Did you know that...? (language trivia) (Philological Room) Language Learning Forum

Did you know that...? (language trivia)
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90 messages over 12 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 4 ... 11 12 Next >>

ericspinelli
Diglot
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Japan
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Message 25 of 90

27 May 2010 at 5:19am | IP Logged

The only English word to have three sets of repeating vowels (edit: letters) in a row is "bookkeeper."

Captain Haddock wrote:

In Japanese, you can have the same vowel appear many, many times in succession. tōō o ōu (to-o-o-o o o-o-u) means "to cover Eastern Europe".

And you can make it longer by conjugating it to the volitional (let's) and get three of the same kana together: 東欧を覆おう（とうおうをおおおう/tōō o ōou）.

Edited by ericspinelli on 31 May 2010 at 12:09pm
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Captain Haddock
Diglot
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Message 26 of 90

27 May 2010 at 8:23am | IP Logged

furrykef wrote:

Here's one: did you know that in Japanese, the same word (違う "chigau") is used for "to be
wrong" and "to be different"? I wonder if this has anything to do with Japan being a conformist society...

I think it's because to flatly say "you're wrong" in response to someone else's comment is too rude in Japanese, so
saying that your opinion is "different" lets you disagree without being rude. Sort of like saying "I beg to differ" in
English, though not quite the same.

It has less to do with conformity, and more perhaps to do with the cultural concept of "face", which you find in
Japan and East Asia but not in the West.
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John Smith
Bilingual Triglot
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Australia
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Message 27 of 90

27 May 2010 at 4:39pm | IP Logged

The modern English word Black used to mean white.
The old meaning still survives in the word blank. A blank piece of paper is a white piece of paper. The word also exists in Spanish. Blanco (a Germanic word that was borrowed) means white in Spanish.

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Gon-no-suke
Triglot
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Message 28 of 90

28 May 2010 at 5:34am | IP Logged

By adding different lengths of the prefix "o" to the japanese concept kami ("top") you can construct these words:

oookami (大女将 head proprietress)
ookami (狼 wolf)
okami (お上 the upper echelon)
kami (髪 hair)
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furrykef
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Message 29 of 90

28 May 2010 at 6:24pm | IP Logged

ericspinelli wrote:

The only English word to have three sets of repeating vowels in a row is "bookkeeper."

When did 'k' become a vowel? ;)
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egill
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Message 30 of 90

31 May 2010 at 11:23am | IP Logged

John Smith wrote:

The modern English word Black used to mean white.
The old meaning still survives in the word blank. A blank piece of paper is a white
piece of paper. The word also exists in Spanish. Blanco (a Germanic word that was
borrowed) means white in Spanish.

This is not strictly true.

ME black came from PIE *bhleg- "to burn, gleam, shine, flash" by way of
OE blæc "black, dark" from P.Gmc. *blakaz "burned".

Although ME blank also came from the same original root, it came into English
through Old Franconian, already meaning blank/white, coexisting with the native English
word blæc/black

Therefore the word black has never meant white at any point in its
history. It would be more accurate to say that they are cousins with common ancestry
that developed in two directions.
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TixhiiDon
Tetraglot
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Message 31 of 90

31 May 2010 at 11:42am | IP Logged

egill wrote:

furrykef wrote:

Smart wrote:

"Polish" is the only word in the English
language that
when capitalized is changed from a noun or a verb to a nationality.

That might technically be true, but "turkey" is very similar -- only that it's a
country name rather than a nationality. "Chad" (a country in Africa) also qualifies. I
wonder if there are any others?

Sure. to french can mean a lot of different things culinary-wise. One of which
refers to slicing food into slivers (cf. julienning). Also to french someone can
be short for to french kiss someone. Of course these all derive from the demonym
so it doesn't have quite the same satisfaction as Polish & to polish which came
from different roots and merged.

And then you have french polishing which, along with its regular meaning,
describes something very rude indeed in UK slang, although I think the expression is
quite old-fashioned and not so well known now.
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ellasevia
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Message 32 of 90

31 May 2010 at 3:46pm | IP Logged

egill wrote:

John Smith wrote:

The modern English word Black used to mean white.
The old meaning still survives in the word blank. A blank piece of paper is a white
piece of paper. The word also exists in Spanish. Blanco (a Germanic word that was
borrowed) means white in Spanish.

My Swedish book has a section on etymology and comparisons between English and Swedish after every lesson, and the most recent one discussed this:

Beginner's Swedish wrote:

Swedish and English are related languages and it has only been a thousand years since they were mutually intelligible. There are many words that are still recognizable to the English speaker. The colors are one such group of words that are very similar. It is not impossible for an English speaker to understand words like blå, brun, grön, grå, röd, and vit (blue, brown, green, grey, red, and white respectively). It may be a little harder to recognize that gul is related to yellow, but as one knows that a g in Swedish is often a y in English, that too may be discernable.

The odd word out, as it were, is the word svart, in English black. As it happens, English is the odd language out as far as the Germanic languages are concerned. Through a strange set of circumstances, our word black is actually related to the Romance word for white, for example the French blanc or the Spanish blanco, which was the ancient word for ash or something having been burned. As anyone who has seen ash in a campfire can tell you, sometimes the ash is white, and sometimes it is black.

Edited by ellasevia on 31 May 2010 at 3:46pm

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