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.
Since it’s World Mother Language Day today (February the 21st), I’m thinking of doing a series of posts on the native non-English languages of the United Kingdom and Ireland, with some information and short interviews.
For this, I am looking for both native speakers/signers and learners (with or without parentage/heritage of the language in question) of the following languages:
- Scottish Gaelic
- Irish
- Welsh
- Any sign language of the United Kingdom or Ireland (e.g. BSL)
- Any other minority language indigenous to the United Kingdom or Ireland. By this I mean primarily spoken only within the UK or Ireland as a minority, or spoken very little elsewhere. For example: Cornish, Manx, Shelta, or Anglo-Romani, not languages like Polish or Bengali that are minority within the UK but have a significant speaker base elsewhere. (I am aware that I am fishing for some of these *cough* Cornish *cough*…but you never know!)
- Any ‘dialect’ or variety that you speak that you feel is linguistically / culturally distinct from Standard English that you would like to inform more people about. For example: Shetlandic, Scots, Ulster Scots.
I don’t have anything finalised yet, but if you would be wiling to speak to me about some text-based interviews for the sake of qualitative and informative tumblr posts, please send me a message!
(NB: if I have used any names of languages that are not preferred, tell me and I will change them. I don’t know a lot about the non-Celtic and non-Germanic languages here, which is part of my reason for wanting to make this series of posts in the first place.)
happy international mother language day to those who speak dialects, minority and indigenous languages, discriminated and endangered languages, “economically unprofitable”, “useless”, “unprestigious” languages and everyone who defends languages from colonialism and chauvinism
“Irish doesn’t have a word for please, you have to say if it be your will” buddy do I have news for you about “please”
“Irish doesn’t have a word for hello you have to use a shorthand religious blessing” buddy do I have news for you about “goodbye”!
“In Polish the word for car is that which walks by itself” BUDDY what do you think an AUTOMOBILE is?
you have got to understand that your mother tongue is not the model of language. all your words have secret histories and layers of meaning just the same as other people’s words. the word you think of as just a word has etymology, it wasn’t handed down from God as a finished word. English doesn’t have a word for movie you have to either refer to the recording medium or use a short version of “moving picture”, isn’t that cute?
aliens: because theres people who think that english is the only language they need to speak
me: thats fair i understand
For some reason I find this all the more amusing because it’s written in English
moi: pourquoi vous détruisez le monde!!! l'extraterrestre: parce que il y a des gens qui pensent que l'anglais est le seule langue pour parler moi: ah ça c'est bien
ich: warum zerstört ihr die erde!!!
aliens: weil es leute gibt die glauben dass englisch die einzige sprache ist die sie sprechen müssen
ich: das ist fair ich verstehe
yo: por qué están destruyendo el mundo? :( los extraterrestres: por que hay personas que creen que el inglés es el solo idioma que hay que hablar yo: ok está justo, yo entiendo
ég: af hverju eyðileggið þið jörðina!!! aliens: af því að það er fólk sem finnst að enska sé sú eina tungumál sem þau þurfa að tala ég: oh, það er vit í þessu. ég skil.
io: perché distruggete la terra?!
gli alieni: perché ci sono persone che pensano che l'inglese è l'unica lingua per parlare
io: ahh capisco
ik: waarom vernietig je de aarde!!!
aliens: omdat er mensen zijn die denken dat engels de enige taal is die ze hoeven te spreken
ik: oh zo, ik snap het
minä: miks te tuhootte maapalloo?
alienit: koska tääl on ihmisiä joitten mielestä englanti on ainoo kieli jota niitten täytyy puhua
minä: toi on reilua, ymmärrän
私: どうして地球を滅ぼしているんですか？
宇宙人: 英語しか喋る必要がないと思う人がいるからです
私: なるほど、わかりました
me: Wosück maakt ji de Welt twei!!!
aliens: wieldat dat Lüüd gifft, de dinkt dat Engelsch de allenige Spraak weer, de een snacken mütt
me: jo, daar seggst wat. Nu versta ik’t
aniga: dhulka maxaad u burburinaya !!!
shisheeyaha: dadka intiisa badani u malaynayaan in Ingiriisidu tahay afka oo kaliya ay u baahan yihiin inay la hadlaan
aniga: waxaan fahamsanahay. waa wax cadaalad
我：你们为什么在毁灭地球?！！
外星人：因为有人以为他们只会英语就可以了
我：懂了，说得有道理
ako: bakit niyo sinisira ang mundo!!!
taga-ibang planeta: kasi merong mga taong akala nila Ingles lang ang kailangan nilang matutunang lenggwahe
ako: ah, sige naiintindihan ko
Aku : kenapa kau hancurkan bumi!!! Alien : karena masih banyak orang berpikir hanya bahasa inggris satu-satunya bahasa yang terpenting Aku : oh, oke lah..
tôi: tại sao các người hủy diệt trái đất!!!
người ngoài hành tinh: bởi vì có người nghĩ rằng tiếng Anh là thứ tiếng duy nhất mà họ cần biết
tôi: ồ thế thì tôi hiểu
Eu: Por que vocês estão destruindo a Terra?! Aliens: Porque há pessoas que pensam que o inglês é a única língua que eles precisam falar. Eu: Isso é justo, eu entendo.
for chinese new year they get all these famous actors and comedians together and they do a lil show and one of the comedians was like “i was in a hotel in america once and there was a mouse in my room so i called reception except i forgot the english word for mouse so instead i said ‘you know tom and jerry? jerry is here’
jerry is here
my chinese teacher once shared this story in class about someone who went to the grocery to buy chicken, but they forgot the english word for it, so they grabbed an egg, went to the nearest sales lady and said “where’s the mother”
When I was a teenager, we went to Italy for the summer holidays. We are German, neither of us speaks more than a few words of Italian. That didn’t keep my family from always referring to me when they wanted something translated because “You’re so good with languages and you took Latin”. (I told them a hundred times I couldn’t order ice cream in Latin, they ignored that.) Anyway, my dad really loved a certain cheese there, made from sheep’s milk. He knew the Italian word for ‘cheese’ – formaggio – and he knew how to say ‘please’. And he had already spotted a little shop that sold the cheese. He asked me what ‘sheep’ was in Italian, and of course, I had no idea. So he just shrugged and said “I’ll manage” and went into the shop. 5 mins later, he comes out with a little bag, obviously very pleased with himself. How did he manage it? He had gone in and said “'Baaaah’ formaggio, prego.”
I was done for the day.
This makes me feel better about every conversation I had in both Rome and Ghent.
I once lost my husband in the ruins of a French castle on a mountain, and trotted around looking for him in increasing desperation. “Have you seen my husband?” I asked some French people, having forgotten all descriptive words. “He is small, and English. His hair is the color of bread.”
I did not find my husband in this way.
In rural France it is apparently Known that one brings one’s own shopping bags to the grocery store. I was a visitor and had not been briefed and had no shopping bag. I saw that other people were able to conduct negotiations to purchase shopping bags, but I could not remember the word for “bag.”
“Can I have a box that is not a box,” I said.
The checkout lady looked extremely tired and said, “Un sac?” (A sack?)
Of course. A fucking sack. And so I did get a sack.
I once was at a German-American Church youth camp for two weeks and predictably, we spoke a whole lot of English.
When I phoned my mom during week two I tried to tell her that it was a bit cold in the sleeping bag at night. I stumbled around the word in German because for the love of god, I could remember the Germwn word for sleeping bag.
“Yeah so, it’s like a bag you sleep in at night?”
“And my mother must probably have thought I lost my mind. She just sighed and was like ‘So, a Schlafsack, yes?”
Which is LITERALLY Sleeping sac … The German word is a basically a one on one translation of the English word and I just… I failed it. At my mother tongue. BIG
My former boss is Italian and she ended up working in a lab where the common language was English. She once saw an insect running through the lab and she went to tell her colleagues. She remembered it was the name of a famous English band so she barged in the office yelling there was a rolling stone in the lab…
I’m Spanish and have been living in the UK for a while now. I recently changed jobs and moved to a new office which is lost somewhere in the Midlands’ countryside. It’s a pretty quaint location, surrounded by forest on pretty much all sides, and with nice grounds… full of pheasants. I was pretty shocked when I drove in and saw a fucking pheasant strolling across the road. Calm as you please.
That afternoon I met up with some friends and was talking about the new job, and the new office, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember the English word for pheasants. So I basically ended up bragging to my friends about “the very fancy chickens” we had outside the office.
Best thing is, everyone understood what I meant.
I love those stories so much…
Picture a Jewish American girl whose grasp of the Hebrew language comes from 10+ years of immersion in Biblical and liturgical Hebrew, not the modern language. Some words are identical, while others have significantly evolved.
She gets to Israel and is riding a bus for the very first time.
American: כמה ממון זה? (”How much money?” but in rather archaic language)
Bus Driver: שתי זוזים. (”Two zuzim” – a currency that’s been out of circulation for millenia)
that’s hilarious
I am officially screamlaughing at my desk from that last one OH MY
Does everyone know the prime minister who promised to fuck the country?
So in Biblical Hebrew the word for penis and weapon are the same. There is a verb meaning to arm, which modern Hebrew semanticly drifted into “fuck”: i.e. give someone your dick.
The minister was making a speech while a candidate, bemoning the state of the world. “The Soviet Union is fucking Egypt. Germany is fucking Syria. The Americans are fucking everyone. But who is fucking us? When I am prime minister, I will ensure we are fucked!”
What the hell Biblical Hebrew.
Just guessing: The path from something like “give someone a blade” to “give someone a blade, if you know what I mean ;)” is probably not that difficult or unlikely.
^Given that the Latin word for sheath (like, for a sword) is literally “vagina”, I can verify that this metaphor is a time-honored one.
Oh yeah and one time my Latin professor was at this conference in Greece and his flight was canceled, so he needed to extend his hotel stay by one more night.
Except he doesn’t speak a lick of modern Greek, and the receptionist couldn’t speak English. Or French. Or German. Or Italian. (He tried all of them.)
Finally, in a fit of inspiration, he went upstairs and got his copy of Medea in the original Greek (you know, the stuff separated from modern Greek by two and a half thousand years). He found the passage where Medea begs Jason to let her stay for one more day, went downstairs, and read it to the receptionist.
She laughed her head off, but she gave him the extra night.
All of these *chef’s kiss* but the Medea one is hands down the best
s/o to my classics professor who managed to get a tire changed on his rental car while doing research in Greece by telling them his chariot had broken down
As a Welsh person, I love that along with all the Welsh accents in Elden ring, they also gave Blaidd a Welsh name, and even have folks pronounce it properly... but I'll never stop giggling about his name being 'Wolf the Half Wolf' I mean stellar choice, 10/10, I love the big idiot
I’ve always heard it’s the sound of TH in this and that, not the TH in thick and thin. Because Welsh has a letter for that, too.
Dd is indeed for ‘hard’ TH (like in this, that, or the), while 'soft’ TH (like in thick or thin) is also spelled(?) Th.
Both Dd and Th are separate letters in Welsh (along with Ch, Ff [which is just English F; Welsh F is the same as English V], Ng, LL, Ph, and Rh [which is like a very soft R sound]).
