If you want to have a truly functioning international (!) spelling alphabet, the current solutions aren't really working very well.
Either they are local and will only work reliable in one particular language (and even in their native language, some people would misspell words, so it's not entirely reliable - especially given that a main place of use is the army, and at least in my humble personal experience, soldiers aren't exactly in the top 10 of "social groups with the best spelling").
Or if a spelling alphabet claims to be international, it's actually English in most cases (or outdated French). The international aviation version of a spelling alphabet seems pretty alright, but I bet even this one offers plenty of space for error among those who haven't learned it.
A simple solution: Use global brand names. You get the advantage that people don't actually need to be good at spelling foreign words at all - it only matters that the brands chosen must have a high global visibility, so that people will have seen their names printed on T-Shirts, electronic appliances, billboards, and so on.
Care to work on a proposal?
Either they are local and will only work reliable in one particular language (and even in their native language, some people would misspell words, so it's not entirely reliable - especially given that a main place of use is the army, and at least in my humble personal experience, soldiers aren't exactly in the top 10 of "social groups with the best spelling").
Or if a spelling alphabet claims to be international, it's actually English in most cases (or outdated French). The international aviation version of a spelling alphabet seems pretty alright, but I bet even this one offers plenty of space for error among those who haven't learned it.
A simple solution: Use global brand names. You get the advantage that people don't actually need to be good at spelling foreign words at all - it only matters that the brands chosen must have a high global visibility, so that people will have seen their names printed on T-Shirts, electronic appliances, billboards, and so on.
Care to work on a proposal?
I'm annoyed by automated greeting lines in e-mails: By "kind regards, Martin Smith" or "with best wishes, Peter Murphy" that are part of the automatically added mail signatures. The only thing that's worse than those is if they are in multiple languages - that adds even more of a feeling of being sent a piece of direct marketing message or something equally impersonal.
Folks, please: Add your signatures including phone numbers, mail addresses, and whatever else you want to add.
But spare me the automated greeting lines. If you have time to write me an e-mail, you have time to write a greeting line for me, don't you. Are the five seconds you save worth the fact that I think you... just wanted to save five seconds? What's the use of a greeting if it's obviously just there as a standard phrase, anyway?
Or if it's so difficult for you to come up with a personal greeting line, just don't write one. Nobody said e-mails have were letters.
Folks, please: Add your signatures including phone numbers, mail addresses, and whatever else you want to add.
But spare me the automated greeting lines. If you have time to write me an e-mail, you have time to write a greeting line for me, don't you. Are the five seconds you save worth the fact that I think you... just wanted to save five seconds? What's the use of a greeting if it's obviously just there as a standard phrase, anyway?
Or if it's so difficult for you to come up with a personal greeting line, just don't write one. Nobody said e-mails have were letters.
I'm experiencing language issues of an unknown kind, or a forgotten kind, perhaps: This time with Russian, which I am learning currently (and I mean "learning", not "studying").
At some point, I noticed that I have never actually studied any language. At least not properly, even when I was in school.
At some point, I noticed that I have never actually studied any language. At least not properly, even when I was in school.
A street in Latvia is called Aristīda Briāna iela.
Quite hard to tell if that refers to Aristide Briand, or to Aristide Bruant. It's the former, of course, since the latter (a singer and comedian) probably doesn't have much to do with Latvia whatsoever - and the street would then (probably) be called Aristīda Bruāna iela.
Still funny - it's a thin line with these transcriptions occasionally.
Discovery caused by the fact that we'll be staying in a hostel at Rue Aristide Bruant in Paris later this week.
Quite hard to tell if that refers to Aristide Briand, or to Aristide Bruant. It's the former, of course, since the latter (a singer and comedian) probably doesn't have much to do with Latvia whatsoever - and the street would then (probably) be called Aristīda Bruāna iela.
Still funny - it's a thin line with these transcriptions occasionally.
Discovery caused by the fact that we'll be staying in a hostel at Rue Aristide Bruant in Paris later this week.
Mobiiltelefoniakumulaatorilaadja
I rarely get to speak Estonian, my vocabulary has deteriorated, and maybe so has my grammar. I notice that I have problems speaking Estonian in the mornings when I'm still tired, because after all the lack of practice, it requires quite some concentration.
Still I love this language.
It's soft and gentle to speak. Its consonants are like a lover's finger gently stroking your lips - they leave the taste of a long and gentle kiss on your tongue. The differently stretched and crystal clear vocals feel like you're speaking glass, or as if soap bubbles of different sizes and color shades would come out of your mouth. Or, as we put it sitting on the floor in Helsinki's Vantaa airport earlier today: It's like drinking champagne, just the other way round, with sparkling little bubbles coming out of your mouth. And the beauty is that someone will breathe in these bubbles and make sense of them, and return some new bubbles back to you, like glittering little pearls that float through the air in your direction, where you pick them one by one, tone by tone.
It really is lovely to have a chance to speak Estonian again.
Still I love this language.
It's soft and gentle to speak. Its consonants are like a lover's finger gently stroking your lips - they leave the taste of a long and gentle kiss on your tongue. The differently stretched and crystal clear vocals feel like you're speaking glass, or as if soap bubbles of different sizes and color shades would come out of your mouth. Or, as we put it sitting on the floor in Helsinki's Vantaa airport earlier today: It's like drinking champagne, just the other way round, with sparkling little bubbles coming out of your mouth. And the beauty is that someone will breathe in these bubbles and make sense of them, and return some new bubbles back to you, like glittering little pearls that float through the air in your direction, where you pick them one by one, tone by tone.
It really is lovely to have a chance to speak Estonian again.
I never had a clue where the Latvian word for "child" comes from, which is "bērns" (baerns - no idea about a more correct transliteration). There's a similar word in Lithuanian ("berniukas"), which is no big surprise as these two languages are anyway closely related.
Now most influences to the Baltic languages come from German and Russian, and their words for "child" ("Kind" and usually "дитя"/"ditya") aren't even vaguely similar. So I've always assumed that "bērns" is a local word. Now in Norway, I discovered it's not, but it seemingly came from Scandinavia (or vice versa, but that seems less likely looking at the historic power balance). At least the Norwegian word for "child" appears to be "barn".
Now I still got no idea where that comes from, but at least there's some sort of a connection.
Oh, and the Estonian one ("laps") is just another total mystery to me; the relation with Finnish ("lapsi") is not an explication but just a logical thing; though it's probably safe to assume it's a Finno-Ugric word root.
Anyway, onions for example are something that either grows where you are or that doesn't; and that even if it grows you might not be accustomed to eat; so thus they are something that might not even have a name until someone starts bringing it in. But the word for "child" should normally be a very local one to my mind, since... well, these little guys are everywhere, and supposedly always were...
Now most influences to the Baltic languages come from German and Russian, and their words for "child" ("Kind" and usually "дитя"/"ditya") aren't even vaguely similar. So I've always assumed that "bērns" is a local word. Now in Norway, I discovered it's not, but it seemingly came from Scandinavia (or vice versa, but that seems less likely looking at the historic power balance). At least the Norwegian word for "child" appears to be "barn".
Now I still got no idea where that comes from, but at least there's some sort of a connection.
Oh, and the Estonian one ("laps") is just another total mystery to me; the relation with Finnish ("lapsi") is not an explication but just a logical thing; though it's probably safe to assume it's a Finno-Ugric word root.
Anyway, onions for example are something that either grows where you are or that doesn't; and that even if it grows you might not be accustomed to eat; so thus they are something that might not even have a name until someone starts bringing it in. But the word for "child" should normally be a very local one to my mind, since... well, these little guys are everywhere, and supposedly always were...
Shared roots, obviously: The Norwegian word for onion appears to be "løk" (loek, sort of; forgive the poor transliteration). The Swedish version is "lök", Danish it's "løg". The Russian one is "лук" (luk). And there's a German word that is "Lauch", which doesn't mean onion, but leek. Leek itself obviously has the same roots, however, according to my etymology dictionary, these are unknown.
No real purpose in this thought, it's just about the Russian word being obviously related to the one used in various other European languages. That's nothing unusual, of course, as they're anyway all indo-European languages, and quite closely related, even if various people I met in Russia wouldn't believe me that. It's just always interesting to see examples.
That one here, by the way, seems to include even at least one Finno-Ugric language - Finnish, where the word for onion is "laukka".
Furthermore it's noteworthy that the word for onion (and thus maybe the onion itself?) was obviously brought to the Baltic States by the Germans, not by the Scandinavians or Russians. At least that's what you'd think looking at the Estonian word for onion ("sibul"), and the Latvian one ("sīpols", or siipols if your computer doesn't display the "ī" character) - which are very close to the German "Zwiebel".
No idea where the Lithuanian one comes from, though: "svogūnas" (svoguunas).
No real purpose in this thought, it's just about the Russian word being obviously related to the one used in various other European languages. That's nothing unusual, of course, as they're anyway all indo-European languages, and quite closely related, even if various people I met in Russia wouldn't believe me that. It's just always interesting to see examples.
That one here, by the way, seems to include even at least one Finno-Ugric language - Finnish, where the word for onion is "laukka".
Furthermore it's noteworthy that the word for onion (and thus maybe the onion itself?) was obviously brought to the Baltic States by the Germans, not by the Scandinavians or Russians. At least that's what you'd think looking at the Estonian word for onion ("sibul"), and the Latvian one ("sīpols", or siipols if your computer doesn't display the "ī" character) - which are very close to the German "Zwiebel".
No idea where the Lithuanian one comes from, though: "svogūnas" (svoguunas).
Schtöpslä (or "schtöpsle", depending on the dialect) is a weird Swiss-German word that came to my mind recently when I observed a small child walking in that particular way in which small children walk, when they have only learnt how to walk a short time ago. This way of walking where the legs are pulled up high and then almost vertically placed back on the ground, leading to some rather shaky body-movement forward, is called "schtöpslä" in at least my dialect in Swiss-German (let me know about other dialect versions if you know some).
It's a rather unusual word, and I wondered where it might come from. The only similar word I could think of was "Schtöpsel" (or "Schtöpsu" or whatever, depending on the dialect). Which is on one hand a peg or a cork; and on the other hand it also describes a tool that you use to clean a spout or generally a drain. It's this wooden stick with a hollow plastic cap at the end, which you place over the drain in order to create a vacuum and clean the sprout pipe with it (I have no idea about the English name of this tool, and I couldn't figure out the German word either).
Now if you imagine this tool, and you imagine how one would walk if both legs were replaced with such tools, I think you'd end up pretty much with the way of walking that young children have. And I wonder if the word really originates from this tool; it'd be too nicely funny.
It's a rather unusual word, and I wondered where it might come from. The only similar word I could think of was "Schtöpsel" (or "Schtöpsu" or whatever, depending on the dialect). Which is on one hand a peg or a cork; and on the other hand it also describes a tool that you use to clean a spout or generally a drain. It's this wooden stick with a hollow plastic cap at the end, which you place over the drain in order to create a vacuum and clean the sprout pipe with it (I have no idea about the English name of this tool, and I couldn't figure out the German word either).
Now if you imagine this tool, and you imagine how one would walk if both legs were replaced with such tools, I think you'd end up pretty much with the way of walking that young children have. And I wonder if the word really originates from this tool; it'd be too nicely funny.
It's always fun to look at Switzerland from a German perspective - I'm talking about the language of course. The following isn't really fun if you don't speak German. And if you do, it's even more fun if you are actually from Germany. It's about some Swiss German words and expressions that must sound quite odd or simply funny to German ears.
I'll try to add some English translations here and there, which might not deliver the whole fun value, but at least a sort of impression. There aren't everywhere translations though, because some of these expressions simply can't be translated, I'm sorry.
I'll try to add some English translations here and there, which might not deliver the whole fun value, but at least a sort of impression. There aren't everywhere translations though, because some of these expressions simply can't be translated, I'm sorry.
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