Names of Cities in Different Languages

I decided to compare the names of twenty well-known European cities in ten different languages. The languages I chose were four Germanic, four Romance and two Uralic. They were English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Hungarian and Finnish. In the list below, I provide the names of the cities in their respective languages. The order is the same as in this paragraph.

Paris, Paris, Parijs, Paris, Pari’s, Paris, Paris, Parigi, Pa’rizs, Pariisi

London, London, Londen, London, Londres, Londres, Londres, Londra, London, Lontoo

Stockholm, Stockholm, Stockholm, Stockholm, Estocolmo, Estocolmo, Stockholm, Stoccolma, Stockholm, Tukholma

Milan, Meiland, Milaan, Milano, Mila’n, Mila~o, Milan, Milano, Mila’no’, Milano

Rome, Rom, Rome, Rom, Roma, Roma, Rome, Roma, Ro’ma, Rooma

Vienna, Wien, Wenen, Wien, Viena, Viena, Vienne, Vienna, Be’cs, Wien

Florence, Florenz, Florence, Florens, Florencia, Florenc,a, Florence, Firenze, Firenze, Firenze

Naples, Neapel, Napels, Neapel, Na’poles, Na’poles, Naples, Napoli, Na’poly, Napoli

Warsaw, Warschau, Warschau, Warszawa, Varsovia, Varso’via, Varsovie, Varsavia, Varso’, Varsova

Munich, Mu:nchen, Mu:nchen, Mu:nchen, Mu’nich, Munique, Munich, Monaco, Mu:nchen, Mu:nchen

Lisbon, Lissabon, Lissabon, Lissabon, Lisboa, Lisboa, Lisbonne, Lisbona, Lisszabon, Lissabon

Berlin, Berlin, Berlijn, Berlin, Berli’n, Berlim, Berlin, Berlino, Berlin, Berliini

Brussels, Bru:ssel, Brussel, Bryssel, Bruselas, Bruxelas, Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Bru:sszel, Bryssel

Prague, Prag, Praag, Prag, Praga, Praga,Prague, Praga, Pra’ga, Praha

Hamburg, Hamburg, Hamburg, Hamburg, Hamburgo, Hamburgo, Hambourg, Amburgo, Hamburg, Hampuri

Moscow, Moskau, Moskou, Moskva, Moscu’, Moscovo/Moscou, Moscou, Mosca, Moszkva, Moskova

Venice, Venedig, Venetie:, Venedig, Venecia, Veneza, Venise, Venezia, Velence, Venetsia

Athens, Athen, Athene, Aten, Atenas, Atenas, Athe`nes, Atene, Athe’n, Ateena

Geneva, Genf, Geneve, Geneve, Ginebra, Genebra, Gene`ve, Ginevra, Geneva, Geneve

Belgrade, Belgrad, Belgrado, Belgrad, Belgrado, Belgrado, Belgrade, Belgrado, Belgra’d, Belgrad

Moscow has two forms in Portuguese. Moscovo is European and Moscou is Brazilian. The cities with the most variants are Moscow (ten variants if we include European Portuguese and nine with Brazilian) and Athens, Venice and Warsaw with nine variants each. Stockholm has the fewest variants at four. The name "Stockholm" in used in six languages: English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French and Hungarian. Two languages, Spanish and Portuguese, use "Estocolmo".

The list shows that the names of many European cities can vary significantly from one language to another. This is often not the case for cities of other continents. The reason for this variation is probably due to the history and importance of these cities in the languages discussed here.

Opening Trap

At the highest levels of chess it seldom happens, but at other levels players may often fall victim to an opening trap. In the following game played between Canadians Serge Lemieux and Dimitri Feoktistov in 2001, Serge Lemieux was the victim. The game was so short that he resigned after only six moves. The moves are as follows:

1. d4 d5
2. c4 e6

Lemieux plays the Queen's Gambit. He offers Feoktistov his c-pawn because he wants to play e4 on his third move to increase his control of the centre. If black plays dxc on his second move, this opening is known as the Queen's Gambit Accepted. However, if black declines the pawn as in this game, we have the Queen's Gambit Declined.

3. Nc3 Nf6
4. Bg5 Nbd7

With his fourth move, white pins black's knight because if the knight moves, white can capture the queen. Black opts to defend the king knight with his queen knight.

5. cxd exd
6. Nxd5 Nxd5

After the exchange of pawns, white plays Nxd5 with the belief that he has won a pawn. He does not expect black to play Nxd5 because to do so is to expose the black queen to capture. To his complete surprise, black sacrifices his queen. Realizing that black has a superior position, white resigns.

If white plays Bxd8 on his seventh move, black plays Bb4+. The only way white can reply to the check is with Qd2. Then black plays Bxd2+. White must recapture with Kxd2 but then black plays Kxd8 and he is ahead in material.

White's sixth move is a blunder. Because he must lose his queen after 7. Bb4+, the capture of the d-pawn by the knight on the sixth move is premature. To prevent the loss of the queen to the check by the bishop, white can play moves such as a3 or Nf3 on his sixth move.

This game features a well-known opening trap that can be very successful against an unsuspecting opponent. In this trap, the queen sacrifice is only temporary because black later regains the queen with a material advantage.

What is a dialect?

A dialect is simply a mutually comprehensible variant of a language. Some claim that the true difference between a language and a dialect is that a language has an army and a dialect does not.

Let me explain. The languages of Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are usually mutually comprehensible to the speakers of all three languages, particularly in the case of spoken Swedish and Norwegian.

For political reasons, though, they are always referred to as languages. Danes tend to have more difficulty understanding Swedish than Norwegian, but if the language is spoken slowly and clearly, they usually understand it very well. In their written forms, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are all easily understood by the speakers of those particular languages.

Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian are essentially the same language, but for political reasons, they are referred to as separate languages. It is true that they have different writing systems. Serbian is written in Cyrillic and Bosnian and Croatian are written in the Roman alphabet. However, they are all easily understood in their spoken forms.

Hindi and Urdu are also essentially the same language, but for political reasons are considered separate. Hindi is spoken in India and Urdu in Pakistan. Not only are they spoken in different countries but also by members of different religions. Most speakers of Hindi are Hindus and most speakers of Urdu are Muslims.

The Chinese dialects of Mandarin, Cantonese and Hakka share the same writing system but are mutually incomprehensible in their spoken forms. For political reasons, though, they are usually referred to as dialects. Calling them dialects gives the impression that all Chinese speak the same language, but of course this is far from the case. If Mandarin, Cantonese and Hakka had phonetic writing systems, there is no question that they would not be mutually comprehensible in any form. The writing systems make it possible to preserve a sense of unity. The Tibetan language, however, written in a different script, is not comprehensible to speakers of languages such as Mandarin, Cantonese and Hakka in any form. However, it is also banned by the Chinese government at school or work, so many Chinese may not even be aware of its existence.

To be called a dialect, a variety of a language usually has differences in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. However, sometimes dialects of a language may be more incomprehensible than two separate languages. For example, speakers of standard Italian may have an easier time understanding French or German than understanding Sicilian. This is particularly true if they have studied those languages and had little or no exposure to Sicilian.

The definition of a dialect can be a tricky one, but generally we regard it as a variant of a particular language such as American English, Australian English, Canadian English and British English. For political reasons, dialects may be referred to as languages or languages as dialects. Some may claim that they do not speak a dialect but the truth is that every speaker has a dialect regardless of how standard it may be.

She Walks In Beauty

The poem "She Walks in Beauty" was written by Lord Byron in 1814. It is one of his most popular poems. I will discuss this poem in this post.

She Walks in Beauty

She walks in beauty like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, so eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

The poem consists of three stanzas of six verses each. Each verse has eight syllables in which the second is stressed. This is known as iambic tetrameter. In other words, each verse has four feet (each foot has two syllables) and the final syllable of each foot has stress. We also notice that the poem has a regular rhyme. The rhyme scheme is a,b, a, b, a, b, c, d, c, d, c, d, e, f, e, f, e, f.

The second verse of the first stanza has alliteration in "cloudless climes" and "starry skies". The final verse of the first stanza personifies both heaven and day.

In the third verse of the second stanza appears the phrase "raven tress". This refers to every dark curl of the woman's hair. Her thoughts express her purity and sweetness.

The final stanza reveals the woman's charm. She is described as calm, eloquent and good. In the final verse, we are told that she has a heart whose love is innocent. She does not love for selfish reasons but to make others happy. Clearly she is an amazing woman who makes a favourable impression upon others.

Lord Byron's poem is filled with beautiful imagery, regular rhyme, personification and alliteration. These poetic devices are common in classical poetry. His praise of the woman and skilful use of words help to explain the popularity of this classic.

Indonesian and Tagalog

Indonesian and Tagalog are both classified as members of the Austronesian language family. Nevertheless, they are not considered mutually intelligible. A comparison of the numbers from one to ten reveals that they are related but not so closely.

To compare here are the numbers from one to ten in Indonesian and Tagalog:

Indonesian: satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima, enam, tujuh, delapan, sembilan, sepuluh
Tagalog: isa, dalawa, tatlo, apat, lima, anim, pito, walu, siyam, sampu

The words for the number one bear little similarity to one another. However, they both have the syllable "sa". The number two is different. Here we see that both words start with a "d" and end with an "a" but the Tagalog word is considerably longer. The number three starts with a "t" in both languages, but the words appear to be quite different. In the case of the number four, both words are disyllablic and have the same final syllable. The word five is identical in both languages. The number six is clearly related. In both languages it is disyllabic and shares the nasals "m" and "n". The words for the number seven appear rather different but they are both disyllabic and have a back vowel in the final syllable. The number eight is rather different in both languages but both languages have an "l" as the third segment. With the number nine, the Indonesian word is considerably longer, but in both languages the first segment is an "s" and the final segment is a nasal. In the case of the number ten, the Indonesian word is again longer but both words start with the same segment and share a "p" and a "u". The similarity of the two words is thus evident.

A comparison of the numbers from one to ten in Indonesian and Tagalog reveals that the two languages are related. However, the degree of similarity of the two languages is not as great as it is between other languages such as Czech and Slovak, Spanish and Portuguese and German and Dutch.

Palatalization

Palatalization is a common phonological process in which a sound develops a palatal articulation. It can be classified into three different types. They are 1) a secondary articulation which attaches itself to a primary articulation; 2) an advanced articulation and 3) a change in the manner of articulation.

Russian is an example of a language with a great deal of palatalization. The word for "thank you" is spasiba, a word with actually has a palatal glide before the high front vowel "i". A more acurate representation of the pronunciation of this word is "spasyiba". Because the high front unrounded vowel "i" is articulated near the palate, it is easy to insert a palatal glide before the vowel. However, another view is that the alveolar fricative is in fact a palatalized alveolar fricative because the fricative has a much longer duration than the glide. In this view the alveolar fricative is analyzed as the primary articulation and the palatal glide as the secondary. If this is the case, the word can be represented as spas'iba. The Russian word for five, "pyat'", is clearly an example of a secondary articulation attached to a primary one. Both the alveolar plosive and the palatal glide occur in the syllable coda, a sound sequence which is common in the Slavic languages but does not occur in many other languages such as English, German, Spanish and French.

An example of an advanced articulation occurs in the word "key". If we compare this word to the word "car", it is clear that the voiceless velar plosives in each word are not identical. In the word "key", the velar plosive has a more advanced articulation than it does in the word "car". The reason for the advanced articulation of the velar plosive in the word "key" is due to the articulation of the vowel. It is a front vowel which results in a more palatal articulation of the velar plosive. This can be viewed as a type of assimilation because the velar plosive becomes more similar to the vowel which follows it. Since the vowel influences the preceding segment, the direction of the assimilation is regressive.

With the words "car" and "key", one may ask how we know that the velar plosive of "key" is in fact an advanced articulation and that the velar plosive of "car" is not a retracted articulation. In isolation, the velar plosive does not have an advanced articulation. Other evidence comes from the word "cheese". This word used to be pronounced "keese" [kiz] but the velar plosive became an alveopalatal affricate. In German this word is Ka:se, in Dutch it is "kaas", in Spanish it is "queso" and in Portuguese it is "queijo". It becomes clear that only in English did the velar plosive become an affricate and it is plausible to speculate that it developed an advanced articulation prior to affrication.

Another common type of palatalization is in the change of articulation. In the word "nature" the "t" is pronounced as a voiceless alveopalatal affricate. However, this was not always the case. In French "nature" and German "Natur" the "t" is pronounced as a plosive. This was almost certainly also the pronunciation of the word "nature" at an earlier stage of English. The schwa in the second syllable of "nature" is classified phonetically as a central vowel, but the high articulation often triggers palatalization. This is also the case in words such as "creature", "feature" and "capture".

In English, a number of words may or may not have palatalization depending on the speaker. In most of England, palatalization applies in the words "tube", "new" and "duty". The first segment in each of these words is pronounced with the blade of the tongue, sounds which are known as coronals. In most of the United States, the words "tube", "new" and "duty" are pronounced without palatalization, a process which is often referred to as yod-dropping. For those speakers who do not palatalize, "do" and "dew" sound the same, but for those who do, they are distinct. In the case of words which start with the voiceless alveolar fricative such as "suit" and "sue", most British speakers do not palatalize but a few do.

The phonological process of palatalization is very common in the languages of the world. In the case of the Slavic languages, it is especially common. Palatalization can be viewed as a subclass of assimilation and can be further classified into three types, the attachment of a secondary articulation to a primary one, a more advanced palatal articulation, and a change in the manner of articulation of a particular segment.

Ski Jumping

Long skis glide over hardened icy snow,
Knees bent and arms stretched to gather speed,
He ignores every spectator below,
Focus on victory now his only creed.
In swift descent his blood begins to flow.
He appreciates his superior breed.
He keeps his arms and legs positioned low,
Anxious to protect his precarious lead.
Snow becomes air and arms turn into wings.
Every fleeting second looms through his fall.
His unrivalled height makes him king of kings.
After landing superbly he stands tall.
He anticipates more championship rings
This day ski jumping crowns him above all.

When I lived in Finland, I had the chance to see live ski jumping. It was an incredible experience which I'll never forget. Though I enjoy watching ski jumping on TV, it's much better in person. The experience inspired me to write this sonnet about ski jumping.

This sonnet starts with a description of the ski jumper starting his jump. He knows that he belongs to a special group of individuals who take part in this exciting sport. The snow below him disappears as he takes off. Every second is critical to his success. He completes the jump with a great landing and expects he will have continued success in the future.

The rhyme scheme of this sonnet is a, b, a, b, a, b, a, b, c, d, c, d, c, d. The sonnet has a number of references to the ski jumper's jump and subsequent fall. They include "below", "descent", "fall", "king" and "height".