Sum in ‘ksup wivit?

By Simon

In The Broken Ear and Tintin and the Picaros, which tell the story of Tintin’s adventures in the fictional South American republic of San Theodoros, Tintin and friends encounter some native people in the jungle who belong to the Arumbaya and Rumbaba tribes. They speak in a what looks at first glance to be a foreign language, but when you look closer you realise that it’s English written and spelled in an unusual way.

Here are some examples:

– Ahw wada lu’vali bahn chaco conats! – Oh, what a lovely bunch of coconuts!
– Owar ya? Ts goota meecha mai ‘tee. – How are you? It’s good to meet you, matey.
– Gi’ dahda vit! – Get out of it!
– Owzah g’rubai? – How’s the grub, eh?
– Sum in ‘ksp wivit! – Something’s up with it!

These examples are from the English translations of these books, in which the translators used a phonetic rendering of Cockney English [source].

In the original French version, Hergé based Arumbaya and Rumbaba on Marols or Marollien, a Flemish dialect spoken in Brussels, which he heard from his grandmother [source].

This is an interesting way of conveying that a foreign language is being spoken while allowing readers to understand what’s being said. Do you know who these ‘languages’ are represented in other translations of these books?

New design for Omniglot

By Simon

Recently I’ve been tinkering with the design of Omniglot. This doesn’t involves any major changes, at least I’m not planning to make any major changes at the moment – it’s more a case of changing colours and logos, and trying to improve menus. You might have noticed a few changes already – for example there are new links at the top of some pages, and a new menu on the side of others. You can see more changes on this page.

Any comments and suggestions are welcome.

Is there anything about Omniglot you’d like to see changed or improved?

Sing for Water London

By Simon

I will be singing with the Bangor Community Choir and many other choirs from around the UK at Sing for Water London, part of the Thames Festival, on Sunday 11th September 2011. The aim is to raise funds for Water Aid.

The Bangor Community Choir will be singing by HMS Belfast on the South Bank from about 12.15pm, and the massed choirs will be singing in the Scoop next to City Hall from 2pm.

Please come along if you can, and if you’d like to contribute to Water Aid, please go to: http://www.justgiving.com/simon-ager/

Komz a rez brezhoneg? / Wyt ti’n siarad Llydaweg?

By Simon

I decided to have a go at learning Breton today and listened to some of Le Breton sans peine. I just listened without looking at the book to see if I could understand anything – one of my friends is convinced that Breton has more similarities with Welsh than with Cornish, but I thought that Breton is closer to Cornish, so I decided to test this.

I speak Welsh more or less fluently, and do know a few Breton words already, including degemer mat (welcome), trugarez (thank you = trugaredd, ‘mercy / compassion’, in Welsh), pelc’h emañ …? (where is …? = pa le, ‘which place?’, in Welsh), and I was able to guess the means of some words that sound similar to their Welsh equivalents: mor (sea – môr in Welsh), ti (house – tŷ in Welsh), glas (blue/green – glas in Welsh). I could also understand some of the numbers and some French loanwords, apart from that though, I had no idea, or only the vaguest idea, what they were talking about most of the time.

This is just my own impression, but it seems that mutual intelligibility between Welsh and Breton is very limited. The stories of Breton onion sellers in Wales being able to talk to the local Welsh speakers in Breton and be understood are perhaps exaggerated. Or perhaps the onion sellers, known as Sioni Wynwns (Johnny Onions) in Welsh, learnt enough Welsh to have basic conversations with Welsh speakers.

While I was in the Isle of Man earlier this year I heard some Cornish and was able to make some sense of it, but the Breton I heard there made very little sense to me.

ウェールズ語

By Simon

ウェールズ語の基本

According to a report I found today, a textbook for Japanese people wanting to learn Welsh entitled ウェールズ語の基本 (Wēruzugo no Kihon – “Basic Welsh”) by Dr Yoshifumi Nagata (永田喜文) and Takeshi Koike (小池剛史) was recently published.

Dr Nagata teaches Welsh culture at universities in Japan and developed an interest for the Welsh language through the Welsh poetry of R. S. Thomas. While trying to learn Welsh in Japan he was frustrated by the lack of material in Japanese so decided to produce the textbook. Takeshi Koike learnt Welsh in Lampeter and speaks and writes it fluently and has published several works on the Welsh language.

This isn’t the only Welsh language course in Japanese though: on Amazon.co.jp I found 毎日ウェールズ語を話そう (Let’s Talk Welsh Every Day) by Hiroshi Mizutani (水谷宏), which was published in 1996.

Do you know of any other resources in Japanese for Welsh learners?

Oes llawer o bobl yn dysgu Cymraeg yn Siapan?

日本ではウェールズ語を勉強する人がたくさんいますか？

Spooky Men’s Chorale

By Simon

The Spooky Men

Jesarn hie mee dys keirdlann as co-unnaneys yindyssagh ‘syn Galeri ayns Caernarfon lesh ny Spooky Men’s Chorale, sheshaght chiaullee voish yn Austrail ta jannoo turrys mygeayrt yn Reeriaght Unnaneyssit ec y traa t’ayn. T’ad ny ard arraneyderyn, as feer aitt as ommidjagh myrgeddin, as t’ad goaill arraneyn as yn Çhorshey, arraneyn cadjin lhied “Dancing Queen” (lesh blassyn Soolynagh as idd Loghlynagh) as “Boogie Wonderland” (dy moal as dy arrymagh), as arraneyn oc hene, lhied “Don’t Stand Between a Man and His Tool”, “Sometimes I Forget Things” as “Concrete”, ynsit shin ‘syn keridlann.

On Saturday I went to a workshop and concert at the Galeri in Caernarfon with the Spooky Men’s Chorale, a choir from Australia who are currently touring the UK. They are excellent singers and hilariously silly, and sing songs from Georgia, pop songs like “Dancing Queen” (with Swedish accents and Viking helmets) and “Boogie Wonderland” (slowly and solemnly), as well as their own songs, such as “Don’t Stand Between a Man and His Tool”, “Sometimes I Forget Things” and “Concrete”, which we learnt in the workshop.

Just playing around

By Simon

In Mandarin Chinese when you want to talk about playing a musical instrument, there are quite a few different words you could use, depending on the type of instrument.

– 拉 (lā) is used for bowed instruments such as the 二胡 (èrhú), violin (小提琴 xiǎotíqín), viola (中提琴 zhōngtíqín) and cello (大提琴 dàtíqín), and also means to pull, drag, draw or chat.

– 彈 [弹] (tán) is used for the piano (鋼琴 [钢琴] gāngqín), and string instruments such as the guitar (吉他 jítā), and also means to pluck, spring, leap, shoot , fluff, flick and so on.

– 吹 (chuī) is used for wind instruments such as the 笛 dí (flute), 簫 xiào (bamboo flute) and clarinet (單簧管 [单簧管] dānhuángguǎn) and also means to blow, blast, boast, brag and to end in failure.

– 打 (dǎ) is used for the drums (鼓 gǔ) and other percussion, and also means to beat, strike, hit, break, type, fight and so on. As well as meaning to play/beat a drum, 打鼓 (dǎ​gǔ) also means to be nervous. 打 also means to play games such as golf – 打高爾夫球 [打高尔夫球] (dǎ gāo’ěrfū qiú), and also to play cards – 打牌 (dǎ pái).

If you want to talk about playing music in general without mentioning a specific instrument you could say 演奏 (yǎn​zòu) – to play a musical instrument, to perform music. I thought there wasn’t a general term like this in Chinese and that was what promoted me to write this post.

In other contexts, there are various was to translate to play in Chinese, including:

– 玩 (wán) is the most common one and can mean to play games (玩遊戲 [玩游戏] wán yóu​xì) or to have fun. In English the phrase “Are you coming out to play?” is usually only uttered by children, but the equivalent in Chinese, 你出來玩嗎？ [你出去玩吗？] nǐ chūlái wán ma?, is used by both children and adults.

– 踢 (tī) means to kick and to play ball games such as football (soccer) – 踢足球 (tī zúqiú).

-弄 (nòng) means to play/fool/mess/toy with, to fix, do, manage or to handle – a useful word that can used in a variety of contexts.

Source: MDBG Chinese-English Dicitonary

Eilean Mhanainn / Ellan Vannin

By Simon

I just listened to the first in a series of programmes on Radio nan Gàidheal on the Isle of Man (Eilean Mhanainn in Scottish Gaelic, and Ellan Vannin in Manx), which focuses on the Manx language. I found it very interesting, and was pleased to find that I could understand almost all the Scottish Gaelic, as well as the Manx.

Interestingly, when they were talking to Manx speakers, all but one of whom spoke in Manx, they translated their words into Scottish Gaelic, probably assuming that speakers of Scottish Gaelic would have difficulty understanding the Manx. This doesn’t tend to happen when Scottish Gaelic speakers are interviewed on Irish language radio or vice versa. While there is a fair bit of mutual intelligibility between the Gaelic languages, it seems to take speakers of each one a while to become sufficiently familiar with the others to be able to understand them – perhaps this is more the case with Manx as Irish and Scottish Gaelic speakers rarely hear it.