As yesterday’s quiz question was too easy, I’ve decided to give you an extra one that’s a bit harder today. Here’s a recording of a different mystery language. Can you identify the language?
No clues this time.
Name the language
Here’s a recording of a poem in a mystery language. Can you work out what language it is?
Clues: this language is spoken in Europe by a small number of people in a mountainous area.
Fireworks
Tomorrow is Bonfire Night in the UK, a time when there are many firework displays, and large bonfires upon which we burn guys – effigies of Guy Fawkes, who was part of a failed plot to blow up the British parliament on 5th November 1605. Quite a lot of fireworks are being set off tonight as well.
The English word fireworks is not as interesting as the equivalent in other languages. For example, in Spanish they’re ‘artificial fires’ (fuegos artificiales), in Chinese they’re ‘smoke flowers’ (煙花), in Japanese they’re ‘flower fire’ (花火), in Welsh they’re ‘wild fire’ (tân gwyllt), and in Irish they’re ‘fire art’ (tinte ealaíne).
Word of the day – rio
Today’s word, rio, means frost, freezing or ice in Manx, and river in Portuguese. In Spanish, río means river, stream, torrent, lengthy, long-lasting, epic or interminable.
Related Manx words and phrases
riojey = ice up, freeze, frost, icing
rioeeagh = frosty
rioghar = icicle
rioee = glacial
crammag rio = ice hockey (lit. “ice snail”)
moddey rio = husky (lit. “ice dog”)
coyr rioee = fridge
Eean y ghob jiarg = Jack Frost (lit. “Red-mouthed John”)
Ta Eean y ghob jiarg mooie jiu = it’s frosty today
Example of usage
Chan nel bodjal er-egin ‘syn aer jiu as bee rio ayn noght, son shickyrys.
There’s been barely a cloud in the sky today and it’s certainly going to freeze tonight.
The sun’s been shining most of the day here and it’s been pleasantly warm indoors, but the moment you step outside you’re hit by the cold. There’s a ring around the moon as well – a sure sign of frost.
Are there equivalent names for Jack Frost, the personification of frost or winter weather, in other languages?
Fun languages
Many years ago while travelling in China, I heard Norwegian being spoken for the first time when I met some Norwegians in Guangzhou. To me their language sounded sort of familiar and quite funny – a bit like German being spoken by very drunk people. Danish and Swedish sound similar to me and I think it’s the intonation that makes them sound like fun languages and puts a smile on my face. I also quite like the sounds of Dutch, which again sounds to me like a funny kind of German.
The only Germanic languages I currently know are English and German. I plan to learn one or two others, Norwegian and maybe Dutch, in the not too distant future.
A friend recently starting learning Norwegian and he’s really enjoying it. He finds it a quirky and fun language and says that he’s never before studied a language that makes him laugh out loud so frequently.
Which languages put a smile on your face?
Time capsules
A while ago I came across an interesting language learning-related idea but then promptly forgot where it was. I finally found it again today here. The idea is that you record yourself speaking the language(s) you’re learning every so often, then go back to the recordings later to see how much progress you’ve made. These recordings could be said to be linguistic time capsules.
If you’ve learning to play a musical instrument or to sing, you could make something similar – a musical time capsule.
Which language to study?
If you’re trying to choose which language to learn, the following question, which is based on one I came across yesterday, might help you to decide:
If you were offered a free trip to one of the countries where the languages you’re considering are spoken, which country would you choose?
For me, choosing which language(s) to learn is a frequent conundrum, though often the choice is between learning a new language, or brushing up and improving my knowledge of
languages I already know. Often I end up trying to do both.
Language proficiency tests
I came across some useful online language proficiency tests today on the Transparent Language site. There are tests for Chinese (Romanized), Dutch, English, English (for Spanish Speakers), French, German, Irish, Italian, Japanese (Romanized), Latin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish. The questions are all fill-in-the-blanks type and each test consists of two grammar sections, a vocabulary section and a reading comprehension section.
I just took the Irish test and got a overall score of 105 out of 150 or 70%. My highest scores was in the vocabulary section – 27/30 or 90%, and the reading comprehension – 25/30 or 83%. I didn’t do so well in the grammar sections getting only 27/45 or 60% in each one. Obviously my Irish grammar needs more work.
Does anybody know of any online language test that include listening? I’m sure I’ve seen some somewhere but can’t remember where.
An Umbrian mystery
In the walls of the Palazzo Bucelli in Montepulciano, Italy, which was built in the 17th century and remodelled in the 18th century by the antiquarian Pietro Bucelli, there are a number of inscriptions. These inscriptions are generally thought to be in Etruscan or Latin, but they look more like Umbrian to me.
Here is an example of one of the inscriptions:
This inscription, which reads from left to right, can be transliterated as something like: “AOTETINA ARNTNI TETINALISA”.
You can see more here.
What do you think?
Context matters
This morning I’ve been chatting with a friend in Shanghai who asked me how to say various things in English, and about the meaning of various English words and phrases. In each case I had to ask about the context to be sure that I chose the appropriate meaning or translation.
Some words have a number of possible meanings. In some cases you can only work out which meaning is intended from the context. In some cases though, the context might be ambiguous, either deliberately, perhaps for comic effect, or unintentionally.
When reading text or listening to speech in a foreign language, you can often guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from the context. Or you can at least work out whether they are nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. It’s very useful to develop this skill and not to rely on dictionaries all the time.