Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
Month: June 2020
Purple Fleas
What do the words purple and flea have in common?
Well in French, there is one word – puce [pys] – that means both purple and flea. It also means (micro)chip or bullet point.
Here are a few expressions featuring puce:
- marché aux puces = flea market
- ma puce = my love, sweetie, honey, dear, sweetheart
- puce électronique = microchip
- puce d’ordinateur = computer chip
- carte à puce = smart card
- puce mémoire = memory card
- puce d’eau = water flea
- puce de sable/mer = sand flea
- liste à puce = bulleted list
- pucer = to chip, tag
- aller faire téter les puces = to go to sleep
- donner la botte aux puces = to go to bed
- avoir la puce à l’oreille = to be vigiliant
- mettre la puce à l’oreille = to suspect, worry
If you were so inclined, you could say: Ma puce, une puce puce puce une puce puce avec une puce puce, or “Sweetie, a puce flea is tagging a puce flea with a puce tag”, but that would be rather silly.
Puce comes from the Old French pu(l)ce (flea), from the Latin pūlicem, from pūlex (flea), from the Proto-Indo-Euopean plúsis (flea). This is also the root of the English word flea, via the Proto-Germanic *flauhaz.
The colour puce is a dark redish-brown or a brownish-purple. It was first used to refer to this colour in about the 17th century in French, and possibly a lot earlier, and in the 18th century in English. It refers to the colour of bloodstains on flea-ridden bedding which would appear as a result of the fleas biting people and leaving their droppings or being squashed.
Puce was apparently a favourite colour of Marie Antoinette, and became fashionable in 19th century Paris.
There are a couple of other words that sound simliar to puce: pouce (thumb, inch) and pousse (growth, shoot). Both are pronounced [pus] though, so there should be no confusion.
Sources: Reverso, Wiktionary, Wikipedia
Familie en Gezin
In the Dutch lessons I’ve been working on recently I’ve noticed that there appear to be two different words for family: familie and gezin. From the context I can’t work out if they have different meanings or uses, so I thought I’d investigate.
Familie [fɑˈmi.li] means extended family, i.e. parents, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, etc.
It comes from the French famille (family), from the Latin familia (family, household), from famulus (servant, slave)
Gezin [ɣəˈzɪn] means nucelear family, i.e. parents and children, home or household.
It comes from the Middle Dutch ghesinde (companion), from the Proto-Germanic *gasinþiją. from *senþ-/sinþ- (to go, travel; seek, aim), from the Proto-Indo-European *sent- (to head for, go). The German word Gesinde (servants, farmhands) comes from the same root, as does the Old English word ġesīþ (companion, comrade)
Related words inlcude:
- familiebedrijf = family business
- familielid = family member, relative
- familienaam = family name
- familietraditie = family tradition
- taalfamilie = language family
- familierecht / gezinsrecht = family law
- gezinshereniging = family reunion
- gezinshulp = homemaker
- gezin stichten = to start a family
- eenoudergezin = single parent family
- pleeggezin = foster family
Sources: Reverso, bab.la, Woorden.org, Wiktionary
Language Quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
Butterflies and Pavilions
What is the connection between pavilions and butterflies?
Well, the word pavilion comes from the Anglo-Norman pavilloun, from the Latin pāpiliōnem, from pāpiliō (butterfly, moth), probably because a pavilion looks a bit like a butterfly’s wings.
In French the word for butterfly is papillon [pa.pi.jɔ̃], which comes from the same root as pavilion, which is also a French word.
The word papillon also means a ticket, parking ticket; a wing nut or butterfly nut; someone brilliant, versatile and inconstant, or a flyer or tag.
A papillon de nuit (“night butterfly”) is a moth, a nœud papillon (“butterfly knot/bow”) is a bow tie and brasse papillon is butterfly stroke, a style of swimming that seems unnecessarily effortful to me.
A papillon adhésif is a sticky note / Post-it note, papillonnage means flitting about or flitting from one relationship to the next, and papillonner means to flit (about/incessantly).
Are there any interesting butterfly-related expressions in other languages?
Sources: Wikitionary, Reverso, bab.la
Mooie koopjes!
An interesting Dutch word I learnt recently is goedkoop [ɣutˈkoːp], which means cheap, inexpensive or affordable. It comes from goed (good) and koop (for sale, buy, purchase), so literally means “good buy/purchase” [source].
Incidentally, the English word cheap comes from the Old English cēap (cattle, purchase, sale, traffic, business, bargain), from the Proto-Germanic *kaupaz/*kaupô (inn-keeper, merchant), from *kaupōną/*kaupijaną (to buy, purchase), from the Latin caupō (tradesman, innkeeper), which is the same root as the Dutch koop, and related words in other Germanic languages, such as Kauf (sale, purchase, buy) in German, and köp (purchase) in Swedish [source]
The diminutive of koop is koopje, which means bargin, (a) steal or cheap, and in Belgium it means a sale.
Related words include:
- kopen = to buy, acquire, purchase, take over
- koopavond = late opening, late-night shopping
- koophandel = commerce
- koopjesperiode = seasonal sales
- koopkracht = purchasing/buying power
- kooplieden = dealers, merchants
- koopman = merchant, businessman
- koopmanschap = business, commerce, trade
- koopwaar = merchandise, wares
- koopwaardig = worthy to buy
- uitverkoop = (a) sale, sell-off
- verkopen = to sell
- koopziek = shopping addiction, shopaholism
- miskoop = a bad buy
- een kat in de zak kopen = to buy a pig in a poke (“to buy a cat in a bag”)
Source: bab.la
I like all these Dutch words with double vowels, and there are plenty of them – they look and sound quite cute to me. The title of this post means “nice bargins”, by the way.
Language Quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
Breath Forts
One of the words that came up this week in the French conversation group I’m part of was château gonflable or inflatable/bouncy castle.
The word gonflable means inflatable, and comes from gonfler (to blow up, inflate, pump up, swell, rise, bore), from the Latin cōnflāre, from cōnflō (I kindle (a fire); I forge, fuse, melt (metal); I refine / purify; I inflame (passions)), from con- (with) & flō (breathe, blow) [source].
From the same root we get the English word conflate (to mix together different elements; to fail to distinguish separate things).
Other expressions featuring gonflable include:
- sac/coussin gonflable = airbag
- bateau gonflable = inflatable boat
- matelas gonflable = air bed/mattress
- aire de jeux gonflables = soft play area
I call such things bouncy castles, but they have other names, such as inflatable castles, bouncing castle, bouncy houses, bounce houses, jumping castle, moon bounces, moonwalks or jumpers.
What do you call them?
Temporal Imprecision
The other day I saw an interesting usage in a discussion on Facebook in which someone wrote that they last did something back in “19 mumbly mumble”. It seems they didn’t want to be more precise about the year.
I’ve heard people doing this in speech before, mumbling the year they don’t want others to know, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen it used in writing like this.
Is there a linguistic name for temporal imprecision like this?
Does this happen in other languages? If so, how?
Language Quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?