languagehat.com

Back in 2006 I reported on “the insensate rage unleashed in language-loving Germans by the humble apostrophe”; now Philip Oltermann in the Guardian tells us those language-loving Germans are going to have to suck it up:

A relaxation of official rules around the correct use of apostrophes in German has not only irritated grammar sticklers but triggered existential fears around the pervasive influence of English.

Establishments that feature their owners’ names, with signs like “Rosi’s Bar” or “Kati’s Kiosk” are a common sight around German towns and cities, but strictly speaking they are wrong: unlike English, German does not traditionally use apostrophes to indicate the genitive case or possession. The correct spelling, therefore, would be “Rosis Bar”, “Katis Kiosk”, or, as in the title of a recent viral hit, Barbaras Rhabarberbar.

However, guidelines issued by the body regulating the use of Standard High German orthography have clarified that the use of the punctuation mark colloquially known as the Deppenapostroph (“idiot’s apostrophe”) has become so widespread that it is permissible – as long as it separates the genitive ‘s’ within a proper name.

The new edition of the Council for German Orthography’s style guide, which prescribes grammar use at schools and public bodies in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland, lists “Eva’s Blumenladen” (Eva’s Flower Shop) and “Peter’s Taverne” (Peter’s Tavern) as usable alternatives, though “Eva’s Brille” (“Eva’s glasses”) remains incorrect. […]

“There is a long tradition of conservative circles fretting about international influences on the German languages,” said Stefanowitsch. “It used to be French, and now it’s mainly English”. The Dortmund-based association Verein Deutsche Sprache tries to counteract the influence of English with an “anglicism index” that proposes alternative German words, such as Klapprechner instead of “laptop” or Puffmais instead of “popcorn”.

Barbaras Rhabarberbar turned up here earlier this year; I’m not sure why “Eva’s Blumenladen” is OK but “Eva’s Brille” isn’t, unless it’s only on signs that you can get away with such horrors. Thanks, Trevor, Nick, and Bonnie!

One of my wife’s birthday presents was a CD of Saint-Saëns: Sonates & Trio, played by Renaud Capuçon, Bertrand Chamayou, and Edgar Moreau (a lovely recording it is, too); the blurb on the back says “Moins connue et jouée que celle de Fauré, Ravel ou Debussy, la musique de chambre de Saint-Saëns n’affiche aucun complexe face aux puissants chefs-d’œuvre du répertoire germanique,” immediately followed by a translation: “Less known or played than that of Fauré, Ravel and Debussy, the chamber music of Saint-Saëns stands on a par with the greatest masterpieces of the Germanic repertoire.” Afficher is ‘to display, show’ and complexe is ‘complex’; how do you get from ‘displays no complex in the face of’ to “stands on a par with”? What complexity am I missing?

Also, if you subscribe to the Criterion Channel and have any interest in African movies, I recommend Shaihu Umar, which is leaving the channel at the end of the month and which is one of the first movies in Hausa — it’s going to take me a few days to get through it because I keep pausing it to look things up (fortunately, I own Nicholas Awde’s useful little Hausa-English/English-Hausa Dictionary). I’ve already dug through the LH archives to find David Eddyshaw’s comment from last year about Hausa wuri ‘cowrie,’ plural kuɗi ‘money.’ And the start of the movie, which shows pilgrims arriving in a dusty Nigerian town to meet the famous Umar (who then tells them his life story in flashback), provides an excellent example of the prolonged formulaic exchanges of greetings so prevalent in West Africa.

Dmitry Pruss sent me Wool and the Indo-Anatolian Hypothesis: A Linguistic and Archaeological Approach, saying “the summary looks good”; here are some salient passages:

In the context of Indo-European languages, wool holds linguistic significance as well. In Hittite, the word for wool appears in various forms, such as the widespread use of the Sumerogram SÍG. […]

Interestingly, linguistic analysis shows two distinct stems in the Hittite language for wool: ḫulii̯a- and ḫulan(a)-. Both forms, while indicating wool, exhibit different grammatical usages and highlight how linguistic evolution can track technological innovations, like wool production, in ancient cultures. The suffixes -ii̯a- and -āli- are common Indo-European nominal endings, while -ana- presents an anomaly, showcasing potential inner-Anatolian developments. […]

The research presented by Alwin Kloekhorst challenges long-held assumptions regarding the presence of a common Proto-Indo-European (PIE) term for wool across the Indo-Anatolian languages. The conclusion that the lexeme h₂ulh₁n(e)h₂- for ‘wool’ likely never existed within PIE forces a reevaluation of how the Indo-Anatolian languages developed in relation to wool-related vocabulary. In particular, the Anatolian word ḫulan-, which refers to wool, appears to be independent of the late PIE term, suggesting that the Anatolian branch diverged early from the rest of the PIE family, long before the spread of wool technology across Eurasia.

Furthermore, the PIE term ulh₁n(e)h₂- seems to have been created later, in the post-Tocharian PIE era, around 2700 BCE. This period aligns with the introduction of wool production to the Pontic steppes, indicating that language adapted alongside technological advancements. The evidence supports the idea that the spread of wool and its associated terminology was not a universal phenomenon across all Indo-European languages but rather emerged as wool became a vital resource in specific regions.

Lastly, the root hul-, found in Anatolian languages, could be a borrowing from external sources, such as Hurrian. This borrowing emphasizes the complexity of linguistic evolution and the significant cultural exchanges between ancient peoples. By integrating linguistic evidence with archaeological data, Kloekhorst’s conclusions offer a more nuanced understanding of the development of wool production and its terminology, illustrating that the linguistic divergences in Anatolia better align with the archaeological timeline of wool’s spread than previous theories suggested.

More details and graphics at the link. Thanks, Dmitry!

I ran across this comment by Bathrobe from 2022 and was struck by the word “yakka” in “It’s easier on the brain to clean up a crappy translation than it is to do the hard yakka of finding appropriate vocab, creating sentence structures, and fitting them all together…” I turned to the OED, and it turned out they’d just revised the entry this year:

Australian slang.

Work; esp. physical labour. Frequently in hard yakka: difficult or strenuous work.

1881 This has given the claimholders a heart to go in for more hard yacker.
Maryborough (Queensland) Chron. 26 February (Supplement)

1898 Some [swagmen] ask for ‘yacker’, some’s lookin’ for ‘graft’, and some’s ‘after a job’.
Bulletin (Sydney) 8 October 31/2
[…]

2021 I spent my 21st birthday working on a farm in QLD, and oh boy the work was hard yakka.
@itsmeowgii 17 March in twitter.com (accessed 7 Feb. 2022)

The etymology just said “< yakker v.,” so thither I went:

Australian. Now rare.

1847 ‘What for Commandant yacca paper?’ What is the gentleman working at the paper for?
J. D. Lang, Cooksland iv. 123
[…]

1939 One sundowner told him that..they could always get a meal at Mack’s but they had to ‘yakka’ for it.
Narromine News (New South Wales) 27 June 5/1

And there the etymology was short but informative:

< Yagara (Brisbane region) yaga.

Yagara is in Wikipedia s.v. Turrbal language: “Turrbal is an Aboriginal Australian language of the Turrbal people of the Brisbane area of Queensland. […] Yagara, Yugarabul, and Turrbul proper are more likely to be considered dialects.” Once upon a time the OED would have said something like “From an aboriginal language.” Progress is being made!

Untapped: The Australian Literary Heritage Project is a great idea:

Most Australian books ever written are now out-of-print and inaccessible to readers. That includes local histories and memoirs, beloved children’s titles – and even winners of our most glittering literary prizes, such as the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Untapped is a collaboration between authors, libraries and researchers, working together to identify Australia’s lost literary treasures and bring them back to life. It creates a new income source for Australian authors, who currently have few options for getting their out-of-print titles available in libraries. […]

We have worked with Australian authors, literary agents and estates to obtain the rights and digitise 161 culturally important out-of-print novels, histories, memoirs, poetry and more. They are available to borrow as ebooks from public libraries around the country, with our library partners promoting them so everyone has an opportunity to rediscover these texts. And they’re available for sale as ebooks too!

We used sophisticated scanning methods to copy the print book, then applied OCR to convert the text. After that, we used dedicated proof readers to pick up any errors and make sure the scan is of library quality. For that proofreading work, our focus was on hiring arts workers affected by COVID.

I discovered it at this MetaFilter post by mosessis, who included some of the results:

• There was substantial public demand to borrow these titles
• There was substantial public demand to purchase these titles
• There was no evidence that e-lending cannibalised book sales (and some evidence it may actually have increased them)
• The Untapped project generated around $120,000 in additional income for authors in the project’s first 12 months. All participants received ebook royalties from retail sales and library licensing.
• Libraries and publishers could both benefit from library control of e-lending infrastructure

I hope the wider world pays attention to the conclusion that e-lending doesn’t hurt book sales, which is what I would expect: many people who read a book and like it will want their own copy.

I was astonished to read this quote from Robin Williams, talking about Jack Nicholson:

“He once was with me at a benefit and leaned over and said, ‘Even oysters have enemies’. In a very intense voice, I responded with, ‘Increase your dosage’. More fascinated than scared. He says things that even Buddha goes, ‘What did you mean?’”

To an English-speaker, “Even oysters have enemies” sounds like weirdness from the outer limits, but any reader of Russian literature would immediately recognize it as a version of “И устрица имеет врагов!” [Even an oyster has enemies!], No. 86 in Плоды раздумья [Fruits of meditation] by the great (and fictional) Kozma Prutkov. I have no idea how it wound up in the brain of Jack Nicholson, but it gave me a frisson of delight.

(Incidentally, устрица ‘oyster’ is borrowed from Dutch oester, which is from Latin ostrea; our oyster comes from the same Latin word, but via French. And враг ‘enemy’ is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic; the inherited doublet is во́рог, which is archaic or folk-poetic.)

I ran across Letters of state written by Mr. John Milton, to most of the sovereign princes and republicks of Europe, from the year 1649, till the year 1659 and of course was particularly interested in the one to the ruler of Russia (presumably Aleksei Mikhailovich, since it’s dated 1657), which starts off resplendently:

Oliver Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, &c. To the most Serene aud Potent Prince and Lord, Emperor and great Duke of all Russia, sole Lord of Volodomaria, Moscow and Novograge, King of Cazan, Astracan and Syberia, Lord of Vobscow, great Duke of Smolensko, Tuerscoy, and other Places. Lord and great Duke of Novogrod, and the Lower Provinces of Chernigoy, Rezansco and others. Lord of all the Northern Climes; also Lord of Eversco, Cartalinsca, and many other Places.

Most of it was easy to decipher (Volodomaria = Vladimir, Novograge = Novgorod, etc.), but what on earth was “Vobscow”? Comparison with a similar but modernized list of titles gave me the key: it’s Pskov, which used to be Pleskov (Плѣсковъ) and “was historically known in English as Plescow.” I have no idea how Plescow turned up as Vobscow (bad handwriting?), but googling [Vobscow Pskov] gets no hits, so I’m guessing this is not commonly known, and I thought I’d put it out there for those who might be interested.

Or so say D. E. Dijksterhuis, M. W. Self, J. K. Possel, et al., in their “Pronouns reactivate conceptual representations in human hippocampal neurons” (Science 385.6716 [26 Sep 2024]:1478-1484; DOI: 10.1126/science.adr2813). I don’t have access to the full article, but here’s the Editor’s summary:

Languages use pronouns to refer to nouns or concepts that were introduced earlier in a conversation. Do these pronouns activate the same neuronal representations in the brain as the previously introduced words? Using human intracranial recordings, Dijksterhuis et al. found that during reading, single cells in the medial temporal lobes that respond selectively to specific individuals also respond to pronouns that later in sentences refer to previously read nouns. These results indicate how memory and language are linked at the single-cell level. —Peter Stern

The abstract is available at the link. Interesting, if true!

I was reading this Places Journal essay by the architect Jola Idowu about a kind of concrete made with shells called “tabby” when I came to this excursus on the word:

Over the course of about five centuries, knowledge of how to make concrete using oyster lime traveled from North Africa to Spain to Spanish Florida and then to the British colonies, a history that can be traced through the etymology of tabby. The word descends from the Spanish building material tapia, or rammed earth. When tapia was used in North Africa, it shrunk under the hot sun, compelling builders to develop a formula that could withstand drier weather. The North African tabbi added lime from shells and stone fragments to make a stronger, more resistant form of rammed earth, which the Almoravid and Almohad dynasties of the Moorish caliphate used for military construction from the 13th to 16th centuries. Later, the conquistadors who crossed the Atlantic to explore and colonize the West Indies brought tabbi to the Americas.

When Juan Ponce de León arrived in Puerto Rico as its first Spanish governor, he built his home with tabbi, then known in Spanish as tapia real. This is the oldest continuously inhabited residence in the Western hemisphere, and it was built with local stone mixed with shells and lime sourced from Cuba. But shipping was too expensive for large architectural projects; builders needed a local solution. So in 1580 the colonists began making tapia with oyster shells from nearby reefs. Tabique de hostion, or oyster concrete, was used for the old walls of San Juan and other construction projects on the neighboring island of Hispaniola. Soon this architectural knowledge spread to Spanish Florida, and up the coast to Georgia and the Carolinas.

But as far as I can tell, tabby, tapia, and tabique have separate origins. The OED says of the first that the ‘concrete’ sense “may be a different word, though it may also have originated in a fancied resemblance of colour to that of the tabby cat,” which “is generally held to have been so named from the striped or streaked colour of its coat” after the “general term for a silk taffeta, apparently originally striped,” itself from “French tabis, earlier atabis […], Spanish tabi, Portuguese tabi, Italian tabi, medieval Latin attābi […], apparently < Arabic ʿattābiy, name of a quarter of Baghdad in which this fabric was manufactured, named after ʿAttāb, great-grandson of Omeyya.” Now, the OED entry is from 1910, but Wiktionary agrees; it says Spanish tapia ‘wall; wall made of adobe bricks’ is probably of Germanic origin, from Proto-Germanic *tappô ‘tap, plug,’ and tabique is from Arabic تَشْبِيك (tašbīk). Anybody know anything about this tangle?

This is one of those posts that will not be of much general interest, but as sometimes happens I have to vent my irritation and you are all the victims. Marietta Shaginyan is now probably utterly forgotten even in her homeland; back in the day, she was known largely for a series of worshipful books on Lenin and a few cheeky pseudo-adventure novels from the 1920s (back before such things became libri non grati). I happened to have Vol. 2 of her Collected Works, which contains two of the latter: Месс-менд, или Янки в Петрограде (tr. Mess-Mend: Yankees in Petrograd) and Кик [Kik]. I tried the first, which is relatively well known, and liked it to some extent, but once I got the idea I quailed at the thought of reading hundreds more pages of it, so I thought I’d give the later — and much shorter — work a try.

At first I enjoyed it quite a bit. It starts with a list of characters involved with the brand-new Amanausskaya Pravda, the four-page newspaper of the Amanaus sanatorium somewhere in the Caucasus; having been a wall newspaper, it has graduated to its first printed edition, and after a series of letters from the editor to potential contributors, the book reproduces it for us: an editorial celebrating the end of the Civil War and the beginning of socialist reconstruction, a local-news section (The Arrival of Comrade Lvov, A Convent Has Become a Factory, etc.), a brief poem, an essay on the mineral riches of the region, and so on, the final item being an ad for a new movie The Deed Is Done being shown at the Svetozar Cinema. But it turns out there is no such movie, the ad is suspected of being a White plot, and various people connected with the paper are called in for questioning by the GPU. Furthermore, Comrade Lvov has disappeared while on a trip hunting bison. Mystery! We then get documents written by the people arrested: a poem, a novella, a melodrama in verse (called Колдунья и коммунист ‘The witch and the communist,’ abbreviated as Кик, whence the title), and a movie treatment (with digressions on geology), all incomplete. It’s good fun, and the reader is eager to know how it will be resolved.

Alas, the final section consists of a speech by the purportedly missing Lvov, who reveals that the whole thing was a setup, a trap to catch the counterrevolutionary White bandits who had been planning to overthrow Soviet power in the region. Much worse, he then turns to analyzing the literary submissions in political terms, explaining how each was weakened by adherence to prerevolutionary norms and comes alive only when the lessons learned from the genius of Lenin were applied. And then I read the preface she wrote thirty years later, in which she explained that the whole adventure-novel element was just a pretext for the literary lesson she wanted to impart to herself and others (she went on to write Гидроцентраль [Hydroelectric plant], about the construction of a power station in northern Armenia, which has been called “talentless,” and those books on Lenin, starting with Билет по истории [History exam], which was absurdly rendered as “Ticket to History” in a reference work). What a letdown! “It was all a lesson on socialist realism” is even worse than “It was all a dream.”

On the plus side, at least part of it is set in Abkhazia, and it includes a couple of sentences in Abkhaz: Адàгуа iзvн фýнт адаvл адvрhòм (translated as ‘they don’t beat the drum twice for a deaf person’) and Aqynàл мбvлгоз ахфà ахащèiт (‘the clay pot rolled along and covered itself with a lid along the way’). I have no idea if they’re real Abkhaz or if they mean what they’re said to. And I finally looked up the obviously Armenian surname Shaginyan, which turns out to be Shahinyan (Շահինյան) in Armenian, and discovered it’s from Shahin, “a female or male given name which is the Persian term for hawk or falcon,” which I should have figured out for myself (I once had a boss named Shaheen, and boy did we celebrate when she was fired), but I guess I was thrown off by the Russian -g- for -h-.