Category: English

Y Llyfyrgell

By Simon

Last night I saw the film Y Llyfrgell / The Library Suicides, a Welsh-language thriller based on the book Y Llyfrgell (The Library) by Fflur Dafydd, who also wrote the script and produced the film.

This was the first film I’ve seen in Welsh, and I enjoyed it. It’s set in Aberystwyth, and most of the action takes place in the National Library of Wales / Llyfyrgell Genedlaethol Cymru. The main characters are identical twins who work in the library, and the film starts with the apparent suicide of their mother, a famous author. There are many other twists and turns, and stories within stories which make the film well worth a look.

The twins are played by one actor, Catrin Stewart, who in real life is a twin, though has a twin brother rather than a twin sister. It’s very cleverly done and you never realise that one person is playing both of them.

I didn’t understand all the dialogue at first as it’s in a dialect of Welsh I’m not used to hearing – I’ve got so used to hearing northern dialects of Welsh, other dialects sound a bit strange to me now, but I soon tuned into to it. There were subtitles in English as well, but I tried not to read them.

After the film there was a question and answer with Fflur Dafydd, which was entirely in Welsh, with simultaneous interpretation in English, for those who needed it. It was an interesting discussion and provided many insights into the film making process.

Singluarity

By Simon

I learnt an interesting new French word today – célibataire. When I first saw it I guessed that it meant celibate, but when I checked in a dictionary I found that while it does mean celibate, it is more commonly used to mean single. So un célibataire is a single man or bachelor, and une célibataire is a single woman or spinster. A confirmed bachelor un célibataire endurci and une mère célibataire is a single / unmarried mother – the male equivalent is un père célibataire.

Célibataire comes from célibat (celibacy), from the Latin caelebs (unmarried, single), from the Proto-Indo-European *kaiwelo- ‎(alone) and *libʰs– ‎(living) [source].

Single comes from the Middle English sengle, from the Old French sengle, from Latin singulus, a diminutive of simplex (simple or literally “onefold”*, from sim- ‎(the same) and plicare ‎(to fold) [source].

*Duplex = twofold, double

When is a blog not a blog?

By Simon

When I meet people who are familiar with my website, some of them say how much they like my blog. When I ask them what they like about it, they mention things that are on my website, rather than on this blog, so I soon realise that they’re using the word blog to refer to my website, and possibly this blog, although not all of them are aware of the blog’s existence.

To me the distinction between my website and my blog(s) is clear. They may be on the same server, but they look different and have different functions. I’ve noticed that on some other websites though there isn’t such a clear distinction between blogs and other pages, especially on ones that have grown from blogs. Maybe that’s why people get confused.

Sometimes people tell me about mistakes on other sites which are linked to on Omniglot, thinking that I have something to do with them and can make changes on them. I understand why this happens as they might not realise that they’re on a different site.

None of these things are particularly important, but it’s interesting, to me at least, to notice them.

Is there a distinction between the words for website and blog in other languages?

Suspending disbelief

By Simon

One of the things we talked about in the French conversation group this week was suspending disbelief, which is accepter les invraisemblances in French. That is “accepting the improbabilities”. Another way to say this in French is suspension d’incrédulité.

The word invraisemblance also means unlikeliness or inverisimilitude. Related words include invraisemblable (unlikely, incredible, implausible, improbable) and invraisemblablement (implausible, unlikely).

Its antonym is vraisemblance (plausibility, verisimilitude, likelihood). It comes from vrai (true, real), plus sembler (to seem).

Expressions incorporating vraisemblance include:

– selon toute vraisemblance = in all likelihood, apparently
– essai de vraisemblance = plausibility test
– contrôle de vraisemblance = absurdity check

Sources: Reverso, Linguee and Wikipedia

Apparently the English phrase suspension of disbelief was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 in his Biographia literaria or biographical sketches of my literary life and opinions

See: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/suspension-of-disbelief.html

Are there interesting ways to express this idea in other languages?

Les mots de la semaine

By Simon
français English Cymraeg
le jeu de rôle role playing chwarae rhan, chwarae rôl
accepter les invraisemblances to suspend disbelief
nom à rallonge double-barrelled surname enw dwbl (baril)
fusil à canon double double-barrelled shotgun gwn haels dau/dwy faril, dwbl baril
l’épaule shoulder ysgwydd
l’omoplate (f); la scapulaire shoulder blade (human); scapular palfais; asgwrn palfais; crafell ysgwydd
le paleron shoulder blade (animal) palfais; asgwrn palfais; crafell ysgwydd
railler; se moquer de qn/qch;
se payer la tête de qn		 to make fun of sb/sth gwneud hwyl/sbort am ben rhywun;
chwerthin am ben rhywun
(liquide) trouble cloudy (liquid) cymylog
furtif stealth lladraddaidd
interdit banned gwarharddedig

Are you a phenom?

By Simon

I came across an interesting word in an article about hyperpolyglots I read today (it’s an old article, but I only just found it) – phenoms, which appears in the following sentence:

TIME spoke to Erard about phenoms who can speak more languages than they have fingers, whether anyone can do it and where the upper limits of human potential lie.

According to Dictionary.com, phenom [fɪˈnɒm] is an abbreviation of phenomenon and refers especially to a young prodigy. The definitions are “a person or thing of outstanding abilities or qualities” (informal), or “A phenomenally skilled or impressive person; a performing wonder, esp in sports”.

Apparently it comes from US baseball slang, and was first recorded in 1890.

Merriam-Webster defines a phenom as “a person who is very good at doing something (such as a sport)” or “a person of phenomenal ability or promise”.

Have you come across this word before?

Les chuchoteuses

By Simon

Lindsay et les chuchoteuses

On Rue Staint-Paul in Vieux Montréal there’s a statue of three women having a gossip. It’s known as ‘Les chuchoteuses‘ or ‘The whisperers’. It’s also known as the “fat ladies talking statue”. It’s by Rose-Aimée Bélanger, a sculptor from Ontario, and was installed as part of a 2006 initiative to highlight some of Old Montreal’s forgotten spaces.

The word chuchoteuses [ʃyʃɔtø:z] comes from chuchoter [ʃy.ʃɔ.te] (to whisper; to rustle), which is of imitative origin. Related words include chuchoterie (whispering), chuchotis (faint whispering), chuchotement (a whisper / murmur, rustling).

I like the sound of this word, and of the words for whisper in other languages:

– Italian / Portuguese / Spanish: sussurro, from Latin susurrus ‎(a humming, whispering)
– German: Flüstern
– Dutch: fluistering
– Welsh: sibrwd

What about in other languages?

The photo is one I took while exploring Montréal with Linsday Dow of Linsday Does Languages, who features in it.

Sources: Wiktionary and Reverso

Book hunting in Montreal

By Simon

Yesterday I spent the morning hunting for interesting language books with Lindsay Dow, of Lindsay Does Languages, Benny Lewis, of Fluent in 3 months, Steve Kaufmann, of lingq, and Josh Koehn from California.

The first book shop we went to had a good selection of books in and about a wide variety of languages, including Old Irish, Middle Welsh, Breton and Sanskrit. I resisted buying anything as I have no spare space in my bag, and already have plenty of language-related books at home.

After wandering around Vieux Montréal for a while we had lunch in a nice café, then Lindsay and I went to meet Moti Lieberman of The Ling Space, where there are videos which explain and discuss linguistic and language-related topics in an accessible way. I hadn’t heard of this site before, but will definitely have a look at some of the videos. It sounds very interesting.

In the evening we met up with Kris Broholm of Actual Fluency, Oli Richards of I will teach you a language, and some local friends of theirs for dinner in a vegetarian place on Rue Saint-Denis.

I’m taking it easy this morning, and after lunch will head to the airport – my plane leaves at 16:45, and I’ll arrive in Manchester at 07:50 tomorrow morning, as long as my flight from Paris isn’t affected by the planned strike by Air France staff.

Polyglotting in Montreal

By Simon

Yesterday was the first day of the North American Polyglot Symposium in Montreal. It’s taking place at Concordia University, which has two campuses – one downtown, and one quite a way out of town. I went to the out of town one by mistake, and walked a few miles to get there from the nearest Metro stop. When I got there I couldn’t any signs of the Symposium, and after wandering around for a while, I found someone to ask and they said it was probably at the other campus.

Fortunately as I was leaving a taxi was dropping someone off, so I jumped in and headed back into town. I arrived about 10 minutes before my presentation, the first of the day, was due to start. The presentation went well with some good discussion and quite a few people have told me that they found it interesting.

There were other presentations on various language-related topics yesterday, which were all quite interesting. One was in French, the rest were in English. The one in French was by a local guy with a strong Quebecois accent, which was a bit difficult to follow, but I was getting most of it by the end.

In the evening many of us trekked up Mont Royal, which has great views from the top. On the way down it rained quite heavily and people split up and wandered off in different groups. We eventually met up at a Spanish restaurant for tapas.

I met quite a few people I know from previous polyglot events, and plenty of new people, and I had conversations in English, French, Esperanto and Scottish Gaelic, and spoke bits of Russian, Portuguese, Japanese and Mandarin.

Are you sturggled?

By Simon

You may think I have misspelled the title of this post, and in a way I have, but I did so deliberately. The other day when typing struggle I accidentally typed sturggle. I thought that it looked like an interesting word, and wondered what it might mean.

Apparently I’m not the first person to come up with this word – according to the Urban Dictionary, sturggle means:

To be afflicted with a debilitating hangover to the point where you cannot speak.

I’ve never been sturggled in this sense.

Do you have any other suggestions as to what sturggle might mean?

Have you accidentally come up with any other new words?