Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know, or can you guess, the language?
A Little Alliteration
I like a little alliteration, don’t you?
Alliteration is “The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of two or more words immediately succeeding each other, or at short intervals.” [source]. As in the sentence above. It comes from Modern/New Latin alliterationem, from alliterare (to begin with the same letter), from Latin ad (to, near) and lītera (letter, script) [source].
Other names for this include consonance (the repetition of consonants sounds) [source] and head rhyme. If similar or indentical vowel sounds are being repeated, as in “How now, brown cow?”, it’s called assonance [source] or slant rhyme.
Other kinds of rhymes include:
- syllabic rhyme: the last syllable of each word sounds the same but does not necessarily contain stressed vowels. E.g. cleaver, silver; pitter, patter.
- imperfect (or near) rhyme: a rhyme between a stressed and an unstressed syllable. E.g. wing, caring
- weak (or unaccented) rhyme: a rhyme between two sets of one or more unstressed syllables. E.g. hammer, carpenter
- semirhyme: a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word. E.g. bend, ending
- forced (or oblique) rhyme: a rhyme with an imperfect match in sound. E.g. green and fiend; one, thumb)
- pararhyme: all consonants match. E.g. tick, tock; bing, bong
Other types of rhyme, and other ways of classifying rhymes are available [More details].
I use a variety of rhymes in the songs I write. For example, my latest song was inspired by a phrase from the Irish course in Duolingo “Léann na lachan na nuachtán.” (The ducks read the newspaper). I made a more alliterative version: “Tá lacha ag léamh leabhar sa leabhrlann le leon agus luch.” (A duck is reading a book in the library with a lion and a mouse). The English version is only slightly alliterative, and that’s what often happens with translations, and why songs and poems are difficult to translate.
Here are the words of the song. Parts are quite alliterative, in Irish at least.
Eachtraí na Lacha (The Duck’s Adventures)
Tá an lacha ag léamh sa leabharlann
The duck is reading in the library
Tá an lacha ag léamh sa leabharlann
le leon agus luch (with a lion and a mouse)
Tá an lacha ag siúl go Sligeach
The duck is walking to Sligo
Tá an lacha ag siúl go Sligeach
ag lorg lámhainní (looking for gloves)
Tá an lacha ag canadh amhrán
The duck is singing a song
Tá an lacha ag canadh amhrán
faoi sionach an-sionnachúil (about a very cunning fox)
Tá an lacha ag labhairt Laidin
The duck is speaking Latin
Tá an lacha ag labhairt Laidin
lena lucht leanúna (with its supporters)
Tá an lacha ina coladh ina leabaidh
The duck is sleeping in its bed
Tá an lacha ina coladh ina leabaidh
Agus sin deireadh an scéil
And that’s the end of the tale
Agus sin deireadh an scéil
Here’s a rough recording:
I’ve been thinking of making it trilingual in Irish, English and Welsh, but haven’t got round to it yet.
Here’s an alliterative phrase I came up with that seems to translate well into a variety of languages:
- English: Singers sing songs
- Albanian: Këngëtarët këndojnë këngë
- Armenian: Երգիչները երգեր են երգում (Yergich’nery yerger yen yergum)
- Aymara: Q’uchunakax q’uchunak q’uchupxi
- Bengali: গায়কেরা গান গায় (Gāẏakērā gāna gāẏa)
- Bulgarian: Певците пеят песни (Pevtsite peyat pesni)
- Catalan: Els cantants canten cançons
- Corsican: I cantanti cantanu canti
- Croatian: Pjevači pjevaju pjesme
- Danish: Sangere synger sange
- Dhivehi (Maldivian): (lavakiyuntherin lavakiyaeve) ލަވަކިޔުންތެރިން ލަވަކިޔައެވެ
- Esperanto: Kantistoj kantas kantojn
- Estonian: Lauljad laulavad laule
- Finnish: Laulajat laulavat lauluja
- French: Les chanteurs chantent des chansons
- Galician: Os cantantes cantan cancións
- Greek: Οι τραγουδιστές τραγουδούν τραγούδια (Oi tragoudistés tragoudoún tragoúdia)
- Haitian Creole: Chantè chante chante
- Hindi: गायक गीत गाते हैं (gaayak geet gaate hain)
- Lingala: Bayembi bayembaka banzembo
- Mongolian: Дуучид дуу дуулдаг (Duuchid duu duuldag)
- Romanian: Cântăreții cântă cântece
- Russian: Певцы поют песни (Pevtsy poyut pesni)
- Swedish: Sångare sjunger sånger
- Turkish: Şarkıcılar şarkılar söylüyor
- Welsh: Cantorion yn canu caneuon
Translations by Google Translate. More are available
It’s unusual to find a phrase like this that has alliterative translations into so many different languages.
Are there other kinds of rhymes that you like / use / know?
Language Quiz
Buckling Swashes
Have you a swashed any buckles or buckled any swashes recently? Do you known the differences between a pirate, a privateer and a buccaneer? What about a freebooter or a corsair?
A swashbuckler is a swordsman or fencer who engages in showy or extravagant swordplay, a daring adventurer or a kind of period adventure story with flashy action and a lighthearted tone [source].
A swashbuckler likes to swashbuckle, that is, take part in exciting romantic adventures [source].
Swash as a noun has a variety of meanings, including:
- The water that washes up on shore after an incoming wave has broken.
- A narrow sound or channel of water lying within a sand bank, or between a sand bank and the shore, or a bar over which the sea washes.
- A wet splashing sound.
- A smooth stroke; a swish.
- A swishing noise.
- A long, protruding ornamental line or pen stroke found in some typefaces and styles of calligraphy.
- A streak or patch.
As a verb, to swash means:
- To swagger; to act with boldness or bluster (toward).
- To dash or flow noisily; to splash.
- To swirl through liquid; to swish.
- To wade forcefully through liquid.
- To swipe.
- To fall violently or noisily.
- To streak, to color in a swash. [source].
Swash also appears in swash letter (an italic capital letter with top and bottom flourishes, intended to fill an unsightly gap.) [source]; and swish-swash (a repeated swishing action or sound, going back and forth) [source].
A buckler is “a kind of shield, of various shapes and sizes, held in the hand or worn on the arm (usually the left), for protecting the front of the body. In the Middle Ages in England, the buckler was a small shield, used not to cover the body but to stop or parry blows.” [source].
A pirate is “a criminal who plunders at sea; commonly attacking merchant vessels, though often pillaging port towns.” It comes from Old French pirate (pirate), from Latin pīrāta (pirate), from Ancient Greek πειρατής (peiratḗs – brigand, robber), from πεῖρα (peîra – trial, attempt, plot). It replaced the Old English word wīċing, which could refer to a pirate or a viking [source], although vikings were more commonly called Norþmenn (north people), hǣþene (pagans) or Dene (Danes) [source].
A privateer was historically a privately owned warship that acted under a letter of marque to attack enemy merchant ships and take possession of their cargo. An officer or any other member of the crew of such a ship, or in other words, a government-sanctioned pirate [source].
Buccaneer is another word for pirate, and specifically refers to pirates who preyed on the ships of other nations on the Spanish Main and in the Pacific in the 17th century. It comes from French boucanier (buccaneer), from boucaner (to smoke or broil meat and fish, to hunt wild beasts for their skins), from boucan ([Tupi-style] grill), from Old Tupi m(b)oka’ẽ (wooden grill) [source].
A freebooter refers to an adventurer who pillages, plunders or wages ad-hoc war on other nations. It comes from Dutch vrijbuiter (freebooter, pirate), from vrijbuit (plunder, spoils) [source]. The old word flibustier (a French pirate in the Americas) comes from the same roots [source], as does filibuster [source].
Incidentally, the Dutch word buit (spoil, booty, loot, prey, gains), and the English word booty, might ultimately come from the Proto-Celtic word *boudi (victory, booty, spoils), as does the name Boudica [source].
A corsair refers specifically to French privateers, especially from the port of Saint-Malo, and the ships they sail. It can also refer to privateers and pirates in general.
It comes from French corsaire (privateer, corsair, pirate), from Italian corsaro (privateer, corsair, pirate), from Medieval Latin cursārius (pirate, sea-raider), from Latin cursus (course, running, race, way, passage, journey, voyage) [source].
Are there any other words for pirate that I’ve missed?
For more seafaring-related words, see this podcast, which inspired this post:
Language Quiz
2,000 Languages!
Yesterday I added two new language pages to Omniglot Nanggu (an Oceanic language spoken in the Solomon Islands) and Uneapa (an Oceanic language spoken in Papua New Guinea). Why do I mention this? Well, Uneapa happens to be the 2,000th language on Omniglot, and I thought that’s something to celebrate.
When I started Omniglot back in 1998, it was just a little site to promote a web design and translation business I tried to set up. I added information about languages I knew and could work with, and then starting adding details of alphabets and other writing systems, and the languages written with them.
Since then, the site has grown a bit and now has some 7,600 pages, with details of 345 writing sytems, 900+ constructed and adapted scripts, 2,000 languages, useful phrases in 362 languages, numbers in 1,081 languages, and much more.
Here are some significant moments from the past 26 years:
1998 – Omniglot begins
1999 – I started working as a web developer specialising in multilingual websites in Brighton (& Hove). I continued to work on Omniglot in my spare time while I was there.
2000 – Omniglot.com registered as a domain
2003 – Revenue from Omniglot starts to trickle in, mainly from commission on Amazon sales
2004 – visitor numbers to Omniglot reached 100,000 per month
2005 – I went to Donegal in the northwest of Ireland to study Irish language and songs for the first time. I went there for a week or two every summer until 2019.
2006 – Omniglot blog launched. My first post, after a welcome one, was about Language and memory. Since then, I have written 3,767 more posts, including this one.
2007 – I launched the Omniglot YouTube channel. My first video was a silly little conversation in French and English about flying monkeys and other strange things. Since then, I’ve posted another 239 videos.
2008 – I was made redundant from my job in Brighton and started working on Omniglot full-time, while doing a bit of freelance work for other websites. I also registered Omniglot as a limited company.
2008-2009 – I moved to Bangor in north Wales to do an MA in Linguistics at Bangor University. I’ve been here ever since.
2010 – I bought a house in Bangor after renting for a couple of years.
2011 – visitor numbers to Omniglot reached 1 million per month.
2012 – I started writing songs, inspired by a poetry writing workshop I went to in Bangor, and by a singing class I started attending in 2010. Since January 2019, I’ve written at least one new song every month. Here’s the first song I wrote:
2014 – I went to the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin, and to the Polyglot Conference in Novi Sad, Serbia. They were my first large polyglot events I’d attended, and I thoroughly enjoyed them. Since then, I’ve been to quite a few others in Europe and North America.
2015 – visitor numbers reached 2 million per month. I also started writing tunes this year. I think this is the first tune I wrote, played by me on the harp:
2016 – peak year so far in terms of visitor numbers and revenue from Omniglot. Thanks to my frugal habits, savings and income from my site, I was able to pay off my mortgage in full this year.
2017 – I started studying languages on Duolingo every day while recovering from a little ice skating accident involving a broken ankle, and have continued to do so ever since. My current streak is at 2,481 days today. So far I’ve studied Russian, Romanian, Czech, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish, Japanese, Scottish Gaelic and Irish. I had some knowledge of most of them before, but Romanian, Danish and Finnish were completely new to me. I wouldn’t claim to speak any of them fluently or flawlessly, but I can at least have conversations in them.
2018 – I started Celtiadur, a blog where I explore connections between Celtic languages. My first post was about words for Big, Large & Great and related things. Since then, I have written 419 more posts, and have been working to improve the earlier posts, which tended to be quite basic.
This blog, under a different name, had previously been about my language learning efforts and travels, but I moved the old posts to my main Omniglot blog, decided to focus on Celtic languages instead.
I also started the Radio Omniglot blog and podcast. Episode 1 was about My Language Learning Adventures. Since then, I have written and recorded 381 more posts and podcasts.
2021 – I added the 1,500th language (Akawaio) to Omniglot.
2021 / 2022 – I had a home office / studio built in my garden. Since then, it’s been the place where I do most of my work, and make podcasts and other recordings.
2024 – I added the 2,000th language (Uneapa) to Omniglot.
Language Quiz
Chocolate Peanuts
What’s the connection between chocolate and peanuts?
Well, peanuts covered with chocolate taste good, and they are both native to the Americas, but apart from that, a French word for peanut, cacahuète [ka.ka.ɥɛt / ka.ka.wɛt], was borrowed from Spanish cacahuate / cacahuete [ka.kaˈwa.t̪e / kakaˈwete] (peanut), which comes from the Classical Nahuatl cacahuatl (cocoa bean), from Proto-Nahuan
In Spanish, cacahuate is used in Honduras and Mexico, while cacahuete is used in Spain and El Salvador. Another word for peanut in Spanish is maní, which is used in most other Spanish-speaking countries. It was borrowed from Taíno [source].
The origins of the word chocolate are not entirely clear. The English word was borrowed from the Spanish chocolate, and it’s thought that the Spanish word came from Classical Nahuatl. Possibly from *xocolātl (to make sour) and ātl (water), or from a combination of the Yucatec Maya word chocol (hot) and the Classical Nahuatl ātl (water) [source].
Other English words that come from Classical Nahuatl include avocado, chia, chili, guacamole, haricot and tomato, as well as names such as Aztec, Guatemala and Mexico [source].
Incidentally, in the southern USA peanuts are/were known as goobers, and this word used to refer to people from Georgia and North Carolina, and to foolish, simple or amusingly silly people. Goober comes from Gullah, from the Kongo word ngubá (peanut) [source].
Language Quiz
Surfing the Mountains
Did you know that you can surf on the mountains in Switzerland?
A Swiss friend of mine spends his winters teaching skiing and snowboarding in Switzerland, and the rest of the time he lives here in Bangor in north Wales. When talking about teaching snowboarding in French, he says “j’enseigne le surf (“I teach the surf / surfing”), which confuses me a bit, even though I know what he means. Is this a common way to refer to snowboarding in Swiss French, or French in general?
According to Wikipedia, French words for snowboard(ing) include snowboard, surf des neiges, plance à/de neige, and snowboarders are nivoplanchistes or snowboardeurs in France, and planchistes in Quebec.
Apparently the first snowboards were developed in 1965 when Sherman Poppen, an engineer in Muskegon, Michigan, invented a toy for his daughters by fastening two skis together. He called this invention the snurfer (a combination of snow and surfer).
Other names that have been used for snowboards include Skiboard and the the Lonnie Toft flying banana. The name snowboard was possibly first used by Jake Burton Carpenter, who founded a company to make them in Londonderry, Vermont in 1977.
What are snowboards and snowboarding called in other languages?
Are you a snowboarder or skier?
I’ve never tried either. I used to do a lot of inline skating in Brighton, but since I moved to Bangor, I’ve kind of given up due to the lack of suitable places round here to skate. I used to go ice skating occasionally as well, but the last time I did that, I broke my ankle and decided to give that up too.
Incidentally, to surf (on water) is faire du surf in French, and to surf (the internet) is surfer sur Internet [source].