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.
Sing for Water London
I will be singing with the Bangor Community Choir and many other choirs from around the UK at Sing for Water London, part of the Thames Festival, on Sunday 11th September 2011. The aim is to raise funds for Water Aid.
The Bangor Community Choir will be singing by HMS Belfast on the South Bank from about 12.15pm, and the massed choirs will be singing in the Scoop next to City Hall from 2pm.
Please come along if you can, and if you’d like to contribute to Water Aid, please go to: http://www.justgiving.com/simon-ager/
Komz a rez brezhoneg? / Wyt ti’n siarad Llydaweg?
I decided to have a go at learning Breton today and listened to some of Le Breton sans peine. I just listened without looking at the book to see if I could understand anything – one of my friends is convinced that Breton has more similarities with Welsh than with Cornish, but I thought that Breton is closer to Cornish, so I decided to test this.
I speak Welsh more or less fluently, and do know a few Breton words already, including degemer mat (welcome), trugarez (thank you = trugaredd, ‘mercy / compassion’, in Welsh), pelc’h emañ …? (where is …? = pa le, ‘which place?’, in Welsh), and I was able to guess the means of some words that sound similar to their Welsh equivalents: mor (sea – môr in Welsh), ti (house – tŷ in Welsh), glas (blue/green – glas in Welsh). I could also understand some of the numbers and some French loanwords, apart from that though, I had no idea, or only the vaguest idea, what they were talking about most of the time.
This is just my own impression, but it seems that mutual intelligibility between Welsh and Breton is very limited. The stories of Breton onion sellers in Wales being able to talk to the local Welsh speakers in Breton and be understood are perhaps exaggerated. Or perhaps the onion sellers, known as Sioni Wynwns (Johnny Onions) in Welsh, learnt enough Welsh to have basic conversations with Welsh speakers.
While I was in the Isle of Man earlier this year I heard some Cornish and was able to make some sense of it, but the Breton I heard there made very little sense to me.
ウェールズ語
According to a report I found today, a textbook for Japanese people wanting to learn Welsh entitled ウェールズ語の基本 (Wēruzugo no Kihon – “Basic Welsh”) by Dr Yoshifumi Nagata (永田喜文) and Takeshi Koike (小池剛史) was recently published.
Dr Nagata teaches Welsh culture at universities in Japan and developed an interest for the Welsh language through the Welsh poetry of R. S. Thomas. While trying to learn Welsh in Japan he was frustrated by the lack of material in Japanese so decided to produce the textbook. Takeshi Koike learnt Welsh in Lampeter and speaks and writes it fluently and has published several works on the Welsh language.
This isn’t the only Welsh language course in Japanese though: on Amazon.co.jp I found 毎日ウェールズ語を話そう (Let’s Talk Welsh Every Day) by Hiroshi Mizutani (水谷宏), which was published in 1996.
Do you know of any other resources in Japanese for Welsh learners?
Oes llawer o bobl yn dysgu Cymraeg yn Siapan?
日本ではウェールズ語を勉強する人がたくさんいますか？
Spooky Men’s Chorale
Jesarn hie mee dys keirdlann as co-unnaneys yindyssagh ‘syn Galeri ayns Caernarfon lesh ny Spooky Men’s Chorale, sheshaght chiaullee voish yn Austrail ta jannoo turrys mygeayrt yn Reeriaght Unnaneyssit ec y traa t’ayn. T’ad ny ard arraneyderyn, as feer aitt as ommidjagh myrgeddin, as t’ad goaill arraneyn as yn Çhorshey, arraneyn cadjin lhied “Dancing Queen” (lesh blassyn Soolynagh as idd Loghlynagh) as “Boogie Wonderland” (dy moal as dy arrymagh), as arraneyn oc hene, lhied “Don’t Stand Between a Man and His Tool”, “Sometimes I Forget Things” as “Concrete”, ynsit shin ‘syn keridlann.
On Saturday I went to a workshop and concert at the Galeri in Caernarfon with the Spooky Men’s Chorale, a choir from Australia who are currently touring the UK. They are excellent singers and hilariously silly, and sing songs from Georgia, pop songs like “Dancing Queen” (with Swedish accents and Viking helmets) and “Boogie Wonderland” (slowly and solemnly), as well as their own songs, such as “Don’t Stand Between a Man and His Tool”, “Sometimes I Forget Things” and “Concrete”, which we learnt in the workshop.
Language quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
The sound quality on the recording isn’t great, but I couldn’t find any better ones in this language.
Just playing around
In Mandarin Chinese when you want to talk about playing a musical instrument, there are quite a few different words you could use, depending on the type of instrument.
– 拉 (lā) is used for bowed instruments such as the 二胡 (èrhú), violin (小提琴 xiǎotíqín), viola (中提琴 zhōngtíqín) and cello (大提琴 dàtíqín), and also means to pull, drag, draw or chat.
– 彈 [弹] (tán) is used for the piano (鋼琴 [钢琴] gāngqín), and string instruments such as the guitar (吉他 jítā), and also means to pluck, spring, leap, shoot , fluff, flick and so on.
– 吹 (chuī) is used for wind instruments such as the 笛 dí (flute), 簫 xiào (bamboo flute) and clarinet (單簧管 [单簧管] dānhuángguǎn) and also means to blow, blast, boast, brag and to end in failure.
– 打 (dǎ) is used for the drums (鼓 gǔ) and other percussion, and also means to beat, strike, hit, break, type, fight and so on. As well as meaning to play/beat a drum, 打鼓 (dǎgǔ) also means to be nervous. 打 also means to play games such as golf – 打高爾夫球 [打高尔夫球] (dǎ gāo’ěrfū qiú), and also to play cards – 打牌 (dǎ pái).
If you want to talk about playing music in general without mentioning a specific instrument you could say 演奏 (yǎnzòu) – to play a musical instrument, to perform music. I thought there wasn’t a general term like this in Chinese and that was what promoted me to write this post.
In other contexts, there are various was to translate to play in Chinese, including:
– 玩 (wán) is the most common one and can mean to play games (玩遊戲 [玩游戏] wán yóuxì) or to have fun. In English the phrase “Are you coming out to play?” is usually only uttered by children, but the equivalent in Chinese, 你出來玩嗎？ [你出去玩吗？] nǐ chūlái wán ma?, is used by both children and adults.
– 踢 (tī) means to kick and to play ball games such as football (soccer) – 踢足球 (tī zúqiú).
-弄 (nòng) means to play/fool/mess/toy with, to fix, do, manage or to handle – a useful word that can used in a variety of contexts.
Source: MDBG Chinese-English Dicitonary
Eilean Mhanainn / Ellan Vannin
I just listened to the first in a series of programmes on Radio nan Gàidheal on the Isle of Man (Eilean Mhanainn in Scottish Gaelic, and Ellan Vannin in Manx), which focuses on the Manx language. I found it very interesting, and was pleased to find that I could understand almost all the Scottish Gaelic, as well as the Manx.
Interestingly, when they were talking to Manx speakers, all but one of whom spoke in Manx, they translated their words into Scottish Gaelic, probably assuming that speakers of Scottish Gaelic would have difficulty understanding the Manx. This doesn’t tend to happen when Scottish Gaelic speakers are interviewed on Irish language radio or vice versa. While there is a fair bit of mutual intelligibility between the Gaelic languages, it seems to take speakers of each one a while to become sufficiently familiar with the others to be able to understand them – perhaps this is more the case with Manx as Irish and Scottish Gaelic speakers rarely hear it.
Mynd i’r afael
Mynd i’r afael is a Welsh expression I’ve noticed quite a bit recently on Radio Cymru, and from the context in which it is used, I think it means something like “to try hard to deal with something”.
Here are some examples:
Angen i Brifysgol Cymru fynd i’r afael â dilysu canolfannau newydd, medd y Gweinidog Addysg, Leighton Andrews.
The University of Wales needs to address the validation of the new centres, said the Education Minister, Leighton Andrews.
[Source: BBC Newyddion]
Mae ‘na lawer o gymorth a chefnogaeth ar gael i bobl sy’n poeni am droseddu ac i’r rhai sydd am helpu i fynd i’r afael â throseddu.
Plenty of help and support is available to people who are worried about crime and those who want to help tackle crime.
[Source: www.direct.gov.uk]
NB. In both these examples mynd has mutated to fynd.
From these examples it seems that mynd i’r afael, which literally means “go to the grip/grasp/handle/hold”, means “tackle” “address” or perhaps “get a grip on”. Google translate gives “(to) address” for this term, as does the BBC Welsh dictionary. I got the impression from the context that quite a bit of effort was involved, but perhaps this is not always the case.
These days I tend to learn new words and expressions in Welsh, and in my other fluent languages, through extensive listening and reading. If I notice a word or phrase that crops up frequently, I’ll try and work out its meaning(s) from the context, and sometimes it takes a while to hone in on exact meaning(s). When I learn things in this way I tend to remember better than if I just look them up in a dictionary, though I do remember dictionary words if I use them quite a bit after looking them up.
How do you learn new vocabulary?
我们AA吧！
The Mandarin Chinese expression, 我们AA吧！ (wǒmen AA ba), is the equivalent of “lets split the bill” or “let’s go Dutch”. I heard it for the first time from a Chinese friend the other day. My friend assures me that it’s a very common expression and is used when going out for a meal with friends (or on similar occasions) where instead of one person treating everybody (请客 qǐngkè), as happens at formal meals and banquets, each person pays for what they eat and drink.
Other ways to express the same idea include 我们分开付款 (wǒmen fēnkāi fùkuǎn) = we split the bill; 我们AA制吧 (wǒmen AA zhì ba) “let’s pay AA”; and 我们各付各的吧 (wǒmen gèfùgède ba) “let’s each pay our own”.
Apparently AA stands for “Algebraic Average” – the average share of the bill [source].
[Addendum] AA is also used in medical prescriptions as an abbreviation for the Late Latin word ana (in equal quantities) [source].
A few other Chinese expressions that use letters like this include 卡拉OK (kǎ lā OK) = karaoke and T恤 (T xù/xié): T-shirt.
Do you know any others?
The English phrase “to go Dutch”, meaning to pay separately, first appeared in writing in 1914 and is mainly used in the USA, according to the OED.
According to Wikipedia:
The phrase “going Dutch” originates from the concept of a Dutch door. Previously on farmhouses this consisted of two equal parts. Another school of thought is that it may be related to Dutch etiquette. In the Netherlands, it was not unusual to pay separately when going out as a group. When dating in a one-on-one situation, however, the man will most commonly pay for meals and drinks. English rivalry with the Netherlands especially during the period of the Anglo-Dutch Wars gave rise to several phrases including Dutch that promote certain negative stereotypes. Examples include Dutch oven, Dutch courage, Dutch uncle and Dutch wife.