Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you guess the language and 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.
Oriya Tower of Babel
I’m currently trying to transcribe an Oriya version of the Tower of Babel story from a PDF and have come across a number of letters that I can’t quite work out.
They appear in verse 3 and I think they’re conjuncts of some kind, but haven’t been able to find them. Can you help?
Here are the tricky letters:
and here’s the full text:
Puzzle
Mozart’s Requiem ac Eisteddfod Môn
Ddoe mi es i weithdy cerddoriaeth yn y Galeri yng Nghaernarfon i ddysgu y Requiem gan Mozart yn ystod un ddiwrnod. Roedd arweinydd ac unawdwyr gwych o Gorws Cenedlaethol Cymreig y BBC yno, ac mi nes i fwynhau y dydd yn fawr, ond tua diwedd y dydd roedd fy llais canu bron wedi diflannu, yn enwedig y nodau uwch.
Gyda’r nos mi es i Eisteddfod Môn efo Côr y Dysgwyr a Chôr Llanfairpwll, ond yn gyntaf mi aethon ni i Ganolfan Conwy ger Plas Newydd i ymarfer. Ac yna mi aethon ni i’r Eisteddfod yn Llangefni, ac ar ôl aros am awr neu ddwy, mi wnaethon ni cystadlu fel un gôr efo’r enw Côr Dros y Bont. Yn anffodus roedd fy llais canu yn wân o hyd ac mi nes i canu’r nodau isel yn unig ac roedd rhaid i mi meimio y lleill. Roedd dau gôr eraill yn cystadlu, ac mi wnaethon i y drydydd wobr.
Language quiz
Lexiophiles
Medallion
This pendant was sent in by a visitor to Omniglot who would like to know whether anybody can decipher the inscription on it. It depicts St. George and the dragon and might be from Turkey.
Here’s my attempt to transcribe the inscriptions:
Left image top: ديرالقديس المقيم الأمير تادرس الشطي الهاتحارة الروم
Left image bottom: القديس الفطيم أبونوفاساح
Right image top: القديرا لعكيم الاميس تادرى الشطي
Right image bottom: تذكارإ ستشهاده ٦٠ أبيب
Word of the day – ἀρετή (arete)
Today we have a guest post from Stephen Dunne.
ἀρετή (arete), noun = meaning virtue, goodness, excellence, purity.
This Classical Greek word is difficult to encapsulate precisely in English but expresses a state of almost distinguished self enlightenment. It can however mean many other things besides virtues attached to the self; the Greeks did use the word to describe the form of inanimate objects like vases or statues.
There are many ways to think of the physical form of arete. In Ancient Greece is was the capacity and fulfilment of attaining one’s potential, perhaps in face of much environmental difficulty.
In Philosophy, arete is central to the notion of Virtue Ethics and many of the ideas stem from Aristotelian thought. Virtue Ethics is a serious challenge to other mainstream moral schools like Deontology or Consequentialism.
These days, it could be argued that many of the books in the post-capitalist self-help genre are centred on the notion of arete, with individuals seeking non material fulfilment.
Word of the day – 聽筒
聽筒 [听筒] (tīngtǒng) is Chinese for telephone receiver; headphone; earphone; earpiece and stethoscope. Its literal meaning is “hearing tube” – 聽 = to hear; to obey, and 筒 = tube; cylinder.
I found this word in an online Chinese dictionary I came across yesterday which looks very useful. You can search for Chinese words or characters using their characters or pinyin spelling, and the entries include traditional and simplified characters, pinyin, recordings of the pronunciation, related words, and English and French equivalents. There’s even the option of inputting characters by hand.
The dictionary seems to be part of the Chinese Tools site, which contains a translator, text-to-speech, name translators for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan and other scripts, and other useful tools.
