or waiver) would also be required, as the english translation is a derivative work of his Esperanto original. I do hope we can work this out, as it's a great article and a subject where the wikipedia is otherwise rather weak. -- Finlay McWalter 08:50, 30 Dec 2003 (PST)

[edit] Sezonan?

What does sezonan mean? Seaches reveal nothing. — dino

Dear dino,I am sorry that I had forgotten to translate "4-sezonan" into English in the article Bam Citadel. As I wrote briefly in the beginning of my message above, sezono is a noun in Esperanto, because all nouns in this planned language have the ending -o after the word-root, meaning "season", and sezona is an adjective, because all adjectives have the ending -a after the word-root, meaning "seasonal" (for each season) . The ending -n shows that the word is an object in the sentence, i.e. accusative. Four-seasonal house, is a house with a squared plan and with a squared internal court in the center. This kind of buildings supply four different rooms on each side of the square. Each of these rooms provide a pleasant weather in part of the year, because they are oriented differently relative to sun and wind direction(s). -- A.R. Mamdoohi, 2 Jan. 2004.

[edit] Regarding copyright and the article's origin

"A Seagull never speaks back to the Council Flock, but it was Jonathan's voice raised. 'Irresponsibility? My brothers!' he cried. 'Who is more responsible than a gull who finds and follows a meaning, a higher purpose for life? For a thousand years we have scrabbled after fish heads, but now we have a reason to live - to learn, to discover, to be free! Give me one chance, let me show you what I've found ...'"
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach, New York: Avon Books, First printing Jan. 1973, 128 pp., pp. 39-40.

Dear Colleagues

I am a member of the writing board of Irana Esperantisto a seasonal (in the meaning of "quarterly", by the way, and FAO dino i.e. sezona = a quarterly, so 4-sezona means for all 4 seasons. Please see below for more clarifications) magazine in Esperanto and Persian. It is a cultural and independent magazine printed in Tehran and distributed internationally.

One of the main policies of this magazine, as outlined in an article, in its No. 5, Year 2, Autumn 2003, pp. 8-9, called Sekvi la Majstron Interrete (Following the Master in the Internet), is to distribute Esperanto materials in the internet for free, because the Master, i.e. Dr. L.L. Zamenhof (1859-1917), did the same for his life achievement, namely Esperanto language, and dedicated it to the humanity, not reserving any material benefit from it for himself - when he could not afford to travel to Universal Congress of Esperanto, where Esperantists gathered to triumph the victory of his invented language. We believe, this way, the Esperanto movement - an international endeavor to make Esperanto the International Language of the whole world - will prosper much faster. With this article we aimed to campaign for such an explosion of Esperanto materials in the net.

As a matter of fact, I have already translated and put in the Wikipedia another article originally written in Esperanto (by myself), which first had appeared in Irana Esperantisto. Also at the end of that article I put a similar note about its original language and source. It is about Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

So, as all my colleagues in Irana Esperantisto, agree(d), we have/will put its articles in Vikipedio (Esperanto version of Wikipedia, which is in the top ten among the world's Wikipedias) and let anybody to translate them in any language for different versions of Wikipedia. We only hope, that a note like what I have/had put at the end of Bam Citadel or Mohsen Makhmalbaf articles, i.e. about their original language and source, can be retained in its Wikipedia versions for ever. The reason behind it, is to show in reality to the readers/public one of the main roles Esperanto can - and as you have seen about Bam Citadel article, it has already could - play in the world to build an international cultural bank in shortest time, by least expensive way, and easiest-to-do method: everybody in each part of the world can learn Esperanto - the easiest language of the world, (I will explain the reasons for its easiness below in a nutshell) - and translate his/her national language masterpieces into Esperanto. Such a translation will be the best one, because:

1- It has been done directly from the source language (its not a secondhand, third hand, ... translation, as it usually occurs in other cases),
2- It has been done by a native speaker of the original language,
3- The translation language, Esperanto, enjoys the highest flexibility, so it can reproduce the original text with the most possible fidelity. (In Esperanto, you can use each of all six possible ways of putting together the main elements of each sentence, i.e. Subject Object Verb: SOV, SVO, OVS, OSV, VOS, VSO.)
4- Esperanto has the largest amount of words, relative to all other languages, so the translation will be the most precise one
5- If its about a poem, the translation will be a poem too, as Esperanto is very poetical language.

The above mentioned facts, are also said by William Auld (1924-) a nominee for Nobel literature prize for 1999 and 2000, in his different writings. He has written/translated some 50 books in Esperanto in the last 50 years, including his La Infana Raso, an original epic, which has been compared with the T.S. Eliot's Waste Land by another genius poet/writer in Esperanto world, prof. Gaston Waringhien (1901-1991). Waringhien, i.a. has translated more than 200 robaees of Omar Khayyam (c. 1054-c. 1122) from their original Persian into Esperanto poems. It is said that his translation of Khayyam's works is the best one among all numerous translations which has been done throughout the world into numerous languages. Having compared the Esperanto translation with the original Persian (my mother tongue), and its English version, translated by Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883), which is a masterpiece in English literature, I personally can confirm that the Esperanto translation is much nearer to the original without any doubts.

This way, by translating all world's works of art into Esperanto, after some time, anybody who likes to have an access to the world cultural heritage, can achieve it only by learning one language - which is the easiest-one-to-learn too. The same thing can happen also for news, sciences, technology, art, .... Imagine, for example, by learning a single easy language you could understand all movies of the world, all satellite TVs, websites, ...!

Yes imagine wherever you go, to China, Japan, Turkey, Africa ... you will be able to communicate with all people over there. Imagination is very important for prosperity and progress; its the first step, the first necessary step!. Rumi in one of his most beautiful and deep gazals (sonnets) - which I could translate into Esperanto (it appeared in Irana Esperantisto and the Vikipedio) with as much fidelity, as I could, because of the above mentioned flexibility and word-power Esperanto offered me - says:

Penso via iras ien, poste tiras vin al tie
penson advancu, kaj sorteske, antauighu antauighu

I cited here its Esperanto translation, hoping that an Esperantist who's mother tongue is English, and is good at English poem, give a proper translation of it in English. Till then, please accept my word-by-word and erroneous translation:

(first) Your thought (imagination) goes some where, then it will take you there
Advance thought, and like destiny (fate), become ahead-wise (future-wise, future-directed) become ahead-wise.

Why only Rumi


Why among all Persian poets, only Rumi is so popular in the world (and only his poems were bestseller in the USA)? May be because of some chances and probabilities: Reynold A. Nicholson (1868-1954) got familiar with him and translated Rumi's works into English, and A.J. Arberry (1905-1969) continued his work, and, for example, as the last paragraph of the unfinished introduction of the Nicholson's last book on Rumi, called Rumi, Poet and Mystic 1207-1273 (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1973 (6th impression), first published 1950, 190 pp., pp. 25-6), Arberry added:

"In Rumi the Persian mystical genius found its supreme expression. Viewing the vast landscape of Sufi poetry, we see him standing out as a sublime mountain-peak; the many other poets before and after him are but foot-hills in comparison. The influence of his example, his thought and his language is powerfully felt through all the succeeding centuries; every Sufi after him capable of reading Persian has acknowledged his unchallenged leadership. To the West, now slowly realizing the magnitude of his genius, thanks in greatest measure to the work of that fine scholar whose last writings are contained in these pages, he is fully able to prove a source of inspiration and delight not surpassed by any other poet in the world's literature."

(A very good prediction in 1950!) I do really get exalted reading such writings from great men like Nicholson and Arberry who are from other countries/cultures about Rumi, with whom I share same language, culture, civilization, ... and, I heartedly appreciate the work Nicholson has done, again just as an example, on Rumi's Masnavi which includes - apart from the complete translation of its all 6 volumes - interpretation and notes of/on all of Rumi's Masnavi "Written half a century before Dante's (1265-1321) Divine Comedy, and having a double number of pages than it" (Dr. Zarrinkoob, Jostojoo dar Tasavvofe Iran, Exploration on Iranian Sufism (Mysticism), Tehran: Amir-Kabir, 1984, 2nd ed., 1st ed. 1978, 445 pp., p.273 ). However I really wonder, if sometime , e.g. the poems of Hafez (Hafiz) become translated into English and some scholar, like Nicholson create an interpretation for them in English, how would it be welcomed by the English-speaking world. FYI, The works of Rumi, specially his gazals and Masnavi are found in most houses of Iranians, but Hafez is found in house of almost all Iranians, and in most cases more than one edition (I have maybe 7 different editions at home). I do not mention here about other great Persian poets like Sadi (1184-1281), Ferdowsi (940?-1020?), Nezami (1072-1202), Attar (1119-1229?), ...

For example Rumi himself told us about Attar in a poem:

Attar transpasis jam la urbsepon de la am'
Ni ankorau mezirantas aleeton l' unuan.
Attar has already passed through the seven cities of the love
(but) We are still in the middle of the first alley (of the 1st city of the love)

And at the end, I want to tell something about the beginning of this writing: I mean about the quotation from Bach's Jonathan. It is from a book I read when I was a student of architecture: a well-read and diligent friend of mine at the faculty, Seyyed Mohammad Mohit, having read it, told me then: "Its a Manteg-ot-teyr", the masterpiece of Attar. Again I am sure there are lots and lots of jewels in English literature; why we - who's mother tongue is not English - do not have an easy access to them via Esperanto translations done by native speakers of English? In my country - I believe like most countries of the world - only a very small number of people can learn English so that to be able to read Bach's books - and that would not be an easy reading for them. I think I belong to that small number, because by some chances, probabilities, coincidences, ... I had the opportunity to live in an English speaking country for four years, however you can easily realize that even my English is not a correct one and I certainly can not read ... Shakespeare in English - and to be honest with you, it is very difficult and time-consuming for me to write in English, as I have to check and recheck the spellings, word-elections (to express the right meanings), grammar, .... But When I write in Esperanto, its as if I am going downward a hill, you may not believe me, but I am totally sure that it is even easier for me to write in Esperanto than in my mother tongue Persian! The simplest reason could be that the Esperanto alphabet, despite that of Persian and English, is phonetic, so I never need to look in the Esperanto dictionary for spelling and pronunciation of the words.

I did not intend to write so long. But now when I have, I would really appreciate if you could advise me where I could put this material to have a vaster feedback from the users of Wikipedia. I have not settled down in the Wikipedia yet. Actually Wikipedians are most "vulnerable" people to become Esperantist. Because they have an international, intercultural attitude/knowledge. FYI, there will be a comprehensive article about Wikipedia, and specially Vikipedio in an international magazine, called Esperanto. It has readers in 115 countries of the world and is the official organ of Universal Esperanto-Association, which has officials relations with UN and UNESCO. Also in Irana Esperantisto we had some news about Vikipedio, and probably will have more comprehensive material on it too in the near future.

A.R. Mamdoohi, 2 Jan. 2004.

[edit] Changes

I've moved the Philology and Bam City stuff to the Bam article, where I think it more logically belongs. -- Finlay McWalter 13:37, 4 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "Stay awake" towers?

stay-awake towers is a very odd expression in english, and one for which google returns no hits at all (other than this page). So I suspect there is a more common idiom for them. Unless anyone objects, I'll shortly change them to "watch towers". -- Finlay McWalter 13:37, 4 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Arge Bam - The BAM Citadel - Movie Documentary

Outside the crenellated walls, like most medieval fortresses, there is a wide moat and the area within the walls is over 200,000sq. meters, the outer walls are 8 meters high and five meters thick (at the base ) and the complex consists of five main parts: 1. The gatehouse, the bazaar the living quarter of the general populace, the mosque and little workshops. 2. The stables and houses of stablemen attending the horses, mules etc. 3. An artillery yard within a quadrangular double story building and a water well. 4. Living mansions, slightly superior to the earlier houses, presumably accommodating the trusted military and civil staff of the ruler and the main prison of the citadel . 5. Residence and headquarter of the ruler, known as chahar fasl (four seasons), hammam, a deep well and a watch tower.

As one enters the gatehouse at the south, one walks up a slightly sloped stone paved pathway through the old bazaar, from where a maze of twisting lanes lead to the remains of dwelling places, mosque, carvanserai and military barracks.One can proceed farther up steep and narrow stairways to the pinnacle of the fortress and eventually reach the strongly fortified headquarter of the ruler.

From the vantage position in the highest watchtower within the rulers precinct one can enjoy a panoramic view of the evergreen palm and citrus groves of Bam as well as the entire complex. One could have imagined that once upon a time there has been thriving hustle and jostle of people in the bazaar, toing and froing in the public lanes, prostration of worshippers in the mosque, the stampede of the cavalry, the ever present multifarious display of man's greed and folly in the bazaar, dismounting of merchandise in the carvanserai, rapturous wooing of the young and the ever - vigilant guards walking up and down the raised platforms, behind the all but impregnable walls of Arg bam.

On December 26, 2003, the Citadel was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake, along with much of the rest of Bam and its environs. 50,000 people died. A few days after the earthquake, UNESCO announced that the Citadel would be rebuilt. Hereby we dedicate the movie documentary of Arge Bam to you. The recnet tragic earthquake in Bam-Iran destroyed the ancient structure of Arge Bam This video shows the glory of this amazing structure before its destruction.

[http://www.iraninfo.dk/component/option,com_content/task,view/id,75/Itemid,84/ Arge Bam - The Bam Citadel - Movie Documentary ] Runtime: 35 minutes Type: Documentary / cultural

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