Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Us, arriving to Austria to a tiny family hotel owned by an elderly lady
Us: speak only limited German
Lady: barely speaks English
Us:
Lady:
Lady: Czech? Slovak?
Us: Czech
Lady, to herself: Czech, that’s a Slavic language right
Lady: understand Yugoslavian?
Us:
Us: yeah that works
Shit like this can really only happen in Europe. Reminds me of the time I took my best shot at ordering at a restaurant in Spain in spanish. The closest language to spanish that I actually speak is latin.
Waiter: Germany?
Me: No, Czechia.
Waiter, in a heavily accented but intelligible Czech: Why didn’t you say so before! We get you guys here all the time!
Já v roce 2019 na Ukrajině: OK, takže když použiju tohle staročeský slovo, přidám polský sloveso, své chabé znalosti záhoráčtiny a řeknu to s ruskym přízvukem, tak to projde.
[Me in 2019 in Ukraine: ok so if i use this Old Czech word, add a Polish verb, my poor knowledge of the Záhorie dialect of Slovak and say it with a Russian accent, it might pass]
Reminds me of the time when we were in Poland and I tried to order a burger using a truly unholy mix of Slovak, Russian and Ostrava dialect (which in itself is like an unholy mix of Czech and Polish).
I did get the burger
[#my grandpa called this “Slavic Esperanto”]
I know Ukrainians who can do this on purpose and masterfully, and it was mind-blowing to hear a speech as immediately understandable to an audience of native speakers of three different native Slavic languages, not just two languages as is common
During one student exchange I (a Pole) got acquainted with two students from Czechia and Russia. At first we talked in English or German, but after a while we’ve noticed, that we could understand each other’s native languages just fine. And if some word was unknown in one language, another one had the right synonym.
*Each of us talking in their mother tongue*
Me: Bla bla bla.
Russian: I don’t know this “bla”.
Czech: Oh, we have “bla”! We also call it “that”!
Russian: Oh I know “that”! It’s a very old version of “this”.
Me: Oh, we have “this” too, but it means something slightly different.
German acquaintance: Was für nen Scheiß zieht ihr da ab? o_O
the reason there aren’t slavic people in the bible is that they wouldn’t have been surprised or awed to hear the disciples speak in tongues and be understood by people of many nations at once
Slavs walked away from the Tower of Babel mildly inconvenienced.
language is literally so beautiful like in english “i miss you” comes from being unable to locate someone in the field after battle, it’s “i look for you but i can’t find you” but the french “tu me manques” is also about absence but it’s not something i do, it’s something that happens to me, as in “you are something essential lacking inside me”, in portuguese it’s either “sinto a tua falta” as in “i feel your absence” or, from solitude you get “saudade de você” as in “i am lonely [of] you”, and in spanish the word comes from stranger and it’s something one does, “te extraño” as in “i am making a stranger out of you”, and, and, and
#in algeria we say twahachtek which is basically you made me lonely #or like you said i am lonely of you :) #in arabic it’s pretty straightforward like there’s a word specifically for that #and to my knowledge the only other use for any derivatives (or roots for that matter) is when expressing excitement #so you get something that means like. i’m excited for you #in the most innocent sense lol
in thai the phrase for 'miss you’ is 'khit theung’ with /khit = to think, thoughts/ and /theung = to reach, to arrive at/, so literally in english it translates like 'my thoughts have arrived at you’ or 'i think to reach you’
the verb we use in Latin is excellent too because of its many meanings. “desiderare” translates to “to miss [something],” but also means “to long for, to wish for, to call for, to require, and to desire.” There’s a sense of desperation and longing embedded in the word, and while that sense might not always be intended in the word’s actual use in, say, Caesar’s work on his military campaigns or something, I think it’s really beautiful anyway
In Hindi it’s “mujhe tumhari yaad aati hain”. Yaad means memory and aati means to come. Basically the literal translation is “Memories of you come to me”.
In my mother tongue Malayalam, while we have a lot of words that indicate loss or separation (like viraaha vedana is the pain of separation or nashtam means loss), we don’t use them to indicate missing someone. Usually I remember people saying “kore naalayallo kandittu” (it’s been long since I’ve seen you) or a phrase indicating there is an emptiness since the person has left (neeyillathathinte vishamam thonunnu - I feel the sadness of your absence, or neeyillathathinte koravundu - there has been a gap since you left). There’s also asking the person when they’ll return 😄 Of course since we Malayalis use a lot of English loanwords I know people who will just use the word “miss” in the sentence as is.
#it’s 'du fehlst mir’ in german which is 'you are missing (to me)’ #but it’s more about a lack #a familiar place someone’s inhabited that’s vacated now #keeping a space open for your return
#in both german and swedish the expression used could best be translated as 'you are missing from me’ #as in a part that is missing from the whole and something that was neither done by or to someone but simply is a state of being #in german u can use not only that expression (du fehlst mir/jag saknar dig) but also another (ich vermisse dich) #vermissen as a verb is sth u actively do and id say it is more??? painful??? idk. or like. direct??? idk how to describe it #(its also a question of register) #but it basically means 'i make myself lack u’ as in i am making u be missing from me if that makes sense.
#in swedish u usually say jag saknar sig which translates to i miss you #but u can also say du saknas mig which kind of translates to youre missing from me. almost as in a piece of me is missing
in lithuanian we say 'pasiilgau tavęs’ and the root of the word ’-ilgau’ refers to the word 'ilgas’ - long. it doesn’t matter how for how long you haven’t actually seen the person - time stretches out without them. you may also say 'ilgėtis’ - miss, or more directly the meaning translates into 'it gets longer without you’.
in somali / af maay the phrase for “i miss u” respectively “waan ku xiisay” / “athi ke hiloowy” interestingly enough the word for vacation is “dalxiis” and the word for love is “hiloow” so i found that says a lot about how the culture /dialect in that the lack of something is viewed somewhat synonymously with the longing/admiration of said person/thing if it make sense the culture is spread out over east africa and was largely pastoral/gatherers for centuries so i feel like that has a lot to do w the idea of travel over some distance being very natural, estrangement being a second nature. love at a distance is the only way of love its a very poetic concept and speaks to how estrangement/distance is so natural to others and alien to some
language is literally so beautiful like in english “i miss you” comes from being unable to locate someone in the field after battle, it’s “i look for you but i can’t find you” but the french “tu me manques” is also about absence but it’s not something i do, it’s something that happens to me, as in “you are something essential lacking inside me”, in portuguese it’s either “sinto a tua falta” as in “i feel your absence” or, from solitude you get “saudade de você” as in “i am lonely [of] you”, and in spanish the word comes from stranger and it’s something one does, “te extraño” as in “i am making a stranger out of you”, and, and, and
as we approach american thanksgiving, and as this post approaches 25k notes, i’d like to promote the wômpanâak language reclamation project. the wampanoag are probably most well known for the original thanksgiving, and today many people are working to revitalize the language and the philosophies that come with it. if everyone who’s liked or reblogged this post gave $1, it could pay for instructors for 250 community language classes.
language and culture are inextricably linked, and as some raised and studying linguistics on wômpanâak land, i hope i can raise awareness about indigenous language reclamation efforts.
and it’s a zeugma where one of the words is literal and one is metaphorical which is the BEST KIND
I didn’t know about zeugmas until just now! That is so awesome, everybody:
zeug·ma
ˈzo͞oɡmə/
noun
a figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses (e.g.,John and his license expired last week ) or to two others of which it semantically suits only one (e.g., with weeping eyes and hearts ).
fun fact about languages: a linguist who was studying aboriginal languages of Australia finally managed to track down a native speaker of the Mbabaram language in the 60s for his research. they talked a bit and he started by asking for the Mbabaram word for basic nouns. They went back and forth before he asked for the word for “dog” The man replied “dog” They had a bit of a “who’s on first” moment before realizing that, by complete coincidence,
Mbabaram and English both have the exact same word for dog.
on a similar note, a traditional Ojibwe greeting is “Nanaboozhoo” so when the French first landed in southern Canada they thought that they were saying “Bonjour!” Which is fucking wild to think about. Imagine crossing the ocean and the first people you meet in months somehow speak French.
wow it’s almost as if languages are fluid tools that are adapted to suit the needs of the people who use them
Fun linguistic fact: you know the phrase “dead language”? What does it mean?
If you said “nobody speaks it anymore,” you’d be wrong (although understandably so). A lot of people speak Latin academically, and some of its children are still so linguistically close to it that they’re mutually intelligible. Aramaic is a dead language, but I speak it every Friday in the synagogue (Aramaic is an evolution of Hebrew and a couple of our prayers are written in it). Irish Gaelige? The Irish are doing their absolute damnedest to keep it from becoming a dead language, which, to be clear, could absolutely still happen while there are native speakers living.
Because the definition of a dead language is A LANGUAGE THAT NO LONGER CHANGES. No new words, no shifting meanings. No slang. What it sounds like today is what it will sound like in ten a hundred a thousand years.
If you don’t love new words and linguistic shifts, then you wish every language dead. And what a loss it would be.
