Category: Language

Bœuf

By Simon

One thing we were discussing last week at the French conversation group was words for animals and their meat. In French the words for meat are also used for the animals: bœuf means beef and ox, porc means pork and pig, mouton means mutton and sheep, while in English there are different words for these things.

The popular explanation for the different English words for the animals and their meat is that after the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066, the animals were reared by the English, who called them cý, pecges and scéapes (cows, pigs and sheep) and eaten by the Normans, who called them boef, porc and motun (beef, pork and mutton). However the distinction between the names for the meat and the animals didn’t become set until the 18th century, and mutton and beef were used to refer to sheep and cows for many centuries after the Norman Conquest.

Bœuf comes from the Latin bos (ox, cow), the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root of which is gwóu (cow). This is also the root of vache, the French word for cow, via the Latin vacca (cow), and of the English word cow, via the Old English cú (pl. cý) and the reconstructed Proto-Germanic word kwom. In fact many of the words for cow, bull or cattle in Indo-European languages probably come from the PIE root gwóu. Examples include: bó (Irish and Scottish Gaelic), booa (Manx), buwch (Welsh), bugh (Cornish), buoc’h (Breton), govs (Latvian), կով (kov) (Armenian), گاو (gav – Persian) and Kuh (German).

As well as ox or steer and beef, bœuf also means (a) surprising; unusual; (b) stupid (in Swiss French); (c) (musical) jam session / jazz improvisation.

Idioms containing bœuf include:

  • avoir un boeuf sur la langue (to have a cow on the tongue) = to keep quiet; not give anything away
  • boeuf carottes (beef carrots) = internal affairs (Police)
  • comme un boeuf (as an ox) = very strong
  • gagner son boeuf (to earn one’s beef) = to earn a living
  • on n’est pas des boeufs (we are not cattle) = a little consideration and respect, I beg you

Meanings of mouton include: (a) sheep; (b) mutton; (c) sheep / lamb (someone easily led); (d) stool pigeon / grass; (e) moutons = white horses (on waves) / fluff / fluffy or fleecy clouds. Mutton and mouton possibly come from the Gaulish multo (ram) via the Middle Latin multonem and the Old French moton (ram, wether, sheep).

Idioms containing mouton include:

  • mouton à cinq pattes (a sheep with five feet) = white elephant rara avis / rare bird (something difficult or impossible to find)
  • revenir à ses moutons (to return to one’s sheep) = to return to the thread / subject of one’s discourse
  • suivre comme un mouton (to follow like a sheep) = to act like everyone else; gregarious

Sources
http://www.anglo-norman.net/
http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/MB2/mb04.html
http://www.indo-european.nl/
http://www.le-dictionnaire.com/
http://www.etymonline.com/
http://indoeuro.bizland.com/project/phonetics/word28.html

Camels

By Simon

Camels

There’s a popular myth that each Arabic word can denote itself, its opposite, and a kind of camel. Another version of this is that “Every Arabic word has a basic meaning, a second meaning which is the exact opposite of the first, a third meaning which refers to either a camel or horse, and a fourth meaning that is so obscene that you’ll have to look it up for yourself.” [source].

One possible example of this is rass (رأس ?), which apparently means to eat a lot, to eat a little, and a camel with especially hairy ears*.

I haven’t been able to find this word in any online dictionaries – does anybody know if it actually exists? Are there any other examples of words like this?

[*From: The Secret Life of Words – How English Became English by Henry Hitchings]

Hodgepodge

By Simon

Yesterday I came across some interesting discussion on Keith’s Voice on Extreme Language Learning about the hodgepodge approach to learning languages, which he describes as follows:

“It’s a kind of do-it-all approach and can be constructed in various ways. Absolutely no plan whatsoever is needed! Try some technique out and if you don’t like it you can just discard it. Then try something else. When you get bored with that, pick a new activity to go to work on. There’s one caveat though. Results will vary!”

This is pretty much how I learn languages, and the results certainly do vary. I don’t go in for plans or methods very much, and just try to practise all language skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing – as much and as often as possible. Often I think to myself that perhaps I should be a bit more systematic in my approach, but rarely do anything about it.

Keith goes on to explain why he’s not keen on this approach:

“For a language learner like myself, the hodgepodge method is unacceptable. We do not want varying results. We all want the same thing. The only standard of speaking a language is the native speaker. This is what we want to reach. This is the only acceptable result.”

Achieving a native-like proficiency in a language is certainly worth aiming for, however it may not be for everybody. Some people are happy to acquire a good reading ability in a language, others might be content with an ability to understand it, or to communicate in it at a basic level. It depends why you’re learning the language and what you want to do with it.

Are you a hodgepodger or do you use a particular method to learn languages?

Word of the day – paraphe

By Simon

Example of a signature with a paraph

The word paraphe, which is also spelled parafe, came up last night at the French conversation group – we were looking for how to say initial (letter) in French and found this word, along with initiale.

The word also exists in English – paraph. Definitions include:

  • a flourish made after or below a signature, originally to prevent forgery
  • a flourish after a signature, originally to prevent forgery
  • a flourish or other embellishment made after a signature, either as idiosyncrasy or to protect against forgery

[Source]

It comes from via French from the Medieval Latin paraphus, a variant of paragraphus (paragraph).

Pictish

By Simon

Pictish stone

Using mathematical analysis, scholars at the University of Exeter have discovered that the symbols used in Pictish inscriptions are likely to represent a language, according to this article.

The team compared the Pictish symbols, which date from the 4th-9th centuries AD with more than hundreds of texts in known ancient and modern languages. They compared short and longer sequences of characters and concluded that the Pictish symbols seem to represent a language with a small vocabulary, however the meaning of the texts remains a mystery.

There are plans to apply these techniques to other undeciphered scripts such as the Indus Valley script.


RhinoSpike

By Simon

Last week I came across a useful-looking new site called RhinoSpike, where you can request recordings in a wide variety of languages and make them in your native language.

The way it works is that you submit text in the language you want to be recorded by a native speaker. It goes into a queue for that language. Native speakers see your request, make the recording and upload the audio file, which you can then download.

You can also record texts in your native language for other people, and doing so bumps your own requests forward in the queue, so native speakers will see them faster.

It’s free and the recordings are accessible by anybody.

This is a great idea and I plan make regular use of the site.