Month: June 2016

Say Something in Manx

By Simon

There’s a new course on the SaySomethingin website: Manx (Gaelic). There are currently 10 free lessons in this introductory course, which follow the same format as the other languages on the site, as far as I can see, and 8 more lessons will be available soon.

I heard about this course at the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin in May from Ivan Baines, who was testing it at the time. It has now been launched.

I’m still working on SaySomethingin Cornish. So far I’ve got to lesson 5 and feel like I’ve learnt quite a lot and can say a variety of things.

The vocabulary for each lesson is now available on the lesson pages – previously it was only available on the forum. The design of the site has also improved, and it works well on smaller screens.

Les mots de la semaine

By Simon
français English Cymraeg
la vapeur steam ager
la locomotive à vapeur steam engine peiriant ager, ager-beiriant
le presbytère vicarage ficerdy, persondy
le pasteur, le curé vicar ficer, ficar, person
moudre to mill malu
le jardin ouvrier allotment cyfran
animé lively bywiog
démolir to demolish (building) dinistrio; distrywio
interdire to ban gwahardd
lancer to launch lansio; gwthio
le taux de participation turnout cynulliad
le bureau de vote polling station gorsaf bleidleisio
la crue soudaine; la crue subite flash flood gorlifo yn sydyn; fflachlifo
la maison individuelle detached house tŷ ar wahân; tŷ sengl
la maison jumelée semi-detached house tŷ pâr
la maison en bande;
la maison mitoyennef		 terraced house tŷ teras; tŷ rhes
le financement funding nawdd; noddiant

Magrangs

By Simon

Does anyone know if there is a word for words that have the same length and constituent letters, but are not anagrams, such as bee and ebb, and aloof and offal.

I received an email from Peter Hewkin today who suggests the word magrang (a magrang of anagram) for such words.

Do you have other suggestions?

Can you think of other examples?

Savouring sapient and savvy saphiophiles

By Simon

An interesting new word I came across recently is sapiophile [seɪpɪofaɪl/sapiofaɪl]. When I first saw it I wasn’t sure what it meant, but as soon as I looked it up it made sense. It means “someone who is (sexually) attracted to intelligence / intelligent people” [source]. It comes from the Latin sapiō and the Ancient Greek φιλέω (phileō – I love) [source].

Sapiō is a form of sapiēns, as in homo sapiens, which means wise, discreet; wise man, philosopher, man of taste. Related words include sapienter (wisely, sensibly), and sapientia (wisdom, discernment; philosophy; knowledge).

The English word sapient (wise), comes from the Old French sapient, from the Latin sapientem (nominative sapiēns), the present participle of sapere (to taste, have taste, be wise), from the Proto-Indo-European root *sep- (to taste, perceive) [source]. Alternatively it comes from the Proto-Indo-European *sh₁p-i- ‎(to notice), from the Proto-Indo-European *seh₁p- ‎(to try, to research). This is also the root of words meaning to know in quite a few languages, including: savoir (French), sapere (Italian, Sardinian), saber (Portuguese, Spanish, Galician, Catalan, Asturian, Occitan), and of the English words to savour and savvy (shrewd, well-informed and perceptive) [source].

A number of women on dating sites say they are a saphiophile – that’s where I stumbled on the word. A lot of women on such sites are looking for someone who is genuine, which can mean various things, including “belonging to, or proceeding from the original stock; native; hence, not counterfeit, spurious, false, or adulterated; authentic; real; natural; true; pure” [source]. Which of these meanings is meant I’m not sure.

Genuine comes from the Latin genuinus ‎(innate, native, natural), from gignere, from the Old Latin genere ‎(to beget, produce), from the Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁os ‎(race), from *ǵenh₁- ‎(to produce, beget) [source].

So maybe I should mention on Match and POF that I’m seeking a savvy, single, multilingual saphiophile – try saying that a few times quickly, it’s a bit of a tongue twister.

On Match you can search for people by the language(s) they speak. So, for example, you could search for someone who speaks French, Welsh, Kazakh, Swahili, Nepalese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Esperanto, or quite a few other languages. The list of languages is a bit random and looks like users were able to enter languages at some stage, so it includes Bable (Asturian), Euskera (Basque), Chinese, Chinese Traditional, Gallero (?), Indian (?), Iranian (?), Mallorquin, Valenciano and Visayan (Cebuano).

There are currently 651 Welsh-speaking women on Match, for example, 65 Esperanto speakers, and 42 Taiwanese speakers. However, in your profile you can only choose three languages – on Plenty of Fish (POF) you can only choose one second language, and you can only search one language at a time. These sites are obviously not set up with polyglots in mind.

Multilingual Manchester

By Simon

Part of the Manchester Day Parade 2016

I had a multilingual day in Manchester today – I spent part of it listening to choirs and other groups performing as part of the Manchester Day celebrations. They sang in English, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Maori, Hebrew and Yiddish, and I also watched the Manchester Day parade.

Part of the Manchester Day Parade 2016

I also went to the Polyglot Pub, a meet-up arranged by Kerstin Cable of Fluent Language. The seven of us who turned up spoke in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian and Swedish, plus odd bits of Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Japanese, Finnish and Estonian. This was the first Polyglot Pub in Manchester, and hopefully won’t be the last.

Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service Pipe Band

You can see more photos on Flickr

There will be a language quiz tomorrow, by the way.

Suburban bans

By Simon

In French the word banlieue [bɑ̃.ljø] can refer to:

1. Circonscription territoriale qui s’étendait à une lieue hors de la ville et dans laquelle un juge pouvait exercer sa juridiction.
(Territorial division that stretched a mile out of town and in which a judge could exercise jurisdiction).

2. Territoire et ensemble des localités qui environnent une grande ville.
(Territory and all the communities that surround a large city).

This word comes from the Medieval Latin banleuca (the space within a mile of a city to which extended the ban in feudal society). The word ban in this context refers to the jurisdiction of an overlord in which he could call vassals for war. It comes from Old French, from the Frankish *ban.

Sources: le Trésor de la langue française informatisé and Wiktionnaire

The word banlieue is also used in English to refer to “The outskirts of a city, especially in France, inhabited chiefly by poor people living in tenement-style housing” [source].

The English word banns, as in banns of marriage, probably comes from the same root as the French ban, but the English word ban (to forbid, prohibit), comes from the Middle English bannen, from the Old English bannan ‎(to summon, command, proclaim, call out), from the Proto-Germanic *bannaną ‎(curse, forbid), from the Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- ‎(to say) [source].

The elusive illusive

By Simon

Sometimes you think you know a word, but when you check it, you discover that you’ve mixed it up with a similar-sounding word. That’s what happened to me this week with the words elusive and illusive. Without looking them up, do you know what they mean?

When you’re searching for something but have trouble finding it, that thing is elusive. According to the Collins English Dictionary, it means:

1. difficult to catch (an elusive thief)
2. preferring or living in solitude and anonymity
3. difficult to remember (an elusive thought)

So something that is elusive might difficult to find, describe, remember, or achieve.

Illusive, on the other hand, means illusory or unreal.

So something that is illusive could also be elusive.

Elusive comes from the Latin elus-, the past participle stem of eludere (to elude, frustrate) plus the -ive ending. Elude comes from ex- (out, away) and ludere (to play) [source].

Illusive comes from illusion + -ive. Illusion comes from the Old French illusion (a mocking, deceit, deception), from the Latin illusionem (a mocking, jesting, jeering; irony), from the past participle stem of illudere (mock at), from in- (at, upon) and ludere (to play) [source].