Here’s a song in multiple languages– it’s a multilingual version of ‘Let it Go’ from the film Frozen sung by Richard Simcott at the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin. He sang it a capella and from memory – very impressive. The sound quality isn’t great, but it’s okay.
Can you identify the different languages?
I’m having a wonderful time at the Polyglot Gathering. My luggage arrived, finally, and I’ve been speaking even more languages, including Cantonese, Taiwanese, Irish, Japanese, Czech, Russian and Turkish (a few words only). I haven’t found any speakers of Breton, Manx or Scottish Gaelic yet though.
I have been to some very interesting lectures and discussion about subjects like synesthesia, Scots, Indonesian, raising multilingual children, maintaining multiple languages, and the neuroscience of polyglot brains.
This morning I gave a talk about language death and revival, focusing particularly on the Celtic languages. When I saw that I’d been given an hour in the programme I thought I wouldn’t have enough material to fill it, but I could have easily talked for twice as long. Instead I talked for about 45 minutes then opened it up for questions. My talk was semi-structured and semi-stream of conciousness, but it seemed to go down well, and people found it interesting.
Tonight there’s another polyglot games evening, similar to the one we had last night. Tomorrow night I’ll be singing a few songs in the international culture evening. I will probably do a Welsh one and maybe an Irish one, but haven’t decided which ones yet.
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
I arrived in Berlin yesterday for the Polyglot Gathering, which starts today. I flew here on KLM via Amsterdam, and unfortunately my luggage stayed in Amsterdam. It should arrive today though, and I’ve coped without it so far. This is only the second time this has happened to me – the last time was when I went to Cuba via Madrid, and my luggage stayed in Madrid for a few days.
Last night I met some of the other polyglots, some of whom speak even more languages than I do. I spoke lots of Esperanto, French and English, and some German, Dutch, Mandarin, Italian, Welsh and Spanish.
The next few days are packed with talks, language lessons and other language-related activities, and lots of polyglottery. A few people I’ve met so far are even familiar with Omniglot, which is great as I rarely meet people who know the site.
There’s an little interview with me on Chinese-Tools.com today about language learning and specifically about learning Chinese.
| français | English | Cymraeg |
|---|---|---|
| partial | biased | rhagfarnllyd; unochrog, gwyrdueddol; pleidiol |
| apporter | to bring | dod â |
| la brise | breeze | awel |
| nuageux | cloudy | cymylog |
| la tyrolienne | zip wire | gwifren sip (?) |
| décoloré | faded (fabric, object) | pŵl; wedi pylu; wedi colli ei liw |
| jauni | faded (photograph) | pŵl; wedi pylu; wedi colli ei liw |
| bancal | wobbly | sigledig; siglog; woblog |
| branler | to wobble | siglo; woblo |
| mal famé | rough (area) | garw |
| désorienté | disorientated | dryslyd; ffwndrus |
In German there are two main verbs that mean ‘to go’: gehen, which is used in expressions about going in general, and particularly going on foot / walking; and fahren, which refers particularly to going/travelling in a form of transport (car, train, bus, boat, etc).
So I could said, “Am Samstag gehe ich nach Berlin” (I’m going to Berlin on Saturday) and this would indicate that I was walking there – which is possible, but would take rather a long time from Bangor. I am actually going to Berlin on Saturday for the Polyglot Gathering – getting the train to Manchester Airport, then flying to Berlin via Amsterdam, and getting the bus into Berlin from the airport – so I could say, “Am Samstag fahre ich nach Berlin” (I’m travelling to Berlin on Saturday).
In Dutch similar verbs exist – gaan and varen – however they are used in different ways. Varen as a verb means ‘to go, to travel, to sail, to navigate, to ride’, and as a noun means sailing. Gaan is the generally word for to go, which also means to travel, to ride and to go on foot (te voet gaan). So in Dutch I could say, “Op zaterdag ga ik naar Berlijn.” (I’m going to Berlin on Saturday), and this wouldn’t necessarily indicate that I was going on foot. If I said, “Ik vaar naar Berlijn.”, that might indicate that I was going there by boat / sailing there – at least that’s how I understand it.
There’s also my favourite Dutch verb lopen (to go, walk, run, march, step, stride, stroll), which seems to be cognate with the German verb laufen (to run, go, walk), and I’m sure there are other verbs of motion in both languages.
Do other languages have separate verbs for different kinds of going?
While listening to Deutschlandradio this morning one word that kept on coming up and that I didn’t understand was Stockung. It appears mainly in traffic reports, so I assume it meant something like delays or traffic jams.
According to Reverso, Stockung means:
– interruption, hold-up; congestion, traffic jam, hold-up
– breakdown (in negotiations)
– slackening or dropping off (in trade/business)
– break, lull (in speech); pause, hesitation
– thickening; curdling (of milk)
Related expressions include:
– Verkehrsstockung = traffic jam
– der Verkehr läuft wieder ohne Stockungen = traffic is flowing smoothly again
A related verb is stocken, which means: to miss or skip a beat; to falter; to make no progress; to flag; to grind to a halt; to stagnate; to be held up or halted; to thicken; to curdle, to go sour; to become mildewed, to go mouldy/moldy.
Stockung and Stocken come from Stock (stick), which comes from the Old High German stoc, from the Proto-Germanic *Stukka (floor, beam, tree stump), from the Proto-Indo-European *(s)teu- (to push, stick, knock, beat), which is also the root of the English words stick and stock [source].
What are traffic jams / hold-ups 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?
I came across an interesting article in The Guardian today about Alexander Arguelles, who says, “I can read about three dozen languages and speak most of them fluently, and I’ve studied many more.” The headline, “Experience: I can speak 50 languages”, is perhaps a slight exaggeration of the kind that’s common in these kinds of articles. The subheading is, ‘I’m often asked what the secret is. The truth is it’s mostly down to endless hours of reading, studying and practising grammar’, which neatly sums up one approach to language learning.
Have you got to the stage where you feel you have taken on enough languages? Or are these always other languages that you’d like to learn one of these days?
Recently I’ve been concentrating mainly on 15 of my languages, and have been trying to maintain and improve my knowledge of them. There are plenty of other languages out there that I’d like to have a go at, but I’ve been resisting the temptations so far.