Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know, or can you guess, the language?
Tag: omniglot
Trigraphs
This week I made some improvements to the Yurok (Puliklah) language page on Omniglot, and added a page about a related language, Wiyot (Soulatluk).
Yurok house
Both languages were spoken in northern California in the USA until fairly recently, and efforts are being made to revive them. They are classified as belonging to the Algic language family, which also includes the Algonquian languages. The Algonquian languages are spoken mainly in eastern and southern Canada, down the east coast, and in eastern and central parts of the USA. So it’s interesting that Yurok and Wiyot ended up so far away in California.
Recently, Sergei Nikolaev (Сергей Николаев), a Russian linguist, has proposed a link between the Algic languages and Nivkh, which is spoken in Sakhalin Island and along the Amur river in the Russian Far East, and also with the Wakashan languages of British Colombia and Washington state.
In the 1970s and 1980s, ways to write Yurok, and other Native American languages of northern California, with the Unifon alphabet were devised and promoted by Tom Parsons (1930-2018), the director of Humboldt State University’s Community Development Center. A number of Yurok books in Unifon were published, however the alphabet is no longer used, as far as I can tell. Do you know of any other constructed scripts that have been / are used like this?
Yurok is currently written with the New Yurok Alphabet, a spelling system using the Latin alphabet that was devised in 2020. It includes some interesting choices of letters, such as ee for [i], eee for [iː], ue for [u] and uue for [uː]. Digraphs (double letters) are common enough, but trigraphs (triple letters) are relatively rare. I’m not sure why they didn’t use i, ii, u and uu for these sounds, but if it works for them, great.
By the way, one way to say two in Yurok is nee’eeen – that’s a lot of e’s in a row! That is one of the forms of two you would use to count human beings, body parts, utensils, etc. If you’re counting round things, rocks or money, two would be no’oh, for worms, ropes, etc. it’s na’ak’, for plants it’s na’ak’wo’n, for days it’s na’amoyhl, and so on. Quite simple really 🙂 – see the Yurok numbers page for more details.
Are there any other languages you know of that have words with three or more of the same letters in a row?
One example I can think of is eeee ee [iː.iː iː], which means ‘she will eat’ in Manx. Another is jäääär [ˈjæːˌæːr], which means ‘the edge of the ice’ in Estonian.
Examples in Yurok include:
- cheeek = money
- Cheeek Cheeek ‘O’l = mythical home of money
- cheeek mehl’ee’eekew = money snake
- meeekee = both sides
- ‘o chweeegeen = place in the mountains where one regularly sits and prays, telephone
- wee’eeet = this, that, those
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algic_languages
https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~yurok/lexicon.php
https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~yurok/text-details.php
Language Quiz
Jack Of All Trades
If someone described you as a jack of all trades, would you see it as a compliment or an insult?
These days, this phrase might refer to someone who has some ability in a variety of things, but doesn’t excel at any of them. Or in other words, a generalist with superficial knowledge / ability in various areas, rather than a specialist who focuses on becoming expert at one thing.
The earliest known version of the phrase in English, Jack-of-all-trades, appeared in print in 1618 in Geffray Mynshul’s book Essayes and Characters of a prison and prisoners in the following passage:
Now for the moſt part your porter is either ſome broken cittizen, who hath plaid Jack-of-all-trades, ſome pander, broker, or hangman, that hath plaid the knaue with all men, and for the more certainty his embleme is a red beard, to which ſacke hath made his noſe couſin german.
Key: ſt = st, ſ = s, moſt = most, cittizen = citizen, hath = has, plaid = played, knaue = knave, noſe = nose
A longer version of the phrase is jack of all trades, master of none – the master of none part, or something similar, was added in the 18th century. It first appears in the Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs; Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings, Ancient and Modern, Foreign and British as:
Jack of all Trades is of no Trade
Sometimes the phrase is made less insulting by adding an extra part: Jack of all trades, master of none, but better than a master of one, or Jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one. These are modern additions to the phrase, although some people claim that the ‘original’ version included something like them [source].
Synonyms for jack of all trades include:
- generalist = a person with a broad general knowledge, especially one with more than superficial knowledge in several areas and the ability to combine ideas from diverse fields.
- polymath = a person with extraordinarily broad and comprehensive knowledge. From Ancient Greek πολυμαθής (polumathḗs – having learnt much).
- Renaissance man/woman/person
- factotum = a person employed to do all sorts of duties, a general servant, a person having many diverse activities or responsibilities. From Latin faciō (do, make) & tōtum (everything).
- sciolist [ˈsaɪəlɪst] = one who exhibits only superficial knowledge; a self-proclaimed expert with little real understanding. From Late Latin sciolus, a diminutive of scius (knowing).
- multipotentialite = a term coined by Emilie Wapnick in 2015 to refer to people with many interests and creative pursuits. See: https://puttylike.com
Here are some equivalent phrases in other languages:
- 万事通 [萬事通] (wànshìtōng) = jack of all trades, know-it-all: “10,000 things expert” (Chinese)
- duizendpoot = a person of many talents; a centipede: “1,000 leg” (Dutch)
- touche-à-tout = jack of all trades: “[who] touches everything” (French)
- 何でも屋 = (nandemoya) generalist, jack of all trades: “anything-er” (Japanese)
- hombre orquesta = one-man band, factotum: “man orchestra” (Spanish)
Are you a generalist, or more of a specialist?
I’m more of a generalist with a variety of interests, skills and knowledge. For me, one language is never enough, and neither is one instrument, one type of music, or one type of juggling or other circus skill.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_of_all_trades
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/jack-of-all-trades.html
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/408782/is-jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none-really-just-a-part-of-a-longer-proverb
Language Quiz
Stanzas, Cameras and Salons
The Italian word stanza [ˈstan.tsa] means room or bedroom. I noticed it recently in my Italian lessons, and wondered where it came from. Today I realised that it’s related to the English word stanza (a part of a poem equivalent to a verse), and also has that meaning in Italian.
It comes from Vulgar Latin *stantia (standing, stopping-place), from Latin stantem (standing, staying, remaining), from stō (to stand, stay, remain), from Proto-Italic *staēō (to stand), from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- (to stand) [source].
The English word stanza [ˈstænzə], which was borrowed from Italian, can also refer to:
- An apartment or division in a building (architecture)
- A segment or portion of a broadcast devoted to a particular topic (broadcasting)
- A period or interval into which a sporting event is divided (sports)
It is also used in computing.
Words from the same roots include stance, stand, distant, estate, stable, stage, state, station, status and store in English, sawdl (heel) in Welsh, Staat (country, state) in German, and stam (tree trunk, stem, tribe, clan) in Dutch [source].
Other words for room in Italian include sala and camera.
Sala can also refer to a hall, living room or cinema (movie theatre), and was borrowed from French salle (hall, room), which ultimately comes from PIE *sel- (human settlement, village, dwelling), via Middle and Old French, Frankish and Proto-Germanic. The English words salon and saloon come from the same roots [source].
Camera is a room, chamber, bedroom, assembly, parliament or camera. It comes from Latin camera (chamber, room, vault), from Ancient Greek καμάρα (kamára – a vaulted chamber, vault), from Proto-Iranian *kamarā- (something curved), from *kamárati, ultimately from PIE *kh₂em- (to bend, curve) [source].
Words from the same roots include camera, cabaret and chamber in English, قَمَرَة (qamara – berth, bunk, cabin) in Arabic, καμάρα (kamára – arch, instep) in Greek, chambre (room, chamber, bedroom) and cabaret (pub, tavern, cabaret) in French, and câmara (chamber, council, camera) in Portuguese [source].
Camera, as in a device for taking photos and/or videos, is an abbreviation of camera obscura (A darkened room in which the image of an outside object is projected and focused onto a surface – see above) from New Latin camera obscūra (“dark chamber”) [source].
In English, camera can also mean a vaulted room or a judge’s private chamber, where cases may be heard in camera (in secret, in private).