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”)
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].
Last night I went to a session of Playford dancing. Bangor University Folk Society run a workshop for Playford dancing once a month, and some of those involved persuaded me to give it a try. It’s the kind of dancing you might see in dramas set in 17th or 18th century England.
Here’s an example of one of the dances we did last night (we weren’t wearing costumes like this though):
Apparently back in the 1600s middle class people in England were getting tired of difficult, formal dances, and started dancing the simpler dances of country folk as light relief. Dancing experts took the country dances and made them a bit more complex. The new dances proved very popular, and in 1651 a collection of them was pubished by John Playford in a book called ‘The English Dancing Master’. Several more editions and similar books were published after that.
In the early 20th century there was a revival of interest in folk music and dance, Playford’s book provided the earliest known descriptions of English country dances, and this style of dancing became known as ‘Playford dancing’ [source].
One of the moves we danced last night is called a hey or hay, a kind of figure of 8 weave. I wasn’t sure how to spell it, or where it came from, so I thought I’d find out.
A hey is “a choreographic figure in which three or more dancers weave between one another, passing by left and right shoulder alternately”. It comes from the French haie (hedge), and refers to the weaving patterns used in hedgelaying [source].
Haie comes from the Medieval Latin haga, from the Frankish *hagja, from Proto-Germanic *hagjō (hedge) [source], from the Proto-Indo-European *kagʰyóm (enclosure), which is also the root of the English words hedge and hawthorn [source].
Anyway, I really enjoyed the dancing and will probably be going along next month.
Last night I learnt that the French word for kite is cerf-volant [sɛʁ.vɔ.lɑ̃], or “flying deer/stag”. Cerf-volant also means stag beetle.
Cerf (stag, hart) comes from the Old French cerf (deer), from Latin cervus (deer, stag), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱr̥h₂wós, from *ḱerh₂- (horn) [source].
Actually the cerf in cerf-volant comes from a different root to the cerf meaning stag – from the Occitan sèrp-volanta (flying serpent) [source].
Kites were possibly invented in China in the 6th century BC. They in first appeared in Europe during the 15th century and were in the form of serpents or dragons, which is perhaps why there were called sèrp-volanta [source].
In Chinese a kite is 风筝 [風箏] (fēngzheng): 风 [風] (fēng) = wind, and 箏 (zhēng) is a kind of musical instrument similar to a zither [source], so you could translate that word as “wind zither”.
Do kites have interesting names in other languages?
Today some friends and I started wondering why the small mats you might place under mugs and glasses are called coasters. Do they have anything to do with coasts, and if not, where does the word come from?
According to Wiktionary, the word coaster come from coast + -er, and is possibly related to the Middle English coster (ornamental wall or bed hanging), which comes from the Anglo-Latin costera (side, coast, curtain).
The word has a number of different meanings:
one who coasts
Something that coasts (eg a sled or toboggan)
a merchant vessel that stays in coastal waters
a sailor who travels only in coastal waters
a person who originates from or inhabits a coastal area
a small piece of material used to protect the surface of a table, upon which one places cups or mugs
a small tray on wheels, used to pass something around a table
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, coaster was first used in English in the 1570s to mean “one who sails along coasts”, and was used to refer to boats that sail in coastal waters from the 1680s.
It was used to refer to a bottle-coaster, or “low, round tray used for a decanter”, from 1874. Such a tray was originally on wheels and coasted around the table to each guest in turn. Which is possibly the origin of the name. It was being uesd to refer to a drink mat by the early 20th century.
Such things are called beer mats in pubs. What are they called in other languages?
This puzzled me as I didn’t know what a tuque was. From the context it seems to be some kind of clothing, and I guessed it might be a hat, but wasn’t sure, so thought I’d find out.
According to the Free Dictionary, tuque is a Canadian French word for “a close-fitting knitted or crocheted cap having no brim or a brim that is folded up to create an extra layer of fabric for warmth. Also called toque.”
It comes from the French toque, which is “any of several styles of small, close-fitting hats having no brim or a very short brim”. Which comes from the Spanish toca (cornet, wimple, headress, toque, bonnet), from the Iberian Vulgar Latin *tauca, and is probably of pre-Roman Iberian origin.
What do you call this kind of hat?
You can see and hear Gordie Tentrees and Jaxon Haldane here:
This week I learnt a couple of interesting French words – embabouiner [ɑ̃.ba.bwi.ne] (to flatter, butter up) and embobiner [ɑ̃.bɔ.bi.ne] (to bamboozle).
Embabouiner combines the prefix em- and suffix -er with babouin (baboon), so you are making a baboon of someone when you flatter them [source].
Babouin comes from the Middle French babouyne, baboin, from Old French babouin, from baboue (grimace, muzzle), which is related to German dialectal word Bäppe (lips, muzzle) [source].
Embobiner means to get round (someone), to pull to wool over someone’s eyes, to bamboozle or to outfox. It can also mean to wind up, reel up/in or wrap up. It combines the same prefix and suffix as embabouiner with bobine (bobbin, reel, spool, drum), so you are winding someone on a bobbin when you bamboozle them [source].
Bobine probably comes from the Latin word balbus, (stammering, stuttering, lisping, fumbling) and is immitative of the noise of a bobbin [source].
The English word bamboozle comes from the 17th century slang word bam (to trick, to con), from the noun bam (fraudster, cheat), possibly from the French embobiner [source].
One of the things that came up at the French Conversation Group last night was the difference between buffalo and bison, and the words for them in French.
American bison / le bison d’Amérique du Nord
The creature found North America commonly known as a buffalo is actually a bison or American bison, and the its scientific name is Bison bison. There are two subspieces: the plains bison (Bison bison bison) – so good they named it thrice – and the wood bison (Bison bison athabascae).
In French it’s known as le bison or le bison d’Amérique du Nord. The plains bison is known as le bison des plaines, and the wood bison as le bison des bois [source].
European bison / le bison d’Europe
There is also a European bison (Buson bonasus), which was hunted to extinction by the early 20th century, but was kept alive in captivity, and has since been reintroduced into the wild [source].
In French it is known as le bison d’Europe [source].
Africa buffalo / le buffle d’afrique
There are several species of buffalo in African, including the African buffalo or Cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer) in southern and eastern Africa, the African forest buffalo (Syncerus caffer nanus) in central and west Africa, the Sudanese buffalo (Syncerus caffer brachyceros) in west Africa, and the Nile buffalo (Syncerus caffer aequinoctialis) in east Africa [source].
In French the African/Cape buffalo is known as le buffle d’afrique, le buffle noir des savanes or le grand buffle noir des savanes [source].
Water buffalo / le buffle domestique
The water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) originating in South Asia, Southeast Asia and China, and is now found in other places [source].
In French it’s known as le buffle domestique or le buffle d’Asie [source].
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.
