Category: Dutch (Nederlands)

Portugal oranges and Chinese apples

By Simon

An orange

In Romanian the word for orange (the fruit) is portocală [portoˈkalə]. This comes from the Greek πορτοκάλι (portokáli – orange), from the Venetian portogallo (orange), from the Italian Portogallo (Portugal).

An number of other languages get their word for orange from the same root:

– Albanian: portokall
– Amharic: ብርቱካናማ (biritukanama)
– Arabic: برتقال (burtuqaal)
– Azerbaijani: portağal
– Bulgarian: портокал (portokal)
– Georgian: ფორთოხალი (p’ort’okhali)
– Macedonian: портокал (portokal)
– Persian (Farsi): پرتقال (porteghâl)
– Turkish: portakal

Portuguese merchants were probably the first to introduce oranges to Europe, hence the link between oranges and Portugal.

In some languages oranges are known as “Chinese apples”: Apfelsine (German), appelsien / sinaasappel (Dutch), apelsin (Swedish), etc. This makes sense as oranges were first cultivated in China in about 2,500 BC.

Words for oranges in some Slavic languages come from the Old French pomme d’orenge: pomeranč (Czech), pomaranča (Slovene), pomarańcza (Polish).

The word orange derives from नारङ्ग (nāraṅga) – “orange tree” in Sanskrit, which is probably of Dravidian origin. The word for orange in Portuguese, laranja, comes from this root.

The colour orange was named after the fruit. In Old English the colour orange was referred to as ġeolurēad (yellow-red), or ġeolucrog (yellow-saffron) [source].

Souces: Wiktionary, WordReference.com, Google Translate, Wikipedia, Flickr

Filibustering freebooters!

By Simon

What’s the connecting between the words filibuster and freebooter?

The answer is, they both come from the same Dutch word vrijbuiter [ˈvrɛi̯bœy̯tər] (plunderer, robber), from vrij (free), buit (booty) and‎ -er (agent suffix).

A freebooter as originally “an adventurer who pillages, plunders or wages ad-hoc war on other nations”, and apparently also means “one who rehosts online media without authorization”. It is a calque translation from Dutch, and was first recorded in English in the 1560s [source].

A filibuster originally meant “a mercenary soldier; specifically, a mercenary who travelled illegally in an organized group from the United States to a country in Central America or the Spanish West Indies in the mid-19th century seeking economic and political benefits through armed force”. Over time it also came to mean, “A tactic (such as giving long, often irrelevant speeches) employed to delay the proceedings of, or the making of a decision by, a legislative body, particularly the United States Senate”.

Filibuster was first recorded in English in the 1580s as flibutor. It was borrowed from the Spanish filibustero (pirate), from French flibustier (pirate), from the Dutch vrijbuiter.

I discovered this from Bill Bryson’s Made In America: An Informal History of American English, which I’m reading at the moment.

Filibustering freebooters! sounds like the kind of curse Captain Haddock uses in the Tintin stories. He does in fact say Filibuster(s)! and Fancy-dress freebooter!, but not Filibustering freebooters!, as far as I can discover.

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig

By Simon

I made it to Sabhal Mòr Ostaig last night. It started to rain very heavily as the ferry arrived in Armadale. Fortunately there was a bus to the college, but I got rather damp just walking from the ferry to the bus, and from the bus into the college.

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig

So far on this journey I’ve heard quite a few different languages, including German, Lithuanian, Mandarin, French, Spanish and Dutch. I’ve had conversations in English, Scottish Gaelic and Irish, and spoken odd bits of Manx, Swedish, Russian and German.

My Scottish Gaelic is a bit rusty, but it’s coming back, and I fill in any gaps with Irish. On the way hear I listened to an audio book and some songs in Gaelic to tune my ears into the language.

The white light of the world

By Simon

свет (svet)

An interesting and useful Russian word I came across today is свет [svʲet], which means light, and also lights, lighting, day, radiance, power, electricity, world and (high) society.

It comes from the Old East Slavic свѣтъ ‎(světŭ – light; world), from Proto-Slavic *světъ ‎(light; world), from the Proto-Balto-Slavic *śwaitas, from the Proto-Indo-European *ḱwoytos / *ḱweytos ‎(bright; shine), from *ḱwey-.

Related words in other Slavic languages include: Belarusian: свет ‎(world), Ukrainian: світ ‎(world, universe), Bulgarian свят ‎(world, earth, universe), Macedonian: свет ‎(world), Slovene: svẹ̑t (sacred, holy), Czech: svět (world), Polish: świat (world), and Slovak: svet (world) and svetlo (light).

Words for white in Germanic languages come from the same PIE root: such as white in English, weiß in German, wit in Dutch, hvit in Norwegian, vit in Swedish and hvid in Danish.

Here are some examples of related words and usage:

– светать = to get/grow light
– светлый = bright, light, lucid
– светильник = lamp
– светить = to shine
– светлеть = to lighten
– свети́ло = heavenly body; luminary
– светофо́р = traffic light
– свеча́ = candle; spark plug; suppository
– дневно́й свет‎ = daylight
– со́лнечный свет‎ = sunshine, sunlight
– я́ркий свет = bright light
– ско́рость све́та = speed of light
– при свете луны/свечи = by moonlight/candlelight
– в свете = in the light of
– ни свет ни заря = at the crack of dawn
– чуть свет = at daybreak
– появи́ться на свет‎ = to be born (“to arrive in the light/world”)
– выходить в свет = to be published (“to face the light/world”)
– проливать свет на что = to shed/throw light on sth
– тот свет = the next world

The name Светлана (Svetlana) also comes from the same root.

Sources: Reverso, Wiktionary

Plains, pianos and floors

By Simon

Flat piano on a wooden floor

The Welsh word llawr [ɬau̯r] means floor, deck, gallery, stage, platform, cellar, basement, ground, face, and a few other things. I discovered today that it has cognates in all the other Celtic languages:

– leur (Cornish) = floor, ground
– leur (Breton) = area, ground, floor, soil
– lár (Irish) = ground, floor, middle, centre
– làr (Scottish Gaelic) = floor, ground, storey
– laare (Manx) = storey, deck, floor, bottom, flat, set, sill, level

These words all come from the Proto-Celtic *ɸlārom (floor), which comes from the Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂rom or *ploh₂rom, from *pleh₂- ‎(to be flat).

THe PIE word *pleh₂- is the root of many other words, including:

– The English piano, plain, plan, floor and flake
– The Dutch vloer (floor, ground, surface)
– The German Flur (hall, hallway, corridor, stairwell)
– The Italian piano (flat, level, smooth, plane, softly, quietly)
– The Spanish llano (even, flat, level, plain) and plano (plain, level, flat)
– The Latvian: plats, plašs ‎(wide, broad)
– The Lithuanian: platus ‎(wide, broas)
– The Russian плоский (flat, plain, level)

Sources: Wiktionary, Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, Maga Cornish Dictionary / Gerlyver Kernewek, Dictionnaires bilingues de Francis Favereau, teanglann.ie, Am Faclair Beag, On-Line Manx Dictionary, Reverso

Polyglot Pub

By Simon

Polyglots polyglotting at the Polyglot Pub

Last week I went to the Polyglot Pub in London. I’ve been to similar events in Manchester and Liverpool, but this is the first one I’ve been to in London. It takes place once a month, usually at Penderel’s Oak, a pub in Holborn, and this month there were about 16 people there.

The conversation was mainly in English, but I also spoke Mandarin and French, and odd bits of Russian, Czech, Slovak, Swedish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Scottish Gaelic and Dutch. Other languages were avaiable.

The next Polyglot Pub will be in the same place on the 16th February.

Do you go to, or know of, similar events elsewhere?

Boxing tips

By Simon

Today is Boxing Day in the UK, and there are a number of ideas about the origins of the name. The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, defines Boxing Day as:

“the first week-day after Christmas-day, observed as a holiday on which post-men, errand-boys, and servants of various kinds expect to receive a Christmas-box”

The earliest attested use of the term was the 1830s.

Samuel Pepys mentions in his diary of 19th December 1663 that there was a tradition of giving tradespeople Christmas boxes of money and gifts; that servants were given a day off the day after Christmas to visit their families, and were each given a box of presents and sometimes leftover food.

Boxing day box

The name Boxing Day may come from the Alms Boxes in churches which were used to collect donations to the poor, or to the Roman and early Christian custom of placing metal boxes outside churches to collect offerings to celebrate Saint Stephen’s day, which falls on 26th December.

On the QI Christmas Special they mention that the tradition of giving tips started in Europe, particularly in the UK, and spread to North America, where many people were reluctant to take it up at first.

In some languages words for tips show clearly what the money is for:

– Trinkgeld (“drink money”) in German
– drikkepenge (“drink money”) in Danish
– pourboire (“for drinking”) in French
– propina in Spanish – from Latin prōpīnō (I drink to someone’s health), from Ancient Greek προπίνω, from προ- ‎(before) &‎ πίνω ‎(I drink, carouse).

Sources: Wikipedia, Wiktionary

What about in other languages?

Have you got your snap?

By Simon

A snap tin make be Acme

On an episode of Uncle Mort’s North Country, a comedy drama on Radio 4 Extra that I listened to today, I heard the word snap used for a packed lunch. I’e heard it before, but wasn’t sure where it came from. The drama features two characters from Yorkshire: Uncle Mort and his nephew, Carter Brandon, who both speak with strong Yorkshire accents, so I thought snap might be a Yorkshire word.

I found it in a Yorkshire Dialect Dictionary defined as ‘a light meal’, and Wiktionary defines it as ‘a small meal, a snack; lunch’.

According to the The Oxford Guide to Etymology, lunch boxes were once called snap-tins in parts of the UK, and the word snap came to mean a a light meal or quick bite by metaphorical extension.

In A History of the Word on the BBC website it says that miners used snap tins to carry their lunch down the pits – the photo is an example of a miner’s snap tin.

The word snap comes from the Dutch / Low German snappen ‎(to bite; seize), from the Proto-Germanic *snappōną ‎(to snap; snatch; chatter), from the Proto-Indo-European *ksnew- ‎(to scrape; scratch; grate; rub) [source].

What do you call a container you put your lunch in?

Joskins, bumpkins and yokels

By Simon

Last week a friend asked me about the origins of the word joskin [ˈdʒɒskɪn], which I hadn’t come across before. According to the Urban Dictionary it is defined as follows:

North-Walian term used in both English and Welsh to describe anyone from a rural or farming background. It is used both affectionately and in a derogatory way depending on the audience.

Example: He’s a right joskin – he’s got a tractor and everything.

According to the Collins English Dictionary joskin is a slang word meaning “a country bumpkin; hick”.

Wiktionary suggests that is comes from the dialect word joss (bump) and (bump)kin. Alternatively it comes from the name Joseph + (bump)kin [source].

Bumpkin, a clumsy, unsophisticated person or a yokel, apparently comes from the Dutch boomken ‎(shrub, little tree) [source]. Or it might come from the Dutch bommekijn (small cask), from the Middle Dutch bomme (cask) [source], and was also used as a derogatory reference to short and dumpy Dutch people [source].

Yokel possibly comes from German dialect word Jokel, a diminutive of Jakob, or an English dialect word meaning woodpecker [source].

What other words are there for joskins?

Les chuchoteuses

By Simon

Lindsay et les chuchoteuses

On Rue Staint-Paul in Vieux Montréal there’s a statue of three women having a gossip. It’s known as ‘Les chuchoteuses‘ or ‘The whisperers’. It’s also known as the “fat ladies talking statue”. It’s by Rose-Aimée Bélanger, a sculptor from Ontario, and was installed as part of a 2006 initiative to highlight some of Old Montreal’s forgotten spaces.

The word chuchoteuses [ʃyʃɔtø:z] comes from chuchoter [ʃy.ʃɔ.te] (to whisper; to rustle), which is of imitative origin. Related words include chuchoterie (whispering), chuchotis (faint whispering), chuchotement (a whisper / murmur, rustling).

I like the sound of this word, and of the words for whisper in other languages:

– Italian / Portuguese / Spanish: sussurro, from Latin susurrus ‎(a humming, whispering)
– German: Flüstern
– Dutch: fluistering
– Welsh: sibrwd

What about in other languages?

The photo is one I took while exploring Montréal with Linsday Dow of Linsday Does Languages, who features in it.

Sources: Wiktionary and Reverso