Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know, or can you guess, the language?
Ireland / Éire
I’m off to Ireland tomorrow for a week of learning Irish and learning about the landscape of Glencolumcile (Gleann Cholm Cille) in Donegal. I’ve been there many times before – every year from 2005 to 2019, but this is the first since then. I’ll probably see quite a few people I know, and meet some new ones as well, and I’m looking forward to it.
I rarely get to speak much Irish in Bangor. There are a few Irish speakers here, and we conversations in Irish occasionally. Apart from that, I sometimes listen to Irish songs and Irish language radio, and have been brushing up my Irish on Duolingo recently.
While I’m there, I probably won’t have a lot of time to work on Omniglot. Normal service will resume after I get back.
Earthlings and Other Lings
Greetings fellow Earthlings and anyone else who might be reading this. Did you know that this word originally meant farmer?
These days in Science Fiction, an Earthling is “an inhabitant of Earth, as opposed to one of another planet; specifically, a sentient member of any species native to Earth.”
In the 17th century is referred to “A person who is materialistic or worldly; a worldling.” and in the 16th century, it referred to “An inhabitant of Earth, as opposed to one of heaven.” [source]
Going back further, it meant one who tills the earth, a farmer, a husbandman or a ploughman. It comes from Middle English erthling (farmer, ploughman), from Old English ierþling, eorþling (farmer, husbandman, ploughman), from eorþe (ground, dirt, planet Earth), from PIE *h₁er- (earth) [source]
Other interesting words suffixed with -ling include:
- puffling = a young puffin
- princeling = a minor or unimportant prince
- sportling = a little person or creature engaged in sports or in play
- shaveling = someone with all or part of their head shaved, notably a tonsured clergyman; a priest or monk (often derogatory).
- wildling = a wild plant or animal
- witling = a person who feigns wit, pretending or aspiring to be witty, a person with very little wit.
- godling = a young god, a minor divinity, a local or inferior god, a.k.a. godlet, godkin
There’s also underling (a subordinate or person of lesser rank or authority), and it’s rare antonym overling (a superior, ruler, master) [source]
You can see more of these on: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ling#English
Language Quiz
Spreading Sweetness
Foods, and the words that describe them, can travel around the world. For example, tea comes from China, and so do words for tea in many languages. Similarly, avocado, chocolate, tamale, tomato come from Mexico (both the words and the foods).
Those words came to Europe from other continents, and I recently discovered some words that travelled from Europe, or Western Asia, to many other parts of the world.
It started with the Proto-Indo-European word *médʰu (honey, mead), which spread throughout Europe and Asia, and possibly as far as China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam [source].
Descendants of *médʰu include:
- մեղու [meʁú] = bee in Armenian
- мед (med) = honey in Bulgarian
- mõdu [mjøːd] = mead in Estonian
- Met [meːt] = mead in German
- μέθη (méthi) = drunkenness in Greek
- מותק (mótek) = sweetness in Hebrew
- मॊदुर / مۆدُر (modur) = sweet, tasty, delicious in Kashmiri
- medus [mædus] = honey, mead in Latvian
- މީރު [miː.ɾu] = pleasant, sweet, agreeable, savoury in Maldivian
- medveď [ˈmɛdvɛc] = bear (“honey-eater”) in Slovak
- mjöd [mjøːd] = mead in Swedish
- மதுரம் [mɐd̪ʊɾɐm] = sweetness in Tamil
- medd [meːð] = mead, and meddw [ˈmɛðu] = drunk in Welsh
The Irish name Méabh (Maeve) also comes from the same roots, via Middle Irish medb (intoxicating) [source]. For more details of related words in Celtic languages, see this Celtiadur post: Honey Wine
It also reached China, where it became mīt (honey) in Tocharian B, and was possibly borrowed into Old Chinese as *mit (honey), which became 蜜 (mì – honey) in Mandarin, 蜜 (mat6 [mɐt˨] – bee, honeybee) in Cantonese, 蜜 (mitsu – honey, nectar, moasses, syrup) in Japanese, 밀 (mil – beeswax) in Korean, and mật (honey, molasses) and mứt (jam) in Vietnamese [source].
Evolution of the Chinese character for honey (蜜)
See also: https://hanziyuan.net/#蜜
Language Quiz
Super Brows
Someone who is supercilious is arrogantly superior, haughty or shows contemptuous indifference.
Supercilious comes from the Latin superciliōsus (haughty, supercilious) from supercilium (eyebrow, will, pride, haughtiness, arrogance, sterness, superciliousness) from super- (above, over) and cilium ( eyelid), from Proto-Italic *keljom, from PIE *ḱel-yo-m, from *ḱel- (to cover) [source].
Equivalents of supercilious in other languages include:
- hooghartig (“high-hearted”) = haughty, supercilious in Dutch
- hochnäsig (“high-nosed”) = snooty, stuck-up, haughty, supercilious, arrogant in German
- kione-ard (“high-head”) = arrogant, chieftain, haughty, presumptuous, supercilious in Manx
- ffroenuchel (“high-nostril”) = haughty, disdainful, supercilious in Welsh
The word cilium also exists in English, and means:
- A short microscopic hairlike organelle projecting from a eukaryotic cell, which serve either for propulsion by causing currents in the surrounding fluid or as sensors.
- One of the fine hairs along an insect’s wing.
- Hairs or similar protrusions along the margin of an organ.
- An eyelash (plural cilia) [source].
Related words in other languages include: cil (eyelash), and sourcil (eyebrow) in French, ceja (eyebrow, rim, edge) in Spanish, and ciglio (eyelash, eyebrow, border, edge, side) in Italian [source].
Other (eye)brow-related words include:
- highbrow = intellectually stimulating, highly cultured, sophisticated; a cultured or learned person or thing
- middlebrow = neither highbrow or lowbrow, but somewhere in between; a person or thing that is neither highbrow nor lowbrow, but in between
- lowbrow = unsophisticated, not intended for an audience of intelligence, education or culture; someone or something of low education or culture.
Highbrow first appeared in print in 1875, and originally referred to the ‘science’ of phrenology, which suggested that a person of intelligence and sophistication would possess a higher brow-line than someone of lesser intelligence and sophistication [source]. Lowbrow was also conntected to phrenology and first appeared in about 1902 [source]. Middlebrow first appeared in Punch magazine in 1925 and is based highbrow and lowbrow [source].
If something is completely devoid of cultural or educational value, it could be said to be no-brow / nobrow, a word popularized by John Seabrook in his book Nobrow: the culture of marketing, the marketing of culture (2000) [source].
Incidentally, raising or furrowing your eyebrows is used to show you are asking a question in British Sign Language (BSL). Do other sign languages do this?
Do you know of any other interesting brow-related expressions?
Language Quiz
A Little Alliteration
I like a little alliteration, don’t you?
Alliteration is “The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of two or more words immediately succeeding each other, or at short intervals.” [source]. As in the sentence above. It comes from Modern/New Latin alliterationem, from alliterare (to begin with the same letter), from Latin ad (to, near) and lītera (letter, script) [source].
Other names for this include consonance (the repetition of consonants sounds) [source] and head rhyme. If similar or indentical vowel sounds are being repeated, as in “How now, brown cow?”, it’s called assonance [source] or slant rhyme.
Other kinds of rhymes include:
- syllabic rhyme: the last syllable of each word sounds the same but does not necessarily contain stressed vowels. E.g. cleaver, silver; pitter, patter.
- imperfect (or near) rhyme: a rhyme between a stressed and an unstressed syllable. E.g. wing, caring
- weak (or unaccented) rhyme: a rhyme between two sets of one or more unstressed syllables. E.g. hammer, carpenter
- semirhyme: a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word. E.g. bend, ending
- forced (or oblique) rhyme: a rhyme with an imperfect match in sound. E.g. green and fiend; one, thumb)
- pararhyme: all consonants match. E.g. tick, tock; bing, bong
Other types of rhyme, and other ways of classifying rhymes are available [More details].
I use a variety of rhymes in the songs I write. For example, my latest song was inspired by a phrase from the Irish course in Duolingo “Léann na lachan na nuachtán.” (The ducks read the newspaper). I made a more alliterative version: “Tá lacha ag léamh leabhar sa leabhrlann le leon agus luch.” (A duck is reading a book in the library with a lion and a mouse). The English version is only slightly alliterative, and that’s what often happens with translations, and why songs and poems are difficult to translate.
Here are the words of the song. Parts are quite alliterative, in Irish at least.
Eachtraí na Lacha (The Duck’s Adventures)
Tá an lacha ag léamh sa leabharlann
The duck is reading in the library
Tá an lacha ag léamh sa leabharlann
le leon agus luch (with a lion and a mouse)
Tá an lacha ag siúl go Sligeach
The duck is walking to Sligo
Tá an lacha ag siúl go Sligeach
ag lorg lámhainní (looking for gloves)
Tá an lacha ag canadh amhrán
The duck is singing a song
Tá an lacha ag canadh amhrán
faoi sionach an-sionnachúil (about a very cunning fox)
Tá an lacha ag labhairt Laidin
The duck is speaking Latin
Tá an lacha ag labhairt Laidin
lena lucht leanúna (with its supporters)
Tá an lacha ina coladh ina leabaidh
The duck is sleeping in its bed
Tá an lacha ina coladh ina leabaidh
Agus sin deireadh an scéil
And that’s the end of the tale
Agus sin deireadh an scéil
Here’s a rough recording:
I’ve been thinking of making it trilingual in Irish, English and Welsh, but haven’t got round to it yet.
Here’s an alliterative phrase I came up with that seems to translate well into a variety of languages:
- English: Singers sing songs
- Albanian: Këngëtarët këndojnë këngë
- Armenian: Երգիչները երգեր են երգում (Yergich’nery yerger yen yergum)
- Aymara: Q’uchunakax q’uchunak q’uchupxi
- Bengali: গায়কেরা গান গায় (Gāẏakērā gāna gāẏa)
- Bulgarian: Певците пеят песни (Pevtsite peyat pesni)
- Catalan: Els cantants canten cançons
- Corsican: I cantanti cantanu canti
- Croatian: Pjevači pjevaju pjesme
- Danish: Sangere synger sange
- Dhivehi (Maldivian): (lavakiyuntherin lavakiyaeve) ލަވަކިޔުންތެރިން ލަވަކިޔައެވެ
- Esperanto: Kantistoj kantas kantojn
- Estonian: Lauljad laulavad laule
- Finnish: Laulajat laulavat lauluja
- French: Les chanteurs chantent des chansons
- Galician: Os cantantes cantan cancións
- Greek: Οι τραγουδιστές τραγουδούν τραγούδια (Oi tragoudistés tragoudoún tragoúdia)
- Haitian Creole: Chantè chante chante
- Hindi: गायक गीत गाते हैं (gaayak geet gaate hain)
- Lingala: Bayembi bayembaka banzembo
- Mongolian: Дуучид дуу дуулдаг (Duuchid duu duuldag)
- Romanian: Cântăreții cântă cântece
- Russian: Певцы поют песни (Pevtsy poyut pesni)
- Swedish: Sångare sjunger sånger
- Turkish: Şarkıcılar şarkılar söylüyor
- Welsh: Cantorion yn canu caneuon
Translations by Google Translate. More are available
It’s unusual to find a phrase like this that has alliterative translations into so many different languages.
Are there other kinds of rhymes that you like / use / know?