Language Museum Blog

A list of rare regional words and phrases has been compiled by the British Library as part of their Evolving English exhibition.

Around 4,000 words are in the ‘wordbank’, all of which were contributed by visitors to the exhibit at the British Library in London or at regional events. One the bank is complete and has been analysed by linguists, it will be opened up to language academics and others wishing to study the words it contains.

Among those to have been added to the wordbank are bobowler, a Birmingham and Black Country term for a large moth, tittermatorter – or see-saw, in Norfolk – and tranklements, another Black Country expression meaning ornaments.

Some of the words have been in existence for generations. For instance, bishybarnabee – a Norfolk term for a ladybird – is thought to derive from a notorious bishop, Edmond Bonner, known as “Bloody Bonner” for his role in the persecution of heretics under the Catholic government of Mary I in the sixteenth century. (Source: The Telegraph)

Other words have much shorter histories – spoggy for example is the Grimsby term for chewing gum.

What local variations would you add to the wordbank?

In my experience, Americans often see my southern English accent as ‘cute’. They also confuse it for being ‘British’, no matter how many times I explain there is no such thing.

I came across this funny video today of the American comedian Elon Gold talking about accents, including English ones. Take a look:

Apparently there’s a new craze in London, and it’s to do with words. “Newlogism” is splicing together two unrelated words to make a new one (see what they did there?).

According to Dan Clayton, English language researcher on UCL’s Survey of English Usage, these words circulate very quickly because of the way people use technology (particularly social networking) but also disappear very quickly, with 80% of new slang words disappearing within a year.

Examples of newlogisms that you should know include “psycho-lists – those mad bikers ready to run over pedestrians with the temerity to cross the road”, “email courier …the time-waster who trots over to your desk across the office just to ask if you’ve seen their latest missive in your inbox” and “x-sessives… people who Won’t. Stop. Sending. Xs”. (Source: This is London)

And what’s a childibore? It’s a parent who won’t stop going on about their offspring.

German schoolteachers have started a campaign to abolish the teaching of joined-up handwriting, according to a report in the Guardian.

“Die Schreibschrift” is the German name for the handwriting style pupils have to learn before they leave primary school, at around 10 years old. It is based on Latin script, and the current form used is called “Vereinfachte Ausgangsschrift” (easier model script). The teachers’ union argues that it is an outdated way of writing and a waste of time for pupils, who first have to learn printed letters, then how to join them up.

There is opposition to the idea, however, with the regional head of the Society for German Language in Hamburg, Dr Hans Kaufman, arguing:

“Writing is a cultural technique used to quickly put down thoughts. Joined-up handwriting trains fine motor skills, develops [a sense for] aesthetics. An apparently easier script also simplifies thoughts. I would mourn the loss of a piece of our writing culture.”

Apart from the argument about loss of culture, others argue that letting children print script will slow down writing speed (think about the time it takes to write individual letters rather than a joined-up word) and decrease legibility.

What do you think? Would you prefer not to have learned joined-up handwriting in school?

Interested in the history of English but not got much time?

Then take a look at this set of short videos from The Open University! The videos take you from Anglo-Saxon English through English and the Empire up to modern-day Global English via some amusing illustrations and a great voice over.

(Via LanguageHat)

There’s a great piece in The Globe and Mail (a Canadian newspaper) about how different the English language can be in the various countries that speak it.

The Canadian writer moved to Britain and has found she is forgetting many of the Canadian-English words and pronunciations she grew up with. In order to be easily understood she uses British English words and phrases rather than their Canadian equivalents.

I’ve referred to hockey as “ice hockey” – even to Canadian friends – a sure sign that my cultural boundaries have shifted. In Britain, field hockey is the more popular sport and retains the generic “hockey” title.

I now live “in” a road, not “on” it, and when I’m under pressure I’m “under the cosh.” I ask “y’all right?” instead of “how’re you?” I say “cheers” instead of “thank you.” And I ask for a tomato and basil panini without any hard As. (Source: The Globe and Mail)

I was born and grew up in England but I’ve lived in a number of different English-speaking countries, from Canada to New Zealand. I’ve always enjoyed picking up local terms and using them, from kia ora in New Zealand to toque in Canada. Like the writer, this has had some impact on my life – people in my native country often ask if I’m Australian!

Communication across the world has never been easier – I wonder what impact this will have on the English language worldwide?

The weather’s been miserable this week, there’s no hint of summer, and we all need a little something to cheer us up. So how about a quiz on commonly confused words?

The quiz is on words from Hollywood Comedies, and you can view it here. Answers are near the bottom of the page (no cheating!). There are also links to other quizzes if Wimbledon isn’t holding your attention this afternoon.

Do you have any examples of words that you confuse? Perhaps in songs?

Today is Día E, a day celebrating the Spanish language. Spanish is the second most spoken native language in the world (after Mandarin), and the third most spoken on the internet.

The Cervantes Institute is hosting 78 free parties in 44 countries to celebrate the day. Events will be held in London, Leeds and Manchester in England. If you can’t make it to any of these cities, take a look at the Día E website to see videos of Spanish speakers saying their favourite words – Shakira’s is meliflua.

As regular readers will know, I have been attempting to learn Spanish, and I’m going to use Día E to re-motivate myself. I don’t have a favourite word yet, but will update you when I do.

Now that I have (begrudgingly) returned from Croatia, time for an update on my language efforts.

Unfortunately this will be a short post, as it seems that the English language has invaded Croatia. Almost everyone that we talked to had a grasp of English, even if only some simple words or sentences. This is unsurprising as tourism is their primary industry, but a little disappointing as I was hoping to pick up more Croatian than I did. Another surprise was the number of people who speak German as a second or third language – although apparently the Germans have known about Croatia as a tourist destination for a lot longer than English-speakers.

What I did pick up was useful – dobar dan (good day) was particularly helpful as people would often greet us in the street. Hvala (pronounced ‘hwala’, thanks) was another good one, although often people would say ‘thank you’ to me anyway! Molim (please) was the other most frequently used word. I did pick up some pronunciation tips as well – hv seems to be said as “hw” and Brac (with an accent on the c) as ‘Bratch’. In this sense I didn’t find phrasebooks helpful as it is difficult to get a sense of how something is said just by reading it. It was only after listening to native speakers say words numerous times that I managed to imitate words.

Anyway, I can highly recommend a visit to Croatia – it’s incredibly beautiful and very easy to travel around!

According to a new study, Danish is more difficult for children to learn than languages such as Croatian, American English and Galician.

Dorthe Bleses, a linguist at the Center for Child Language at the University of Southern Denmark, found that because of the high number of vowels in spoken Danish, it is more difficult for children to pick up. Danish babies at 15 months old have on average a vocabulary of 84 words, compared to 150 for a Croatian child of the same age.

“The number of vowels has big significance for how difficult it is to learn a language. Many vowels makes a difficult language,” Bleses told Weekendavisen newspaper recently.

The official number of vowels in Danish is nine: a, e, i, o, u, æ, ø, å and y.

“‘Y’ isn’t a vowel,” you say? Well, in Danish it is. In Danish, even consonants are vowels.

But written Danish is not the issue. The problems start when Danes speak. In spoken speech, Danish actually has some 40 vowel sounds, says Bleses, depending upon where the vowels are placed in words and sentence strings.

To make matters worse, modern Danes ‘swallow’ lots of the remaining consonants that would create more audible definition, or annunciation, between words. Linguists call it ‘reduction’ or ‘ellision’. It is how ‘probably’ becomes ‘probly’ in American English. In Danish, it is how ‘spændende’ becomes ‘spen-nă’, and how a simple, little sentence like ‘Det er det’ becomes ‘dā-ă-dā’. (Source: Copenhagen Post)

But there is good news for Danish parents – the difference doesn’t persist and children ‘crack the code’ of the Danish language by the time they are nine or ten.