Snub Nosed Simians

27 September 202427 September 2024 By Simon

The other day I came across the word scimmia in my Italian lessons and wondered where it comes from. It’s rather unlike words for monkey in other Romance languages, such as mono in Spanish, macaco in Portuguese, maimuță in Romanian, and singe in French.

Scimmia [ˈʃim.mja] comes from Latin sīmia (ape, monkey, imitator), from sīmus (snub-nosed, flattened, splayed), from Ancient Greek σῑμός [siˈmos] (snub-nosed, flat nosed, steep, uphill, bent in, hollow, concave), the origins of which are uncertain [source].

Words from the same roots include simian (monkey-like, ape-like) in English, jimio [ˈxi.mjo] (ape) in Spanish, símio (ape, monkey, simian) in Portuguese, simi (simian) in Catalan, and singe (monkey, ape, foolish man) in French [source].

Related words and expressions in Italian include:

scimmiesco = monkey-like, ape-like, simian
scimmione = gorilla, ape, a clumsy and brutish person
scimmiottare = to mock, make fun of, mimic, ape
scimmiottamento = aping, mimicry
scimmiotto = small or young money, friend, pal [source]

Incidentally, the origins of the English word monkey are uncertain. It may come from monk, or from Middle Low German Moneke, the name of the son of Martin the Ape in Reynard the Fox, a collection of medieval Dutch, English, French and German fables.

Or it may be related to the Late Middle French monne (monkey), from Italian monna (monkey), from Old Spanish mona (female monkey, from mamona, from maimón (a type of monkey with a prehensile tail), from Arabic مَيْمُون (maymūn – baboon, mandrill). Mono in Spanish comes from the same roots, as does maimuță in Romanian [source].

Jentacularity

3 July 20243 July 2024 By Simon

In this post, we’re discussing things jentacular and prandial.

Jentacular / Prandial

You may have heard of the words preprandial (occurring before a meal, especially dinner) and/or postprandial (after a meal, especially after dinner), how about prandial or jentacular?

Prandial means “Of or pertaining to a meal, especially dinner.” It comes from Late Latin prandialis, or from Latin prandium (late breakfast; lunch, any meal, fodder), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *pr̥h₂mós (first) and *h₁ed- (to eat) [source].

Words from the same roots include pranzo (lunch or dinner) in Italian, pranzu (dinner, lunch) in Maltese, and prânz (lunch, noon, midday) in Romanian [source].

Jentacular is an archaic word that means “Of or pertaining to breakfast; specifically, one taken early in the morning or immediately upon getting up.” It comes from Latin iēntāculum (breakfast), from ientō (I breakfast), a form of ieientō (to eat breakfast), from Proto-Italic *jagjentō, from PIE *h₁yaǵ- (to sacrifice, worship) [source].

Words from the same roots include diner, dinner and jejune (lacking matter, naive, simplistic) in English, jantar (dinner, to dine) in Portuguese, xantar (dinner, lunch) in Galician, déjeuner (to [eat/have] lunch, to have breakfast) in French [source].

Apparently in ancient Rome, the first meal of the day, which was eaten at about sunrise, was called iēntāculum. It usually consisted of bread, fruit or leftovers from the night before. At around noon, people would have a light meal called prandium, and at about sunset they had their main meal or cēna (dinner, supper). They may have had another light meal later in the evening as well. Originally, the main meal was eaten at midday, but later moved to later in the day [source].

Are there interesting meal-related words in other languages?

A Little Alliteration

23 May 202425 May 2024 By Simon

I like a little alliteration, don’t you?

A Little Allteration

Alliteration is “The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of two or more words immediately succeeding each other, or at short intervals.” [source]. As in the sentence above. It comes from Modern/New Latin alliterationem, from alliterare (to begin with the same letter), from Latin ad (to, near) and lītera (letter, script) [source].

Other names for this include consonance (the repetition of consonants sounds) [source] and head rhyme. If similar or indentical vowel sounds are being repeated, as in “How now, brown cow?”, it’s called assonance [source] or slant rhyme.

Other kinds of rhymes include:

syllabic rhyme: the last syllable of each word sounds the same but does not necessarily contain stressed vowels. E.g. cleaver, silver; pitter, patter.
imperfect (or near) rhyme: a rhyme between a stressed and an unstressed syllable. E.g. wing, caring
weak (or unaccented) rhyme: a rhyme between two sets of one or more unstressed syllables. E.g. hammer, carpenter
semirhyme: a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word. E.g. bend, ending
forced (or oblique) rhyme: a rhyme with an imperfect match in sound. E.g. green and fiend; one, thumb)
pararhyme: all consonants match. E.g. tick, tock; bing, bong

Other types of rhyme, and other ways of classifying rhymes are available [More details].

I use a variety of rhymes in the songs I write. For example, my latest song was inspired by a phrase from the Irish course in Duolingo “Léann na lachan na nuachtán.” (The ducks read the newspaper). I made a more alliterative version: “Tá lacha ag léamh leabhar sa leabhrlann le leon agus luch.” (A duck is reading a book in the library with a lion and a mouse). The English version is only slightly alliterative, and that’s what often happens with translations, and why songs and poems are difficult to translate.

Here are the words of the song. Parts are quite alliterative, in Irish at least.

Eachtraí na Lacha (The Duck’s Adventures)

Tá an lacha ag léamh sa leabharlann
The duck is reading in the library
Tá an lacha ag léamh sa leabharlann
le leon agus luch (with a lion and a mouse)

Tá an lacha ag siúl go Sligeach
The duck is walking to Sligo
Tá an lacha ag siúl go Sligeach
ag lorg lámhainní (looking for gloves)

Tá an lacha ag canadh amhrán
The duck is singing a song
Tá an lacha ag canadh amhrán
faoi sionach an-sionnachúil (about a very cunning fox)

Tá an lacha ag labhairt Laidin
The duck is speaking Latin
Tá an lacha ag labhairt Laidin
lena lucht leanúna (with its supporters)

Tá an lacha ina coladh ina leabaidh
The duck is sleeping in its bed
Tá an lacha ina coladh ina leabaidh
Agus sin deireadh an scéil
And that’s the end of the tale
Agus sin deireadh an scéil

Here’s a rough recording:

I’ve been thinking of making it trilingual in Irish, English and Welsh, but haven’t got round to it yet.

Here’s an alliterative phrase I came up with that seems to translate well into a variety of languages:

English: Singers sing songs
Albanian: Këngëtarët këndojnë këngë
Armenian: Երգիչները երգեր են երգում (Yergich’nery yerger yen yergum)
Aymara: Q’uchunakax q’uchunak q’uchupxi
Bengali: গায়কেরা গান গায় (Gāẏakērā gāna gāẏa)
Bulgarian: Певците пеят песни (Pevtsite peyat pesni)
Catalan: Els cantants canten cançons
Corsican: I cantanti cantanu canti
Croatian: Pjevači pjevaju pjesme
Danish: Sangere synger sange
Dhivehi (Maldivian): (lavakiyuntherin lavakiyaeve) ލަވަކިޔުންތެރިން ލަވަކިޔައެވެ
Esperanto: Kantistoj kantas kantojn
Estonian: Lauljad laulavad laule
Finnish: Laulajat laulavat lauluja
French: Les chanteurs chantent des chansons
Galician: Os cantantes cantan cancións
Greek: Οι τραγουδιστές τραγουδούν τραγούδια (Oi tragoudistés tragoudoún tragoúdia)
Haitian Creole: Chantè chante chante
Hindi: गायक गीत गाते हैं (gaayak geet gaate hain)
Lingala: Bayembi bayembaka banzembo
Mongolian: Дуучид дуу дуулдаг (Duuchid duu duuldag)
Romanian: Cântăreții cântă cântece
Russian: Певцы поют песни (Pevtsy poyut pesni)
Swedish: Sångare sjunger sånger
Turkish: Şarkıcılar şarkılar söylüyor
Welsh: Cantorion yn canu caneuon

Translations by Google Translate. More are available

It’s unusual to find a phrase like this that has alliterative translations into so many different languages.

Are there other kinds of rhymes that you like / use / know?

Mud Glorious Mud

9 February 20249 February 2024 By Simon

If you live in a muddy place, or want to describe such a place, you could use the old word lutarious.

It means “of, pertaining to, or like, mud; living in mud”, and comes from the Latin word lutarius (of or belonging to the mud, living in mud), from lutum (mud, soil, dirt, mire, loam, clay), from Proto-Indo-European *lew- (dirt, mud) [source].

A related word is lutulent [ˈlʌtjʊlənt], which means pertaining to mud, or muddy.

Words for the same roots include:

Albanian: llucë = thin or shallow mud, muddy place
Portuguese: lodoso = muddy
Romanian: lut = clay, loam, mud, dirt, lutos = clayey
Spanish: lodo = mud, muck, mire, lodoso = muddy, boddy

Lutetia, the Gallo-Roman town founded in 52 BC that became Paris, gets it’s name from the Gaulish word *lutos (swamp), from Proto-Celtic *lutā (dirt, mud), from PIE *lew- (dirt, mud). It was known as Lutetia Parisiorum by the Romans. The Parisiorum part comes from Parīsiī, the Latin name for the Gaulish tribe who lived in the area. The name Paris comes from the same roots.

You can find more details on Radio Omniglot.

Incidentally, the French word boue [bu] (mud, dirt), also has Celtic roots: it comes from the Gaulish *bawā (mud, dirt), from Proto-Celtic *bowā (dirt, filth, excrement), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷewh₁- (excrement, dung) [source].

The Galician word bosta (dung, manure) comes from the same Celtic roots, as do the Welsh words baw (mud) and budr (dirty, filthy, vile, foul) [source].

The French word boue shouldn’t be confused with the Breton word boue [ˈbuː.e], which means buoy. It comes from Middle English boi(e) (buoy), from Middle Dutch boeye, from Old Dutch *bōcan, from Frankish *baukn (symbol, sign) from Proto-Germanic *baukną (sign, symbol), from PIE *bʰeh₂- (to glow, light, shine) [source].

By the way, do you pronounce buoy [bɔɪ] (boy) or [ˈbu.i] (boo-ee), or some other way?

Saturn’s Bathing Day

21 November 202321 November 2023 By Simon

The English word Saturday comes ultimately from the Proto-West Germanic *Sāturnas dag (Saturn’s day), which is a calque (translation) of the Latin diēs Saturnī (day of Saturn).

Saturday

There are similar words in other West Germanic languages, such as West Frisian (saterdei), Low German (Saterdag), and Dutch (zaterdag), all of which mean Saturday [source].

There German word for Saturday, Samstag, comes from Middle High German sam(e)ztac, from Old High German sambaztag (Sabbath day), from Gothic *𐍃𐌰𐌼𐌱𐌰𐍄𐍉 (*sambatō), a version 𐍃𐌰𐌱𐌱𐌰𐍄𐍉 (sabbatō – Saturday, the Sabbath day), from Koine Greek σάββατον (sábbaton – Sabbath), from Hebrew שַׁבָּת‎ (šabbāṯ – Sabbath), possibly from Akkadian 𒊭𒉺𒀜𒌈 (šapattum – the middle day of the lunar month).

Words from the same roots include samedi (Saturday) in French, sâmbătă (Saturday) in Romanian, and szombat (Saturday, Sabbath) in Hungarian [source].

In northern and eastern Germany, another word for Saturday is Sonnabend (“Sunday eve”), as apparently in Germanic recking, the day begins at sunset. It a calque of the Old English sunnanǣfen (Saturday evening) [source].

Words for Saturday in the North Germanic languages have a different root, however. These include lördag in Swedish, lørdag in Danish and Norwegian, leygardagur in Faroese and laugardagur in Icelandic. They all come from the Old Norse laugardagr, from laug (pool) and dagr (day), so literally “bathing day” [source].

These words have also been borrowed into Finnic languages: Saturday is lauantai in Finnish, laupäev in Estonian and lavvantaki in Ingrian.

Are there any other languages in which Saturday means something like “bathing day”, or something else interesting?

See also: Days of the week in many languages on Omniglot.

Chaise longues

23 July 202123 July 2021 By Simon

When is a chaise longue not a chaise longue?

Well, in English the word chaise longue [ˌʃeɪz ˈlɒŋ(ɡ)/ˌʃeɪz ˈlɔŋ] refers to a long kind of seat, like the one pictured above, designed for reclining on. The word chaise longue was borrowed from French and literally means “long chair” [source].

In French the word chaise longue [ʃɛz lɔ̃ɡ] refers to deckchair, sunlounger, lounge chair or chaise longue (in the English sense) [source].

Other kinds of chaise include:

chaise haute / chaise de bébé = highchair
chaise pliante = folding chair
chaise berçante = rocking chair
chaise roulante = wheelchair
chaise à porteurs = sedan chair

The word chaise longue appears in quite a few other languages, such as Italian and Portuguese, with the same spelling and the same meaning as in English and French. Another word for this type of chair in Italian is agrippina, named after Agrippina the Elder, the daughter of Marcus Agrippa [source].

Some other ways it’s written include:

Belarusian: шэзлонг (šezlonh)
Czech: šezlong
Georgian: შეზლონგი (šezlongi)
Japanese: シェーズ・ロング (shēzu-rongu)
Norwegian: sjeselong
Polish: szezlong
Romanian: șezlong
Russian: шезлонг (šezlong)
Swedish: schäslong
Yiddish: שעזלאָנג‎ (shezlong)

By the way, what is the plural of chaise longue?

Spanish Cows

12 March 202113 March 2021 By Simon

comme une vache espagnole

In French if you don’t speak a langauge very well, you are said to speak it “like a Spanish cow”, or “comme une vache espagnole” [source]. For example:

Il parle anglais comme une vache espagnole
He speaks English like a Spanish cow
Elle parle français comme une vache espagnole
She speaks French like a Spanish cow

This expression was first used in writing in the 17th century, and possibly referred to vasces, that is Gascons or Basques, rather than vaches, or cows. At the time, Basque people from Spain probably didn’t speak French very well. Or it might come from basse (servant, maid), or from the use of comme une vache as an insult. Also, calling people and things espagnole (Spanish) was also an insult at the time [source].

In English you might say that someone speaks broken English or bad English, or that they butcher or murder English. Although, as the American author H. Jackson Brown Jr. says “Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language” [source].

You could make up other ways to say you speak a language badly:

I speak Russian like a Pavlovian pig
I speak Czech like a Bohemian badger
I speak Romanian like a Ruritanian rabbit

Are there idioms in other languages to refer to people speaking them badly, or indeed well?

Here’s an audio version of this post.

Duolingo Progress

11 December 202011 December 2020 By Simon

I’ve been studying various languages on Duolingo for nearly four years now. My current streak is at 1,238 days today, and I had a 96 day streak before then, so for the past 1,334 days I have been studying at least a little every single day. This year I’ve averaged about 1 hour a day, and at the moment I’m focusing on Dutch and Spanish. Last week I came top of the diamond league – the highest you can get.

My 2020 Duolingo report

So far I’ve completed courses in Swedish, Danish, Russian, Czech, Esperanto, Spanish and Romanian. The courses and the app have changed quite a bit – more for some languages than others. New lessons, tips and levels have been added, especially for Spanish, which has at least 3 or 4 times more lessons than the other languages I’ve studied. That makes sense, I suppose, as there are currently 28.6 million people learning Spanish on Duolingo – far more than any other language. Today I noticed that there are new grammar lessons in Spanish, which are useful, and there are also Spanish podcasts, which I haven’t listened to yet.

One aspect of Duolingo I’m not keen on is the hearts system. At the start of each day you have 5 hearts. Every time you make a mistake you loose one. If you run out of hearts, you can ‘buy’ more, refresh a topic you have already completed to gain more, or wait until the next day. Or you can subscribe and get unlimited hearts. Making mistakes is part of language learning, and not something you should have to worry about, as long as you learn from them. You sometimes get tips when you mistakes in Spanish, which are useful, but not in other languages.

If you’ve studied other languages on Duolingo, how do they compare to Spanish in terms of numbers and types of lessons?

I expect that there are more lessons, etc for French, German, Japanese, Italian, Korean and Chinese – the most popular languages after Spanish – than for less popular languages.

New Year

3 January 2020 By Simon

It seems that a new year, and indeed a new decade has started, so Happy New Year / Decade!

I’ve noticed that some people are looking back at what they’ve done / achieved, etc over the past decade, so I thought I’d do something similar.

Back in 2009 I was studying for an MA in Linguistics at Bangor University, while working on Omniglot in my spare time, and writing for a couple of other websites. I finished my course in September of that year, though didn’t officially graduate until the following year, and have been working full-time on Omniglot since then.

Over the past decade Omniglot has grown quite a bit – I add something new, or make improvements, almost every day. The site now contains:

… and much more.

Since 2009 Omniglot has been visited by 176 million people, who have made 234 milion visits and viewed 407 million pages. There have been visitors every single country and territory, even Antarctica and North Korea. The top ten countries vistors come from are USA, India, UK, Canada, Philippines, Australia, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa. The most spoken languages of visitors are: English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Dutch, Russian, Chinese and Polish.

Over the past decade I’ve studied and dabbled with a few languages, including: Breton, BSL, Cornish, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Icelandic, Irish, Latin, Manx, Romanian, Russian, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish and Toki Pona. I also started creating my own language: Laala, and made some con-scripts such as Crymeddau and Curvetic.

I joined a French conversation group back in 2009, and have been going almost every week since then. This has really helped to improve my French and I feel a lot more confident about using it now. When I can, I also go to a Welsh conversation group, and for a while I tried to run a polyglot conversation group.

Every summer I’ve been to Ireland to do courses in Irish language, traditional Irish songs, harp and/or bodhrán playing. I’ve also been to Scotland quite a few times to do courses in Scottish Gaelic songs.

In 2012 I started writing songs and tunes, and have written quite a few since then, especially in 2019, when I wrote a new song almost every month and several new tunes. I also started to write out the music for my tunes and songs, and to make new arrangements of them.

The first song I wrote was The Elephant Song, which came to me after going to a poetry writing workshop.

I haven’t made a good recording of my most recent song, but here’s one I wrote in November / December 2019:

Since 2014 I’ve been to a number of polyglot events, including the Polyglot Gathering and the Polyglot Conference. At most of these I’ve given talks or run workshops.

In 2018 I started the Radio Omniglot Podcast, and have made 27 episodes so far. I try to make two episodes per month, but don’t always manage it.

In 2018 I also launched the Celtiadur, a collection of Celtic cognates, where I explore links between modern and ancient Celtic languages. This is an extension of the Celtic Cognates section on Omniglot.

Wow! Putting it together like this makes me realise that I haven’t been entirely idle.

Procastination

5 December 2019 By Simon

Procrastinate Now! (or tomorrow, or whenever you feel like it)

Procrastination – “the act of postponing, delaying or putting off, especially habitually or intentionally.” From the Middle French procrastination, from the Latin prōcrāstinātiō (a putting off until tomorrow), from prōcrāstinō (procrastinate), from prō (of) + crāstinus (tomorrow), from crās (tomorrow) [source].

Crās comes from the Proto-Italic *krās, and is probably from the Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂- (head, top), which is the root of words for head, horn, cow and others in various Indo-European languages
[source].

Crās became crai in Italian, crás in Portuguese and cras in Sardinian. These all mean tomorrow, but only the Sardinian one is still used. Tomorrow is domani in Italian – from the Late Latin dē māne (of the early morning), amanhã in Portuguese – from Vulgar Latin *ad maneana (at morning). The French demain (tomorrow), and the Romanian dimineață (morning), come from the same root as the Italian domani.

The antonym of procrastination is precrastination / pre-crastination, or “the completion of a task too quickly or too early, when taking more time would result in a better outcome” [source]. It was coined by David Rosenbaum in an article he wrote in 2014: Pre-crastination: hastening subgoal completion at the expense of extra physical effort. [More information].

I have a tendency to procrastinate, and often put off things that don’t seem important or urgent. For example, there’s a pile of papers on my desk that could do with filing, and I might just get round to it one of these days. It’s not the end of the world if I don’t though.

Sometimes, when I’m in a getting-things-done-mood, I go round doing all the things I’ve been putting off for days/week/months/years. Or at least as many of them as I can before I get distracted by something more interesting.

Some things I put off and do something easier instead – writing this blog post, for example, rather than recording the next episode of my podcast, or doing some language lessons rather than practising one of my instruments.

I precrastinate as well, but wasn’t aware of it. Or at least I didn’t have a word for this practice until now.

Are you a procrastinator, and/or a precrastinator?

What task / jobs / activities do you tend to put off?

What things to you prefer to do instead?

Omniglot Blog

Adventures in the world of words and language

Category: Romanian (limba română)