1951: (Non-Imperial) Regionally Official German Apr 18, 2020
If one were to be asked to think of a European ethnic group who settled in Soviet Kazakhstan, it would be reasonable to think of Russians, but also nearly a million Germans lived there by 1989. Cases like this with Kasachstandeutsche as they are called, along with similar situations Eastern Europe, Siberia, and in South America (especially in the states of Espírito Santo and Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil)—all of which Germans fled to during or after the Second World War—have led to certain regions which were never formally part of the German Empire adopting German as an official, regional language. In the last two or three decades especially however, the German speech and overall populations have declined.
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1950: Split Western Pomerania Apr 17, 2020
With all of the land- and population-transfers that have happened in Central and Eastern Europe, many places have several totally different names, a common meaning is sometimes retained throughout. Germany and Poland both have regions which translate to 'West Pomerania' ('Vorpommern' and 'Zachodniopomorskie' respectively). These were once one area, and while the German side contains more of the historical region and until 1945 made up the significant majority of the population, the rest of Pomerania is still in Poland.
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1949: ozarks Apr 16, 2020
It is from the anglicization of French that 'Arkansas' and 'Kansas' have the discrepancy in the pronunciation, but this is not the only area in the region for which this holds true. The Ozarks, a mountain range nestled mostly between Missouri, Arkansas, and a bit of Oklahoma in the United States gets its name from the French 'aux Arc' which either means 'land of the arches', or is possibly short for 'aux Arkansas' (of Arkansas). Notably, despite certain phonetic similarities, the river that feeds the Lake of the Ozarks in that area, Osage River, is not related etymologically, as it is named for the Osage tribe.
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1948: Irregulars that Don't Change Apr 15, 2020
English verb tenses have lots of different patterns, often without discernible rules. Some, like 'ring' change internally for tense ('rang') and aspect ('rung'). Others, however, like 'put', 'shut', 'wed' and many more don't change at all, whether by interval vowel change or by a suffix, like '-ed'. This means "they put the book on the table" is ambiguous. These are irregular, and in many syntactic models to map English grammar, these ('put' and 'put', that is) are treated as grammatically different.
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1947: Wanderwort: Silver Apr 14, 2020
A wanderwort is a word which has been adopted into many languages, accounting for specific language variation too, but which are not necessarily linguistically connected. For instance, the Indo-European root meaning 'silver' is actually more in line with the Latin 'argentum' (see 'Argentina') but many Germanic and Balto-Slavic words, including the German 'Silber', Russian 'serebro', or Lithuanian 'sidabras' come from this other root. It has been debated where this comes from, but it is possibly from a language native to the Iberian peninsula, predating the Romantic presence there, which was written about yesterday.
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1946: Basque Loan-Word Apr 13, 2020
Basque, spoken mostly in Spain, is not related to any other known language, but being once surrounded by Celtic languages, and for the last 2,000 years or so, Romantic ones, it has picked up a few loan words. For instance, the word for silver is 'zilharr' which was thought to come from a West Germanic root—the same as with English—but some have claimed that in fact the Germanic version cane from an older Iberian loan instead. There will be more on this tomorrow. For more on languages with no relatives, check out the new post on patreon.
1945: colene and colin Apr 12, 2020
According to the Irish folk song, "Star of the County Down", the belle of the local town is named Rosie, but also called 'Colleen', or 'Colene' in the more English spelling. This apparent discrepancy is not an error at all in fact though, but comes from the fact that a 'colleen' (or 'cailin') is a diminutive of 'caile', an Irish word for 'countrywoman', i.e. "young woman". Indeed, 'Colene', and the masculine 'Colin' both come from this root which basically means 'person', but not 'Kayla', despite the phonetic resemblance.
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1944: Latin Newspaper Apr 11, 2020
The first newspapers in the world were all in German, followed (not all that closely) by Dutch, French and Italian respectively. Unsurprisingly, this mirrored the rise and spread of the printing press, because handwriting news is impractical. However, the first Hungarian newspaper, from 1705, was not in Hungarian or even German but Latin. The Mercurius Hungaricus, named for the Roman messenger-god. Remember that Latin was the official language of Hungary until 1836, an this was a semi-official newspaper.
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1943: Newspapers Named for Gods Apr 10, 2020
As mentioned yesterday, time is very relevant for forming the names of newspapers old and new, but this is not the only way. One common was also with the names of the places they were printed, especially as more and more newspapers came about, but also some, along with other still recognizable names like '—magazine', or '—examiner' we were names from Denmark, Hungary, and England including 'Mercurius' (or 'Mercury', as one might say in English) who was the messenger-god in Roman mythology.
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1942: Newspapers and Time Apr 9, 2020
Lots of words relating to, and even names of newspapers derive from things relating to time. Everything from '—Times', '—Chronicle', or '—Journal', or indeed, even the word 'news' all relate the fact that people expect the news, regularly updated. This is reflected in other languages as well, such as the world's second-oldest daily newspaper called "Avisa Relation oder Zeitung" (Avisa Relation or News) with 'Zeitung' meaning 'news' but coming from the word 'Zeit', or in English, 'time'. Having two names, broken up by 'or' was more common back then too.
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1941: Bird Skulls and Vocalizations Apr 8, 2020
Birds have very different ways of producing vocal noises, such as with the syrinx, but that is far from where the differences stop. The aptly named 'hornbill' uses not merely the shape of its bill but the whole structure of its skull (as visible below on the left) to produce its vocalizations, making them louder and deeper. It is less certain, but some have speculated that this is what the large crown atop the head of a cassowary (as seen below on the right) is for as well, though the evidence is less conclusive, and its purposes may be promaily visual.
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1940: menagerie and ménage Apr 7, 2020
A 'menagerie' another term for a zoo where animals are displayed, but the clearly related 'ménage' doesn't mean anything of the sort; that refers to the member of a household. Both of these come from the French 'menage' meaning ‘to stay’, related to 'manage' , but is also influenced by the older 'mesnie' meaning 'household'. The zoological version is slightly divergent therefore, though the word is mostly used figuratively to mean 'a strange collection'.
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1939: ahasuerus and xerxes Apr 6, 2020
A lot of names in the Bible are changed when being Anglicized or even Hellenized (linguistically speaking), but perhaps none so much as Achashverosh, or sometimes spelt Ahasuerus (אחשורוש), who is Xerxes (Ξέρξης) in Greek. This is because these were rendered independently, rather than going off the Hebrew as is common for other names. The Hebrew version used in the Bible comes from the Babylonian Aḥšiyaršu, originally from the Persian personal name Xšaya.āršan meaning 'king of men'; the Greek version comes from the related, Old Iranian Xšaya-ṛšā meaning 'ruler of heroes', and he was known to the Greeks as an imperial threat anyway.
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1938: Orthography Differences: Hebrew and Yiddish Apr 5, 2020
Every language, assuming it has a writing system at all, will have different ways of dealing with sounds not neatly represented by one letter. English uses 'h' often in combinations like CH, SH, TH, PH and GH for what are actually single sounds (monophthongs), but Hebrew uses an apostrophe in order represent that the sound is a variant of another letter in the alphabet, such as ג usually representing /g/ is rendered 'ג for the /dʒ/ sound as in 'ginger' or simply /ʒ/ as in the French 'je'. Likewise the /t͡ʃ/ sound, usually written CH in English, is represented as a variant of צ (like TS), 'צ. In Yiddish however, written in the same alphabet, those two sounds are rendered as דזש (like DZSH in 'jungle), זש (like ZSH, as in the French 'je') and טש (TSH in 'chirp') respectively. Many of those same patterns for Yiddish are similar to those used in German, even though German uses the Latin alphabet.
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1937: fido Apr 4, 2020
Today, the name 'Fido' is so associated with being a dog's name that it can be used as a synonym for dog. It is, however, debated as to how this started. The name comes from the Latin literally meaning "I trust", so for man's best friend, this is a suitable name generally perhaps, but many attribute its fame to the fact that President Abraham Lincoln had a dog named Fido, who had a little more press than his others after unfortunately being 'assassinated' by a drunk a few months after the president was. There was also the famous Italian dog Fido who was made famous in many news stories and even a commemorative statue is placed for him, as he was found to make the same daily trip to the bus stop to wait for his master for 14 years in vain, as he had died in a factory bombing. Of course, it could be that the fame of both dogs combined helped to make the name as popular as it is.
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1936: backgammon Apr 3, 2020
Despite the game having its origins in the Middle East, the name 'backgammon' does actually come from English. 'Gammon', which is both one of the elements and a move in the game, comes from the Old English 'gamen', an earlier form of the modern 'game'. The retention of the -n, nowadays makes it distinct, as it has survived only through this name. The other part of the compound, 'back', is fairly consistent, and apparently referring to the fact that the pieces are forced to move back in order to backgammon someone. Before the 17th century, the game was called 'Tables', which you can read more about here.
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1935: The L of Almond Apr 2, 2020
Like the first R in 'February', people don't always pronounce the L in 'almond', but it is important historically. Italian, Greek, and Portuguese's words for it—'mandorla', ἀμυγδάλη (amygdálē) and 'amêndoa' respectively—don't have the L, but the Spanish word 'almendra' does. It is believed for both the A- but especially the AL- prefix, this comes from the Arabic article 'al', i.e. 'the'. However, in many varieties, even where the L is still present, this is disappearing if it hasn't already.
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1934: What's a Nut Apr 1, 2020
Peanuts are legumes; brazil nuts are seeds, and almonds are drupes. This begs the question: what is a nut?—and does it really matter? The variety in uses really arises from the fact that a nut can refer to either a type of fruit, or to a hard-shelled seed; in the case of almonds, it is both, since the seed comes from the pit of a stone-fruit (like a peach) which itself is inside fruit. This is mostly ex post facto by the botanists however, because across many languages, and throughout human history, this has been a general, and ambiguous term, much like 'apple' or 'berry have been.
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1933: amygdaloid and amygdala Mar 31, 2020
People who aren't right in the head are nutty, but that isn't why the amygdala [part of the brain] is named after almonds. The term 'amygdala' comes directly from the Greek ἀμυγδαλή (amygdalē), meaning both 'almond' but also 'tonsil', in reference to the shape. Indeed, the term in English 'amygdaloid' meaning 'almond-like' can be used to describe something with a shape somewhere on the spectrum between triangular and elliptic.
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1932: Colonial Name Changes Mar 30, 2020
Lots of former colonies changed their names after independence, like 'Zaire' to 'DRC, or 'Burma' to 'Myanmar' or 'Ceylon' to 'Sri Lanka' to something more traditional, though in the latter case 'Ceylon' wasn't a new name, but a transliteration of the Portuguese's own transliteration of the native name. However, many other countries make up totally new names, such as 'Tanzania', which is a portmanteau. It is derived from 'Tanganyika' and 'Zanzibar' which merged to form the new country in 1964.