Category: Language

Lusophilia

By Simon

I came across an interesting report in the New York Times today in which they talk about the recent opening of The Museum of the Portuguese Language (Museu da Língua Portuguesa) in São Paulo, Brazil. The objective of the museum is to create a living representation of the Portuguese language, where visitors may be surprised and educated by unusual and unfamiliar aspects of their own native language. The report also mentions that inspite of having more native speakers than French, German, Italian or Japanese, the Portuguese language is often overlooked by the rest of the world.

On a related matter, I’ve noticed that quite a few of the Brazilians I know think their version of Portuguese is inferior to the Portuguese spoken in Portugal. This quite surprised me as I personally prefer the sounds of Brazilian Portuguese, and it was the singing of Astrud Gilberto on a Stan Getz album that first attracted me to the language.

In case you’re wondering, lusophilia is the love of Portugal or the Portuguese language. The Luso- part comes from the Roman province of Lusitania, which occupied the same area as modern Portugal and part of Spain.

Name the language

By Simon

For this week’s quiz we have a song in a mystery language. Can you identify the language? If you can identify the singer as well, I’d be very impressed.

Clues: this was originally a Hungarian song, which was translated in English, then into the language of this recording. The title of this song is also the title of the first full-length feature film to be made in this language, which is currently only spoken by a few hundred people. This singer, who also plays the harp, sings in a number of different languages, including English.

Colour names

By Simon

According to a study by researchers at Ohio State University, colours tend to be divided into eight main categories: red, green, yellow/orange, blue, purple, brown, pink and grue (green/blue) across many languages. The categories are remarkably consistent, though the boundaries between the different colours vary from language to language, and some languages have fewer words for colours, which are often amalgamations of the main categories.

One distinction made in all languages is the one between ‘cool’ colours, like blues and greens, and ‘warm’ colours, like reds, oranges and yellows. Some languages use a single word to desciber the cool colours, and a different word to describe the warm colours.

An example of a language with different colour boundries to English is Welsh. The Welsh word glas represents a blue/green/grey/silver colour, llwyd is brown/grey colour, coch is a redish-brown, scarlet or crimson colour. The other Celtic languages have similar colour boundries.

Disjointed conversations

By Simon

When chatting on instant message programs like MSN Messenger or using the online chat function on Skype, conversations often become quite disjointed. You might respond to what the other person just said, then they respond to something you said earlier. Fortunately you can look back at what’s been said and work out what they’re on about. When more than two people are involved, it can be even more confusing. 而且如果你同时用几门不同的语言聊天，比如说，一边讲汉语，一邊講國語 and talking English to someone else, 就会混淆得不得了！

Instant messaging is probably the form of written language nearest to spoken conversation, but it’s not the same. In spoken conversation there are extralinguistic cues which, among other things, can indicate when it’s your turn to speak – usually our intonation goes down when we’ve finished speaking, something that happens without conscious thought. Such cues are missing in IM chats.

Email ‘conversations’ can be even more disjointed, especially when many people are involved. Sometimes I receive emails after they’ve back and forth between various people many times. To work out what they want me to do, I have to plough back through the whole discussion, and maybe contact some of those involved to clear up some of the details.

Japanese for kids

By Simon

The son of one of my friends has decided that he wants to learn Japanese and his parents have asked me if I can recommend any suitable courses for him. I thought of the Talk Now! series, but they only teach you a limited number of words and phrases, and the lad, who’s 10 years old, wants to learn more than that. I also suggested Pimsleur.

Have you any suggestions?

Transliterations of Omniglot

By Simon

One of my regular correspondents has suggested that I add a page to my main site showing how to write Omniglot in various different writing systems. He’s also sent me a list of transliterations to get me started – you can see the beginnings of the page here.

Could you provide any new transliterations of Omniglot, and corrections to the existing ones, if necessary? Could you also try to come up with translations of the word Omniglot in your language(s)? It means ‘all languages’ in the context of my site.

Learning languages for fun

By Simon

There are many different reasons to learn languages, some practical, some intellectual, and some sentimental. Have you learnt, are you learning, or would you like to learn any languages purely for fun? If so, which languages and why?

I’m learning, or plan to learn, all the Celtic languages mainly for fun. I fell for Irish because of my interest in traditional Irish music. Same story with Scottish Gaelic. In the case of Welsh, I’m also studying it for practical reasons – before securing my current position, one of the jobs I applied for was based in Bangor in the heart of Welsh-speaking Welsh (y Fro Gymraeg) and a knowledge of Welsh was desirable for that job. Welsh is an ancestral language for me as well – my mum’s family are from Wales and spoke Welsh a few generations ago.

Czech is another language I’m learning mainly for fun, and to surprise and impress my Czech friends. I’d also like to visit the Czech Republic at some point, so my studies are partly practical.

Other languages I’d quite like to learn for fun, if I had the time and could find the relevant materials: a Polynesian language such as Hawai’ian or Maori; a Native American language such as Cherokee or Navajo; a ‘click’ language such as Xhosa or Zulu; and maybe Tibetan and Mongolian, mainly because I really like their alphabets. These are all interesting languages unlike any I already know and I’d like to find out more about the people who speak them.

This post was inspired by discussion on the Language Learning Forum at How to learn any language.

Nihongo

By Simon

This morning I had a long chat on Skype with a Japanese lass from somewhere near Tokyo. We talked in a mixture of Japanese and English, and I was pleased to discover that I can still speak Japanese, inspite of many years of neglect. There are many words I’ve forgotten, and I tend to get the word order wrong sometimes, but I can still communicate, and it was starting to come back to me slowly as we talked.

今朝は私がスカイプで日本の女性としゃべた。私たちは日本語と英語に話した。彼女はイギリスに二年の間に英語を勉強しただから、英語が上手だ。私は大学を卒業後、日本語を話す機会が少なかったたから、今は日本語が下手になる、然し今でも日本語に通信することが出来ます。

Pimsleur – a review

By Simon

I have now listened to all 10 lessons of my Pimsleur Czech course, most of them several times. I’ve a long way to go before I can speak Czech, but I do know quite a few useful words and phrases now, and I am beginning to acquire a feeling for the structure of the language. I also know how to pronounce words, though some of the consonant clusters are tricky. When I listen to Radio Prague or my Czech friends talking, I can get a basic idea of what they’re on about.

Before I started the course, I’d read many reviews of Pimsleur courses, many positive, some negative, so I had an idea of what I was letting myself in for. I now think that Pimsleur courses can give you a good foundation in a language, which you can build on with other courses. They are particularly good for languages unlike any of the ones you already know.

Next week I’m going to start on Colloquial Czech – I had a quick look at it yesterday and found that I could understand quite a lot of the stuff in the first lesson, which is encouraging.