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.

Os

By Simon

Yesterday I discovered that the French word for bone, os, is pronounced /ɔs/ in the singular, as I suspected, but /o/ in the plural [source]. Os is also used in English as a zoological and medical term for bone and is pronounced /ɒs/ (UK) or /ɑs/ (US). Final consonants of French words aren’t usually pronounced, unless followed by a word beginning with a vowel, so you just have to memorise ones like os.

Os appears in such words and expressions as:
– ossature /ɔsatyʀ/ = frame(work), skeletal/bone structure
– osselet /ɔslɛ/ = knucklebone, ossicle (small bone in the middle ear), osselet (small animal bone)
– osseux /ɔsø/ = bone, osseus, bony
– ossification = ossification
– ossifier /ɔsifje/ = to ossify (to harden, make into bone)
– ossuaire /ɔsɥɛʀ/ = ossuary (receptacle or place for the bones of the dead)

– c’est un paquet / sac d’os = he’s a bag of bones, he’s skin and bone
– mouillée / trempé jusqu’aux os = to be soaked to the skin, wet through
– donner un os à ronger à qn = to give sb something to keep them out of mischief (or) keep them quiet
– l’avoir dans l’os = to be done, to get egg all over one’s face (slang)
– il y a un os = there’s a snag / hitch
– tomber sur un os = to come across a snag

Os comes from the Latin os (bone), from the ancient Greek ὀστέον (bone), which is also the root of the prefix osteo-, and is not to be confused with ōs /ɔːs/, (mouth, face, entrance).

In Welsh os means ‘if’.

Doxastic

By Simon

I came across the word doxastic (/dɒkˈsæstɪk/) today in Being Wrong – Adventures in the Margin of Error by Katryn Schulz. It means “pertaining to beliefs” and appears in the expression used in philosophy, ‘First Person Constraint on Doxastic Explanation’, or as Schulz terms it ”Cuz It’s True Constraint’. It means that we have only a limited number of ways to explain why we believe what we do.

We often believe things to be self-evidently true without necessarily being explain why or to provide reasons. For example, you might be convinced that your method or system for learning languages works and anybody who doesn’t agree just needs to be convinced of this. You might have invested a lot of time and money to develop and promote your system, so it’s in your interest to believe that the system works. You might not be consciously aware of this, but such things are often obvious in methods and systems developed by others.

Doxastic comes from the Greek δοξαστικ-ός (forming opinion, conjectural), from δοξαστής (conjecturer), from δοξάζ-ειν (to conjecture) [source].

The dox part, from the Greek δόξα (opinion, glory), also appears in such words as paradox – para comes from the Greek παρά (by the side of, beside, past, beyond), so it means ‘beyond belief’, and orthodox – ortho comes from the Greek ὀρθο- (straight, right), so it means ‘right belief’.

Dox is also internet slang for personal details (name, address, etc) that are visible online.

Rwsieg

By Simon

Yn ystod mis Tachwedd a mis Rhagfyr eleni dw i’n canolbwyntio ar Rwsieg. Dw i’n dysgu’r iaith efo languge101.com, cwrs arlein sy’n defnyddio ‘spaced repitition system’ neu system ailadroddiad ar wahan. Mae’r cwrs yn addysgu brawddegau Rwsieg efo recoriadau araf a recordiadau cyflymder normal. Yn gyntaf mae o’n gofyn yn Saesneg sut i ddweud rhywbeth yn Rwsieg, ac yna ti’n dweud y frawddeg, os ti’n ei gwybod hi. Yna ti’n gwrando yr ateb ac yn dweud wrth y system os ti’n gwybod y frawddeg yn berffaith, yn dda, yn eitha da, ayyb. Mae’r system yn dy brofi ar yr un frawddeg ar ôl rhyw munudau, ac yna ar ôl cyfnodau hirach a hirach i atgynerthu dy goffa.

Dyma tipyn bach o Rwsieg:

Здравствуйте = Helô / Shwmae (ffurfiol)
Привет = Helô / Shwmae (anffurfiol)
Как ваши дела? = Sut ydych chi?
Как дела? = Shwmae? Ti’n iawn?
Oткуда вы? = O ble ydych chi’n dod?
Oткуда ты? = O ble wyt ti’n dod? (inf)
Я из … = Dw i’n dod o …
Очень приятно = Mae’n dda gen i gwrdd â chi / Neis cwrdd â chi

Mae mwy o frawddegau a recordiadau (gan siaradwr Rwsieg brodorol) ar gael ar: Omniglot, ac mae ychydig o wersi Rwsieg yng Nghymraeg (trwy cartwnau) ar gael ar: Caterpillar and Red Post Boxes.

Dyma Geiriadur Rwsieg-Cymraeg-Saesneg-Llydaweg-Gwyddeleg dw i’n newydd darganfod.

Russian

By Simon

I’ve been concentrating on Russian for a week now and am making some progress. I listen to Russian language radio in the mornings while working on Omniglot, so my attention isn’t entirely focused on what they’re saying, but even so I am becoming more familiar with the sounds and rhythyms of the language. The names of people and places, the many recognisable international words, and the other words I recognise help me to get the gist of news reports.

I learn or revise phrases in language101.com every day, and can remember many of them. The phrases I learnt so far a mostly basic ones like ‘hello’, ‘how are you?’, ‘where are you from?’ and so on, with a few longer ones like ‘Russian is a beautiful language’.

Yesterday I started practising writing Russian letters in cursive style. I have tried this before, but have since forgotten how to write quite a few of them. The cursive versions of some of the letters look quite different to their printed forms (the same is true of Latin letters), for example a cursive upper case Д (D) looks like a Latin D, while the lower case д looks like a cursive Latin g.

There are tutorials on how to write cursive style Russian here and here.

With practice I’ll get used to the printed and handwritten versions of the Cyrillic alphabet, but I think it will take quite a while before I’m able to read it as easily as I can the Latin alphabet.

Sauve-qui-peut!

By Simon

One of the things that came up in conversation last night was how to say ‘to save’ in French. As is often the case, there are a number of different translations of this word, depending on the context:

sauver = to save (person, animal, jewels, building etc), rescue, salvage
– sauver la vie â/de qcn = to save sb’s life
– sauver sa peau = to save one’s skin, neck, hide
– sauver son âme = to save one’s soul
– sauver les apparences = to keep up appearances
– sauver la face = to save face
– sauve-qui-peut = stampede / every man for himself / run for your life

There is also a reflexive version of this verb, se sauver, which means to run away, to be off. For example, Il s’est sauvé à toutes jambes (He ran away as fast as he could); Allez, je me sauve! (Right, I’m off! / I’m out of here!).

When you want to talk about saving money, time or energy the word to use économiser. For example, vous économisez un euro si vous achetez 3 pacquets (You save a euro if you buy 3 packets). If you’re talking about putting money, food or other things aside for a rainy day though, the expression to use is mettre de côté or garder. For example, il garde les vieux journaux pour les bonnes œuvres (he’s saving (up) old newspapers for charity).

The French equivalents for ‘to save a goal’ are empêcher de marquer, faire un blocage or sauver un but.

The word sauver comes from the Old French salver/sauver, from the late Latin salvāre (to save), from the Latin salvus (safe, secure, immune from punishment, intact, undamaged), from the Proto-Indo-European base *sol- (whole). The English words save, safe, salvage, salver, saviour and salvation come from the same roots.

Sources: Reverso, OED, Online Etymology Dictionary, and Collins Robert French Dictionary.

Mountweazels

By Simon

Modified mountain weasel

Today I discovered the wonderful word mountweazel today while listening to The Museum of Curiosity on BBC Radio 4. A mountweazel is a fake or fictitious entry added to a dictionary, encyclopaedia, map or other reference work as a kind of copyright trap – if such entries are found in copies, then its clear that they are copies.

The word mountweazel was coined by The New Yorker magazine and comes from a ficititous entry in the New Columbia Encyclopedia (1975 edition) for a Lilian Virginia Mountweazel. Another name for this is nihil article, which first appear in as Nihilartikel in the German version of Wikipedia.

On maps fictitious streets and place are inserted as copyright trap. The former are known as “trap streets” and the later “phantom settlements” or “paper towns”. One example is the non-existent town of Agloe in New York State.

More information about and examples of mountweazels

Верблюд стоит на трёх ногах

By Simon

Camels

A few years ago I tried to learn Russian just using Rosetta Stone Russian to test how well it worked. I chose Russian because I hadn’t studied before and because I thought it would be an interesting and useful language learn. At that time I also needed to put together web pages in Russian from time to time, so I thought being able to at least read the language a bit would be handy.

I spent over six months studying every day and in all that time I didn’t learn any phrases like Здравствуйте (Hello), Как дела? (How are you?) or Спасибо (thank you), but I did learn colours, numbers, a variety or nouns like мальчик (boy), девушка (girl), лошадь (horse), слон (elephant) and самолет (aeroplane), and ‘useful’ phrases like, Лошадь не настоящая (The horse is not real), Тигр сидит на стене (The tiger is sitting on the wall), and Верблюд стоит на трёх ногах (The camel is standing on three legs).

Rosetta Stone is designed to teach you entirely through the language you’re learning using photos and recordings. It’s not always clear exactly what the photos are supposed to represent, and when you’re asked to match photos to written or spoken words and phrases, it’s possible to do so without really understanding the words and phrases. The choice of phrases may seem somewhat strange, though many language courses, especially older ones, use similar kinds of phrases to teach you vocabulary and to illustrate various grammatical constructions.

Last week I started learning Russian again using Language101.com, which provides online courses in French, German, Danish, Spanish, Irish, Canadian French and Russian. It uses a spaced repetition system (SRS) with recordings, and contains thousands of phrases for each language. Over the past few days I’ve learnt more practical and useful Russian phrases than I did in six months with Rosetta Stone, and I’ll be writing a review of the site soon.

I plan to focus mainly on Russian for the next two months using such courses as Language101.com, WikiTranslate.org, A Spoonful of Russian and Language Bridge. I’ll also listen Russian language radio every day (at the moment I’m listening to Радио Голос России).

One word I recognised while listening to Russian radio yesterday was верблюд (camel) – I think they were talking about camels in Tajikistan. I remembered it because of the phrase from Rosetta Stone. This got me thinking that while you would rarely use phrases like верблюд стоит на трёх ногах, unless you happened to live in a camel-infested Russian-speaking region, such as Tajikistan, that phrase is very memorable because it’s unusual and funny.

Perhaps that’s the point – learning phrases like this helps you to remember ordinary words like stand, three and legs, as well as camel, and it shows you how to put them together. The more unusual and funny or silly the phrase, the more likely you are to remember it. It works for me at least. So I plan to try constructing similarly unusual, funny, silly and ridiculous sentences in Russian and other languages to help me remember vocabulary and grammatical patterns. I might even make some videos like the ones on my YouTube channel featuring these phrases.

Do you have any suggestions for suitably silly phrases?

[Addendum] Here’s my Language101.com review.

Gilets et camisoles

By Simon

Last night at the French Conversation Group we were discussing various words for clothing in French. One word the seems to cover quite a few different types of clothing is gilet /ʒi.lɛ/, which on its own means a sleeveless jacket similar to a waistcoat (vest in American English), and apparently comes from the Maghrebi Arabic word jalikah (a type of jacket worn by Christian slaves in galleys) which comes from the Turkish word yelek (sleeveless jacket; wing feather) [from: Wikitionnaire, Wikitionary and turkishdictionary.net].

Gilet also appears in:
– gilet pareballes = bulletproof jacket/vest; flak jacket (AmEng)
– gilet de sauvetage = life jacket (BrEng) / life preserver / Mae West (AmEng)
– gilet de peau / gilet de corps = vest (BrEng), undershirt (AmEng)
– gilet matelassé = body warmer
– aller pleurer dans le gilet de qqn = to cry on someone’s shoulder

Gilet /ʒile/ is also used in English to mean “a bodice shaped like, or in imitation of, a man’s waistcoat” [source].

In British English the word vest usually refers to a garment, usually sleeveless, worn under one’s shirt, or undershirt in American English. While in American English a vest is a sleeveless piece of clothing with buttons down the front worn over a shirt and under a suit jacket, or waistcoat in British English. So in British English a three-piece suit consists of a jacket, waistcoat and trousers, while in American English these garments are a jacket, vest and pants. I’m sure there are regional variations in these names, as well as in the types of garments they refer to.

Another word that came up was camisole /ka.mi.zɔl/, which in French means “une sorte de vêtement du matin, court, à manches, qui se porte sur la chemise” (a type of morning clothing, short, with sleeves, that is worn on the shirt), and comes from the Provencal word camisola, which comes from the Italian camisciola, a diminutive of camisa (shirt) [from: Wikitionnaire].

In English camisole /ˈkæmɪsəʊl/ can refer to:
– a type of jacket or jersey with sleeves;
– a loose jacket worn by women when dressed in negligée*;
– an underbodice, often embroidered and trimmed with lace;
– a strait-jacket**
[source].

* ‘in negligée‘ = dressed in informal or unceremonious attire. In French négligé (adj) means ‘slovenly, scruffy, untidy, unkempt, slipshod, frowzy, floppy’; and en tenue négligée means ‘in casual clothing’ [source].

** strait-jacket = camisole de force in French.