Interesting Words (moved from Games)

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
No, the latter, sorry (the lack of A-containing numbers). I somehow forgot the order in your question.
 

Serenus

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

I was just reading this wonderful article on the value of Late Latin texts for the reconstruction of linguistic history:

https://www.academia.edu/35770760/Late_Latin_the_evidence

He mentions various amusing examples of education affecting how people wrote in odd ways in early medieval Latin (which he includes within "Late Latin" in the article).

In particular, I liked the example of "et aliorum multorum filio bonorum". Filius boni is an expression equivalent to the later Old Spanish fidalgo < fīlius dē aliquod, meaning 'a good person', compare the late antique vir honestus. Apparently, the scribe thought of the expression as one word (and even wrote it as filiobonorum in fact), and since the citation form is filius boni, he figured the plural would end in -orum (since it's the plural of genitive -i) in spite of the phrase needing an accusative as it was after ante, and then, tried to make the adjectives alios and multos agree with it. So, aliorum multorum agree with filiobonorum. Really a case of someone trying to follow grammar rules in an odd case and erring in an odd way.
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Gæmleflodland
Nice.
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Gæmleflodland

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
The French verb "fracasser", itself from Italian "fracassare" is said to be probably a mixture of frangere and quassare.
 

Serenus

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Yeah, I love that whole set of verbs:

- أصبح ʔasˤbaħa 'become by the morning'
- أمسى ʔamsaa 'become by the evening'
- بات baata 'become during the night'

I imagine Classical Arabic speakers must have felt they were very useful for situations when we say e.g. "I woke up exhausted", "by the end of the day I was exhausted".

The traditional neutral verb without a time connotation was apparently صار sˤaara, but in modern standard Arabic أصبح ʔasˤbaħa is very common, without a "morning" connotation...
 

Glabrigausapes

Philistine

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Milwaukee
The Maori for 'France' is Wīwī. Too *cute.

*This of course has an unfortunate homophone in childish English.
 

Glabrigausapes

Philistine

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Milwaukee
Oïl, oïl. That it is.
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Gæmleflodland

Serenus

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Words in Semitic languages from reduplicated roots always sound so cute.

Some other Arabic examples:
رفرفة rafrafa - fluttering
سمسم simsim - sesame
فلفل filfil - pepper, (in the plural فلافل falāfil) falafel
نعنع naʿnaʿ - mint
وسوسة waswasa - whispering
وطواط waṭwaaṭ - bat

Can you think of Hebrew examples?
 
Last edited:

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Gæmleflodland
Words in Semitic languages from reduplicated roots always sound so cute.

Some other Arabic examples:
رفرفة rafrafa - fluttering
سمسم simsim - sesame
فلفل filfil - pepper, (in the plural فلافل falāfil) falafel
نعنع naʿnaʿ - mint
وسوسة waswasa - whispering
وطواط waṭwaaṭ - bat
I was going to post watwaat too, I love it :D


An iconic Hebrew one is גַּלְגַּל galgal, meaning wheel, similar to Sumerian and IE words for related concepts.
 
Top