Five French Mother Sauces

French cuisine is known for its extensive use of sauces. Though there are many different French sauces, the majority are derived from one of the five mother sauces. They were developed in the nineteenth century by French chef Auguste Escoffier. The five mother sauces are bechamel, veloute, espagnole, hollandaise and tomato.

Bechamel is also known as white sauce. It is a simple sauce made from flour, butter and milk. Seasonings are also added.

Veloute consists of flour, butter and stock. It is similar to bechamel because it has flour and butter, but it has stock instead of milk. The stock is usually chicken, but it can also be veal and fish.

Espagnole is also known as brown sauce. It is made from flour, butter, stock, pureed tomatoes and mirepoix, a combination of carrots, onions and celery. The butter and flour are cooked long enough to brown the butter.

Hollandaise is made from butter, lemon juice and egg yolks. It is essential to add the butter to the egg yolks slowly so that the ingredients remain stable and do not separate. Hollandaise is often served over eggs, vegetables, fish and chicken.

Tomato sauce is thickened with flour and butter and seasoned with pork, herbs and vegetables. The vegetables are a combination of carrots, onions and celery. Though tomato sauce is traditionally thickened with flour and butter, many modern tomato sauces are made without them.

Many sauces are used in French cuisine. However, most of them can be derived from the five mother sauces. The simplest mother sauce and the one that most chefs learn to make first is bechamel. 

Long Consonants in Old English

Old English had long consonants. In English, however, they have been lost. Nevertheless, traces of the long consonant remain in the spelling.

Long consonants are retained in Swedish and Norwegian. Swedish has long consonants in the words äpple (apple), mellan (between) and sommar (summer). In Norwegian, long consonants appear in words such as  klokke (clock), mellom (between) and sommer (summer).

Old English had long consonants in words such as bettra (better), middel (middle) and sunne (sun). The long consonants occurred intervocalically between a stressed vowel and an unstressed one. At one time long consonants also occurred word finally, but the change in spelling indicates that word-final long consonants disappeared before intervocalic ones.

The word beddes (beds) had an intervocalic long consonant. The singular was once written bedd, but it later became bed. The change in spelling is evidence that long consonants later only appeared intervocalically.

English does not have long consonants. However, English spelling indicates that they were once part of the language. Germanic languages such as Norwegian and Swedish still retain them, not only intervocalically but also word-finally.

Two French Words For Yes

French uses two different words for yes. They are oui and si. However, they are not interchangeable because they are used in specific situations.

The word oui is used to answer affirmative questions. For example, As-tu faim? means Are you hungry?. The answer Oui, j'ai faim means Yes, I'm hungry.

To answer the question, Tu n'as pas faim? (You're not hungry?), respond Si, j'ai faim. (Yes, I'm hungry). The reason si is used is that the question is in the negative. If the answer oui is used, it means that the hearer agrees with the speaker. Then the answer is Oui, je n'ai pas faim (Yes, I'm not hungry).

In French the words oui and si both mean yes. The adverb oui is used to answer affirmative questions, and si is used to answer negative questions. The response oui is for agreement with affirmative and negative questions, but si is for disagreement with negative questions.

Comparison of Estonian and Finnish Vocabulary

Estonian and Finnish are both Finno-Ugric languages, a subfamily of the Uralic languages. Hungarian is also a Finno-Ugric language, but Estonian and Finnish are undoubtedly more similar to one another than they are to Hungarian. Here is a comparison of 25 words in Estonian and Finnish:

1) lind lintu (bird)

2) leib leipä (bread)

3) võid voi (butter)

4) kella kello (clock)

5) päeval päivä (day)

6) muna muna (egg)

7) silma silmä (eye)

8) kala kala (fish)

9) metsa metsä (forest)

10) käsi käsi (hand)

11) jää jää (ice)

12) järv järvi (lake)

13) liha liha (meat)

14) suu suu (mouth)

15) öö yö (night)

16) nina nenä (nose)

17) jõgi joki (river)

18) kool koulu (school)

19) kinga kenkä (shoe)

20) taevas taivas (sky)

21) lumi lumi (snow)

22) täht tähti (star)

23) puu puu (tree)

24) vesi vesi (water) 

25) tuul tuuli (wind)

9 of the 25 words are identical. Many words with a final vowel in Finnish lack the vowel in Estonian such as in leib/leipä and täht/tähti. The letter õ of Estonian is a mid back unrounded vowel and does not occur in Finnish. The letter ä is a low front unrounded vowel and is usually restricted to initial syllables in Estonian. This can be observed in word pairs such as metsa/metsä and silma/silmä.

The examples illustrate that Estonian and Finnish are related languages. Many words are similar in both languages. Word-final vowels are more common in Finnish than in Estonian. 24 of the 25 Finnish words end with a vowel, but only 16 of the Estonian words do.

Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables was written by the Canadian author Lucy Maude Montgomery. Though it was written for all ages, it is considered a children's novel. The novel recounts the adventures of an 11-year-old orphan girl who is sent by mistake to a brother and sister, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. It is a mistake because the brother and sister wish to adopt a boy to help them with their farm.

Anne of Green Gables has been translated into many languages and has sold millions of copies. It is one of the best-selling books worldwide. Perhaps because of the popularity of the original novel, Lucy Maude Montgomery wrote many sequels.

In the novel, Anne is sent to live with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, a brother and sister who have never married. At first, Marilla says that Anne must return to the orphanage, but after the encouragement of her quiet brother, she decides to let her stay.

The village of Green Gables, Prince Edward Island, is the first home Anne has ever known. She excels in her studies and becomes a good friend of Diana Barry, the girl who lives next door. Her classmate Gilbert Blythe becomes her rival. After he teases her about her red hair, she becomes very upset with him, even though he apologizes many times.

At sixteen, Anne goes to Queen's Academy to earn her teaching licence. She goes with many students, but to her disappointment, not with Diana Barry. She obtains her licence in only one year rather than two and wins a scholarship awarded to the top student in English. It allows her to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree at a college in Nova Scotia.

Later in the novel there is tragedy. Matthew dies of a heart attack when he learns that all of his and his sister's money has been lost in a bank failure. Out of devotion to both Marilla and Green Gables, Anne decides to abandon her scholarship and look after Marilla, whose eyesight is failing. She plans to teach at the nearest school and visit Green Gables on weekends. 

In an act of friendship, Gilbert gives up his teaching position at Avonlea School, the school nearest to Green Gables. He does so because he knows Anne wants to stay close to Marilla after the death of Matthew. After his act of kindness, Anne and Gilbert's friendship strengthens, and she looks forward to the future.

Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert give Anne the only home she has ever known. Marilla's life has little joy until the arrival of Anne. Her brother Matthew is a shy and kind man, who is the first person to show Anne unconditional love. Their lives all change when they meet one another.

Analysis of Spanish Inflection

Spanish is a language with many inflectional affixes. Words often have both gender inflection and number inflection. Gender inflection precedes number inflection. Let us illustrate.

The word negro means black. It is the word for the colour black and is also the masculine singular. It can thus be considered the underlying form.

The feminine singular is negra. The plural forms are negros and negras. Here are examples:

Mi cepillo de dientes es negro. (My toothbrush is black)

Mi bolsa es negra. (My bag is black)

Mis tulipanes son negros. (My tulips are black)

Mis rosas son negras. (My roses are black)

Here are the rules to derive the four forms:

1) negro + 0 negro (zero affixation)

2) negro + a negroa (affixation)

    negroa negra (vowel deletion)

3) negro + 0 negro (zero affixation)

    negro + s negros (plural affixation)

4) negro + a negroa

    negroa negra (vowel deletion)

    negra + s negras (plural affixation)

Inflection is a very common morphological process in Spanish. Spanish adjectives can be inflected for both gender and number. The rules for gender and number inflection are ordered because gender inflection always precedes number inflection.