Month: July 2006

Word of the day – smooinaghtagh

By Simon

smooinaghtagh (SMUUN-yakhtakh) = thoughtful, imaginable, pensive, notional, serious, thinking

Related words:
smooinagh – to think
smooinaght – sentiment, notion, impression, opinion, concept, thought
ard-smooinaghtagh – inspired (lit. “high thinking”)
far-smooinaghtagh – imaginary, chimerical (lit. “mock/fake thinking”)
shagh-smooinaghtagh – absent-minded (lit. “past thinking”)
trome-smooinaghtagh – deep-thinking (lit. “heavy thinking”)

Here’s a nice Manx word that I spotted on a CD by the Manx group skeeal that arrived today. It appears as part of a desciption of the band:

ta ‘skeeal’ ny phossan manninagh goaill stiagh queig fir. t’ad jannoo ymmyd jeh stoo tradishoonagh as bunneydagh, t’ad cummey yn kiaull er aght gientynagh as smooinaghtagh as gleashaghey eddyr ny chengaghyn gealgagh.

‘skeeal’ is a five-piece band from the isle of man. drawing on traditional and original material, they shape imaginative and thoughtful arrangements, moving between the gaelic languages.

I heard skeeal playing as part of the féile cholmcille in Gleann Cholm Cille when I was there last month and was impressed by them. At that time I didn’t know who they were, but knew they were from the Isle of Man and that they sang in Manx. Some detective work eventually lead me to their website, which is in Manx and English, and where I bought the CD.

The Irish equivalent of smooinaghtagh is smaointeach, in Scottish Gaelic it’s smaointeachail, and in Welsh it’s meddylgar.

It’s all Greek to me

By Simon

When you can’t understand something, whether it’s an unfamiliar subject in your own language, or something a foreign language, you might say “it’s all Greek to me”. At least you would in English. According to World Wide Words, this phrase comes a Medieval Latin proverb Graecum est; non potest legi (It is Greek; it cannot be read). I understand that Medieval scribes, who weren’t familiar with Greek, wrote this phrase next to any text they came across in that language.

The equivalent phrase in French is C’est du chinois (It’s Chinese). In German the phrase is Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof (I understand only railway station). In Czech incomprehsion is compared to a Spanish village – Je to pro mne španělská vesnice (It’s a Spanish village to me). Does anybody know why?

What about in other languages – are there any similiar idioms indicating incomprehension?

Competitive language learning

By Simon

When learning a language, it’s natural to compare your own progress and abilities with that of others. There’ll usually be other learners who know more than you, at least about some aspects of a language, or who speak and/or write with more fluency and confidence than you. You might also meet people who have been studying a language for a shorter time than you but who have achieved a higher level. This can be discouraging and frustrating, however we learn things at different rates, so such comparisons are not particularly helpful, unless you’re doing some research into second language acquisition (SLA).

Whenever I meet someone who is studying or has studied any of the foreign languages I know, I usually compare their level with my own. If they have a lower level, I feel that I’m doing ok, but if they have a higher level, I feel a bit jealous and resolve to study more. I also wonder whether I’ll ever achieve their level of fluency.

If you’re studying with someone else, some degree of competition can be a good thing, as you can encourage one another to keep going and to achieve more. Too much pressure is probably doesn’t help though.

Word of the day – papelear

By Simon

papelear, verb = to rumage through papers; to make a splash, draw attention to oneself

This word caught my eye while I was looking through my Spanish dictionary today. Though I try to keep the amount paper I use in my home ‘office’ to a minimum, there always seems to be plenty of bits of papers to rumage through.

Related words
papel = paper
papelada = farce, pretence, charade
papelamen = papers, masses of papers
papeleo = paperwork, red tape
papelera = litter bin, wastepaper basket, desk, paper mill
papelería = stationery, stationer (shop), mass/sheaf/heap of papers
papelero = paper, stationer, paper manufacuturer, paper-boy, ridiculous person
papelonero = ridiculous

Cran-morphing

By Simon

Today’s word-tastic topic is cran-morphing, the practice of dismantling words and glueing parts of them on to other words. Word-tastic is an example of this that I just made up – it combines the word word with -tastic from fantastic. Another popular cran-moph is -gate, as in Irangate, Dianagate and Whitewatergate. This comes from the Watergate Scandal, named after a hotel in Washington D.C.

Cran-morphs or cranberry morphs usually only mean something in relation to the words from which they have been detached. All those whatever-gates usually have nothing to do with gates, though you could construct a folk etymology along these lines – this cran-morph is associated with scandals and cover-ups which involve the revealing of secrets. The opening of a gate could be linked to the discovery of those secrets.

Other cran-morphs include:

  • -tabulous, from fantastic and fabulous, as in fantabulous and blog-tabulous
  • -holic, from alcoholic, as in shopaholic, chocoholic and biblioholic
  • -thon, from marathon, as in telethon, shopathon and eatathon
  • -licious, from delicious, as in magalicious
  • -nomics, from economics, as in ergonomics, Clintonomics, cybernomics and Enronomics

Details of the origin of the term cran-morphing can be found on Language log.

For more whatever-gates, see Wikipedia.

Here and there

By Simon

Today we’re looking at words for here and there is various languages. In standard English there are just two such words: here (close to the speaker), and there (away from the speaker). In some dialects of English, and in other languages, there are three or possibly more: here, there and yonder/over there.

Here are the words for here and there is various languages:

here there over there
French ici là là-bas
Spanish aquí, acá allí allá
Italian qui, qua là, lì
Portuguese aqui aí, ali, lá ali, lá
German hier dort, da dort drüben
Irish anseo ansin ansiùd, thall ansin
Manx ayns shoh ayns shen ayns shid
Scottish Gaelic an seo an sin an siud
Welsh yma yno acw
Mandarin 這兒［这儿] (zhèr)
這裡 [这里] (zhèli)
這邊 [这边]
(zhèbiān)		 那兒 [哪儿] (nàr)
那裡 [那里] (nàli)
那邊 [那边]
(nàbiān)
Cantonese 呢喥 (nīdouh)
呢處 (nīsyu)		 嗰喥 (gódouh)
嗰處 (gósyu)
Taiwanese chia hia
Japanese ここ [此処] (koko) そこ [其処] (soko) あそこ (asoko)