Category: Travel

Oloron-Sainte-Maire

By Simon

Oloron-Sainte-Maire

Tomorrow I’m going to Oloron-Sainte-Maire in the south west of France with members of the Bangor Community Choir, and the Coastal Voices choir from Abergele. We’ll travel by coach to Birmingham aiport, fly to Bordeaux, and then continue by coach to Oloron. While we’re there we will visit interesting places around the area, such as Issor, Lucq-de-Béarn, Monein, Pau, Jaca (in Spain) and Lescun, and will probably sing in most of them. We’ll also perform in a concert with a local choir, la chœur sensible, in Sainte-Marie Cathedral on Saturday evening. This choir came to visit us in Wales last year and invited us to visit them this year, so this trip is a sort of choir exchange.

We will sing in a variety of languages, as usual, including English, Welsh, Zulu, Church Slavonic, Czech, Northern Ndebele, Xhosa, Croatian and Mingrelian, and we’ve learnt a French song especially for this trip – Belle qui tiens ma vie, pavane written in 1589.

This will be my first trip to France in 15 years, and my first time in this part of France. The region is known as Béarn, part of the department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, and half the local people speak Béarnese, a dialect of Gascon, which is considered by some to be a variety of Occitan. When la chœur sensible visited us last year they sang a number of songs in Béarnese, which was interesting to hear. Béarn is also neighbour to the Basque provinces ofLabourd (Lapurdi), Lower Navarre (Basse-Navarre / Nafarroa Beherea), Soule (Zuberoa), and I think some members of la chœur sensible come from those provinces and speak Basque.

We’ll be back in Wales on Sunday (31st), so from tomorrow to Sunday I probably won’t have time to answer emails and work on Omniglot.

Language Creation Conference

By Simon

Last weekend I went to the 6th Language Creation Conference in Horsham, near London. Although I haven’t created any languages, yet, I have invented a few alphabets, and I was invited to attend the conference by one of the people involved.

The conference took place over two days, and there were about 50 or 60 people there – about half of the total membership of the Language Creation Society, who organised it. There were talks about conlangs and conworlds that people had invented, and about linguistic aspects of conlangs and conlanging. One of the speakers, David J. Peterson, who invented the Dothraki language for Game of Thrones, and other languages and scripts for other TV shows and films, explained how he can make a living from inventing languages and scripts, and how other people might do the same. At the moment he is the world’s only professional conlanger.

The attendees ranged in age from late teens to sixty or seventy something. There were more men than women, and the level of linguistic knowledge and geekiness / nerditude was high, so I fitted in well. Everybody I talked to knew Omniglot and said they visit it regularly and find it very useful – it’s always nice to meet fans 🙂

Tomorrow my journey to Berlin for the Polyglot Gathering begins. I’ll take a train from Bangor to London, then from London to Brussels, stay in Brussels tomorrow night, and continue to Berlin, via Cologne, the next day. I’m looking forward to it.

Language, accents and tourism

By Simon

Arrr! Avast me hearties! Authentic pirate gibberish spoken here

I came across an interesting article today about ways to attract tourists with regional accents and languages. It discuses moves to encourage the use of French in parts of Canada and Louisiana, and Irish in Ireland, as well as regional accents in Newfoundland and in Skane in southern Sweden. People from the regions are promoting their languages and accents to attract visitors looking for ‘authentic’ experiences.

I certainly like to hear different accents and languages in parts of the UK and other countries I visit. When I meet people in such places who come from elsewhere and don’t have a local accent or speak the local language, I am somewhat disappointed. Although their way of speaking will probably be interesting to me anyway, even if it isn’t local to that region.

My own accent could not be defined as ‘authentic’ to the area where I grew up – the north of Lancashire. Instead it’s a kind of non-region specific British accent with influences from various places I’ve lived.

Do you enjoy hearing different accents, dialects or languages when you travel? Are you disappointed if people don’t speak in the way you expected?

Conferences

By Simon

I was invited to go to the Language Creation Society‘s conference recently and was thinking about it for while. Although I’m more interested in constructed scripts than constructed languages, I can find something of interest in all languages, whether natural or constructed, so I’ve decided to go. It takes place in Horsham in West Sussex, not far from London, on the 25th and 26th April. Are any of you going or thinking of going?

The week after that I’m going to Berlin for the Polyglot Gathering, so it’s going to be a busy few weeks. I’ve decided to go to Berlin by train this year – I considered it last year but thought it would be too complicated and expensive. This time I’ve grasped the nettle by the horns and have booked train tickets all the way from Bangor to Berlin and back using Loco2. It was a lot easier to arrange than I thought. I’ll be going via London, Brussels and Cologne, and staying overnight in Brussels at an AirBnB near the station on the way there. It works out slightly more expensive than flying, and takes longer, but I will see a lot more and won’t have to wait around for ages in airports. I’m looking forward to it.

Language and travel plans

By Simon

I’ve been thinking about my language and travel plans for this year and have decided to spend a few weeks in Russia – probably in July – at a Russian language school. Every year for the past ten years I’ve gone to Ireland to do courses in Irish language, singing and music in July, but this year I fancy a change. I plan to learn as much Russian as I can before going to Russia and to focus mainly on Russian throughout this year, while keeping my other languages ticking over.

Apart from the trip to Russia, I’m going to the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin at the beginning of May, and on a choir trip to Oloron Sainte Marie in the south west of France at the end of May. I also plan to do a course in Scottish Gaelic song in Scotland in August and will probably go to the Polyglot Conference in New York in October.

Can any of you recommend a Russian language school?

When is the best time of year to visit Russia?

What are you language/travel plans for this year?

Back in Bangor

By Simon

Polyglot Conference delegates in Novi Sad

Yesterday morning I shared a taxi to Belgrade airport with two other conference participants. We had some lunch while waiting for our flights, and came across quite a few other polyglots. I flew via Zurich and had a short connection time there – only 20 minutes. There was a bit longer to wait for my train from Manchester airport, so I had something to eat.

It was warm and sunny for the whole time I was in Serbia, but it was cold, wet and windy back in the UK. In fact we were flying over solid cloud cover across most of France and England. Fortunately there were some good views for the rest of the flights.

The announcements on the planes were in Swiss German, English and Serbian. I also heard a number of other languages on the journey, including Hindi, Italian, Spanish and possibly Yiddish.

Polyglottery

By Simon

Novi Sad Catholic Cathedral

Yesterday morning I met up with other conference participants and after a bit of a wander around the city, we had lunch then went to the opening ceremony a reception. In the after we had a little guided tour of Novi Sad seeing some interesting buildings, including the Catholic or Orthodox Cathedrals, and the fortress. There are some rather attractive buildings here, wide, pedestrianised café-lined streets, some nice parks and generally a relaxed kind of atmosphere.

In the evening we all went to a restaurant about 4 or 5km from the city centre for dinner. I walked there with a few others, and the rest went by bus or taxi. We had a nice dinner with lots of polyglot chat, then some people started dancing, and others carried on chatting.

Novi Sad town hall

Today there were lectures and talks on a variety of topics including sound symbolism, the magic of metaphors, language coaching, and acting and humour in a foreign language.

So far I’ve had conversations in about 10 languages and spoken bits and pieces of maybe 10 others. In some cases this was only a few words (all I know), in others it was a bit more. There are even two guys here who are learning Scottish Gaelic, one of whom also speaks a bit of Manx, and another who is learning Irish.

Novi Sad

By Simon

There are various polyglot activities scheduled for this afternoon and evening, and talks and lectures start tomorrow, so I have this morning free. I plan to do a bit of work on Omniglot, and will try to meet up with other people who are here for the conference.

Unlike in Berlin, where most people stayed in a large hostel and the polyglot gathering was in the same place, here in Novi Sad things are a bit more spread out – we are staying in various hotels around the city and the conference is taking place in a cultural centre. My hotel doesn’t have a restaurant and breakfast is available at a café round the corner.

It seems that smoking is permitted inside in some places here – ugh! Since the smoking ban came into force in the UK I’ve tried to avoid visiting places where indoor smoking is still allowed. I didn’t check before coming here and might not have come if I’d known. At least the weather is warm and sunny so I can sit outside and avoid most of the smoke.

I’ve spoken a bit of Serbian so far, and found that some people in hotels and restaurants speak English as well. Last night I shared a taxi from Belgrade to Novi Sad with one of the other conference participants – a Polish guy with Vietnamese roots. We talked mainly in French, with a bit of Spanish, English and Russian thrown in for good measure. The taxi driver spoke only Serbian, plus a bit of Russian and German, and I struggled to explain to him that one of the people who was supposed to be with us had missed his connection in Zurich, due to a delayed flight from London, and would be arriving later.

Air ais anns a’ Chuimrigh

By Simon

Thàinig mi air ais dhan a’ Chuimrigh oidhche Shathairne an déidh seachdain math dha rìreabh ann an Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. Rinn mi cùrsa Òrain Ghàidhlig ri Christine Primrose, agus bu mhór a chòrd e rium. Bha tri duine deug anns a’ chlas à Alba, ‘nam Ghearmailt, às na Stàitean Aonaichte, agus à Sasann. Chan robh Gàidhlig ag na mór-chuid aca, agus bha i doirbh dhaibh na faclan a fhuaimneachadh mar bu chòir. Dh’ionnsaich sinn naoi òrain ar fhichead ré cóig latha, no timcheall sia gach latha. Anns an oidhche bha sinn a’ seinn, a’ dannsa, a’ bruidhinn agus bha sinn gu sona sunndach.

I got back to Wales on Saturday night after a great week at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. I did the Gaelic Song course with Christine Primrose and really enjoyed it. There were thirteen of us in the class from Scotland, Germany, the USA and England. Most of the others did not speak Gaelic, and it was difficult for them to pronounce the words correctly. We learnt 29 songs in five days, or about six a day. In the evening we sang, made music, danced, chatted and had a wonderful time.

Here are recordings from the cèilidh on Thursday night when we sang a some of the songs we learnt:

E ho leagain (Hi ho my pet one) – a milking song which praises a long-haired heifer who gives plenty of milk and never kicks.

Horo mo bhobagan dram (My friend is the dram) – a song in praise of whisky,

Tha Sneachd air Druim Uachdair (There is Snow on Druim Uachdair) – a song from the 17th century by Fearchair Mac Iain Oig from Kintail about a man who is on the run from the law and is hiding out in the hills where it’s cold and lonely. I sang solo for parts of this.

Carson a’ bhios sinn muladach (Why should we be down-hearted) – a song about young men going off to war together, and how they’re worried, but hope things will turn out well and that they’ll return.

Siud mar chaidh an càl a dholaidh & Cuir a nall Mor-a-Bhitheag (That is how the kale was ruined & Send on over Marion-a-Bhitheag) – two puirt à beul or pieces of mouth music, the first of which tells how the kale was ruined by the lowland men and the emperor of France, and the second concerns Marion-a-Bhitheag – the meaning of Bhitheag in this context is uncertain.