| Another three months since I updated last! I might just move the whole discussion to my ordinary journal, don`t you think? Anyway, words are fun and I learn new ones almost every week thanks to my beta-reader who constantly puts words I haven`t heard before into my stories, lol. So if you find a fancy word in my stories it`s probably her fault. ;)
Spending so much time with friends from other countries as I`ve done this summer also opens for discussions of language, and believe me we have discussed. As an example, my Dutch friend Mel and I sometimes when searching for the right word in English use words that we know are wrong in English but are right in Dutch and Norwegian. All thanks to the Germanic languages. I wonder how many percents of identical or almost-identical vocabulary we have. We`ve also found that it`s harder to understand a foreign language when spoken, but easier to understand when written and when you have an idea of how certain combinations of letters are supposed to sound. My Swedish friend Nixie and I have probably 90 percent of our vocabulary identical - if not always written the same - but still there are words we do not understand when we speak.
Does anyone have an idea of how much of the vocabulary that`s identical or almost-identical in the Germanic languages? And what of other language-groups? | comments: Leave a comment   |
| Oh dear! I can`t believe it`s months and months since I`ve written anything here! *hangs head in shame* What can I say? I don`t really have a good excuse. I hope you haven`t missed the language discussions too much though!
I haven`t had much to discuss here really, but lately there`s been a very interesting show on Norwegian TV called "Typisk Norsk", which means typical Norwegian. It`s a program about our language and today (which sadly was the last episode of this season) it was about the words that are most difficult of all to say, mamely the words "I love you." In Norwegian we have two phrases for this meaning. "Jeg elsker deg" and "Jeg er glad i deg." Some also use "I love you" if they find it embarrassing to use the Norwegian words or don`t know how to say it in Norwegian in fear of disapproval or what have you. The first phrase is the one you use to your spouse/sweetheart. The other one is used for all other occasions - to family, friends, "not-so-dear"-sweethearts, etc.
What I wonder is this: In English there`s only the phrase "I love you". Doesn`t the meaning get a little watered-down when you only have one phrase? I know that English has a much wider vocabulary than say Norwegian and using English as much as I do, I feel that Norwegian isn`t as far developed as English. It means that I use the wrong word more often than I would if there were fewer to chose from but it also means that I feel I miss something when expressing myself in Norwegian. Especially if I want to say anything important.
How about other languages?
What do you think? I`m tired and a bit muddled tonight but I hope some of this makes sense. And please - is there anything you`d want to discuss - comment and I`ll make a topic of it. :) | | comments: 17 comments or Leave a comment |
| It`s been a very, very long time since I`ve posted anything here, isn`t it. I`ll try to be better about it from now on.
Just a simple question this time. What is your favorite word, and why?
Some words are great because of how they sound, others because they fill us with emotion in some way or other and other words are just normal words that goes with a person or a situation. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| In response to my first post ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=88.8) gentlehobbit said this:
One of my favourite topics in language is about cognates: words that are the same in different languages despite minor differences in pronunciation, spelling or script. For example, I know that "house" is "hus" or "haus" or so on in germanic languages. And "cat" is common throughout most indo-european languages (chat, katt, katzen, gatto, kochka (?sp), etc.)
Do you know of other words that cognates like her two examples? | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| As we know, languages are divided into branches. The Nordic languages, English, German, Dutch etc are all related and belongs to the "Germanic" branch. Then there are other branches for languages like Finnish, Italian, French and the languages of other parts of the world.
I have tried to look for but I have never found a book describing the Norwegian languages influence on other languages. But I do know that some words with norse origin are used in other languages today. The only example I can come up with now is the old norse word "husbond" (modern Norwegian: ektemann) which is used in the English "husband".
THE QUESTION: Do you know of other words that comes from the Nordic languages (Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic). Modern Icelandic contains lots of words from the old norse language that once was common for all Nordic countries, so they might have a good amount of examples. | | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
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