Reading aloud

I heard an interesting programme on BBC Radio 4 yesterday about reading aloud. It discussed how people studied the skill of reading aloud during the 18th century, including how to stand, how to hold your head, and what to do with your hands and face. There were manuals which taught people how to read aloud in the style of admired readers of the time. The presenter also talked to people how regularly read aloud to their children and/or to each other, and they said that it’s a skill that comes with practice.

Do you read aloud to yourself and/or to others? If you do, what kind of things do you read?

If you enjoy reading aloud in your own language, or in other languages, maybe you could share some examples with visitors to Omniglot.

When reading books and other material in foreign languages I often read aloud. I find it helps me understand what I’m reading and to work out which words go together and how they’re related. It is also a good way to practise your pronunciation. It’s better if you have a native speaker to help, or an audiobook to listen to, but even without these aids, it’s still a useful thing to do. If I’m reading a story I might try to give each character a different voice. Sometimes I even read English texts aloud, particularly things I’ve written. I find this helps me to spot mistakes and to check the flow of the text.

Indo-European language origins

According to an article I came across today on the BBC, a study by researchers in New Zealand suggests that Indo-European languages originated in Anatolia about 8-9,500 years ago, and not in the Central Asian steppes about 5-6,000 years ago, as many believe.

The researchers used methods developed to study virus epidemics to work out the relationships between Indo-European languages and where they came from, and they concluded that the spread of the languages coincided with the expansion of farming 8-9,500 years ago. There aren’t many details of their method in the article, but it does mention that they compared vocabulary across 100 modern and ancient languages using phylogenetic analysis.

More details are available in Science (if you have access).

Llongau gofod a selsig (Spaceships and sausages)

This is my latest little animation made using Xtranormal. It’s a silly little conversation between two robots which touches on such topics as the best way to get to the moon, a top secret Welsh spaceship, why vegetarians are at a disadvantage when it comes to local news and gossip, and ostrich sausages.

The conversation is in Welsh (written and recorded by me) with Welsh and English subtitles. I might add subtitles in other languages as well.

Bead houses

There’s a village near where I live called Betws-y-Coed [ˈbɛtʊs ə ˈkɔɨd], which means ‘prayer house in the wood’. I knew the meaning of the name, but hadn’t considered where the word betws might come from. Last night a friend told me that it comes from an English word ‘bead house’, meaning a prayer house or oratory.

Wikipedia agress with this saying the word Betws or Bettws comes from the Old English bed-hus (house of prayer, oratory). The name was first recorded as ‘Betus’ in 1254.

According to this Old English Dictionary the Old English word bed means ‘prayer, supplication; religious ordinance, service’, hús means ‘house; temple, tabernacle; dwelling-place; inn; household; family, race’, and gebédhús is a house of prayer or oratory.

Apparently the Welsh words bacws (bakery) and warws (warehouse) contain the same hús root. I can’t find confirmation of this, but it sounds plausible. I guessed that these words came from English, but hadn’t made the connection with Betws before.

They must have been borrowed before the Great Vowel Shift which started during the 14th century. Before then house or hús was pronounced /hu:s/, as it still is in northern English and Scots. The /haus/ pronunciation emerged during the 18th century.

Les mots de la semaine

– bouchon (m) / embouteillage (m) = traffic jam = tagfa drafnidiaeth (f)
– descendre en rappel = to abseil = abseilio
– rebondir = to bounce = sboncio / bowndio / tampio
– rebond (m) = bounce = sbonc / bownd
– être refusé = to bounce (a cheque) = gwrthod
– videur = bouncer = dryswr
– squelette (m) = skeleton = (y)sgerbwd / esgyrn sychion
– être aigri / en voulour à tout le monde = to have a chip on one’s shoulder = sglodyn ar dy ysgwydd

Stealth acquisitions in the insurance vertical

I received an email today from someone who apparently specializes “in stealth acquisitions of domain names for corporate end users in the insurance vertical.” I think this means that he buys domain names for insurance-related businesses. I’m not sure what stealth acquisitions are though, or what the insurance vertical might be. Any suggestions?

Have you any good examples of corporate gobbledygook like this?

Best languages to study

According to an article I came across in the Daily Telegraph today, the best / most useful languages to study, for those in the UK, are:

1. German
2. French
3. Spanish
4. Mandarin
5. Polish
6. Arabic
7. Cantonese
8. Russian
9. Japanese
10. Portuguese

The reasons why each language is useful vary quite a bit. For example Brazil is the sixth largest economy in the world and will be hosting the next (football) World Cup and Summer Olympics; apparently Russia is the UK’s fastest-growing major export market; and Poland is the largest consumer market in the EU. Languages valued by UK employers includes German, French, Spanish, Polish and Mandarin.

If a language is useful or in demand by employers, that’s quite a good reason to study it, but if you that’s your only reason for choosing a particular language, studying it might seem like hard work. If you also have an interest in the language itself, the culture of those who speak and/or the places where it’s spoken, you’re more likely to enjoy your studies and became proficient in the language.

Have you studied any languages solely because you thought they might be useful?

One of the comments on the article suggest that it is better to study a vocational subject such as science, medicine or law and to study a language as a secondary subject, rather than just focusing on a langauge. Another comment states that a university in a language or languages isn’t particular useful if you don’t have other skills.

Ultd abbreviations

Ultd text from ad and panda xing sign

I came across the abbreviations ‘Ultd‘ today in an online add and it took me a few moments to realise that it meant unlimited. From the context it was obvious: the ad mentions Ultd texts and Ultd Internet, but without this context it wouldn’t be so obvious. Maybe they didn’t have enough space to write the word in full, but perhaps a clearer abbreviation would be unltd.

Have you come across this abbreviation before, or are there any other abbreviations that puzzle you?

Another abbreviation I’ve seen on road signs in videos and photos from Australia and the USA is Xing, meaning crossing. This puzzled me the first time I saw it, maybe because I’m not used to seeing an X used to represent the word cross. I interpreteted the word as a Mandarin Chinese one written in pinyin and wondered which of the many words with that pronunciation it was meant to be.