Today I put together a new page of useful phrases in Arabic. They all come from the multilingual pages, but I thought it would be handy to have the phrases for one language all together on one page. I know some of you have asked for this. I’ll add other languages when I have a spare moment or two.
As usually, your comments, corrections and additions are very welcome.
This week I’ve been improving the thank you page in the phrases section on Omniglot. I’ve added replies like ‘you’re welcome’ and the equivalents in as many languages as possible. Could you check the new phrases and maybe fill in some of the gaps?
The use of the phrase ‘thank you’ and related phrases varies quite a lot between cultures. In the UK, for example, we tend to use this phrase frequently, however in Scandinavian countries, I understand that it’s used less frequently. What about in your culture?
If you feel inspired, maybe you could even put together an article on this for my language-related articles section, like this one.
I’m just putting together a new phrases page – a collection of translations of the phrase “Could you write it/that down please?”. You can see what I’ve done so far here. Corrections and additional translations are very welcome.
Are there any other phrases you’d like to see in the phrases section?
Do you think that the current way the phrases section is constructed is useful? Or would you prefer to have phrases listed by language?
According to a report I heard on the radio this morning, the British Museum is going to stage a major exhibition of the terracotta warriors who guard the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇), who unified China and was its first emperor from 221-210 BC. The exhibition will include not just some of the warriors, but also terracotta bureaucrats, acrobats and musicians. Apparently the emperor is attend in death by his army plus quite a few other members of his court.
The term ‘terracotta bureaucrat’ is not one you hear everyday and caught my ear.
The word bureaucracy combines bureau, meaning desk or office, with the Greek suffix -kratia, which denotes ‘power of’, and was coined by the French economist Jean Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay (1712-59). The word bureaucrat first appeared in writing in 1842. A bureau was originally a type of cloth used for covering desks and tables. It comes from the Latin Latin burra, wool, shaggy garment; via the Old French burel, coarse woolen cloth.
Terracotta comes from Italian and means ‘baked earth’.
I came across the word brekekekex in a book I’ve just finished reading – A Time of Gifts, the first part of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s fascinating account of his epic journey on foot from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople (Istanbul), which he made in the early 1930s. He has a good ear for languages and acquired quite a good knowledge of German, plus bits and pieces of Hungarian, Greek and a number of other languages.
He mentions at one point that there were many frogs brekekekexing in the woods. I thought he’d made the word up, but it seems Atrisophanes got there first. The word comes from the chorus of Atrisophanes’ comedy, Βάτραχοι (Bátrachoi) – The Frogs, which was first presented at the Lenaea in 405 BC:
Brekekekex koax koax
Brekekekex koax koax.
Children of the marsh and lake
harmonious song now sweetly make,
our own enchanting melodies
koax koax
The songs we sang for Nysa’s lord,
for Dionysus, son of Zeus,
in Limnai at the Feast of Jars
as people in their drunken glee
thronged into our sanctuary.
Brekekekex koax koax.
The words brekekekex koax koax are intended to imitate the croaking of the frogs. You can see the original Greek version of the play here. In the above translation an extra syllable seems to have been added to Brekekekex – it’s Βρεκεκέξ (Brekekex) in the original.
Does anyone know if this word is still used in Modern Greek?
A Gaeilgeoir is an Irish speaker or Irish language enthusiast. The plural is Gaeilgeoirí. So I could say Is Gaeilgeoir mé – I am a Gaeilgeoir (in both senses of the word). When Irish was the main language in Ireland, I doubt if there was a need for such a word, though I could be wrong.
There’s an interesting article about recent immigrants to Ireland learning Irish here. It also mentions that attitudes to the language are changing partially as a result of increased cultural and linguistic diversity in Ireland. The author, a Gaeilgeoir from Dublin, comments that she used to get stared at and whispered about when talking Irish to her children in public, but this doesn’t happen so much nowadays as there are quite a few other languages being spoken in Ireland.
In Welsh the equivalent terms are Cymro Cymraeg (Welsh-speaking Welshman), Cymraes Cymraeg (Welsh-speaking Welsh woman) and Cymry Cymraeg (Welsh-speaking Welsh people). Cymru-Cymraeg or y Fro Gymraeg are the areas of Wales where Welsh is the main language – the Welsh equivalent of Gaeltacht. There are also terms for non-Welsh-Speakers: Cyrmo/Cymraes/Cymry di-Gymraeg – e.g. Cymraes di-Gymraeg yw fy mam – my mum is a non-Welsh-speaking Welsh woman.
Are there equivalent terms in other languages?
It’s extremely windy here today, which has got me thinking about the names given to particular winds in different parts of the world. My favourite wind names are Sirocco, a southerly wind that blows from north Africa to southern Europe, and Mistral, a cold northerly wind that blows from central France and the Alps to the Mediterranean.
The name sirocco is Italian. In North Africa this wind is known as قبلی (qibli), in Greece it’s σιρόκος (sirokos), in Croatia it’s jugo, and by the time it reaches Southern France it known as the marin.
The name mistral comes from the Provençal word for “master”. Another name for this wind is le vent du fada, or “the idiot wind”, so-called because the Mistral is believed to be more than capable of driving even the sanest weather scientist to gibbering insanity.
Do any of your local winds have interesting names?
It struck me today that the Irish word for artists, ealaíontóirí, sounds like ‘alien tory’. I hadn’t really noticed this before. When I hear or read the word, it usually brings to mind artists and art, though hearing it out of context triggered the thoughts of extraterrestrial members of the Conservative Party.
I try to think in the languages I’m studying as much as possible, and to picture in my mind the things and actions I hear or read about. Sometimes I only notice that a foreign word sounds funny to English speakers when someone who doesn’t speak the language points this out to me, or if my brain is in English mode.
Today’s word, hysbyseb (pl, hysbysebion), is the Welsh for advertisement or insertion. Related words include, hysbysebu, to advertise or inform, hysbysfwrdd, noticeboard, hysbysiad, announcement, and hysbysrwydd, information, which is also gwybodaeth.
Hysbyseb comes from the hysbys, which means known, and is used in the term for soothsayer, dyn hysbys.
Examples of usage
Dw i wedi gweld hysbyseb am swydd newydd yn y papur heddiw.
I saw an advert for a new job in the paper today.
Gweler ein hysbyseb yn yr atodiad wythnosol.
See our advertisement in the weekly supplement.
There’s an urban legend that sometime during the 19th century a phrasebook was published that including the extemely useful phrase “My postilion has been struck by lightning”. There seems to be various theories about the origins of this phrase, and a number versions of the phrase, including “Our postillion has been struck by lightning!”, or “Stop, the postilion has been struck by lightning!”.
According to Nigel Rees on the Quote Unquote website, both postilions and lightning are mentioned in Karl Baedeker’s The Traveller’s Manual of Conversation in Four Languages (1836), in which the phrase: “Postilion, stop; we wish to get down; a spoke of one of the wheels is broken.” appears. In an 1886 edition of this book, there appears the phrase: “Are the postilions insolent?; the lightning has struck; the coachman is drunk.”
Other useful phrases including the the Baedeker book include “Can we get a pony or a donkey for Madame, to mount up that hill?”, “Clean that looking-glass a little, it is quite dull.”, and “Come, make haste. Plait my hair, and make the curls; for I want to go out.”
Do any of you have a copy of Baedeker’s book, or something similar? I’d like to find out how he translated these phrases. Which of the phrases that appear in current phrasebooks do you think people will be laughing about in 100 year’s time?
A postilion or postillion, in case you’re wondering, is one who rides as a guide on the near horse of one of the pairs attached to a coach or post chaise especially without a coachman.