Mozart’s Requiem ac Eisteddfod Môn

By Simon

Ddoe mi es i weithdy cerddoriaeth yn y Galeri yng Nghaernarfon i ddysgu y Requiem gan Mozart yn ystod un ddiwrnod. Roedd arweinydd ac unawdwyr gwych o Gorws Cenedlaethol Cymreig y BBC yno, ac mi nes i fwynhau y dydd yn fawr, ond tua diwedd y dydd roedd fy llais canu bron wedi diflannu, yn enwedig y nodau uwch.

Gyda’r nos mi es i Eisteddfod Môn efo Côr y Dysgwyr a Chôr Llanfairpwll, ond yn gyntaf mi aethon ni i Ganolfan Conwy ger Plas Newydd i ymarfer. Ac yna mi aethon ni i’r Eisteddfod yn Llangefni, ac ar ôl aros am awr neu ddwy, mi wnaethon ni cystadlu fel un gôr efo’r enw Côr Dros y Bont. Yn anffodus roedd fy llais canu yn wân o hyd ac mi nes i canu’r nodau isel yn unig ac roedd rhaid i mi meimio y lleill. Roedd dau gôr eraill yn cystadlu, ac mi wnaethon i y drydydd wobr.

Lexiophiles

By Simon

This blog has been nominated for Lexiophiles Top 100 Language Blogs competition in the Language Learning category. If you’d like to find out more or vote, please click on the button below.

Top 100 Language Blogs 2010

Medallion

By Simon

This pendant was sent in by a visitor to Omniglot who would like to know whether anybody can decipher the inscription on it. It depicts St. George and the dragon and might be from Turkey.

Here’s my attempt to transcribe the inscriptions:

Left image top: ديرالقديس المقيم الأمير تادرس الشطي الهاتحارة الروم

Left image bottom: القديس الفطيم أبونوفاساح

Right image top: القديرا لعكيم الاميس تادرى الشطي

Right image bottom: تذكارإ ستشهاده ٦٠ أبيب

Word of the day – ἀρετή (arete)

By Simon

Today we have a guest post from Stephen Dunne.

ἀρετή (arete), noun = meaning virtue, goodness, excellence, purity.

This Classical Greek word is difficult to encapsulate precisely in English but expresses a state of almost distinguished self enlightenment. It can however mean many other things besides virtues attached to the self; the Greeks did use the word to describe the form of inanimate objects like vases or statues.

There are many ways to think of the physical form of arete. In Ancient Greece is was the capacity and fulfilment of attaining one’s potential, perhaps in face of much environmental difficulty.

In Philosophy, arete is central to the notion of Virtue Ethics and many of the ideas stem from Aristotelian thought. Virtue Ethics is a serious challenge to other mainstream moral schools like Deontology or Consequentialism.

These days, it could be argued that many of the books in the post-capitalist self-help genre are centred on the notion of arete, with individuals seeking non material fulfilment.

Word of the day – 聽筒

By Simon

聽筒 [听筒] (tīngtǒng) is Chinese for telephone receiver; headphone; earphone; earpiece and stethoscope. Its literal meaning is “hearing tube” – 聽 = to hear; to obey, and 筒 =　tube; cylinder.

I found this word in an online Chinese dictionary I came across yesterday which looks very useful. You can search for Chinese words or characters using their characters or pinyin spelling, and the entries include traditional and simplified characters, pinyin, recordings of the pronunciation, related words, and English and French equivalents. There’s even the option of inputting characters by hand.

The dictionary seems to be part of the Chinese Tools site, which contains a translator, text-to-speech, name translators for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan and other scripts, and other useful tools.

Mandalyn

By Simon

Chionnee mee mandalyn yn çhiaghtyn shoh erreish smooinaghtyn er rish foddey. Ta mee çheet cliaghtit rish, as ta foddym cloie beggan carryn hannah.

Maindilín

Cheannaigh mé maindilín an seachtain seo i ndiaidh smaoineamh air le feadh tamall. Tá mé éirigh cleachta leis, agus is féidir liom cúpla foinn a sheinm cheanna.

Mandolin

Mi brynes i fandolin yr wythnos hon ar ôl meddwl amdano ers amser maith. Dw i’n mynd yn gyfarwydd efo fo, ac dw i’n medru chwarae ychydig o alawon yn barod.

Hung parliament

By Simon

Here are few more election-related words:

Hung parliament – a parliament in which no political party has an absolute majority of seats, as is the case with the UK parliament after yesterday’s election. This term was first used in Britain in 1974, but hang or hung has been used to indicate a situation that’s indecisive since at least the 14th century, when it was became linked to the idea of suspense. The phrase ‘hung jury’, i.e. one that cannot agree, has been used in the USA since 1848 [source].

Coalition – was first used in a political sense in 1715 and comes from the Latin Latin coalitus (fellowship) via the French coalition. Coalitus was originally the past participle of Latin coalescere, which is a combination of com- (together) plus alescere (to grow up).

The Welsh equivalents of these words are:

Senedd grog = hung parliament: senedd = parliament, senate; crog = hanging, pendant, suspended, pendent, pendulous, pensile

Clymblaid = clique, coterie, coalition: clym- probably comes from clymu = to tie; plaid = party, faction.

Plaid is also the root of pleidlais = vote (llais = voice); pleidleisio = to vote; pleidleisiwr = voter.