Oxbows and Fossils

By Simon

On an episode of the Talk the Talk podcast that I listened to today, they discuss fossil words or, as presenter Daniel Midgely calls them, oxbows, which is a rather poetic and fitting name from them.

An oxbow lake is a part of a river that has got cut off from the main stream due to the changing course of the river, and a fossil word or oxbow is one that’s only used in one or two expressions, and is no longer part of the main stream language.

Oxbows

Some examples they gave include kith and kin, to and fro, and akimbo, as in arms/legs akimbo.

Other examples of fossil words / oxbows include:

  • by dint of = because of, by means of – dint is an old word for a blow or stroke, force, power, or the mark left by a blow
  • in high dudgeon = indignant and enraged – dudgeon possibly comes from the Welsh dygen (anger, sad, grievous, painful, serious). A related words is the old Scots word humdudgeon, meaning an unnecessary outcry of complaint, or an imaginary illness
  • in fine fettle = in good condition, energetic – fettle is nothern English dialect word meaning one’s physical condition or mental state.
  • the whole shebang = everything, the entire thing – shebang might come from the French chabane (hut, cabin), or from the Hiberno-English shebeen (a cabin where unlicensed liquor is sold and drunk), from the Irish síbín (illicit whiskey).

Do you know others in English or other languages?

Time is pouring

By Simon

This week I learnt the Russian expression до сих пор ― (do sikh por), which means still, hitherto, up to now, thus far, or literally “until this time”.

The пор comes from пора (pora – time, season, weather, period), which appears in such phrases as:

  • пора́ идти́ (pora idti) = it’s time to go
  • в са́мую по́ру (v samuju poru) = in the nick of time
  • до каки́х пор? (do kakikh por?) = how long?
  • с каки́х пор? (s kakikh por?) = since when?
  • до тех пор, пока́ (do tekh por, poka) = so long as
  • с тех пор, как (s tekh por, kak) = ever since
  • на пе́рвых пора́х (na pervykh porakh) = at first

Source: Wiktionary

It’s interesting that пора means both time and weather – some other languages also have one word for both: temps in French, amzer in Breton, aimsir in Irish. Do you know of others?

Treading in Spinach

By Simon

Language quiz image

A few posts ago I wrote about an interesting Swedish idiom – trampa i klaveret – to make a social mistake, put one’s foot in it, or literally “to step heavily on the accordion”.

Today I learnt the Danish equivalent – træde i spinaten (“to tread in the spinach”). For example, jeg har virkelig trådt i spinaten (“I have really trod in the spinach”) = I really put my foot in it.

Accoriding to Den Danske Ordbog, træde i spinaten means “utilsigtet sige eller gøre noget dumt” (to accidentally say or do something stupid).

Another version is træde/trampe i spinatbedet (“tread/tramp in the spinach bed”) [source].

Then there’s the spinatfugl or “spinach bird”, which is apparently a person who writes reviews or other cultural material in a newspaper without a journalistic background [source].

Does anybody know why such a person is known as a spinach bird?

The word spinach comes from the Middle English spinach, from Anglo-Norman spinache, from the Old French espinoche, from the Old Occitan espinarc, from the Arabic إِسْفَانَاخ‎ (ʾisfānāḵ), from the Persian اسپناخ‎ (ispanâx).

Apparently spinach cinema refers to “Movies that are not very exciting or interesting, but that one feels one must see because they are educational or otherwise uplifting.” [source]

Are there any interesting spinach or other vegetable-related idioms in other languages?

Polyglotting

By Simon

Yesterday was the first full day of the Polyglot Gathering, and it went well. I went to some interesting talks and workshops, met lots of people, caught up with old friends, and spoke many languages.

Quite a few people came to my workshop on Scottish Gaelic songs, and they seemed to enjoy it. I chose relatively simple songs with choruses that people could sing, even if they couldn’t manage the verses. There were even a few people there who speak Gaelic, or who are learning it.

In the evening there was some polyglot karaoke, which was fun, and some people who took part were quite good singers.

Polylgot karaoke

Today was similar with some interesting talks and workshops. Fortunately the sun came out after several days of almost non-stop rain. The Scottish and Welsh dance workshop I ran with a Scottish friend went well. Not many people came, but enough for the dances we did, and there wouldn’t have been space for many more.

Polyglot dance workshop

There was a spontaneous juggling workshop this evening involving me and a juggler from Montreal. We learnt from each other, and tried to teach a few others to juggle. As we’re polyglots, we did this in English, French and German.

Bratislava

By Simon

I’m currently in Bratislava in Slovakia for the 2019 Polyglot Gathering, which starts tomorrow, although there was an opening ceremony this evening.

The Polyglot Gathering 2019 begins

Today I went on a tour taking in three countries – Slovakia, Hungary and Austria. I had conversations in English, French, German, Mandarin, Spanish and Irish, and spoke odd bits of Czech, Slovak, Russian, Scots, Hungarian, Portuguese, Welsh, Esperanto and Swedish.

Hainburg Castle

I probably won’t have much time for blogging with all the intensive polylgotting that’s going on. Normal service will be resumed next week.

Gender Matters

By Simon

In languages with grammatical gender, such as Spanish and Swedish, gender matters and can sometimes lead to misundertandings if you get it wrong.

Some words may sound the same, but have different genders and different meanings. For example, in Swedish a team is ett lag (neuter) and a law is en lag (common gender).

I haven’t come across any other homographs like this in Swedish, but there probably are others. Do you known any more in Swedish or other languages?

I found some in Spanish, including:

  • el coma = coma; la coma = comma
  • el mañana = future; la mañana = morning
  • el moral = blackberry bush; la moral = morale, morality
  • el papa = pope; la papa = potato
  • el pez = fish; la pez = tar, pitch
  • el tema = subject; la tema = obsession

Other Swedish words I sometimes get muddled include: väg (path, road) and vägg (wall), and svart (black, dark) and svårt (hard).

So it’s not just gender that matters – accents and spelling are also important.

How do you learn the genders of nouns in languages with grammatical gender?

Voynich manuscript deciphered?

By Simon

According to various news stories, such as this one on the BBC news, the Voynich manuscript, a mysterious medieval manuscript, has been deciphered by an academic from Bristol.

The Voynich Manuscript is named after Wilfrid M. Voynich, a Polish antiquarian book dealer who acquired it in 1912. It is a lavishly illustrated manuscript codex of 234 pages, written in an unknown script. It is housed in the Beinecke Library at Yale University in the USA. The vellum on which it is written has been carbon dated to the early 15th century (1404-1438).

Here is an example of the script used:

Writing from the Voynich manuscript

Many attempts have been made to decipher the text but none have succeeded so far. One theory is that is was written sometime during the 13th century by a Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon (1214-1294). Some think the manuscript is gibberish, and was probably a practical joke played on Rudolph II.

According to the latest decipherer, Dr Gerard Cheshire of the University of Bristal, Voynich is a therapeutic reference book written in a lost language called Proto-Romance. He believes that the manuscript was compiled by Dominican nuns as a source of reference for Maria of Castile, Queen of Aragon, the great-aunt to Catherine of Aragon.

Proto-Romance, a previously unknown language, was commonplace in the Mediterranean during the medieval period, but was not used in written documents as Latin was the main written language, according to Dr Cheshire.

Apparently when you try to decipher any parts of the text using Dr Cheshire’s method, it comes out a incomprehensible nonsense, and only parts of it can be understood with reference to many different Romance languages, and a lot of fudging and wishful thinking. So the manuscript remains undiciphered.

Critism of this ‘decipherment’
http://ciphermysteries.com/2017/11/10/gerard-cheshire-vulgar-latin-siren-call-polyglot
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/no-someone-hasnt-cracked-the-code-of-the-mysterious-voynich-manuscript/
https://voynichportal.com/2019/05/07/cheshire-recast/
https://voynichportal.com/2019/05/16/cheshire-reprised/

More information about the Voynich Manuscript
https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/collections/highlights/voynich-manuscript
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript
http://ciphermysteries.com/the-voynich-manuscript