I came across an interesting phrase in Scottish Gaelic today: Ith do bhuntàta beag mus dig na Frangaich!, which means “eat your small potatoes before the French come!” and it is apparently said to children picking at their food to encourage them to eat up [source].
Are there similar phrases in other languages, perhaps used in different contexts?
What did your parents say to you to get you to finish your food?
Or if you have kids, what do you say to them, if they need encouragment?
| français | English | Cymraeg |
|---|---|---|
| adroit | dexterous | deheuig; llawdde; medrus |
| habile; qualifié | skilled | medrus; celfydd; crefftus |
| la trappe | trapdoor | trapddor |
| resquilleur | free-loader | sbwnjwr; progiwr |
| contagieux; infectieux | infectious | heintus; heintol |
| contagieux | contagious | heintus; ymledol |
| s’inviter à; entrer sans invitation | to gatecrash (a party) | ymwthio (i barti); gwthio’ch ffordd |
| la pâte brisée | shortcrust pastry | crwst brau |
| le poivron | sweet pepper | pupryn melys |
| directeur de thèse | academic supervisor | goruchwyliwr; arolygydd |
| les tissus d’ameublement (m) | soft furnishings | carpedi a llenni |
| la palourde | clam | cragen fylchog |
| la soupe de poisson | chowder | cawl |
| la semaine blanche | reading week | wythnos ddarllen |
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
According to the Oxford Dictionaries the word of the year for 2015 is not a word at all but an emoji, specifically the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’:
Do you use emoji(s)?
Is the plural emoji or emojis?
Do you think of them as words?
What’s your word of the year?
The best-known type of French bread is the baguette, which was possibly introduced to France in the early 19th century by August Zang from Austria, though that’s another story.
Baguettes only stay fresh for a day, so what do you do with them once they start to go hard?
Here are a few possibilities:
Here’s a translation:
1. First Day: sliced with butter, sandwich
2. Second Day: toast
3. Third Day: French toast (“lost bread”)
4. Fourth Day: croutons, crumbs for the pigeons
5. Fifth Day: hammer, golf club
Image supplied by Frantastique, who can teach you all about the bizarre French cuisine, and help you to learn French.
I was told that if your baguette is a bit stale you can revive it by sprinkling a bit of water on slices and blasting them in a microwave for a short while. I haven’t tried this as I’m am microwaveless.
The French word baguette can also refer to:
– a magic wand = baguette magique; baguette de fée; baguette de sourcler
– chopsticks = baguettes chinoises
– conductor’s baton = baguette de direction; baguette de chef d’orchestre
– a drumstick = baguette de tambour
Expressions incorporating baguette include:
– sous la baguette de … = conducted by …
– faire marcher qn à la baguette = to rule sb with an iron hand
What are baguettes called in your country?
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
Yesterday I did an interview over Skype with Chapman Woodriff, who runs FreeLanguage.org, which provides a variety of language-learning material and advice. Chapman made the interview into a podcast in which I explain how I got into languages, how I started Omniglot and how people can use Omniglot to learn languages.
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Today I received an email in which the writer tells me that Chinese should be called Putonghua and not Mandarin. Apparently, “People don’t know, and school teachers don’t care! obviously; leaving me to inform: The name ‘Mandarin’ has been obsolete 105 years now.” The name Mandarin was used for a ‘Manchurian high official’ who spoke 官話 (official speech). However since the fall of the Manchurian Qing monarchy in 1911, “Mandarins dead as dodos” and to use the name Mandarin is “an affront to the republican nation”.
This language in fact has a number of different names in different countries and regions:
– 普通话 [普通話] (pǔtōnghuà) – “common speech” – in China
– 國語 (guóyǔ) – “national language” – in Taiwan
– 华语 [華語] (huáyǔ) – “Chinese language” – in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and the other parts of Southeast Asia.
– 汉语 [漢語] (hànyǔ) – “Han language” – in the USA and among the Chinese diaspora
– 中文 (zhōngwén) – “Chinese language” – in Taiwan, mainly
– Chinese, Mandarin, Mandarin Chinese, Putonghua, etc. in English-speaking countries
– Other names in other countries and languages
During the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1912) dynasties, the language used by court officials became known as 官话 [官話] (guānhuà) – “official speech”. The word Mandarin comes from the the Sanskrit मन्त्रिन् (mantrin = counselor, minister) via the Portuguese mandarim. It was first used to refer to Chinese bureaucrats, and later it was used to refer to the language those officials spoke, which was used as a lingua franca of China from the 14th century.
What is Mandarin / Putonghua / Chinese known as in other languages?
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
A Sardinian friend of mine, Elena Piras, knows six languages (Sardinian, Italian, English, Scottish Gaelic, French and Spanish) and sings in most of them, plus a few others, including Scots, Bulgarian and Georgian.
Here’s a recording of a performance from earlier this year in which she sings in Sardinian, Scots, English, Scottish Gaelic and Bulgarian.
Elena aims to sing each language in as close to a native accent as possible, and I think she does this very well.
Another multilingual singer is Jean-Marc Leclercq or JoMo, who holds the world record for singing in the most languages in one performance: 22. I heard him doing this at the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin in May this year. His pronunciation in the languages I know didn’t sound entirely native-like, and it sounded like he had a strong French accent in the other languages.
Do you know other singers who sing in multiple languages?
How well do they pronounce them?
I myself sing in various languages, and try to pronounce as well as I can, but know I could do better.
Here’s a recording of a song I wrote earlier this year in the five languages I know best (English, French, Welsh, Mandarin and Irish):
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