Month: May 2022

Moose

By Simon

Yesterday I added a page about the Moose Cree language to Omniglot. Moose Cree (ᐃᓕᓖᒧᐧᐃᓐ / ililîmowin) is a Central Algonquin language spoken mainly in the town of Moose Factory on Moose Factory Island on the Moose River in Ontario, Canada. That’s a lot of moose, or is it mooses, moosen or even meese? (see below)

Moose

A moose is:

“a ruminant mammal (Alces alces) with humped shoulders, long legs, and broadly palmated antlers that is the largest existing member of the deer family and inhabits forested areas of Canada, the northern U.S., Europe, and Asia” [source]

A moose can also be “a member of a major benevolent and fraternal order [Loyal Order of Moose]”.

The word moose was discussed in a previous post, along with the word elk and related words.

Today I thought I’d look into moose-related words in more detail.

Moose was first used in writing in English in 1603, and is thought to come from an Eastern Algonquian language such as Massachusett (moos), Narragansett (moos) or Penobscot (mos), from the Proto-Algonquian *môswa (it strips), referring to how a moose strips tree bark when feeding [source].

The standard plural of moose is moose, although mooses and meese are also used informally. I think a good alternative plural would be moosen, like oxen, children and aurochsen. What do you think?

In Moose Cree there are quite a few words moose-related words, including:

  • ᒨᓱ / môso = moose; human prey (in traditional stories about cannibals)
  • ᓈᐯ ᒨᓱ / nâpe-môso = a male moose
  • ᐊᔮᐯᐤ / ayâpew = a (fully grown) buck, bull
  • ᓅᓭ ᒨᓱ / nôse-môso = a female moose
  • ᒨᔓᔑᔥ / môšošiš = a moose calf
  • ᐱᐳᓈᔅᑯᔥ / piponâskoš = a one-year-old moose or caribou
  • ᒨᒨᓶᐤ / mômôswew = s/he eats moose

Source: The Dictionary of Moose Cree

There are also plenty of moose-related words in Plains Cree:

  • ᒨᓴᐧ / môswa = moose
  • ᔮᐯᐤ / yâpew = bull moose
  • ᒥᐢᑎᔮᐯᐤ / mistiyâpew = a big bull moose
  • ᔨᑭᐦᒐᐊᐧᓭᐢ / yikihcawases = a one-year-old bull moose
  • ᐊᐧᐢᑫᐤᒉᓭᐢ / waskewceses = a two-year-old bull moose
  • ᐅᑭᓄᒪᐧᒐᔦᓭᐢ / okinomwacayeses = a three-year-old bull moose
  • ᐅᓃᒐᓂᐤᒨᓴᐧ / onîcaniwmôswa = a female moose
  • ᓅᓭᐢ / nôses = a mother moose with one calf
  • ᐅᓃᓴᐧᐢᑯᒣᐤ / onîswaskomew = a mother moose with two calves
  • ᐅᐢᑳᔨᐢ / oskâyis = a young/baby moose

Source: Online Cree Dictionary

While there are pages about Massachusett (Wôpanâôtuwâôk) and Narragansett (Nãikanset) on Omniglot, there isn’t one about Penobscot (Pαnawάhpskewi), which is a variety of Eastern Abenaki that was spoken mainly in Maine in the USA until the 1990s, and which is currently being revived. I’ll be adding details soon.

There is an online Penobscot Dictionary which includes quite a few moose-related words.

Update: there is now a page about Penobscot on Omniglot.

Podiums

By Simon

In Dutch the word podium [poː.di.(j)ʏm] means stage, and also podium or platform. It comes from Latin word podium (balcony, especially in an amphitheatre, parapet, podium), from the Ancient Greek πόδιον (pódion – base), a diminutive of πούς (poús – foot, leg), from the Proto-Indo-European pṓds (foot) [source].

AIAA NASA 60th Anniversary Reception (NHQ201809200009)

Some related words include:

  • hoofdpodium = main stage
  • podiumbeest = someone who enjoys being on stage and is often on stage (“stage beast”)
  • podiumkunsten = performing arts
  • poppodium = a venue where pop music is performed live

The English word podium (a platform on which to stand, as when conducting an orchestra or preaching at a pulpit; any low platform or dais) comes from the same root [source], as does the word pew, via the Middle English pewe, from the Middle French puie (balustrade), from the Latin podia, the plural of podium [source].

Other words from the same Latin root include poggio (hill) and podio (podium) in Italian, puig (hill, peak) in Catalan, and poyo (stone bench) in Spanish [source].

By the way, in English (and Dutch) the plural of podium can be either podiums or podia. Which do you prefer?

The diminutive of podium in Dutch is podiumpje, which means little or imaginary stage – I find Dutch diminutives like this very cute.

Babyfoot

By Simon

Apparently the game pictured below is known as babyfoot in French. Which is kind of cute.

Table soccer game

According to the Belgian magazine, Le Soir illustré, the French inventor Lucien Rosengart (1881–1976) came up with the game of table football in the 1930s when he was looking for things to keep his grandchildren entertained during the cold winter months. He called the game “baby foot”.

The name babyfoot, which is also written baby-foot is used in France, Canada and Switzerland. It is also known as football sur table or football de table in Canada, as kicker in Belgium, foot-foot in Switzerland, and football de table in France.

I would call it table football, which is the usual name for this game in the UK, and was patented by Harold Searles Thornton in 1921.

It was brought to the the USA in the 1950s by Lawrence Patterson, and it is called foosball [ˈfuːzbɔːl], which comes from the German name tischfußball (table football).

In German it is known as Tischfußball (table football), Tischkicker (table kicker) or Kicker.

What do you call it?

Do you know any interesting names for this game in other languages?

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_football
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby-foot
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/TischfußFball

Accented

By Simon

If you speak a foreign language, and know the grammar well and have a large vocabulary, but people find it difficult to understand you because you have a strong foreign accent, can we say that you speak it well?

Accents

This is something my friends and I were discussing last night. We recognise that there’s nothing wrong with having a non-native accent when speaking a foreign language, and that few people manage to sound like native speakers of languages they have learnt as adults. This is because you tend to carry over elements of pronunciation from your native language, or from other languages you know.

However, if communication is difficult due to your accent, then it might be a idea to try to modify it so that others can understand you more easily. This may difficult, but is worth the effort.

What are you thoughts on this?

Befrogged

By Simon

If you have a crush on someone or you are infutated with them, in Dutch you might say that je bent verkikkerd op iemand, which could be translated literally as “you are befrogged of someone”.

The word verkikkerd means ‘in love with (someone)’ or to ‘love (someone) very much’ [source]. It comes from kikker [ˈkɪkər] (frog, toad, cleat), from kikken (to croak, sound like a frog; utter, mention), which is onomatopoeic [source].

Groene kikker

Some other frog-related words and expressions in Dutch include:

  • kikkerbad = shallow children’s pool (“frog bath”)
  • kikkeren = to jump around crouching (like a frog)
  • kikkerland = a small, unimportant and rather wet country, virtually exclusively said of the Netherlands (“frog land”)
  • blitskikker = a person (usually young) who follows fashion closely, a fashionista (“fashionable frog”)
  • mafkikker = a werido, goofball, nutjob (“weird/crazy frog”)
  • Een koele kikker zijn = to be a cold-blooded person / a cold fish (“to be a cool frog”)
  • Een kikker in de keel hebben = to be hoarse (“to have a frog in the throat”)
  • Een opkikkertje = a pick-me-up (something that makes you happy, or a small glass of hard liquor)

Source: Wiktionary

In English the word frog means:

  • A small tailless amphibian of the order Anura that typically hops
  • Part of a violin bow
  • Road, as in frog and toad (Cockney rhyming slang)
  • The depression in the upper face of a pressed or handmade clay brick
  • An organ on the bottom of a horse’s hoof that assists in the circulation of blood.

It comes from the Middle English frogge [ˈfrɔɡ(ə)] (frog, toad, wretch, mushroom), the Old English frocga [ˈfroɡ.ɡɑ] (frog), and the Proto-Germanic *fruþgô (frog), from *fruþ (frog) [source].

Do you know any interesting frog-related expresssions?

Smile 🙂😃😄😎🙃

By Simon

A Japanese word I learnt recently that made me smile is 微笑む (ほほえむ) [ho.ho.e.mɯ], which means to smile 😃.

微笑寶寶

The character 微 (kasu / bi) means delicate, minuteness, insignificance, and 笑 (wara / e / jō) means laugh, laughter, smile or sneer. So 微笑 could be translated literally as a “delicate laugh”.

Some related words include:

  • 微笑み (hohoemi), 微笑 (bijō) = smile
  • 微笑みかける (hohoemikakeru) = to smile (at someone)
  • 微笑み返す (hohoemikaesu) = to smile back (at someone), to answer someone’s smile
  • 微笑を浮かべて (bijō o ukabete) = with a smile
  • 微笑ましい (hohoemashī) = pleasant, charming

The existence of 微笑み返す suggests to me that answering smiles with smiles is a common thing in Japan. That makes me smile. Are there words in other languages that mean something similar?

笑 (wara) [ɰaɺa] on it’s own is apparently used as internet slang to mean LOL (laugh out loud) or haha.

Some related words include:

  • 笑う (warau) = to laugh, smile, sneer, ridicule, be flabbergasted
  • 笑顔 (ekao) = smiling face, smile
  • 笑み (emi) = smile
  • 笑い声 (waraigoe) = (sound of) laughter, laughing voice
  • 笑いもの, 笑い物 (waraimono) = laughingstock, butt of ridicule
  • 笑い話 (waraibanashi) = funny story, funny anecdote
  • 笑い出す (waraidasu) = to burst into laughter
  • 笑い事 (waraigoto) = laughter matter

Source: jisho.org