Category: Words and phrases

Iron horses

By Simon

I came across the term gearrán iarainn the other day while looking for something else in my Irish dictionary. The literal meaning is ‘iron horse’ and the actual meaning is bicycle. It sounds similar to one of the early words for car – horseless carriage – and just appealed to me. I’m fairly sure it isn’t used very often though – the more common Irish word for bicycle is rothar, which comes from the root roth, wheel. A cyclist is rothaí, to cycle is rothaigh, and cycling is rothaíocht.

Do you know of any other languages which have a similarly interesting name for the bicycle?

Television and stinky badgers

By Simon

What does television and stinky badgers have in common?

Well, there’s a kind of stink badger (Mydaus javanensis) that lives in Java, Sumatra, Borneo and the North Natuna Islands of Indonesia and which called teledu /teledu/ in Malay; sigung in Indonesian. The word teledu /tɛ’lɛdɨ/ just happens to be the Welsh word for television.

This is the stink badger:

Teledu - the Javanese Stink Badger

Found via this blog.

The word television of course comes from the Greek word τῆλε (tele), ‘far off / at a distance’, and the Latin visionem, ‘act of seeing, sight, thing seen’. Most languages call the television something similar. There a few exceptions though, including the German Fernsehen, ‘Far-see’, the Norwegian Fjernsyn, which means the same as the German; the Icelandic Sjónvarp, ‘vision’ + ‘throw’; and the Chinese 電視 [电视] (di

Word of the day – Crychydd

By Simon

Picture of a grey heron / Llun crychydd glas

Today’s word, crychydd (‘krəx.ɨð) is one of the Welsh words for heron. Other words for heron include crëyr, crehyr and crŷr, which appear to be immitations of the sounds herons make. The Irish word for heron is similar – corr.

Whenever I go for a walk by the sea here in Bangor, I often see a heron or two, as well as various other kinds of birds. They are usually grey herons (crëyr glas), but I did see a white one the other day, or it might have been a white egret. I’d like to learn a bit about these birds and their names in Welsh (and English, if I don’t already know them). I’ll see if the Welsh language bookshop in town has a book on local birds the next time I’m there.

One of my Welsh dictionaries, Y Geiriadur Mawr, has a section on birds with their names in Welsh and English. Many of the names are translations of their English equivalents, e.g. aderyn du – blackbird, asgell goch – redwing, and gwylan benddu – black-headed gull. Other names are based on the sounds the birds make, their appearance, or their habits or habitats, e.g. wid-wid – rock pipit, gwidihŵ – owl, bronfraith (speckled breast) – song thrush, Harri-gwylch-dy-big (Harry wash your beak) – little grebe, aderyn yr eira (snow bird) – starling.

Word of the day – šišlat

By Simon

The word šišlat is Czech and is usually translated as to lisp. However it refers to a form of speech impediment that involves substituting s /s/ sounds with sh /ʃ/ sounds. For example, slimák (slug) is pronounced šlimák. This isn’t quite the same as a lisp in English, which usually involves replacing s /s/ sounds with th /θ/ sounds.

Can you think of a good English version of šišlat?

I’ve come up with “to shish”.

Word of the day – gwyddbwyll

By Simon

In Modern Welsh, gwyddbwyll means chess, (lit. “wood wisdom”), however it originally referred a different board game which is mentioned in the ancient Welsh tales of the Mabinogion.

According to this site, the original game was often played on a pegged board with a king and four princes (or defenders) against eight opponents (or raiders). The exact rules have been lost in the mists of time.

The Cornish equivalent of gwyddbwyll is goedhboell, while in Breton it’s gwezboell. The Irish word for this game is ficheall, or fidchell in Old Irish, which comes from the same root as the Welsh and means the same thing. There are more details of the Irish game of fidchell here.

The Welsh names of the chess pieces are:

Teyrn / Brenin = King
Brenhines = Queen
Castell (castle) = Rook
Esgob = Bishop
Marchog = Knight
Gwerinwr (peasant/pawn) = Pawn

Word of the day – priodol

By Simon

Today’s word, priodol, means appropriate, proper or suitable in Welsh. I came across it while reading a web page about self-employment and had to look it up as I wasn’t sure what it meant in the context. I knew that the root priod had something to do with marriage, but didn’t know it also meant proper.

Example of usage:

Mae rheolau a gyflwynwyd yn Neddf Cyllid 1994 yn golygu bod angen i chi gadw’r holl gofnodion priodol bellach.
The rules introduced in the 1994 Finance Act mean that you have to keep all the appropriate records now.

There are many more examples in the Llyfrgell Owen Phrasebank.

Related words include:

priod – married, husband, wife, spouse, proper
priodi – to marry
priodas – marriage
priodasol – marital, matrimonial, married, nuptial, conjugal, connubial
priodferch – bride
priodfab – groom
priodol – proper, appropriate, intrinsic, peculiar; respective, apposite
priodoli – to attribute, ascribe, impute
priodoldeb – propriety, appropriateness
priodoledd – attribute, property

Sünnipäevanädalalõpupeopärastlõunaväsimus

By Simon

Image you’re at a party to celebrate a friend’s birthday. It’s a Saturday or Sunday, the party’s been going on for quite a while and you’re starting to feel somewhat fatigued. In English and most other languages it would take a whole sentence to explain this situation.

In Estonian however, there’s a word that covers just such an eventuality – Sünnipäevanädalalõpupeopärastlõunaväsimus, which according to Corcaighist, means “The tiredness one feels on the afternoon of the weekend birthday party”. Or if you break it down into parts “birth.day.week.end.party.after.lunch.tiredness”.

Word of the day – clustfeinio

By Simon

I came across the word clustfeinio yesterday while reading a novel in Welsh. At first I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, apart from having something to do with ears, clustiau. From the context though I was able to guess its meaning:

Wy’n clustfeinio am bob gwich a sgrech.
I’m [verbing] to every squeak and shriek.

From its position in the sentence, you can tell that clustfeinio is a verb. Can you guess what it means? The character who says this sentence is lying in bed trying to get to sleep.

Related words include:

clust – ear
clustdlws – ear-ring (lit. “ear brooch/jewel”)
clusten – (ear) lobe
clustew / clustrwm – hard of hearing (lit. “fat ear” / “heavy ear”)
clustfyddar – deaf
clustiog – eared
clustog – pillow, cushion
clustowlad – buffer-state (lit. “pillow state”)

Míkmaq trees

By Simon

The words for trees in Míkmaq, an Algonquian language spoken in parts of Canada and the USA, are apparently based on the sounds the trees make in the wind. More specifically, according to this book, the names come from “the sound that the wind makes when it blows through the leaves during autumn about an hour after sunset, when the wind usually comes from a particular direction.” The names can therefore change over time depending on the wind and the age and size of the trees. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any of the actual names of trees in Míkmaq.

Míkmaq words for animals are also based on sounds – the sounds made by those animals. For example, kitten is miaojij. The same happens to some extent in other languages. For example, the Mandarin Chinese for cat is 猫 (māo).

In English the names of some birds are onomatopoeic, including cuckoo, whippoorwill, morepork, chiffchaff, chickadee, whooping swan and peewit.

Can you think of other examples of onomatopoeic birds, animals or other creatures?

Word of the day – poklop

By Simon

Poklop is a Czech word I came across today which means trapdoor or hatch. I’m not sure of its etymology, but I just like the sound of this word.

An alternative word for the same thing is padací dveře (lit. “falling door”). Related words include padací most drawbridge, (lit. “falling bridge”) and padací mříž portculis, (lit. “falling bar/grating/grid”).