Tag Archives: #polyglot

Icelandic: Elves and some survival phrases

Today’s blog post is taking us to the far North of Europe, namely to Iceland, the land of geysirs and volcanoes, sagas and eddas, Vikings, and of álfar (elves). 🙂 The elves living in Iceland are also known as Huldufólk, which derives from huldu– ‘pertaining to secrecy’ and fólk ‘people, folk’. There are said to be 13 different types of elves living in Iceland, who have the same size and the appearance of humans, but are invisible to most humans. Building and construction projects sometimes have to be altered because they would damage or disturb the rocks and places where elves are said to reside. Elves usually live in mounds and like dancing, but dislike electricity, churches and crosses, and one should not throw stones in Iceland because of the possibility of hitting elves. Precursors to the Huldufólk date back to the writings of Snorri Sturluson and to skaldic verse. The legends surrounding elves are an example of the intangible and oral heritage of Iceland. In the picture below, you can see some álfhól (elf houses):

Author: Christian Bickel, Wikipedia Commons
Elf houses in Iceland

The Huldufólk are also part of Faroese folklore, where they are said to have black hair and to wear grey clothes. The Faroese language is closely related to Icelandic.

Here is a photo of a road which had to be built around rocks where elves are said to live:

Author: Christian Bickel, Wikipedia Commons
Álfastein in Kópavogur near Álfholsvegur 125

Here are some survival phrases in Icelandic:

Halló Hello

Bless Goodbye

Takk fyrir! Thank you

Þakka þér kærlega fyrir! Thank you very much!

Það var ekkert You are welcome

Fyrirgefðu Sorry

Afsakið Excuse me

Hvað heitir þú? What’s your name?

Ég heiti…. My name is…

Hvernig ert þú? How are you?

Allt fínt. En þú? Fine. And you?

Useful language learning tool: ‘Word of the day’

Author: Paul, Wikipedia Commons

Today’s blog post is about a language tool I find very useful, both for learning new languages and for keeping up old ones: the ‘Word of the Day’-feature offered by several websites for free, which you can often also subscribe by email.

These ‘Words of the Day’ are offered for many languages, though not for all, unfortunately, and each website offers a different selection of languages. I find this feature really useful when used every single day because it makes sure that you hear at least one sentence a day in each language which you speak (provided there is a page which offers this feature for the language you want).

Here are some websites which offer them for multiple languages:

http://www.innovativelanguage.com/word-of-the-day – this is one of the best offers for the ‘Word of the Day’-feature since the number of languages offered is quite large. Beware, though, of their “free lifetime account”! I strongly recommend *not* signing up for it since all you sign up for is a lifetime of *spam* as this company will send you at least 2 emails each single day, often even 3, and the ‘unsubscribe’-function notoriously does not work!!! Their youtube channel is also good though.

http://www.transparent.com/word-of-the-day/ – this page offers a different selection of languages, some rather “exotic” languages among them, which other websites don’t offer

For Irish Gaelic: http://www.gaelchultur.com/ga/frasa_an_lae.aspx

The handwritten Hebrew alphabet

Today’s blog post is taking us to Israel and to the Hebrew language, and more precisely to the Hebrew alphabet. Since Hebrew courses and textbooks often only teach the printed version of the Hebrew script, but the handwritten alphabet looks markedly different, I thought the handwritten alphabet and how to write it would be a nice topic for a blog post. 🙂 Here is the handwritten alphabet, with little arrows indicating how to write the letters:

The same alphabet is also used for writing Yiddish, with only slight variations of some letters. The alphabet is written from right to left, and there are no capital letters. Five letters take a different form when they are in the final position of a word (last letter of a word); these are the letters khaf, mem, nun, feh and tsadi.

Author: Golasso, Wikipedia Commons
The Western Wall in Jerusalem

Survival phrases in Tagalog (Filipino)

Today’s blog post will take us to the Philippines and its national language, Tagalog or Filipino (Pilipino). Tagalog is an Austronesian language, the language family that also includes languages such as Malay, Bahasa Indonesia, Malagasy and Hawaiian to name but a few. The name Tagalog itself derives from ‘taga-ilog’, which means river dweller. Filipino, the national languages of the Philippines, was developed as a lingua franca in the 1930s, and Tagalog, a language spoken predominantly in Manila and Central and South Luzon, was chosen as its base, into which words and elements from other Phillipine languages were then incorporated. Tagalog vocabulary includes a wealth of words from Spanish and English, and the words for numbers, days of the week and for months are actually loanwords from Spanish, but spelled in Filipino.

Here are some ‘survival phrases’ in Tagalog 🙂 :

Kumusta Hello

Babay Goodbye

Salamat Thank you

Walang anuman You’re welcome

Ako si….. My name is……

Oo Yes

Hindi No

Hindi ko naiintindihan I don’t understand

Sori Sorry

Eksyus mi Excuse me

Kumusta po kayo? How are you?

Mabuti po I’m fine

Author: B. Navez, Wikipedia Commons
Ylang-ylang plant, a native plant from the Phillipines

Tagalog has also contributed some words to the English language. Some words of Tagalog-origin commonly used in English are:

Ylang-ylang a tropical tree with yellow flowers from the Phillipines, from which a fragrance is derived

Capiz a shiny oyster shell, which is used in the production of crafts

Abaca a type of hemp fibre made from the Abaca-plant, a plant in the banana family

Cogon a type of grass used for thatching, from the word kugon (a species of tall grass)

Boondocks a word meaning ‘rural’ or ‘backcountry’ in English, which is derived from a mispronunciation of the word bundok (“mountain”)

Jeepney in the Phillipines

Lithuanian months and their etymology

Author: luc viatour, wikipedia commons

Today’s blog post will be about Lithuanian, more precisely about the etymology and the meaning of the words for months. Like many of the neighboring Slavonic languages, Lithuanian, a Baltic language, does not use the Latin names for the months, but its own, more ancient names for the months, which are based on the seasons and agricultural activities (just like the Slavonic months).

Sausis (January) – from sausas meaning ‘dry’; this derives from the fact that precipitation at this time of year is usually in the form of dry snowflakes

Vasaris (February) – from vasara ‘summer’; this is because the days begin to lengthen at this time and thoughts turn toward summer

Kovas (March) – derives either from kovas, meaning rook (a bird), or kova ‘struggle’; rooks are building their nests at this time, or alternatively the struggle between winter and spring

Balandis (April) – from balandis ‘dove’; the time when doves build their nests

Gegužė (May) – from gegužė, the cuckoo; its call is believed to herald the arrival of spring

Birželis (June) – from beržas, the birch, which blooms in this month

Liepa (July) – from liepa, the linden tree, which flowers in this month

Rugpjūtis (August) – from rugiai, ‘rye’, and pjauti, ‘to cut’, therefore literally the month in which rye is cut

Rugsėjis (September) – from rugiai, ‘rye’, and sėti, ‘to sow’, so the month in which rye is sown, which then overwinters in the fields before it starts to grow in spring

Spalis (October) – from spaliai, flax hards, which are harvested at this time of the year

Lapkritis (November) – from lapas, ‘leaf’, and kristi, ‘to fall’, the month in which the leaves fall

Gruodis (December) – from gruodas, which means something like a ‘frozen clod’, which forms in the fields at this time of the year

What becomes apparent when one compares these meanings with those of the months of the Slavonic languages (see also my last blog post), is that many months derive their names from the same event in the agricultural year, for example, the falling of the leaves (‘listopad’ in Slavonic), the flowering of the birch and linden trees, clods of frozen soil, etc., even though the languages are not related linguistically (Lithuanian is a Baltic language, whereas most languages in the neighboring countries are Slavonic languages).

Lithuanian is a very interesting language from the linguistic point of view, because it still retains many features of Proto-Indo-European, which are now lost in other lndo-European languages. It is closely related to Latvian.

Slavonic names of the months

Author: luc viatour, wikipedia commons

Today´s blog post will be about the names of the months in various Slavonic languages, which are not based on the Latin names and often have quite poetic names that have their origin in the seasonal changes and in agricultural activities typical for a specific time of the year. Many of these meanings are obvious, while others have been forgotten and their original meanings can only be guessed.

Here are the months in Ukrainian:

January січень – the slicing month (because of the ‘slicing’ cold)

February лютень – the angry month (angry frosts and blizzards)

March березень – the month of birches

April квітень – the month of flowers

May травень – the grass month

June червень – the red month (because fruits begin to ripen)

July липень – the month of linden trees

August серпень – the sickle month

September вересень – the heather month

October жовтень – the yellow month

November листопад – the month of falling leaves

December грудень – the month of the frozen soil

And here are the Croatian months:

January siječanj – the month of timber-cutting

February veljača – the huge month, with prolonged coldness

March ožujak

April travanj – the grass month

May svibanj – the month of vigorous growth and flowering shrubs

June lipanj – the month of linden blossoms

July srpanj – the month of the sickle (harvest month)

August kolovoz – the harvest month when wheat is harvested and threshed

September rujan – the reddish month (when the trees turn red)

October listopad – month of the falling leaves

November studeni – the cold month

December prosinac – the month when good weather and sunshine first appears after the autumn fogs

Author: Aplaster, wikipedia commons

The Czech names for the months:

January leden – the month of ice

February únor – the month of renewal

March březen – the month of birches

April duben – the month of oaks

May květen – the blooming month

June červen – the red month (fruits are ripening)

July červenec – the red month where fruits are ripening

August srpen – the sickle month (harvest)

September září

October říjen – the rutting month (of deer)

November listopad – the month of falling leaves

December prosinec – the month when good weather appears after the autumn fogs

Author: poco a poco, wikipedia commons

And finally the months in Polish:

January styczeń

February luty – the month of angry frosts

March marzec

April kwiecień – the flowering and blooming month

May maj

June czerwiec – the red month when fruits are ripening

July lipiec – the month of linden trees

August sierpień – the month of the sickle (harvest)

September wrzesień – the heather month

October październik

November listopad – the month of falling leaves

December grudzień – the month where lumps form on roads and fields

Vegetables in Serbo-Croatian

Today´s blogpost will continue with the vegetable theme, this time with the words for vegetables in Serbo-Croatian.

Nowruz, the Persian New Year

Today’s blog post is about the Persian New Year’s festival, called نوروز Nowruz or Nooruz, which literally means “new day”. Nowruz is celebrated on the spring equinox, which usually falls on 21 March and marks the beginning of the Persian calendar. The time for the equinox is calculated exactly each year and has a different time in different locations. Nowruz has been celebrated for over 3,000 years and partly has its roots in Zoroastrianism. It is a public holiday in many countries of Central Asia, and it is an occasion for family and friends to gather and celebrate together.

A central feature of this celebration is the so-called Haft Seen table (هفت‌سین ) or the Seven S’s. These are 7 items that are placed on the table and which all start with the letter ‘S’:

sabzeh ( سبزه‎)- wheat, barley, mung bean or lentil sprouts growing in a dish, often from seven different kinds of seeds – symbolizing rebirth
samanu (سمنو‎)- sweet pudding made from wheat germ – symbolizing affluence
senjed ( سنجد‎)- dried oleaster Wild Olive fruit – symbolizing love
sir (سیر‎)- garlic – symbolizing medicine
sib ( سیب‎)- apples – symbolizing beauty and health
somaaq (سماق‎)- sumac fruit – symbolizing (the color of) sunrise
serkeh ( سرکه‎) – vinegar – symbolizing old age and patience

Other items on the table may include:

– sekkeh (سکه) coins – symbolizing wealth

– sonbol (سنبل) hyacinth – symbolizing fertility

– a mirror (ايبه) – symbolizing honesty and cleanness

– painted eggs – symbolizing fertility

– lit candles – symbolizing happiness and enlightenment

– a bowl of water with goldfish (ماهی قرمز )- “life within life”

– pomegranates (ابار)

– sprays of cypress or pine

– rosewater golab (گلاب ) – believed to have magical cleansing powers

– a holy book or a poetry book (very often the Divan of Hafiz or the Shahnameh)

– aajeel ( اجیل)- dried nuts, berries, dates or raisins

– clay figurines of animals

The Haft Seen were originally called ‘Haft Chin’, the word Chin (چین) meaning “to place” and Haft (هفت) the number seven. In this context the Haft Seen were associated with Zoroastrians deities or divinities and the elements represented by them:

– the mirror symbolized the Sky

– the apple symbolized the Earth

– the candles symbolized Fire

– the rosewater (golab) symbolized Water

– the sabzeh sprouts symbolized Plants

– the goldfish symbolized Animals

– the painted eggs symbolized humans and fertility

Fire is the symbol of Nowruz and people usually build a fire around which they celebrate and dance, often jumping over the flames. Another custom associated with this festival is to clean one’s home thoroughly before the holiday and to buy new clothes to wear.

Vegetables in Finnish and Hungarian

Today´s post is about the words for some vegetables in Finnish and Hungarian – a nice topic for spring and the upcoming gardening season 🙂 . Both Finnish and Hungarian are some of the languages I plan to focus more seriously on this year, so this is just the beginning of posts featuring these two languages.

Here are the words for some vegetables in Hungarian:

Even though both languages belong to the same Finno-Ugric language family, they actually have virtually nothing in common as far as vocabulary is concerned and are mutually totally unintelligible. The only similarities that they do have is in the way the grammar is constructed and that both languages depend heavily on endings and case inflection.

Georgian – kartuli ena

Today´s post is about the Georgian language, which is called ქართული ენა kartuli ena in Georgian and belongs to the Kartvelian group of languages and is spoken by about 4.3 million people. In my opinion, the Georgian alphabet is one of the most beautiful scripts in the world. The alphabet has no capital letters and consists of 33 letters, of which 5 are vowels and 28 are consonants. The script is written from left to right. The Georgian language is an agglutinative language, which means that verbs and words are formed by adding prefixes and suffixes to a root. For example, the root kartv refers to ‘Georgia’, so Sakartvelo means ‘Georgia’, kartuli the ‘Georgian language’ and kartveli a ‘Georgian person’.

Here some basic phrases to give you an impression of this not so well-known language:

გამარჯობათ [gamarjobat] Hello!

გმადლობთ [gmadlobt] Thank you!

ნახვამდის [nakhvamdis] Goodbye!

მაპატიეთ [mapatiet] I’m sorry!

გეთაყვა [getaqva] please

ჩემი სახელია … [chemi sakhelia….] My name is…

Polyglottando

A blog about languages, multilingual living and cultural diversity