Yesterday I added two new language pages to Omniglot Nanggu (an Oceanic language spoken in the Solomon Islands) and Uneapa (an Oceanic language spoken in Papua New Guinea). Why do I mention this? Well, Uneapa happens to be the 2,000th language on Omniglot, and I thought that’s something to celebrate. When I started Omniglot back in 1998, it was just a little site to promote a web design and translation business I tried to set up. I added information about languages I knew and could work with, and then starting adding details of alphabets and other writing systems, and the languages written wi ..read more

Here’s a recording in a mystery language. http://www.omniglot.com/soundfiles/blog/quiz050524.mp3 Do you know, or can you guess, the language ..read more

What’s the connection between chocolate and peanuts? Well, peanuts covered with chocolate taste good, and they are both native to the Americas, but apart from that, a French word for peanut, cacahuète [ka.ka.ɥɛt / ka.ka.wɛt], was borrowed from Spanish cacahuate / cacahuete [ka.kaˈwa.t̪e / kakaˈwete] (peanut), which comes from the Classical Nahuatl cacahuatl (cocoa bean), from Proto-Nahuan *kakawatl, from Proto-Mixe-Zoque *kakawa (cacao) [source]. This is also the root of words for cacao, the main ingredient in chocolate (at least good chocolate), in many languages [source]. In Spanish, cacahu ..read more

Here’s a recording in a mystery language. http://www.omniglot.com/soundfiles/blog/quiz280424.mp3 Do you know, or can you guess, the language ..read more

Did you know that you can surf on the mountains in Switzerland? A Swiss friend of mine spends his winters teaching skiing and snowboarding in Switzerland, and the rest of the time he lives here in Bangor in north Wales. When talking about teaching snowboarding in French, he says “j’enseigne le surf (“I teach the surf / surfing”), which confuses me a bit, even though I know what he means. Is this a common way to refer to snowboarding in Swiss French, or French in general? According to Wikipedia, French words for snowboard(ing) include snowboard, surf des neiges, plance à/de neige, and snowboar ..read more

Here’s a recording in a mystery language. http://www.omniglot.com/soundfiles/blog/quiz210424.mp3 Do you know, or can you guess, the language ..read more

The words rifle and ruffle sound similar, but are they related? Let’s find out. A rifle is a firearm fired from the shoulder with a long, rifled barrel, which increases range and improves accuracy. It is short for “rifled gun”, referring to the spiral grooves inside the barrel (rifling). It comes from Middle English riflen (to rob, plunder, search through), from Old French rifler (to lightly scratch, scrape off, plunder), from Proto-Germanic *rīfaną (to tear, rend), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reyp- (to tear) [source]. A ruffle is any gathered or curled strip of fabric added as trim or decora ..read more

Here’s a recording in two mystery languages – we didn’t have a language quiz last week because I was away on holiday in Scotland and didn’t have time to set it up, so we have a bonus language this week. http://www.omniglot.com/soundfiles/blog/quiz140424.mp3 Do you know, or can you guess, the languages? They are related, by the way ..read more

A sunny morning in Oban / Madainn ghrianach anns an Oban The trip from Oban to Skye went smoothly, and I bumped into a couple on the bus who I met at SMO last year. There were several other SMO-bound people on the bus, but I didn’t know them at the time. We arrived safely at Broadford on Sunday afternoon, and got a lift to the college from there. Along the way, there was sunshine, lots of rain and some high winds, and the views from the bus were beautiful. Changing buses in Tyndrum / Ag atharrachadh bhusaichean ann an Tyndrum So far, the Gaelic song course has been a lot of fun. There are el ..read more

Well, I finally arrived in Oban about an hour ago. It’s dark, it’s raining, and I’m about 3.5 hours late. I was hoping to see a bit of the town while it was still light, but at least I made it here. My trip from Bangor to Glasgow went smoothly, with most of the trains being on time and not too crowded. Things went a bit off the rails after that. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Simon Ager (@ieithgi) (The following morning in Oban) – More photos are available on Instagram (@ieithgi) When I arrived at Glasgow Queen Street station, I discovered that the train I was supposed to ta ..read more