Here’s a photo of a mystery city. Do you know or can you guess where it is, and which languages are spoken there?
Category: Language
Language quiz
Word of the day – pachi pachi
Today’s word, パチパチ (pachi pachi) is an onomatopoeic Japanese word meaning:
1. pleasant clapping sound;
2. sound of something hot bursting open (i.e. popcorn);
3. incessant blinking
It came up while I was chatting with some Japanese friends earlier today and is one of the many onomatopoeic words in Japanese.
Here are some more examples:
バラバラ (bara bara) – rattle
クスクス (kusu kusu) – giggle
ポチャポチャ (pocha pocha) – splash
フサフサ (fusa fusa) – a full and attractive head of hair
ギトギト (gito gito) – being oily
イライラ (ira ira) – the state of being frustrated
ポカポカ (poka poka) – the state of being nice and warm
See also this site and this site.
Interestingly, some such words describe visual phenomena, such as blinking, or feelings rather than sounds. Does any other language do this?
By the way, apologies if you’ve been unable to access this blog, my other blog, the Omniglot forum or some of the pages on Omniglot recently. Unfortunately I haven’t managed to find a solution to this problem yet, though it usually sorts itself out after a while. If any of you have any ideas how to fix it, please let me know.
Shanghai Metro
There’s apparently a plan to train the staff of the Shanghai Metro in basic phrases in five major Sinitic languages in order to provide information about fares and directions to non-Mandarin-speaking domestic tourists and visitors, according to a blog post on the Shanghaiist.
In response to this plan, the director of the Shanghai Language Works Commission said:
“We have contacted the Metro management today, stating that the program could violate the country’s language policy to promote the use of Putonghua.”
“There are at least 1,000 regional dialects in China, not including more branch dialects in different regions. The right way to solve communication barrier is to speak Putonghua.”
“What about passengers who speak other dialects? Using only the five dialects would not solve the problem.”
Inspite of this, Shanghai Metro plans to continue with the training scheme and are thinking of extending the service to Shanghai South Railway Station Metro stop. The languages in question are Cantonese, Wenzhou-hua (Zhejiang), Wuhan-hua (Hubei), Changsha-hua (Hunan) and Fujian-hua (a.k.a. Hokkien). Presumably these are the most common languages spoken by visitors to Shanghai, though the post doesn’t discuss the reasons for choosing these particular ones.
Are you computarded?
When reading this blog today, I noticed a interesting word in the comments on one of the posts – computarded. It was used in the following sentence: “I made it up to the basic internet skills era (email! google search! social network site! PubMed! etc…) and beyond that I’m computarded.”
This is an example of a portmanteau word or blend. It works better than computer illiterate, I think, though only if you’re talking about yourself. If you used it to describe someone else, it might be considered pejorative.
A possible antonym is compudextrous. Can you think of any others?
Speaking with a foreign accent
I came across an interesting post today over on David Crystal’s blog about foreign accents. He believes that as long as other people can understand what you say in a foreign language, it doesn’t really matter if you speak it with a non-native accent. In fact your accent conveys your identity. He states that “it is very rare indeed for someone to develop a phonetic ability to the extent that their foreign origins are totally masked”, and that the only people who would really need to do so are spies.
It is indeed very difficult to speak a foreign language with completely native pronunciation and intonation, unless you acquire it at a young age. Having a training in phonetics certainly helps, as does prolonged immersion in the language. It also helps if you’re a good mimic.
I do my best to acquire as near a native accent as possible in the languages I’m learning, and my accent tends to improve if I spend a lot of time speaking those languages with native speakers. When people ask me which part of their country I’m from, or assume I’m from a neighbouring country where the same language is spoken, I know I’m one the right track.
Do you think it matters if you have a ‘foreign’ accent when speaking another language?
Language puzzle
Today’s language puzzle was sent in by Alan & Debbie Willis. It’s a clue for a Geocaching waypoint. Can you decipher it? It appears to be written in English using a Cyrillic-based cypher.
Here’s what I’ve managed to work out so far:
If you can read this you are on the right track congratulations. Stop you are enjoying the ???? transliterated in the Cyrillic alphabet.
If you’re the last one are correct you …
By the way, in case you’re wondering what Geocaching is all about, there’s some information on this site.
Language quiz
Word of the day – corpus
A text corpus (pl. corpora) is a large and structured set of texts usually stored, processed and analysed electronically. They are used to do statistical analysis, checking occurrences or validating linguistic rules. They are also used by dictionary makers to find definitions of words. The word corpus comes from the Latin for body.
According to an article in the New York Times on this topic that I found today, the verb migrate is used much more frequently with the direction south than with north. Pink things tend to be fluffy, while green things are more likely to be fuzzy. We tend to chide ourselves but we are more likely to lambaste others. The word fake is most commonly associated with smiles, tans, IDs, passports, fur and boobs.
The article contains many other interesting examples, all taken from the Oxford English Corpus (OEC), a 1.8-billion-word database of written and spoken English.
I found another corpus of English today that’s accessible online: the British National Corpus – it’s smaller than the OEC – only 100 million words – and covers mainly British English.
Do you know of similar corpora for other languages?
Duxes and testamurs
Two words I came across recently that left me puzzled were dux and testamur. After some investigation, I discovered that dux is the title given to the top academic student in a graduating class of a school, and that it’s used in Scotland, Australia, New Zealand and Iceland. I understand that the US equivalent is valedictorian. I don’t know if there’s an equivalent in England or Wales.
Dux comes from the Latin word for leader, via the verb ducere, to lead, and is also the root of the English word duke, the French duc, the Italian duce, and the Venetian doge.
A testamur or testimonium is a certificate issued by a university to signify that a student has satisfied the requirements of a particular course and has graduated, according to this site. It’s used mainly in Australia. Elsewhere I believe such documents are usually called diplomas.
Testamur comes from the Latin Ita testamur, meaning “We testify/certify” – the words used to begin such certificiates, according to Wikipedia.