Hydraulic Plumbers

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 Livorno

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?

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Pasting Meals

The Italian words pasto and pasta look and sound similar, but are they related? Let’s find out.

ristorante italiano in NYC

Pasto [ˈpa.sto] means meal, and comes from Latin pāstus (fed, nourished, consumed, pastured, satiated, satisfied), from pāscor (to feed oneself, to eat, graze, feed, nourish, pasture, browse, from Proto-Italiac *pāskōr (I am fed, driven to pasture) from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (to protect, ward, shepherd) [source].

Words from the same roots include feed, fodder, food, pasture and repast in English, paître (to graze), repas (meal), and possibly pain (bread) in French, pascere (to graze) in Italian, and pasto (pasture, lawn, grass) in Spanish [source].

Pasta

Pasta [ˈpa.sta] in Italian means dough, pastry, pasta, cake or paste, and can also refer to the nature or mo(u)ld of a person, e.g. sone tutt’e due delle stessa pasta = they’re both cast from the same mo(u)ld [source].

Here are some examples of how the word pasta is used in Italian:

  • pasta in brodo = noodle soup
  • pasta fatta in casa = home-made pasta
  • pasta frolla = shortcrust pastry
  • pasta sfoglia = puff pastry
  • pasta all’uovo = egg pasta
  • pasta dentifricia = toothpaste
  • pasta di mandorle = almond paste

It comes from Late Latin pasta (paste, pasta), from Ancient Greek παστά (pastá – barley porridge), from παστός (pastós – sprinkled with salt), from πάσσω (pássō – to sprinkle), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kʷeh₁t- (to shake).

Words from the same roots include παστός (pastós – salted, preserved with salt, corned) in Greek, quash (to defeat decisively, suppress, void) in English, quassare (to shake, agitate) in Italian, casser (to break) in French, and , cascar (to crack, split) in Spanish [source].

In British English, pasta refers to Italian pasta, that is, dough made from wheat and water and sometimes mixed with egg and formed into various shapes; often sold in dried form and typically boiled for eating [source]. Types of Italian pasta include calamarata, cannelloni, farfalle, fettuccine, fusilli, gnocchi, lasagne, linguine, macaroni, orecchie d’asini, orecchiette, penne, radiatori, spaghetti, tagliatelle, tortellini, vesuvio, and vermicelli [source].

One of those types of pasta I made up. Do you know which one?

In American English, the word noodle(s) apparently can refer both to Italian pasta, and Asia noodles, while in the UK, noodle(s) normally only refers to Asia noodles, such as Japanese ramen. What about in other varieties of English?

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Feeling Whelmed

You can be overwhelmed and underwhelmed, but can you just be whelmed?

Overwhelmed

Overwhelmed comes from the verb to overwhelm, which means to engulf, surge over, submerge, overpower (emotionally), crush, cause to surround or to cover. So when you feel overwhelmed, you might feel crushed, overpowered or engulfed by everything [source].

Underwhelmed comes from to underwhelm, which means to fail to impress or perform disappointingly. It was coined in the 1950s as a humorous negation of overwhelm. I hope you won’t be too underwhelmed by this blog post. [source].

Both to overwhelm and to underwhelm come from to whelm, an old word that means to bury, cover, engulf, submerge, ruin, destroy or overcome with emotion. As a noun, whelm means a surge of water or a wooden drainpipe. They come from Middle English whelmen (to turn over, capsize, invert, turn upside down), perhaps from Old English *hwealmnian, a variant of *hwealfnian, from hwealf (arched, concave, vaulted), from Proto-West Germanic *hwalb, from Proto-Germanic *hwalbą (arch, vault), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷelp- (to curve) [source].

Related words include unwhelm (to raise (sb) up from under something that has overwhelmed them), and whelming (something that covers or submerges).

Words from the same roots include gulf in English, Walm (bevelled roof, particularly if triangular and in a gable) in German, welven (to arch, bend like an arch, be shaped like an arch) in Dutch, valv (vault, arch) in Swedish, and cupla (fault, guilt, blame) in Spanish [source].

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Paved Floors

The Italian word pavimento looks like the English word pavement, but actually means floor. Let’s find out more.

Regarde où tu marches !

Pavimento [pa.viˈmen.to] comes from Latin pavīmentum (a floor composed of small stones beaten down) from paviō (to beat, strike, ram, tread down), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w- (to strike, hit) [source].

Related words in Latin include pavīmentārius (floor-maker, who makes the tiled ground), pavīmentō (to pave) and pavīcula (a rammer) [source].

Related words in Italian include pavimentare (to floor, to pave) and pavimentazione (flooring, paving).

Words from the same Latin / PIE roots in other languages include paviment (flooring, pavement) in Catalan, pavement and to pave in English, palmant (pavement) in Welsh, pavement (paving, tiled floor) and paver (to cobble, pave [Canada]) in French, pământ (earth, ground, land) in Romanian, pavimento (road surface, paving) in Spanish, and pļaut (to mow, reap, shoot intensively) in Latvian [source].

Amlwch

The English word pavement can refer to:

  • A paved surface; a hard covering on the ground.
  • A paved path, for the use of pedestrians, located at the side of a road (mainly in the UK, Ireland and South Africa) – known as a sidewalk in North America, a banquette in Louisiana and Texas in the USA, and as a footpath in Australia, New Zealand and India
  • A paving (paved part) of a road or other thoroughfare; the roadway or road surface. (mainly in North America)
  • The paved part of an area other than a road or sidewalk, such as a cobblestone plaza, asphalt schoolyard or playground, or parking lot. (mainly in North America)
  • The interior flooring of a church sanctuary, between the communion rail and the altar. [source].

Pavements / sidewalks have been around for a many thousands of years. There were pavements in Ancient Greece and Rome, for example, and the Romans called them sēmite (narrow way, footpath, path, pathway) [source], which comes from PIE *swé(d) (by oneself, away, without) + *mey- ((ex)change). Words from the same roots include senda (footpath) in Catalan, sente (footpath, track, trail) in French, and senda (footpath) in Spanish [source].

Are there other words for pavement / sidewalk in English?

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Trigraphs

This week I made some improvements to the Yurok (Puliklah) language page on Omniglot, and added a page about a related language, Wiyot (Soulatluk).

Yurokhouse
Yurok house

Both languages were spoken in northern California in the USA until fairly recently, and efforts are being made to revive them. They are classified as belonging to the Algic language family, which also includes the Algonquian languages. The Algonquian languages are spoken mainly in eastern and southern Canada, down the east coast, and in eastern and central parts of the USA. So it’s interesting that Yurok and Wiyot ended up so far away in California.

Recently, Sergei Nikolaev (Сергей Николаев), a Russian linguist, has proposed a link between the Algic languages and Nivkh, which is spoken in Sakhalin Island and along the Amur river in the Russian Far East, and also with the Wakashan languages of British Colombia and Washington state.

In the 1970s and 1980s, ways to write Yurok, and other Native American languages of northern California, with the Unifon alphabet were devised and promoted by Tom Parsons (1930-2018), the director of Humboldt State University’s Community Development Center. A number of Yurok books in Unifon were published, however the alphabet is no longer used, as far as I can tell. Do you know of any other constructed scripts that have been / are used like this?

Yurok is currently written with the New Yurok Alphabet, a spelling system using the Latin alphabet that was devised in 2020. It includes some interesting choices of letters, such as ee for [i], eee for [iː], ue for [u] and uue for [uː]. Digraphs (double letters) are common enough, but trigraphs (triple letters) are relatively rare. I’m not sure why they didn’t use i, ii, u and uu for these sounds, but if it works for them, great.

By the way, one way to say two in Yurok is nee’eeen – that’s a lot of e’s in a row! That is one of the forms of two you would use to count human beings, body parts, utensils, etc. If you’re counting round things, rocks or money, two would be no’oh, for worms, ropes, etc. it’s na’ak’, for plants it’s na’ak’wo’n, for days it’s na’amoyhl, and so on. Quite simple really 🙂 – see the Yurok numbers page for more details.

Are there any other languages you know of that have words with three or more of the same letters in a row?

One example I can think of is eeee ee [iː.iː iː], which means ‘she will eat’ in Manx. Another is jäääär [ˈjæːˌæːr], which means ‘the edge of the ice’ in Estonian.

Examples in Yurok include:

  • cheeek = money
  • Cheeek Cheeek ‘O’l = mythical home of money
  • cheeek mehl’ee’eekew = money snake
  • meeekee = both sides
  • ‘o chweeegeen = place in the mountains where one regularly sits and prays, telephone
  • wee’eeet = this, that, those

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algic_languages
https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~yurok/lexicon.php
https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~yurok/text-details.php

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Jack Of All Trades

If someone described you as a jack of all trades, would you see it as a compliment or an insult?

One man band

These days, this phrase might refer to someone who has some ability in a variety of things, but doesn’t excel at any of them. Or in other words, a generalist with superficial knowledge / ability in various areas, rather than a specialist who focuses on becoming expert at one thing.

The earliest known version of the phrase in English, Jack-of-all-trades, appeared in print in 1618 in Geffray Mynshul’s book Essayes and Characters of a prison and prisoners in the following passage:

Now for the moſt part your porter is either ſome broken cittizen, who hath plaid Jack-of-all-trades, ſome pander, broker, or hangman, that hath plaid the knaue with all men, and for the more certainty his embleme is a red beard, to which ſacke hath made his noſe couſin german.

Key: ſt = st, ſ = s, moſt = most, cittizen = citizen, hath = has, plaid = played, knaue = knave, noſe = nose

A longer version of the phrase is jack of all trades, master of none – the master of none part, or something similar, was added in the 18th century. It first appears in the Gnomologia: Adagies and Proverbs; Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings, Ancient and Modern, Foreign and British as:

Jack of all Trades is of no Trade

Sometimes the phrase is made less insulting by adding an extra part: Jack of all trades, master of none, but better than a master of one, or Jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one. These are modern additions to the phrase, although some people claim that the ‘original’ version included something like them [source].

Synonyms for jack of all trades include:

  • generalist = a person with a broad general knowledge, especially one with more than superficial knowledge in several areas and the ability to combine ideas from diverse fields.
  • polymath = a person with extraordinarily broad and comprehensive knowledge. From Ancient Greek πολυμαθής (polumathḗs – having learnt much).
  • Renaissance man/woman/person
  • factotum = a person employed to do all sorts of duties, a general servant, a person having many diverse activities or responsibilities. From Latin faciō (do, make) & tōtum (everything).
  • sciolist [ˈsaɪəlɪst] = one who exhibits only superficial knowledge; a self-proclaimed expert with little real understanding. From Late Latin sciolus, a diminutive of scius (knowing).
  • multipotentialite = a term coined by Emilie Wapnick in 2015 to refer to people with many interests and creative pursuits. See: https://puttylike.com

Here are some equivalent phrases in other languages:

  • 万事通 [萬事通] (wànshìtōng) = jack of all trades, know-it-all: “10,000 things expert” (Chinese)
  • duizendpoot = a person of many talents; a centipede: “1,000 leg” (Dutch)
  • touche-à-tout = jack of all trades: “[who] touches everything” (French)
  • 何でも屋 = (nandemoya) generalist, jack of all trades: “anything-er” (Japanese)
  • hombre orquesta = one-man band, factotum: “man orchestra” (Spanish)

Are you a generalist, or more of a specialist?

I’m more of a generalist with a variety of interests, skills and knowledge. For me, one language is never enough, and neither is one instrument, one type of music, or one type of juggling or other circus skill.

Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_of_all_trades
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/jack-of-all-trades.html
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/408782/is-jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none-really-just-a-part-of-a-longer-proverb

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Superfluously Redundant

What does the word redundant have to do with surges and waves? Let’s find out.

redundancy

Meanings of redundant [ɹɪˈdʌn.dənt / ɹɪˈdan.dənt] include:

  • Superfluous; exceeding what is necessary, no longer needed.
  • Repetitive or needlessly wordy (of words, writing, etc).
  • Dismissed from employment because no longer needed (mainly UK, Ireland, Australia & New Zealand).
  • Duplicating or able to duplicate the function of another component of a system, providing backup in the event the other component fails.

It comes from the Latin word redundāns (overflowing, abounding), from redundō (to overflow, abound, pour out), from red- (again, back) + undō (surge, flow, abound), from unda (a wave, billow) [source].

Words from the same roots include undulate (to move in a wavelike motion, to appear wavelike) and redound (to contribute, reverberate, attach, reflect) in English, and ridondare (to overflow, abound, overwhelm) in Italian, redundar (to redound, result) in Spanish, and ondoyer (to sway, undulate) in French [source].

The word superfluous (in excess of what is required or sufficient) has a similarly overflowing origin – it comes from Middle English superfluous (redundant, immoderate, excessive), from Latin superfluus (running over, overflowing, superfluous, unnecessary), from superfluō (to run over, overflow, be superfluous), from super- (over, above) + fluō (to flow, stream, pour) [source].

Another word from similarly flowing roots is mellifluous, which means sweet, smooth and musical, or pleasant to hear, and usually refers to a person’s voice, tone or writing style. It can also mean ‘flowing like honey’, and comes from Latin mellifluus (honey-dropping, flowing with honey, mellifluous), from mel (honey, sweetness, pleasantness) + fluō (to flow, pour, stream) [source].

If someone has a mellifluous voice, you might describe them as melliloquent, an old word meaning ‘speaking sweetly or harmoniously’, from Latin mel (honey, etc) + loquens (speaking, talking) [source].

Back in 2008, I was made redundant from my job as a web developer in Brighton. Or rather, my position was made redundant – that’s how they put it. They gave me a substantial redundancy payment and that was that. At the time, I couldn’t really afford to stay in Brighton, and fancied a change of scenery anyway, so I moved to Bangor and did an MA in Linguistics. I’ve been here ever since, working on Omniglot full-time, and am fortunate enough to make a living from it.

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Random Flowing Slumps

One of the random Swedish words I learnt recently that I rather like is slumpmässig, which means random, arbitary or haphazard, and isn’t just en slumpmässig radda bokstäver (a random jumble of letters).

Some other examples of how it’s used include:

  • Jag skall nämna några saker i slumpmässig ordningsföljd
    I would like to list a few issues in no particular order
  • Denna utveckling är inte slumpmässig
    This has not happened by chance

Related words include:

  • slump = accident, chance, coincidence, happenstance, hazard
  • slumpa = to randomize
  • slumpartad = casual, coincidental, fortuitous, serendipitous
  • slumpartat möte = chance encounter
  • slumpmässigt = random, haphazardly

Source: bab.la dictionary

The English word slump is possibly related to the Danish and Norwegian word slumpe (to happen on by chance), which comes from the Middle Low German slumpen, and may be onomatopoeic in origin [source].

Incidentally, the English word random comes from the Middle English randoun / raundon (force, magnitude, haste, intensity), from the Old French randon, from randir (to run, gallop), from the Frankish *rant / *rand (run), from the Proto-Germanic *randijō, from *rinnaną (to run), from the Proto-Indo-European *(H)r ̊-nw- (to flow, move, run) [source].

Which is all a bit random, is it not?