Category: Danish (dansk)

Job Tracks

By Simon

In English you might talk about career paths, meaning “the way that you progress in your work, either in one job or in a series of jobs” [source].

In Dutch there is one word – baan [baːn] – that means both job and path. So you might think that a career path in Dutch would be a baanbaan, but it is in fact a carrière, carrièrepad or loopbaan [source].

A baan is a road, way or path; a track or lane; a job or professional occupation, or a sports field or court.

It comes from the Middle Dutch bane (open field, battlefield; lane, track; road, way, path), from the Old Dutch *bana, from the Proto-Germanic *bano (battlefield, clearing, open space, cleared way, path, track), from the Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰen- (to strike, kill) [source].

The English words defend and offend actually come from the same root, via the Latin *fendō (I hit, thrust) [source].

Related words in Dutch include:

  • banen = to make way, clear
  • baanbrekend = revolutionary, earthshaking (“path-breaking”)
  • bijbaan = side job, sideline, job on the side
  • busbaan = bus lane
  • droombaan = dream job, perfect job
  • hondenbaan = a really bad job, dog’s work
  • landingsbaan = runway, airstrip
  • loopbaan = career, career path
  • rijbaan = lane, carriageway
  • enkelbaans = one-way (road)
  • tweebaans = two-way (road)

Related words in other Germanic languages include the German Bahn (route, trail, rail(way), train, tram, lane, orbit), the Danish bane (track, trajectory), and the Swedish bana (path, race, track, railway, career, life) {source].

Carrière comes from the French carrière (career, riding arena, racecourse), from the Italian carriera (career, the fastest gait), from the Latin Latin carrāria (a wide road for vehicles, a path for carts) from the Latin carrus (wagon, cart, cartload, wagonload), from the Gaulish *karros (wagon), from the Proto-Celtic *karros (wagon) [source].

Stile

Springing into Action

By Simon

I’m currently studying several languages from the same family – Danish, Swedish, Dutch and Faroese, and I’ve been noticing some interesting similarities and differences in their vocabulary.

In Dutch, for example, lopen [ˈloːpən] means to walk or run – apparently it usually means to walk in the Netherlands, and to run in Belgium, according to Wikitionary.

A cognate word in Danish is løbe [ˈløːb̥ə], which means to run, and the equivalent in Swedish, löpa [løːpa], means to hare, run or be in heat. Meanwhile in Faroese the equivalent word is leypa, which means to run or jump.

These words all come from the Proto-Germanic root hlaupaną [ˈxlɑu̯.pɑ.nɑ̃] (to jump forward, to leap) from the Proto-Indo-European *klewb- (to spring, stumble) [source].

The English words leap and lope (to travel at an easy pace with long strides) come from the same root, as does the German word laufen (to go, walk, run, work, move), and related words in other Germanic languages [source].

In Swedish one word for to run is springa, which is cognate with the English word spring, the Dutch springen [ˈsprɪŋə(n)] (to blow, jump, leap, burst), the German springen [ˈʃpʁɪŋən] (to go, bounce, skip, spring, leap), and the Danish springe [ˈsbʁɛŋə] (to jump, leap, spring).

These come from the Proto-Germanic root springaną [ˈspriŋ.ɡɑ.nɑ̃] (to spring, jump up, burst, explode) [source].

The word gå [ɡoː] means to go, walk or stoll in Swedish. In Danish the same word, pronounced [ɡɔː/ɡ̊ɔːˀ], means to go or walk, and in Norwegian, where it’s pronounced [ɡɒː/ɡoː], it means to walk, go work, function, or be alright. In Faroese the equivalent is ganga [ˈkɛŋka], which means to walk.

These come from the the Old Norse ganga [ˈɡɑ̃ŋɡɑ] (to go, walk), from the Proto-Germanic *ganganą [ˈɣɑŋ.ɡɑ.nɑ̃] (to go, walk, step), from the Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰengʰ- (to walk, step), which is also the root of the word gang (to go, walk) in northern dialects of English, and in Scots [source].

The English word go comes from the Middle English gon, goon (to go), from the Old English gān (to go), from the Proto-Germanic *gāną (to go), from the Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeh₁- (to leave) [source]

Leap

Extra Horses

By Simon

In Dutch one word for horse is paard [paːrt]. It also means a knight in chess, a pommel horse or an ugly woman. When I learnt this recently, I starting wondering where it comes from, as you do.

Paard

At first I thought, it’s completely different to words for horse in other Germanic languages – hest in Danish and Norwegian, häst in Swedish, and hestur in Icelandic and Faroese.

While this is true, paard is in fact cognate with the German word for horse Pferd [pfeːrt], and also with the Afrikaans perd, the Luxembourgish Päerd, the Yiddish פֿערד (ferd), the English palfrey* and the French palefroi.

* palfrey = “a small horse with a smooth, ambling gait, popular in the Middle Ages with nobles and women” [source].

These words paard, Pferd, etc come from the Latin Latin paraverēdus, “an extra horse; post horse or courier’s horse for outlying or out of the way places” [source], from para- (beside, next to, near), from the Ancient Greek παρά (from, by, near), and verēdus (a fast or light breed of horse, a courier’s horse, a hunter), from the Gaulish *werēdos, from Proto-Celtic *uɸorēdos (horse) [source].

The Proto-Celtic word *uɸorēdos is also the root of the Welsh word gorwydd (steed, horse) and the Spanish word vereda (path, lane, sidewalk) [source].

The word horse itself comes from the Old English hors (horse), from the Proto-Germanic *hrussą (horse), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱr̥sos (horse), from the Proto-Indo-European *ḱers- (to run) [source]. This is also the root of the Proto-Celtic *karros (wagon) and the Latin currus (chariot, wagon) [source].

Others words that come from the Proto-Germanic *hrussą include the North Frisian hors (horse), the West Frisian hoars (horse), the Dutch ros (horse, steed), the German Ross (horse, thoroughbred, steed, charger, fool), and the Icelandic hross (horse).

From the Proto-Celtic *karros we get the Gaulish *karros (wagon), the Old Irish carr (cart, wagon), the Welsh car (vehicle, car, sled, dray), and karr (car, vehicle) in Cornish and Breton [source].

From the Latin currus, which was borrowed from Gaulish, we get the word carro (cart, wagon, truck, car, train car, etc) in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, Catalan and Occitan, and the English words car, cart and chariot [source].

The North Germanic words for horse come the Old Norse hestr (horse, stallion), from the Proto-Germanic *hangistaz (horse, stallion), from the Proto-Indo-European *ḱanḱest-/kankest- (horse) [source].

I’ve written before about words for horse in Indo-European languages, and you can find more about Celtic words for horse on my Celtiadur blog.

Forest Picnics

By Simon

An interesting Danish word I learnt this week is skovtur, which means a picnic or outing, according to bab.la, or a “picnic (social gathering), not necessarily in a forest”, according to Wiktionary.

Grundlovs skovtur 2012

Wiktionary mentions a forest because this word is a portmanteau of skov (forest, woods), and tur (turn, trip, journey, walk, move, tour, stroll, outing). So it could be poetically translated at “forest trip/outing”. This gives me the idea that picnics in Denmark often take place in forests, or at least did in the past. Is this true? Er det sandt?

The word skov comes from the Old Norse skógr (wood, forest), from the Proto-Germanic *skōgaz (forest, wood), which is also the root of the word scaw / skaw (promontry) in some English dialects. The name of England’s highest mountain, Scafell Pike (formerly Scawfell), includes it, for example.

The word tur comes from the French tour (to go, turn), from the Old French tor (tower), from the Latin turris, turrem (tower), from the Ancient Greek τύρρις (túrrhis – tower), possibly from the Proto-Indo-European *tauro (mountain, hill, tall structure).

The word picnic is also used in Danish. It comes, via English, from the French pique-nique, from piquer (to pick) and nique (small thing) [source].

Do other languages have interesting words for picnics?

Fizzing Ducts

By Simon

One of the Danish words I learnt recently is bruser, which means shower. It’s very different to words for shower in other Germanic languages I know, such as dusch in Swedish, and Dusche in German, so I thought I’d investigate it.

p132_02

As well as meaning shower, bruser also means sprayer or rose (of a watering can). Another word for shower is brusebad (“shower-bath”). The verb bruse means to fizz, cascade, effervesce, rush, roar or murmur.

In Swedish there is a similar word: brusa, which means to make noise (like waves, wind, streaming water). While in Norwegian brusa means to fizz (emit bubbles, foam, make a fizzing or rushing sound), or to puff up ones feathers.

These words were borrowed from the Middle Low German brûsen (to roar, skim), which is thought to be of onomatopoeic origin.

The Swedish word dusch, the German Dusche, and the Norwegian dusj, come from the French douche (shower), from the Italian doccia (shower, drainpipe, plaster cast), from the Latin ductus (lead, guided), from dūcō (I lead, guide). This is also the root of the English words duct and duke.

Sources: ordbogen.com, Wiktionary, Svensk etymologisk ordbok

New Year

By Simon

It seems that a new year, and indeed a new decade has started, so Happy New Year / Decade!

I’ve noticed that some people are looking back at what they’ve done / achieved, etc over the past decade, so I thought I’d do something similar.

Back in 2009 I was studying for an MA in Linguistics at Bangor University, while working on Omniglot in my spare time, and writing for a couple of other websites. I finished my course in September of that year, though didn’t officially graduate until the following year, and have been working full-time on Omniglot since then.

Over the past decade Omniglot has grown quite a bit – I add something new, or make improvements, almost every day. The site now contains:

… and much more.

Since 2009 Omniglot has been visited by 176 million people, who have made 234 milion visits and viewed 407 million pages. There have been visitors every single country and territory, even Antarctica and North Korea. The top ten countries vistors come from are USA, India, UK, Canada, Philippines, Australia, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa. The most spoken languages of visitors are: English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Dutch, Russian, Chinese and Polish.

Over the past decade I’ve studied and dabbled with a few languages, including: Breton, BSL, Cornish, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Icelandic, Irish, Latin, Manx, Romanian, Russian, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish and Toki Pona. I also started creating my own language: Laala, and made some con-scripts such as Crymeddau and Curvetic.

I joined a French conversation group back in 2009, and have been going almost every week since then. This has really helped to improve my French and I feel a lot more confident about using it now. When I can, I also go to a Welsh conversation group, and for a while I tried to run a polyglot conversation group.

Every summer I’ve been to Ireland to do courses in Irish language, traditional Irish songs, harp and/or bodhrán playing. I’ve also been to Scotland quite a few times to do courses in Scottish Gaelic songs.

In 2012 I started writing songs and tunes, and have written quite a few since then, especially in 2019, when I wrote a new song almost every month and several new tunes. I also started to write out the music for my tunes and songs, and to make new arrangements of them.

The first song I wrote was The Elephant Song, which came to me after going to a poetry writing workshop.

I haven’t made a good recording of my most recent song, but here’s one I wrote in November / December 2019:

Since 2014 I’ve been to a number of polyglot events, including the Polyglot Gathering and the Polyglot Conference. At most of these I’ve given talks or run workshops.

Polyglottery

In 2018 I started the Radio Omniglot Podcast, and have made 27 episodes so far. I try to make two episodes per month, but don’t always manage it.

In 2018 I also launched the Celtiadur, a collection of Celtic cognates, where I explore links between modern and ancient Celtic languages. This is an extension of the Celtic Cognates section on Omniglot.

Wow! Putting it together like this makes me realise that I haven’t been entirely idle.

Random Flowing Slumps

By Simon

One of the random Swedish words I learnt recently that I rather like is slumpmässig, which means random, arbitary or haphazard, and isn’t just en slumpmässig radda bokstäver (a random jumble of letters).

Some other examples of how it’s used include:

  • Jag skall nämna några saker i slumpmässig ordningsföljd
    I would like to list a few issues in no particular order
  • Denna utveckling är inte slumpmässig
    This has not happened by chance

Related words include:

  • slump = accident, chance, coincidence, happenstance, hazard
  • slumpa = to randomize
  • slumpartad = casual, coincidental, fortuitous, serendipitous
  • slumpartat möte = chance encounter
  • slumpmässigt = random, haphazardly

Source: bab.la dictionary

The English word slump is possibly related to the Danish and Norwegian word slumpe (to happen on by chance), which comes from the Middle Low German slumpen, and may be onomatopoeic in origin [source].

Incidentally, the English word random comes from the Middle English randoun / raundon (force, magnitude, haste, intensity), from the Old French randon, from randir (to run, gallop), from the Frankish *rant / *rand (run), from the Proto-Germanic *randijō, from *rinnaną (to run), from the Proto-Indo-European *(H)r ̊-nw- (to flow, move, run) [source].

Which is all a bit random, is it not?

Language Learning Update

By Simon

Just finished the Spanish course on Duolingo

This week I finally completed the Spanish course on Duolingo. I’ve been using it to improve and refresh my Spanish, as I have studied the language with various courses before. I can now understand, read, write and speak a lot more Spanish than before, though need to practise speaking and writing it more.

I first took a placement test on Duolingo to see how much Spanish I already knew, and didn’t start from the beginning. Then I skipped through each level using the tests, rather than working through each lesson individually. Had I done that, it would take a lot longer. For now, I’m not studying Spanish actively anymore, but will use it whenever I get the chance.

Over the past two and a half years or so, I’ve studied languages every day with Duolingo (current streak = 767 days). I’ve completed courses in Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Danish and Esperanto. I also completed the Romanian course, then they added lots of extra levels, and I haven’t gone back to work on those. At the moment I’m focussing on Czech, and will continue to do so, working through every lesson, so it’s going to take quite a while. I don’t plan to start any other languages until I’ve finished the Czech course.

In the meantime, I’ve also been studying Czech, and Russian, on Mondly – Czech for 226 days and Russian for 153 days. I really like their courses and am learning a lot from them.

On Memrise I’m studying Russian, Danish and Swedish. When I started using Memrise nearly two years ago, I already knew some Russian and Swedish. and started Swedish from level 2. I started Danish last year from scratch, although my knowledge of Swedish, and German and English, certainly helps. I’m currently doing level 6 courses in Swedish and Danish, and level 5 in Russian.

By the way, if you sign up to Memrise by 16th September, you will get a 50% discount, and I’ll get a small commission.

I find these apps with the streak counters really encourage me to study every day. It has become a habit to do so, and one I plan to continue for as long as possible.

Apart from these studies, I keep my French and Welsh ticking over by speaking them regularly, and other languages by using them occasionally.

How are your language studies going?

Do you prefer to focus on one language at a time, or to learn two or more simultaneously?

What courses, apps and other resources do you use?

Treading in Spinach

By Simon

Language quiz image

A few posts ago I wrote about an interesting Swedish idiom – trampa i klaveret – to make a social mistake, put one’s foot in it, or literally “to step heavily on the accordion”.

Today I learnt the Danish equivalent – træde i spinaten (“to tread in the spinach”). For example, jeg har virkelig trådt i spinaten (“I have really trod in the spinach”) = I really put my foot in it.

Accoriding to Den Danske Ordbog, træde i spinaten means “utilsigtet sige eller gøre noget dumt” (to accidentally say or do something stupid).

Another version is træde/trampe i spinatbedet (“tread/tramp in the spinach bed”) [source].

Then there’s the spinatfugl or “spinach bird”, which is apparently a person who writes reviews or other cultural material in a newspaper without a journalistic background [source].

Does anybody know why such a person is known as a spinach bird?

The word spinach comes from the Middle English spinach, from Anglo-Norman spinache, from the Old French espinoche, from the Old Occitan espinarc, from the Arabic إِسْفَانَاخ‎ (ʾisfānāḵ), from the Persian اسپناخ‎ (ispanâx).

Apparently spinach cinema refers to “Movies that are not very exciting or interesting, but that one feels one must see because they are educational or otherwise uplifting.” [source]

Are there any interesting spinach or other vegetable-related idioms in other languages?

Blue Ants and Pencils

By Simon

Blyant (pencil in Danish and Norwegian)

In Danish the word for pencil is blyant [ˈblyːˌanˀd], which sort of sounds like blue ant. When I learnt this, I wondered where this word comes from, and I thought I’d share what I found with you.

The word blyant, which is also used in Norwegian, combines bly (lead) with the French suffix -ant. It is an abbreviation of blyertspen [source], which comes from blyert (black lead, graphite), from the German Bleiertz (lead ore – lit. “lead earth”) and pen [source].

Related words include:

  • blyantsholder = pencil holder
  • blyantspenge = financial allowance for members of the European Parliament (“pencil money”)
  • blyantspids = the tip of a pencil
  • blyantspidser = pencil sharpener
  • blyantsstreg / blyantstreg = pencil line
  • blyantstegning / blyanttegning = pencil drawing

Source: Den Danske Ordbog

The words for pencil in Swedish (blyertspenna), Faroese and Icelandic (blýantur) come from the same roots [source].

The German word for pencil, Bleistift [ˈblaɪ̯ʃtɪft] comes from a similar root: Blei (lead) and Stift (pen) [source].

There is in fact a creature called a blue ant (Diamma bicolor) – it is blue, but is a species of wasp rather than an ant, and lives in parts of Australia [source].