The Meaning of Tingo

Little languages

2009-09-23T18:42:00.001Z

The 11 largest languages in the world account for approximately half the world’s population (Chinese, English, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, Bengali, Japanese, German and French). Most of the world’s languages are spoken by relatively few people: the median number of speakers is probably around 5-6,000. 95% of the world’s spoken languages have fewer than 1 million native users; half of all the languages have fewer than 10,000. 4% of languages are spoken by 96% of the world’s population.

Single Letter Words

2009-09-17T08:25:00.000Z

Among single letter words to be found among the world’s languages are the following:

u (Samoan) an enlarged land snail
u (Xeta, Brazil) to eat animal meat
u (Burmese) a male over forty-five (literally uncle)
i (Korean) a tooth
m (Yakut, Siberia) a bear; an ancestral spirit

Frogs

2009-08-06T22:34:00.002Z

In Afrikaans frogs go kwaak-kwaak : in Estonian: krooks-krooks ; in the Munduruku tribe of Brazil: korekorekore and in Argentinian Spanish: berp!

OLA

2009-08-06T22:26:00.000Z

The first and most essential word in all languages is surely ‘hello’, the word that enables one human being to converse with another.

allillanchu (Quechuan, Peru)
bok (Croatian)
dumela (Tswana, Zaire)
ei je (Bengali)
goddag (Danish)
helele (SeSetho, Southern Africa)
jambo (Swahili)
kaixo (Basque)
molo (Xhosa, South Africa)
ni hao (Mandarin)
ola (Galician, Spain)
tere (Estonian)
xin chao (Vietnamese)
zdravo (Bosnian)

Does anyone know any others in this vein ?

Say Cheese

2007-05-15T22:27:00.001Z

When photographers attempt to bring out our smiling faces by asking us to "Say Cheese", many countries appear to follow suit with English equivalents. In Spanish however they say patata (potato), in Argentinian Spanish whisky, in French steak frites, in Serbia ptica (bird) and in Danish appelsin (orange). Do you know of any other varieties from around the world's languages?

John Smith Equivalents

2007-01-26T13:20:00.000Z

In many countries one First Name and one Second Name seem to dominate in their popularity. In England it is John Smith; in Denmark: Hans Jensen; in Poland: Jan Nowak and in Israel: Moshe Cohen

Does anyone know of those from other countries?

False Friends

2006-09-15T18:18:00.000Z

Those who learn other languages than their own will sometimes come across words which look or sound the same as English but mean very different things:

kill (Arabic) good friend
bless (Icelandic) goodbye
aye (Amharic, Ethiopia) no
snags (Afrikaans) during the night
sofa (Icelandic) sleep
purr (Scotttish Gaelic) to headbutt
hoho (Hausa, Nigeria) condolences on a death

Has anyone come across any other amusing ones ?

Single Letter Words

2006-07-05T20:07:00.000Z

Among single letter words to be found among the world's languages are the following:
u (Samoan) an enlarged land snail
u (Xeta, Brazil) to eat animal meat
u (Burmese) a male over forty-five (literally uncle)
i (Korean) a tooth
m (Yakut, Siberia) a bear; an ancestral spirit

Do you know of any others ?

Snobs and Chauffeurs

2006-05-20T15:07:00.000Z

Words don't necessarily keep the same meaning. Simple descriptive words such as rain or water are clear and necessary enough to be unlikely to change. Other more complex words have often come on quite a journey since they were first coined:

chauffer (French) to heat; then meant the driver of an early steam-powered car; subsequently chauffeur

sine nobilitate (Latin) without nobility; originally referred to any member of the lower classes; then to somebody who despised their own class and aspired to membership of a higher one; thus snob

theriake (Greek) an antidote against a poisonous bite; came to mean the practice of giving medicine in sugar syrup to disguise its taste; thus treacle

Are there any others you can think of?

Long-winded Words

2006-05-07T16:04:00.000Z

These are often compounds or known as portmanteau words such as;
abkurzungsverzeichnis (German) a list of abbreviations
koyukon neelk'etoak'ee k'eelek'eebedee'oane (Athapaskan, USA) Seven
der Hottentottenpotentatentantenattentater (German) the would-be assassin of the aunt of the Hottentot dignitary
Have you come across any others even longer perhaps!

Favourite onomatopoeia

2006-03-02T09:32:00.000Z

Clink, plink, plonk. When a word sounds like the action it describes, that’s onomatopoeia. Some languages are more rich in onomatopoeia than others. The Japanese go in for it in a big way. Doki doki, for example, describes the heart pounding quickly from excitement; zaa zaa is the sound of pouring rain.

Unusual Place Names

2006-02-03T17:13:00.000Z

English place names provide no end of fun for tourists and locals alike as the motor around the British countryside. Blubberhouses in Yorkshire is one of my favourites. Then there’s the rather unappealing Staines or the rather bizarre Leatherhead. Abroad, I’ve been intrigued to discover some places with names which sound peculiar in English (such as Silly, in Belgium), as well as those that simply have fascinating origins (for example, the name Singapore goes back to the Sanskrit Simhapura which means the ‘Lion City’). I’d love to hear some of your examples!

Mnemonics anyone?

2006-01-10T16:43:00.000Z

Some things are easier to forget than others. That’s why we have mnemonics. Derived from the Greek word mnemon (remembering), a mnemonic is a handy device that helps you to recall a difficult formula or sequence of words. Every English schoolchild’s favourite is probably ‘Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain’, which I silently mouth in order to bring to mind the order of colours in a rainbow – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. There’s also the points of the compass – ‘Never Eat Soggy Waffles’. I’m keen to learn what memory aids are used by speakers of languages other than English.

Most difficult to say

2005-12-14T16:33:00.000Z

There’s no doubt about it, some words are more difficult to pronounce than others. I’ve always found ‘sixths’ tricky to get my lips around. The short, quick syllables of ‘veterinary’ reduce most of us to saying simply ‘vet’. But there are even greater challenges. I certainly wouldn’t like to attempt ‘autochthonicism’ or ‘paraepithelial’ in a hurry. I’m sure there is a wealth of words in other languages that present the human tongue with similar difficulties. Any other twisters out there?'

Thank you!

2005-12-08T12:00:00.000Z

Thanks for your thoughts, flee anemone! (Dec 5th). Getting every last definition in Tingo beyond criticism was always going to be a daunting task – and believe me, I’ve taken note of everyone’s comments. Reprints and the American edition (out in March, by the way) will feature a few subtle changes.

Thanks also for hippoppolli, ‘supposed to be an Icelandic word for jumping into puddles’. I’ll check it out – or maybe there’s an Icelandic reader out there who can throw light on this. And what about other fabulous words? Anybody out there got any whacky definitions they’d like to share or discuss?

Greeks in Malaysia?

2005-12-01T01:36:00.000Z

Perhaps the Ancient Greeks were more adventurous than we have given them credit for. How else can we account for the fact that the Modern Greek word for ‘eye’, mati, is so similar to the Malay word for ‘eye’, mata? Did some of Alexander’s men get further east than we ever imagined? I’m afraid this extraordinary resemblance has a somewhat mundane explanation. After puzzling for some time over the problem, linguists decided that it was simply coincidence. Modern Greek mati is a recent development and comes from a shortening of the older word ommation, meaning ‘little eye’. The Malay word, mata, on the other hand, has kept roughly the same form for centuries. No Ancient Greek ships in the straits of Singapore, then.

Sl- for slither, slink and slime

2005-11-16T10:48:00.000Z

It’s very strange how many words in English beginning with the letters sl have similar meanings. Think of ‘slick’, ‘slip’, ‘slide’, ‘slither’, ‘slink’ and ‘slime’. All of these have something to do with a particular kind of movement, or sensation, but their exact relationship is indefinable. In the same way, words beginning with gl often have something to do with quality of light – ‘glitter’, ‘glisten’, ‘glint’ and so on. I suppose we’re used to the idea that whole words can sound like the things they describe (‘crash’ or ‘whisper’ come readily to mind) but groups of letters? It’s a mystery to me. Does anyone know of similar oddities in languages other than English?

What suits best?

2005-11-01T14:49:00.000Z

Being English, I know the four suits in playing cards as ‘diamonds’, ‘hearts’, ‘clubs’ and ‘spades’. However, other languages interpret these symbols differently. Did you know that the French for clubs is trèfles, meaning ‘clover’? Or that, in Italian, spades are know as picche (pikes)? In Malay, one of my favourite languages, spades are given the name kelawa, which means ‘cave bat’! Entirely appropriate I think, given its shape. It would be fascinating to find out which words are used in other languages.

Feedback

2005-10-20T15:37:00.000Z

I’ve been enjoying the feedback to my posts on the website. How great to discover from Anonymous (one of many) that Age-otori really does exist in Japanese. ‘Formally styling one’s hair for a coming of age ceremony, with the contrary effect of making oneself look worse than before’. If I ever get to do an updated Meaning of Tingo, that’s definitely going in.
Some other great words and expressions, too. Thanks mediaspiv for cigerimin kosesinden, ‘to love someone from the corner of your liver’. Much more expressive than boring old English ‘from the bottom of your heart’.
And I absolutely love ariga-meiwaku, ‘an act someone does for you that you didn’t want to have them do and tried to avoid having them do, but they went ahead anyway, determined to do you a favour, and then things went wrong and caused you a lot of trouble, yet in the end social conventions required you to express gratitude’. I’ve been there.
Some posts, though, seem a touch on the critical side. I would say to Anonymous of Sept 26th who tells me I’m ‘sloppy’ that the whole point about the aranjear post was that the word didn’t make it into the book precisely because I couldn’t verify it. And now, thanks to A. Gwilliam, I know that the word anaranjear means ‘to throw oranges at someone’, which is not quite as good as ‘to kill a cockerel by throwing oranges at it’ but almost. Maybe in some savage corner of the Spanish-speaking world the verb does indeed mean that.
As for the other criticisms, it might interest Dutch-speakers who’ve never heard of Plimpplamppletteren to read the article at http://www.percepp.demon.co.uk/pfol5th.htm where expressive words in many languages are discussed. By the same token, I’m sorry to have to disagree with Monsieur Mallah, but Seigneur-terrace, ‘a person who spends much time but little money in a café’ appears in Barron's Dictionary of French Slang and Other Colloquial Expressions. As far as the 27 words for Albanian moustaches and eyebrows are concerned, I appreciate that the words are formed by adjectives attached to the noun mustaqe, but in my 1100 page Albanian-English dictionary they are listed in a group as specifically descriptive of moustaches …
And so on. Believe me, I didn’t make these words up…

In Praise of Slang

2005-10-14T13:57:00.000Z

How can you define a language? Many like to take their cue from a trusted dictionary. If it ain't in, it's not a word. But the richest source of words is often spoken language. Words used by particular groups of people can tell us a lot about their habits and customs - but they might not be the officially sanctioned version of the language. Think of vibrant urban English, where the phrase 'to be bling' means to accessorise in a flamboyant way, to show off your wealth and style. In France 'Verlan' slang has thrown up a number of quirky words, used mainly by young people in and around Paris. The idea here is to put the sounds of the word back to front - thus 'laisse tomber' (let it drop, forget it), becomes 'laisse beton' - and 'beton' aside from being 'tomber' back to front, is the word for concrete! Very appropriate.

Scheissenbedauern

2005-10-04T21:49:00.000Z

Words from other languages can articulate thoughts that may have been on the tip of our tongues, or even right at the back of the brain. Neko-neko, for example, the Indonesian for ‘one who has a creative idea that only makes things worse’. I’ve worked with more than a few of those over the years. Sometimes the very existence of a word brings a sense of relief (god they’ve thought that too!) Ataoso, for example, Central American Spanish for ‘one who sees problems with everything’. I have at least one of them in my own life, naming no names.

And as for those German ‘portmanteau’ words. My favourite in the book is Scheissenbedauern, ‘the disappointment one feels when something turns out not nearly as badly as one had expected’. You have to think: what kind of a mind first came up with that? And when? Returning from the surprisingly enjoyable wedding of an ex? Or did the word originally relate to a work-project?

Unusual English Words

2005-09-22T10:54:00.000Z

My research has shown that some of the words in Tingo aren’t even known to most native speakers. This may sound odd, until you think of all the unusual English words that are not known by most people. Then there are words which belong, more or less, to dialects, like the Scottish weather words I found, most of them, unsurprisingly, to do with rain. Dreich, ‘a miserably wet day’; plowtery, meaning ‘showery’; and drookit, ‘soaked to the skin’. Most people south of the Watford Gap wouldn’t have heard of these words, so I shouldn’t be surprised that nakhur, a Persian word meaning ‘a camel that won’t give milk until her nostrils are tickled’ isn’t widely known in Iran.

How long is a wife-swap?

2005-09-10T14:41:00.000Z

There are other words in Tingo that I’ve managed to verify, but am still curious to know more about. The Inuit word areodjarekput, for example, meaning, ‘to exchange wives for a few days only’. How exactly does this work? What happens if one party wants to keep the new arrangement as it is? The chances are, surely, that the excitement of the new will mean that quite often the end of the exchange could be tricky, to put it mildly.

Words I've had to leave out

2005-09-08T21:14:00.000Z

One of the frustrations of putting together this book has been finding wonderful words that I’ve been unable to verify, and so had to leave out. Age-otori for example, a Japanese word which supposedly means ‘to look worse after a haircut’. What a great concept. I’ve been there myself. Even though I found it on a website, the Japanese speakers I consulted didn’t think it existed, and I couldn’t track it down in any dictionaries, so out it went. Another favourite met the same fate: the Spanish aranjear, ‘to kill a cockerel by throwing oranges at it’. Does anybody out there have more on these words?

Foreign Words

2005-08-24T17:17:00.000Z

Did you know that people in Indonesia have a word that means to take off your clothes in order to dance'? Or that the Albanians have 27 words for eyebrows and 27 words for moustache? Or the Dutch word for skimming stones is plimpplamppletteren?