Category: Italian (italiano)

Ventriloquism

By Simon

There was quite a bit of talk about ventriloquism on an episode of QI I watched recently, mainly because one of the guests was a ventriloquist. The word ventriloquism comes for the Latin words venter (stomach, belly, womb) and loquī (to speak) so it means “to speak from the stomach”. It was known as εγγαστριμυθία (gastromancy) in Greek, which means the same thing.

In other languages the word for ventriloquist is either from the Latin, e.g. ventriloquia (Spanish), ventriloque (French), ventriloquo (Italian), or a calque of the word: Bauchredner (German – ‘belly speaker’), Brzuchomówstwo (Polish – ‘belly speaker), 腹語術 (Chinese – ‘belly language art/skill’). In Welsh though, the word is tafleisydd, from tafle (to throw), llais (voice) and -ydd (suffix for a person or tool), so it means ‘voice thrower’.

Ventriloquism apparently started a religious practice. Ventriloquists were thought to be able to speak to the dead and predict the future, and the voices that seemed to come from the stomachs were thought to be those of the dead. By the 19th century ventriloquism became a form of entertainment and people started using dummies, at least in the West. In other parts of the world, such as among the Zulu, Inuit and Maori, ventriloquism is used for religious and ritual purposes.

Ventriloquism involves talking without moving your lips to make it appear that the words are coming from elsewhere. It is also known as throwing your voice, though no throwing is involved. To make bilabial sounds such as /m/ and /b/ without lip movement the trick is apparently to substitute similar sounds – /n/ and /g/. If you say them fast your listeners’ brains will hopefully hear the letters you want them to – we tend to hear what we expect to hear anyway. Then again, you could just use other words without the troublesome letters. More details.

Have you tried ventriloquism?

I can sort of do it, though would need more practice to do it convincingly.

What I wonder is whether it is easier to ventriloquise in some languages or accents than in others, and whether there are many bilingual/polyglot ventriloquists who speak one language themselves and have their dummy or dummies speaking others. That might be a fun way to practise languages and interpretation skills.

New Finnish Grammar

By Simon

I’m currently reading New Finnish Grammar, an English translation of Diego Marani’s novel Nuova grammatica finlandese. It is the story of a man who is found unconscious with a serious head injury on a street in Trieste and who is cared for by a Finnish doctor, who believes he is Finnish as his jacket has a name tag with the Finnish name Sampo Karjalainen. When the mystery man regains conscious he has no memory or language so has no idea who he is, where he’s from or how he ended up in Trieste. The doctor does his best to teach Sampo, the name he adopts, to speak Finnish, then later arranges for him to continue his treatment in Helsinki.

It’s a really good translation that reads as if it was originally written in English, the language used very expressive and interesting, and there are lots of interesting bits about language acquisition and about the Finnish language. Here is a selection:

“In the Finnish language the noun is hard to lay hands on, hidden as it is behind the endless declensions of its fifteen cases and only rarely caught unawares in the nominative.

Is this true?

In the Finnish sentence the words are grouped around the verb like moons around a planet, and whichever one is nearest the verb becomes the subject. In European languages the sentence is a straight line, in Finnish it is a circle, within which something happens.

Is this a good description of Finnish sentences?

I was beginning to be able to express myself, even if somewhat stiltedly. I would learn the words already declined, a different one for each case, and when I did not know how to put them together I made do with saying them at random, hoping that intonation and gesture would go some way towards making up for lack of syntax. And yet, while still lacking firm banks, the Finnish language was gradually carving itself out a bed in the quicksands of my mind, with the words that I had tamed coursing down it and gradually informing me of the meaning of others. Branching out and joining up, they sent the thousand drops of sound which make up a language into circulation, watering and strengthening my awareness, my ability to sense the boundaries of meaning.

I haven’t finished the book yet, but am enjoying it so far and would certainly recommend it.

Summer chicks and glowing coals

By Simon

Butterfly

Last night we were talking about the Pili Palas on Anglesey, a butterfly centre, which also has birds, snakes and other exotic creatures. The name is a pun combining pili-pala (butterfly) and palas (palace) – it took me ages to realise this. We were trying to think of the words for butterfly in various other languages and came up with the French, papillon, and the Spanish mariposa, but got stuck after that. This got me wondering why these words are so different in different languages.

The English word butterfly comes from the Old English buttorfleoge, perhaps from bēatan (to beat) and flēoge (fly), or perhaps it was the name just for yellow butterflies, and/or because butterflies were thought to eat butter and milk.

In Middle High German butterflies were known as molkendiep (“milk-thief”) and in Low German a butterfly is a Botterlicker (“butter-licker”) [source]. In Modern German Schmetterling /ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ/ is the word for butterfly – from Schmetten (cream) – from the Czech smetana (cream). This is based on the folk belief that witches transformed themselves into butterflies to steal cream and milk [source].

Welsh words for butterfly include iâr fach yr haf (“summer chick”), glöyn byw (“living coal”), pila-pala and bili-balo.

Like iâr fach yr haf in Welsh, butterflies are known as “summer birds” in Norwegian, sommerfugl, and in Yiddish, zomerfeygele.

In Irish the word for butterfly is féileacán, possible from the Old Irish etelachán (little flying creature / butterfly), from etelach (flying) [source]. The Manx butterfly, foillycan, comes from the same root, but in Scottish Gaelic butterflies are seilleann-dé (“God’s bee”) and dealan-dè (“God’s lightening”).

The French word for butterfly, papillon, comes from the Latin pāpiliō (butterfly, moth) – of unknown origin, and also the root of the English word pavilion (via Old French) [source]. The Italian farfalla (butterfly) comes from the same source.

The Spanish word for butterfly, mariposa, apparently comes from the expression Mari, posa(te (Mary, alight!), which features in children’s songs and games, or from la Santa Maria posa (the Virgin Mary alights/rests). Other theories about the etymology of this word.

There is more discussion of words for butterfly in various languages on AllExperts, and there are words for butterfly in many more languages here.

Christmas

By Simon

Nadolig Llawen
Joyeux Noël
聖誕快樂
Nollaig shona doibh
¡Feliz Navidad!
Nollick Ghennal
Bo Nadal
Nollaig chridheil
メリークリスマス
Buon Natale
Frohe Weihnachten
Bon Nadal
Veselé vánoce
and Merry Christmas!

Épouvantail

By Simon

épouvantail (nf)

  1. objet, mannequin disposé dans les champs, dans les arbres, pour effrayer les oiseaux et les faire fuir (scarecrow)
  2. familièrement personne présentant un aspect extérieur repoussant (bogey, bugbear)
  3. quelqu’un ou quelque chose qui effraie sans raison (fright)
    [source]

For some reason we were talking about scarecrows or épouvantails at the French conversation group last night. It’s not a word that comes up in conversation very often, but I like the sound of it.

Related words include:

  • épouvantable = terrible, appalling, dreadful
  • épouvantablement = terribly, appallingly, dreadfully
  • épouvante = terror, fear
    – saisi d’épouvante = terror-stricken
    – roman/film d’épouvante = horror story/film

Words for scarecrow in other languages include:

  • Chinese – 稻草人 (dào​cǎo​rén​) = “straw man”
  • German – Vogelscheuche (bird shooer); Strohmann (straw man); Strohpuppe (straw doll/puppet)
  • Irish – babhdán – also means bogey man
  • Italian – spaventapasseri = “scare sparrows”
  • Japanese – かかし [鹿驚] (kakashi) = “deer surpriser”
  • Spanish – espantapájaros = “bird scarer”
  • Welsh – bwgan brain = “crows bogey/spook”

Spincop

By Simon

Spider / Spincop

William Caxton introduced printing into England, and also translated a number of literary works from French, Latin and Dutch. Within his translations he used words he picked up while learning and practising his trade in Germany and Belgium, including spincop, from the Dutch spinnekop (spider), and okselle, from the Dutch oksel (armpit).

The English word spider comes via the Middle English spither and the Old English spiþra from the Proto-Germanic *spenthro, which comes from *spenwanan (to spin). Another Old English for spider was gangewifre (a weaver as he goes). In other Germanic languages the words for spider retain the link to spin: Spinne (German), spinnekop / spin (Dutch), spindel (Swedish) and שפּין (shpin) – Yiddish.

When I came across the word spincop it set me wondering whether it might be related to a Welsh word for spider, copyn (also cop, pryf cop(yn), corryn). Does anyone know the etymology of these words?

The Proto-Indo-European root word for spider is *araKsn, and the words for spider in the Romance languages come from this root: aranea (Latin), aranya (Catalan), aranha (Portuguese), araña (Spanish), ragno (Italian).

While okselle didn’t really catch on in Standard English, a related word, oxter, is used in dialects of Northern England, and in Hiberno English and Scots. This word is thought to come from the Old English ōxta, which is probably related to the Old English word axle or axis – eax. The medical term for this part of the body is axilla, which comes from Latin and is diminutive of ala (wing).

Word of the day – ig

By Simon

The Welsh word ig (plural: igion) means hiccough. The verb, to hiccough / sob, is igian, igio or igion.

When I’m singing or playing the tin whistle or other wind instruments I often get hiccoughs, and the other day I was trying to explain this to a Welsh friend in Welsh, but didn’t know the Welsh word for hiccup. So I looked it up.

The English word hiccough (also spelt hiccup) is thought to be an imitation of the sound of hiccoughs, and the Welsh word ig probably is as well.

In other languages hiccough is:
Czech: škytavka
German: Schluckauf
Dutch: hik
French: hoquet
Irish: snag
Italian: singhiozzo
Spanish: hipo

The medical terms for hiccough are synchronous diaphragmatic flutter (SDF), or singultus, from the Latin, singult, “the act of catching one’s breath while sobbing”.

Do you have any good cures for hiccoughs?

I usually hold my breath and/or drink water.

Leaght y Ghaaue

By Simon

Last night I went to a fascinating lecture in Manx about Venice which covered the city’s history, architecture, transport and much more. It was given by Bob Carswell, a Manx speaker, translator, poet and broadcaster who regularly talks with great enthusiasm about a wide range of topics on his radio programme, Claare ny Gael.

The type of language used and the information discussed was university level, and while I didn’t understand every word, and got a bit lost when he was explaining some of the technicalities of how the city was built, I was able to understand most of the lecture.

One thing he mentioned was the many different terms there are in Venice for streets, lanes, alleyways, etc, including via (street), calle (a walkway between two buildings), calleta (a narrower calle), salizada (a broader calle), ruga (a calle with lots of shops -from French, rue), rio (small canal), rio terrà / terà (filled-in canal), fondamenta (a walkway that runs along a rio or the lagoon), and sotoportego (a covered walkway through a building).

There are also quite a few terms used in street names in English – street, road, lane, alley, passage, close, drive, place, green, croft, way, grove, gardens, end, crescent, bank, and so on.

Is the same true in other languages?

Languages and jobs in Spain

By Simon

According to an article I found the other day, a knowledge of languages is required for 27% of jobs in Spain, and the language most in demand is English. So if you speak English and Spanish and would like to work in Spain, there should be plenty of jobs you could apply for.

The article, which is based on information from Infoempleo, a site where you kind find jobs in Spain, also shows that French, German, Italian and Portuguese are in demand in Spain, although to a much lesser extent than English.

The article also mentions that 28% of jobs in the Basque country require a knowledge of Basque, that 13% of jobs in Catalonia require Catalan (this seems quite a low figure given the strength of the language), and that 10% of jobs in Galicia and Valencia require knowledge of the local languages.

I don’t have stats for how many jobs in Wales require a knowledge of Welsh, but I do know that Welsh is needed for many jobs in the public sector.