Les mots de la semaine

français English Cymraeg Brezhoneg
prendre des libertés to take liberties bod yn hy[f]; beiddio gwneud rhth monet / mont re frank ouzh ub
le devis quotation (estimate) pris rakpriz
la citation quotation (from book) dyfynnu arroudenn
les guillemets (m) quotation marks dyfynodau klochedigoù
les arrhes (m) deposit (refundable) blaendal (ad-daladwy) arrez
l’acompte (m) deposit (non refundable) blaendal (di-ad-daladwy) rannbae
hors taxes; exempté de douane duty-free di-doll; tollrydd pep taos er-maez
le chargement load (things carried) llwyth fard
il pleuviote it’s spitting (with rain) mae hi’n pigo bwrw / taflu dafnau pleuvasser a ra
la bruine; le crachin drizzle glaw mân; gwlithlaw; manlaw; brithlaw ailhenn
éthique; moral ethical ethic buhezegezh; divezel

Archerien

An interesting word that came up in my Breton lesson today is archerien, which means police. It caught my attention because it has no obvious connection to the word police, and because it is completely different to the equivalent words in other Celtic languages:

– Welsh: heddlu (“peace force”)
– Cornish: kreslu (“peace host”)
– Irish: gardaí (síochána) (“guards of peace”); póilíní
– Manx: meoiryn shee (“peace keepers/stewards”); poleenyn
– Scottish Gaelic: poileas

The English word police comes from the French police (public order, administration, government), from the Latin polītīa (state, government), from the Greek πολιτεία (politeia – citizenship, government, administration, constitution). It is shares the same root as policy, politics, politician and various other words [source].

Many languages use variants on the word police, e.g. Politsei (Estonian), პოლიცია (polits’ia – Georgian), Polizei (German), पुलिस (pulis – Hindi), پلیس (pulis – Persian), Booliis (Somalia), Policía (Spanish), Pulis (Tagalog), but some do their own thing:

– Bavarian: Kibara
– Chinese: 警察 (jǐngchá); 公安 (gōng’ān)
– Faroese: Løgregla
– Greek: Αστυνομία (Astynomía)
– Hungarian: Rendőrség
– Icelandic: Lögregla
– Japanese: 警察 (keisatsu)
– Korean: 警察 (gyeongchal)
– Thai: ตำรวจ (tảrwc)

Are there other examples of languages with a word unrelated to police for police?

Hop on a call

Photo of a phone

An email I received yesterday contained the sentence “Would be happy to hop on a call to discuss should you change your mind.” The expression to hop on a call particularly caught my attention as it’s not one I’ve come across before. In this context I would have said “to give you a call”.

Have you come across this expression before? Do you use it yourself? If not, how do you refer to telephonic communication?

I’ve heard/used:
– to phone/call/ring sb
– to call sb up
– to give sb a call/bell/ring/buzz

There are a few slang words for phone, including dog (and bone) – rhyming slang; and blower. Do you have any others?

Pibeqɛdæ – new con-script

Here’s a script, called Pibeqɛdæ, that I constructed this afternoon based on the letter p, mainly. It has most of the phonemes used in English, and could be further extended. I put it together just to demonstate to a visitor to Omniglot how you might make a con-script. It turned out quite well, I think.

Pideqedae alphabet

I was just going to float the vowels over the consonants, like in Tengwar, then I thought I’d try putting them in the consonants, and am quite pleased with the results. It isn’t a very practical script as it quite be hard to make a font with vowels that fit inside the consonants.

Bassa Vah puts tone marks inside the vowels, but I haven’t come across any other scripts that put the vowels inside the consonants. Have you?

Les mots de la semaine

français English Cymraeg Brezhoneg
imperméable waterproof diddosi didreuz
barboter; faire trempette to paddle (in water) slotian; padlo; ffritian bourbouilhañ
pagayer to paddle (a kayak/canoe) rhwyfo; padlo roeñvat
la pataugeoire paddling pool pwll padlo poullig patouilhañ
patauger to wade/splash about; flounder sblasio; fflatsio; slotian; ymdrochi papouilhat
décrocher to go cold turkey gwneud triniaeth croen gwydd diskregiñ
tailler to sharpen (pencil) rhoi/gwneud blaen (ar bensel); hogi, miniogi krennañ
le taille-crayon pencil sharpener peth gwneud min/awch ar bensel beger-kreionoù
aiguiser to sharpen (blade/appetite) hogi; rhoi min ar lemmañ
le coquelicot poppy (wild) llygad y cythraul; llygad y bwgan; bochgoch roz-aer
le pavot poppy (cultivated) pabi roz-moc’h
les soins intensifs (m) intensive care gofal arbennig; gofal dwys prederioù askoridik
les menottes (f) handcuffs gefynnau (llaw) kefioù-dorn; grizilhonoù
menotter to handcuff gefynnu; rhoi gefynnau (ar) grizilhonañ
avoir les menottes aux poignets to be handcuffed bod mewn gefynnau

Tag questions, innit!

Tag questions or question tags are interrogative fragments (tags) added to statements making them into sort of questions. They tend to be used more in colloquial speech and informal writing than in formal writing, and can indicate politeness, emphasis, irony, confidence or lack of it, and uncertainty. Some are rhetorical and an answer is not expected, others invite a response.

In English they come in various forms, for example:

– I like coconut, don’t I?
– You’re tall, aren’t you?
– He’s handsome, isn’t he?
– She said she’d be here, didn’t she?
– It’ll rain tomorrow, won’t it?
– We were away, weren’t we?
– You’d gone, hadn’t you?
– They’ll be there, won’t they?

A simpler tag question used is some varieties of English in innit, a contraction of isn’t it, which could be used for all the examples above. Other English tags include right? and eh? – do you use any others?

Tag questions in Celtic languages can also have quite complex forms which depend on the verb and the subject in the main clause, particularly in Welsh.

Manx
T’eh braew jiu, nagh vel? (It’s fine today, isn’t it?)
Hie ad dys y thie oast riyr, nagh jagh? (They went to the pub last night, didn’t they?)
Bee oo goll magh mairagh, nagh bee? (You’ll go out tomorrow, won’t you?)

Irish
Tá sé go breá inniu, nach bhfuil? (It’s fine today, isn’t it?)
Chuaigh siad go dtí an teach tábhairne aréir, nagh ndeachaigh? (They went to the pub last night, didn’t they?)
Beidh tú ag dul amach amárach, nach bheidh? (You’ll go out tomorrow, won’t you?)

Scottish Gaelic
Tha i brèagha an diugh, nach eil? (It’s fine today, isn’t it?)
Chaidh iad dhan taigh-òsta an-raoir, nagh deach? (They went to the pub last night, didn’t they?)
Bidh thu a’ dol a-mach a-màireach, nach bi? (You’ll go out tomorrow, won’t you?)

Welsh
Mae’n braf heddiw, on’d ydy? (It’s fine today, isn’t it?)
Mi aethon nhw nhw’n mynd i’r dafarn neithiwr, on’d wnaethon? (They went to the pub last night, didn’t they?)
Fyddet ti’n mynd allan yfory, on’ fyddet? (You’ll go out tomorrow, won’t you?)

I’m not sure about how tag questions work in Breton and Cornish.

In other languages things can be simpler:

– Czech: že?
– French: n’est-ce pas? non?
– German: nicht wahr? nicht? oder?
– Italian: no? vero? (positive), non è vero? (negative)
– Polish: prawda? (positive), nieprawdaż? (negative)
– Russian: да? (da?)
– Spanish: ¿no? ¿verdad?

Can you provide other examples?

Apocope

I learned a new word today – apocope [əˈpɒkəpiː], which is the loss of phonemes from the ends of words, particularly unstressed vowels.

It comes from the Greek word ἀποκόπτω (apokoptein), which means ‘cutting off’ and comes from ἀπό (apo-), ‘away’ and κόπτω (koptein), ‘to cut’.

Apocope is a mechanism which erodes some inflections and other word endings, and creates new ones, when words that were once separate become bound together. It also refers to the process of abbreviating words by dropping their endings.

Here are some examples:
pānis (Latin for bread) > pan(em) (Vulgar Latin)> pan (Spanish), pane (Italian), pain (French), paõ (Portuguese)
– advertisement > advert > ad
– photographh > photo
– credibility > cred
– barbecue > barbie
– fanatic > fan

The term for phonemes being dropped from the beginning of a word is apheresis (/əˈfɛrɨsɪs/), Here are some examples:

– esquire > squire
– knife (/ˈknaɪf/) > /ˈnaɪf/ – the k was pronounced in Middle English
– telephone > phone
– ysbwriel > sbwriel (Welsh for rubbish, litter)
– ysgrifennu > sgrifennu (Welsh for to write), which has become sgwennu in some dialects of Welsh.

When a word loses internal phonemes, the process is known as syncope (/ˈsɪŋkəpiː/). Examples include:

– forecastle > fo’c’s’le
– never > n’er (poetic)
– over > o’er (poetic)

Source: Wikipedia, World Wide Words and About.com

New video – The Interview

I just finished a new video which features a job interview in which one or both or the participants is having a laugh. Or are they being serious?

If you fancy translating the dialogue into any other languages, just let me know, and I’ll send you the script.