Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
Weaving applications
There was some discussion at the French conversation group last night about job applications – one member of the group has been offered a job in an international school in southern France and will be moving there soon.
The word application exists in French, but it’s not the one you use when applying for a job. Instead it is used when applying a lotion or treatment or an invention or method. Also when implementing a decision or measure or enforcing the law. It is also used for software app(lication)s.
Expressions featuring the word include:
– mettre en application = to implement, apply, enforce
– application cruciale = mission-critical application
– application informatique = IT application
– école d’application = officers’ training school
An application for a job is une demande or une candidature, and a job application form is un formulaire or un bulletin de demande d’emploi. To apply for a job is poser une candidature pour un emploi / poste or postuler / poser sa candidature pour un emploi.
The French word appliquer can mean ‘to apply (a lotion or cream; or an invention or method), to implement (a decision); to enfore (the law); or to give’. The reflexive version of this verb, s’appliquer, can mean ‘to apply oneself (to doing sth); to apply to (the law)’ and s’appliquer sur means ‘to fit over’.
The English word apply comes from French, and the French word appliquer comes from the Latin applicāre (to apply, to put, to stick, to spread; to impose, to enforce), from applicō (I apply, attach, join to), from ad- (to; towards) + plicō (fold; arrive), from the Proto-Indo-European *pleḱ- (to plait, to weave), which also the root of the English words plait, plat and pleat.
Source: Reverso
Seeking diegesis
I learnt an interesting new word the other day – diegesis [ˌdaɪəˈdʒiːsɪs], which, according to Wikipedia means:
a style of fiction storytelling that presents an interior view of a world in which details about the world itself and the experiences of its characters are revealed explicitly through narrative, and the story is told or recounted, as opposed to shown or enacted.
In diegesis the narrator tells the story and presents the actions, and sometimes thoughts, of the characters to the readers or audience. The opposite of diegesis is mimesis, from the Greek μίμησις (imitation), in which the action is shown directly rather than narrated.
In films diegesis refers to the story depicted on screen, as opposed to the story in real time that the screen narrative is about. Anything outside the screen narrative is known as extradiegetic. When a story is embedded within another story and related by a narrator, it is known as metadiegetic or hypodiegetic.
The word diegesis comes from the Greek διήγησις (narrative) from διηγεῖσθαι (to narrate), from διά (through, over, across) and ἥγησις (to lead, command), from the Proto-Indo-European *seh₂g- (to seek out), which is also the root of the English word seek, the German word suchen (to seek, search), and related words in other Germanic languages.
Language quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
Stitching Mail
I learned an interesting French word last night: maille [maj], which means stitch or mesh and appears in such expressions as:
– maille à l’endroit = plain stitch
– maille à l’envers / tombée / coulée = purl stitch
– maille Jersey = stocking stitch
– doublure maille = mesh lining
– maille du tricot = knitting stitch
– maille du crochet = crochet stitch
– à maille serrée = close-woven
– avoir maille à partir = to be in trouble
– avoir maille à partir avec qn = to have a brush with sb
– à mailles fines = with a fine mesh
– passer à travers les mailles du filet = to slip through the net
– cotte de maille(s) = coat of mail; chainmail
Maille comes from the Old French maille (loop, stitch, mesh, link), from Vulgar Latin *macla, from Latin macula (spot, speck, stain; mesh; cell) from From Proto-Italic *smatlo-, from Proto-Indo-European *smh₂tlo- (possibly meaning “wiping”).
The English word mail, as in chainmail, comes from the same root via the Middle English maille (mail armour) the Old French maille.
The English word mail, as in letters and parcels, originally meant a bag or wallet, and came to mean a bag containing letters to be delivered by post, and then the letters themselves. It comes from the Middle English male, from the Anglo-Norman male, Old French male (bag, wallet), from the Frankish *malha (bag), from the Proto-Germanic *malhō (bag, pouch), from the Proto-Indo-European *molko- (leather pouch).
*molko- is also the root of the French words malle (large suitcase, trunk) and mallette (briefcase); and the Spanish mala (suitcase, mailbag, mail, post), and maleta (suitcase).
Mail (letters) in French is (le) courrier and the postal service is la poste. Email is officially courriel or courrier électronique, though many people use e-mail. Courrier is borrowed from the Italian corriere (messenger, courier), from correre (to run, hurry, rush), from the Latin currere, from currō (to run, hurry), from Proto-Italic *korzō (to run), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱers- (to run), also the root of the English words courier and current.
Sources: Reverso, Wiktionary
Tonogenesis
There’s an interesting article about tonal languages in The Atlantic that I came across today. It explains that most tonal languages are found in East and Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa;, and in Mexico, and speculates that this might have something to do with climate – I think that unlikely.
It also explains how words can come to be distinguished by tones. In some dialects of Khumu, an Austroasiatic language spoken in parts of Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and China, tones are used, while in other dialects they aren’t.
In the Khmu Rook dialect of northern Laos, for example, there are six tones. In other dialects pok means “bite” and bok means “to cut down a tree” – there may be a slight difference in intonation between them, but this is not used to distinguish them. In Khmu Rook b and p have merged and these words are only distinguished by tones: pok with a high tone means “bite,” and with a low tone means “to cut down a tree”.
The process by which a language acquires tones is known as tonogenesis.
Language quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
Why is it I and not i?
Have you ever wondered why the first person pronoun in English (I) is always written as a capital letter?
I was asked about this the other day and though I would investigate.
According to a blog post on Dictionary.com, it came about as a bit of an accident. In Old and Middle English the equivalent of I was ıc [iʧ], which was written uncapitalized. Its pronouncation changed over time and the c disappeared. On its own the ı looked weak, so scribes started writing it a bit taller, and by the 14th century is was typically capitalized.
According to a post on English Language & Usage, i was originally written without a dot as ı. It started to be written as slightly elongated when on its own or in Roman numerals when the last of several ı’s. This might have been to avoid confusion with punctuation marks, or with u, n or m.
A dot, or tittle, started to be used in manuscripts during the 11th century to distinguish i and j from other letters. Originally it was larger, but shrunk over time.
More information: http://blog.dictionary.com/tittle/
Scratching cartoons
The first cartoons, in the sense of humorous or satirical drawings, appeared in the magazine Punch in 1843, however the word was used from the 1670s to mean “a drawing on strong paper (used as a model for another work)”.
Cartoon can also mean:
– An artist’s preliminary sketch.
– An animated film
– A diagram in a scientific concept.
Cartoon comes from French carton (cardboard, carton, cardboard box, target, sketch; cartoon, inset map, card), from the Italian cartone (cardboard, paperboard, a carton, a box, a cartoon (an artist’s preliminary sketch or an animated cartoon)), from the Latin charta (paper, map, menu), from the Ancient Greek χάρτης (khártēs – papyrus, paper), from χαράσσω (kharássō – I scratch, inscribe), from the Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰer- (to scratch).
A series of cartoons is known as a comic strip or strip cartoon, and the section of a newspaper containing cartoons and comic strips is apparently known as the funnies, the funny papers or the funny papers, at least in some English-speaking countries – I wouldn’t use these words, and might call it the cartoon section. How about you?
Comic comes from Latin comicus (comic, comedy, comedian), from the Ancient Greek κωμικός (kōmikós – relating to comedy), from κῶμος (kômos – carousal).
Sources: Online Etymology Dictionary and Wiktionary
Language quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?