Untranslatable “Love Words”

 It is interesting that we have tens of “love words” that we use everyday. I call them “love words” in quotation because I couldn’t find a better phrase for them. 🙂

The other day, some of my friends call me as “gülüm”. When we translate this into English, it is “my rose”. It sounds quite funny when translated. 🙂 “Gül” means “rose” in Turkish and we use it as a “love word” among family members or close friends. Similarly there is “kuzum”, the translation is “my sheep”. 🙂 I know how funny it sounds.

Then I just thought the English “love words”. There is “honey” and we directly use it in Turkish but it is a recent usage – probably just pass from English with the new generation and television.

I’m sure there are tens of untranslatable “love words” in your language as well… What about sharing them with us? 🙂

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Roger That!

Last night I was watching a movie called “Olympus Has Fallen”. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it but it is a good one, I recommend. 🙂

Anyway, during the movie, I heard “Roger That” a lot. Of course it was not my first time hearing it but it was the first time it made me think. I decided to search why the military use “Roger That” instead of “okey” or “understood” 🙂

I learned that it was first used during WWII. Here is what I’ve found on web:

 

 

“Roger” means “I have received all of the last transmission” in both military and civilian aviation radio communications. This usage comes from the initial R of received: R was calledRoger in the radio alphabets or spelling alphabets in use by the military at the time of the invention of the radio, such as the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet and RAF phonetic alphabet. It is also often shortened in writing to “rgr”. The word Romeo is used for “R”, rather than “Roger” in the modern international NATO phonetic alphabet.

Contrary to popular belief, Roger does not mean or imply both “received” and “I will comply.” That distinction goes to the contraction wilco (from, “will comply”), which is used exclusively if the speaker intends to say “received and will comply.” Thus, the phrase “Roger Wilco” is both procedurally incorrect and redundant. (Wikipedia)

“I was told during my Navy training that ROGER stands for Received Order Given, Expect Results.” (Andy McBride)

 

If you have more to say, you can comment under this.

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Social Media for Translators

If you’re reading this right now, it means that you are in social media in this or that way. For me, it is irreplaceable. Using social media, I communicate, network, read, discuss, learn… There are more actions than I can count here. In the morning I wake up and check my Twitter and Facebook feed. During the day when I give a break I check my Instagram and Pinterest. I also use social media to promote my works (esp. Linkedin). I’m sure you use social media in countless ways.

So how should translators use social media? I came across this book on amazon.com. I have ordered it and I’m waiting for the shipping.

If I find it helpful, I’ll definitely write a review here.

It is undeniable that social media is not just a fad but rather an essential part of business today. It is crucial in any online marketing strategy, particularly for SEO purposes, to boost brand awareness and to drive traffic to your website. But just setting up profiles on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn is not enough. So take a look at what else you need to bear in mind when developing a social media marketing strategy for your translation business.

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The Language of the Week: Punjabi

Last week, I got a great comment about my blog. Sarai Pahla stated that her favorite part is “The Language of the Week”. So, I hope there are people out there like Sarai who like my articles and the information that I try to compile here.

4 years ago, I guided almost 50 students from Pakistan in a sports festival organized by my university. We got very close friends and I really loved their culture and language… I was quite amazed when they tell that there are tens of languages used in Pakistan. This week, I choose a language of my old friends from Lahore city: Punjabi. For those who want to learn more about languages spoken in Pakistan and India:

 

Punjabi is spoken by 130 million native speakers world wide making it the 10th most widely spoken language in the world.

Mostly inhabitants of the historical Punjab region in India and Pakistan speak this language.

It belongs to Indo-Aryan language family.

The word Punjabi is derived from the word Punjab which means “five waters” in Persian “panj aab” and refers to five major eastern tributaries of the Indus River.

Punjabi emerged as an independent language in the 12th century.

Punjabi is one of the languages recognized by the Indian constitution at the state level, in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, and West Bengal.

Punjabi has always been an integral part of Indian Bollywood cinema.

Punjabi is spoken as first language by over 44.15% of Pakistanis.

Punjabi has three phonemically distinct tones that developed from the lost murmured (or “voiced aspirate”) series of consonants.

Punjabi has a canonical word order of SOV (subject–object–verb).

Punjabi distinguishes two genders, two numbers, and five cases of direct, oblique, vocative, ablative, and locative/instrumental.

 

And let’s see how it is transcribed:

ਲਹੌਰ ਪਾਕਿਸਤਾਨ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਦਾ ਦਾਰੁਲ ਹਕੂਮਤ ਐ। ਲੋਕ ਗਿਣਤੀ ਦੇ ਨਾਲ ਕਰਾਚੀ ਤੋਂ ਬਾਅਦ ਲਹੌਰ ਦੂਜਾ ਸਬ ਤੋਂ ਵੱਡਾ ਸ਼ਹਿਰ ਐ। ਲਹੌਰ ਪਾਕਿਸਤਾਨ ਦਾ ਸਿਆਸੀ, ਰਹਤਲੀ ਤੇ ਪੜ੍ਹਾਈ ਦਾ ਗੜ੍ਹ ਐ ਤੇ ਇਸੇ ਲਈ ਇਹਨੂੰ ਪਾਕਿਸਤਾਨ ਦਾ ਦਿਲ ਵੀ ਕਿਹਾ ਜਾਂਦਾ ਏ। ਲਹੌਰ ਦਰਿਆਏ ਰਾਵੀ ਦੇ ਕੰਡੇ ਤੇ ਵਸਦਾ ਏ ਉਹਦੀ ਲੋਕ ਗਿਣਤੀ ਇੱਕ ਕਰੋੜ ਦੇ ਨੇੜੇ ਐ ।

lahor pākistān panjāb dā dārul hakūmat e. lōk giṇtī dē nāḷ karācī tō᷈ bāad lahor dūjā sab tō᷈ vaḍḍā shahir e. lahor pākistān dā siāsī, rahtalī tē paṛā̀ī dā gā́ṛ e tē isē laī ihnū᷈ pākistān dā dil vī kihā jāndā ē. lahor dariāē rāvī dē kanḍē tē vasdā ē uhdī lōk giṇtī ikk karōṛ dē nēṛē e.

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Source: Wikipedia.

 

 

Find Out the Similarities Between Languages

There are thousands of languages and dialects around the world. If you encounter a language that you’ve never heard before, you feel like an alien is speaking to you. 🙂

But it doesn’t work like that for people who are interested in foreign languages. Instead of listening to an alien speech, we try to understand some certain patterns, we give attention to syllable stresses, we try to find some lexical similarities between our own language and this “alien speech”. 🙂

So, I discovered an interesting website showing the similarities between languages. It does not go in detail and it only shows the percetages of the similarities in certain categories, but I’m sure you’ll want to check it up. 🙂

 

First, you select the language that you want to compare to other languages:

Than you can see the similarities a certain language shares with others.

Cactuses () indicate the relative difficulty of learning this language if you already speak Italian. The fewer cactuses/cacti, the easier.

Here is the website: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/languages/similarities/index.html

Enjoy! 🙂

 

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The Language of the Week: Fula

Maybe, most of the people is just interested in major languages which are English, French, German, Chinese etc. However, a translator is interested in ALL the languages no matter how many people speak it- or no matter if it is already dead or not. 🙂

Here comes another language in which you will be interested. I hope there are native speakers of this language among us and I hope they can give more information about it. 🙂  

The Fula or Fulani language is a language of West Africa. It belongs to the Senegambian branch of the Niger–Congo language family. It is spoken as a first language by the Fula or Fulani people from Senegambia and Guinea to Cameroonand Sudan.

Fulani is an official language in Senegal (Pulaar) and Nigeria (Fulfulde), an official regional language in Guinea (Pular), where many speakers are monolingual, and a national language of Mali (Maasina) and Niger (Fulfulde).

There are several names applied to the language, just as there are to the Fula people. They call their language Pulaar or Pular in the western dialects and Fulfulde in the central and eastern dialects.

It uses suffixes (sometimes inaccurately called infixes, as they come between the root and the inflectional ending) to modify meaning.

There are about 25 noun classes (the number may vary slightly in different dialects). Each noun class has a singular and plural form, and each form has a corresponding article, nominative pronoun, accusative/dative pronoun, demonstrative adjective and adjective agreement pattern.

 

This is written in Fula language. It means:

One evening a judge found in a book that everyone who had a little head and a long beard was a fool. Now the judge had a little head and a long beard, so he said to himself, “I cannot increase the size of my head, but I will shorten my beard.” He hunted for the scissors, but could not find them. Without further ado he took half of his beard in his hand and put the other half into the candle and burnt it. When the flame reached his hand he let go, and all the beard was burned. Thus the judge felt ashamed, for he had proved the truth of what was written in the book.

P.S. Most of the information is taken from Wikipedia. I’ve just summarize the certain parts and have not included all the information there.

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Duolingo

While the internet has become a vital part of our lives, it just goes beyond the computers or laptops… With tablet and smart phones, we carry the internet wherever we go and we really need it when we are mobile. So, the famous internet websites find enjoyable applications to promote their brand in mobile as well.

Thanks to one of my friends, I come across with a perfect mobile application for language lovers: Duolingo!

Its web site is quite colorful and funny. It makes you practice a language and it turns this process into a game…

You have your own skill tree and you can compete with your friends as you complete new missions! 🙂

It also has its iPhone application. Wherever you go, you can continue gaining new skills and beat your friends out.

Do you want to try? You can visit the website here: http://duolingo.com/

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Rearrange Letters, Form New Words!

Sometimes, you can generate tens of new words using the same letters of a certain word. What you find is generally quite amazing!

Here below, you can see a funny example of rearranging the letters and forming new words out of them! I’m sure you can add many more to this list. If anything comes to your mind, please do not hesitate to leave a comment! 🙂

 

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Language of the Week: Javanese

Since I’m a translator, I like learning new cultures and languages like most of you. The idea that there are hundreds of different languages makes me excited because it means there are soooooo many things to learn. Each language is a new culture and a new area of exploration. 

Although we couldn’t visit the natives of this language, let’s go over what Javanese language is and how it looks like 🙂

 

PS: The information is taken from Wikipedia. I just quote the parts that are more interesting.

Javanese language is the language of theJavanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. There are also pockets of Javanese speakers in the northern coast of western Java. It is the native language of more than 75,500,000 people (more than 30% of total population in Indonesia).

Javanese is part of the Austronesian family, and is therefore related to Indonesian and other Malay varieties. Most speakers of Javanese also speak Indonesian: for official and commercial purposes, and to communicate with non-Javanese Indonesians.

While evidence of writing in Java dates to the Sanskrit “Tarumanegara inscription” of 450 AD, the oldest example written entirely in Javanese, called the “Sukabumi inscription”, is dated 25 March 804.

Javanese can be regarded as one of the classical languages of the world, with a vast literature spanning more than twelve centuries. The language developed in four stages:

• Old Javanese, from the 9th century
• Middle Javanese, from the 13th century
• New Javanese, from the 16th century
• Modern Javanese, from the 20th century (but this stage is not universally distinguished)

Javanese, like other Austronesian languages, is an agglutinative language, where base words are modified through extensive use of affixes.

Modern Javanese usually employs SVO word order. However, Old Javanese sometimes had VSO and sometimes VOS word order. Even in Modern Javanese, archaic sentences using VSO structure can still be made.

Sanskrit words are still very much in use. Modern speakers may describe Old Javanese and Sanskrit words as kawi (roughly meaning “literary”); but kawi words may also be fromArabic. Dutch and Malay are influential as well; but none of these rivals the position of Sanskrit.

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Google Research and Mayzner’s Work on English Letters

Last week, I’ve read a quite interesting article about a work by Mark Mayzner who worked in Bell Telephone Labs, Barnard College, USC, NYU, and Loyola. It was a very detailed research about the frequency of letters in English. He analyzed 20.000 words from the books in 1965 to show this frequency. Now let’s learn about more his Google Research visit and its contribution to his work almost 50 years later! 🙂

Note: This part is a quotation from the blog of expectlabs. You can see the link at the bottom.

In 1965, Mark Mayzner meticulously analyzed over 20,000 words from books, magazines, and newspapers using an IBM card-sorting machine, in order to paint a more complete picture of the various word and letter frequencies that characterize the English language. Mayzner recently contacted Peter Norvig, Google’s head of research, to see if he could update his experiment by leveraging the enormity of data in the Google Books Ngram Corpus. Norvig agreed to the challenge, and updated Mayzner’s study by analyzing the over 97,565 distinct words which were mentioned over 743 billion times in the Google data collection. In fact, Norvig’s sample had 37 million more word occurrences than the 20,000-word sample that Mayzner used.

Norvig’s chart below visualizes letter counts by word position, with the frequencies proportional to the length of the bars. The results show that the most common first letter in English is T, while the most common second letter is O.

Click here to find out more interesting facts.

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