Category: Portuguese (português)

Word skipping to Venus

By Simon

I was asked today about the origins of the word worship. The person who asked was told by a highly-educated minister that “worship” is derived from an old English word, “word-skip”. Supposedly, “word-skip” means “word shaper” or “shaper of words”.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary: worship comes from the Old English worðscip, wurðscip (Anglian), weorðscipe (West Saxon), “condition of being worthy, honor, renown”, from weorð (worthy), and -scipe, “state, condition of being”. The sense of “reverence paid to a supernatural or divine being” is first recorded in about 1300. The original sense is preserved in the title worshipful (c.1300). The verb to worship first appears in writing from about 1200. The word weorð comes from the Proto Germanic *werthaz (toward, opposite), which is possibly a derivative of Proto-Indo-European word *wert- (to turn, wind). from *wer- (to turn, bend).

The OED and the Collins Dictionary give the same etymology, and the OED lists the numerous ways worship was written in Middle English, including worðscipe, worðschipe, worðschepe, worþssipe, worþschip, wortscip, wortschyp, worsipe, worssipe, and so on.

The Dictionary of Word Origins says the worship originally meant “worthiness, distinction, credit, dignity” in Old English. Later is came to mean “respect or reverence”, and was used in religious contexts from the 13th century, and that is was used as a verb from the 12th century.

A related word is venerate, from the Latin venerāt- from venerārī/venerāre (to reverence, worship, adore), which comes from venus (beauty, love desire), from the Proto-Indo-European base *wen- (to strive after, wish, desire, be satisfied) [source]. This is also the root of the words for worship in Italian (venerare), Portuguese (venerar) and French (vénérer). The equivalent in Spanish is adorar or rendir culto a.

Le mal de pays

By Simon

One of the things that came up at the French conversation group last night was homesickness.

In French there are a number of ways to express this concept:
– nostalgique = homesick (adj)
– avoir le mal de pays = to be homesick (for a place/country)
– s’ennuyer de (sa famille) = to be homesick (for one’s family)
– avoir la nostalgie (de qch) = to be homesick (for something)

Example
L’odeur de l’herbe lui donna la nostalgie de la ferme de ses parents.
The smell of the grass made her homesick for her parents’ farm.

The Welsh word for homesickness is hiraeth /hɪəraɪ̯θ/, which is apparently one of those words that is untranslatable. It means homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed. It is a mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, and the earnest desire for the Wales of the past. It has similarities to saudade in Portuguese and morriña in Galician [source].

Do other languages have words with a similar meaning?

Lyrics Translate

By Simon

The other day I came across a useful site called Lyrics Translate, where you can find, submit and request translations of songs. It currently contains translations between a wide range of languages, including English, German, Russian, Turkish, Spanish, Polish and so on, and the site itself can be viewed in a variety of languages. There is also a forum for translators, as well as articles and videos.

So it look like a good place to practise languages you’re learning – you can find songs in those languages, either originals, or translated from other languages, and you could even have a go at translating songs yourself.

I have submitted translations of Cockles and Mussels (Molly Malone) in Irish and Manx – not my own translations admittedly, and just found a song in Breton with a translations in English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish, and a video. There are quite a few other songs in Breton too.

Leste

By Simon

Leste adj. [lɛst(ə)] – nimble, agile, sprightly, light; risqué (joke); offhand (remark).

This is a word I discovered last night while browsing a French dictionary. It is thought to come from an old Germanic word liste. A related adverb is lestement, which means nimbly, agilely, in a sprightly manner, lightly or offhandedly.

It’s related to the Spanish word listo, which has a number of meanings, including “ready, prepared, clever, sharp-witted, able, nimble”. It’s also related to the Portuguese word lesto, which means “quick, deft, nimble, swift, fleet, light footed, rapid, ready, clever, dexterous or skillful”. Other related words include the German listig (cunning, devious, shrewd) and leicht (easily, effortlessly, gently), which is related to the English word light(ly).

Light (not heavy) comes from the Old English leoht, from Proto-Germanic *lingkhtaz, from the Proto-Indo-European *le(n)gwh- (light, easy, agile, nimble), which is the root of leste, and also of lever [Source]

Russian mountains

By Simon

Yesterday evening I discovered that the French term for roller coaster is les montagnes russes or Russian mountains. This got me wondering what roller coasters have to do with Russian mountains, and I’ve found that from the 17th Century the Russian were constructing “Russian Mountains” – series of hills and slides of ice reinforced with wooden supports designed for sleighs. They were especially popular during the 18th century in St. Petersburg, and the idea spread to other parts of Europe. A version using wheeled wooden carts on tracks was built in Paris in 1804 and named Les Montagnes Russes.

During the early 19th century a number of mining and railway companies in the USA started offering the public rides on steeply-inclined sections of track at quiet times. These were known as scenic gravity railroads. In 1884 LaMarcus Adna Thompson opened a Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway at Coney Island in 1884, and patented many aspects of the roller coaster, including a patent for a Gravity Switch-back Railway in 1885.

The origins of the name roller coaster are uncertain. One theory is that it comes from the rollers fitted to the slides or ramps on early American roller coasters along which sleds coasted. Another theory is that the name comes from a ride located in a roller skating rink in Haverhill, Massachusetts which consisted of a sled that moved along the rollers that made up the track. The inventors of this ride, Stephen E. Jackman and Byron B. Floyd, claim the first use of the term “roller coaster”.

Russian Mountain is term for roller coaster in Spanish (montaña rusa), Portuguese (montanha russa) and Catalan (muntanya russa), and Russians call them американские горки (amerikanskie gorki) or American Mountains.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_coaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Mountains

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.

Portuguese spelling reforms

By Simon

Reforms to the spelling of Portuguese were officially adopted in Brazil yesterday and will be adopted by Portugal and Cape Verde and the other lusophone countries eventually, according to this report. The reforms have not been welcomed by all in Portugal as many of them are existing Brazilian spellings and thousands of people have signed petitions against them. There are more details of the opposition to the reforms here.

The reforms include the removal of silent letters, such as p in optimo (great) and of unnecessary diacritics. The letters k, w and y, which are already used, are being officially added to the Portuguese alphabet The idea is the make written Portuguese uniform globally, which will make things like internet searches easier.

Peeling the library

By Simon

Today’s word, library, comes from the Old French librairie, a ‘collection of books’, which is a nominal use of adjective librarius, ‘concerning books’, from Latin librarium, ‘chest for books’, from liber (genetive of libri), ‘book, paper, parchment’, originally the ‘inner bark of trees’, probably a derivative of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) base *leub(h) – ‘to strip, to peel’.

In French the word librarie means bookshop. A French library is a bibliothèque, which comes via the Latin bibliothēca, from the Greek βιβλιοθήκη (bibliothêkê), ‘a place to store books’, which breaks down into βίβλος (biblos), ‘book’, and θήκη (thêkê), ‘chest’.

Variations on the theme of bibliothèque are used in a number of other languages, including:

Dutch – bibliotheek
German – Bibliothek
Greek βιβλιοθήκη (bibliothiki)
Italian/Portuguese/Spanish – biblioteca
Russian – библиотека (biblioteka)

In Welsh, a library is a llyfrgell, from llyfr, ‘book’ and cell, ‘cell’, while in Irish it’s leabharlann, from leabhar, ‘book’ and lann (not sure of it’s meaning*). In Chinese, a library is 圖書館 [图书馆] (túshūguăn) = ‘map book house’.

It seems that the word library, or something like it, is not used in it’s English senses in many languages. The only ones I can find are Sesotho and Tswana (laeborari), Tsonga (layiburari) and Venda (laiburari), which appear to be loanwords from English. The Basque word for library, liburutegia, might possibly have Latin or Greek roots.

[Addendum] *lann in Irish is an archaic/obsolete word that means floor, enclosure or church. It comes from the Old Irish lann (building, house, land, plot, plate), from the Proto-Celtic *landā ((open) space, land), from the Proto-Indo-European *lendʰ- (land, heath). It is cognate with the Welsh word llan (church, parish, monastery, yard, enclosure, village), the Spanish landa (plain), and the English words land and lawn [source].

Sources: Online Etymology Dictionary, Wiktionnaire, Yawiktionary

Lusophilia

By Simon

I came across an interesting report in the New York Times today in which they talk about the recent opening of The Museum of the Portuguese Language (Museu da Língua Portuguesa) in São Paulo, Brazil. The objective of the museum is to create a living representation of the Portuguese language, where visitors may be surprised and educated by unusual and unfamiliar aspects of their own native language. The report also mentions that inspite of having more native speakers than French, German, Italian or Japanese, the Portuguese language is often overlooked by the rest of the world.

On a related matter, I’ve noticed that quite a few of the Brazilians I know think their version of Portuguese is inferior to the Portuguese spoken in Portugal. This quite surprised me as I personally prefer the sounds of Brazilian Portuguese, and it was the singing of Astrud Gilberto on a Stan Getz album that first attracted me to the language.

In case you’re wondering, lusophilia is the love of Portugal or the Portuguese language. The Luso- part comes from the Roman province of Lusitania, which occupied the same area as modern Portugal and part of Spain.

Word of the day – chapéu-de-cobra

By Simon

chapéu-de-cobra, noun = toadstool, lit. “snake’s hat”

A good way to remember words is to associate them with pictures. The Portuguese word for toadstool conjures up the image of a snake in a hat. If you imagine that the hat is the colour and shape of a toadstool, it will help you to remember the word. The word toadstool itself conjures up an interesting image of a toad on a stool.

Another way to remember foreign words is to associate them with words with a similar sound in your native language, or any other languages you know. For example, the Russian word for eye is глаз (glaz) – sounds like glass. Imagine a Russian person with a glass eye or glazed eyes. It’s not always easy to find similar-sounding words in your language, but it’s worth the effort as this method can be very effective.

Another thing I do when learning new words is to break them down to their component parts. For example, the Welsh word for international is rhwngwladol, which is made up of the words rhwng (between, among), gwlad (country, nation) and ol, a suffix that turns nouns into adjectives.