[Multilingual Monday] Miscellaneous
I'm gonna go all over the place with this artcicle -- it might seem a bit ADHD, but bare with me ...
LOGOS: A while back I made a post about logos in foreign languages, and now I think I've found my favourite, courtesy of CNN. This ingenious logo features the CNN logo, but also similarly-styled Arabic letters, meaning that going right to left this could also be العربية, "Arabic". If only I could see such creativity in other attempts to port logos!
I showed it to Carl and he was very nonplussed. Awww ;_;
HEBREW HEBREW EVERYWHERE: It should be noted that, at Midwest Bearfest, I spoke Hebrew more than I have in fifteen years. I met with fellow language lover Adiv as well as a very cute muscled man who lived in Israel as a child -- it was a very odd moment as several of the conversations were almost completely in Hebrew. Not that I mind -- but really, of all the places I'm going to hear Hebrew, a bear run?? It was still fun to use sentences like הוא היה כיף מאוד במיטה, hu haya kef meod bemita, "He was a ton of fun in bed." :: laugh ::
VAGUENESS = POLITENESS: When my mom died, I noticed that many people wouldn't say that my mother DIED, but rather that she "passed away," "passed on," or even "went to a better place." It was about this time, that I stumbled across a rather amusing tale on NotAlwaysRight about vagueness in Norwegian. The tale is in English, but is clearly translated from Norwegian, and tells of a woman who keeps saying that a man "left," meaning that "he died." I really wish I knew what words she was using in the original Norwegian -- han forlot? -- but this distal nature seems to be fairly frequent in languages. Japanese, for example, seems to have the belief that the more distal your speech is, the more polite you are, meaning that few things are seldom to the point unless you get "vulgar".
So my question -- are there languages where this ISN'T true? Where euphemisms to avoid a direct impact are considered unnecessary or even rude? I'd love to hear from people on this topic, as I find it fascinating.
COUNTRY NAMES: So I was flipping through Turkish Wikipedia -- you really don't have to be surprised that I would be doing something like that -- and I came to the realisation, once I got to the Eurovision section, that a good chunk of the country names were NOT cognates of the country names in other languages. I first tripped over Fas, and then realised that I equally had no idea where Arnavutluk or Avusturya were without cheating, took a lucky guesses on Gürcitan and Macaristan, and could fortunately break down Karadağ. I really shouldn't just assume that the names will be close to their English forms --that's foolish of me -- but I admittedly find this a bit fascinating.
The countries, in order: Morocco, Albania, Austria, Georgia, Hungary, and Montenegro.
AND FINALLY, HOW ABOUT SOME MUSIC? So I stumled across this over the weekend, posted one of the songs, and was told it "was horrible!". What is it? This man in Germany named Alex has been doing German covers of pop songs now for quite a bit now -- everyone from Hall and Oates to Katy Perry to Eminem. As a linguanerd I can't resist the charm of his covers, even if the productions aren't necessarily the best. How can I say no? :: laugh ::
LOGOS: A while back I made a post about logos in foreign languages, and now I think I've found my favourite, courtesy of CNN. This ingenious logo features the CNN logo, but also similarly-styled Arabic letters, meaning that going right to left this could also be العربية, "Arabic". If only I could see such creativity in other attempts to port logos!
I showed it to Carl and he was very nonplussed. Awww ;_;
HEBREW HEBREW EVERYWHERE: It should be noted that, at Midwest Bearfest, I spoke Hebrew more than I have in fifteen years. I met with fellow language lover Adiv as well as a very cute muscled man who lived in Israel as a child -- it was a very odd moment as several of the conversations were almost completely in Hebrew. Not that I mind -- but really, of all the places I'm going to hear Hebrew, a bear run?? It was still fun to use sentences like הוא היה כיף מאוד במיטה, hu haya kef meod bemita, "He was a ton of fun in bed." :: laugh ::
VAGUENESS = POLITENESS: When my mom died, I noticed that many people wouldn't say that my mother DIED, but rather that she "passed away," "passed on," or even "went to a better place." It was about this time, that I stumbled across a rather amusing tale on NotAlwaysRight about vagueness in Norwegian. The tale is in English, but is clearly translated from Norwegian, and tells of a woman who keeps saying that a man "left," meaning that "he died." I really wish I knew what words she was using in the original Norwegian -- han forlot? -- but this distal nature seems to be fairly frequent in languages. Japanese, for example, seems to have the belief that the more distal your speech is, the more polite you are, meaning that few things are seldom to the point unless you get "vulgar".
So my question -- are there languages where this ISN'T true? Where euphemisms to avoid a direct impact are considered unnecessary or even rude? I'd love to hear from people on this topic, as I find it fascinating.
COUNTRY NAMES: So I was flipping through Turkish Wikipedia -- you really don't have to be surprised that I would be doing something like that -- and I came to the realisation, once I got to the Eurovision section, that a good chunk of the country names were NOT cognates of the country names in other languages. I first tripped over Fas, and then realised that I equally had no idea where Arnavutluk or Avusturya were without cheating, took a lucky guesses on Gürcitan and Macaristan, and could fortunately break down Karadağ. I really shouldn't just assume that the names will be close to their English forms --that's foolish of me -- but I admittedly find this a bit fascinating.
The countries, in order: Morocco, Albania, Austria, Georgia, Hungary, and Montenegro.
AND FINALLY, HOW ABOUT SOME MUSIC? So I stumled across this over the weekend, posted one of the songs, and was told it "was horrible!". What is it? This man in Germany named Alex has been doing German covers of pop songs now for quite a bit now -- everyone from Hall and Oates to Katy Perry to Eminem. As a linguanerd I can't resist the charm of his covers, even if the productions aren't necessarily the best. How can I say no? :: laugh ::
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