Here’s a recording of someone speaking in a mystery language. Can you work out which language it is?
Month: March 2007
Word of the day – pendramwnwgl
Today’s word, pendramwnwgl [pɛndram’ʊnʊgl], is the Welsh word for headlong, topsy-turvy or pell-mell. This word is made up of three parts: pen (head), dra – a mutated form of tra (beyond) and mwnwgl (instep/neck). I came across it the other day and just liked the sound of it. Related words include pendraphen (head beyond head) and wynebwaered (face descent).
Phrases on Omniglot
Today I put together a new page of useful phrases in Arabic. They all come from the multilingual pages, but I thought it would be handy to have the phrases for one language all together on one page. I know some of you have asked for this. I’ll add other languages when I have a spare moment or two.
As usually, your comments, corrections and additions are very welcome.
Fluenz
The other day I stumbled on an interesting new language course called Fluenz. At the moment it’s only available for Mandarin Chinese, but a Spanish version is planned.
The course comes on a DVD-ROM and consists about 110 hours of interactive and video instruction. An American instructor, who studied Mandarin in China, explains everything in English on the videos. There are many different exercises, a glossary, and online live support is available.
The emphasis is on teaching you to communicate in Mandarin, so everyday, immediately useful language is used, and words are all written in pinyin romanization. Also included is an audio CD containing audio exercises that compliment the DVD lessons, and a booklet with all the phrases used in English, pinyin and Chinese characters.
A free demo of the course (quite a large file) is available for download on the Fluenz website
Tourism and minority languages
The other day, I came across an article that discusses the impact of tourism and migration on minority languages, particularly on the Welsh language. While tourism brings a significant amount of money to Welsh-speaking areas, it can also have a negative impact on the language.
When relatively large numbers of non-Welsh speakers visit or move to a Welsh-speaking area, the local people often feel some pressure to speak English rather than Welsh, and English-speaking parents who move to such areas aren’t all convinced of the benefits of education through the medium of Welsh or bilingual education.
Many in-migrants to Welsh speaking areas are apparently those who have been there on holiday before and/or who have a holiday home or a caravan there. Quite a few holiday home owners move to those homes when they retire. One negative aspect of in-migration is on house prices, which tend to rise beyond the reach of the locals.
I suspect similar tensions can be found in other areas where minority languages are spoken, such as the gaeltachtaí in Ireland, parts of Scotland, Brittany and so on.
The original Welsh version of the article can be found here.
Regional variations
Last week’s language quizzes got me thinking about how the pronunciation of languages varies from region to region and country to country. When I hear someone speaking English, I can usually work out or guess which country they come from, and possibly which region. I don’t always get it right – I’m not very good at distinguishing US and Canadian accents, for example – but this is mainly due to lack of familiarity with the accents in question.
I can tell the difference between the Spanish of Spain and Latin American Spanish, but can’t pin speakers down to a particular country. The recordings I used for the quiz yesterday were all from radio stations, and I suspect that radio presenters tend to speak a fairly standard version of Spanish, which perhaps minimises the differences between the countries. If the recordings had been of ordinary people, maybe the differences would have been more noticeable. Or maybe Spanish doesn’t vary from country to country as much as English. Can anyone shed more light on this?
Can you tell where people come from by the way they speak your language?
Language quiz
Today we have recordings of a number of people from different countries speaking Spanish. Can you work out which countries they come from?
Language quiz
Here are a number of recordings of people from different countries speaking English. Can you work out which countries they come from?
The joy of phonemes
I’ve been listening to Scottish Gaelic radio all day today. I don’t understand a lot yet, though can get the gist if I concentrate. As I listen, I often repeat some of the words and phrases I’m hearing – it’s a good thing I work at home most of the time, or my colleagues might begin to doubt my sanity. I really like the sound of Scottish Gaelic and enjoy trying to speak it.
Tha mi ag èisdeachd ri Raidio nan Gaidheal fad an là an-diugh. Chan eil mi ‘tuigsinn mòran fhathast, ach tha mi a’ tuigsinn an bhrìgh ma tha mi ag èisdeachd gu cùramach. Tha còrd mòr rium Gàidhlig a’ bruidhinn.
For me, one of the joys of learning foreign languages is getting my tongue round their unfamiliar phonemes. Each language presents me with a different set of phonetic challenges, some of which are more challenging than others. At the moment, for example, I’m having fun wrestling with some pesky Czech consonant clusters.
Which languages do you most enjoy pronouncing?
Thanking you
This week I’ve been improving the thank you page in the phrases section on Omniglot. I’ve added replies like ‘you’re welcome’ and the equivalents in as many languages as possible. Could you check the new phrases and maybe fill in some of the gaps?
The use of the phrase ‘thank you’ and related phrases varies quite a lot between cultures. In the UK, for example, we tend to use this phrase frequently, however in Scandinavian countries, I understand that it’s used less frequently. What about in your culture?
If you feel inspired, maybe you could even put together an article on this for my language-related articles section, like this one.