Can any of you decipher the Chinese characters on this cube, which was bought in an antiques shop in Bucharest. The characters look like Small Seal Script to me.
Category: Language
Language quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know or can you guess which language it’s in and where it’s spoken?
Chinese in Liberia
China is apparently one of the largest overseas investors in Liberia and there are numerous Chinese people working there. As a result some Liberians have started learning Chinese and some of them are keen to visit China if they get the chance. Lessons are taking place in the Samuel Doe Stadium in Monrovia, and in the Confucius Institute, which opened in the University of Liberia in December 2008.
If the locals learn to read Chinese as well they will be able to understand the Chinese versions of the numerous agreements that are signed. There is even a Chinese language radio station there for the Chinese migrants and expats.
There are more than 20 Chinese language schools in Africa at the moment, according to this report.
Language quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know or can you guess which language it’s in and where it’s spoken?
Hangeul / Han’gŭl Day 한글날
Today is Hangeul Day (한글날) in South Korea, the day when they celebrate their alphabet. This year is the 563rd anniversary of the promulgation of Hangeul by King Sejong the Great in 1446.
According to The Korea Herald, the Korean government is keen to encourage people all over the world to learn Korean and plans to increase the number of Sejong Hakdang, centres teaching Korean, to 500 by 2015. At the moment there 16 Sejong Hakdang in China, Japan, Russia, USA and a couple of other countries, and there are plans to open a Korean language centre in Sri Lanka.
Korean is also apparently taught in hundreds of universities in some 60 countries, and increasing numbers of courses are offered in Asian countries such as China, Thailand, India and Japan. Also, some Korean companies with operations in China are offering incentives, such as promotions and business trips to Korea, to Chinese workers who become fluent Korean.
By the way, here’s a useful site that transliterates from Hangeul in Romanization and vice versa.
Word of the day – highpointing
I came across the word highpointing the other day in a list of a blogger’s hobbies. It’s not a word I’m familiar with so I looked it up.
According to Wikipedia highpointing is “is the sport of visiting (and finding) the point with the highest elevation within some area (the “highpoint”), for example the highest points in each county within a state. It can be considered a form of peak bagging.”
Peak bagging (a.k.a. hill bagging, mountain bagging, Munro bagging, or just bagging) involves climbing a collection of mountains or hills – often those above a certain height or with a particular feature. Munro bagging, for example, involves climbing as many Scottish hills over 3000 ft (914.4m) as possible. Such peaks are known as Munros and named after Sir Hugh Munro (1856–1919), who was the first to catalogue them.
Another example of peak bagging is the Three Peaks Challenge, which involves climbing the three highest peaks in England (Scafell Pike), Wales (Snowdon / Yr Wyddfa) and Scotland (Ben Nevis / Beinn Nibheis) within 24 hours.
Are you a highpointer or peak bagger? Is this sport practised in your country? If so, what’s it called?
Language quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know or can you guess which language it’s in and where it’s spoken?
Word of the day – ectomorph
The word ectomorph is used to describe one of the characters in a novel I read last week. It’s not a word I’ve come across before so it caught my attention.
According to The Free Dictionary, an ectomorph is “an individual having a lean, slightly muscular body build in which tissues derived from the embryonic ectoderm predominate.”
The Encyclopedia Britannica defines the word ectomorph as “a human physical type (somatotype) tending toward linearity, as determined by the physique classification system developed by the American psychologist W.H. Sheldon.”
The Compact Oxford English Dictionary defines an ectomorph as “a person with a lean and delicate build of body”, and related words include endomorph, “a person with a soft round build of body and a high proportion of fat tissue”, and mesomorph, “a person with a compact and muscular body”.
According to these definitions, I think I am an ectomorph. What about you?
Moldovan or Romanian
Moves are afoot to rename the language of Moldova Romanian rather than Moldovan, according to this report.
The Moldovan Prime Minister believes that the “Moldovan people speak in Romanian like Americans speak in English. The national language can be renamed in the future from Moldovan to Romanian”.
While the main language they speak in Moldova is not exactly the same as the Romanian of Romania, it can be considered a dialect of Romanian, according to the government in Bucharest.
Arguments over whether Moldovans speak Moldovan or Romanian have been bubbling away at least since the country became independent in 1991. When independence was declared the official language was named as Romanian, but the 1994 constitution named Moldovan as the the national language of Moldova. In 1996 a proposal by the Moldovan President to refer to the Moldovan national language as Romanian was dismissed by the parliament, and the 2004 census found that 60% of Moldovans thought of their language as Moldovan, while only 16% thought of it as Romanian.
Before 1989 Moldovan / Romanian in Moldova was written with the Cyrillic alphabet. Since then it has been written with the Latin alphabet, except in the Transdniestrian region, where the population is mainly Russian and Ukrainian they still use Cyrillic.
Moldova was part of Romania before it was taken over by the Soviet Union after the Second World War, and recently has began seeking closely ties with Romania.
Language quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know or can you guess which language it’s in and where it’s spoken?