Māori spelling

By Simon

This post was inspired by an email I received today from someone who wanted to know why the f sound in Māori is written wh, as in Whangarei.

According to a number of sites I found, Māori was first written down by missionaries who had little or no training in phonetics or phonology, and there was considerable variation in the spelling systems they came up with. The sound represented by wh was originally a voiceless bilabial fricative /ɸ/ (p\), though in some dialects, particularly in the North Shore area, it was a voiceless labial-velar fricative /ʍ/ (W). It was written w by some, and wh, f or v by others.

These days, many people pronounce wh as /f/, or sometimes /h/, /w/ or /ʍ/ (W).

Sources:
http://www.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=107120
http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-RogEarl-t1-back-d2.html
http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-KohStor-t1-back-d3.html
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/cultures/new-zealand-faq/part2/section-10.html

Elephants are not permitted

By Simon

Here’s an interesting and useful site for you that I came across the other day: SmartPhrase. It contains phrasebooks for Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, though unfortunately there are no audio recordings.

There is also a random phrase generator which gives you either serious or humerous phrases in a variety of languages.

Here are a few examples of the humorous phrases:

Discúlpame ¿te importa si te miro un rato? Quiero recordar tu cara en mis sueños.
Excuse me, do you mind if I stare at you for a minute? I want to remember your face for my dreams.

Da-me los cables puente de batería, los pollos se han escapados.
Hand me the jump leads, the chickens have escaped.

Für so einen kleinen Mann hast Du aber sehr grosse Nasenlöcher!
You have very large nostrils for such a small gentleman.

Keine Elephanten in der Bar nach 8 Uhr!
Elephants are not permitted in the bar after eight o’clock.

Se devi tagliarti le unghie dei piedi, vai via dalla cucina, per favore.
If you must clip your toenails now, kindly leave the kitchen.

Ο δρακος επιμενει να θγσιασογμε μια κοπελα αλλιως θα καψει το χωριο.
The dragon insists we sacrifice a maiden otherwise he will burn the village to the ground.

Dat is de derde keer deze week dat één van de patienten spontaan is gaan uitbarsten.
That is the third time this week that one of the patients has spontaneously combusted.

A cama do meu marido está cheia de areia preta. Porquê?
My husband’s bed is full of black sand. Why?

Practical Chinese Reader

By Simon

The other day I found some useful sites: one that contains all from the lessons and other material from Practical Chinese Reader with sound files; another which includes tests from that same textbook; and an online version of the New Practical Chinese Reader (Books 1, 2 and 3).

In my first year at university, the textbook I used was the Practical Chinese Reader, which is quite a good introduction to spoken and written Chinese. A big box of character flashcards is also available to accompany the course and I had them stuck all over my walls at one stage. The textbook follows the adventures of Gǔbō (古波) and Pàlánkǎ (帕兰卡), who are from an unnamed Eastern European country and who go to China to study Chinese. It was first published during the communist era when that sort of thing was more common.

I think using stories in language courses can be quite helpful – it makes them more interesting and can motivate you to continue studying so that you can find out what happens. What do you think?

One idea I have is to write a story which starts in English, then gradually introduces words and phrases in another language until by the end, it’s entirely in the second language. The Power Glide language courses do something like this that they call a ‘diglot weave’.

Nobukaze

By Simon

The other day I found a site called Nobukaze which contains some interesting information about Japanese history, samurai, pop culture, language and a variety of other weird and wonderful Japan-related topics. There’s also some information about the Indonesian and Javanese languages and writing systems, and a guide to “Java for the Absolutely Clueless“.

The Indonesian language section mentions that there is very little mutual intelligibility between Malaysian and Indonesian, mainly because of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary. Indonesian has apparently borrowed numerous words from Javanese, which are unfamiliar to speakers of Malaysian. Does anyone speak Malaysian? Can you understand Indonesian? Or vice-versa.

Another interesting page on this site explains the origins of Japanese names. Did you know that the Japanese didn’t have individual names for their rivers and other geographical features? People might have called the stretch of a river that flowed by them by one name, while their neighbours further downstream had a different name for their stretch of river. There were no names that applied to rivers as a whole, at least until the 16th century, when Portuguese missionaries apparently forced the Japanese to adopt overall names for rivers, seas, etc, so that a map of Japan could be produced for the Pope.

Radio ga ga

By Simon

I find listening to radio programmes in the languages I’m studying is a good way to tune my ears to the languages, and to learn new vocabulary and grammar. With some languages I only have a vague idea what the radio people are talking about, if I really concentrate. With others, particularly Welsh, I’ve got to the stage where I can understand the majority of what I hear and actually learn new and interesting things from the programmes I listen to. It’s taken many years of regular listening to get to this stage. My Irish and Scottish Gaelic haven’t quite got there yet, but I haven’t been listening to them for as long.

If the language you’re studying isn’t spoken where you live, radio listening provides a sort of virtual immersion. It doesn’t give you opportunities to actually speak and interact with native speakers though, unless you join in radio phone-ins.

Word of the day – Hypocorism

By Simon

A hypocorism is a pet name or diminutive. For example, Bob, Rob, Bobby, Robbie (from Robert). I came across this word for the first time the other day and had to look it up because I didn’t know what it meant.

Hypocorisms or diminutives seem to be more widely used in some languages than in others. The Slavic languages use them a lot, and not just for people’s names – just about any noun has a hypocoristic form. At least that’s what my Czech, Slovak, Polish and Russian-speaking friends tell me.

Hypocoristic affixes in English include

-ey/y/ie, as in doggie (dog), horsey (horse), barbie (barbeque), postie (postman/woman), tinnie (tin [of beer]), cozzie (swimming costume), mozzie (mosquito), footie/footy (football). This affix is particularly popular in Australia and Scotland.

-ling, as in duckling, gosling

-ette, as in kitchenette, cigarette, towellette

-let, as in piglet

Can you think of any others?

There are more examples of hypocorisms/diminutives in a variety of languages here.

Canu caneon yn y Gymraeg

By Simon

Heddiw fe ddes i o hyd i ddau wefanau diddorol iawn:

CanuDrosGymru.com
Pwrpas y wefan hon ydy dod â chaneuon Cymraeg at sylw y Cymry di-Gymraeg – ond os bydd yn atgoffa ambell Gymro neu Gymraes am ein hetifeddiaeth gerddorol, gorau’n y byd!

Codi Canu – Ystafell Ymarfer
Eich siop-un-stop i ddysgu caneuon newydd gyda’r corau, neu ail-ddysgu hen ganeuon i berfformio ar eich teithiau i gemau’r 6 gwlad! Mae darnau’r Soprano, Alto, Tenor a bas yma i chi, felly peidiwch oedi.

Today I came across a couple of interesting websites:

Sing4Wales.com
A website that includes the a number of well-known Welsh songs with their lyrics and videos of people singing them. It’s designed to encourage those unfamiliar with these songs, or who have forgotten them, to (re)learn them. Quite a few of the videos seem to be Siân James singing the songs and accompanying herself on the harp – hyfryd!

Codi Canu – Rehearsal Room
Includes a small selection of Welsh songs with recordings of their tunes, Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass parts with an online practice tool, and recordings of the words being spoken so that you can get to grips with the pronunciation.