Word: dialectical
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...Written with a mix of phonetic Hokkien dialect and English, Shiga creates a fascinating and little-seen world. In both content and artwork Shiga emulates the style of Lat, a cartoonist with a Charles Shultz-level reputation in South East Asia. Having only started cartooning in 1995, Shiga has an extremely simple, cute and doodley drawing style. But watch out. With the kind of reversal that you later appreciate as a Shiga trademark, two thirds of the way through "Double Happiness" Tom takes an absurdly cruel beating at the hands of some thugs who seem to think he knows something...
...more unusual phenomenon: a group of roaming laborers who spend half the year painting houses around the country and then return in winter to a self-contained, anachronistic universe. The Travelers arrange their children's marriages and, in front of "country people" (non-Travelers), speak a Gaelic-English dialect called "cant." ("Misli shayjo!" means "Go away, the police are here!") Some have traces of Irish accents, though their ancestors arrived in the U.S. 150 years ago. Says Michael McDonagh, one of the 30,000 Travelers still in Ireland, who has worked with hisU.S. counterparts: "Their sense of tradition is stronger...
...fewer than Bali's Denpasar airport handles on a busy day). Eight volcanoes grumble and belch sulfurous steam along the island's twisted, 360-kilometer spine. Most of them have erupted in the past century or two. The surrounding seabed is crosshatched with fault lines. Maumere, in the local dialect, means "big sea," suggesting the recent tsunami wasn't the first. It doesn't help that the noisy bemos?gaudily painted minibuses that zip around the snaking roads?are emblazoned with biblical names like Golgotha, Revelation and Beelzebub. They add to the sense of impending doom...
...begin to understand how this implosion came to pass, it is necessary to learn another language. Church officials have responded to Shanley in the dialect of the Roman Catholic bureaucracy--which is fluent in the language of forgiveness and secrecy. "I am sure that all the legal activity will add to your stress," wrote one of Law's top officials to Shanley. "I will do all I can to make sure that you are cared for and supported." But it is also necessary to understand the unique allure of Shanley...
...friend in Edinburgh, I had arranged to stay at the home of Anna and Lowrie Simpson, native Shetlanders. When people on the isles discuss someone's origins, they say, "He's Shetland," conveying the sense that being from the place means one is the place. Shetlanders have their own dialect, a musical tongue that rises and swells with lots of rolled Rs, which they switch off with ease to accommodate incomers. But even when speaking in their most neutral English, they weave in words such as peerie (little), bonny (pretty) and muckle (large). And you had better know the expression...