Category: Sami

Joyful Delight

By Simon

One of the interesting words that came up in my Finnish lessons recently is iloinen [ˈilo̞i̯ne̞n], which means happy, cheerful, glad or merry.

Iloinen Eevi

It comes from ilo (joy, happiness, delight, pleasure, love, lover) from the Proto-Finnic *ilo (joy, delight, happiness), and the adjective suffix -inen [source].

Some related words include:

  • iloisuus = joyfulness
  • iloista = to be happy, glad, cheerful
  • iloiesti = happily, merrily, gaily
  • iloistua = to become delighted
  • iloittelu = frolicking
  • iloistutta = to delight, cheer up
  • ilottomuus = joylessness
  • iloton = gloomy

Related words in other languages include: ilo (joy, happiness) in Ingrian, ilo (fun, joy) in Veps, ilo (joy, elation, happiness, celebration) in Votic, and illu (happiness) in Northern Sami, which was borrowed from Finnish [source].

A related word in Estonian, ilu, used to mean joy delight, happiness or glee, but now means beauty, splendor or ornament [source].

Incidentally, the word ilo (tool) in Esperanto is completely unrelated [source]. It’s a back-formation from the suffix -ilo, which means an instrument or a tool for performing the action of the root. For example, tondilo (scissors) comes from tondi (to shear), and komputilo (computer) comes from komputi (to count, compute) [source].

Ilo can be combined with other suffixes to make words such as ilaro (a set of tools), ilujo (toolbox), and ilarujo (a toolbox for a toolset) [source].

If you’d like to learn some Finnish, you could try FinnishPod101 [Affiliate link], which looks pretty good, and you can try it for free. Here’s a sample:

IndyLan

By Simon

I’ve been asked to let you know about IndyLan (Mobile Virtual Learning for Indigenous Languages), a new EU-funded app developed to promote Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, Northern Saami, Basque and Galician languages and the cultures.

It’s available on iOS and Google Play, and the developers are looking for users who speak these languages to test it. Can you help?

You can provide feedback to them on this questionnaire.

More information:

I might just try to learn some of these languages – I’ve already learnt quite a bit of Scottish Gaelic, and some Scots and Cornish, and would like to learn more.

Cheesy Juice

By Simon

Today’s etymological adventure starts with the word ost, which means cheese in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. In Danish it’s pronounced [ɔsd̥], in Swedish and Norwegian it’s pronounced [ust] [source]. It also means east, but we’re focusing on the cheesy meaning today.

Ost

Ost comes from the Old Norse ostr (cheese), from Proto-Germanic *justaz (cheese), from Proto-Indo-European *yaus-/*yūs- (sap, juice, broth), from *yewH- (to blend, mix (food), knead).

The Old Norse ostr is also the root of words for cheese in Icelandic and Faroese (ostur), in the Sylt dialect of North Frisian (Aast), in Finnish (juusto), in Estonian (juust), in Northern Sami (vuostá), in Skolt Sami (vuâstt), and in other Finnic and Sami languages [source].

From the PIE root *yaus-/*yūs- we get the Latin: iūs (gravy, broth, soup, sauce, juice), from which we get the English word juice, which was borrowed into Faroese and Icelandic (djús), Swedish and Danish (juice), and other languages [source].

The Welsh word for porridge, uwd [ɨ̞u̯d/ɪu̯d], comes from the PIE root *yaus-/*yūs-, via the Proto-Celtic *yut-/*yot- [source]. The Russian word уха (ukha – a kind of fish soup) comes from the same PIE root [source].

From the Latin iūs, we also get (via French) the English word jus (the juices given off as meat is cooked). The Dutch word jus (gravy) comes from the same French root [source].

The English word cheese comes from the Middle English chese (cheese), from Old English ċīese (cheese), from the Proto-West Germanic *kāsī (cheese), from the Latin cāseus (cheese), from Proto-Indo-European *kwh₂et- (to ferment, become sour) [source].

Words for cheese in other West Germanic language come from the same Germanic root, including: kaas in Dutch and Afrikaans, Käse in German, Kjees in Low German and tsiis in West Frisian [source].

From the Latin cāseus we also get words for cheese in such languages as Spanish (queso), Galician (queixo), Portuguese (queijo), Irish (cáis), Welsh (caws) and Breton (keuz) [More on Celtic words for cheese]. The Swedish word keso (cottage cheese) was borrowed from Spanish [source].

Another word for cheese in Late/Vulgar Latin was fōrmāticum, an abbreviation of cāseus fōrmāticus (form cheese), from fōrma (form, mold) and cāseus (cheese). From this we get words for cheese in French (fromage), Italian (formaggio), Breton (formaj), and similarly cheesy words in various other languages [source].

Cheese, Juice and Porridge

By Simon

In North Germanic languages such as Swedish, the word for cheese is ost, or something similar. Since I learnt this, I’ve been wondering where it comes from, so I decided to investige.

Ost comes from the Old Norse ostr (cheese), from the Proto-Germanic *justaz (cheese), from the Proto-Indo-European *yewH-s- (sap, juice, broth), from *yewH- (to blend, mix (food), knead).

From the same root we get the Latin word iūs (gravy, broth, soup, sauce, juice), from which we get the English juice, the French jus (juice), and the Welsh uwd [ɨ̞u̯d / ɪu̯d] (porridge, oatmeal).

Words for cheese in Finnic and Samic languages are also related: juusto in Finnish, juust in Estonian, and vuostá in Northern Sami.

Brunost