Category: English

Mardy

By Simon

The word mardy came up in conversation last night, and the friends who mentioned it, who are from Yorkshire and Lancashire, said that it could mean annoying or weak. As I hadn’t heard it before, I thought I’d find out more about it.

According to Wiktionary means sulky or whinning, e.g. ‘She’s being a mardy girl’, or non-co-operative, bad tempered or terse. It is used in the East Midlands, South Yorkshire and a few other places in northern England, as well as in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottingham and Derbyshire.

It is often combined with other words such as cow and bugger, and is sometimes shortened to mard, which appears in the phrase, ‘he’s got a mard on’ (he’s in a bad mood), which could also be ‘he’s in a mardy’.

It possibly comes from marred = to be perplexed or troubled; to be spoilt, cosseted, overly indulged, and a related expression is to mard = to cosset (a child).

Have you heard this word before?

Do you use it?

One Person One Language (OPOL)

By Simon

An illustration of a bilingual family

This post is based largely on an article by Francois Grosjean: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201504/one-person-one-language-and-bilingual-children

One popular way to raise bilingual children is for each parent to speak only their native language with their children. For example the father will speak English and the mother will speak Spanish, and the children will acquire both languages. At first the children might mix the languages, but they will soon come to associate one language with each parent. There is also a belief that if the parents mix languages, e.g. the Spanish-speaking parent sometimes speaks English, and the English-speaking parent sometimes speaks Spanish, the children will get confused.

Problems with the OPOL approach
There are problems with the OPOL approach – children is likely get more exposure to one language then to the other, and one language is likely to become dominant. The children may come to prefer that language, especially if both parents speak it, and the children may be able to understand but not speak the non-dominant language. This is quite often the case with minority languages like Welsh and Irish.

It can also be difficult to stick to OPOL when other people are around who only speak one of the languages. For example, if a Spanish/English family is with Spanish-speaking friends, does the parent who only speaks English with the children stick to English, even though the friends might not understand, or do they switch to Spanish? Parents can find such situations stressful and might adapt their approach to context and be more flexible rather than sticking rigidly to OPOL.

Does the OPOL approach actually work?
There are have been a number of the OPOL approach, including a notable one of 2,000 families by Annick De Houwer, which found that children in a quarter of the families did not become bilingual, and that in families where parents mixed languages, as many children became bilingual as in OPOL families.

What is the OPOL approach based on?
Given the popularity of the OPOL approach, you might think that it’s based on sound foundations of research and testing. This is not the case. It has probably been around for a long time, but the first reference to it in modern linguistic literature is in a book from 1913 by Jules Ronjat, a French linguist with a German wife. In 1908, when his son was born, Ronjat asked his colleague, Maurice Grammont, for advice on raising his son bilingually. In a letter Grammont advised Ronjat to speak only French to his son, and for his wife to speak only German. Since then many other people have discussed the OPOL approach, and often cite a book by Grammont, Observations sur le langage des enfants (Observations on Children’s Language) which was supposedly published in 1902, however does not in fact exist, according to François Grosjean. So the OPOL approach is based on the opinion of Maurice Grammont, who published nothing on language acquisition, as expressed in a letter to his colleague Jules Ronjat.

Have you tried or are you trying the OPOL approach?
Did it work / is it working for you?
What problems have you had with it?

Links
Life as a Bilingual: The reality of living with two (or more) languages (by Francois Grosjean, and Aneta Pavlenko)
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual

Links to websites with information and advice about raising children bilingually
http://www.omniglot.com/links/bilingual.htm#kids

Articles about bilingualism
http://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/index.htm#bc

Language, accents and tourism

By Simon

Arrr! Avast me hearties! Authentic pirate gibberish spoken here

I came across an interesting article today about ways to attract tourists with regional accents and languages. It discuses moves to encourage the use of French in parts of Canada and Louisiana, and Irish in Ireland, as well as regional accents in Newfoundland and in Skane in southern Sweden. People from the regions are promoting their languages and accents to attract visitors looking for ‘authentic’ experiences.

I certainly like to hear different accents and languages in parts of the UK and other countries I visit. When I meet people in such places who come from elsewhere and don’t have a local accent or speak the local language, I am somewhat disappointed. Although their way of speaking will probably be interesting to me anyway, even if it isn’t local to that region.

My own accent could not be defined as ‘authentic’ to the area where I grew up – the north of Lancashire. Instead it’s a kind of non-region specific British accent with influences from various places I’ve lived.

Do you enjoy hearing different accents, dialects or languages when you travel? Are you disappointed if people don’t speak in the way you expected?

Nebuď směšný!

By Simon

I came across a lovely Czech word today – směšný [‘smɲeʃni:] – which means funny or ridiculous, and sounds quite funny to me. I think it comes from smích (laughter), from the Proto-Slavic *směxъ [source]

Related words include:

– směšnost = ridiculousness; absurdity
– směšně = ridiculously
– smich = laughter
– smát = to laugh
– posměšek = a jeer, sneer, gibe
– posmívat se = to sneer, jeer at; to mock, tease, taunt
– úsměv = smile
– usmát se = to smile

The title of this post, Nebuď směšný!, means ‘Don’t be absurd!’.

Sun dribbles

By Simon

Sand ripples / Sun dribbles

While walking along by estuary of the River Dwyryd at Portmeirion yesterday, the Czech friend I was with asked me the name of the patterns in the sand and mud made by water. I wasn’t sure and suggested ripples or sand ripples. She misheard the latter and thought I said sun dribbles, which I really like the sound of.

I checked today and discovered that the marks in sand and mud left by flowing water are known, rather boringly, as ripple marks, or wave-formed ripples, according to Wikipedia.

Do they have more poetic names in other languages?

Les mots de la semaine

By Simon
français English Cymraeg
braiser; cuire à l’étouffée to braise mudstiwio; brwysio
bœuf braisé/mode/en daube braised beef cig eidion wedi ei frwysiedig
faire une purée de (pommes de terre) to mash (potatoes) mwtro/stwnsio/stompio (tatws)
une purée de pommes de terre mashed potatoes tatws stwmp/stwmsh; stwnsh tatws
le joint de culasse gasket gasged
casser/griller un joint de culasse to blow a gasket (car) chwythu gasged
péter un fusible; se mettre en colère to blow a fuse chwythu/llosgi ffiws
péter les plombs to blow one’s top gwylltio’n lân/ulw; colli’ch tymer; mynd ar gefn eich ceffyl
faire un bruit de pet to blow a raspberry hisian; hwtio; wfftio

Compulsory languages

By Simon

In an article I came across today in the Irish Times the writer, an Irish speaker, wonders whether the compulsory teaching of Irish language in schools in Ireland is the best way to keep the language alive. He argues that those who are interested in the language will continue to learn it and speak it even if it is no longer compulsory in schools. I’ve seen suggestions like this many times for Irish and other minority languages, and it is difficult to say what is best as there is some truth in the idea that making a subject compulsory isn’t necessarily the best way to get people to study it.

What are your thoughts on this?

Nemocnice

By Simon

One of the Czech lessons I studied yesterday included the word nemocnice (hospital), and though I hadn’t seen or heard it before, I was familiar with the word nemocný (ill; sick) and guessed from the context that nemocnice was a hospital. It feels good to be able to work out the meanings of words from their form and context, and this is somewhat easier in Czech as most words seem to be built from native roots, rather than being borrowed from other languages.

Words related to nemocnice include:

– nemoc = illness; disease
– moc = power, potency, force, forcefulness; strength
– mocný = powerful; mighty
– mocnost = power (nation, state)
– bezmoc = helplessness, powerlessness
– bezmocný = powerless, helpless

Source: Wikitionary

Hospital in Czech is also špitál or lazaret, which is probably related to the Italian lazzaretto (a leper hospital; place of quarantine) or the French lazaret (an isolation hospital for patients with contagious diseases). The Italian word comes from Nazaretto, a quarantine station in Venice, which was named after Santa Maria di Nazareth, a church on the island where it was located [source].

The historical present

By Simon

The year is 1066 and William, Duke of Normandy, invades England to claim the throne he believes to be rightly his. Meanwhile King Harold Godwinson rushes to Hastings to do battle with William after defeating the Norwegian army of Harald Hardrada at Stamford Bridge.

This is an example of the historical or historic present, which involves using the present tense to talk about past events. It is also known as the dramatic present or narrative present. I’ve noticed its use in a number of documentaries I watched recently. It also appears in novels, such as Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield, and Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, is written entirely in the historical present. It sounds rather strange to me. Does it sound strange to you?