How many languages is enough?

By Simon

I came across an interesting article in The Guardian today about Alexander Arguelles, who says, “I can read about three dozen languages and speak most of them fluently, and I’ve studied many more.” The headline, “Experience: I can speak 50 languages”, is perhaps a slight exaggeration of the kind that’s common in these kinds of articles. The subheading is, ‘I’m often asked what the secret is. The truth is it’s mostly down to endless hours of reading, studying and practising grammar’, which neatly sums up one approach to language learning.

Have you got to the stage where you feel you have taken on enough languages? Or are these always other languages that you’d like to learn one of these days?

Recently I’ve been concentrating mainly on 15 of my languages, and have been trying to maintain and improve my knowledge of them. There are plenty of other languages out there that I’d like to have a go at, but I’ve been resisting the temptations so far.

HyperGlobal Publishing

By Simon

Today we have a guest post by Mars Jacobson of HyperGlobal Publishing

In this day and age of globalization and instant communications, you can send an email around the world in seconds while talking on the phone to someone thousands of miles away. It is language differences, not physical differences, that separate us. A new startup publishing company, hyperGlobal Publishing, is here to help close this language gap dividing people and nations around the world.

hyperGlobal Publishing invites the best writers and thinkers from around the world to produce original analysis and commentary that we’ll translate – by humans, not computers – and publish daily to our website. We’ll start with five of the most common online languages – English, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish – thus reaching a far-flung and diverse global audience from day one.

Our experiment with multi-lingual journalism and commentary will begin with the biggest event in the world – the 2014 FIFA World Cup. From June 12 to July 13, one billion fans in nearly every country on earth will cheer on 32 teams as they compete in 64 matches. hyperGlobal would offer these fans a common online space for news on the beautiful game.

The World Cup project would only be the beginning. hyperGlobal would then branch out to a wide variety of topics. For readers, hyperGlobal would be an online platform for them to gain a truly worldwide perspective in their news and media, from unique and talented authors. For writers, hyperGlobal offers an opportunity to be published in several languages and get global exposure.

For more information or to get involved, please check out our Kickstarter campaign.

You can also find us on Facebook.

And on Twitter.

In the World of Invented Languages

By Simon

In the Land of Invented Languages: Adventures in Linguistic Creativity, Madness, and Genius

Last week I read Arika Okrent’s book In the Land of Invented Languages: Adventures in Linguistic Creativity, Madness, and Genius, which I found very interesting.

The book covers the history of language invention from Hildegard of Bingen’s Lingua Ignota; through philosophical languages like the one John Wilkins devised; International Auxiliary languages like Esperanto and Volapük; logical languages like Loglan and Lojban; to fictional languages like Quenya, Sindarin and Klingon. The author tells the stories behind these languages and the people who invented them, meets some of the inventors who are still around, learns some of the languages, and goes to meet ups for some of them.

One thing that struck me was the fact that many language inventors, especially those of philosophical, universal, logical and international auxiliary languages, believed that it was possible to make perfect, unambiguous and/or totally regular languages, and that natural languages were flawed because they contain irregularities, ambiguity and unnecessary complexities. Okrent argues that these are features, not flaws, and they give languages flexibility. I would add to this that the built in redundancy in languages helps ensure that messages get across even if some of the content is lost due to noisy conditions, unclear pronunciation of the speaker, inattention of the listener, or other factors.

Les mots de le semaine

By Simon
français English Cymraeg
la jacinthe des bois;
jacinthe sauvage		 bluebell (hyacinthoides non-scripta) clychau’r gog;
bwtias y gog;
croeso haf, ayyb
le foyer socio-éducatif;
le centre socioculturel		 community centre canolfan cymdeithasol/cymuned(ol)
démarrer to start (a car; engine; machine) tanio; cychwyn
le contact ignition (of car) tanio
la clé de contact ignition key allwedd danio; agoriad tanio
un œuf à la coque soft-boiled egg ŵy wedi’i led-ferwi
un œuf dur hard-boiled egg ŵy caled; ŵy wedi ei ferwi yn galed
l’évier (m) (kitchen) sink sinc
il fait un temps maussade et frait the weather is miserable mae’r tywydd yn ddiflas
embué steamy (window) cynhyrflyd; cynhryfus
humide steamy (room, heat, air) agerog; agerddog; yn ager
torride steamy (thriller, scene, affair) angerddol; chwilboeth
l’arme secrète (f) secret weapon arf cyfrinachol

Cuckoo bells

By Simon

Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)

I discovered this week that in Welsh bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) are known as Clychau’r Gog (“cuckoo bells”), which I really like the sound of. They are also known as Bwtias y Gog (“cuckoo’s boots”), Croeso Haf (“welcome summer”), Cennin y Brain (“crows’ leeks”), Clychau’r Eos (“nightingale’s bells”), Glas y Llwyn (“blue of the grove”), hosanau’r Gwcw (“cuckoo’s socks”).

In Breton bluebells are known as bokidi-koukou (“cuckoo flowers”) or pour-bran (“crows’ flowers/pears”).

In French they are known as jacinthe des bois (“wood hyacinths”) or jacinthe sauvage (“wild hyacinths”).

Other names for them in English include common bluebell, English bluebell, British bluebell, wild hyacinth, wood bell, fairy flower and bell bottle.

Do they have interesting names in other languages?

LOL @ 25

By Simon

According to an article I found in The Guardian today the accronym LOL (laughing out loud) first appeared 25 years ago in the International FidoNet Association Newsletter dated 8 May 1989.

The article mentions a few equivalents in other languages: “ㅋㅋㅋ” (KKK) in Korean; MDR or mort de rire (died of laughter) in French; and 555 (ห้า ห้า ห้า / haa haa haa) in Thai. Do you know or use any others?

LOL is not related to the Welsh word lol, which means “nonsense, foolery, bosh, bunkum, gammon, moonshine, rigmarole, rot, rubbish, tomfoolery or twaddle”; or to the English word loll (to hang down loosely; to droop, dangle), an expression that, according to the OED, has a sound suggestive or rocking or swinging, and might be connected to the Middle Dutch lollen (to sleep) – found in Modern Dutch in lollebanck (couch, sofa).

Code talkers

By Simon

The role of the Navajo and other Native American tribes played in secret communications or code talking in World War II is fairly well known, and today I found out on the BBC News magazine that members of Choctaw Nation played a similar role in World War I. They communicated military information via phone, and to the Germans who tapped the phone lines Choctaw, and the other Native American languages that were used, sounded utterly baffling – they apparently thought the the US had invented a contraption to speak underwater.

Very few people knew about this until recently as in Choctaw culture one doesn’t boast about one’s achievements, so those involved rarely mentioned it, even to their own families. At the same time Choctaw, and other Native American, children were being punished for speaking their mother tongues in schools.

Do you know of other languages used for secret communications like this?

Knock Cnoc

By Simon

The element Knock is quite common in place names in Ireland, e.g. Ballyknock, Castleknock, Gortknock, Kilknock and Knockaderry [source]. There’s also quite a few places called simply Knock, the best known of which is the Knock in County Mayo in the west of Ireland , which is known as An Cnoc (the hill) or Cnoc Mhuire (Hill of (the Virgin) Mary) in Irish.

The Irish word cnoc (hill), from which Knock comes, is pronounced [kn̪ˠɔk] in Munster, [knˠɔk] in Aran, and [kɾˠɔk] in Galway, Mayo and Ulster. It comes from the Old Irish cnocc (hill, lump, swelling), from the Proto-Celtic *knokko(s) (hill), which is also the root of:

– Scottish Gaelic cnoc [krɔ̃xg] = hill, hillock, knoll
– Manx cronk [krɒnk] = mount, tor, hill
– Welsh cnwc [knʊk] = hillock, bump, lump, butte
– Cornish knegh [knɛx] / knogh [knɔx] = hillock

A similar, though unrelated, English word is knoll [nəʊl], a hillock or mound, which comes from the Old English cnoll (hill-top, cop, summit, hillock), which is cognate with the Dutch knol (clod, ball, turnip); the German Knolle (bulb, tuber); and the Swedish knöl (lump; bump; hump) [source].