Category: Danish (dansk)

Context Matters

By Simon

Context matters / Контекст имеет значение

When learning new words in foreign tongues I find that I can remember some words more easily than others, especially if they are similar to words I already know in English or other languages. Other words don’t seem to stick in my memory so easily, even if I try to connect their unfamiliar sounds to familiar words.

In Russian and Czech, for example, there are quite a few words that I can understand when I see them in a sentence, but may not be so sure what they mean when I encounter them on their own – having some context makes all the difference.

Another challange with Russian, at least for me, is recognising words at a glance. Words written in the Cyrillic alphabet don’t seem to have such distinctive shapes as those written in the Latin alphabet, which makes them more difficult to distinguish. This is probably because I haven’t spent enough time reading Russian texts.

Words in Swedish, Danish and Spanish, the other languages I’m working on at the moment, tend to be much easier for me to remember. Many of them are simliar to English, or to other languages I know. The ones that aren’t similiar tend to be short, especially in Swedish and Danish, and I find them easier to remember than longer Russian or Czech words.

Learning lists of words without any context can work with a lot of repetition, and maybe some mnemonic techniques, but it seems to be better to learn words in context.

How do you learn vocabulary?

Blah blah English blah blah

By Simon

Blah blah

A Danish friend came to visit Bangor this week. He makes the ActualFluency podcast, and is one of the people behind such courses as Italian Uncovered.

We talked a lot about websites and marketing, particularly email marketing, which I haven’t done before, but am going to try.

As well as Danish and English, he also speaks Russian and Hungarian, and has studied other languages. He doesn’t know any Welsh though, and I was curious to find out what Welsh sounded like to him. As I speak and understand Welsh, I can’t get an outsider’s perspective on it. To him it sounded very foreign – something like “blah blah blah blah English word blah blah blah blah”.

When I listen to languages I don’t know, they may sound like that to me. Mostly mysterious sounds with occasional recognisable words. The recognisable words are borrowed from English, or from another language I know, or are the names of places or people.

When listening to languages related to ones I know, I can usually understand more, or at least recognise more words.

What do unknown languages sound like to you?

The hieroglyphs in the image mean “The cat dances when the crocodile hides” (iw ib(A) miw imn msH), and come from Hieroglyphs.net

Danish rooms

By Simon

My lodgings in Aarhus

Recently I learnt that there are two different words for room in Danish: rum [ʁɔmˀ], which is a general room, and værelse [ˈʋæʁɑlsə], which is a room for spending time in, at least according to Memrise. Is this correct?

Værelse comes from være (to be) and -else (a suffix that turns verbs into nouns) [source].

Subspecies of værelse include:

  • soveværelse = bedroom
  • badeværelse = bathroom
  • arbejdsværelse = study
  • børneværelse = nursery
  • hotelværelse = hotel room
  • klasseværelse = classroom
  • loftsværelse = loft
  • gæsteværelse = guest room

[source]

A related word is tilværelse (life, existence).

Rum means room, comparment or space, and comes from the Old Norse rúmr, from the Proto-Germanic *rūmaz (roomy, spacious, open), the same root as the English word room [source].

Subspecies of rum include:

  • omklædningsrum = changing room, locker room
  • møderum = meeting room
  • siderum = (small) chamber, side room
  • tørrerum = drying room
  • haverum = garden room
  • gårdrum = courtyard

[source].

Other Danish words for rooms include lokale (room), stue (living room), sal (hall) and køkken (kitchen).

Polyglot Plans

By Simon

Polyglot - definition

I just registered for the Polyglot Gathering in Bratislava at the end of May / beginning of June. This will be the fifth time I’ve been to the Gathering – the second in Bratislava, and I’m looking forward to it.

I’ll be staying in the same AirBnB as last time, which is close to the Gathering venue, and not too far from the centre of Bratislava. It’s easier that way as I already know my way around the area.

I haven’t decided if I’ll give a presentation or run a workshop at the Gathering. At previous polyglot events I’ve given talks on writing systems, the origins of languages, the origins of words, Manx, and language death and revival, and helped with a Welsh language workshop. Any suggestions for what I could talk about at this and future polyglot events?

At the end of January I’m going to Edinburgh for LingoFringo, a fringe event to the main polyglot conferences and gatherings with a focus on workshops, community and networking events. I’ll be running a workshop on traditional Scottish Gaelic songs there.

So this month I’ll be brushing up my Scottish Gaelic, preparing for the workshop, and continuing to work on other languages. The languages I’m focusing on currently are Swedish, Danish, Russian, Esperanto, Cornish and Scots. This year I also plan to learn some more British Sign Language and Slovak, and maybe some German, Czech and Spanish.

I don’t plan to start any new languages this year – we’ll see how that works out.

What are your language-related plans for this year?

Christmas

By Simon

Christmas tree / Coeden nadolig

Did you get any language-related goodies for Christmas?

Are you planning to start learning any new languages next year?

I got a British Sign Language (BSL) course, The Accidental Dictionary by Paul Anthony, and a t-shirt with hello on it in many languages.

I plan to concentrate on improving my knowledge of the languages I already know, rather than starting any new ones. Whether I stick to this remains to be seen.

Oh and Merry Christmas
Nadolig Llawen
Joyeux Noël
Nedeleg Laouen
Frohe Weihnachten
Nadelik Lowen
聖誕快樂
Nollaig shona
メリークリスマス
Nollick Ghennal
¡Feliz Navidad!
Nollaig Chridheil
С Рождеством
God jul
Veselé vánoce
Glædelig jul
Ĝojan Kristnaskon

Just speirin

By Simon

Last night I saw FARA, a brilliant group from Orkney, in our local arts centre. One of the songs they sang, Speir Thoo The Wast Wind, was in Orcadian dialect and based on a poem by Christina Costie from Orkney.

Orcadian dialect is a type of Insular Scots that combines elements of the extinct Norn language and Scots. There isn’t a lot of information available about Orcadian, but I will try to put together a page about it on Omniglot.

Each verse of the song and the poem finishes with the line “Speir thoo the wast wind, bit speir no me”, which means “Ask the west wind, and don’t ask me”, I think.

The word speir [spiːr], which is also written speer, means to enquire or ask, according to The Orkney Dictionary. When I heard it in the song, I thought I might be related to words for to ask in North Germanic languages, and it turns out that it is.

It comes from the Old English spyrian (to track, inquire, investigate, examine), from the Proto-Germanic *spurjaną (to search; to examine; to ask) [source], which is also the root of the Danish word spørge (to ask, inquire), Norwegian word spørre (to ask, inquire), and the word spyrja (to ask) in Icelandic and Faroese [source].

A few other words from Orkney dialect: hoodjiekapiv, hoodjiekapiffle, hoodjiekaboogle, which are all Orcadian equivalents of whatsit, thingy, doobry, thingamajig, whatjumacallit, thingamebob, etc [source]. What do you call something when you can’t remember it’s normal name?

You can hear the song here:

Furtive ferrets

By Simon

What do the words furtive and ferret have in common?

ferret

They come from the same root – the Latin word fūr (thief).

Furtive comes from the French furtif (stealthy), from the Latin fūrtīvus (stolen), from fūrtum (theft), from fūr (thief) [source].

Ferret (Mustela putorius furo) comes from the Middle English furet / ferret (ferret), from the Anglo-Norman firet / furet (ferret), a diminutive of the Old French fuiron (weasel, ferret), from the Late Latin furo (cat; robber), a diminutive of the Latin fūr (thief) [source].

Alternatively ferret comes from the Latin furittus (little thief) [source].

The Latin name of the ferret, mustela putorius furo, means something like “stinking robber weasel” [source].

Fūr comes from the Proto-Italic *fōr (thief), from the Proto-Indo-European *bʰṓr (thief), from *bʰer- (to carry) [source], which also the root of words for child in Germanic languages, such as bairn in Scots, barn in Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish, and barn/bern in West Frisian [source].

Glass eyes

By Simon

Glasögon

Recently I learnt an interesting word in Swedish – glasögon, which means glasses or spectacles, and literally means “glass eyes”.

Glas means glass, and comes from the Proto-Germanic *glasą (glass), from the Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰel- (to shine, shimmer, glow) [source].

Ögon is the plural of öga (eye), and comes from the Old Swedish ø̄gha (eye), from Old Norse auga (eye), from Proto-Germanic *augô (eye), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃ekʷ- (eye; to see) [source].

The Swedish word glas reminds me of the Russian word for eye, глаз (glaz), which I remember by thinking of a glass eye. Глаз comes from the Old East Slavic глазъ (glazŭ – ball, eye), from the Proto-Slavic *glazъ (ball), from Proto-Indo-European *g(ʰ)el- (round, spherical, stone) [source].

The Russian word for glasses is очки (ochki), which comes from очи (ochi), the plural of око (oko), the old Russian word for eye, which comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root as öga and eye [source].

In Danish and Norwegian, the word for glasses is briller, which means ‘a person wearing glasses’ in Dutch, and to shine or sparkle in French [source]. The German word for glasses is simliar – Brille, and the Dutch is bril [source].

Briller, Brille and bril come from the Middle High German berillus (beryl), from the Latin beryllus (beryl), probably from the Ancient Greek βήρυλλος (bḗrullos – beryl), from Sanskrit वैडूर्य (vaidurya – a cat’s eye gem; a jewel), from Dravidian. Probably named after the city Velur (modern day Belur / ಬೇಲೂರು) in Karnataka in southern India. The first glasses, made in about 1300 in Italy, were made from beryl [source].

Beryl is a mineral which comes from three forms: morganite (orange), aquamarine (blue-green – pictured top right) and heliodor (green-yellow).

The French word for glass, lunettes, means “little moons” [source].

Are there interesting words for glasses, spectacles, specs, or eyes in other languages?

When is the sky not the sky?

By Simon

Useful phrase in Danish

In Danish, Norwegian and Swedish the word sky means cloud, as does ský in Icelandic. The word for sky in these languages is himmel (himinn in Icelandic), and in Swedish sky also means sky or gravy.

I learnt the Danish word sky the other day from the sentence: Enhjørningen flyver på en sky (The unicorn is flying on a cloud) – are very useful thing to be able to say.

Sky comes from the Old Norse ský (cloud), from Proto-Germanic *skiwją (cloud, cloud cover), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kew- (to cover, conceal), which is also the root of the English word sky [source].

The English word cloud comes from the Old English clūd (mass of stone, rock, boulder, hill), from Proto-Germanic *klūtaz / *klutaz (lump, mass, conglomeration), from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (to ball up, clench), which is also the root of the English words chill, cold, congeal, cool, gel, gelatin and jelly [source].

In Old English there were different words for sky and cloud:

  • heofon was the sky or heaven [source], which survives in such modern English expressions as ‘the heavens opened’ (it started to rain heavily).
  • wolcen was cloud, and the plural, wolcnu was the sky or the heavens [source]. This became welkin in modern English, an archaic and poetic word for the sky, the upper air; aether; the heavens.

A sunny day in Bangor / Dydd heulog ym Mangor

Æbleskiver

By Simon

Æbleskiver

In the Duolingo Danish lessons I’ve been doing recently a number of words have popped with which are not really translated. One I noticed today is æbleskiver [ɛːbləˌsɡiːwɐ], which is simply translated as appleskives. That doesn’t really help as I don’t know what appleskives are.

Here’s an example sentence: Koen spiser mandens æbleskiver mens han kigger væk (The cow eats the man’s appleskives while he looks away).

From the context I guessed appleskives are something you eat and involve apples – æble = apple, but what?

The bab.la dictionary translates æbleskive as ‘pancake puff’, which doesn’t really help either.

According to Wikipedia, æbleskiver are ‘Pancake Puffs’ that are:

“spherical in shape. The name literally means apple slices in Danish, although apples are not usually an ingredient in present-day versions. Somewhat similar in texture to European pancakes crossed with a popover or Yorkshire pudding, æbleskiver are solid like a pancake but light and fluffy like a popover.”

Apparently they are traditionally eaten at Christmas, and are often served with gløgg (mulled wine). They are also served at children’s birthday parties.

This is more helpful, but what is a popover?

A popover is “a light, hollow roll made from an egg batter similar to that of Yorkshire pudding, typically baked in muffin tins or dedicated popover pans, which have straight-walled sides rather than angled.” [source].

So now we know.

Next time I go to Denmark, I will look out for æbleskiver, and try some. They sound quite tasty. I’ll have to make sure that no cows take them while I’m not looking though.