As an agglutinating language, Hungarian uses several suffixes to derive adjectives from nouns, verbs and other parts of speech. This post summarises the main suffixes. I will look in a future post at suffixes that form verbs and nouns. Hungarian has a pervasive system of vowel harmony. Leaving aside many details:- vowels are classified as…… Continue reading Derived adjectives in Hungarian
Month: August 2026
Bleeding sangría
Sangría is a popular Spanish drink made with wine and chopped fruit. Traditionally, sangría was made with red wine and the name is related to sangre (‘blood’). This restaurant we visited in Seville a couple of years ago decided to translate the name on the menu literally as ‘bleeding’: sangría also means bloodletting. I’m not…… Continue reading Bleeding sangría
Welsh challenge (8)
This post is the 8th instalment of the Welsh leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers chapter 7 of Colloquial Welsh. For earlier instalments, please see Welsh Archives – Language Miscellany I’ve used bold type below to highlight words affected by mutations, SM after words that induce soft mutation and SM before words affected…… Continue reading Welsh challenge (8)
Tour commentary in Low German
Here is a picture from an open top bus tour of Hanover in 2024. It shows an array of languages available for the recorded commentary. All the usual suspects are there, but the final channel (12) is unusual. Channel 12 is for Platt (Plattdeutsch), the collective name for a collection of German regional dialects spoken…… Continue reading Tour commentary in Low German
Russian verbs of motion
In Russian, verbs referring to motion include 14 pairs of verbs. Each of those verbs differs from its pair in a systematic way. Sometimes, the label ‘determinate’ is used for one member of each pair and the name ‘indeterminate’ is use for the other member: the determinate verbs refer to motion in one direction (not…… Continue reading Russian verbs of motion
Irish challenge (7)
This post is the 7th instalment of the Irish leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers chapter 6 of Teach Yourself Irish. For previous instalments, please see https://languagemiscellany.com/tag/irish/ It covers: past, present and future of tá time expressions adjectives weather nouns other words and phrases Mutation is indicated below using bold type. Past, present,…… Continue reading Irish challenge (7)
Due, owing, owed
A couple of months ago, a radio presenter was talking about the then imminent stock market flotation of Elon Musk’s company Space X. The presenter said that the estimated valuation of SpaceX was [amount X], and that [amount Y] of this amount ‘is owed to’ the valuation of SpaceX’s artificial intelligence (AI) business Grok and…… Continue reading Due, owing, owed
Language sketch: Esperanto
The artificial language artificial language Esperanto was created by a Polish Doctor Ludovic Zamenhof in 1887. He initially called the language simply la Lingvo Internacia (‘the international language’), but he wrote using the pseudonym Dr Esperanto and Esperanto quickly became the language’s accepted name. Alphabet Esperanto uses a Latin alphabet of 28 letters: 22 letters…… Continue reading Language sketch: Esperanto
A place that you know where it is
The other day, I heard a man say to his young daughter: ‘Where are you putting that? Put it in a place that you know where it is.’ Although that 2nd sentence is perfectly clear, I would never write it myself. I probably wouldn’t say it either, though I quite often hear similar sentences. Why…… Continue reading A place that you know where it is
From words to meaning
Before we can decode a written text or spoken comments, we often need a deep understanding of the context. The literal meaning of the words often does not give us enough to decipher the intended meaning. I found myself thinking about this after reading the following: ‘Man of the match in space on heading…… Continue reading From words to meaning