The Dink Network

Just wondering: who still celebrates Sinterklaas? And perhaps still believes in him?

For those who don't know who Sinterklaas is: It's an old legend, and a festival. Once there lived a very rich man in Spain who rescued three children who were butchered by a butcher and cut into little pieces. Sinterklaas put the pieces back together and the children were alive again.

It's a party on december 5th. Little children believe he's real and put their shoe in the month of november in front of the fireplace. They put a bit of hay and a carrot in the shoe and during the night Zwarte Piet (Black Pete; the aid of Sinterklaas) climbs down the chimney and replaces the hay and carrot with a present. The hay and carrot are for Sinterklaas's horse, which is white and can ride on the roofs.

And on december 5th you get presents that come with a poem and the presents are 'disguised' into something else. So if you love fishing, you'll get a huge fish made out of paper or something like that and somewhere inside the fish is the actual present. And the poems have to be read out loud.
And you have to sing all kind of songs, also in front of the fireplace. And then you hear a loud knock on the door, and you see a hand that throws hands full of sweets into the chamber, and when the door is opened, a big sack can be seen and the sack is filled with presents. And Zwarte Piet, who has put the sack there, is gone...

If you don't believe anymore in Sinterklaas, you can still give and get presents/surprises and poems, or you can just eat a lot of 'speculaas', 'marsepein' and other sweets. And when you don't believe in Sinterklaas anymore, you'll know that the big sack of presents was put there by the neighbour, and not by Zwarte Piet.

Childeren also make wishlists and when they don't get want they want, they blame Sinterklaas - which is very convinient for their parents!
And if children have been bad, they risk to be taken by Zwarte Piet in a big sack, back to Spain.
No one ever explains what you should do in Spain, though... I think it's kinda nice to be taken to Spain in winter (nice weather and such), but no child ever wants to go.

BTW: Sinterklaas was actually a bishop who lived in southwest Turkey in the 4th century in the town Myra. I visited Myra some time ago and there is actually a church: the Sint Nicolaas church. There not much of left of it, though. Sint Nicolaas is the 'other' name of Sinterklaas. After his death he became a patron saint of children, sailors, single women and merchants, since he helped all those when he was still alive.

I had never heard of it before... but it does have vague similarities to Christmas (gift-giving, offer of food, beasts of burder that land on rooftops, guy crawling down chimmney, etc)

Perhaps this is another amalgamation of local beliefs and Christianity... Santa Claws (intentional ). After all Christ wasn't really born on Dec the 25th was he.

But my memory is going...

It's not that suprising you haven't heard of it, because they only celebrate it in the Netherlands and in Belgium (though the most here in the Netherlands - or so some websites say ) In the other countries, it became Santa Claus. Some other countries do have some sort of Saint Nicholas but it's not like Sinterklaas here, heh

Sinterklaas site, info & links

Lol, never thought of seeing this as a topic

I always got some very nice presents from Sinterklaas. I think we do celebrate it widely here in Belgium and I don't think it's that much more in the Netherlands. Although, lately it's become less popular since people are already looking forward to Christmas.

For a nice English site check out this one.

Me and some "homies" are planning a Sinterklaas party..which is basicly an excuse to get druk as hell and give cool presents.

I've heard of it... a long time ago it was... nobody celebrates it here in England (as far as I know). Not to any great degree at least...
But more days whrere you get presents is A-OK with me!

Sinterklaas rules!! And by the way, everybody in belgium gets gifts I remember when I was a kid, everybody of my school got gifts. and Then he came over Really nice. I remember I always wanted to go to sleep early, so i could wake up early and the presents would be there.... That was really fun

In the other countries, it became Santa Claus.

WRONG!

In countries where people speak english, it became Santa Claus. There, and there only. None of the nordic countries call Santa Claus... Santa Claus.

Ah, ok. Yet may I add that the American and British Santa Claus derives from it as it is a degeneration of the Dutch word Sinterklaas. So..

I'm not sure actually, as I remember hearing (this was ages ago, so my mind may have warped this statement...) that Santa Claus comes from St Nicholas. He... gave presents?
Santa Claus - Sa(i)nt Nik-o-laus
Can all tie in rather well, can't it?

Saint Nikolaas = Sinterklaas

Its Santa Claws, not Santa Claus. Jeez, you weird europeans...

Was that a joke?

Sint === saint
nicolaas === Niklaas ==> sint + niklaas = sinterklaas
sinter -> santa klaas -> claus
It's simple very simple. And if europeans would be weird, then I'm weird... I don't wanna think any further about that!

Heh, you Americans have to make everything violent. Why Claws (horrible scratchy things) instead of Claus?

You have quite a love of violence don't you?

actually, christmas is an attempt to get rid of things like that. no one really knows when the christian's savior was born or crucified, but the church made them happen to be celebrated when other holidays were. ie easter is a pagan god for sex... christmas is whatever the hell people used to celebrate about santa claus... and isnt the christmas tree some form of druid decoration? it is an attempt to get people to stop celebrating the other holidays and be converted into the one faith. its a nice research topic.

Christmas trees originated in Germany during the 1800's, well after christianity was established. Christmas was celebrated on the same time as some popular pagan festival. Saint Nicolaus wasn't around before christmas. Although If I am correct, the american idea of christmas with presents and so forth is celebrated on Dec. 5 and is called St. Nicolaus Day(or sinterklaas I would assume).

Actually, they originated during the 700's, as a way to try to get German druids to convert.

Hmm, I guess I must've read from some bad sources. Perhaps it was during the 1800's that the tradition migrated toward the US.

If I remember correctly also, there was an "evil" santa in Germany called Knecht Ruprecht.
-I had the feeling of deja vu about this post.

evil santa????? sign me up! i want some grenades and strippers in my stocking this year.

Hmm... if the evil santa was truly evil, the grenades would blow up as soon as you pulled the pin, and the strippers would probably be over seventy years old, overweight, and having every STD known to man.

He doesn't give you things, he whips you for being a bad boy. Don't expect it to be like one of the sexual fantasy type of beatings either.

Don't expect it to be like one of the sexual fantasy type of beatings either.

The newfangled pseudo-goth allikitten would be severely disappointed

**Merlin rings the omish bell to alert all!

blah, goth. they act like they invented bondage.

Why thank you.

Um. Pseudo-goth? I'm the one who thinks goths are a fairy tale...

And you're just sad that I'm not there to deliver such a beating.

Most religious scholars say it was spring when Christ was born and others say a little different times but everybody seems to agree that wasn't the middle of winter.

If it was important in God's scheme of things He probably would have told us but since he didn't.......cie le vie. (Dutch proverb in french probably spelled badly- "live and let live")

The druids believed that gods lived in nature such as trees, rocks,etc so when the monks were trying to get their parishoners to stop celebrating heathen occassions, they incorporated the tree into a christian holiday. The idea was to 'wean' them away gradually because the peasants wanted both christianity and other beliefs. Same thing ( different aspects) happened with other celebratory occassions.
Except for the Easter part, Josh is right. Wellll, I could be wrong about Easter. I've not read about that being connected in some way with paganism before. So maybe Josh can tell us about it.

Looking at your French proverb, you probably mean "c'est la vie", meaning "That's life".

Edit: "Live and let live" in French is "Vivre et laisser vivre".

And oh yeah--- Great topic, Binirit. Also redink's "claws" was a joke. I thought it was humorous.

Wonderful, thanks Simeon. I knew it was wrong but I'm too lazy too look it up this morn.

But isn't it actually a dutch proverb?

'Live and let live' in dutch would be spelled How??

Yeah, it's a Dutch proverb.

"Leven en laten leven" - "Live and let live"

The meaning of it is; live your life and let others live their lives.

Yikes! I'll stay with the shortened french version.

The meaning of it is; live your life and let others live their lives.

Exactly.

Actually, the French version of "Live and let live" is longer:

"Leven en laten leven" (17 characters)
"Vivre et laisser vivre" (19 characters)

And, "That's life" (which is the short "c'est la vie") and "Live and let live" are two different proverbs

Yes that's true but when the americans copied the french "c'est la vie" we mean it in the 'Live and let live' frame. That's just the general population, There are lots of us that know the correct meaning but we go with the flow for the most part. Unfortunately, I'm not one of the language-educated ones. But now I know. So are you into languages, Simeon?

To avoid sounding IM-conversation-like here on the board; I'm kinda into languages because of the fact that I've done Greek and Latin for years (and I'm still doing Latin now). And languages like French, English, Dutch and such come from Latin and Greek. Though I'm just interested in quotes and proverbs anyway, heh.

Edit: I most likely won't do anything with languages (in college/university) in the future though.

Leven en laten leven. Vivre et laisser vivre.
C'est la vie.
and all the rest of it.
Hate to leave but gotta go play catch-up at work. Nice conversation. Bye

And also "to avoid sounding IM-conversation-like here on the board", buy may I suggest, Simeon, that you take an optional etymology course in university. I won't get into details, but it's really interesting and I think you might enjoy it.

Hmmm, that did sound PM-ish. Uh, one month, two days til Christmas!

Jeez Simeon, desertgrl, neithskye... you're all banned!

In all seriousness, it isn't like the board is presently overwhelmingly active and such 'PM-like' discussions are distracting, so don't fear to continue.

Technically, isn't English a Germanic Language? It has great influence by Latin and Greek, but I believe it is german at its structural bones.
(Completely Unrelated)One thing that always puzzled me was that why didn't the Byzantines put Russian into the Greek Alphabet rather than making an entire new one.

Do you really want to know? Ah, here it goes:

Back in the --Whenever-- (800's?) The Celts were a thriving race. Yep. A thriving race (who used Sanskrit as an alphabet, by the way) until the Romans came. They brought Christianity, which didn't mix very well with the Celt's Pagan Ways [For more information on this, you may enjoy the story "Beowulf".] But anyway, that's another story (maybe even literally).

So, three-hundred years after the Romans leave, the Angles and the Saxons came to Britain (Germany, Norway, and I believe France). They take over, (And during the heraldic times when French becomes the main language of the nobility, Geoffrey Chaucer comes along to change that, but that's off track again.) and after some-hundred years, the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons are just starting to blend.

Well, guess who shows up! The Danish Vikings! They ruin everything. They fence the Celts off (where the Celts are in Scotland and Wales, and the Anglo-Saxons were in England). The Vikings start picking off the weaker race: the Celts. If I remember correctly (which I probably don't), this is the time where Queen Bodiccea comes to power, again another story.

Then everything goes from there. The Vikings withdrew from England after some odd incident in Denmark; All three races, though not so much the Celts as their influence has spread to the Anglo-Saxons and they've pretty much died off, have makeshiftedly combined to form what is now Great Britain (minus Ireland).

Therefore, the English language is made up of German(hence called Germanic), French (IIRC), Norweigan, Danish, Celtic, and Greek (from the Romans). There ya go!

--

Now on a related note to the completely unrelated.

While I can confirm that the above is accurate, I'm not so sure of the below (except the Greek Language part involving the Iliad).

--

Well, the Byzantine language was technically derived from the Phoenicians. The Greeks essentially fabricated their own language, and then decided they needed their own written language; somewhere around 800 BC they adopted the alphabetic symbols from the Phoenicians, and then applied their own sounds to them. In fact, the English word "alphabet" is derived from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet - alpha and beta. So, essentially, since I seriously doubt this forum can handle Greek display, I'll attempt to show you something with Latin (NOT easy):

Mnviv aeide tea |-|nlniadw aXilnoc oulouevnv n'mupi aXaioic alye' etnke.

Just in case:

Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί᾿ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾿ ἔθηκε.

Which essentially means:

Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.

The First line from the Iliad, isn't that neat? Anyway, I'm off-track.

Now, through the stages from Mycenaen Greek to Hellenistic Greek (aka koine greek), the next stage is Byzantine Greek.

Now, the Byzantines picked Greek instead of Cyrillic (The Russian alphabet) for one main reason: it was the main language of the time. Cyrillic was virtually non-existant except for in scattered parts across Eastern Europe and Northern Asia (When the Mongols had control of Russia). So, there you go.

Keep in mind that the Byzantines helped essentially revive the Greek language and carry it forward to evolve into Modern Greek, spoken today, mainly in Greece and Cyprus.

So:

Ancient Greek (14th - 4th century BC)
--Mycenaean Greek (14th - 12th century BC)
--Archaic (Classical) Greek (8th - 4th century BC)

Hellenistic Greek (4th century BC - 4th century AD)

Byzantine Greek (5th - 15th century AD)

Modern Greek

So, the question is, why use an unused alphabet for a language of a culture instead of a widespread one? Just look at Latin...

--

Anyway, nice little history lesson there. Oh, and I *do* brush up on Greek skills once in a while.

EDIT: Now who in the right mind would even edit a post like this?

I would like to know where the Phoenicians got their alphabet from, but I assume it's something like the Japanese route:


"[The Japanese Language] consist of many letters, all of which look completely different and bear absolutely no resemblance to each other whatsoever. Hiragana were devloped by having a bunch of completely blind, deaf, and dumb Japanese people scribble things on pieces of paper while having no idea why they were doing so. The resulting designs were then called 'hiragana'. The prince who invented these characters, Yorimushi("stinking monkey-bush-donkey") was promptly bludgeoned to death."

c'est la vie mon amie

what i know about easter is that easter is the name of the sex god. the bunnies are a symbol because bunnies have tons of sex or something. actually they just give birth really really fast and breed like goblins. so thats that.

and what do you mean by goth being a fairy tale? goth only started maybe 25 years ago.

That's not true. *TRUE* gothic ways started back in the 1800's.

What about the visigoths? They invaded the Roman empire over a thousand years ago.

Does nobody like my post, or does nobody care? Just curious...

What post? About.. about what? ...who am I replying to? What the heck?

I mean that pretty much anybody you see now wearing "gothic" clothes got them at Hot Topic and isn't really "goth"... real "goths" with the depression and disgust for life and whatnot don't really seem to be around anymore. All there is is poseur-goth that dresses like "goth" (which I have nothing against, it's a neat style).