Category: German (Deutsch)

Polyglot chat

By Simon

Last night there were three of us at the polyglot chat group, which I’ve renamed Bangor Language Learners and which now at different times in a different venue. When I set up the group earlier this year my idea was that it would give me and other polyglots a chance to get together to chat in a variety of languages. Some weeks there have been enough of us to have several different conversations in different languages, other weeks there have been only a few of us and we have talked mainly in English, or in other languages we all had in common, like Welsh or German.

During the summer quite a few of the regular attendees were away and the meetings petered out. Then with the start of a new academic year I thought I’d change the focus of the group and make it for anybody who is learning a language, rather than just people who already speak several languages. After discussion on Facebook we came up with better days and times and so far we’ve had two meetings, which have gone well. Last night, for example, there were three of us and we spoke mainly in Welsh and French, which are the languages we have in common, along with English. I’m hoping numbers will increase as more people hear about it.

After the language learners group last night, I went to Global Café, a group run by Bangor University Christian Union which aims to bring together international and local students, and others. I started going to it while I was a student, and have been going on and off since then, though haven’t been regularly for a few years as it clashed with the ukuele club. The ukuele club has now moved to another night and I can go to Global Café again. It’s a great way to meet people from many countries and to practise a variety of languages – as well as English I spoke Mandarin, French, German, Spanish and a bit of Italian, Cantonese and Hungarian last night. I really enjoy opportunities like this. Is there anything similar in your area?

Which language next?

By Simon

As today is the 1st October it’s time to change my focus to a different language on my Multilngual Musings blog – but which one? During the past three months I’ve focused on Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx – a different one each month – and have found the exercise of writing something and recording it every day very useful for my proficiency in them. While my knowledge of each of these languages has improved, there is still plenty more to learn.

As for the next language to focus on – I could continue the Celtic theme and choose Welsh or Breton, or go for one of the other languages I want to brush up, such as German, Chinese, Japanese, Esperanto, French or Spanish. I feel confident writing in Welsh, and fairly confident in French, but the it would be a struggle with the others, which is one reason why I’m doing this as I need the practice.

Have you undertaken any language-related project like this? If so, how successful have they been?

Docent

By Simon

I came across an unfamiliar word today in a book I’m reading – docent. From the context I guessed it referred to someone who leads guided tours, but according to my English dictionary it means ‘(in the U.S.) a lecturer in some colleges and universities’, and it comes from the German word Dozent (associate professor, tutor, academic, lecturer), from the Latin docēns, from docēre (to teach).

According to Wikipedia, ‘Docent is a title at some European universities to denote a specific academic appointment within a set structure of academic ranks below professor (i.e. professor ordinarius). Docent is also used at some universities generically for a person who has the right to teach.’ It is used as an academic title in universities in a number of European countries.

There are also museum docents, who guide and educate visitors to museums and other institutions, usually voluntarily.

Have you come across the word docent before? What are such people called, if they exist, in your country?

In the UK they are known as guides.

Back in Bangor

By Simon

I’m now back in Bangor after a very enjoyable and interesting week at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. We learnt 15 songs during the week, so the course wasn’t as intensive as the one I did last year when we learnt twice as many songs, and we learnt about the background of the songs, and even saw some of the places about which they were written, or which are mentioned in them.

There wasn’t much Gaelic spoken in the class, which was mainly in English, but I spoke Gaelic with various other people and feel more confident about speaking it now. As well as Gaelic, I also got to speak some Japanese, French, German, Irish and Manx, which was fun. When I’m speaking Scottish Gaelic and I can’t think of words I often use Irish ones, which are usually very similar as the two languages are very close. I even had one conversation in a mixture of Irish and Scottish Gaelic with an Irish man who speaks both, which was a little confusing.

Schnick, Schnack, Schnuck

By Simon

Schnick, Schnack, Schnuck

Last weekend a couple of couchsurfers from the USA stayed with me. When they’re not surfing from sofa to sofa they live in Leipzig in Germany and one of them speaks German fluently. When she discovered that I also speak German, we started chatting in German. Even after many years of neglect my German is still there, although I often flail around for words and my grammatical knowledge is rusty. I learnt some interesting expressions, including:

  • Schnick, Schnack, Schnuck = Rock-paper-scissors (game)
  • (der) Streber = geek, nerd
  • streberhaft = geekiness, nerdiness
  • (die) Kneipe = pub
  • innerer Schweinehund = one’s weaker self; inner temptation; procrastination

According to Wikipedia the game rock, paper, scissors is also known as Schere, Stein, Papier; Ching, Chang, Chong; Klick, Klack, Kluck; Stein schleift Schere; Schnibbeln, Knobeln oder Schniekern in German. Apparently alternative names for this game in English include roshambo, Paper-Scissors-Stone and ick-ack-ock – have you heard of these?

The game originally comes from China and was first mentioned in a book by 谢肇淛 (Xie Zhaozhi) during the Ming Dynasty (c. 1600), who said that game dates back to the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) and calls it 手势令 (shoushiling) or “hand command”.

What do you call this game?

Gleann Cholm Cille

By Simon

This week I’m in Gleann Cholm Cille in Donegal in the north west of Ireland taking part in the summer school in Irish language and culture at Oideas Gael. There are about 100 people here for the summer school and we have Irish language classes in the mornings and can choose from a variety of activities in the afternoons including singing, dancing, hill walking, drama and cooking. I’m doing the sean-nós singing in the afternoons and am really enjoying it.

In the evenings there are concerts, talks and other events. Last night, for example, there was a concert featuring songs and stories in Irish, hip hop in English (with a strong Dublin accent), and songs in Choctaw, as well as sean-nós dancing. It was a very unusual combination, but worked very well.

My Irish has definitely improved since I was here last year. My focus on Irish this month has helped a lot – I’m still writing something every day on my other Multilingual Musings blog while I’m here.

As well as hearing and speaking a lot of Irish, I’ve also had opportunities to speak German, French, Scottish Gaelic, Czech and Portuguese. People come here from all over the world and speak, and have studied / are studying, a variety of languages, so it’s a kind of paradise for polyglots.

Dialing a telephone

By Simon

Rotary dial phone

An email arrived today from Phil S, who has been wondering about the quirkiness of the phrase “to dial a telephone”, which is ubiquitous and exclusive in its meaning and yet has, of course, become totally divorced from the original physicality of the phrase. He would like to know:

– What idioms do other languages use, and what’s their literal meaning? Do they similarly refer to rotary telephones even though those are no longer in use? French and Italian use words with the root meaning of “compose”, whereas the German word, anwählen, seems like a form of “to choose”.

– In cultures where widespread adoption of the telephone has happened only recently (if at all), and mobile phones are the norm, I’d imagine that some local languages reflect that, i.e. their telephone-related words have no trace of a relationship to rotary dials, land lines, etc.

– Also, per the OED the verb “dial” apparently dates to 1921 in its phone-related usage, but is much older when used as a word for “to survey with the aid of a dial” (1653) or “to measure as with a dial” (1821). Unfortunately the OED doesn’t discuss the expression “dial in” or “dialed in”, which is sometimes used in sports among other places.

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I’d be interested to know how many of you have used a rotary dial phone, and do you remember when you last used one?

I remember using such phones in Taiwan in the early 90s, and I think we were still using them in the UK at that time.

Archerien

By Simon

An interesting word that came up in my Breton lesson today is archerien, which means police. It caught my attention because it has no obvious connection to the word police, and because it is completely different to the equivalent words in other Celtic languages:

– Welsh: heddlu (“peace force”)
– Cornish: kreslu (“peace host”)
– Irish: gardaí (síochána) (“guards of peace”); póilíní
– Manx: meoiryn shee (“peace keepers/stewards”); poleenyn
– Scottish Gaelic: poileas

The English word police comes from the French police (public order, administration, government), from the Latin polītīa (state, government), from the Greek πολιτεία (politeia – citizenship, government, administration, constitution). It is shares the same root as policy, politics, politician and various other words [source].

Many languages use variants on the word police, e.g. Politsei (Estonian), პოლიცია (polits’ia – Georgian), Polizei (German), पुलिस (pulis – Hindi), پلیس (pulis – Persian), Booliis (Somalia), Policía (Spanish), Pulis (Tagalog), but some do their own thing:

– Bavarian: Kibara
– Chinese: 警察 (jǐngchá); 公安 (gōng’ān)
– Faroese: Løgregla
– Greek: Αστυνομία (Astynomía)
– Hungarian: Rendőrség
– Icelandic: Lögregla
– Japanese: 警察 (keisatsu)
– Korean: 警察 (gyeongchal)
– Thai: ตำรวจ (tảrwc)

Are there other examples of languages with a word unrelated to police for police?

Tag questions, innit!

By Simon

Tag questions or question tags are interrogative fragments (tags) added to statements making them into sort of questions. They tend to be used more in colloquial speech and informal writing than in formal writing, and can indicate politeness, emphasis, irony, confidence or lack of it, and uncertainty. Some are rhetorical and an answer is not expected, others invite a response.

In English they come in various forms, for example:

– I like coconut, don’t I?
– You’re tall, aren’t you?
– He’s handsome, isn’t he?
– She said she’d be here, didn’t she?
– It’ll rain tomorrow, won’t it?
– We were away, weren’t we?
– You’d gone, hadn’t you?
– They’ll be there, won’t they?

A simpler tag question used is some varieties of English in innit, a contraction of isn’t it, which could be used for all the examples above. Other English tags include right? and eh? – do you use any others?

Tag questions in Celtic languages can also have quite complex forms which depend on the verb and the subject in the main clause, particularly in Welsh.

Manx
– T’eh braew jiu, nagh vel? (It’s fine today, isn’t it?)
– Hie ad dys y thie oast riyr, nagh jagh? (They went to the pub last night, didn’t they?)
– Bee oo goll magh mairagh, nagh bee? (You’ll go out tomorrow, won’t you?)

Irish
– Tá sé go breá inniu, nach bhfuil? (It’s fine today, isn’t it?)
– Chuaigh siad go dtí an teach tábhairne aréir, nagh ndeachaigh? (They went to the pub last night, didn’t they?)
– Beidh tú ag dul amach amárach, nach bheidh? (You’ll go out tomorrow, won’t you?)

Scottish Gaelic
– Tha i brèagha an diugh, nach eil? (It’s fine today, isn’t it?)
– Chaidh iad dhan taigh-òsta an-raoir, nagh deach? (They went to the pub last night, didn’t they?)
– Bidh thu a’ dol a-mach a-màireach, nach bi? (You’ll go out tomorrow, won’t you?)

Welsh
– Mae’n braf heddiw, on’d ydy? (It’s fine today, isn’t it?)
– Mi aethon nhw nhw’n mynd i’r dafarn neithiwr, on’d wnaethon? (They went to the pub last night, didn’t they?)
– Fyddet ti’n mynd allan yfory, on’ fyddet? (You’ll go out tomorrow, won’t you?)

I’m not sure about how tag questions work in Breton and Cornish.

In other languages things can be simpler:

– Czech: že?
– French: n’est-ce pas? non?
– German: nicht wahr? nicht? oder?
– Italian: no? vero? (positive), non è vero? (negative)
– Polish: prawda? (positive), nieprawdaż? (negative)
– Russian: да? (da?)
– Spanish: ¿no? ¿verdad?

Can you provide other examples?

Things and stuff

By Simon

Yesterday I learnt the German word (das) zeug, which means stuff; gear; clothes; things; nonsense; rubbish; old material – a useful word when you don’t know or can’t recall a more specific term. Having a few such words up your sleeve in whatever language(s) you’re learning is a good idea. What are equivalent words in your language(s)?

Zeug also appears in the such expressions as:

– altes Zeug = junk, trash
– albernes Zeug = (silly) nonsense
– dummes Zeug = rubbish / nonsense
– … und solches Zeug = … and such things
– dummes / ungereimtes Zeug reden = to talk a lot of nonsense / drivel / twaddle
– dummes Zeug sabbern / schwafeln / schwatzen = to talk drivel
– rede kein dummes Zeug = don’t talk nonsense
– das Zeug zu etw haben = to have (got) what it takes to be sth
– er hat nicht das Zeug dazu = he hasn’t got what it takes

I also learnt how to say combine harvester (a very useful word!) in German: mähndrescher (“mane thresher”).