Quick Greek lesson for Swiss Mr.

Excuse me – signomi
I don't speak Greek – dhen milao elinika
Thank you – efharisto

We are off to Greece, where I am looking forward to practicing the little I know of what seems to be the most fun language ever and to stuffing myself like a grape leaf. Yia sas!

"starwars nuovo"

This is in some dialect (Livornese, I think) that is hard for me to understand, and also contains offensive language and slang, but I still think it is endlessly funny, particularly the part when the Sith guy calls Yoda "acciuga" (anchovy).

One thing I would really like to know is how cities get their names in other languages. This is a discussion frequent among people we know here, not only because the alternate names are often just so odd, but also because the examples are never-ending. Everyone enjoys conversations in which everyone gets to show-off some recent discovery.

This is not just a matter of pronunciation. It's obvious to me why most English-speakers say France instead of Frahnce and that is to avoid Twain-style scorn from people who see it as an annoying affectation. Also it would be hard to do with a straight face. At least in most of the US, even if you know Paris is pronounced Pairree, you generally keep that bit of information to yourself (Unless, of course, you are referring to the strip club called "Gay Paris," which has always been, at least in my social circles, an exception to this rule.) Using French in English in other cases can be an unspeakable pretension. Though I'm sure if you tried Barcelona in a proper Spanish accent, you could generate a few dirty looks as well.

As an American, one must come to terms with the fact that for us wrong is often right (as in Toledo, whose American pronunciation I love dearly for being so painfully, dearly midwestern, Los Angeles, Colorado, etc.). Straightforward is actually the most practical way to go about pronouncing the names of America's cities, anyway. Does anyone really know how to pronounce things in Navajo? Is Valdosta still Italian without any spacing or punctuation? Is New Bern related to old Bern? Best to just say it like it seems and avoid all the trouble. (Plus, our personal preferences don't actually make a difference.)

Returning to the matter at hand, it is interesting how many European cities have multiple names. München is somewhat difficult to pronounce; it understandably has several other names, including Munich, Monaco di Bavaria, and Minga. But difficulty in pronunciation is not the key to the puzzle, since Milano has just as many names. Genève has many names as well (the most ugliest of which is Genf). In my brief survey, most of the major international cities, at least in Europe, seemed to have multiple names. Despite this linguistic convenience, I find it is a good idea to find out what the city (and country) you are visiting is called in the local language before you arrive in order to avoid potential confusion and embarrassment.

My Greek, your Arabic, that guy's Chinese

Greek, it turns out, is not the universal symbol for unintelligibility. The following chart traces the languages referenced in phrases corresponding to the English "It's Greek to me" to express an inability to understand in various other languages.

from Language Log

I personally did not need the proof of social consensus to convince me that Chinese is the hardest language but the hierarchy is pretty fascinating. (You can find some research on this subject here. I bookmarked this article twice in the last few months so it must be good.) I might also add as evidence my personal experience at a recent party, where, in an impromptu bit of amateur linguistics, a Spanish friend and I verified a good part of this chart. (I am not so sure about the Heavenly Script bit, however; the Chinese student we spoke with seemed to have no clue what we were talking about. All of us, including him, were giggling uncontrollably as he tried to guess what we might be getting at when we asked him to what language he might compare something he found incomprehensible. "I would call it difficult!  ... No? Confusing? ... Ohh... mathematics!")

Fascinating aside: It seems the term gringo has its origins in the Spanish phrase "hablar en griego." So I guess it is usually an appropriate epithet. Another fascinating (though mostly unrelated) aside: The word savvy is 18th century pidgin English, imitating Spanish "sabe usted?" ARRRRR!

The cute connection

The double-A battery has a special name in France: mignon. I think it's really cute that they have a nickname for a battery type. I'm trying to think if we do something so charming in English. I can't think of much (Bring me that lil' batt'ry, you big git!), but maybe I am just blind to the cuteness of my own language. I do wish we had a more flexible diminutive ending in our language, like Spanish does. Pilita (or would it be pilacita?) sounds pretty cute. Even German, when it's not saying things like "small-stored-energy-capsule," has a nice diminutive ending which can be put, at least by old ladies, on practically anything.

Anyway, because, up to the point of learning this, mignon suggested to me something along the lines of "hunk of meat," I decided to research this mysterious battery-meat connection. I was pleased to find mignon to mean "cute, sweet, nice, kind." Or, in the context of meat, apparently, "dainty." A relative term, obviously, since beef is one of the less dainty foods I can think of at the moment. To confuse the issue further, in France filet mignon usually refers to pork. Filet of beef is called tournedos.

So now you know all about mignon and can impress people next time you're out ordering meat at some tony steakhouse, or asking your French friend for a battery. Just remember to pronounce it correctly or you'll lose all your credibility. 

PR**TO

My memory, as I may have told you, may have told you repeatedly, in fact, is a bit fickle. It often works really well (allowing me to correctly answer trivia questions about Joe Namath and RNA transcription). But shine the spotlight on it and it's just as often likely to belch out the wrong answer. I have born false witness to the questions "How old are you?" "How long have you been married?" "What neighborhood do you live in?" and "Who told you that?" repeatedly because of this no-good, double-crossing memory of mine. Additionally, words of approximately the same length and/or consonant:vowel ratio (Fullerton and Lawrence, for example), names of people who have the same build or facial hair, and names starting with the same letter (a la those alliterative Bev, Bill, Brian, Barbara, & Brady families) become very confused in my head. This is why I frequently look and/or am lost.

All this to say, it was no surprise that pronto and presto have given me trouble from the moment I stepped foot in this Italian-speaking land. It was hard indeed to start answering the phone "pronto!" Not only is this a weird greeting (pronto means "ready"), I am also usually struck by the very strong urge to say "presto!" ("soon") instead. 

So wait. Are you also having trouble wrapping your mind around these usages? Check your passport, I bet you're American. Check out this illustrative snacking scenario:

American version: Bring that salt over here pronto! Put it on your tomato and – presto! – a tasty snack!

Italian version (in English): Is that tasty tomato snack pronto yet? I have to leave presto.

You see? It is not me, it is the weird English language which has begged, borrowed, and stolen itself.  Presto was first borrowed into the English language by magicians whose tricks happened "right away" and has become the rough equivalent of "ta-dah!"  Pronto comes to the English from the Italian/Spanish definition of pronto which also means "right away."  So it is not just my memory but the entire English language conspiring against me. [End personal validation supported by amateur linguistics]

En français!

Trying not to have a complex about the languages you speak (or don't) is difficult in France, where, as we discovered on our recent first visit, the clichés are true: they do not like to (or won't) speak languages that are not French. French, as we all know, though easy to imitate (mon dieu! zhey haf feenished zeehr meal en just deux houroz! zhat vill vreally make zhem fet!) is much more difficult to fake in real life, and even more difficult to use properly. What you know of other languages may make you a good reader of museum placards and menus, but it will not make you a good communicator at the pharmacy or at the newsstand, where blank stares are the lingua franca. (Even French you thought you knew, like croissant or concierge, will turn out to be useless in this nouveau monde.)

Out of all the languages I would like to pretend I know, French ranks the highest. I know this is very liberal and elitist of me, but it is just an aurally lovely language that I have always wanted to know, even before I knew that the smart prep school kids learn it to read Proust or whatever and (though secretly at this point) even while I was learning Spanish, "a much more useful language," in high school (in fact at least since the time of Kylie Minogue's one US hit, if you'd like to get technical).

At least at the Marseille police station, English turned out to be the next most useful language, but really only because there was a smart 10-year-old there able to translate to the very CSI-looking receptionist that we needed to file a report for our stolen license plate. Somehow our being American was very remarkable to everyone we met. I couldn't get a read on why exactly this was, but eyebrows always went up and américain! was exclaimed. But anyway almost everyone during our visit was exceedingly nice and only mildly disdainful of our good faith yet apparently pitiful attempts at their language.

Proud macaroni

Perhaps because I've been daydreaming about Thomas Jefferson lately (more Jefferson in Paris than Jefferson on the two dollar bill, note), I recently had the tune "Yankee Doodle" in my head (the flute version). Which led me to wonder for the first time ever: What does it mean? I think I understand all the words in the song individually, but together they're like a bad macaroni salad (though perhaps that's a redundant turn of phrase).

Let's review the lyrics as I remember them:
Yankee Doodle went to town, a'ridin' on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.
Yankee Doodle, keep it up!
Yankee Doodle Dandy!
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy!

A bit of research seems to suggest mine is the grade school version (the real one having many more painful stanzas). It was originally sung by the British in mockery of New England dandies who tried to be sophisticated but ended up looking like doodles (feathers apparently not cool). Macaroni (or maccheroni as it is actually spelled in Italian, interestingly) was the derisive term for well-travelled Brits whose grand tours around Europe made them really stuck up and annoying with their affected foreign culture and manners ("I don't know, I just feel so naked without a scarf on at all times").

Oh man, Americans have never liked being called gauche. The only choice was to appropriate the song and sing it back in their pale little faces. ("We're from America, couldn't be prouder. If you can't hear us, we'll yell a little louder.) Which is how Yankee Doodle came to be part of the Americana medley we sang at our fifth-grade pageant, "Fifty States Night" (I representing the noble state of New Jersey). And to be stuck in my mind at this very moment. 

It won't make History Detectives but it's nice to know.

Quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur (or, Random internet discoveries in lexicography)

I recently did some research (of the most scholarly kind) on the topic of Romance languages. If you're interested in such things, check out the fascinating Table of Lexical Similarities at Orbis Latinus. You'll see that all modern romance languages seem to share at least 71% of their features. French and Italian share a surprising 89% while Spanish and Italian share 82% and French and Spanish share only 75%. This at least explains my sudden ability to understand French. Not sure if this gives me an excuse for lack of Italian fluency yet.

Latin may be dead, but it took a impressively long time in dying. (At least according to Orbis Latinus) vulgar Latin evolved into various regional romance languages and then further changed as classical Latin was added to make it sound more prestigious. Apparently people have always added Latin to what they're saying to sound more impressive!

It seems history has chosen English as the universal language for our globalized world, but I still think it would be nice to have an auxiliary language or two available for everyone to use (a little less hegemonic that way). I myself have recently become a fan of Modern Latin, an additional language for speakers of any language in the Latin family which can "be understood almost entirely at be understood almost entirely at first glance or hearing and without previous learning." Have a quick look. (See, way better than Esperanto! And reading it feels kind of like that excellent dream I had once where I picked up the guitar for the first time and played it perfectly.) 

Parle vous l'inglese bitte?

On the sidewalk a few weeks ago, we came across an older Swiss German gentleman peering through a fence. "Look," he instructed, pointing at two flowers facing each other, straining toward the ray of light falling between them, "never say anything is impossible!" Once convinced we were sufficiently impressed, he walked away jauntily, leaving us to contemplate whether he was a crazy street man or just a hippy professor type without anyone to talk with or tell him to comb his beard.

A short while later we joined him at the bus stop where he was happy to rejoin us in conversation, switching to English when our lack of fluency was exposed. Mostly we talked about all the languages he can speak and where he learned them: French from the beautiful first girlfriend still ingrained in his memory ("Let me tell you, the first woman for a man is the same as the first man is for a woman"), English in school (apparently Swiss Germans learn English while Swiss Italians learn French), and Italian here in Lugano ("But I tell you, some of my friends here can't even ask for a coffee in Italian!").

Lugano bus culture requires passengers to self-segregate by age (and maybe also race but don't quote me on that yet), so when the bus came we got on at the back and left him to chat it up with the old ladies at the front. And what better way to impress the ladies than with a thrilling display of lingual and cultural literacy? Be still my heart.

"No Motto Please, We're British"

I feel bad that I always pick on the Brits, but it can be difficult to avoid. Sometimes they just bring it on themselves, with their properness and whatnot. Anyway, I suppose it's to be expected.... Do robins get along with eagles? Not really.

In any case, today I neutrally share that Britain has decided, as part of some new measures to "boost pride" [Insert your own quip here], they would like to develop a motto. The Times of London had a motto-writing contest for the general public, and among the top suggestions were "One Mighty Empire, Slightly Used," "We Apologize for the Inconvenience," and (the winner) "No Motto, Please, We're British." Love that dry British humor. (Really!)

Until today, I had thought the motto of the United States was the first sentence I learned in Latin, the one that Latin teachers like to point out first to illustrate "Latin is everywhere," the phrase stamped optimistically on American currency -- i.e., E pluribus unum (Out of many, one). But, actually, I regret to inform you, Congress passed a law making in 1956 making In God We Trust the official motto. (Congress was certainly busy making all kinds of symbolic rhetorical changes at this time, weren't they?) 

How do you reduce an entire nation into a single phrase that means anything? Since America no longer has anything very special, maybe Britain should follow Switzerland's example.  Their motto -- Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno! (One for all, all for one!) -- is everything you could ever want a slogan to be: elegant, enthusiastic, hip, and Latin.  

Fluency update

In case you were wondering, though I imagine you were not, here are some things I can currently say in Italian without thinking too much.

"What did you do today?
"Be careful! Be nice! Wait!" (very useful in certain lines of work)
"Why don't we go to the 'Caffe degli artisti' to have a coffee together?" (admittedly has low probability of actual use, but it's good and long)
"I'd like a hat, a magnificent hat."
"One of these, please."
"I'm just looking." (usually delivered with a "please don't ask me anything else" look)
"85 kilometers and the department stores are closed!"
"Yes, the bus came early.  Yes, I'm annoyed too."

Ciao!

I just started an Italian class this week, but I don't have many interesting things to say about it. The class materials make me cranky -- I resent paying 60 CHF for word finds and matching -- but I can't complain about much else at the moment. The teacher is fairly entertaining and, excitingly, George Clooney's neighbor. Despite coming from four different continents, our class gets on well enough, usefully engaged in butchering the Italian language and in being aimless "trailing spouses" together.

Though the class (mind-numbingly) favors the practical, I did learn one interesting etymological tidbit: the word "ciao" derives from the Venetian phrase "I am your slave." It was used ironically among the lower classes, which is reflected in the Italian usage today, primarily among friends and equals. That is really the only amusing thing I have learned so far.

With luck, more tidbits and Clooney trivia to come!

"When" "a little" "is" "not" "okay"

I read recently that average English speakers actively use 15,000 - 50,000 words, and have up to 100,000 more in their passive vocabularies. It's easy to take this for granted, unless maybe you're currently involved in some activity like editing, learning another language, or teaching, or you happen to be a particularly reflective or grateful person.

For comparison, there are 1145 words in my Italian children's dictionary. Most of these are common objects, people, feelings, or actions, the most complicated of which include "lever," "armor," and "to extinguish." Though you can't fairly compare the number of words in different languages (I heard once the ratio of English to Spanish words was 2:1), I am still astounded by how many words there are to know.

Lately I've also been alternately amazed and dismayed by how much and how little I'm able to communicate with my meager Italian vocabulary. The words "okay," "a little," "everything," "now," "thank you," "when," "is," "understand," and "not" can be combined into a amazing number of ideas, if not always complete sentences. (Though rarely am I able to conjure these from my brain, of course, especially after long expectant pauses in telephone conversations.) If I could be satisfied with communicating like a caveperson, I could probably stop learning now.

All this is to say that, although I am generally excited by the vast quantities of information available to learn, today I am feeling depressed by it. Guess I'll go work on the remaining 1124 words that every six-year old should know.