Apocope

By Simon

I learned a new word today – apocope [əˈpɒkəpiː], which is the loss of phonemes from the ends of words, particularly unstressed vowels.

It comes from the Greek word ἀποκόπτω (apokoptein), which means ‘cutting off’ and comes from ἀπό (apo-), ‘away’ and κόπτω (koptein), ‘to cut’.

Apocope is a mechanism which erodes some inflections and other word endings, and creates new ones, when words that were once separate become bound together. It also refers to the process of abbreviating words by dropping their endings.

Here are some examples:
– pānis (Latin for bread) > pan(em) (Vulgar Latin)> pan (Spanish), pane (Italian), pain (French), paõ (Portuguese)
– advertisement > advert > ad
– photographh > photo
– credibility > cred
– barbecue > barbie
– fanatic > fan

The term for phonemes being dropped from the beginning of a word is apheresis (/əˈfɛrɨsɪs/), Here are some examples:

– esquire > squire
– knife (/ˈknaɪf/) > /ˈnaɪf/ – the k was pronounced in Middle English
– telephone > phone
– ysbwriel > sbwriel (Welsh for rubbish, litter)
– ysgrifennu > sgrifennu (Welsh for to write), which has become sgwennu in some dialects of Welsh.

When a word loses internal phonemes, the process is known as syncope (/ˈsɪŋkəpiː/). Examples include:

– forecastle > fo’c’s’le
– never > n’er (poetic)
– over > o’er (poetic)

Source: Wikipedia, World Wide Words and About.com

New video – The Interview

By Simon

I just finished a new video which features a job interview in which one or both or the participants is having a laugh. Or are they being serious?

If you fancy translating the dialogue into any other languages, just let me know, and I’ll send you the script.

Les mots de la semaine

By Simon
français English Cymraeg Brezhoneg
la cuisinière cooker cwcer; popty; ffwrn keginerez; fornigell
la cusinère à gaz; la gazinière gas cooker popty/ffwrn nwy keginerez dre c’haz
la cuisinère électrique; le four électrique electric cooker popty trydan; ffwrn drydan keginerez-tredan
l’autocuiseur (m) pressure cooker sosban bwysedd/frys primgaoter
le panneau solaire solar panel panel haul panell-heol
le panneau photovoltaïque photovoltaic (PV) panel panel ffotofoltäig/ffotofoltaidd panell-fotovoltaek
la courbe curve cromlin krommenn
courbe; arrondi curved crwm; crom kromm
l’accordéon (m) accordion acordion; cordion akordeoñs
l’accordéon à touches piano accordion piano-acordion akordeoñs piano
le concertina concertina consertina koñsertina

Norsk

By Simon

Recently I’ve been converting cassette recordings for my Colloquial Norwegian course into mp3s. I wasn’t planing to on learning Norwegian just yet, but would like to at some point. I listened to the recordings with half an ear, and glanced at the book now and then, and found that I could make some sense of the written and spoken language, particularly the written language. There are many words that are similar to English ones, especially to words in dialects of northern England and Scotland, and these help a lot.

This has whetted my appetite for the Northern Germanic languages – they seem almost familiar and I like the way they sound – and I might have a go at one or two of them once I’ve finished the Breton and Russian courses I’m working on at the moment.

Snakker du norsk?

Things and stuff

By Simon

Yesterday I learnt the German word (das) zeug, which means stuff; gear; clothes; things; nonsense; rubbish; old material – a useful word when you don’t know or can’t recall a more specific term. Having a few such words up your sleeve in whatever language(s) you’re learning is a good idea. What are equivalent words in your language(s)?

Zeug also appears in the such expressions as:

– altes Zeug = junk, trash
– albernes Zeug = (silly) nonsense
– dummes Zeug = rubbish / nonsense
– … und solches Zeug = … and such things
– dummes / ungereimtes Zeug reden = to talk a lot of nonsense / drivel / twaddle
– dummes Zeug sabbern / schwafeln / schwatzen = to talk drivel
– rede kein dummes Zeug = don’t talk nonsense
– das Zeug zu etw haben = to have (got) what it takes to be sth
– er hat nicht das Zeug dazu = he hasn’t got what it takes

I also learnt how to say combine harvester (a very useful word!) in German: mähndrescher (“mane thresher”).

Les mots de la semaine

By Simon
français English Cymraeg Brezhoneg
le macadam (goudronné) tarmac tarmac makadam
goudronner to tarmac/asphalt tarmacio; coltario koultronañ
les bons et les méchants goodies and baddies dynion da a dynion drwg an tud vat hag an tud fall
un sachet de petits cadeaux a little bag of goodies bag bach o dda-da
[petit sac pour emporter les restes après un repas au restaurant] doggie/doggy bag bag sborion
clair comme de l’encre as clear as mud annealladwy; fel tatws llaeth
clair comme le cristal / comme de l’eau de roche as clear as day/crystal mor olau a’r dydd; clir fel grisial
le champ de foire fairground cae ffair marc’hallac’h
le typhon; l’ouragan typhoon gyrwynt; corwynt; teiffŵn tifon
la monnaie; la devise currency arian (treigl/cyfredol) moneiz; teulenn
les devises étrangères foreign currency arian tramor moneiz estren (?)

Are you a hare or a tortoise?

By Simon

Hare and tortoise

When learning a language do you try to learn it as quickly as possible? Like a hare you hurry through the language ignoring anything that might slow you down, like good grammar and pronunciation, perhaps thinking that you can go back later and tidy them up.

Or maybe you take your time like a tortoise, trying to learn every aspect of the language thoroughly.

There are parallels with learning music – the other day a friend who is learning the violin said that she tends to focus on getting the notes of new tunes right at first, then goes back and pays attention dynamics, bowing and so on. She realised that maybe it would be better to learn those things from the beginning. I certainly try to do this when learning tunes on my various instruments.

With languages I like to take things easy and try to learn things quite thoroughly, though might ignore seems aspects of language that don’t seem relevant.