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In this episode I take you on an adventure in etymology, the study of where words come from, and how they have changed over time. I start with the word etymology, and see where I end up.
Push ad Pull / Gwthio a Thynnu
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In this episode I talk about Dutch (Nederlands), a West Germanic language spoken mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium. I talk about the language itself and its history, about my attempts to learn it, and related stuff.
English words of Dutch origin include: Santa Claus, yacht, yankee, wildebeest, wagon, wiggle, waffle, stove, stoop, snack, skate, scone, rover, poppycock, pickle, plug, mannequin, maelstrom, luck, landscape, knapsack, jib, gin, furlough and many more [source].
Hedge Cats / Cathod y Gwyrch
See the score for this tune.
Cats on the Shed / Cathod ar y Cwt
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In this episode I talk about talent, particularly talent for languages. Do some people have an innate talent for learning languages? Do others lack such a talent? If you don’t have a talent for languages, can you learn one anyway?
Further reading:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-innate-talent-a-myth/
Hedge Cats / Cathod y Gwyrch
See the score for this tune.
Little Red Boats / Cychod bach coch – a tune I wrote on the cavaquinho in 2017.
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In this episode I talk about the Czech language (čeština / český jazyk). I give an overview of the language itself, talk about my efforts to learn it.
Source: https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strč_prst_skrz_krk
Translations and recordings by Rhee Diculous
https://www.omniglot.com/writing/czech.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_orthography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_phonology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_conjugation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Czech_language
Hedge Cats / Cathod y Gwyrch (played on the cavaquinho)
See the score for this piece
Hajej, můj zlatouškou (a Czech lullaby)
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In this episode I talk about language families – what they are, and how they develop, and I introduce some major and minor language families.
According to Wikipedia, a language family is “a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestral language or parental language, called the proto-language of that family”.
According to Ethnologue there are currently 142 different language families and 7,111 living languages. The ten largest languages families account for about 88% of the world’s population, and 74% of the world’s languages.
| Language Family | Number of languages | Number of speakers |
|---|---|---|
| Niger-Congo | 1,526 | 519,814,033 |
| Austronesian | 1,223 | 325,862,510 |
| Trans-New Guinea | 478 | 3,580,507 |
| Sino-Tibetan | 453 | 1,385,995,195 |
| Indo-European | 445 | 3,237,999,904 |
| Afro-Asiatic | 365 | 499,294,669 |
| Australian | 204 | 37,032 |
| Nilo-Saharan | 200 | 53,359,610 |
| Otomanguean | 177 | 1,715,045 |
| Austro-Asiatic | 167 | 116,323,040 |
| Total | 5,238 | 6,143,981,545 |
Here’s an illustration a the family tree of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elvish languages:
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvish_languages_(Middle-earth)
More information about language families
https://www.omniglot.com/writing/langfam.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_family
https://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/family
https://www.mustgo.com/worldlanguages/language-families/
Dancing Donkeys / Asynnod sy’n Dawnsio
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In this episode I talk about pidgins and creoles – what are they, how they develop, what they sound like, how they are structed, and so on.
Here’s how a pidgin or pidgin language is defined on Dictionary.com:
1. an auxiliary language that has come into existence through the attempts by the speakers of two different languages to communicate and that is primarily a simplified form of one of the languages, with a reduced vocabulary and grammatical structure and considerable variation in pronunciation.
2. (loosely) any simplified or broken form of a language, especially when used for communication between speakers of different languages.
The definition of pidgin in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is even simpler:
a simplified speech used for communication between people with different languages
In the 19th century a form of pidgin, known as Chinese Pidgin English, developed between European and Chinese merchants in China. Pidgin was the way the Chinese pronounced business, and referred to this form of language. Later it was used to refer to all such contact languages. It was first used in writing in 1807 [source].
Dictionary.com defines a creole language:
a creolized language; a pidgin that has become the native language of a speech community
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a creole language as:
a language that has evolved from a pidgin but serves as the native language of a speech community
The word creole was first used in the 17th century, and comes from the Portuguese crioulo (a slave born in one’s household, person of European ancestry born in the colonies), probably from criar (to bring up), from the Latin creāre (to create) [source].
Bislama
Tok Pisin
Haitian Creole
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_language
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/langfam.htm#creoles
Details of the Polyglot Cruise 2020 – remember to use the code OMNIGLOT to get US$50 off!
Time To Play / Amser i Chwarae
The Frog’s Excuse / Esgus y Llyffant
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In this episode I bring you news from the 2019 Polyglot Gathering, an annual get-together of polyglots and language lovers from all over the world. This year the Polyglot Gathering took place in Bratislava, Slovakia for the third time – it started in 2015 in Berlin, and was there for three years, then moved to Bratislava. The next Gathering will be in Teresin, near Warsaw in Poland from 26-30 May 2020.
I was planning to interview people at the Gathering, and to keep an audio diary, but was enjoying myself too much and decided to give you a flavour of the event after I got home. So this is the story of my Adventures in Polyglotland.
My badge from the Polyglot Gathering showing the languages I speak fluently, or at least fairly well:
N = native language, C = advanced level, B = intermediate level, A = basic / elementary level, en = English, cy = Cymraeg (Welsh), zh = 中文 [zhōngwén] – (Mandarin Chinese), ga = Gaeilge (Irish), es = español (Spanish), de = Deutsch (German), eo = Esperanto, gd = Gàidhlig (Scottish Gaelic), ja = Japanese, gv = Gaelg Vanninagh (Manx Gaelic), ru = Русский [Russkij] (Russian), cs = český (Czech), sv = Svenska (Swedish), da = Dansk (Danish).
Information about polyglot events: http://www.omniglot.com/events/
Bear With Me / Aros am yr Arth
Echoes on the Tongue / Atseiniau ar y Tafod
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In this episode I talk about the international language, or la lingva internacia, otherwise known as Esperanto. I look into it’s history and development, and discuss the language itself.
Here are some native speakers of Esperanto (they do exist) talking in Esperanto:
How Esperanto can help you to learn other languages:
This is an original song in Esperanto:
The Esperanto anthem, La Espero, written by L.L. Zamenhof:
Mwmpwy Porthaethwy / Menai Bridge Fancy
More information about Esperanto:
http://esperanto.net/en/
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/esperanto.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto
https://lernu.net/en/esperanto
http://mylanguages.org/learn_esperanto.php
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Most people know, or at least have some idea what an alphabet is, but many people might not be so familiar with abjads, abugidas, syllabaries and other writing systems. In this episode I explain what these words mean, and how these writing systems work. I also talk a bit about the history of writing.
Here are some definitions:
Alphabet – a set of letters or other signs, usually arranged in a fixed order, used to represent the phonemes (sounds) of a language [source].
Abjad – a type of writing system where each symbol stands for a consonant, leaving the reader to supply the appropriate vowel [source]. Also known as a consonant alphabet. Long vowels can be indicated by consonants, and short vowels can be indicated by lines, dots and other squiggles added to the consonants letters. When written with the short vowel symbols, they are said to be ‘vocalised’. Normally they are written ‘unvocalised’.
Abugida – a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is secondary [source]. Also known as a syllabic alphabet or alphasyllabary.
Syllabary – a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) moras which make up words [source].
Logograph – a single written symbol that represents an entire word or phrase without indicating its pronunciation [source].
Ideograph – a graphic character that indicates the meaning of a thing without indicating the sounds used to say it [source].
Pictograph – a picture representing a word, phrase, or idea, especially one used in early writing systems. A picture or symbol standing for a word or group of words [source].
The development of the Chinese character for horse
The tunes featured in the episode are:
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In this episode I look into the differences between languages and dialects, and talk a bit about where they come from and how they develop.
Max Weinreich (1894-1969), a Russian linguist who specialised in sociolinguistics and Yiddish, popularised the saying,
אַ שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמיי און פֿלאָט
(a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot)
A language is a dialect with an army and navy
Apparently he wasn’t the first person to say this, but heard it from an audience member at one of his lectures, and liked it [source] and used it in an article published in 1945 [source].
There are various definitions of language. This is one from the Free Dictionary:
Merriam-Webster defines language as:
There are also different definitions of dialect. The Free Dictionary define it as:
Merriam-Webster defines dialect as:
More details of German and Latin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_dialects
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Latin
There is more discussion about this topic on: Quora, The Atlantic, Aeon, and in these videos:
