Language in books

By Simon

The ways authors represent foreign languages in their books are interesting. In some cases, they use a different typeface to indicate that a character is speaking a foreign language. The typefaces used sometimes resemble the alphabet normally used to write the language in question. This enables the readers to follow what the characters are saying, while being aware that the other characters in the book can’t do so. In other cases, authors write in the languages themselves and either find some way to provide a translation, possibly as a footnote, or just leave both the readers and the other characters in the dark.

If authors can be reasonably sure that their readers will understand text in another language, they don’t need to provide a translation. This is the case in Welsh and Irish books which often contain snippets of English.

Quite often authors ignore language differences, unless they’re integral to the plot. Somehow characters are able to understand one another even though they speak different languages.

How do authors portray foreign languages in books written in languages other than English?

Word of the day – amynedd

By Simon

amynedd [a’mənɛð] = y gallu i ddioddef, goddefgarwch, dioddefgarwch, dyfalbarhad, pwyll

Examples of usage

Amynedd sant sy genno fo.
He has the patience of a saint.

Bydd rhaid i ni fod dipyn yn amyneddgar.
We’ll have to be a bit patient.

Today’s word is something you need plenty of when learning a language – patience. I came across it in the Welsh novel I’m currently reading, Enoc Huws. Another interesting word that came up today was dyfalbarhad (perserverance), which is something else you need when learning languages. When I started reading this novel, I found it quite heavy going and could only read a page at a time. Now I’m becoming more familiar with the story and the vocabulary, I’m able to read whole chapters fairly easily.

Mnemonics

By Simon

Verses or rhymes used to help you to remember things are known as mnemonics. They’re sometimes made of the the first letters of a series of words you want to memorise. For example, Richard of York gives battle in vain for the colours of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green blue, indigo, violet); Every good boy deserves fudge for the lines of the treble clef of a musical stave (e, g, b, d, f), and My Very Efficient Monkey Just Sorted Unused Napkins for the major planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune).

Do you have any other interesting mnemonics in other languages?

Languages of Europe

By Simon

I came across an interesting report from the European Commission about the languages of Europe today. It shows the proportions of people who are native speakers each of the official languages of the EU, and how many people speak them well enough to take part in a conversation.

The language with the highest proportion of native speakers is German (24%). In joint second place with 16% each are French, English and Italian, which are followed by Spanish (11%) and Dutch (6%).

About 31% of non-anglophone EU citizens are conversant in English, while French is spoken non-natively by 12%, German by 8%, Spanish by 4% and Italian by 2%.

Otherall, nearly half of the EU’s denizens can speak English, 32% can speak German, 28% can speak French, 18% speak Italian, and 14% speak Spanish.

In some European countries, particularly Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden, at least three quarters of people are able to speak more than one language. While in others, notable the UK, Ireland and Portugal, foreign language abilities are much less common with more than two thirds of people able to speak only their native language.

Do my ears deceive me?

By Simon

Sometimes people speak to you in a language you’re not expecting. You might assume they’re speaking in the language you were expecting, and try to make sense of their utterances as if they were in that language, which just confuses you.

An example of this happened the other day when I went to pick up my laundry from the laundrette. One of the guys who works there is Chinese, and I’d heard him speaking Mandarin on the phone so thought I’d speak to him in that language. He wasn’t expecting this and thought I was speaking English, so couldn’t understand me. I explained, in English, what I was saying, then we chatted in Chinese for a bit and he understood me perfectly.

A similar thing happened to me when I was in Dublin in June – most of the kitchen staff in the hostel I was staying in were Chinese and I thought I’d be clever and order my breakfast in Mandarin. They weren’t expecting this and could make head or tail of what I said to them.

Ancient Greek names

By Simon

Here’s a question for any Classicists out there – how do you pronounce the Ancient Greek names Lycos, Nycteus and Epirus? This question was sent to me by Persephone Vandegrift, who is writing a play based on the Bacchae by Euripides and has added these new characters, who are associated with Pentheus and the story of his altercation with Dionysus, but isn’t sure how their names should be pronounced.

If you can help, you can contact Persephone at:
pkimberlyv@hotmail.com

The strangeness of some of the questions received at Omniglot HQ never ceases to surprise me!

Polly Glotto

By Simon

I came across a very useful online translation site today – Polly Glotto. It not only translates text between ten different languages (Chinese, English, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish), but also uses text-to-speech technology to speak the translations. The translations it produces aren’t always perfect, but they are generally quite good, and most of the voices sound fairly natural as well.

Here’s a example of the phrase ‘Hello, I am Polly Glotto’ in French.

Smilin like a bylt haddie

By Simon

I hope you’ll be sae cantie as a sou amang glaur (as happy as a pig in the mud) with today’s selection of Scots idioms, which I found on Wir Ain Lied, An Innin tae Modern Scots (An Introduction to Modern Scots). As you may have noticed, A hae an ee til (I have a liking for) idioms, and I hope you’ll be smilin like a bylt haddie (smiling like a boiled haddock) at some of the idioms here.

So tak tent (pay attention) but ye needna fash yer thoum (you needn’t worry) about understanding them as I’ll provide translations. So let’s get on wi the crack (get on with the conversation) and make sure we don’t spik pan loaf (speak with an affected English accent). If you’re short o the Greek (stuck for words) don’t tyne the heid (lose your temper), but why not birl the wulkies (turn somersault)? So let’s caw cannie (proceed carefully) or somebody might cowp wir hurl (upset our plans). Mony wirds, muckle drouth (much talking makes one thirsty), so maybe it’s time to cock the wee finger (have a tipple/drink) but be sure you don’t droun the miller (put too much water in the whisky). That’s quite eneuch (enough) for now, I think.

You can hear recordings of some of these idioms here.

How many languages = polyglot?

By Simon

There’s an old joke that someone who speaks four languages is quadrilingual, a speaker of three languages is trilingual, someone with two languages is bilingual, and someone who knows only one language is an American, or British. There’s certainly some truth in this.

How many languages do you have to speak before you can claim the much coverted title of polyglot? The prefix poly means (1) more than one, many or much; (2) having an excessive or abnormal number or amount, and comes from the Greek polus (much, many). This doesn’t help much really. As far as I’m concerned, a polyglot is someone who speaks four or more languages.

What do you think?