Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know, or can you guess, the language?
If you need a clue, listen to or read the Omniglot News on Radio Omniglot.
These quizzes are normally published every Sunday, and the answers are given the following Saturday here in the comments.
The other day I was looking for how to say confusion in Welsh, and one of the translations I found was (‘roedd popeth) fel tŷ Jeroboam, which means ‘(everything was) in confusion’, or literally ‘(everything was) like the house of Jeroboam’. This got me wondering who was Jeroboam, and way was his house in confusion?
According to Wikipedia, Jeraboam I, a.k.a. Jeraboam som of Nebat, was the first king of the northern Kingdom of Israel between c. 931/22-910/901 BC. During his 22-year reign, there was continual war between him and Rehoboam (רְחַבְעָם), the first king of Judah. So perhaps that’s why Jeraboam is associated with confusion.
The name Jeroboam comes from Hebrew יָרָבְעָם (Yārŏḇʿām), which comes from רִיב (rīḇ) and עַם (ʿam). Possible meanings of the name include “the people contend”, “he pleads the people’s cause”, “his people are many” or “he increases the people”.
The word Jeroboam can also refer to a 3 litre bottle of champagne or Burgundy wine (a.k.a. double magnum), or a 4.5 litre bottle of Bordeaux wine (a.k.a. Rehoboam) [source].
Other names for wine / champagne bottle sizes include: Piccolo (0.1875 litres), Chopine (0.25 litres), Demi (0.5 litres), Magnum (1.5 litres), Imperial / Methuselah (6 litres), Salmanazar (9 litres), Balthazar / Belshazzar (12 litres), Nebuchadnezzar (15 litres), and Melchizedek / Midas (30 litres) [source].
Other ways to refer to confusion in Welsh include: dryswch, penbleth = confusion (of mind); anhrefn, tryblith, llanast(r), cybolfa, annibendod = confusion (disorder).
Other Welsh phrases that mean ‘(everything was) in confusion’, like (‘roedd popeth) fel tŷ Jeroboam, include:
Sources: Geiriadur yr Academi and Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru.
Coming across the phrase (‘roedd popeth) fel tŷ Jeroboam also inspired me to write this song in Welsh called ‘Tŷ Jeroboam’. Here are the words – I’m still working on the tune:
Mae popeth yn garlibwns
yn garlibwns, yn garlibwns
Mae popeth yn garlibwns
yn tŷ Jeroboam
Mae popeth yn blith draphlith
yn blith draphlith, yn blith draphlith
Mae popeth yn blith draphlith
yn siop hen siafins
Mae popeth yn siang-di-fang
yn siang-di-fang, yn siang-di-fang
Mae popeth yn siang-di-fang
ar hyd y lle
Mae popeth yn gabwdwl
yn gabwdwl, yn gabwdwl
Mae popeth yn gabwdwl
yn tŷ Jeroboam
Are there interesting ways to talk about confusion in other languages?
By the way, this blog features on a list of the 100 Best Language Learning Blogs and Websites in 2025 compiled by FeedSpot.
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know, or can you guess, the language?
If you need a clue, listen to or read the Omniglot News on Radio Omniglot.
It was a friend’s birthday yesterday and I went to a party at her house. There was live music, nice food and drink, I met some interesting people, and I got to speak various languages – mainly Welsh, French and Mandarin Chinese, and also Cantonese and Irish. There was also a quiz with word-based questions and riddles, and questions about things that happened in the year my friend was born. See how you do with these:
1. Fill in the gaps with the same letters in the same order: A _ _ _ _ _ _ _ surgeon was _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ to perform the operation because there was _ _ / _ _ _ _ _.
2. What has a head, a tail, no legs and is brown?
3. What has 6 faces, but does not wear make up, has 21 eyes, but cannot see?
4. Re-arrange the letters, O O U S W T D N E J R, to spell just one word. What is it?
5. Poor people have it. Rich people need it. If you eat it you die. What is it?
6. How do you spell ‘cow’ in 13 letters? (Hint: it’s not cooooooooooow, as I guessed).
7. Which West African country became independent in February of this year?
8. What was the Intelsat I communications satellite, launched in April of this year, known as?
9. What song did the Rolling Stones release in August of this year?
10. What classic sci-fi show was launched in September of this year in the UK?
Finally, what year was my friend born, and how old is she this year?
These quizzes are normally published every Sunday, and the answers are given the following Saturday here in the comments.
In one of the Danish lessons I did recently, I learnt the word skurk, which means villain or baddie, and wondered where it comes from and what other words it’s related to. Let’s find out.
According to Den Danske Ordbog, a skurk [ˈsguɐ̯g] is a person who behaves in an unattractive, dishonest, or malicious manner, or a fictional character in a piece of fiction with the role of the hero’s evil counterpart and enemy or a person or thing that is or is made responsible for trouble or misfortune. In other words, a villain, baddie, wretch, cuplrit, reprobate or rogue [source].
It comes from Low German schurke (villian, scoundrel), from Middle High German schurgen (to shove, push, egg on), possibly from Old High German scuren (to stir, stoke up), from Proto-West-Germanic *skeran (to shear, cut), from Proto-Germanic *skeraną (to shear), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (to cut) [source].
Related words in Danish include skurkagtig (villainous), skurkeagtig (miscreant) and superskurk (super villain).
Related words in other languages include Schurke (villain, scoundrel) in German, skurk (crook, bad guy, rogue, villain) in Swedish, and skurk (crook) in Norwegian [source].
The English shark, as in someone who exploits others by trickery, lies, extortion, etc, also comes from the same roots, as might shark, as in a scaleless, predatory fish of the superorder Selachimorpha [source].
Another English word that possibly comes from the same roots is shirk, as in to avoid responsibility, duty, obligations, etc [source].
Incidentally, before the word shark arrived in English, such fish were known as dogfish or hayes, which comes from Dutch haai (shark, a ruthless or greedy person) or from West Flemish haaie (shark), from Old Norse hái, an abbreviation of hákarl (shark), from hár (shark) and karl (a man). Related words include Hai (shark) in German, haj (shark) in Swedish and Danish, and акула (akula – shark) in Russian, Belarusian, Bulgarian and Ukrainian [source].
Is the word plateau related to plate, platypus, plaza, pizza, place, flat and fold? Or is one of these words an odd one out? Let’s investigate.
Plateau [ˈplætəʊ / plæˈtoʊ] means:
It comes from French plateau (flat area, tray, plateau, stage, (TV) set, chain-ring), from plat (flat, flat area of ground, flat thing, a dish or course) [source] and the diminutive ending -eau, which can also be added to words like éléphant and zèbre to make éléphanteau (a young [male] elephant, calf) and zébreau (young zebra) [source].
Plat comes from Middle French plat (flat), from Old French plat (flat, a footbridge), from Vulgar Latin *plattus (flattened), from Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús – broad, flat), from Proto-Hellenic *plətús, from Proto-Indo-European *pléth₂us (flat, broad), from *pleth₂- (to spread, to extend, flat) [source].
Plate, platypus, plaza, place, flat and fold all probably come from the same roots, as do pit(t)a (bread), piazza, flan, field, plantain, and the name Plato [source].
The odd one out is pizza, which was borrowed from Neapolitan pizza, which comes from Byzantine Greek πίτα (píta – cake, pie), the origins of which are uncertain. Words from the same roots include пита (pita – round loaf, cake, pie, honeycomb) in Bulgarian, pită (bread, sustenance) in Romanian, pite (pie, tart) in Hungarian, and pide (traditional Turkish flatbread, Turkish pizza) in Turkish [source].
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know, or can you guess, the language?
These quizzes are normally published every Sunday, and the answers are given the following Saturday here in the comments.
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know, or can you guess, the language?
These quizzes are normally published every Sunday, and the answers are given the following Saturday here in the comments.
If you need a clue, listen to or read the Omniglot News on Radio Omniglot.
A lot of the words in Italian are similar to words in Spanish, French or other Romance languages I know, but quite often I come across a word that doesn’t seem familiar at all. For example, idraulico (plumber) – a bit different from plombier in French, plomero in Spanish.
Idraulico [iˈdraw.li.ko] means plumber, plumbing or hydraulic in Italian. It comes from Latin hydraulicus, from Ancient Greek ὑδραυλικός (hudraulikós – of a water organ), from ὕδραυλις (húdraulis – water organ), from ὕδωρ (húdōr – water) and αὐλός (aulós – pipe) [source].
Words from the same roots include hydraulic, hydrate and hydrofoil in English, hydraulique (hydraulic) in French, and υδραυλικός (ydravlikós – plumber, hydraulic engineer, hydraulic) in Greek, hydraulik (plumber) in Polish [source].
The French word plombier (plumber, plumbing), the Spanish word plomero (plumber, plumbing), and the English words plumber and plumbing, all come from Latin plumbārius (plumber, of or pertaining to lead), from plumbum (lead [metal], pipe of lead), possibly from Ancient Greek μόλυβδος (mólubdos – lead), or from Proto-Celtic *ɸloudom (lead) [source].
Related words from the same roots include piombo (lead, grey, bullet), piombino ([lead] seal, sinker [weight], plummet) in Italian, plomb (lead [metal], fuse, sinker [fishing weight]) in French, Plombe (seal, lead seal [dental] filling) in German, and plwm (lead, leaden) in Welsh [source].
The Spanish word plomero is used for plumber in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Uruguay. Other Spanish words for plumber include: fontanero in Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, gásfiter in Chile, gasfitero in Ecuador and Peru, and tubero in the Philippines [source].
Are there interesting words for plumber in other languages?
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know, or can you guess, the language?
These quizzes are normally published every Sunday, and the answers are given the following Saturday here in the comments.
If you need a clue, listen to or read the Omniglot News on Radio Omniglot.
There’s a joke / meme that goes something like No matter how kind you are … German children are Kinder.
This is a bilingual pun – in German Kinder means children, while in English kinder means nicer, more gentle, generous, affectionate, etc. These two words look alike, but are they related? Let’s find out.
The German word Kind (child, kid, offspring) comes from Middle-High German kint (child), from Old High German kind (child, descendants), from Proto-West-Germanic *kind (child), from Proto-Germanic *kindą, *kinþą (child), from Pre-Germanic *ǵénh₁tom, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- (to produce, beget, give birth) [source].
Kind in English means such things as having a benevolent, courteous, friendly, generous, gentle, liberal, sympathetic or warm-hearted nature or disposition; affectionate, favourable, mild, gentle or forgiving. It can also mean a type, category (What kind of nonsense is this?); goods or services used as payment (They paid me in kind), or a makeshift or otherwise atypical specimen (The box served as a kind of table).
Kind as in benevolent comes from Middle English kinde, kunde, kende (kind, type, sort), while kind as in type comes from Middle English cunde (kind, nature, sort) / kynde (one’s inherent nature; character, natural disposition), and both come from Old English cynd (sort, kind, type, gender, generation, race) / ġecynd (nature, kind, class), from Proto-West-Germanic *kundi / *gakundiz, from Proto-Germanic *kinþiz (kind, race), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis (birth, production), from *ǵenh₁- (to produce, beget, give birth) [source].
So, the German Kind and the English kind do ultimately come from the same roots. Are German Kinder kinder though, or are they the Wurst, and somewhat gross?
Other words produced, beget and given birth to by the Proto-Indo-European root *ǵenh₁- include: kind (child), koning (king, monarch) and kunne (gender, sex) in Dutch, cognate, engine(er), gender, gene, general, genesis, genetic, genial, genius, gentle, kin, king, nature, oxygen and progeny in English, König (king) in German, nascere (to be born, bud, sprout) in Italian, gentis (tribe, genus, family, kin) in Lithuanian, geni (to be born, birth) in Welsh [source].
Incidentally, the English word child is not related to the German word Kind. It comes from Middle English child (baby, infant, toddler, child, offspring), from Old English ċild (child, baby), from Proto-West Germanic *kilþ, *kelþ, from Proto-Germanic *kelþaz (womb; fetus), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵelt- (womb), or from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (to ball up, amass). It is related to kuld (brood, litter) in Danish, and kelta (lap) in Icelandic though, and possibly kalt (cold, chilly, calm) and kühl (cool, calm, restrained) in German [source].
