Puzzle

Can anyone decipher the inscription below?

Inscription on sword

It appears on a British sword from the 18th century which was used in Persia. The owner of the sword believes that the inscription is in some form of Persian and that it’s a prayer or a message.

Cuirrey kiaull

Riyr hie mee dys cuirrey kiaull feer vie lesh kiaullane as corys yn ollooscoill. Ennym y cuirrey kiaull va ‘1884’ er yn oyr dy row y kiaull veih ny bleeaney 1880, as hug yn ollooscoill er bun ‘sy vlein 1884, as myr shen ta’n ollooscoill jannoo ardeailley jeh’n 125 bleeaney echey mleeaney.

Cyngerdd

Neithiwr es i i gyngerdd wych gan cerddorfa a chôr y prifysgol. Enw y gyngerdd roedd ‘1884’ oherwydd roedd y gerddoriaeth o’r blynyddoedd 1880, ac mi sefydlwyd y prifysgol ym 1884, ac felly mae’r prifysgol yn dathlu ei ganmlwyddiant a chwarter eleni.

Ceolchoirm

Aréír chuaigh mé chuig ceolchoirm go hiontach leis ceolfhoireann agus cór na hollscoile. Ainm an cheolchoirm bhí ‘1884’ mar gheall ar go raibh an ceol óna blianta 1880, agus bhunaigh an ollscoil sa bhliain 1884, agus mar sin tá an ollscoil ag ceiliúradh a comóradh 125 bliain i mbliana.

Jerrey shiaghtin

Y jerrey shiaghtin shoh chaie va mee feer tarroogh – fastyr Jesarn hie mee dys keirdlann Kiaulleeaght ny h-Agglish ‘syn ollooscoill lesh y possan chiaullee Opus Anglicanum. Ren mee gynsaghey lhaih noteyraght Gregoiragh, as canteyraghtyn ass y Ladjyn, y Ghreagish as y Vaarle, as v’eh feer hymoil as taitnyssagh dy jarroo.

Oie Jesarn hie mee dys cuirrey kiaull lesh Opus Anglicanum, as ghow y sleih va ec y keirdlann cubbyl dy chanteyraghtyn ‘syn cuirrey kiaull. Va yn oie yindyssagh.

Fastyr Jedoonee hie mee dys cooish ayns Menai Bridge lesh y possan chiaullee ynnydoil Banda Bacana, as by vooar yn spoyrt eh.

Penwythnos

Y penwythnos diwethaf ro’n i’n brysur iawn – prynhawn Sadwrn es i i weithdy siant (llafarganu) Eorgaidd yn y prifysgol efo’r grŵp Opus Anglicanum. Mi ddysgais i ddarllen nodiant Georgaidd, a chaneuon Lladin, Groeg a Saesneg, a roedd yn ddiddorol a mwynhaol iawn.

Nos Sadwrn es i i gyngerdd Opus Anglicanum, ac mi ganodd y bobl a oedd yn y gweithdy dau gân yn y gyngerdd. Roedd y noson yn ardderchog.

Prynhawn Sul es i barti ym Mhorthaethwy efo’r grŵp lleol Banda Bacana, ac roedd yn wych.

Word of the day – gwrthryfel

The Welsh word gwrthryfel means rebellion or mutiny. I heard it while listening to a programme on Radio Cyrmru about the The Chartists. I worked out what it meant from its roots: gwrth (against) and rhyfel (war), and this got me thinking about how Welsh words like this are easier to understand than their English equivalents as they’re made up of Welsh roots rather than borrowing from Latin, Greek or other languages.

Then I thought that maybe the English word rebel has the same structure as the Welsh word -I knew that the bel part had something to do with war in Latin and guessed that re meant against. I checked this and found that it comes from the Latin rebellare, to rebel, wage war against, which is made up of re (opposite, against), and bellare (to wage war), which comes from from bellum (war).

Knowing Latin certainly can help you understand the etymology of many English words, and knowing Welsh can also be useful in unexpected ways.

Canis mea studia domestica devoravit

There are plans to introduce Latin lessons to more than 60 UK primary schools, according to this report. The initiative, which started with a small number of schools in Cambridgeshire and was taken up with enthusiasm by both pupils and teachers, is designed to introduce the children to language learning, language structures, links between languages and cultures, and also history.

A number of organisations are keen for language study to be compulsory for all pupils between 7 and 11 by 2011, and they think that pupils should have opportunities to learn a range for languages, such as French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Punjabi and Latin, and that they should concentrate on one or two of these. Learning Latin helps you understand such things as word order, verb conjugations, agreement and gender, they believe.

The title of this post means ‘the dog ate my homework’, by the way.

Language evolution

Some interesting experiments on language evolution are being undertaken in the University of Edinburgh’s Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit, and one thing they’ve found is that some aspects of language can develop in an afternoon.

They believe that language evolves culturally through being learned and used by people. They have demonstrated aspects of this process with computer simulations and with an experiment with real people. For the experiment they used pictures of alien fruit with names in a made up language which the participants were asked to memorise. They were then tested on what they could remember and their answers were used with the second group of participants, and so on.

The first participants found it very difficult to learn and remember the words, but with each subsequent ‘generation’ it became easier to learn them and they developed regularities in their structure, and eventually the participants were able to understand words they’d never seen before.

The researchers believe that many aspects of languages can arise through the evolutionary process of cultural transmission and do not need to be genetically encoded – the brain provides scaffolding for language but not necessarily all the specific details.

Jinnair Frangagh

Riyr hie mee dys y thie bee ‘The Old Boathouse‘ ayns Anglesey lesh y possan coloayrtys Frangagh er son oie Frangagh. Va jinnair mie ain, ren shin keishtaghan mychione baatyn as abbyrtys shiaulteyragh, as va taitnys vooar oc. Va yn emshir fliugh as geayeeagh agglagh, agh t’eh braew jiu.

Cinio Ffrengig

Neithiwr es i i dŷ bwyta ‘The Old Boathouse‘ yn Nhraeth Coch ar Ynys Môn efo’r grŵp sgwrs Ffrengig am nos Ffrengig. Roedd y cinio yn dda, mi wnaethon ni cwis am cychod a phethau morwol, ac mi fwynheuon ni ein hunain yn fawr. Roedd y tywydd yn ofnadwy o wlyb a gwyntog, ond mae’n braf heddiw.

Dinnéar Fraincise

Aréir chuaigh mé chuig an bialann ‘The Old Boathouse‘ i Anglesey leis an grúpa comhrá Fraincise ar oíche Fraincise. Bhí dinnéar maith againn, rinne muid ceistiúchán ar báid agus cúrsaí mhuirí, agus bhain muid an-sult as an oíche. Bhí gaoth agus báisteach mhór ann, ach tá lá breá ann inniu.

Word of the day – lakh

Today’s word, lakh, appears in the description of a online Gujarati dictionary. It means 100,000 and is used in the English of India and in other languages spoken in Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Burma and Pakistan. Lakh comes from the Hindi लाख (lākh), which itself comes from the Sanskrit लक्ष (lakṣá).

A related word is crore (करोड़ in Hindi), which means 100 lakh, or 10 million, is often abbreviated to cr, and appears in the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?Kaun Banega Crorepati? (Who will be a ten-millionaire?).

The Gujarati equivalents of lakh and crore are લાખ (lākh) and કરોડ (karoḍ).

The new dictionary looks really useful, by the way, with monolingual (Gujarati-Gujarati), and bilingual (Gujarati<>English) options, as well as a thesaurus (બંધિયાર સ્થળો), phrases (તાળો), idioms (ચુડેલનો વાંસો), proverbs (સુખનું મૂળ સંતોષ), a spellchecker and other tools and information.