Nadolig Llawen
Joyeux Noël
聖誕快樂
Nollaig shona doibh
¡Feliz Navidad!
Nollick Ghennal
Bo Nadal
Nollaig chridheil
メリークリスマス
Buon Natale
Frohe Weihnachten
Bon Nadal
Veselé vánoce
and Merry Christmas!
Category: Czech (čeština)
Colds, streams and rivers
It’s rather cold here at the moment with daytime temperatures not much above freezing, and nighttime dropping to -10°C (14°F) or even -20°C (-4°F) in places. As a result, some of the snow that fell last week has frozen solid and been trampled down on pavements and ungritted back streets making them decidedly icey and slippery.
I also have a cold at the moment, so I thought I’d look into how to say “I have a cold” in a number of languages. In French it’s “Je suis enrhumé” or “I am enrhumed”. Enrhumé comes from rhume (cold), which comes from the Old French reume, from the Latin rheuma, from the Greek rheuma (stream, current, a flowing), from rhein (to flow), from the Proto-Indo-European *sreu- (to flow). The Proto-Indo-European *sreu- is also the root of the Irish sruth (stream, river), the Welsh ffrwd (stream) and the Polish strumyk (brook). [source].
The Czech word for cold rýmu appears to be spring from the same source – mám rýmu is “I have a cold” by the way – as does the English word rheumatism. You can also say jsem nachlazený for “I have a cold” in Czech, which has a similar structure to the French phrase – “I am colded” or something like that.
In Welsh you don’t have a cold but rather a cold is on you: mae annwyd arna i, and the other Celtic languages use the same structure, “Is cold on/at me”: tá slaghdán orm (Irish), tha ‘n cnatan orm (Scottish Gaelic), ta feayraght/mughane aym (Manx).
In German “I have a cold” is Ich bin erkältet (“I am becolded?”), with erkältet coming from kalt (cold).
In Mandarin Chinese you say 我感冒了 (wǒ gǎnmào le) or “I catch cold [change of state particle]”.
Languages in the Czech Republic
According to a report I found today in The Prague Post, less than half of Czechs speak foreign languages. A survey by the Social and Economy Analyses Institute (ISEA) found that while 27% of Czechs can communicate in at least one foreign language – the most popular languages are English and German, 54% of Czechs have no foreign language abilities. The survey also found that younger people are more likely to know a foreign language, and that 77% of university graduates speak at least one foreign language.
All my Czech friends speak English, and some of them speak other languages such as Russian, German, French and/or Welsh. They are all graduates, so this isn’t entirely surprising.
The idea that’s common in Anglophone countries that most people in continental Europe speak several languages, including English, doesn’t seem to reflect the reality everywhere.
Český
Word of the day – Sny
I’ve heard today’s word sny in the Czech phrase hezký sny and from the context I thought that it meant “sleep well” or something similar. I knew that hezký meant beautiful or pretty and assumed that sny meant sleep.
When I finally got round to looking it up, I discovered that it means “nice dreams”. Hezký has a number of meanings, including pretty, seemly, sweet, attractive, becoming, bonny, comely, fine, neat, endearing, fair, good-looking, handsome, nice, smart, good, lovely, and so on.
Sny means dreams or moonshine, and is the plural of sen, which also means ambition, vision or sleep. The verb, to dream, is snít.
Do you have any interesting ways of wishing some one a good night?
One I know is “Good night, sleep tight, hope the bedbugs don’t bite”.
Winter climber
The word zimolez, which is honeysuckle in Czech, came up the other day during a conversation with a Czech friend. It comes from zima (winter) and lézt (to climb, crawl, creep), so could be translated as “winter climber”.
Other interesting words that came up include plšík (doormouse), smršť (tornado) brblat (to grizzle, beef, grouch, mutter) and žbrblat (to mutter to oneself). The root smršť also appears in words related to shrinking and contracting, such as smrštit (to shrink), smrštěný (contracted, shrunk) and smršťovací fólie (shrink wrap).
What delicious consonant clusters!
The English name honeysuckle comes from the Old English hunigsuge (honey-suck). An alternative name is Eglantine, which comes from the Old French aiglent (dog rose), from the Vulgar Latin aquilentus (rich in prickles), from the Latin aculeus (spine, prickle), a diminutive of acus (needle)
Names for honeysuckle in other languages include:
- German: Geißblatt (goat leaf)
- French: Chèvrefeuille (goat leaf)
- Irish: Féithleann (vein ale ?)
- Italian: Caprifoglio (goat leaf)
- Latin: Lonicera
- Spanish: Madreselva (mother jungle)
- Welsh: Gwyddfid (wild hedge ?) or Llaeth y gaseg (mare’s milk)
Word of the day – ig
The Welsh word ig (plural: igion) means hiccough. The verb, to hiccough / sob, is igian, igio or igion.
When I’m singing or playing the tin whistle or other wind instruments I often get hiccoughs, and the other day I was trying to explain this to a Welsh friend in Welsh, but didn’t know the Welsh word for hiccup. So I looked it up.
The English word hiccough (also spelt hiccup) is thought to be an imitation of the sound of hiccoughs, and the Welsh word ig probably is as well.
In other languages hiccough is:
Czech: škytavka
German: Schluckauf
Dutch: hik
French: hoquet
Irish: snag
Italian: singhiozzo
Spanish: hipo
The medical terms for hiccough are synchronous diaphragmatic flutter (SDF), or singultus, from the Latin, singult, “the act of catching one’s breath while sobbing”.
Do you have any good cures for hiccoughs?
I usually hold my breath and/or drink water.
Quick Czech question
Word of the day – šišlat
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 – poklop
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”).