Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
In Dutch a garden or yard is a tuin [tœy̯n]. When I learnt this yesterday I wondered whether it was related to the English word town.
Tuin comes from the Middle Dutch tuun (hedge), from the Old Dutch tūn (an enclosed piece of ground), from the Proto-Germanic *tūną (fence, enclosure), from the Proto-Celtic *dūnom (stronghold, rampart) [source].
Related words include:
From the Proto-Germanic word *tūną we also get such words as town, the German Zaun (fence), the Icelandic tún (hayfield), the Faroese tún (forecourt, way between houses, street in a Faroese village), and the Norwegian tun (courtyard, front yard, farmstead) [source].
The Russian word тын (fence, especially one made of twigs) comes from the same root [source].
Words for dune in Germanic language possibly come from the same root as well [source].
Directly from the Proto-Celtic word *dūnom we get such words as the Irish dún (fort, fortress, haven), the Scottish Gaelic dùn (fortress, heap, hill), the Manx doon (fort, fortress, stronghold), the Welsh dyn (hill, height, fortification) and dinas (city, town), and the Cornish din (fort) [source]. More about this on Celtiadur
Yesterday while preparing the latest episode of the Radio Omniglot podcast, which is about Dutch, I found that there are quite a few words of Dutch origin in English.
Some come directly from Dutch, some via other languages, such as French, and some come via Dutch from other languages.
I particularly like schildersezel, or “painter’s donkey”, for an easel. It’s perhaps a relative of the clothes horse, which is also known as a drying horse or garment donkey, apparently.
The word ezel means donkey, ass, mule, fool, idiot, easel, (work)bench or trestle. Related words include:
Here’s a tune I wrote called The Dancing Donkeys / Asynnod sy’n Dawnsio:
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
What do the words purple and flea have in common?
Well in French, there is one word – puce [pys] – that means both purple and flea. It also means (micro)chip or bullet point.
Here are a few expressions featuring puce:
If you were so inclined, you could say: Ma puce, une puce puce puce une puce puce avec une puce puce, or “Sweetie, a puce flea is tagging a puce flea with a puce tag”, but that would be rather silly.
Puce comes from the Old French pu(l)ce (flea), from the Latin pūlicem, from pūlex (flea), from the Proto-Indo-Euopean plúsis (flea). This is also the root of the English word flea, via the Proto-Germanic *flauhaz.
The colour puce is a dark redish-brown or a brownish-purple. It was first used to refer to this colour in about the 17th century in French, and possibly a lot earlier, and in the 18th century in English. It refers to the colour of bloodstains on flea-ridden bedding which would appear as a result of the fleas biting people and leaving their droppings or being squashed.
Puce was apparently a favourite colour of Marie Antoinette, and became fashionable in 19th century Paris.
There are a couple of other words that sound simliar to puce: pouce (thumb, inch) and pousse (growth, shoot). Both are pronounced [pus] though, so there should be no confusion.
Sources: Reverso, Wiktionary, Wikipedia
In the Dutch lessons I’ve been working on recently I’ve noticed that there appear to be two different words for family: familie and gezin. From the context I can’t work out if they have different meanings or uses, so I thought I’d investigate.
Familie [fɑˈmi.li] means extended family, i.e. parents, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, etc.
It comes from the French famille (family), from the Latin familia (family, household), from famulus (servant, slave)
Gezin [ɣəˈzɪn] means nucelear family, i.e. parents and children, home or household.
It comes from the Middle Dutch ghesinde (companion), from the Proto-Germanic *gasinþiją. from *senþ-/sinþ- (to go, travel; seek, aim), from the Proto-Indo-European *sent- (to head for, go). The German word Gesinde (servants, farmhands) comes from the same root, as does the Old English word ġesīþ (companion, comrade)
Related words inlcude:
Sources: Reverso, bab.la, Woorden.org, Wiktionary
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
What is the connection between pavilions and butterflies?
Well, the word pavilion comes from the Anglo-Norman pavilloun, from the Latin pāpiliōnem, from pāpiliō (butterfly, moth), probably because a pavilion looks a bit like a butterfly’s wings.
In French the word for butterfly is papillon [pa.pi.jɔ̃], which comes from the same root as pavilion, which is also a French word.
The word papillon also means a ticket, parking ticket; a wing nut or butterfly nut; someone brilliant, versatile and inconstant, or a flyer or tag.
A papillon de nuit (“night butterfly”) is a moth, a nœud papillon (“butterfly knot/bow”) is a bow tie and brasse papillon is butterfly stroke, a style of swimming that seems unnecessarily effortful to me.
A papillon adhésif is a sticky note / Post-it note, papillonnage means flitting about or flitting from one relationship to the next, and papillonner means to flit (about/incessantly).
Are there any interesting butterfly-related expressions in other languages?
Sources: Wikitionary, Reverso, bab.la
An interesting Dutch word I learnt recently is goedkoop [ɣutˈkoːp], which means cheap, inexpensive or affordable. It comes from goed (good) and koop (for sale, buy, purchase), so literally means “good buy/purchase” [source].
Incidentally, the English word cheap comes from the Old English cēap (cattle, purchase, sale, traffic, business, bargain), from the Proto-Germanic *kaupaz/*kaupô (inn-keeper, merchant), from *kaupōną/*kaupijaną (to buy, purchase), from the Latin caupō (tradesman, innkeeper), which is the same root as the Dutch koop, and related words in other Germanic languages, such as Kauf (sale, purchase, buy) in German, and köp (purchase) in Swedish [source]
The diminutive of koop is koopje, which means bargin, (a) steal or cheap, and in Belgium it means a sale.
Related words include:
Source: bab.la
I like all these Dutch words with double vowels, and there are plenty of them – they look and sound quite cute to me. The title of this post means “nice bargins”, by the way.
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?