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.

Monolingual USA?

By Simon

The other day I found an interesting article in the New York Times about monolingualism and multilingualism in the USA and elsewhere. There’s a widespread belief that most Americans are monolingual in English, and that elsewhere it’s common for people to know two or more languages. The article asks whether this belief is true.

The question about language in the US census focuses on language use at home and doesn’t ask about use of languages other than English elsewhere, and the writer points out that many Americans who speak foreign languages speak only English at home, so for the purposes of the census they are monoglot English speakers. According to the 2009 census, for example, 20% of Americans speak a language other than English at home. The aim of the census is not to discover people’s foreign language skills, but to “track immigrants’ integration into mainstream American society and to ascertain what services they need, and in what languages”, so this is understandable.

The writer suggests that a better question would be “Can you have a conversation in a language besides your mother tongue?”, which was asked in a survey by the European Commission in 2006 – 56% of those who completed that survey answered yes. So perhaps the assumption that bilingualism and multilingualism are normal and unremarkable in much or the world is not entirely true. There are no reliable figures on this anyway, so it’s impossible to be sure. The conclusion is that Americans may be no more or less multilingual than people in other countries.

Sacre bleu! Mitt Romney speaks French

By Simon

According to a correspondent who contacted me today, one of the US presidential candidates, Newt Gingrich, has attacked one of the other candidates, Mitt Romney, for speaking French. Not only does he speak French, but there’s also a video of him on YouTube speaking in French (made 10 years ago). What is the world coming to!

Here’s Newt Gingrich’s video in which he critcizes Mitt Romney for, among other things, speaking French:

The correspondent asks “Do your politicians get THIS crazy on the other side of the pond? Just curious…”

I haven’t noticed this kind of nonsense here in the UK – what about in other countries?

Word skipping to Venus

By Simon

I was asked today about the origins of the word worship. The person who asked was told by a highly-educated minister that “worship” is derived from an old English word, “word-skip”. Supposedly, “word-skip” means “word shaper” or “shaper of words”.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary: worship comes from the Old English worðscip, wurðscip (Anglian), weorðscipe (West Saxon), “condition of being worthy, honor, renown”, from weorð (worthy), and -scipe, “state, condition of being”. The sense of “reverence paid to a supernatural or divine being” is first recorded in about 1300. The original sense is preserved in the title worshipful (c.1300). The verb to worship first appears in writing from about 1200. The word weorð comes from the Proto Germanic *werthaz (toward, opposite), which is possibly a derivative of Proto-Indo-European word *wert- (to turn, wind). from *wer- (to turn, bend).

The OED and the Collins Dictionary give the same etymology, and the OED lists the numerous ways worship was written in Middle English, including worðscipe, worðschipe, worðschepe, worþssipe, worþschip, wortscip, wortschyp, worsipe, worssipe, and so on.

The Dictionary of Word Origins says the worship originally meant “worthiness, distinction, credit, dignity” in Old English. Later is came to mean “respect or reverence”, and was used in religious contexts from the 13th century, and that is was used as a verb from the 12th century.

A related word is venerate, from the Latin venerāt- from venerārī/venerāre (to reverence, worship, adore), which comes from venus (beauty, love desire), from the Proto-Indo-European base *wen- (to strive after, wish, desire, be satisfied) [source]. This is also the root of the words for worship in Italian (venerare), Portuguese (venerar) and French (vénérer). The equivalent in Spanish is adorar or rendir culto a.

Ryukyuan languages

By Simon

Following on from Sunday’s language quiz, I found an interesting article about Language Loss and Revitalization in the Ryukyu Islands.

There are apparently quite a few different languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands – at least 10, and while they are related to Japanese, the percentage of shared cognates is 66% or less – 59% for Miyako (less than between English and German).

Do any of you speak these languages? Or have you studied them?

Sneck

By Simon

Sneck /snɛk/ is a word I discovered the other day that means a door or gate latch, the lever that raises the bar of a latch, or a catch. It also means nose or cut. It’s used mainly in northern England and Scotland and is featured in the name of the beer, Sneck Lifter, from Cumbria. It comes from the Middle English word snekk(e), which is of obscure origin. It is possibly related to snick, and the Norwegian and Icelandic snikka (to carve, whittle).

Related expressions include, to draw a sneck (to act cunningly or stealthily); to leave (a door) on/off the sneck (to leave (a door) on/off the latch); sneck-bend (a type of fish hook); sneck posset (a cold reception or greeting; a discharge or dismissal); sneck drawer (one who draws or lifts a sneck or latch (in order to enter stealthily); a crafty, flattering, or sly fellow).

Sources: OED, Wikitionary

Purses and sporrans

By Simon

The word purse has an interesting history, I discovered today. It comes from the Old English word purs, from the Late Latin word bursa, which had a number of meanings of the centuries, including skin or leather; (money) bag; scrotum; exchange; and scholarship, allowance, and comes from the Greek word βύρσα (hide, leather).

bursa is also the root of bursar, bursary, purser and reimburse; and of words for purse in the Celtic languages: sparán (Irish) sporan (Scottish Gaelic), sporran (Manx), as well as the French word bourse (grant, purse, stock market, stock exchange), the Spanish word bolsa (bag, exchange, stock exchange, pocket, purse), and of similar words in quite a few other languages.

In British English purse usually refers to a small container used, mainly women, to keep their money, credit cards, etc in – British men generally carry their money in their pockets and/or in a wallet. What do Americans carry their money in?

In American English purse generally refers to a bag used to keep money, keys and other essentials in, especially by women – also known as a pocketbook (?). The British English equivalent the American purse is a handbag.

Sources: OED, Dictionary of Word Origins, Cambridge Dictionaries Online

Languages in the news

By Simon

Here are a few language-related articles I found recently:

Tolkien and Made Up Languages – an article about Tolkien, whose 120 birthday it would be today if he was still around, his languages, and other fictional languages such as Newspeak and Nadsat.

The secret to learning languages – Tips from the polyglots: Find out how your brain works.

I’ve also discovered that Collins Dictionaries in English, French, German and Spanish are available for free online. They also give translations of words in quite a few other languages.