Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know or can you guess the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
Author: Simon
I am a linguist, web developer and musician. I live in Bangor in Wales and run Omniglot - the online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages, as well as making the Radio Omniglot Podcast.
Bonnets
What would you call a knitted woolen hat with a bobble on top?
I would call it a bobble hat, and I discovered yesterday that in French such a hat is called un bonnet à pompons or un chapeau à pompons or simply un bonnet. What about in other languages?
Bonnet [bɔ.nɛ] also means hat, cap, beanie, knit cap, skully, stocking cap or (bra) cup. Other types of bonnet include:
- bonnet d’âne = dunce’s cap
- bonnet de bain = bathing cap, swimming hat
- bonnet de nuit = nightcap
- bonnet de police = forage cap
- bonnet de douche = shower cap
A bigwig, or “person of consequence”, is un gros bonnet, and the French equivalent of six of one, half a dozen of the other is bonnet blanc, blanc bonnet.
Bonnet comes from the Middle French bonet, from the Old French bonet (material from which hats are made), from the Frankish *bunni (that which is bound), from the Proto-Germanic *bundiją (bundle), from the Proto-Indo-European *bʰendʰ- (to tie).
The English word bonnet comes from the same root, and can refer to various types of headgear, particularly a type of hat usually framing the face and tied with ribbons under the chin and worn mainly by females.
In Scots a bonnet/bunnet refers to “A head covering for men or boys, including all kinds of caps, but not hats”.
Sources: ReversoDictionary, Wiktionary, Dictionaries of the Scots Language / Dictionars o the Scots Leid
Knickknacks
An interesting Dutch word I learnt yesterday is liflafjes [ˈlɪf.lɑf.jəs], which
means scraps, trimmings, leftovers or knickknacks [source]. The singular version, liflafje, apparently means “a small meal that fails to fill” or “a trifle” and is a diminutive of liflaf, which means insipid food, insipid text(s) or bland writing, and used to mean insipid or tasteless [source].
According to webwoordenboek.nl, liflaf means “een smakelijk maar weinig voedzaam gerechtje” (a tasty but not very nutritious dish), or “een aardig maar overbodig iets” (a nice but unnecessary thing).
These words come from liflaffen, a dated word that’s used mainly in Belgium to mean to grovel, fawn, flatter, caress or fondle. A related word is liflafferij [ˌlɪf.lɑ.fəˈrɛi̯], which means flattery or sweet-talking [source].
A knick(-)knack is a small ornament of minor value, a trinket or bauble. It is a reduplication of knack (aptness, petty contrivance, trick), which possibly comes from the Middle English krak (a sharp blow). An equivalent in Dutch is snuisterij [source].
A mishmash is a collection containing a variety of miscellaneous things. It is a reduplication of mash. Some synonyms include hodgepodge, melange, mingle-mangle, oddments and odds and ends. Do you have any others? An equivalent in Dutch is mikmak [source].
Language Quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know or can you guess the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
Snoring Fits
I came across an interesting Dutch word today – snorfiets [snɔrfits], which sounds like ‘snore fits’, and means a moped or scooter, particularly one limited to a maximum speed of 25 km/h (15.5 mph) [source].
Snor [snɔr] on its own means mustache or whiskers, and when I saw snorfiets I thought it maybe referred to a bicycle with mustache-shaped handlebars, or some other mustache-shaped parts. In fact it comes from snorren (to hum, roar, purr, whirr).
Fiets [fits] means bicycle, and its origins are uncertain. It may be named after Elie Cornelis Viets, a wheelwright from Wageningen who made and repaired bicycles from 1880. It may be an abbreviation of a Dutch version of the French word velocipède, or it might come from vietse/fiette, Limburg and East Brabant dialect words meaning ‘to run fast or move quickly’, or from the older dialect word vietsen (to move quickly). The last exclamation is thought to be the most likely [source].
Bicycles, or fietsen, are quite popular in the Netherlands, so much so that there are more bikes than people there. According to an article in The Brussels Times, in 2018 there were an estimated 22.9 million bicycles in the Netherlands, and just 17.2 million people, or 1.3 bicycles per person.
Other types of fiets include:
- bakfiets = cargo bike, freight bike
- bierfiets = a party bike, beer bike – a pedal-powered road vehicle with a bar counter, multiple seats and a beer tap, so that the riders can drink while riding
- bromfiets = moped
- ligfiets = recumbent bike
- motorfiets = motorbike
- omafiets = roadster bike (“grandma bike”)
- racefiets = racing/road bike
Language Quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know or can you guess the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
Pling!
I discovered the other day the the exclamation mark (!), which is apparently known as an exclamation point in American English, has a number of other names. When it was first introduced by printers in the 15th century, it was known as a sign of admiration or exclamation or the note of admiration in English.
In the early 20th century it was known as an ecphoneme [source]. A related word is eroteme, which is another name for the question mark (?), and comes from the Ancient Greek ἐρώτημα (erṓtēma – question), from ερωτώ (erotó – to ask) [source].
In 1950s American typesetting manuals it was referred to as a bang. Related punctuation marks are the interrobang (‽), a combination of an exclamation mark and question mark that was invented in 1962 by Martin K. Speckter, an American advertising executive [source], and the gnaborretni (⸘), an inverted interrobang [source].
Printers might call it a screamer, gasper, slammer or startler.
British hackers apparently call it, or called it, a shriek or pling, which is my favourite name for this punctuation mark.
In Welsh the exclamation mark is known as a ebychnod, from ebychu (to exclaim) and nod (mark), or rhyfeddnod, from rhyfedd (strange, odd) and nod.
In Armenian the equivalent of the exclamation mark (see below) is known as a Բացականչական նշան (Bats’akanch’akan nshan) or “exclamatory mark/sign” or “screamer”.
Here are some exclamation marks in other alphabets:
What is the exclamation mark called in other languages?
Here’s a video I made last week about the word exclamation:
Snirtle
An interesting word I learnt yesterday from the Something Rhymes With Purple podcast was snirtle, which means “to try to suppress your laughter (often without success)”.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary it is Scots and means “to laugh with snorts”, and Wiktionary defines it as “to snigger” or “a snigger”.
According to Dictionaries of the Scots Language /
Dictionars o the Scots Leid, snirtle [ˈsnɪrtəl] is a variation of snirt, which means “to snigger, to make a noise through the nose when attempting to stifle laughter, to sneer”, “to snort, to breathe sharply and jerkily through the nose”, or “a snigger, a suppressed laugh”.
Some related expressions and examples of how it’s used:
- to snirt(le) (with)in one’s sleeve = to snigger surreptitiously
- to snirt out a-laughing = to burst out into laughter, after having unsuccessfully tried to stifle it
- The young were snirtin’ in their sleeves
- He snirtled in an ecstasy of disgust
- Mary, still choking, snirted tea over the table
Snirtle and snirt are probably initative of the sounds you make when you snirt or snirtle.
Are there words with similar meanings in other languages?
Language Quiz
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know or can you guess the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
¡Guácala!
One of the Spanish words I learnt today was ¡guácala! [ˈɡwa.ka.la], which means yuck! ew! gross! it’s disgusting! and similar exclamations of disgust. It’s used in El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic to indicate dislike, disgust, or rejection [source].
It comes from guacal (wooden crate, tub, calabash tree), from the Classical Nahuatl huacalli [kwaˈkalːi] (wooden crate) [source]. Why a word for a wooden crate became an exclamation of disgust is not clear.
Here are some examples of how it’s used (from ReversoContext and Duolingo):
- ¡Guácala! ¡Sabe horrible! = Yuck! It tastes horrible!
- ¡Guácala, casi lo pisé! = Ew, I almost stepped in it.
- ¡No, guácala! = No, it’s disgusting!
- ¡Guácala, mal postre = Euhhh… bad pie
Related words include:
- guácara = vomit
- guacarear = to vomit
Both of which are used in Mexico.
Other Spanish words with a similar meaning include:
- ¡Qué asco! = Yuck! How revolting! How disgusting!
- ¡Puaj! = Ew! Yeech! Blecchh! Yuk! Phooey! Gross!
- ¡Uf! = Phew! Ugh!
- ¡Puf! = Yuck!
Are there other words in Spanish with a similar meaning?
What about equivalent words in other languages?
One of my favourite expressions in Welsh is ych a fi! [əx ə viː], which means yuck! [source].
The word ych, pronounced [ɨːχ/iːχ], also means ox.