Archivi dei tag: b1+

When weather, place and culture affect languages

It rains a lot in Britain, doesn’t it?

So, it’s quite normal in English to have many different ways to describe the rain.

We may have drizzle if the rain is very light, or a shower if it is a short period of rain, a downpour if it is heavy rain or we can say that it is raining cats and dogs if it is really raining a lot.

If you live in a very hot area, you may not have as many names for the rain as the English language does.

This is in fact how languages work. The people who speak a specific language contribute in inventing new words for things they see very often that maybe others don’t know.

In the past, the Latin language had no words for the colours brown, green or grey. These words entered the Latin vocabulary when the Romans came into contact with tribes from the North, the Celts, or the Germanic peoples, who lived in areas with a higher percentage of woods and forests who, for this reason, had words to describe colours they used to see every day while the Romans didn’t. Names of trees such as birch and beech were new for the Romans who had never seen those plants in the south of Italy before. For the same reason, the word pants entered the Latin vocabulary because of the Celts, who actually used pants or trousers which were completely unknown to the Romans who were more used to wearing togas.

These were all examples of how different places, with specific colours, plants or animals shaped some languages; but now let’s step back in time even further and let’s go to prehistoric times.

There is a theory in Linguistic Anthropology which differentiates language sounds according to space. Have you ever noticed why some Latin languages such as Italian, French, Spanish or Romanian contain several vowels, while languages such as Swedish, German, English or Dutch contain many consonants? Here is the reason why. Try to say out loud the sound “ah” and try to keep the sound as long as you have breath, like this: “aaaaah”. Now, try to do the same with this sounds: “tch”, “p”, “t”. How long were you able to maintain these sounds? Probably for just about a second. Vowels are sounds you can keep saying for a long time, while consonants are explosive sounds which cannot be prolonged in time. People who lived in very hot areas, such as the Mediterranean, needed sounds that could be prolonged in time, so that if your companion was very far from you, he or she could understand you better. The same happened for some languages of peoples living in the Amazon forest or on the Pacific islands. All their languages contained a lot of vowels because the speakers needed sounds that could be prolonged in time so that if they were hunting or very far from one another, they could use words which could actually be shouted for a long period, and be sure that everybody would understand or hear them.

On the contrary, in very cold areas such as Scandinavia for instance, people stayed closer to one another because they needed warmth. For this reason, there was no need to have sounds that had to be prolonged in time, so short sounds such as consonants were more useful. If you live in Italy and speak or know dialects, you may find the same thing: in the North of Italy, near the Alps or in the mountains, people speak dialects with a higher quantity of consonants than people living in the centre or the south of Italy, who use a larger quantity of vowels instead. It is in fact normal to hear a difference in sound between people living in cold places (who tend to have a lower volume of voice) and people living in hotter places (who tend to have a higher volume of voice). All these things happened a long time ago, but these features are still present in today’s languages. But there’s even more to it!

In very small communities of Aboriginal peoples in Australia or Native Americans in the States, it is often very common to find languages where the concept of right and left or north, south, east or west is totally absent. Some of these languages rely on different cardinal points. For example, if you live near a very big mountain you consider to be sacred, you may use it to say over the mountain or below the mountain and that is all you need to say! How crazy languages can be at times!

The Origins of the English Language

Languages evolve all the time.

English, too, was born a long time ago, and has never stopped changing since then. It was born from a mixture of different languages brought by different peoples over more than 2000 years of history. You can imagine English as a big soup, where everybody contributed by putting in some ingredients. Let’s have a look at the evolution of this fascinating language.

Before 43 CE, Britain was inhabited by Celtic populations who spoke Celtic languages. When the Romans arrived in 43 CE and founded the city of Londinium (yes, nowadays London!), the Celtic populations were conquered, and Latin became the official language. Romans didn’t like the cold weather of Britain, and the Celtic populations didn’t like them either, so, in 409 CE, the Romans left, and Latin stopped being used there.

Around 450 CE, many tribes from the north of Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark conquered the British land and the populations of the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes started to settle in. These populations, known as Anglo-Saxons, mixed with the Celtic populations, and so did their languages.  The Britons started to use Anglo-Saxon words, which everybody preferred than those difficult Latin words, and the primitive English welcomed new words such as “arm”, “baby” “man”, “woman”, “friend”, the verb “can” and many more.

During the 5th century CE, Christianity came to Britain and Christian monks reintroduced the Latin language which became very popular again with the spread of the Christian religion among poor and rich people. The Latin alphabet was introduced, and many religious manuscripts were written in the language. Many monasteries flourished, both in the south and in the north of England. But in 800 CE, the north of England was ransacked and raided by some populations coming from the North Sea on board of monstrous boats: the Vikings. They stayed in the area for more than 300 years and their language offered some 2000 words such as “sky”, “knife”, “husband” “law”, “skill”, the names of the days, e.g. “Thursday” from the god Thor, or verbs such as “take”, “kindle” or phrasal verbs, all entered the English vocabulary.

In 1066, England saw the invasion by another country: The Normans from France.

William the Conqueror from France became the King of England and introduced the French language at court. French was used in castles, among knights and noble men, while English was still used among the poor. It’s interesting to notice that at this time, many nouns and verbs started to have a double nature: an English version and a French version. The best examples come from food: at court, people talked about “pork”, which is the cooked version of the animal “pig”. “Pork” was used in castles, where the nobles were interested in the meat of the animal, while “pig” was used by poor people, who had to look after the living animal; so “sheep” became “mutton”, and “cow” became “beef”, once these were cooked and served at the table of princes, barons, dames and other royals. Verbs got this double nature as well: e.g.  the French “search”, and the Anglo-Saxon “to look for”.

In 1600, Shakespeare, one of the greatest poets of all times, introduced more than 2000 new words and expressions and the whole language was transformed again.

British Imperialism also contributed in shaping the language. Many colonies around the world meant that new cultures and new objects entered the English language. Words such as “pyjamas” coming from the Urdu language, or “safari” from Swahili, “raccoon or opossum” from Native American languages, “kangaroo” from Aboriginal languages are some examples.

Even the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century and the revolution in technology of the 20th century with the introduction of computers and new devices, made the English vocabulary bigger and bigger.

By the way, did you know that the English Language used to be much more difficult in the past than it is today? In the past all verbs were irregular, and nouns and adjectives had cases just like Latin! If you tried to read a text written in Old English or Middle English, you would probably understand nothing! English in the Middle Ages looked like a completely different language! However, like all languages across centuries, it evolved towards simplicity, verbs became more regular and nouns and adjectives lost their cases. English is still transforming itself now, but at the same time, it is adding new words into its vocabulary each year. One of the most recent words to be included in English dictionaries was the word “selfie”.  Who knows how the English language will be in 500 years’ time… but one thing we know for sure, like all languages, it will never stay still!

10 Colour Idioms

Impariamo alcuni modi di dire relativi ai colori. Tra parentesi la traduzione letterale del modo dire e in corsivo la traduzione che si utilizza in italiano

Red

  • a red herring (un’aringa rossa) – una pista falsa / un depistaggio

The detective found a lot of documents on the crime scene but they all turned out to be red herrings.

  • to catch someone red-handed (catturare qualcuno con le mani rosse) – prendere qualcuno con le mani nel sacco

Timmy was caught red-handed stealing cakes from his grandma’s cupboard.

  • to paint the town red (dipingere la città di rosso) – fare baldoria

The weekend, at last! We’re finally going to paint the town red!

Blue

  • out of the blue (fuori dal blu) – di punto in bianco, inaspettatamente

Jimmy called me on the phone out of the blue yesterday.

The teacher was very angry with us and decided to give us a test out of the blue.

  • once in a blue moon (una volta ogni luna blu) – una volta ogni morte di Papa

I wash my car once in a blue moon.

She visits us only once in a blue moon. We wish we could see her more.

Green

  • green with envy (verde d’invidia) – verde d’invidia

Barbara was green with envy when she found out that her sister had a new boyfriend.

  • to give the green light (dare la luce verde) – dare il via libera

Our project has been given the green light. We can finally start working on our survey.

  • to have a green thumb (avere un pollice verde) – avere il pollice verde, avere talento per il giardinaggio

Josh’s garden is filled with lush vegetation. He really has a green thumb!

Black

  • pitch black (nero assoluto) – buio pesto

We had a power cut last night and since we live in the middle of the woods with no-one around us, everything was pitch black.

  • the pot calling the kettle black (la pentola che dice al bollitore che è nero) – il merlo che dice al corvo che è nero / senti chi parla!

Tommy said his deskmate was cheating in the exam but he had all the answers written on his wrist. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Adesso prova ad esercitarti con questi nuovi modi di dire: