I came across today’s word, ariandy, while looking for something else in one of my Welsh dictionaries, Y Geiriadur Mawr. It combines arian, silver / money, with dy, a mutated form of tŷ, house, and is an archaic word for bank, as in a place where money is kept. The normal word for bank is the loanword banc.
Another example of a word made up of native roots being replaced by a foreign loanword is cornmwg, chimney, from corn, horn and mwg smoke – the usual word for chimney is simnai.
Here’s a recording of someone speaking a mystery language. Can you guess or do you know which language it is and where it’s spoken?
A locavore, which was the Oxford Word of the Year 2007, is someone who tries to eat only locally-grown food. The word was coined in 2005 by a group of four women in San Francisco who come up with the idea of only eating food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius. Since then, quite a few similar groups have emerged in other areas.
Locavores buy food from farmers’ markets, or grow or pick their own food, and argue that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. They also tend to avoid buying food for supermarkets because they argue that transporting food over long distances is wasteful of energy and produces much pollution.
There’s more information at: www.locavores.com
Yesterday I found an amusing short film called Fluent Dysphasia, which tells the story of an Irish man who wakes up one morning after a night of heavy drinking to find that he speaks Irish fluently and can no longer speak or understand English. Beforehand he spoke nothing but English, so he is very surprised and worried by the change. His best friend thinks he’s gone mad or is possessed, and the only person who understands him is his daughter.
Recently there was a real life case similar to the one portrayed in the film – a Czech motorcyclist who started speaking English fluently after an accident. In this case, his English fluency disappeared again after a few days and he had no memory of it.
Today I came across a site about the Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge (The European Certificate in Irish) or teg, which is the first and only examination system for adult learners of Irish. There will be six levels of exams from A1 (Beginner) to C2 (Advanced), though the Advanced ones are still being developed, and they test speaking, listening comprehension, reading comprehension and writing.
This test sounds similar to other language proficiency tests, such as IELTS (International English Language Testing System) and TEF (Test d’evaluation du Français), and provides proof of one’s Irish language abilities. The teg site, which is bilingual in Irish and English, provides detailed information about the exam, the syllabi, sample papers, and teaching materials.
If I was planning to search for a job in an Irish-speaking area or organisation, I’d consider taking the teg. For now, however, I’m content to continue my studies of Irish in a haphazard and relaxed way. I haven’t taken any other language proficiency tests and don’t plan to. Well, I did receive an assessment of a sort at the end on my Welsh course in Lampeter in June last year.
Such tests provide a snapshot of your language abilities at a particular point in time, and are usually taken after a lot of preparation. If the preparation involved last minute cramming, you might well forget much of it afterwards. I see learning a language more as a long term project, rather than something to cram and forget. Tests, qualifications and certificates can provide useful goals, though shouldn’t be seen as the end of your journey. There’s always more to learn.
Do you think such language tests are useful? Have you taken any, or do you plan to do so?
2008 has been declared International Year of Languages by the United Nations. Part of their aim is redress the balance between English and the five other official languages used in the UN (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish), and they hope that the pursuit of multilingualism will act “as a means of promoting, protecting and preserving diversity of languages and cultures globally”.
Happy New Year, by the way.
Here’s a recording of a well-known Christmas carol in a mystery language. Do you know or can you guess which language it is?
Here’s a recording of Silent Night in a mystery. Do you know of can you guess which language it?
I’ll be making the long track north to the parental home tomorrow, and will probably be offline for most of the week. So you’ll have to wait until next week for the answer.
A Multilingual Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it.
