Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know or can you guess the language?
Kiki
Have you ever been to a kiki? If you live in Florida or Hawaii, maybe you have. The rest of us, probably not.
According to a post on Crossword Solver about slang words in the USA, kiki is the most popular slang word among members of Gen-Z (those born between about 1997 and 2012) in Florida or Hawaii.
The Urban Dictionary defines kiki as:
A party including good music and good friends, held for the express purpose of calming nerves, reducing anxiety and stress and generally fighting ennui. May involve locked doors, tea and salacious gossip.
Sounds like fun! More details about the origin of this word.
Another slang word popular with Gen-Z that I’ve never heard of is finna, which apparently is an abbreviation of “fixing to” and means “going to” or “about to or in the process of doing something”. For example “I’m finna go da’ sto” (I’m going to go to the store) [source]. More details about the origin of this word.
Then there’s poggers, which is apparently popular in California and Iowa and means:
A twitch emote typically used to express enthusiasm, enthrawlment or other sophisticated emotions of happiness and dopamine.
Other definitions include: “a word to describe excitement, joy, or to hype”, “A word to describe something as good” and “something/someone that you find absolutely amazing” [source]. The related word pog is apparently “used as an exclamation of approval, especially in video game chat” and means “excellent, cool, awesome” [source].
An emote is “A term used in MMORPG’s such as World of Warcraft which describes an action your character can perform which is usually accompanied by sound and sometimes even an animation”. Examples include /poke, /cheer, /moo and /insult [source].
Have you heard/read any of these words? Do you use any of them?
Language Quiz
Falling Apples
A friend asked me to look into the origins of the saying An acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree. I can only find a few examples of this saying online, but lots of examples of the apple never falls far from the tree and similar sayings. It refers to the idea that people inevitably share traits with or resemble their parents or family.
According to The Phrase Finder, the origins of this saying are uncertain. The earliest known example of its use in English appears in 1830 in Benjamin Thorpe’s translation of Rasmus Rask’s Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Tongue:
Traces still exist in the daily language of the Icelanders, for instance in the proverb, eplit fellr ekki lánt frá eikinni the apple falls not far from the tree (the oak!).
In a letter by Ralph Waldo Emerson published in 1839, he quotes the German proverb ‘der Apfel fällt nicht weit von Stamm’ – “As men say the apple never falls far from the stem.”
In 1843, The Bible in Spain by George Henry Borrow includes the line:
“The apple”, as the Danes say, “had not fallen far from the tree;” the imp was in every respect the counterpart of the father, though in miniature.
According to English Language & Usage, a Welsh version of this saying appears in A Dictionary of the Welsh Language, Explained in English:
Ni fell zygwyz aval o avall
The apple will not fall far from the tree
The spelling here is unusal and non-standard: z = dd and v = f, so in modern standard spelling it would be “Ni fell ddygwydd afal o afall”, I think.
There are also versions of this saying from Turkish – Iemisch agatsdan irak dushmas (The apple does not fall far from the tree), and Old English – Se æppel næfre þæs feorr ne trenddeð he cyð hwanon he com. (The apple never rolls so far that it does not make known whence it came.)
I also found an idiom with a similar meaning in Japanese: 狐の子は頬白 (kitsune no ko wa tsurajiro), which means “fox cubs have white cheeks” [source].
Do you know of examples of this saying in other languages?
Language Quiz
Ietsiepietsie
I learnt a cute Dutch word today – ietsiepietsie. It means a little, a little bit, teeny tiny or a teeny tiny bit, and is also written ietsie pietsie, ietsje pietsje or ietsjepietsje [source].
You could also translate it as itsy-bitsy, itty-bitty or teensy weensy Do you know any similar expressions in English or other languages.
It is a reduplication* of ietsje (somewhat, a little bit), a diminutive version of iets [its] (something, anything), which comes from the Middle Dutch iet (something, anything, to any degree, a little, somewhat, sometimes, perhaps), a contraction of iewet, from the Old Dutch *iowiht, from the Proto-Germanic *ne (not) plus io (ever) plus *wiht, from *wihtą (thing) [source].
*Reduplication is “a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.” They’re not very common in Dutch. Other examples include taaitaai (gingerbread), tamtam (fanfare, grapevine) and bla-bla (blah-blah, talk) [source].
They’re more common in English. Examples include easy-peasy, hoity-toity, hurdy-gurdy, raggle-taggle, tut-tut, chit-chat and knick-knack [source].
Language Quiz
Kissing Day
The 14th February is a special day for some – Valentine’s Day, or in Scottish Gaelic Là nam Pòg (“Kissing Day”), which I think is a fun name for the day. Do any other languages have interesting names for Valentine’s Day?
Apparently the practise of sending loved ones cards on Valentine’s Day became popular in the late 18th / early 19th century, in the UK at least, and really took off after 1840, when postage stamps were invented. In 1868 the chocolate company Cadbury started making heart-shaped boxes of chocolates for Valentine’s Day, and the giving of chocolates quickly became popular on this day [source].
By the way, a nice term of affection I learnt recently in Scots is ma wee scone (my little scone). Have you ever heard or used this or something similar? Have you compared your loved ones to other types of food?
Other Scottish Gaelic terms I’ve learnt recently for special days include Là na Gogaireachd (April Fools’ Day – 1st April) and Oidhche na Taigeise (Burns Night – 25th January), or literally “Night of the Haggis”.
The word gogaireachd means a fool’s errand or the act of making a fool of someone. Là na Gogaireachd is also translated as All Fools ‘Day, Gowk’s Day or Hunt-the-Gowk Day. A gowk is a cuckoo or fool in Scots and northern dialects of English. It also means to make foolish or stupefy, and comes from the Old Norse gaukr (cuckoo), from the Proto-Germanic *gaukaz (cuckoo), from the Proto-Indo-European *gʰegʰuǵʰ- (cuckoo) [source]. April Fools’ Day is also Là nan Amadan (Idiots’ Day) in Scottish Gaelic.
The word taigeis (haggis) was borrowed from the English haggis, which comes from the Late Middle English hagis (haggis), from hag(gen) (to chop, cut, hack), from the Old Norse hǫggva (to hew), or from hakken (to chop, hack dice, mince), from the Old English hēawan (to chop, hew; to dice, mince), both ultimately come from the Proto-Indo-European *kewh₂- (to hew; to beat, strike; to forge) [source].
Language Quiz
Musical Fun
The Japanese word 曲 (kyoku) means a composition, piece of music, song, track (on a record), a tune, melody or air, or enjoyment, fun, interest or pleasure. Which is quite appropriate as music is enjoyable and fun for many people. It also often appears in the comments of the videos I watch that feature Japanese bands [source].
The same kanji when pronounced kuse means wrong, improper or indecent, or a long segment of a noh play forming its musical highlight. In the verb 曲がる (magaru) it means to bend, curve, warp, wind, twist, turn, be crooked and various other things, and as 曲げる (mageru) it means to bend, crook, bow, curve, curl, lean, tilt, yield and various other things.
曲 also appears in words like:
- 曲線 (kyokusen) = curve
- 曲がり角 (magarikado) = street corner, bend in the road, turning point, watershed
- 曲目 (kyokumoku) = name of a piece of music, (musical) number, (musical) program(me), list of songs
- 曲がりくねる (magrikuneru) = to bend many times, twist and turn, zigzag
- 曲芸 (kyokugei) = acrobatics
- 曲がりなりにも (magari nimo) = though imperfect, somehow (or other)
- 曲面 (kyokumen) = curved surface
曲目 (kyokumoku) sounds really nice to me, and something I struggle with is remembering the names of pieces of music. I can play quite a lot of tunes, but only know the names of some of them. I even forget the names of tunes I have written myself.
Here’s a little tune I wrote the other day called The Tower of Cats / Tŵr y Cathod.
In Chinese the character 曲 has several meanings: when pronounced qū it means bent, bend, crooked or wrong, and can also be a surname. When pronounced qǔ it means tune or song [source].
It appears in such words as:
- 曲子 (qǔzi) = tune
- 曲调 [曲调] (qǔdiào) = melody
- 曲折 (qūzhé) = winding, complicated
- 曲直 (qūzhí) = right and wrong
- 曲线 [曲線] (qūxiàn) = curve, curved line, indirect
- 曲解 (qūjiě) = to distort
- 曲别针 [曲別針] (qūbiézhēn) = paper clip
Sources: Line Dict CHINESE-ENGLISH, mdbg.com
By the way, the band featured in the photo is Lovebites, a Japanese metal band who I really like.
This is their most recent video: