Category: German (Deutsch)

Voices and calls

By Simon

After writing yesterday’s post I was thinking about the Czech word hlas [ɦɫas] (voice, vote) and realised that it is quite similar to the Welsh word for voice, llais [ɬais]. I wondered it they share the same root.

Hlas comes from the Proto-Slavic *golsъ (voice), from the Proto-Balto-Slavic *galsas (voice), from the Proto-Indo-European *golHsos, from *gels- (to call)

The words for voice in other Slavic languages come from the same root: Old East Slavic: голосъ (golosŭ); Belarusian: голас (hólas); Russian: голос (gólos) and глас (glas – archaic/poetic); Ukrainian: голос (hólos); Old Church Slavonic: гласъ (glasŭ); Bulgarian: глас (glas); Macedonian: глас (glas); Serbo-Croatian: гла̑с; Slovene: glas; Kashubian: głos; Polish: głos; Slovak: hlas; Lower Sorbian: głos; Upper Sorban: hłós.

Also from the same root are the Latin gallas (cockrel); Romani glaso (voice); Romanian glas (voice, vote); Old Norse kalla (to call); English call, Dutch kallen (to chat, talk); German kallen (to scream, talk loudly, talk too much); Lithuanian galsas (sound, echo); Welsh galw (to call) and llais (voice); and possibly the Irish and Scottish Gaelic glaodh (to cry, shout).

Sources: Wiktionary

Pfeife

By Simon

The other day I came across the wonderful German word Pfeife, which means whistle or pipe, and comes from the Middle High German pfife, from Old High German pfiffa, from the Vulgar Latin pipa (pipe; tube-shaped musical instrument), from the Classical Latin pipare (to chirp; to peep), which is of imitative origin, and is also the root of the English word pipe, and related words in other European languages.

I particularly notice this word because the initial pf in Pfeife just appeals to me for some reason. It’s one of the consonant shifts (p > pf) that happened in High German, though not in other varieties of German.

Words and expressions related to Pfeife include:

– pfeifen = to blow a whistle; to sough; to whistle; to hoot; to pipe
– Ich pfeife eben darauf = I couldn’t care less about it.
– nach jds. Pfeife tanzen = to dance to sb.’s tune
– jdn. nach seiner Pfeife tanzen lassen = to lead sb. by the nose
– Pfeifkonzert = catcalls
– Er pfeift aus dem letzten Loch = He’s on his last legs (“He pipes from the last hole”)
– Da pfeift es aus einem anderen Loch = That’s a horse of a different color (“He/she pipes from a different hole”)

Sources: bab.la Dictionary, myEtymology.com, Online Etymology Dictionary

Towns, gardens and fences

By Simon

Last week I went to Denbigh, a small town in the north east of Wales, to sing in a concert. On the way there there was some discussion about the origins and meaning of the name Denbigh. So I thought I’d find out more. The English name of the town doesn’t mean anything, but the Welsh name, Dinbych, means ‘small fortress’ – din is an old word for fort or castle related to the word dinas (fort; refuge; city), and bych is a variant form of bach (small). Related words include dinasfraint (citzenship), dinasol (civic, municipal), and dinaswr (citizen).

Din comes from the same root as the Irish dún (fort), the Scottish Gaelic dùn (fortress, heap), the Manx doon (fort, fastness, stronghold, bastion, earth fort, dun, fortified rock), and din (fortress) in Breton and Cornish – the Proto-Celtic *dūnom (stronghold) [source], which is cognate with the Proto-Germanic *tunaz/*tunan (fortified place), the root of the Old English tuun/tūn (an enclosure; farmstead; village; estate), from which we get the word town; and of the Dutch tuin (garden), and the German Zaun (fence, hedge).

The element -dunum in Gaulish/Latin places names, such as Lugdunum (Lyon) and Acitodunum (Ahun), comes from the same root, as does the element -ton in English places names such as Workington, Ulverston, Dalton and Warton.

The root of all these words is the PIE *dhu-no- (enclosed, fortified place, hill-fort), from *dheue- (to close, finish, come full circle) [source].

Here’s a Glossary of Welsh Place-Name Elements, and a Key to English places names.

Schrijfrichting / Scriptpath

By Simon

Script direction in Mongolian

Last week a visitor to Omniglot asked me whether there is a single word in English that means writing direction, i.e. the direction in which writing systems are written. The Latin alphabet, for example, is written from left to right in horizontal lines, as are many other writing systems, while writing systems like Arabic and Hebrew are written from right to left in horizontal lines, and a few writing systems, such as traditional Mongolian and Manchu, are written from top to bottom in vertical columns running from left to right – other directions are available.

On Wikipedia I found the word directionality, and I found that there are more precise words for this concept in German and Dutch: Schreibrichtung / Schriftrichtung and Schrijfrichting. On the W3C site I found the term script direction.

The lack of a single-word term in English is partly because in English noun phrases are usually written as separate words, unlike in German and Dutch, where they are often written as single words.

I came up with some alternative possible terms for this phenomenon: scribeway / scribe way, scribepath / scribe path, script direction, script path, script way, script course, script orientation, or using Greek rather than Latin/Germanic roots: graphodromos, or grammadromos (dromos = road in Greek), or mixing Latin and Greek roots: scriptodromos / grammadromos.

What is writing direction called in other languages? Are there any others which use a single word.

Smoking Funky Radio

By Simon

Radio / Rundfunk

The word radio is based on the verb to radiate, which comes from the Latin radius, which means stick rod; beam, ray (of light); shuttle (of loom); rod for drawing figures (in mathematics), radius of circle; long olive (plant); spoke (of wheel).

Radio or radiotelegraphy, the wireless transmission of signals through space by electromagnetic radiation of a frequency below that of visible light, was originally called wireless telegraphy, which was abbreviated to wireless in the UK. The word radio was first used in the sense of wireless transmission in 1897 by Édouard Branly, a French physicist, as part of radioconductor. The first commercial broadcasts in the USA started in the 1920s and radio was the word used for them.

The word radio, or something similar is used in many of the world’s languages, however there are some exceptions: in German, for example, radio is Rundfunk [ˈʀʊntfʊŋk], although in Swiss German Radio is used. Rund means around or round, and Funk means radio or wireless, and funken means to cable; to radio; to send; to transmit (via radio). A related word is Hörfunk [ˈhøːɐ̯fuŋk], which means broadcasting: Hör comes from hören (to hear/listen),

In Mandarin Chinese radio is 收音机 [收音機 – shōuyīnjī] (‘recive sound machine’), in Hmong it’s xov tooj cua, in Icelandic it’s útvarp (‘out throw’ ?) and a radio is viðtæki (‘wide machine/apparatus’ ?).

Are there other languages in which the word for radio is not a variant on radio?

The English word funk, as in the style of music, or the unpleasant smell, comes from the Norman French funquer/funquier (“to smoke, reek”), from the Old Northern French fungier (“to smoke”), from the Vulgar Latin fūmicāre, an alteration of the Latin fūmigāre (“to smoke, fumigate”).

Sources: Wikipedia, Collins Latin Dictionary, Wiktionary, bab.la Dictionary, Icelandic Online Dictionary

Gender-neutral German

By Simon

According to an interesting article I found today in The Guardian, moves are afoot in Germany to try to introduce gender-neutral language. The German Justice Ministry has apparently issued an edict which requires state institutions to use gender-neutral language, which is quite challenging, especially when it comes to job titles and words referring to groups of people.

Usually the masculine forms of nouns and articles are used to refer to mixed male and female groups, as is the case in other European languages with noun genders, however the feminine form is now used in some cases even when referring to men. For example, der Professorin is used for male and female lecturers, rather than der Professor (m) or die Professorin (f).

Are similar moves being made in other languages?

A Snell Wind

By Simon

The Scots phrase, a snell wind, appears in one of the books I’m reading at the moment, and as I hadn’t come across it before it mystified me a bit. It’s some kind of wind, but what kind?

According to the OED, snell is a Scots and Northern English word meaning:

1. (of a person) quick in movement or action; prompt, smart, active, strenuous
2. keen-witted, clever, sharp, acute, smart
3. severe, sharp, unsparing
4. (of weather) keen, bitter, severe
5. grievous, heavy, stinging; rigorous; painful
6. shrill, clear-sounding

So it seems that the most likely meaning for a snell wind is a bitter one.

Snell comes from the Middle English snell (quick, fast) from the Old English snel(l), from the Proto-Germanic *snellaz (active, swift, brisk). It is cognate with the German schnell (quick, swift, active), the Italian snello (quick, nimble), the Old French esnel/isnel (snell), and the Occitan isnel/irnel (snell), the Old Norse snjallr (skilful, excellent), the Swedish snäll (nice, kind, kind-hearted, decent, clever, benignant) and the Danish snild (clever) [source].

A related word is snellness (sharpness, keenness).

Uitsmijter

By Simon

Uitsmijter

The other day I came across the wonderful Dutch word uitsmijter, which means bouncer or doorman, and also a type of food consisting of toast, egg(s), ham, bacon or other meat, cheese and pickles is various combinations.

Apparently this is the kind of thing that some Dutch people like to eat after the bars close and the uitsmijters throw them out, which one possible way the dish got its name. Another explanation for the name is that it’s something that easily made and ‘thrown out’ of the kitchen [source]. It’s also popular as a breakfast and lunch dish.

Here’s a recipe.

The word uitsmijter comes from uit (out) and smijten (to fling, throw, hurl, smite, heave), so an uitsmijter is a thrower/flinger out. Smijten comes from the Middle Dutch smiten, from the Old Dutch *smītan, from the Proto-Germanic *smītaną (to cast, hurl, hit, strike, smear, dirty), from the Proto-Indo-European *smeyd- (to smear, whick, strike, rub), which is also the root of the Low German smieten (to throw, cast, chuck), the West Frisian smite (to throw), the German schmeißen (to throw, fling, slam), the English smite, and the Danish smide (to toss) [source].

Are there dishes with similarly interesting names in your country?

Ilka dae

By Simon

While flicking through my Scots language course, Luath Scots Language Learner, this week I discovered that the Scots for every day is ilka dae, which is quite similar to the Dutch elke dag, which I also learnt recently – I like finding connections like this. Neither resembles the English version, or the German jeden Tag. The words for every in other Germanic languages are also different: hver/alle in Danish, hver/enhver/all Norwegian, and var/all in Swedish.

The Scots word ilka [ˈɪlkə], which is also written ilkae and ilkie, means every and each. It appears in such expressions as:

– ilka bodie = everyone
– ilka thing = everything
– ilka ane (yin/een) = each one, every one
– ilkaday = everyday
– ilka where = everywhere

According to the OED ilka is a combination of ilk (every) and a (the indefinite article): ilk is a northern and north-midland form of ilch, iche = southern ælch, æche (each), which come from the Old English ǽlc, which is related to the Old Frisian ellîk/elk/êk, and the Dutch elk, from the Old High German eogilîh.

Sources: bab.la Dictionary, Reverso, DSL, EUdict, OED

An owlfully badgered cup of tea

By Simon

badger and cup

Yesterday I discovered that the Italian word for cup, tazza, is rather similar and possibly confusable with the word for badger, tasso, which can also mean a rate (of exchange) or a yew (tree).

It’s unlikely that if you mistakenly ask for un tasso di tè rather than una tazza di tè, you will be given a badger of tea, but it would be an easy mistake to make, especially if you know the French word for cup, tasse, or the Spanish taza, or the German Tasse, which comes from the French, which comes from the Arabic طاس (ṭās – die; bowl), from the Persian تاس (tās – die/dice).

I also discovered the wonderful word owlful, which means full of badgers, or possibly full of owls. How awful it must be to be owlful! It’s a word that should have appeared in the Harry Potter books, which are brimful of owls at points, and slightly, though not entirely, badgerless.