Category: Language

Shellbacks and polliwogs

By Simon

My brother and his girlfriend are currently polliwogs, but sometime today or tomorrow they will become shellbacks. A polliwog or pollywog is a sailor who has not crossed the equator, while a shellback is one who has, or an experienced or old sailor.

According to nautical tradition, when the equator is crossed, a ceremony is performed for King Neptune and shellbacks ridicule and humiliate polliwogs.

Polliwog comes from the Middle English polwygle. Pol comes from Middle Low German polle, hair of the head, head, top of a tree, and wygle from Middle Low German, Middle Dutch wiggeln.

There’s some details of the equator crossing ceremonies in the US navy at: http://www.desausa.org/pollywog_to_shellback.htm

And you can follow my brother’s adventures at:
http://kikasailing.blogspot.com

Word of the day – dylunio gwe

By Simon

dylunio gwe = web design
dylunio = to design; gwe = web, gauze, texture

Heddiw, o’r diwedd, dw i’n wedi dod o hyd i’r gair Cymraeg am web design, a thermau defnyddiol eraill fel systemau rheoli cynnwys, datblygu gwefanau a mewnrwydi. Rŵan, os oes angen arna i, dw i’n gallu siarad am y pethau hyn.

Today, I finally found the Welsh word for web design, and a number of other useful words such as content management system, website development and intranet. So I can now talk about these things in Welsh if the need every arises.

I find it interesting to see how different languages deal with terminology for new inventions and technology. Some just borrow the words from the original language (often English), some translate the terms, and others coin new words from their existing word stock. For example, computer is 计算机 (jìsuànjī) – “calculating machine” in China and 電腦 (diànnào) – “electric brain” in Taiwan, while in Japan it’s コンピューター (konpyūtā). The Welsh word for computer is cyfrifiadur – “thing that counts/calculates”.

I read somewhere that Iceland they hold a national competition to come up with words for new inventions. Does anybody know if this is true? One such word is tulva (computer), which literally means “number seer” or “fortune teller”.

In the case of Welsh, official terms may exist for most new inventions, but they aren’t necessarily used in everyday speech. Usage of the official terms tends to more common in formal settings. In informal situations, people often use the English terms, or alternative Welsh words they’ve coined. For example, the official term for ‘to send text message’ is anfon neges testun, but many people just say tecstio.

Source of the Welsh terms: www.technoleg-taliesin.com

Word of the day – bean ghlúine

By Simon

bean ghlúine, noun = midwife (lit. “kneeling woman”)

This word suggests that kneeling was once a major part of being a midwife in Ireland. Other Irish words for midwife are bean chabhartha (“helping woman”) and cnáimhseach, and midwifery is cnáimhseachas.

The word midwife comes from the Old English mid (with) and wif (woman). One of the Welsh words for midwife, gwidwith, perhaps comes from the same root; the other is bydwraig (“world wife”).

Faoi láthair tá mo dheirfiúr a dhéanamh staidéar ar an chnaimhseachas, agus sin é an fáth a phioc mé an focal seo.

My sister is currently studying midwifery, which is why I choose this word.

Word of the day – 崎 (qí)

By Simon

崎 (qí), noun = the banks of a winding river

This is an example of one of the very specific words in Chinese. I doubt if it’s used very often, but the fact that you pack so much meaning into a single syllable is quite impressive.

Pronounced with the first tone and combined with 嶇 (qū), this character means rugged, uneven or rough, e.g. 這條小徑崎嶇而多泥 (zhè tiáo xiǎojīng qīqū ér duō ní) – This path is rugged and muddy.

Word of the day – tittle

By Simon

tittle, noun = a small mark in printing or writing, especially a diacritic

Origin: from Latin titulus – label

I came across this word while researching the origin of the dot on the letters i and j, which is known as a tittle. This diacritic was apparently first used to distinguish the letter i from other letters in Latin manuscripts during the 11th century. Originally the tittle was bigger, but was reduced in size gradually until it reached its current dimensions.

Source: Wikipedia

Do You Know What You Are Saying?

By Simon

There was an interesting programme on BBC Radio 4 yesterday – Do You Know What You Are Saying? – in which Melvyn Bragg used a new computer program to analyse the amount of words of Anglo-Saxon / Old English origin in modern English.

He looked at the language used by a radio DJ (Terry Wogan), a lawyer, an author (Dylan Thomas) and a rapper. Not surprisingly, the one with the lowest proportion of Anglo-Saxon words was the lawyer (about 60%), while the rapper used the highest proportion (90%). He also analyized his own language and found he uses around 80% of his words are of Anglo-Saxon origin.

For all the language he examined, the proportion of Anglo-Saxon words was much higher than expected. It seems that English remains very much a Germanic language, eventhough it contains numerous loanwords, particularly from Norman, French, Latin and Greek.

Some people, notably those in the legal and medical professions, tend to use many words and phrases of Latin and Greek origin, partly to obscure the meaning of what they’re saying. Moreover, descriptions of medical conditions sound much more impressive in Latinate language than in plain English. If you’re told you suffer from nystagmus, for example, you might think that it sounds like an interesting disease, though what it actually means is “wonky eyes”.

Word of the day – seandálaíocht

By Simon

seandálaíocht, noun = archaeology (lit. “old data study”)

Related words:
seandálaí = archaeologist
seanda = old, ancient, archaic
seandacht = antiquity
seandachtaí = antiquities

The equivalent word in the other Celtic languages is:
Manx: shenndaaleeaght
Scottish Gaelic: àrsaidheachd
Welsh: hynafiaeth, archaeoleg

I’m currently learning some more Irish with RTE’s excellent course, Turas Teanga. This week’s lesson is about education. The course is an intermediate-level one based on a popular TV series and consists of a textbook, CDs and DVDs. The textbook contains dialogues, activities, grammar notes, vocabularly and reading passages. Recordings of all the dialogues and some of the exercises can be found on the CDs.

On the DVDs the presenter travels to a different part of Ireland in each programme, chats with various interesting people and explores a bit. There are also people acting out the situations in the dialogues, and even a mock ‘reality’ show called ‘An Grá Faoi Ghlas’ (Love Locked Away).

For more information about Turas Teanga, see:
http://www.rte.ie/tv/turasteanga/

Balaclavas and wellies

By Simon

Continuing the clothing theme, today we’re looking at articles of clothing named after people or places.

Our first exhibit is the wellington boot, a type of knee or calf-length rubber boot named after the 1st Duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley), the commander of the British forces at the battle of Waterloo in 1815. Wellingtons are affectionately know as wellies or welly boots, and in some parts of the UK welly chucking/throwing is a popular pastime.

Our second exhibit is the balaclava helmut, a close-fitting woollen hood that covers the ears and neck, as originally worn by soldiers in the Crimean War, and named after Balaklava, a small port in South Crimea.

In Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiment, there’s a running gag involving soldiers dreaming of the an article of clothing being named after them.

Are there any others you can think of?

By the way, does anybody have any suggestions for reducing comment spam? The spammers have been hitting this blog a lot.

Word of the day – туфля

By Simon

туфля (tuflja), noun = shoe

This week’s Russian lesson is about clothes and this word just appeals to me. It sounds a bit like “tooth fly” – my way of remembering it is to imagine my shoes being full of flies with big teeth. This is quite a strange image, but that helps it to stick in my memory.

I also like the Welsh word for shoe – esgid – it sounds like skid, so to remember it, I think of people skidding around in their shoes. The word for a horseshoe is pedol, which conjures up images of horses pedalling bicycles.

Anois tá mé ag dul níos mó Gaeilge a fhoghlaim (Time to learn some more Irish now).

White rabbits

By Simon

Saying “white rabbits” on the first day of each month apparently brings you luck, at least that’s what I was told as a child. I have no idea why – it’s just a superstition. Any suggestions why white rabbits might be lucky? Do you do or say any other things on the first of each month to bring to luck?

Rabbit

Today is May Day and a bank holiday in the UK. Traditional activities on this day include Morris dancing, a form of folk dancing that dates back to at least 1448 and that is praticed mainly in England. It involves a bunch of blokes in unusual costumes dancing around, waving handkerchiefs and attacking each other with sticks. This is often perpetrated in the vicinity of a pub so that the participants can refresh themselves after their exertions.

Morris dancers at Kirkstall Abbey