Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
Author: Simon
I am a linguist, web developer and musician. I live in Bangor in Wales and run Omniglot - the online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages, as well as making the Radio Omniglot Podcast.
Learn to Think in Any Language
Gabriel Wyner contacted me recently about a new app he would like to develop. It will be designed to teach you languages from beginner to fluency.
It will start teaching you pronunciation, and then teach vocabulary and grammar, and will be based on spaced repetition. The system willh enable you to create your own cards, and to add pictures and text to existing ones. It will also suggest words to learn, and the most efficitent order in which to learn them. It will automatically search for images you can use to illustrate the words and sentences, and link them with audio recordings. It will suggest sentences to learn. You can also add your own sentences, and choose sentences that other users have added from a proof-read database. The process of doing all this will help the information to stick in your memory.
Here is Gabriel’s introduction to the project:
You can find out more, and back the project, on Kickstarter.
Star sailors and children of the sky
Did you know that the word astronaut means “star sailor”?
This is something I learnt from an interesting Allusionist podcast on Technobabble.
Astronaut comes from the Ancient Greek ἄστρον (ástron – star) and ναύτης (naútēs – sailor). It first appeared as the name of a space craft in Across the Zodiac, a story written by Percy Greg in the 1880. It was used in the 1920s in writing about the possiblity of space travel, and in the U.S. space program from the 1960s [source].
Some other space-related words have a nautical roots as well, including (space)ship, mast, batton and sail.
Other words for star sailors include:
– cosmonaut, from the Russian космона́вт (kosmonávt), from the Ancient Greek κόσμος (kósmos – universe) &+ -naut [source]
– taikonaut, from the Chinese 太空 (tàikōng – space) + -naut [source]
– spationaut, from spatio (space) + -naut [source]
Many other languages use one or other of these words. Here are some exceptions:
– In Chinese an astronaut is either 太空人 (tàikōngrén – “space person”), 航天員 (hángtiānyuán – “boat sky personnel”), or 宇航员 [宇航員] (yǔhángyuán – “universe boat personnel”) [source].
– In Icelandic an astronaut is a geimfari, from geimur (space) + -fari (traveler) [source].
– In Welsh an astronaut is a gofodwr, from gofod (space) + gŵr (man).
– In Swahili an astronaut is a mwanaanga, from mwana (child) + anga (sky) [source]
Are there interesting words for astronauts in other languages?
Project-based learning
When learning languages I use a variety of tools. At the moment I’m using Duolingo and Memrise, and also Colloquial Icelandic. I like the way Duolingo puts words in different contexts and tests you in different ways. I like the way Memrise gives you the option to create your own memory hooks, and the conversations and grammar notes in Colloquial courses are useful.
To practise my speaking and writing, I find projects helpful. For example, I might decide to write a blog post, conversation, story, song or poem in a language I’m learning, or to write about some aspect of that language – words, idioms, grammar, etc. The process of doing this helps me learn new vocabulary and grammar, and it tends to stick if I find it interesting and/or amusing.
So today I will write about the Swedish word snart, which means ‘soon, shortly, any time soon, anon’. Here are some examples of use:
– så snart som möjligt = as quickly as possible
– det snart är jul = the run-up to Christmas
– för snart ett år = nearly a year ago
– vi måste göra det snart = we have to do it soon; we must act quickly
Related expressions include:
– snar = early, ready, quick, swift
– inom kort = shortly, before long
– om en stund = in a while
– strax = soon, close, directly
Snart comes from the Old Norse snart (quickly). Danish and Norwegian have the same word with the same meanings, and in Icelandic there are snar (quick, swift, fast) and snarlega (quickly, fast).
Sources: bab.la, Wiktionary and The Old Norse World
Do you set yourself projects or tasks when learning languages, or other things?
Do you find it useful?
Language Quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
Running like a …?
If you see or heard the phrase “running like a”, what would you expect to the next word to be?
If you’re from the UK you might say “tap” – that’s certainly what I would expect to come next here.
A tap in this context refers to “A device by which a flow of liquid or gas from a pipe or container can be controlled” [source].
Such devices are commonly known as faucets in the USA [source].
What about in other English-speaking countries?
I picked a cold this week, and yesterday my nose was running like a tap, which is why I decided to blog about this expression. I wondered if people talk about things ‘running like a faucet’ in the USA, and if not, what expression they use.
If you Google “running like a”, the top results (at the time of writing) are “running like a Kenyan on speed”, “running like a girl” and “running like a dog”.
A Telling Chat
In interesting word I learnt recently in Icelandic is spjall [ˈspjatl̥], which means chat, converstation, talk or gossip.
It comes from the Old Norse spjall [ˈspjɑlː] (saying, tale, words, tales, tidings); from Proto-Germanic *spellą (news, message, tale, story), from the Proto-Indo-European *spel- (to tell).
A related word is spjalla, which means ‘to converse, to chat’. You could use it like this, I think,
– Ég er að spjalla á íslensku = I am chatting in Icelandic.
The Proto-Indo-European *spel- is also the root of the English word spell, the German -spiel in Beispiel (example – literally “by talk”) There were similar words in Old English: bīspel (proverb, pattern, example), and Scots: byspel (byword, rarety, outcast).
The German word spielen comes from a different root: the Proto-Germanic *spilōną (to play, to dance, to move), from *spilą (game, play, dance).
Icelandic words with related meanings include:
– tal = speech, conversation
– tala = to talk, to speak
– talmál = spoken language
– talsháttur = phrase, idiom
– talsmaður = advocte, spokesperson
– talsmát = manner of speaking, expression
– ræða = speech, address; to speak, talk, discuss
– ræðinn = talkative
Sources: Wiktionary, Íslensk – ensk orðabók / Concise Icelandic – English Dictionary
Language quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
Orkar du?
A useful Swedish expression I learnt recently is Orkar du?, which can mean “Do you have the energy?”, “Can you be bothered?” or similar.
It doesn’t mean “Are you a killer whale (orca)?”, as I thought it did when I first heard it.
Orkar is the present tense of orka [ˈɔrˌka], which means to manage, to be able to, to cope with, or can. It is used in Icelandic and Faroese as well. It comes from the Old Norse orka, from Proto-Germanic *wurkijaną (to work, to make), from Proto-Indo-European *wṛǵ- (to make), which is also the root of the English word work.
Here are a few examples of how it’s used:
– så mycket de orkar bära = as much as they can bear
– ät-så-mycket-du-orkar = all-you-can-eat
– Jag orkar inte = I can’t be bothered
– Jag orkar inte med tanken på att förlora de små skatterna = I can’t stand the thought of losing my little treasures.
– Hur ofta hör vi inte att människor inte orkar bry sig? = How often do we hear that people just don’t care?
– Jag orkar inte med detta längre. = I can’t take this anymore
A related word is ork, which means energy.
Sources: Linguee, bab.la and Wiktionary
Universal Human Rights Initiative
Yesterday I got an email from one of the founders of the Universal Human Rights Initiative (UHRI), a project to record native speakers reading all 500+ translations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
One aim of the project is to make the UDHR more accessible, especially to people who are illiterate or visually impaired. They already recordings of the UDHR in over 85 languages
You can see the translations and hear the recordings on their web app. You can also submit recordings.
This site could also be useful to language learners, as it provides texts and recordings in many different languages. You can read and listen to the texts on the UHRI site, with parallel texts in other languages on this site.