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

Today I discovered that one way to say thunder in Japanese is ごろごろ様 (gorogoro sama) or literally “Mr(s) Rumbling”. ごろごろ / ゴロゴロ (gorogoro) is one of the many Japanese onomatopoeic / mimetic words that means rumbling (of thunder, one’s stomach, etc), grumbling, growling, purring, rolling (of sth large and heavy), tumbling, all over the place, everywhere, commonly, in great numbers, idly, lazily, slothfully, or the uncomfortable feeling of have a foreign substance in one’s eye, stomach, etc. [source]. Some examples of how it’s used include: 胃がごろごろ音をたてます。 (i ga gorogoro oto o tatemasu) = my stom ..read more

I have some news – I’ve had enough of learning languages and am giving up, throwing in the towel, putting the fiddle in the roof, throwing a spoon, and throwing the axe in the lake. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I like speaking other languages, at least sometimes, but the process of learning them can be a bit tedious. I already speak some languages reasonably well and don’t currently need to learn any more, so maybe my time would be better spent doing other things. My other main passion is music – I like to sing, to play instruments, and to write songs and tunes. I’l ..read more

Here’s a recording in a mystery language. http://www.omniglot.com/soundfiles/blog/quiz310324.mp3 Do you know, or can you guess, the language ..read more

Are you a madrugador? I used to be, but now I’m more of a dormilón and a trasnochador. Madrugador [ma.ð̞ɾu.ɣ̞aˈð̞oɾ] is a Spanish (and Portuguese) word that means an early riser, early bird or morning person, and as an adjective it means rising or waking early. [source]. Madrugador comes from madrugar (to get up early), from Vulgar Latin *mātūricāre (to wake up early), from Latin matūro (to ripen, mature, hasten, rush), from mātūrus (mature, ripe, early, soon), from Proto-Italic *mātus (ripeness) from the PIE *meh₂- (to ripen, to mature) [source]. Sometimes you can pack a lot of meaning into ..read more

Do you like to nurdle? The verb to nurdle can mean to gently waffle or muse on a subject which one clearly knows little about, which is something I do occasionally, or to score runs (in cricket) by gently nudging the ball into vacant areas of the field. It can also mean to shoot (a wink) into a position too close to the pot to be easily potted (in tiddlywinks). As a noun, a nurdle is such a shot in cricket or tiddlywinks; cylindrical shaped pre-production plastic pellet used in manufacturing and packaging; or blob of toothpaste shaped like a wave, often depicted on toothpaste packaging [source ..read more

Here’s a recording in a mystery language. http://www.omniglot.com/soundfiles/blog/quiz170324.mp3 Do you know, or can you guess, the language ..read more