By hook or by crook

By Simon

I went to two talks by David Crystal at Bangor University yesterday – one was entitled “By Hook or by Crook” and the other was on Shakespeare’s English, focusing particularly on original pronunciation (OP) – a reconstruction of the way people spoke in Shakepeare’s day. Both talks were fascinating and full of information and anecdotes.

In the first David explained how he finds interesting linguistics tidbits wherever he goes, and that when he’s at a loose end, he’ll go wandering in search of them. For example, on a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon, he also went to Snitterfield, a small village nearby where Shakepeare’s grandfather lived. He discovered that the snitter in Snitterfield comes from snyten, an old word for snipe, from the Old English sníte. So he wondered whether there were any snipe around and asked a local, who said that he’d seen a wisp of snipe recently.

The word wisp caught David’s attention, and this set him thinking about where collective nouns like this come from. He discovered that the first known appearance in writing of a lot of them is in lists compiled in monastries in the medieval period. He thought that the monks might have come up with some of these collective nouns as a game – the sort of thing that still happens.

As he was describing some of the linguistic tangents he pursues, I realised that I often do something similar and write about them here. Although I haven’t written any books yet – David has written over 100.

The second talk gave examples of how some passages in Shakespeare work better in OP. Some rhymes and jokes, for example, only work in OP. He gave lots of examples, which I don’t remember, unfortunately.

Visiting with

By Simon

I’ve noticed in novels and other things in American English that I’ve read recently that people talk about ‘visiting with’ friends or other people, in the sense of spending time with them. In British English you might visit a place with a friend, but you don’t usually visit with a friend in the American sense.

I just put “visit with” into Google.co.uk and the first site in the results is one entitled “Places To Visit With The Family UK”. In Google.com though, one of the first results is a story about someone who can “visit with his grandchildren while out on bail”. I would use see in place of visit with in this context.

To me at least, going to visit somewhere or someone sounds like a relatively formal activity – you might visit someone in hospital or prison, or visit relatives, especially if they live quite a way away, but you would go to see your friends.

In American (or other flavours of) English is there a differences in meaning between going to visit someone and visiting with someone?

Do other languages distinguish different types of visit?

Projects and practice

By Simon

When you learn a language because it’s useful, interesting, fun and/or necessary (all of which are good reasons to do so), the language itself tends to be the main focus, and acquiring the ability to understand, speak, read and/or write it is perhaps the main goal. An alternative approach is to see a language as a means to do others things – to make friends from different countries; to read foreign literature and other material; to understand foreign radio, TV and films; to spend time in other countries, and so on. This kind of project or task-based language learning is almost certainly not a new idea, but I think it’s worth trying.

I find languages themselves fascinating and can spend a lot of time learning about them, and also tend to focus on listening to and reading them. In order to become proficient using them in speech and writing though, I find it helps to set myself specific tasks or projects which give me opportunities to actually use the languages.

For example, when I was gathering material for my MA dissertation, which focused on the Manx Gaelic language, I tried to communicate with Manx speakers in Manx. It took me quite a while to compose emails in Manx, as I had to look up many of the words and check the grammar, but the process of doing this really helped to improve my written Manx. My spoken Manx also improved as I read everything I wrote aloud quite a few times, and did my best to chat in Manx with my informants.

I’ve also found that writing on my multilingual blog in languages I’m learning is very helpful. When I do write things there, which I haven’t done much recently, I tend to write in Welsh, Irish and/or Manx, and sometimes in other languages. I tend to write about my life, though in some ways the process of writing is more important than the content.

Another example: if you’re learning French you might want to learn to make some French dishes. This could be a project you do in French – finding recipes online, learning the relevant words and phrases, then making the dishes. Perhaps you could also invite French-speaking or learning friends to help you to eat what you’ve made, which would be a good opportunity to discuss what you made and how, thus reinforcing what you’ve learnt, both in terms of language and cooking skills. If French cuisine really appeals to you, you could even do a cookery course in France or another French-speaking country.

Do you set yourself tasks and projects to do using foreign languages?

Sporange

By Simon

Sproange /spɒˈrændʒ/ is another name for the sporangium /spɒˈrændʒɪəm/ of a plant, which the OED defines as “a receptacle containing spores; a spore-case or capsule.” Sporange comes via Latin from the Greek σπορά spore + ἀγγεῖον (vessel).

Sporange is also the only English word that rhymes with orange, a factoid I discovered on Lexiophiles, which lists a number of other English words that have no rhymes, including month, vacuum, obvious, penguin, husband and whilst. Do you know of words that rhyme with any of these?

A blog called Skorks lists a number of made up words that rhyme with orange, including:

– amoreange – an orange you instantly fall in love with
– quantorange – an orange that is both here and somewhere else at the same time
– tetrahedrorange – an orange shaped like a pyramid

According to the Oxford Dictionaries site, lozenge is a half-rhyme or pararhyme for orange.

Baragouiner

By Simon

Bara ha gwin / Pain et vin / Bread and Wine

The French words baragouin and baragouiner came up in conversation yesterday and I thought I’d write about them today as they have an interesting etymology.

According to Reverso baragouin means ‘gibberish, gabble or double Dutch’ and baragouiner ‘means ‘to gibber, jabber, gabble’. The Larousse Dictionary defines baragouin as language that is incomprehensible due to poor pronunciation, vocabulary or syntax, or an incomprehensible foreign language; and baragouiner as to talk a foreign language, incorrect pronounciation, or to express something in an incomprehensible way.

According to Wikitionaire and Le Dictionnaire d’étymologie française, these words come from two Breton words – bara (bread) and gwin (wine) – things that Breton-speaking travellers often asked for from French-speaking inn keepers during the Middle Ages and which the French speakers particularly noticed. As the French speakers didn’t understand what the Bretons were saying, they associated these words with gibberish or an incomprehensible language.

‘Bilingual’ dolphins

By Simon

According to an article I found today, dolphins sometimes make whale-like calls. Researchers from the University of Rennes in France recorded dolphins at an aquatic park in Port-Saint-Père and found that they make noises very similar to humpback whale calls, particularly when resting during the early hours of the morning. This is the first time dolphins have been observed mimicking sounds they’ve heard in this way a significant period of time after hearing them.

Apparently dolphins and humpback whales have been observed in the wild interacting with each other in a seemingly playful way, and it’s possible that there is some level of affinity between the two species.

Sign languages

By Simon

I’ve been thinking about which language(s) to focus on this year. My studies of Russian petered out before Christmas, partly because I haven’t any pressing need to learn it. Since then I’ve been trying to decide whether to continue with Russian, to learn a new language, or to work on a language I’ve already studied.

As I was given Teach Yourself British Sign Language for Christmas, I’ve decided to have another go at it. The book and accompanying DVD seem to be clear and well put together, and cover not just signs, but also grammar, Deaf culture and etiquette. I might also learn some more Spanish.

In other sign language-related news, it is now possible to learn Icelandic Sign Language (íslenskt táknmál) online on SignWiki, if you already know Icelandic. Icelandic Sign Language developed from Danish Sign Language (Dansk Tegnsprog) and was officially recognised in Icelandic in May 2011, according to the IceNews website.