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Foreign Language Word of the Day
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David wrote: "A word from Spanish 1 or 2: ratazanas, "big fecking rats," with an unusual augmentative, pejorative as the often are in Spanish.Most of the pictures refer to Brazilian sites. Maybe it's a Portu..."
In India, a friend and I saw what we thought was a hedgehog; a couple of minutes later, we realized (independently) that it'd been a rat.
CAPYBARA---WORLD'S LARGEST RODENT
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/Amazonia/Facts/capybarafacts.cfm
Reminds me of Sunny Side UpArthur Marshall who liked the word 'Zanzara'... as in Senora Zanzara etc.... Zanzara is Spanish for mosquito, not my favourite creatures either!
A word from Spanish 1 or 2: ratazanas, "big fecking rats," with an unusual augmentative, pejorative as the often are in Spanish.
Most of the pictures refer to Brazilian sites. Maybe it's a Portuguese word. More research needed.
UPDATE: It's a Portuguese word, not Spanish at all. Still a great word.
♪ Baran wrote: "Boreal Elizabeth wrote: "my word for today is ducet (very soft t)= friend in persian"
Actually 'Yar' is more formal than 'ducet' when used to mean 'friend' and it mostley suits literary works..."
But then Edward FitzGerald translated "Ay doost beya...." as "Ah my beloved...." as on the rubaiyee:
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears-
To-morrow?-Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.
Wai.....is Maori for water.....think I'd rather take rum! I did see your limerick David.....llamas indeed (snort)!!
The friend is not even from one of those nationalities rumoured by the malicious to be on intimate terms with our wooly confrères,
David wrote: "So a friend of the wife asked how to say "sheet" in Spanish. While on the phone with her friend, she asked me. Hard of hearing as I am, I heard "sheep," and said "ovejas," which was passed on. Th..."
It could only happen to you David. hahahahahaaha. Now me I have perfect hearing. huh what did you say? hehehe
So a friend of the wife asked how to say "sheet" in Spanish. While on the phone with her friend, she asked me. Hard of hearing as I am, I heard "sheep," and said "ovejas," which was passed on. There are now wooly domesticated ruminants on the friend's beds. The correct word is sábanas.
And this, from the well-known Wilfred Owen poem, citing the Latin:If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Boreal Elizabeth wrote: "my word for today is ducet (very soft t)
= friend in persian"
Actually 'Yar' is more formal than 'ducet' when used to mean 'friend' and it mostley suits literary works and formal pieces of writing.
'Yar' in the second sense is mostly used to mean sweetheart or mistress but again it is a literary word. I should add we rarely call a person 'Yar' as you used in your example except in songs, poems, ...
Baran -- Is "yar" used only among family and very close friends, or is it more informal, like when English-speaking peoples say, "You, my friend, are correct."Gail -- Yes! The SAT's love Latin-based words and the Romance languages all were spawned by the Dead Language of Old. I know the word "lapidary" (having to do with precious stones) and the word "didactic" has a bit of a negative connotation nowadays, meaning "intended to teach a lesson." For instance, if a novel were didactic, it wouldn't be much of a compliment because that would make it too instructional, like a schoolmarm wrote it or some such.
My Foreign Language Mot du Jour:
lapsus linguae -- Latin for "slip of the tongue"
lapsus calami -- Latin for "slip of the pen"
I'm a Spanish teacher and I have a cognate word of the day. Example: didáctico=didactic astuto=astute.The students have told me that many times the words i give them are on the SAT exam :)
Yesterday's word was lápida( lapidario, lapidar) which mean tombstone, lapidary and lapidate. We discussed that in Spanish a lapidario can be not only a person who carves tombstones or cuts precious stones, but also someone who stones someone! Of course, the kids wanted to know if that was the same as a stoner...
Boreal Elizabeth wrote: "salam
hello in persian"
It was really interesting for me that you have mentioned three persian words here. I just wanted to add another one:
'Yar' (The pronounciation in persian is somehow close to 'yard' without 'd' in English) = 1. friend, 2. beloved (Actually the meaning depends on the context)
OK, looked it up and you're right about the two words, Marian:POLISH = Na zdrowie!
RUSSIAN = Na zdorovje!
I thought it was 2 words "nos" "Drovnya" Drovnia or Dobra in Polish means "good" The slavic languages began with one Slavonic language (Like Latin) & then evolved into Polish, Czech, Slovak,ect. like Latin broke down into Italian, French & Spanish. My husband spoke Polish, but when his parents generation (the people who arrived in the US in their adult years) passed away, the language was used less.
Nasdrovya NE....make mine a double Black Russian.
And thanks Donna.....more grist for my mill! I always wondered if there was some relationship between Celtic and Gaelic.
Gaelic is a group of three modern languages descended from Goidelic, one of two Celtic languages (the other being Brythonic) both descended from Celtic. Celtic is a now extinct IndoEuropean language spoken by the Celts who were a loosely allied group of Iron Age tribal societies who lived across most of Europe, from Anatolia to Ireland (east/west) and from Scotland to Spain (north/south). As the Latin empire expanded out of Italy the Celtic speakers were conquered and lost their language or were driven out to the fringes of the empire. Although Goidelic was the language of the Gauls of France it was replaced in France by Latin and modern French is a Romance language (language of the Romans). English is a Germanic language in its structure although yes deeply influenced by French and Latin. I could go on a long time, the history of language is one of my "things."
You beat me to 'slainte' Donna. My grandmother was the daughter of an Irish sailor who emigrated to NZ....she always pronounced it 'shlonta'.
And I think the reason the orthography is so different is because of their diverse roots and seperate evolutionary paths...geography has little to do with it, particularly as the native inhabitants of Ireland were viewed as another species altogether by various foreign invaders (Romans, Vikings etc). English is more Germanic and Latin with a smattering of French thrown in after the conquest.....Gaelic is more your basic tribal French isn't it? Correct me if I'm wrong please....I like to have my facts straight and I am on shaky ground here!!
Bloody mindedness, I think. I am constantly mystified by Gaelic orthography. My daughter, who is more learned in these matters than myself (she studies Welsh, Gaelic, etc.; I study Latin, Spanish, German)has not been able to find an explanation or rationale, either. I must always ask her the correct pronounciation (is that spelled wrong?) for Gaelic words as I am stymied.
Slainte - pr.slanje; health in gaelic
Anybody know why the system of orthography for gaelic is so different from the system of orthography for English? I generally don't know how to pronounce a gaelic word by looking at the spelling and if I hear it I have no guess how it might be spelled. I might expect that with Romanian or some other language that was some distance from England, but given the proximity why the big difference? A significant pronunciation shift in one language or the other since the spelling got set down? Sheer bloody mindedness? What?
Words used as toasts:Saúde--"Your health" in Portuguese
Prosit--German
Kampai--Japanese, from the Shanghainese "Kanpai"
Salud, amor y pesetas--"Health, love and money" in Spanish
Cheers, or, Her Majesty the Queen--a common toast in Pommyland
"May the wind be always at your back, may the road rise to meet you, fand may the Good Lord keep you in the palm of his hand"--Irish toast
Apparently, fulano comes from Arabic, where it means something like "such."Beltrano is a name borrowed from the Franks.
Cicrano, who knows?
FULANO- so and so (Dominican)
pg 256 of The Breif Life of Oscar Wao
"Well, fulano, who knows fulano, who knows fulano, said that that little girl is his daughter."
aye
tis the sea moaning round the isle lad
and the wind across the heath
and the mother's heart for her sick babe
and the woman's soul for her man
moaning like a beast is it
because life is all a losing
and it's sure sad when everything you love is pulled away from ye
and all's that's left is to keen
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