Issue #16

BOOK
CAN YOU REVIEW:

GUESS Because
Internet
OUR PAGE
NUMBER
LANGUAGE?
Rugby
& DNA
Languages of the
British and
R E Irish Islands
FEATU
The Magazine for Language Lovers : Issue #16 : September 19
2 tan
in this issue: :SEPTEMBER 2019:

FEATURED TOPIC 42 What do French People think about
Languages of the Bri�sh and Irish Islands Romania?
5 Editorial By Valten�n Pradelou
7 Revitaliza�on of Welsh – An Overview 46 How Slovene Changed My Perspec�ve on

By Elena Sheard Serbian
By Dina Stanković
10 Hen Iaith Fy Nhadau: Welsh's Relevance
Today 48 Language and Culture
By Fflur Jones By Gil Cohen
14 How are P-Cel�c & Q-Cel�c connected? 50 Languages of Old in Music of Today
An answer from Scotland By Paula Zamorano Osorio
By Charles Wilson
53 Late Talkers
18 Why Sco�sh Gaelic Appeals to Me By Camille Masson
By Olga Georgousi
56 Language as a Link Between Rugby and
22 Craic’s Not Whack DNA
By Al J. Kupetz By Emma Tolmie
25 Hou’s Yer Dous? A Quick History of Scots 60 Book Review: Because Internet
By Sofia Bragaglia By Ed Bedford
IMMERSE YOURSELF
3 S is for Submit
By Chris Davy
27 How to Talk Like a Viking

By Holly Gustafson
30 The Mul�tudinous Peeves of a

Professional Translator: Part 2
By Apio Frito
34 Dude, what is my gender, man?

By Stefano Nunes
37 To *E or not to *E: Gender Neutrality in

Spanish and German
By Victoria Mar�nez Mutri
September 2019, Issue #16 Silly Linguistics: The Magazine for Language Lovers
tethera 3
journey, time and time again. Submit. Submit.

Submit. With myself, with those around me, with
the self-publishing process, with the Silly
S is for... Linguistics team, with myself again, and so on. It’s

what you will have to do when it comes to learning
submit
language, or anything for that matter.
Communication is all about that. Give and take.

Life is all about that. Submitting. Learning and
using language is all about that. Sub-mit.
More specifically I think about this; given that

learning language is what it’s all about here at Silly
Chris Davy Linguistics. You have to submit to language.
So, I’ve just finished writing a book. It’s based on When learning a specific one, you have to submit
all this ‘S is for...’ thing. It’s called: yourself to that language. In order to get good at it,
S is for...Something: Short, you have to surrender yourself to it, and just accept
sweet, simple, silly, serious, it for what it is. Which is often...silly, serious,
stupid, smart, selfhelp. stupid, smart and so many other things; It never
You can find it on Amazon. Please check it out and really makes sense, there is always something that
give it a review. That’s the only chance it has of S is bucks the trend. Put it this way if you don’t accept
for...Surviving, and not S is for...Shuffling off this language for what it is, you are going to struggle to
mortal coil. learn it and use it. And that’s what you want to be
able to do, use it. So, try not to resist it, and all of
Why is that important, and what does it have to do
its stupidity. Just accept it. Then use it. Submit to
with submit? Well, submit, I think is the most
it. Then you can submit it to others.
important S word going. It’s a pretty special word,
because essentially it can mean ‘to give’ and ‘to But seriously, I’ve often thought in these terms,
take’. Which I think, when you think about it, is primarily because I was always into design and
just nuts. Good old English! sport, and the premise of those two things,
especially those two things together, is...’How can
Little English lesson. Same spelling, different
this/I/we be better?’. I think we all do this. It’s a
meaning; that’s a homonym. But, same spelling
pretty natural thing to do. Also, it’s because
opposite meanings...that is a contronym. I learnt
somethings don’t always seem to sit quite right;
what a contronym is just today, 17th August 2019
physically or mentally. So you question them.
for the record. But, it kind of makes sense, contr-
and all that being part of the word. Which is Like, why is a spoon called a spoon? Is that the best
actually contra from Latin for ‘against’. Learnt that name for it? Wouldn’t mini face shovel be better?
today too. I’m joking...but I know a lot of you know what I’m
getting at.
I might not have come to that realisation had I not
written the book; about submit being the most Also, I have no doubt that all the specifics that
important S word. But also, it’s just a matter of make up language significantly impact the way we
what I have had to do throughout my whole writing live our lives. Even from a biological perspective.
4 pethera
For example, typically, when you are happy, you because our languages aren’t synchronised with
smile; you feel good. When you aren’t happy, if how our bodies and minds work. So, it’s just going
you smile; you start to feel good. Because when to take some time, I actually mean effort, before we
you smile feeling good is a result of it, even if have that ideal language that makes us feel great
mentally you don’t actually feel good; physically physically and mentally when we use it. Remember
you will start to feel good. Of course, you could that as humans we are S is for...Stupid, and so, S is
have a condition that means certain hormones for...Stick with it. Before anyone even thinks about
aren’t released that typically would be when you getting sensitive on me, contronym of the day?
smile. But generally speaking, that is the impact Human. A creature that is simultaneously smart
that smiling has on the body. Feeling good. Be it a and stupid.
sincere or a synthetic smile.
For now, I’m just going to continue to submit.
So, imagine a language that’s primary focus was on
creating ‘ee’ or ‘ay’shapes and encouraged
speakers to smile when they spoke. I think that
would evoke a lot more pleasure and enjoyment for
speakers than a language that didn’t. It just makes
S is for...Sense to me. You’d possibly want to make
sure that the appropriate word sounds linked up
with the appropriate word meanings; for
psychological purposes and association of
attitudes. Because that’s where it get’s messy.
Some words are already linked to facial shapes that
evoke ‘good feelings’, and psychologically you Please visit
probably don’t want that. E.g. Stabby!! Stabby!! www.sisforsomething.com
Stabby!! Think about it, why do photographers get
for more S based articles.
you to say CHEESE when they are taking a photo? •
Find @sisforsomething on
I genuinely believe that as humans there would be Facebook, Twitter,
one language that we could all speak that would
and Instagram.
naturally bring us closer together. We just haven’t
got there yet, we are still evolving and maybe in the
next 50, 100, 1000 years we will have the
universal language. Just seems natural to me. I
mean, on a primal level I think we already have one.
But I think we’ve moved on from grunts and snorts
now. Some of us at least.
Anyway, submit, my point is you have to get over

the fact that language is a work in progress, it is
evolving. It can be really hard to do that, but it’s
absolutely necessary. Just work with the tools that
you have. I believe it feels weird sometimes
pimp 5
New Featured Topics

An Editorial
From now onwards many magazine issues will have a Featured Topic. These will be collections of articles
exploring a topic to give you, our readers, a detailed insight into that topic. In doing so we hope to ensure a wide
range of subjects are covered — so watch out for any topics you are particularly interested in! Yet this will in no
way take away from the brilliant content you have come to expect from each issue.
This inaugural Featured Topic is the Languages of the British and Irish Islands. Chosen to give an insight into
some of the lesser known languages of this area and to show the web of connexions between languages that rub
shoulders with each other.
Some of you might be thinking what languages really are there, other than English and one or two Celtic
languages. So hopefully the exploration of a multitude of Celtic languages (do remember the interview at the
beginning of the magazine) and articles Scots and the Viking influence on English, will open your eyes to the
linguistic range found in these islands.
Of course, do not think this issue is in any way comprehensive. British Sign Language has not been covered, nor
Anglo-Romani, Manx, Norn, and so on. Yet we hope that this Featured Topic will act as a springboard for those
interested.
Do also have a look at some of our
previous issues that cover some of
these languages: Charles Wilson,
who very kindly gave advice on all
the Celtic related articles in this
issue1, has written many good
articles on Celtic languages, see
his work in issues 15 and 13 in
particular. Also have a look at
Simone Villano's article on
Thieves' Cant in issue 14 and a
review of Brian Friel's play
'Translations' in issue 13. English
must also not be forgotten and for
it's creative flexibility and the
history that has resulted in that, see
Apio Frito's article in issue 11.
\Before you dive into these

brilliant articles please note that
they represent the contributor's
opinions, not those of the
magazine. Also be aware that we
6 sethera
have worked hard to be careful about terminology — such as using “British and Irish islands” instead of the
somewhat Colonial “British Isles” — however, we understand that some of the terminology used could be seen
as problematic. We have tried our hardest to find a blance between giving the contributor's opinions in their
own voice and using the best terminology.
Please also understand that some of these articles are the contributor's personal experiences and should not be
seen as critical linguistic analysis of the language they have encountered. In part this sense of personal
experience is why there are two articles broadly about the revitalization of the Welsh language. I felt that the
articles although they cover the same broad topic are different enough in tone to both be worth including.
You might also note that this issue uses British Sheep Counting Numerals for the page numbers. As this is a
vigesimal (base-20) system multiple variants have been used, with a new system used each time 20 is reached.
These all derive from Brythonic Celtic languages, but show the influence of other languages. Anyone who
knows Welsh, Cornish, or Breton might be able to work out a number of these. 1–20 use the form common in
Lincolnshire, 21–40 use the form common in Dorset preceded by a dot to represent the last twenty,
(Shepherds would have dropped a pebble into a pocket or moved a finger to a different place on their crook
each time they reached twenty. This system is like the old fashioned use of “score” in English.) 41–60 use the
form common in the Lake district preceded by two dots to represent the last 40, 61–80 use the form common
in West Yorkshire (Around the village of Tong) preceded by three dots to represent the last 60
I hope you find this Featured Topic a worthwhile addition to the magazine and enjoy it — please do send in
suggestions for future Featured Topics.
____________________
1 His advice helped me to spot many poten�al errors and improve terminology, but this, of course, was not exhaus�ve.
We endeavour to fact check things were possible but it does remain the contributor's duty. All final decisions of
terminology were made between me (the Editor) and the contributor.
lethera 7
Language
Elena Sheard
The Welsh language is a
Brittonic2 Celtic language
t io n
spoken natively in Wales, and to
aliz a
a lesser degree by the Welsh
Revit
diaspora in countries such as
in Wales
England.
Currently, Welsh is a minority

language in Wales. While it
– An Overview
now shares co-official language
status with English, it was
historically stigmatised in
Wales by English rulers and as a
result of both active (punishing
schoolchildren for speaking
Welsh) and passive (Act of the
Union in 1536 effectively
promoted English as Wales'
official language) policies the
number of speakers has
declined. The 2011 census
found a decline in the number
of Welsh speakers to 562,000
from 582,000 in 2001, despite
an increase in population. This
is in the broader context of a
decline from 977,000 Welsh
speakers in 1911. However, it
is worth noting that the rate of
decline has slowed down. As
such, Welsh has been deemed
'vulnerable' to extinction by
UNESCO. A more recent
survey by the Office of National
Statistics did suggest that there
had been an increase in the
number of speakers since
2008, however official data will
not be acquired until the next
census in 2021.
8 hovera
Language activism and revitalisation introduced, bringing Welsh co-official status with
There has long been an ongoing push for the English. The number of schools using Welsh as a
revitalisation of the Welsh language; language language of instruction has also increased; there are
revitalisation being the "attempt to counter trends seventeen Welsh-language medium schools in Cardiff
that have influenced decline in the use and learning of (compared to one 30 years ago), and across Wales
the language" (Williams 2014: 242). There are three there are 3 million students enrolled in Welsh-
main phases to the Welsh language movement. The language medium schools.
primary concerns of the first phase, between 1912
and 1962, was gaining public recognition for the The current phase of the Welsh language movement
language and establishing a designated Welsh faces two main challenges. The first is the impact of
language education system. migration on historically predominantly Welsh-
speaking communities (i.e. a decreasing
The second phase, from 1962 – 1980s had a more concentration of Welsh speakers). The second is the
institutional focus, aiming to promote the growth of construction of a national infrastructure that embeds
Welsh-medium education, ensure bilingual public the current opportunities to use Welsh in broader
services and secure the establishment of Welsh- society, and normalising Welsh through expanding
medium television channel. This is also reflected in the base of pupils attending Welsh-medium schools.
the 1962 founding of Cymdeithas yr Iaith; a group
who, according to their website "seek equality of In response to these challenges, the government has
access to the Welsh language and campaign positively set an ambitious target of one million speakers of
in a non-violent way for the rights of people in Wales Welsh and an increase in the percentage of the
to use the language in every aspect of everyday life". population that speak Welsh daily from 10% to 20%,
A number of achievements have been made by the both by 2050. They aim to achieve this through a
Welsh language movement during this phase, many national strategy based on three 'strategic themes':
supported and pushed for by Cymdeithas yr Iaith. In increasing the number of Welsh speakers, increasing
the 1960s, bilingual road signs were introduced, and the use of Welsh, and creating favourable conditions
the 1970s there was a Welsh language TV channel for the use of Welsh. This strategy includes increasing
campaign, leading to the establishment of the world's the number of teachers teaching Welsh and teaching
first (and only) Welsh language TV channel in 1982. through the medium of Welsh as well an increase in
the number of students enrolled in Welsh-language
The third, and current phase, continues to build on medium schools (to 30% by 2030 and 40% by 2050),
the achievements of the second. In 1993 the Welsh hopefully resulting in a steady increase in the
Language Act was introduced, requiring public language transmission rather over the next thirty
bodies to offer limited Welsh language services. The years.
legislation provided a statutory framework for the
treatment of English and Welsh on the basis of It is clear that the efforts of activists and the Welsh
equality, and as part of that established the Welsh language movement have had genuine impact on
Language Board (abolished in 2012, with a Welsh government attitudes and policies; the Welsh
language commissioner established in 2011). In the government has implemented a highly ambitious
2000s there was a campaign for a new Welsh strategy aiming to revitalise the language. The
Language Act, and in 2010 the Official Status for the question of whether this strategy will succeed or not
Language under the Welsh Language Measure was remains fairly open. This is because the successful
covera 9
revitalisation of Welsh, and any minority language, depends on speakers using the language in daily life and
transmitting it to their children (eventually as a first language). If the concentrations of Welsh-speaking
members of Welsh-speaking communities continue to decline, and the government fails to create
'favourable conditions' for the future use of Welsh, successful revitalisation will become an increasingly
difficult and unlikely prospect. Nonetheless, it is clear that the revitalisation efforts so far have been paying
off, and it is entirely possible that they will continue to do so
Appendix A: an overview of Welsh morphology

The consonant inventory has 28 consonants and, as displayed Table 1, includes several sounds not found in
English. The language has a vowel inventory consisting of front high (ɪ, i:) and mid (ɛ, e:) vowels, central
high (ɨ, ɨː) mid (ə) and low vowels (a, a:), and back high (ʊ, u:) and mid (ɔ, o:) vowels. Some vowels (ɨ, ɨː)
only occur in certain dialects. These vowels make up the diphthongs (vowels with two targets rather than
one) shown in Table 2.
Table 1
Table 2
____________________
2 The term Brythonic is also used, and means the same thing as Bri�onic. As you can see they have the same
etymology.
10 dik
Hen Iaith Fy Nhadau3
The relevance of the

Welsh language today
Fflur Jones Welsh language has a rich It is thought that the language
“What’s the point of speaking history, one which has played a itself could be up to 4000 years
Welsh? Isn’t it just a dead big role within the British and old, but the Welsh spoken
language anyway?” This is a Irish islands. Personally, having today is mostly recognisable in
sentence I have heard numerous grown up in France, it is hard the Middle Welsh spoken from
times over the course of my life. for me to quantify exactly how the 12th to the 14th centuries.
As a native Welsh speaker, it is much the Welsh language ‘The Mabinogi’4, the earliest
surprising how often I have had means to me — not only is it the prose stories in the history of
to justify why I use the language language I use at home with my British literature, were written
my parents spoke to me as a family, it is also a connection to in Old Welsh. The Welsh
child. Saying it is your mother a place and a culture that at language has managed to
tongue often doesn’t end the times felt removed from me. survive because there is a lot
questions with many wondering Welsh is a language that despite more literature written in
why I don’t just speak English all barriers has continued to Welsh than any other Celtic
to make my life easier. It seems thrive and is still spoken language, as well as the fact that
the only attention it gets is throughout Wales to this day. in 1588 the Bible was
negative — from tourists translated into Welsh. Despite
confused by the bilingual road Welsh, or Cymraeg, being a all of this, English sovereignty
signs, to others who feel Celtic language of the over Wales from 1536 and the
excluded by people speaking Brythonic branch is closely signing of the Act of Union by
Welsh in the pub. Yet the related to Breton and Cornish. Henry VIII greatly diminished
yan-a-dik 11
the status of the language. It lost its official status would greatly advance their civilisation”. The
and the use of Welsh was largely banned for official uselessness of Welsh is still a prevalent myth today.
uses.
My parents were asked when I was born which one
Dilution of the Welsh language only intensified of them would speak English to me as I grew up?
throughout the Industrial Revolution partly as When stating that they would both speak Welsh to
English speakers migrated to Wales in search of me, they were told that they were making my life
work. This movement coupled with the continued more difficult, that I would find it hard at school
inferior legal status of Welsh meant that English and that I would struggle to adapt to other
slowly became the default language. In the 19th cultures. None of these fears proved to be true but
century virtually all teaching in Welsh schools was they explain why a lot of Welsh parents in the 20th
done through English, even if the schools were in century stopped talking to their children in Welsh:
areas where most of the population spoke only it was seen as harming the cognitive development
Welsh. In some schools, the Welsh Not, a piece of of the child and their future abilities in life.
wood bearing the letters WN, was hung around the However, being bilingual, no matter what
neck of any pupil caught speaking Welsh, shaming languages you speak, has been shown to
students into speaking English. strengthen the executive function of the brain,
meaning bilingual children perform better in any
This created an inferiority complex that still tasks that require multi-tasking, decision-making
perpetuates to this day whereby Welsh is seen as or problem solving6. Speaking Welsh would
detrimental or worthless when trying to advance therefore be a cognitive asset for children.
your career or move in any professional circles.
This decline has been tracked by the Office for Another key reason why speaking Welsh is
National Statistics5: in 1850 nearly 90% of the important, is that it has fought for its right to exist
population spoke Welsh yet according to the 2011 constantly throughout history. The language plays
census only around 562 000 people, or 19% of a major role not only in communication but also in
the population, claimed that they could speak constructing and emphasising a separate Welsh
Welsh. Ironically, it is this decline, brought on by culture, which unfortunately has often been
centuries of English legislature against the overshadowed by a more assertive English one.
language, that people use to discredit Welsh today. Although 19% seems like a low number of native
Often the comments about the usefulness of the speakers, at the turn of the 20th century it was
Welsh language come with the question ‘If only feared that the language would become extinct.
19% of Welsh people know it, what’s the point of Only in recent years have strides been taken to
speaking it?’ secure its future. In 1962, a radio broadcast called
Tynged yr Iaith (The Fate of the Welsh Language)
As seen above, Welsh has always had to prove its prompted the setting-up of Cymdeithas yr Iaith
worth. In 1847, a parliamentary report on the state Gymraeg (The Welsh Language Society) which
of education in Wales was released. It claimed that campaigned to place the Welsh language at the
the “Welsh language is a vast drawback to Wales”, centre of Welsh culture and life once more.
also stating that “there is no Welsh literature
worthy of the name” and that the language Low-level acts of civil disobedience were
“dissevers the people from intercourse which employed, such as sit-ins in government buildings
12 tan-a-dik
and daubing English road signs to pay television licence fees7,

in Welsh. These were aimed at organised sit-ins in the BBC
bringing recognition to the studios or even attacked
language. An example of this television transmitters in Welsh-
“The language
would be the struggle to set-up a speaking areas. This continued plays a major role
Welsh television channel. to escalate and in the 1980s
Throughout the 1970s, Welsh Gwynfor Evans, a former Plaid
not only in
language activists demanded a Cymru8 president, threatened to communication
Welsh channel and in the 1979 go on hunger strike if the
general election, both the Labour government didn’t honour its
but also in
and Conservative governments commitment. On the first of constructing and
promised to create one if elected. November 1982, for the first
Yet when Thatcher’s government time ever, Welsh people could
emphasising a
came into power, they argued finally watch a television channel separate Welsh
against it. This led to civil in their native language.
disobedience as people refused
culture, which
unfortunately has
often been
overshadowed by
a more assertive
English one. ”
These struggles have unthinkable number back in the number of attendees to the
characterised Wales’ history, days of the Welsh Not. It was National Eisteddfod of Wales, a
meaning that speaking the also made compulsory under festival of competitive music
language so openly today is a the National Curriculum that and poetry in Welsh. In 2018, a
privilege that many people students in Wales study Welsh record number of 500 000
before me would not have had. up to the age of 16 as a first or people attended, treble the
Even if the Welsh language is second language. The ability to number of attendees from
not widespread throughout speak Welsh is now desirable 2017. This means that more
Wales, numerous initiatives are for certain professions in Wales and more people are becoming
running in order to increase the like teaching or customer aware of Welsh culture and its
number of native speakers. For services and many of the language.
example, my cousins in Cardiff universities in the country offer
attend a Welsh-medium school, undergraduate or post-graduate Although the recent history of
whereby most of their subjects courses taught in Welsh. the Welsh language seems
are taught through Welsh. Another marker of the bleak, the future looks bright.
These schools now comprise increasing popularity of the Despite the fact that only 19%
26% of all schools in Wales, an language is the increase in the of the population were Welsh
tethera-a-dik 13
speakers in 2011, the number of

children speaking the language was
more than twice those aged 16-64 and
over 65. This reflects the gradual de-
stigmatisation the Welsh language has
undergone over the last sixty years. Of
all the Celtic languages it remains the
most widely used today9. Welsh does
not need to keep proving its worth to
others, its value lies in the people who
speak it, its history and its culture.
____________________
3 Old Tongue of My Fathers – a
reference to the Welsh na�onal
anthem, Hen Wlad fy Nhadau (Old
Land of My Fathers)
4 This is o�en be�er known as 'The
Mabinogion' but I have stuck with the
Welsh original �tle.
5 A UK governmental body responsible for

sta�s�cs. It happens to have its main
office in Wales (Newport to be specific).
6 Ellen Bialystok, “Bilingualism: The good,

the bad, and the indifferent,” Bilingualism:
Language and Cogni�on 12, no. 1 (2009):
5.
7 Mandatory fees in the UK, payable by

anyone with a TV. The money raised is
used to fund the BBC.
8 Plaid Cymru is a poli�cal party in Wales

advoca�ng for Welsh independence from
the United Kingdom. It has consistently
upheld Welsh rights and campaigned for
the recogni�on of the Welsh language
since its forma�on in 1925.
9 Yet this is partly a sign of how few
speakers of some of the other languages
there are.
14 pethera-a-dik
How are P-Celtic and
Q-Celtic
An answer from Scotland.
connected?
Charles Wilson
I teach Gaelic through the medium of Welsh in Edinburgh, Scotland. Gaelic is Q-Celtic or Goidelic and
Welsh is P-Celtic or Brythonic (more on this below!). Edinburgh is the only Celtic capital where two
different Celtic languages were spoken in its history – and each of the two different branches. The name
Edinburgh comes from the Brythonic of those historically spoken languages. Up until the 7th century,
Brythonic was the principal language of Edinburgh. Between the 7th and 10th centuries, Anglian10 made its
presence, perhaps replacing Brythonic. And, in the 10th century, Edinburgh became part of Scotland, and
so Gaelic was introduced to the city11.
The relationship can be seen in place names.
Unfortunately, so many monoglot English-speakers (not all) think that names are ‘just names’, and they
don’t think to look at etymology of place names, so they don’t understand the evidence we have of Celtic
languages and will say, “Gaelic was never spoken in Edinburgh”. But, don’t let these negative attitudes
deter you from linguistic curiosity. If you ever look at a map of Edinburgh, or come here, look for Celtic
place names. Unlike English, Celtic languages are head-initial12, therefore place names typically (not
always) have the substantive element in first position, e.g. Dùn Èideann (Gaelic), Caeredin (Welsh)
‘Edinburgh’.
It’s quite exciting when you see a road sign with both a Brythonic and a Goidelic place name on it, which
you will find across the south of Scotland – not just Edinburgh (but it’s exciting in Edinburgh as it’s the
capital city, imho). The fact Brythonic and Goidelic place names exist side by side demonstrates that the
Dumbarton is a Goidelic name and Balerno is a Gaelic name and

Aberfoyle is a Brythonic one. Penicuik is a Brythonic one
bumfit 15
communities also lived side by side, and so published his Archaeologica Britannica, in which
linguistic contact must have occurred. More on he notes the similarities between the languages he
this later. encountered on his travels around Britain and
Ireland. His work led to the classification of two
The side by side, parallel existence of Welsh and Celtic languages: P-Celtic and Q-Celtic. This is a
Gaelic in Scotland’s capital – for me – is superficial classification, describing a sound
providence! Where better to be a Welsh-speaking, change; a ‘rule’ that, when applied, reveals
Gaelic-speaking academic? Where better to teach cognates. The favourite example is the word for
a Goidelic language through the medium of a ‘head’: pen (Welsh) and ceann (Gaelic). Therefore,
Brythonic language? Ergo, teaching a Celtic Welsh is P-Celtic and Gaelic is Q-Celtic (nowadays
language through the medium of another Celtic the Qs are Cs!). I don’t love these terms, however.
language! Apart from the fact the letter Q is no longer used in
Gaelic orthography, the rule is not 100%
But, what is the meaning of this typological
productive. For example, the word for ‘hundred’ in
relationship between Welsh and Gaelic we call
Gaelic is ceud (cognate with the Romance words,
‘Celtic’? Students quite often question the
e.g. French cent or Italian cento), but in Welsh, it is
relationship. Especially when the languages are
not pant! The word in Welsh is cant.
phonologically and orthographically so different.
Let’s take a simple example. Unlike the Romance I prefer to use the terms ‘Brythonic’ and
languages, where a greeting is a perfect example of ‘Goidelic’, which are Anglicized Celtic words,
typological relatedness, e.g. ¡Buenos dias! ¿Cómo from Brython (inhabitant of the island of Britain)
estás? vs. Buongiorno! Come stai?, the Celtic and Goídel (inhabitant of the island of Ireland).
language equivalent is baffling: These terms avoid political controversies, as would
be brought by the words ‘British’13or ‘Gaelic’14,
Welsh: Prynhawn da! Sut wyt ti?
though they are cognate and the modern English
Gaelic: Feasgar math! Ciamar a tha thu? terms. I feel that these terms go beyond a simple
sound change rule, and can help us explore
Speakers of different but closely related languages historical relationships between communities, as
report being able to speak slowly with one another, well as typological relationships between the
and follow the gist of the fellow converser’s languages.
meaning. I have certainly had Italian friends tell me
they can just about converse with Spanish-speakers But, vocab isn’t everything in linguistic typology,
and Polish friends report the same with Czech. But right. So, what else makes a Celtic language?
the said just cannot be said of Welsh and Gaelic.
Majorly: verb-initial clauses! Remember the head-
Even related words, such as the European cognate
initial mentioned earlier? Well, that means that the
‘ten’ deg (Welsh) and deich (Gaelic) are not
Celtic languages typically start a sentence or clause
immediately recognizable to a speaker of the other
with the highest auxiliary verb. For example, the
language.
sentences Tha mi an dùil (Gaelic) and Dw i’n
So, how are they related? The oldest record we disgwyl (Welsh) mean ‘I expect’. Unlike most
have of someone noticing the similarities between languages, Welsh and Gaelic sentences can be
the two languages is the pioneering work by 18th translated word for word and will make sense in the
century linguist, Edward Lhuyd. In 1707, he other language, and ‘I expect’ shows this:
16 yan-a-bumfit
• Tha mi an dùil
• Dw i yn disgwyl
• be.PRESENT subject.1SG preposition ‘in’ expect.INF
Something that seems to excite linguists is the phenomenon of ‘initial consonantal mutation’: whereby
words in Celtic languages change their first letter for a range of grammatical reasons. The change is not
arbitrary, however, and usually indicates an increase in sonority (or, an historical increase in sonority) or
consonantal assimilation. For example, the Welsh for ‘dog’ is ci and in Gaelic cù, while ‘two dogs’ would be
dau gi and dà chù, with both G /g/ and CH /x/ being more sonorous than the sound represented by C
/k/, although they are all velar consonants.
The mutation after the numeral ‘two’ is better described as a ‘contact mutation’ because the rule is simply
‘mutation after two’. Some of the rules can be more complex, though, e.g. the rule of singular feminine
nouns mutating after definite articles and causing mutation to attributive adjectives. The words for ‘cow’
and ‘big’ in Welsh are buwch /bjux/ and mawr /maur/, which in Gaelic are bò /boː/ and mòr /moːr/
(notice another rule here: Welsh diphthongs become lengthened monophthongs in Gaelic). Put these
words altogether to make the phrase ‘the big cow’:
• y fuwch fawr /ə vjux vaur/
• a’ bhò mhòr /ə voː voːr/
In Scotland, speakers of Gaelic came into contact with speakers of Brythonic, and this arguably caused some
influence on Gaelic, making it a little different from Irish and a little closer to Welsh. This seems to be
apparent in the sentence ‘I work in Scotland’:
• Irish Oibrím in Albain
• Welsh Dw i’n gweithio yn yr Alban
• Gaelic Tha mi ag obair ann an Alba
Both the Welsh and the Gaelic say something like ‘Be I in working in Scotland’, while the Irish has a
conjugated verb like Spanish or Italian, e.g. lavoro in Scozia. The Irish has an option of the Welsh/Gaelic
structure, but it is not necessarily the default structure, while neither Welsh nor Gaelic have any alternative
to the above structures (certainly not in the modern spoken languages).
I am not going to give you any more rules. There are way too many. Hopefully that’s enough to persuade
you! But I am going to give you an exercise that I give my students who are learning Gaelic through the
medium of Welsh. Connect the words (I’ve put the English meaning alongside the Welsh word because that
is the word the students would immediately understand), and then see if you can figure out some rules that
connect the words, e.g. P in Welsh = C in Gaelic (pen/ceann)
tan-a-bumfit 17
____________________
10 A group of dialects of Old English, comprising of the Mercian and Northumbrian dialects.
11 By the �me that Edinburgh became the capital of Scotland in the 14 or 15 century, neither a Brythonic nor a
th th
Goidelic language was the main community language.
12 The head is basically the most important part of a linguis�c structure and it determines the syntac�c category of
the phrase. For example, ‘red house’ – ‘house’ is the head and since ‘house’ is a noun, this is therefore a noun phrase.
In Welsh, this would be tŷ coch, and in Gaelic taigh dearg.
13 ‘Bri�sh’ usually refers to things pertaining to the United Kingdom, and has connota�ons of empire, which is not
pleasant for speakers of Cel�c languages, whose communi�es were historically oppressed (even destroyed) by the
Bri�sh Empire.
14 ‘Gaelic’ is especially controversial when it is pronounced. Some people will pronounce it with a diphthong /'geɪlɪk/
some with a monophthong /'galɪk/. If pronounced with a diphthong, it’s generally considered to mean Irish, although
that’s arguably an outdated term for Irish since it sort of disconnects the language from the country and na�onal
iden�ty. If pronounced with a monophthong, it’s considered to mean Sco�sh Gaelic. Some�mes people are hos�le
about the pronuncia�ons, but it’s an unnecessary debate in my view (maybe an ar�cle idea for the future!). But, if you
want to talk about Goidelic languages, which pronuncia�on would you use if you didn’t want to imply Irish or
Sco�sh?
18 tethera-a-bumfit
The Appeal of
Scottish Gaelic
Olga Georgousi with advice from Maria Tiaka
Scotland has always been a fascination of mine, my personal Eden. I have no ancestral ties to the place yet
ever since I remember myself, Scotland has always been my number one bucket list destination, it’s a place I
could easily consider my dream future home. The rich, and withstanding to every effort of oppression,
Highland culture, its folklore and mythology, the misty climate, the breathtaking landscapes and haunting
castles, all these images evoked a paradise, a place so mystical as if it was created by a fantasy author yet by
miracle emerged on Earth.
My fascination grew and grew until one day I stumbled upon a 1570 Gaelic song, called 'Ba Mo Leanabh', a
very sad lament sung by a widow to her child after the execution of her husband. I understood no word, yet
somehow I fell instantly in love with the language. It sounded to me like a language that elves would speak, if
they existed15. Ever since, I tried to understand the reasons behind the appeal of this particular language,
using my limited — almost nonexistent — resources. I quickly realised that the Highland culture can be more
easily understood through the language of its ancestors.
Nowadays, Gaelic is the oldest surviving language in Scotland. According to recent studies 57,000 people
in Scotland reported that they considered themselves fluent speakers. In addition, a significant number of
speakers can be found in the region of Nova Scotia in Canada. They are descendants of Highlanders who
colonized the area after having fled their homes due to the Highland Clearances. Nevertheless, they
managed to preserve their customs and their literary and linguistic treasures to a great extent. In Scotland,
Gaelic is nowadays spoken in the Highlands, in the Isle of Skye and the Outer Hebrides, and with a large
pethera-a-bumfit 19
number of speakers focused in the urban centres of the Lowlands. but most of its speakers use English as
their main language of communication. It was brought to Scotland some time before the formation of the
Kingdom of Dál Riata. Gaelic should not be confused with Scots, a Germanic language variety spoken
predominantly in the Lowlands16.
Even though Gaelic is an endangered language due to its small number

of speakers, it is evidently present in literature and music as well as in
historical monuments and places.
Many people hold the general misconception that Scottish culture is inherently oral, but the large volume of
literary works and poetry collections testifies another reality. The only issue here is that a majority of these
works are hidden behind clouds of anonymity and the author or poet is unknown. Poetry can be truly
appreciated only when you know the language in which it is written. Many of the poems that withstood the
passage of time or were written during the Jacobite revolutions in the 17 and 18 centuries, the grievances
th th
of a people enraged or saddened by the ongoing conflicts and then devoured by grief due to the loss of their
friends and family to the conflict, loss of their land and livelihood, and loss of freedom to express their
cultural identity. A prominent example is that of Jacobite poet Iain Ruadh Stiùbhart. His most acclaimed
poem is called 'The Day of Culloden', a reference to the Battle of Culloden that took place in 1746 in
which many Highland clans and their allies (all loyal to the House of Stuart) were defeated by the British
government forces loyal to the Hanoverian King.
Ò gur mòr mo chùis mhulaid,

’S mi ri caoineadh na guin atà ’m thìr;
À Rìgh! bi làidir, ’s tu ’s urrainn
Ar nàimhdean a chumail fo chìs
“Great is the cause of my sorrow,
As I mourn for the wounds of my land
O God, be strong, thou art able,
To keep in subjection our foes”
The Celts didn't write their history. They sang it.

My first connection with Gaelic was through the medium of music, and I'm sure that this is the case for so
many other people. There are hundreds of folk songs that have been sung through the centuries. When
some people think of traditional Scottish music, the human mind rushes to images of fairies in the woods
and mythical creatures in the Highland lakes or Celtic godly entities wandering the remnants of past
civilisations... However, most of Gaelic songs depict everyday situations and tackle issues that resonate
even with modern people, such as heartache, grief, nostalgia, love. I am always in awe of the spectrum of
emotions in songs like 'Ailien Duin' covered by the singer Karliene or in the beautiful Gaelic song 'Chì mi
na mòrbheanna' — a song about returning to one's homeland and greeting the misty hills and mountains, as
well as friends and family. Hundreds of laments and lullabies have withstood the passage of time, but
astonishingly the most famous pieces of Gaelic songs are the waulking songs which are made specifically to
keep the pace and rhythm of work17. Most famous of them is the song 'Mairead Nan Cuiread'.
20 figgot
If someone speaks Gaelic, it is easier for them to understand the Scottish culture and comprehend its
heritage and history. That is why in recent years there have been efforts to revive the Gaelic language and
increase its appeal to new generations. The Gaelic Language Act 2005 was passed by the Scottish
Parliament “aiming to secure the Gaelic language as an official language of Scotland commanding equal
respect to the English language”. Today, there is a broadcasting service across the UK only in Gaelic called
BBC Alba as well as the BBC Radio “nan Gàidheal”. Across Scotland (focused in areas with higher
populations of Gaelic speakers), there are road signs posted both in English and in Gaelic and there have
been some efforts to intergrate the language in the educational system to limited success. There has also
been an increased interest towards Gaelic on an international level through the medium of the big and small
screen. Most recently, the TV series 'Outlander', set in Scotland during the Jacobite revolutions, has
created a pandemonium for Gaelic. For a language that many would believe to be dead, it's actually thriving
in the midst of social media with people creating online pages dedicated to it.
All in all, I firmly believe that the Scottish world can be seen through the eyes of its language. I pursued to
learn more about Gaelic and in doing so I discovered a whole world out there sharing the same passion as
mine. The Gaelic language will never be a dead language as long as there are people who continue to sustain
and strengthen it.
____________________
15 Editor's Note: This common idea can be problema�c see this ar�cle for more.
h�ps://naturallyorla.com/2019/08/24/do-american-writers-think-irish-is-public-domain-
elvish/?�clid=IwAR2JrlHTwZWFbKV0IufwxtlVToKZ2pt7jdaXMNNYzT96bOE_vskWVeioCWI
16 Although some sources even as late as the 1800's refer to Sco�sh Gaelic as Sco�sh and so it is always wise to be
careful when reading about these languages. What is now known as Scots was for a long �me called Inglis as well.
17 The term comes from “waulking the cloth”, which was when woollen cloth was beaten against a wooden table to
dry the cloth a�er cleaning it, set the dye, and shrink the fabric.
Links:
Highland Clearances
h�ps://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/The-Highland-Clearances/
Songs
h�ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CmGJ5dwBuk
●hant 21
“Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,

The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.“
-Robert Burns
22 ●tant
Al J. Kupetz
I’m not proud of my expat misadventures around the
globe, although I’ve got enough that you think I would
be: I once convinced a Swiss couple to cancel their trip
to Jamaica because they didn’t understand my sarcasm;
upon meeting a past partner’s parents for the first time I
assumed a false cognate was a true one and I told them I
was aroused by their daughter; and I spent a good two
months mistakenly thinking my German neighbors
were calling me a piece of shit (they would in fact do
that later, but that’s a story for a different day). It was
my discovery that I was a ciotóg, however, that takes the
cake for now.
I was supposed to meet my friends for an Anglo-Irish
plane- and train-hopping tour, and since I was already
living on the continent I arrived at spot number one
before my friends did. And because my friends forgot
about time zones they arrived a day late, giving me a full
evening learning about the local culture of Dublin.
And this wound up being the perfect moment for taking

it all in – our AirBnB was next to a pub, which was
across the street from Páirc an Chrócaigh, the Croke
Park stadium in which the local Gaelic football club was
playing a championship game against Galway, And
Dublin won that day, and the pub went from all but
empty to standing room only just minutes after the final
score was called.
I checked my watch, a cheap little analog wrapped just

too tight around my right wrist – I didn’t know how long
tonight’s festivities would go, but I was curious as to
when they started. A big man in blue stumbled next to
me and stared – he must have been drinking during the
game because he only just got here – and he stared at
me and I smiled and went back to my Smithwick’s (the
“w” is silent like it’s the title of a Tarantino movie, a fact
of which apparently everyone in the pub but me was
aware) and he stared some more and I sat frozen not in
fear but in the intense curiosity that’ll one day get me
killed, and he pointed at me and gleefully shouted,
“Ciotóg!”
And I would have run in that moment if he hadn’t been

smiling, but smiling he was, a friendly toothless grin,
●tothery 23
and as I pondered the meaning of the word ciotóg he invited me to sit with his friends, a dozen or so men
clad in blue shirts and scarves and holding drums and drinks, and we each took turns ordering rounds of
The Black Stuff — it’s not a myth, Guinness really is better over there — and in between drinking songs
which were all brutally anti-English in one way or another, we enjoyed a bit of craic (which is homophonous
with the English word ‘crack’). Despite sounding exactly like the illicit substance, I was both relieved and
disappointed that I would not be trying an infamous drug, but would in fact be enjoying pleasant
conversational fun. It was the first of many words I’d learn in the local tongue that night.
Now, I don’t know if it was the drinks or my American ignorance or this is just how everyone is in Ireland,
but these Dubliners in particular were pleased to enlighten me on words which made English so very Irish.
There were some I assumed, like “shamrock” (seamróg) and “whiskey” (usice beatha), but I didn’t want to
insult my hosts by falling on stereotypes so fast. So I kept my mouth shut and absorbed the words they threw
at me: from “bog” to “bother” to “hooligan” to “phony”18. I was pleased to discover that the linguistic
accident that is English would not exist in its current form without Irish. No mention of ciotóg, however. It
makes sense, since it didn’t sound like any word I knew. Maybe it was a synonym of sláinte, that great cheers
to health for which every great drinking culture has a word or phrase. But everyone said sláinte, and no one
said ciotóg, that is apart from the drunk man who would mutter it to me and then laugh.
Then there was a moment where I thought sláinte was a lie, an arbitrary turn of phrase like when Americans
say “How are you” and don’t have the intent intended to back up the words spoken automatically, and I
nearly spat out my beer when I was told this Guinness was deadly – a writer may drink himself to death, but
I wasn’t planning on that happening tonight – though it turns out they were just codding me, just pulling my
leg, and I learned that “deadly” here is slang for “fantastic”.
I spent the whole evening in the pub watching people “acting the maggot” (fooling around) and getting
further and further “fluthered” (drunk), but there was something I couldn’t shake. I enjoyed “earwigging”
(eavesdropping) and picking up on gossip about the “floozies” and “fine things” and friends who hadn’t
talked “for donkey’s years” (for a long time), but there was a question that needed asking. There was plenty
of “effin’ and blindin’” (swearing), but of all the words I heard, I didn’t hear anyone else but me called a
ciotóg.
It’s an odd feeling, being called something the meaning of which you have absolutely no idea. I’ve been
called a great many things to my face and behind my back, not that anything had to be said behind my back
since my trips to new lands far outpaced my input of new languages, and anything smattered with a smile I
could respond to in kind and be none the wiser. Is that what happened here? Was I, clearly the only non-
local in the pub, called a dirty word, an insult or an inside joke that only Dubliners can jape about?
Why, then, was I brought forth to join in a rendition of “Up the Dubs” rather than set aside like a circus
freak who ran out of tricks to perform? From the songs to the banter to the distinctly Irish pub culture I had
longed to experience just once, there was a beautiful moment of authenticity in Baile Áth Cliath (Irish for
‘Dublin’) that I wouldn’t get on any tour or in any must-see spot on a map, and neither cognates, context,
nor colloquial conversation could suggest to me that the meaning of ciotóg was anything but positive.
I decided to test the theory – or perhaps the alcohol decided for me. I was surrounded by the same dozen or
24 ●forthery
so individuals who had first welcomed me onto their bench however many hours and however many drinks
ago, and I had exhausted my six stories and seven jokes but everyone was a trifle too nice and a trifle too
drunk to care one way or the other, and displaying my morbid curiosity I jumped toe to top in the water by
blubbering, “What an evening for ciotógs like us.”
For those of you expecting the music to scratch and everyone to turn and stare at me like a sheriff entering
an old-timey saloon, I can assure you the evening took no such dramatic turn. I showed my lack of
diplomatic tact by not only using a word the meaning of which I had no clue, but in fact including strangers
into the mix, and in doing so, I assumed a level of recklessness equivalent to unprotected sex or fighting a
bear. Yet, their only response was mutterings of confusion.
The drunken dozen looked at each other, then looked at me, and one by one like dominoes falling they
tilted their heads to look at me askew – or maybe the night had gone on too long for them to sit up straight.
But either way I feared I had made a mistake, had mistaken my friend in blue’s insult for amicability, and
these men had in turn mistaken my amicability for an insult., and my body tensed ready to drunkenly dash
and stumble away to escape the mob mad at me.
One of them broke the confused silence. “I’m not a ciotóg,” he stated. “Neither am I,” muttered another,
followed by several more saying the same thing. “Are you a ciotóg?” one of them asked me.
At this point I knew the jig was up. At this point I knew I had to come clean. “To be honest,” I conceded, “I
don’t even know what a ciotóg is.”
And at this point the band of brothers burst into laughter. One of the men fell over onto the floor – although
as to the cause of this, who can say. “Are you left-handed?” one asked. I nodded. “Then you’re a ciotóg!19”
My face blushed a bright red in a sea of blue jerseys. Was that really it? Was I just called a lefty? All this
worrying, this concern, this paranoia, and all over being a goofy-footed, right-brained, scrammy-handed
southpaw? I craned my neck to find my friend in blue, who was now at another table and struggling to keep
his head rested on his hand. I suppose he had seen my watch on my right and my beer in my left, and despite
seeing double put two and two together correctly to call me a ciotóg.
It was a teachable moment, one in which craic really was just craic: I was in an Irish pub hearing Irish words
enjoying Irish hospitality, and that was all. This was no place for an insult, it was a place for fun, pleasant
conversation. My drunken buddy found it humorous, or intriguing, or just plain noteworthy to call me a
ciotóg, and from ciotóg came craic, a part of a night I’m frankly surprised I remembered. But remember I
did, and this enjoyable moment became a teachable one. Rather than letting my American anxiety and
paranoia overpower me, I let linguistic luck illuminate my night, and in jumping from one drink and
conversation to another I learned an important truth which I hope will stay with me: craic’s not whack.
____________________
18 It is not certain that all these terms came into English from Irish – they may have come from Sco�sh Gaelic.
19 Note that the term can be seen as pejora�ve.
●fant 25
Sofia Bragaglia
Hou’s Yer “Lallans”, “Scotch”, “Doric”:
if you are familiar with the
Dous? languages of the United

Kingdom, chances are that you
have heard these names before.
A Quick History If you happen to be from
of Scots Scotland, you may even know

the terms “Dundonian”,
“Glesca” or “Buchan”. If you
have never heard any of these
before, then tag along for this
ride: today we are going to
explore the Scots language, one
of three native languages
spoken in Scotland (the other
two being English and Scottish
Gaelic).
Scots is the Germanic language

variety spoken in Lowland
Scotland (it is often referred to
as “Lowland Scots” to distinguish it from Gaelic) and parts of Ulster in the island of Ireland (where the local
dialect is known as Ulster Scots). Linguists still do not agree on whether Scots should be considered a
language or a dialect and even Scottish people seem to have mixed feelings about it. In the 2010 Public
Attitudes Towards the Scots Language survey, 65 percent of respondents said that Scots was not a
language. Curiously enough, the majority of this percentage consisted of people who actually spoke Scots.
Since there are no clear guidelines on how to define a language or a dialect, the debate goes on. Outside the
community of language experts, however, it is considered an official language, so that is how I am going to
treat it in this article.
The origins of this language are not very clear due to Viking plundering, loss of national records, the
destruction of the monasteries in border warfare and vandalism during the Protestant Reformation. A likely
theory is that Scots descends either from the Old English of Lothian, but it could also descend from the
Anglo-Danish of Yorkshire, which appeared several centuries later. At one time Scots was the dominant
language of Scotland, spoken by Scottish kings and queens, and was used to write official records.
After going through centuries of evolution, through the phases of Early, Middle and Modern, nowadays
Scots has four main dialects: Insular (from insula, the Latin word for island), Northern, Central and
Southern. Within each of the four main dialects there are also sub-dialects, ten in total, each one with
different vocabulary, sounds and ways of speaking. But after all this time, how many Scots speakers are
there left?
According to the 2011 census of the United Kingdom, there are about 90,000 native speakers of Scots.
Many people also choose to learn it as a second language, with a total of almost 1.6 million speakers,
making up some 30% of the Scottish population.
26 ●sahny
There is also an institution, the Scots Language Centre (SLC), which was founded in 1994 and helps
preserve and promote the Scots language and culture. In order to do this, the SLC also works with other
associations, such as the National Library of Scotland, the Scottish Poetry Library, the Herald and the
Lorimer Trust. “What if I wanted to learn the language?”, I hear you ask. Well, fear not, for the official
website also offers several sources to learn Scots, from written to audio and video resources.
Poetry and literature are also a very important part of Scots culture. The earliest piece of literature in Scots
dates from the second half of the 14th century. It is a poem from John Barbour, called ‘The Bruce’, telling
the deeds of King Robert I, who had secured Scotland’s independence from England several decades
earlier. Later on, in the 15th century, the most notable authors were Robert Henryson, William Dunbar,
Gawin Douglas, and Sir David Lyndsay — all of them influenced by the works of the English poet Geoffrey
Chaucer, were the leading poets of their century. Scots prose also developed significantly during this
period, particularly from 1450 to 1630. The first original literary prose appears in the theological writing
of John Ireland. The language of the 15th century later became less Latinized in the historical writings of
John Bellenden and John Leslie and especially in John Knox’s History of the Reformation in Scotland
(1567). A unique style is offered by the Complaynte of Scotland, which is both an exposition of Scottish
patriotism and experimental writing.
But keeping Scots alive is not a task that is left to linguists and literature alone: the Scottish Government is
taking action too. In 2015, a national language policy was launched in which the government promised
increased support for Scots in education, encouragement of a greater profile for Scots in the media and the
establishment of a network of Scots co-ordinators. In regards to teaching, Education Scotland has a co-
ordinator who is working with authorities and schools to support the teaching of Scots as part of
the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). They are developing the concept of "Scottish Studies"
in schools, creating a strand of learning focused on Scotland incorporating Scottish history,
Scottish literature, the Scots and Gaelic languages, wider Scottish culture and
Scottish current affairs.
Editor's Note:
Twitter is a surprisingly good place to find Scots.
E.g. https://twitter.com/LairnScots
●dahny 27
Holly Gustafson
There’s no doubt about it: Scandinavia is trending globally, and its influences are invading
every aspect of daily life. From diets and décor to food and fashion, we seem to be
embracing all things Nordic; we’ll eat anything that makes Scandi-sense, and do anything
to look Scandi-chic.
Scandinavian culture is even infiltrating the English language: the Danish word hygge
(loosely translated as “the art of cosiness”) was shortlisted as Word of the Year in 2016,
and was officially entered into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017. The Swedish words
lagom (just the right amount) and fika (a word that simply means “coffee,” but implies an
attitude of pause) might not be far behind.
But as speakers of the English language, we’re already using hundreds of Scandinavian
words in our daily lives, without even knowing it.
Back in the fifth century, the first Germanic tribes – most notably the Angles and the
Saxons – began to settle in the British Isles. This language is (uncreatively) called Anglo-
Saxon, or Old English, and forms the foundation of the English that is spoken today.
How to Talk
Like a Viking
28 ●downy
Later when the Vikings (Scandinavian settlers/invaders and traders/pirates) invaded the British Isles in the
eighth century, the English deacon Alcuin of York wrote to the bishop of Lindisfarne: “Never before has
such a terror been seen in Britain as we have now suffered at the hands of a pagan people. The church of St.
Cuthbert is splattered with the blood of the priests of God.” He does not paint a pretty picture of the
Norsemen’s influence on medieval England.
But despite all the initial murdering and pillaging, the Vikings, who spoke a language we now call Old
Norse, somehow became culturally integrated with the very people they had come to invade and, ultimately,
gifted the English language with a lot of useful – and frequently used – words.
The words “call” and “crawl,” “give” and “get,” “hit” and “run,” and “club” and “gun” all come from the
language of the Vikings. So do “dirt” and “muck” (both of which originally meant “excrement”). Whether
you skip, sway, stagger, or sprint, if you want to talk about it, you’re using Old Norse words. And there are
hundreds more where those came from.
But perhaps the most common words borrowed from the Viking language – and the ones that come as the
biggest surprise – are the English pronouns “they,” “them,” and “their”.
Languages steal vocabulary from each other all the time, especially when a new object or idea doesn’t (or
didn’t previously) exist in the culture that’s doing the borrowing. Thus it’s no shocker that the English of
the eighth century adopted the word for reindeer (an animal not native to their region), or even that we, in
the twenty-first century, embrace the word hygge, which might not exist as an ethos or philosophy in our
own culture.
But languages generally do not adopt new grammatical words, like pronouns, or make drastic changes that
will affect entire structures. It’s simply not done.
Except that it was.
At some point during the Vikings’ 300-year stay in the British Isles, the original Old English third person
plural pronouns hīe, him, and hiera, under the influence of Old Norse, were replaced with what we now
know as “they,” “them,” and “their”. Most linguists agree that the reason for this rare borrowing of
pronouns was to facilitate communication between the cultures, or perhaps even between Old English
speakers themselves, whose pronominal system, over time, had become overly homonymous.
Although it’s rare for a language to drastically change an entire grammatical structure such as a pronoun
system, for whatever reason, English has done it, and thus proven it can be successfully done, which is good
news for those who are hoping to do it again.
The English language’s pronoun system is currently under scrutiny and, admittedly, it does seem a bit out-
dated. When speaking in general of a third person whose gender is unknown, historically, English speakers
have simply used both the masculine and feminine pronouns (usually in that order):
“If anyone wants to register, he or she should do so immediately.”
●dominy 29
While not only cumbersome, this solution more recently has alienated a portion of the population who
chooses to be referred to by neither masculine nor feminine pronouns. In this case, various solutions have
been suggested, an example being the innovative “zie,” “zim,” and “zir”.
However, the Old Norse plural pronouns “they,” “them,” and “their,” true to their marauding Viking
roots, have already invaded the singular side of the pronominal system, creating a new neutral third person
singular pronoun.
“Just talk to whoever’s at the front desk. They’ll know the answer.”
“Whenever the first guest arrives, I’ll go to pick them up.”
“Someone left their backpack here.”
Can English, nearly 1200 years later, be flexible enough to accept yet another change to its pronoun
system? Or will the Viking “they/them/their” solution suffice and, in fact, prevail? Only time will tell, but if
you think that using a fabricated, newly coined pronoun system is “wrong,” will sound “awkward,” or will
just lead to a lot of “blunders” and “mistakes,” you might be right. You’d also be using a lot of words that, if
you were an English-speaker a dozen centuries earlier, would be newly borrowed from the Vikings, and
brand new to you.
In the end, the choice of pronouns may not be ours to make. The fact is, language is an organic, constantly
changing, and mostly uncontrollable entity that makes and breaks its own rules, and it might not be within
the power of us mere speakers to tinker with it.
30 ●dik
Apio Frito
Have you ever realised, dear
reader, that ʻPart 2ʼ in the
title of an article is a sure
sign thereʼs a nefarious
conspiracy by purple slime-
based alienoids to conquer
and glazbrulate the planet?!
More importantly, however,
it means thereʼs a ʻPart 1ʼ, so
go check out the August
issue to find out whatʼs it all
about. In short, this series
covers some of the grievous
language annoyances that
translators have to deal with
in their everyday work.
Last time, we discussed the
arcane and pervasive subject
of orthotypography, and,
obviously, every translatorʼs
ultimate archnemesis:
abbreviations, which never
fail to deliver good examples
of what can spoil your mood
for the day and beyond.
The Multitudinous Hereʼs one: the German
word for ʻjoint-stock
companyʼ is
Peeves of a Aktiengesellschaft (ʻshare
societyʼ), commonly
abbreviated as AG. In
Professional Translator: contracts, ʻAGʼ usually
stands for something
different, Auftraggeber,
Part 2 meaning ʻclientʼ.
●haindik 31
And given that companies do abbreviations): the word falls somewhere in the nebulous
deal with a lot of contracts, you Anlage, noun, feminine. spectrum of ‘to give, provide,
might see how easily one can Translatable as ‘plant’, ‘facility’, sell, issue, transfer, supply,
confuse them, which I have ‘unit’, ‘factory’… Ugh, you can deliver, include, ensure,
done a couple of times in my essentially call Anlage anything guarantee’ or ‘to enable’, while
practice, turning unsuspecting that has more than two and a you might generally expect the
clients into major corporations. half parts and makes busy latter to mean ‘to plan, provide
But that’s Part 1. Now, we’re noises, from a machine for, include, supply, intend,
turning to: component to a major specify, foresee’ or ‘to intend’.
fabrication plant: Anlage is all Yeah, they are so vague,
Lazy bureaucrat’s that, and hey, wouldn’t you be nodrošināt and paredzēt can be
infuriating language stunned and mortified if I told successfully summarised as
crutches you that the authors of such ‘give stuff’ and ‘think of/give
Alright, the more widely texts don’t always care enough stuff’.
accepted name for this, not to use Anlage to denote
unfortunately, is ‘umbrella different things. I usually This is very bad news for a
terms’, or perhaps ‘polysemy’, respond with translating it into translator, because even if you
but anyhow, what I’m talking ‘system’, which is a good end up with a word that’s just as
about is people preferring a English equivalent in terms of unspecific in your target
general word that stands for obnoxiousness. There’s no language, you need to know the
every object in a category, silver lining there though, exact intended meaning of the
instead of using specific terms because Anlage also means original to make sure you don’t
for each of those objects. ‘annex, appendix’, which a lot of deviate from it too much.
Examples? A few years ago, I those kinds of documents Thankfully, these particular
worked with a hotel that loved usually have, making the whole verbs are so overused they are
calling every room it had and situation remarkably horrifying. often meaningless, being more
service it provided a ‘facility’, so of a mark of the bureaucratic
they had a ‘workout facility’, Last example, and probably the writing style, and as such, are
and a ‘swimming facility’, and worst of them all, comes from eminently omittable. Thus, a
‘accommodation facilities’, Latvian, spoken by people who sentence like ‘Uzņēmējs
instead of, supposedly, a gym, a think they can make a dessert apņemas nodrošināt būvgrūžu
pool and hotel rooms. You can out of rye, potatoes and carrots. izvešanu.’, literally translatable
make educated guesses and And then do it20. Whenever you as ‘The contractor undertakes
probably get it right, but you deal with any kinds of contracts, [to ensure/carry
never know for sure, with this laws, regulations, terms and out/conduct…] construction
insistence on more arcane conditions, and all the other waste disposal.’, can be made
terms muddling the water. At kinds of documents telling you more elegant: ‘The contractor
least they included qualifiers, how (not) to do stuff in Latvian, undertakes to dispose of
because… you will inevitably encounter construction waste’. Deleting
two verbs: nodrošināt and nonsense does sometimes make
They aren’t always there. Let paredzēt. Depending on the this job fun.
me present you with the bane of context, and whatever the text’s
German technical texts (barring author is thinking, the former Tiny specks of out-of-the-
32 ●taindik
blue nuisance Hours of cheery trawling as a professional.

Imagine jogging in a park, and through semi-useable websites
the path and everything is fine, guaranteed! But why?..
until you, suddenly, fall into a If you’ve read the first part of
knee-deep puddle for a few For a more down-to-earth and this article, and have gone as far
steps, and then everything is slightly more entertaining as this section, you absolutely
great again. What’s that?! That example, I once translated a must have this question
is a perfect analogy for what large court statement in an gnawing at your mind: ‘why the
translators sometimes walk into: insurance dispute (my client on heck isn’t this bloke just asking
really, seriously hard bits in the the baddie side, as usual), and his clients for explanations if
middle of an otherwise average since the court was in there’s something weird or
document. They take much Barcelona, the translation was unclear?’ And this is an
more time, they’re often too from Spanish into English. And, absolutely valid strategy: the
small to be worth asking more since the court was in client does usually know what
money from the client, they Barcelona, some 300 words of their text is about in detail, and
come when you least expect the 30,000-word document they are often a specialist in that
them (carefully reviewing the (i.e. about a third of an average field, so they can actually advise
document before you accept it novel in size) were in Catalan. you on the terminology, and all
for translation is often too costly Now, I do have a lot of sorts of usual
time-wise), and they’re background in Romance misunderstandings and
incredibly irritating. languages, but my knowledge of nitpicks. So yes, when it does
You’re translating a huge Catalan at the time was pretty happen, it’s great.
human resources policy for a much limited to knowing that
corporation, and Section it’s not as similar to Spanish as The problem is that it’s not
4.2.1.3 just happens to include you might think. Thankfully, viable for every translator out
a Phosphate Grinder the Catalan bit, which was a there. If you work as an in-
Procurement Sub-Unit Song in letter by a municipal body, house for a company, or you’re
iambic pentameter. It’s just one mostly repeated the stuff a literary translator, you are
verse… and one hour left before explained in the rest of the text, likely to have direct access to
deadline, grrrr! Oh, oh, or if so I had all of the context, and the author of the text you’re
there’s an article, and the together with a little bit of working on. A call or two, or a
author decides to cram into it a quality time with a Catalan- visit to the office next door, and
list of all of their awards, or Spanish dictionary, and a few you know everything you need.
courses and symposia they’ve pointers from a published This might not be so easy if
taken part in, or all of the Catalan author, who I was very you’re a freelance translator,
official bodies they’ve been a lucky to be a friend of, I got a like me. The thing is that
junior vice board committee legit-looking English text out of virtually all of my clients are
deputy secretary of, and then it. While it was curious and translation agencies, which
there’s you, having to check if quite illuminating, I spent a lot means there’s at least one
the names of any of these things of time on that little piece of the intermediary in all of the
have been officially translated text, and didn’t get any communication that you have
into your target language. additional money out of it, with the person or entity that
which isn’t something you want actually ordered the translation.
●totherydik 33
And you’re in luck if it’s just a ‘translator – with original texts written by people who don’t
translation agency project manager – author of the command that language well, or translating texts
text’ proposition; the chain of communication can that are translations from other languages
easily bloat to ridiculous proportions: ‘translator – themselves21.
translation agency project manager – project
manager in another translation agency somewhere There’s the cutting-edge new fields with their cool
abroad – employee who is in charge of handling new lingo nobody has ever translated (fin-tech can
translations for the corporation that ordered the be like that), and there’s the hoary old disciplines,
translation – secretary of that corporation’s like law, which have had all of thveir interminable
subsidiary/branch/department that issued the text quirks translated in particular ways since forever,
– (maybe) the author of the text’. The latter and you’re expected to know all of that. There’s
example is not a hyperbole; I do have major regular companies and institutions that have internalised
clients that are like that. language mistakes and weird terms into their
jargon so much that it’s in their glossaries, and
With this in mind, you don’t have to guess at all to they insist that you use all of that cringeworthy
understand why I almost always refrain from trying stuff in all of their documents. There’s… Alright,
to contact the end client. Getting any kind of reply we might scratch the surface a little more later:
can easily take a lot of time, hours, days, and there’s enough of a hole of annoyance to fall into!
there’s no guarantee that the answer will match any
definition of ‘satisfactory’: you might get a
‘dunno’, or ‘decide this on your own’, or an answer
to a different question that they do happen to have
a clear answer to, or you might dealing with a court
case, and to answer your questions, your client
would have to ask the other party in the dispute for
information, which they might not be allowed to
do. All while the clock is ticking, and the deadline
remains unchanged. Doing more research on your
own and sparingly using educated guesswork do
the trick, and if clients request corrections from
time to time, it’s never a big deal. Action-movie
philosophy in practice: shoot first, ask questions
later.
___________________
20 Look up and try sklandrausis to find out what an

abundance of root vegetables and bad weather can do.
And so
The trouble that translators get into goes far 21 It’s not uncommon that a project to translate a text
between two less common languages involves
beyond what I’ve covered in this and the previous transla�ng the text into some sort of a lingua franca
(usually English) first, and only then, into the target
article, and the topics I have talked about are either language. This is true for language pairs like Latvian and
so irritating that it’d be a crime not to mention Estonian/Lithuanian. The corresponding countries are
close neighbours, but there are nowhere near enough
them (like the one starting with ‘a’ and ending with easily available language specialists for those pairs, so
‘bbreviations’), or they are not too big or too small commissioning two transla�ons, say, from Latvian into
English/Russian first, and then, from English/Russian
for this format. There’s certainly more, like dealing into Estonian, can be the only viable op�on.
34 ●fortherydik
Dude,
what is my
gender, man? English is a funny
language for
discussing gender
because, for the most
part, words are all
neutral. Apart from a
few exceptions, like
masseur/masseuse or
blond/blonde, we
imported from other
languages and got
gender in a package
deal, most words are
gender neutral, and
English knows no
gendered indefinite
article such as
“un/un/um/ein” or
“une/una/uma/eine”,
just a very undefined,
unstressed and
relaxed “a”.
●jiggen 35
Stefano Nunes charge in the vocabulary and typical person we stereotype as

Nevertheless, gender permeates syntax chosen by the speaker (of beginning a sentence with a
our lives, and without course, gay is not a gender, but long “duuude” is probably a
addressing questions of gender in the heteronormative world long-haired Californian surfer.
neutrality or non-binarity, or we tend to associate gayness As the word gained popularity,
gender normativity just yet, I and femininity). it acquired a gender distinction
just want to observe that we live “dudette” for women, but by all
and breathe gender in every In this article I would like to accounts, this was short-lived
moment of our lives. The restrain my observations to the and several subcultures use the
clothes we wear, the body use of vocatives. You know word “dude” indiscriminately
language we cultivate, the toys vocatives, they’re those little for boys and girls, and it is
we play with; when a person is words we use to call our friends considered by many to be
pregnant (first we assume they on the street, or to catch their gender neutral or unisex. We
are a woman) we immediately attention: dude, man, fam, bruv, can refer to Kel Mitchell’s song
ask “is it a boy or a girl”? guy, girl, queen, mate, guys. 'We’re all dudes' from the
Naturally, it is no surprise that Specifically, I would like to Good Burger soundtrack: “I’m
gender permeates the language address the dual nature of the a dude, he’s a dude, she’s a
we use in our everyday lives. word “dude” as its gender dude, we’re all dudes”, an
charge is different according to ageless classic.
I remember finding it curious its function in a sentence.
when I found out Japanese had However, when used as a noun,
certain different structures and The word dude emerges as a as the subject or object of a
words if spoken by a male or a way for cowboys to refer to city sentence, the word dude
female, but if we delve a little dwellers. In a certain way, to explicitly refers to a masculine
deeper into our own languages mark a distinction between person. It is funny to note that
we will realize that we (I have “real men” (cowboys) and “dude” started as a word to
noticed this in the 5 languages I “dudes”; probably stemming mean “less masculine”
speak – English, Spanish, from “yankee doodle dandy”. according to cowboy standards
Portuguese, French and Typically, the word was used to and evolved to become a widely-
German) also have certain cues refer to very well-dressed men, used word to refer to people
that gender our language; were also known as dandies, similar who identify with the masculine
it not the case, it would not be to what we referred to a few “that’s a dude” “look at that
so easy to imagine speaking years ago as a “metrosexual” dude”, “she dresses like a
“like a guy” or “like a girl” even (this use lives on in “dude dude”. It would be a rare event
as a caricature (frat boy/basic ranch”, i.e. a ranch made for to point a girl out with “look at
girl). We even go so far as to city slickers to experience that dude”, and would certainly
associate use of language to cowboy life). The contemporary lead to confusion (“that’s not a
people’s sexuality, and it is not use of the word gained much dude, that’s a chick”).
uncommon to hear people say popularity when it was
the phrase “that sounds gay appropriated by (male- When used as a vocative,
when you say it like that” dominated) however, “dude” magically
implying there is a gender surfer/skateboarder culture in gains some sort of universality.
the 60s and 70s; indeed, the “Dude, pass the salt”, “don’t go
36 ●hain-jiggen
in there, dude”, “dude, that skirt looks so good on has seen a surge of popularity, “y’all” or “fam”
you”. In all three of these previous examples, it which, in my opinion, are the most fitting, despite
would be difficult to determine the interlocutor’s carrying heavy cultural overtones, or
gender; if we were to change the words to a more “everyone/everybody”, which is not so fun, but
gender-charged word “Bruv, pass the salt”, “don’t gets the job done.
go in there, girl”, “Bro, that skirt looks so good on
you” suddenly the picture becomes far clearer. Vocatives are easy to overlook, we use them often,
and often without a second thought. However,
This vocative gender neutrality is not exclusive to vocatives imply a certain vision of the person you
English or the word dude, as certain examples can are calling, when this vocative evokes a feeling of
be found in Brazilian Portuguese with vei (an discomfort or dysphoria in our interlocutor, it is
erosion of velho, which can be gendered as véia but time we reviewed the language we use, and to
is most often not), Mexican Spanish with güey figure out more inclusive ways to address our
which can be used to call either a boy or a girl, in friends, especially in an age where the very concept
German, the word alter is commonly used without of gender, and its binary nature, are becoming
gender to call your friend’s attention. However, in obsolete; how can we refer to a non-binary
a similar way to “dude” these words seem to have interlocutor if all our words carry binary gender
eroded their gender when used in the vocative, but charges? Is there a way to make words such as
when used in the accusative of nominative they still “dude” truly gender neutral? Or will they
retain their gender charge. In Portuguese we inevitably be replaced with words such as “fam”,
would not use the word um véi to say “a dude” we that can be used as a vocative for an individual, but
would use um cara (not to be confused with uma not as a nominative or accusative, unless we are
cara meaning “a face”) but cara can be used to referring to an entire family “I was chilling in there
address men or women indifferently when used in with the fam”. The nature of language, at least for
the vocative. us descriptivists, is to adapt to meet the needs of
the people speaking it, so I suppose soon we will
The problem of gender charge becomes even have found a solution for addressing respectfully
clearer when referring to a group of people, as our enby22 and agender23 friends, as well as
often, the group consists of people of different women, who, as always, become invisible in the
genders, and not many words exist to collectively face of an all-swallowing masculinity, right guys?
account for this. Note the problem with using “you
guys”, as you could not refer to a mixed group with
“you girls” or “ladies”, unless you were a marine
corps drill sergeant actively trying to undermine
the value of your troops by calling them women.
Too often, in too many languages, we allow the
male collective to be used as an umbrella for ____________________
people of all genders; in Spanish, Portuguese and 22 In the LGBTQ community, an enby is a nonbinary
person. It's a phone�c pronuncia�on of NB, short for
French, it is the rule to address a mixed-gender nonbinary, or people who do not iden�fy their gender
collective in the masculine. as en�rely male or female.
h�ps://www.dic�onary.com/browse/nonbinary
Several collective vocatives exist to fill the gap such 23 A person who iden�fies neither as a man nor a
woman.
as “peeps” or “folks”, which, albeit a bit old-timey
●tain-jiggen 37
To *E
or
Not To *E: Gender Neutrality in
Spanish and German
Victoria Martinez Mutri

Allow me to begin with an anecdote: some years ago, I
took part in a training course for future invigilators and
examiners for some language exams that the
government of my city (Buenos Aires) would be
providing some months later. The meeting took place in
my college, ‘Lenguas Vivas’, a well-known teacher and
translator training college and one of the usual places
where these exams were held. There were around thirty
to forty people present; probably 90% women and 10%
men. However, every time the trainer spoke to us and
made the mistake of saying examinadoras, the feminine
(and marked) version of “examiners,” she would correct
herself and say examinadores, the masculine, unmarked
generic form. When this happened for the third time in
a row, I started to squirm uncomfortably in my seat.
It made little sense: why was using the feminine form of
the noun such a mistake that needed to be amended
notoriously every time, when it was rather evident that
the overwhelming majority of the attendants were
female? (I could write a whole different article on the
presence of men in the teaching field and how they are
generally a minority which nonetheless frequently ends
up in positions of the highest authority, but alas, space
is limited.) Would the three or four guys present lose
their manhoods by being designated with the feminine
38 ●tother-jiggen
noun? Was a simple letter so powerful? And most concept of “number” (like the enigmatic Pirahã
importantly: why is the masculine gender the language) or a specific name for a colour, does it
unmarked, generic form in Spanish? mean that those speakers also lack the concept of
number or colour in their brain? The oft-quoted
Unlike English, Spanish has full grammatical cliché that the Inuit languages have more than fifty
gender, which affects not only the endings of words of snow has not really been proven; by the
nouns but also adjectives, pronouns and same token, Americans have thirteen words for
determiners. The most common genders are types of sandwiches. Does this mean that the
feminine, masculine and neuter, but other abundance of snow (or subs) that surround the
languages encode other categories, such as Inuits and the Americans influences their
animate and inanimate. Although the gender of language? According to linguistic relativity, it
nouns that refer to human beings usually does.
correspond to their ‘biological’ sex, this is not
always the case; for example, girl in German (das So what about gender in inanimate objects? Lera
Mädchen) is neutral, while turnip is feminine, Boroditsky’s studies, where she asked speakers of
something that amused Mark Twain in his essays German and Spanish to characterise nouns with
The Horrors of the German Language (“In opposite genders in their languages, argues for a
German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip weak version of relativity. For example, bridge,
has…a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves which is feminine in German but masculine in
are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats Spanish, received divergent characteristics: for
are female... tomcats included.” ) In addition, German speakers, die Brücke was labelled as
words that have one gender in one language may “beautiful, elegant, slender” (typically considered
have a different one in another, such as the “feminine” attributes) while Spanish speakers said
celestial bodies moon and sun, which are el puente was “strong, sturdy, towering,” i.e. more
respectively feminine and masculine in Spanish but ‘masculine’ adjectives. The same happened with
the opposite in German. key, considered “hard, heavy, metal and useful” by
germanophones but “golden, lovely, shiny and
Taking into account this feature of these two tiny" by hispanophones. Even though there are no
languages, what is the problem that arises among definite studies about the relationship between
the Spanish or German-speaking populations? language and thought, the fact that the perceived
Basically that trying to create gender-neutral gender of an object may have some correlation to
language can be extremely cumbersome. So why human gender characteristics is an interesting field
even try to address this issue at all? Well, a little of study, for it has broader implications.
theory called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis comes
into play. Here is where the question of gender-neutral
language has its foundations. If we consider a key
Linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir- “lovely” or “hard” depending on its grammatical
Whorf hypothesis, is the chicken-or-egg dilemma gender, what happens to biological feminine and
of Linguistics: what comes first, thought or masculine nouns for people? In Spanish, there are
language? If different peoples with their own several cases where the male version of a noun has
distinct cultures and societies live in diverse no derogatory connotations, while the female
environments, does their language reflect their version does, such as hombre público (“public
reality? Or is it vice versa? If a language lacks the man” i.e. a politician) versus mujer pública
●forther-jiggen 39
(“public woman” i.e. a prostitute), or hombrezuelo people who do not feel identified with their
and mujerzuela (“little man” and “prostitute”) or assigned sex at birth, but also implying that
zorro (male fox, and also a sly person) and zorra violence occurs exclusively between cisgender men
(female fox or… you guessed it, prostitute!) on cisgender women.
Modern social developments, such as the election
of female presidents also created a controversy, Despite these hurdles, and the fact that gender is
because there was no female version of el so entrenched in Spanish morphology, feminist
presidente, so the neologism la presidenta went in and non-binary activists have popularised different
vogue, much to the chagrin of the “Royal Academy attempts at gender-neutral or gender-inclusive
of the Spanish Language” (known as the RAE in language. Now that I’ve lived in Germany (a
Spanish.) language with the same issue) for almost six
months, I’ve begun to notice the same efforts
For if the masculine gender is the unmarked, being made. Namely, some of the available or
generic one, it follows that femaleness is a proposed options to de-gender German and
distinctive attribute. The default gender of human Spanish are: using an asterisk, a colon or an
beings is male in many languages, and so not too underscore instead of the letter that determines
long ago, mankind and Man, or “el Hombre” were gender, as in mein_e beste*r Freund:in (“my best
used to refer to the whole of humanity, regardless friend”); using both the feminine and masculine
of their gender. Even the concept of gender used forms, as in Liebe Leserin und lieber Leser, “dear
to be limited to grammar; the groundbreaking female reader and dear male reader,” as I’ve seen
1986 paper by Joan Wallach Scott, Gender as a in many magazines; or similarly, using slashes, like
Useful Category of Historical Analysis, discusses “querido/a lector/a” (the same but in Spanish);
how feminist theory can overcome sexual the German word-internal capital I, or Binnen-I,
determinism and the supposed “biologically which converts Lehrerinnen (female teachers) into
natural” male-female binary by borrowing from LehrerInnen (a group of both male and female
grammar the concept of gender, since —as seen teachers); or the Spanish X and E, as in todxs
before with the nonsensical gendering of (gender-neutral “everybody” instead of masculine
inanimate objects— it is “a socially agreed upon generic todos) and amigues, “friends” instead of
system of distinctions rather than an objective amigos (“male friends” and/or “friends”.) Even
description of inherent traits” (Scott, 2007, p. the @ symbol was popular some years ago in
57). Spanish since it’s basically an A, the most common
feminine ending inside an O, the most common
This would free both women and men from their masculine ending. It has fallen into disuse,
allegedly inborn roles. Unsurprisingly, according however, since it perpetuates a binary notion of
to prescriptivist sources as the RAE’s Diccionario gender.
Panhispánico de Dudas, this notion of gender as a
replacement for the concept of biological sex is I know what you are thinking: how the hell are you
only to be used in the context of social studies and supposed to pronounce these words? And this
not as a replacement of sex, and then advises to article is not even delving into the topic of
replace the “gender” part in expressions such as neopronouns such as Spanish elle. It might not be
“gender discrimination” or “gender violence” with easy to understand or accept these proposals; in
“sex”, “domestic”, “partner” or even “against fact, many Spanish speakers react very badly when
women”, not only completely disregarding those confronted online with a person that writes todes
40
or mis amigues on Facebook. It seems as if it. Every concept that can ever be needed
everybody’s really keen to use new slang and meme will be expressed by exactly one word, with
words, but the moment someone dares to use the E its meaning rigidly defined and all its
or the X, the soul of Cervantes possess them and subsidiary meanings rubbed out and
they curse to no end these heretics of the Holy forgotten.”
Spanish Language. The RAE, of course, is
completely against the use of these alternatives, This extreme form of linguistic oppression molded
stubbornly stating that the masculine IS the the inhabitants of Oceania, making them unable to
generic form and must be kept that way. express themselves freely. I don’t mean to say I
consider these proposals authoritarian or
Vulgar Latin, the mother of the Romance oppressive, but there will always be people who
languages, replaced the three grammatical genders feel this way, especially if these changes come from
of Classical Latin with a two-gender system, and marginalised groups of activists and not from an
the neuter merged in most cases with the allegedly prestigious and unquestionable
masculine. It’s not that feminists believe there was institution such as the RAE —despite the fact that it
a PatriarchyCon where evil men decided to considers valid rather questionable words, such as
eliminate the neuter gender. But the fierce calor (“heat”) being used as a feminine noun
resistance to using gender-inclusive language, and instead of a masculine, the misspelled form
the imposition of masculine nouns as generic does murciégalo (“bat”), or proposing to “Spanish-ify”
make you think there is something behind it. English loanwords, which creates horrifying things
like güisqui instead of whisky. Lovely! I can assure
And here’s where linguistic relativity is important, you that no Spanish speaker abides by these rules.
for if language influences thought, then it’s evident
that having sexist language will influence the way And yet, people lose their mind over a letter. I tend
we perceive men, women and gender non- to believe that younger generations just don’t care,
conforming people. However, there are languages because they tend to be accepting of difference.
where there is no concept of gender, such as We aren’t born with prejudice; we are taught to
Turkish, or where grammatical gender is rare and discriminate, from the moment our gender is
there are neutral pronouns, like “they” in English. determined at birth, when we are told what are
Does that mean there is less sexism in Turkish and “boy things” and “girl things”, and when we learn
English speaking societies? This seems unlikely. a language and incorporate all of its cultural
baggage. But all that can be unlearned, and this is
In the end, even though I wholeheartedly agree why rethinking gender in language and asking
with the endeavours in trying to make language uncomfortable questions is fundamental if we want
more inclusive and neutral, the ideas behind to have a fairer, more inclusive society.
feminist linguistic reform bring to mind the
concept of Newspeak in George Orwell’s 1984: I’d like to end this article with another anecdote.
Last year I had an 18-year-old male student ask me
“Don't you see that the whole aim of what sibling meant. I answered, “It's the gender-
Newspeak is to narrow the range of neutral form of hermano.” “Aah” he replied, with a
thought? In the end we shall make little smile, “it’s hermane!” We both chuckled.
thoughtcrime literally impossible, because
there will be no words in which to express Language may or may not affect thought, but
●●auna 41
societal progress and change most certainly affect language. In following articles, I would like to address
other prickly issues such as the labelling of mental disorders, the euphemism treadmill and the rise of
politically correct language, and the evolution of racial terms. Personally, as regards gender, I believe the
following, to quote Renton from the movie Trainspotting: “In a thousand years, there will be no men and
women, just wankers, and that's fine by me.”
I’d wager we won’t have to wait so much.
____________________
24 Funnily enough, the Dyirbal language from Australia encompasses, in the "feminine" category the nouns for
“women, fire, and dangerous things,” which provided the �tle for a book by George Lakoff on cultural differences in
cogni�ve metaphors.
25 Boroditsky, L., Schmidt, L. A., & Phillips, W. (2003). Sex, syntax, and seman�cs. Language in mind: Advances in the
study of language and thought, 61-79.
Links:
Gramma�cal Genders
h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramma�cal_genders
42 ●●peina
What do French People
think about Romania?
Valentin Pradelou
Romania often suffers from its alleged stereotypes. Go on different websites, search “stereotypes on
Romania", and you will be able to read about things such as an extreme poverty, a general dirtiness, the land
of Dracula and so on. Unfortunately, these simplified images are not always quantified. Hence, we can't
really prove it wrong if we don't have a concrete idea about what it represents in people's minds.
Therefore, I decided to conduct a survey. I wanted to have the opinion of a selected amount of people on
Romania. But first, what is a stereotype? Based on the Cambridge dictionary, it is "the idea that people have
about what someone or something is like, especially an idea that is wrong". The French dictionary 'Robert'
describes the stereotype as a "simplified image" that is created by "human groups" about "some people or
facts". According to Amossy26, we don't have the ability to embrace the fundamental features of others.
That is why we create stereotypes to filter our reality. These simplified images can also be the creation of a
social imaginary.
Then, I had to target the people in order to conduct the survey. It seemed important to interview people,
who had never set foot in Romania, to get images from the social imaginary (thus relying on imagination,
not experience). To lead a thorough analysis, people from all social levels had to be represented. These
social levels are expressed through several factors, such as jobs or qualifications. Only keeping
qualifications as a criterion, I chose 10 individuals: 4 with high school diplomas as their highest
qualification, and 6 university degrees, from "licence"27 to doctoral degrees.
●●para 43
First, the survey consisted of a short multiple-choice questionnaire, with assertions concerning Romania.
Subjects had to choose between "Yes", "No", or "I don't know". This was followed by a short interview,
to the extent of developing their thoughts about Romania. I asked subjects about Romanian people and the
capital city, Bucharest. Of course, the results of this survey are not to be considered exhaustive because of
the restricted number of subjects. In addition, it has been conducted on French people and in French, so we
are going to evaluate the results through a translation.
Multiple-choice questionnaire results

The first part of the survey aimed at identifying a possible subjects’ mistrust towards Romania. I proposed 4
assertions asking if they would be happy with certain things, and here are the results:
I really thought the answers were going to be astonishingly mistrustful. Unexpectedly, we can note an
extreme majority of positive answers! They represent 87,5%. Especially on visiting Bucharest, all said yes.
Every "No" or "I don't know" is gathered on the social side of Romania. For the most part, the subjects are
very favorable towards Romania and Romanians. We may also add that the "I don't know" might convey a
lack of knowledge more than a real mistrust, amounting to 7,5%. Finally, the "No" remains extremely low,
with only 5%.
Thus, the rising tendency is the positive attitude towards Romania, with only a few negative answers. At this
stage, I was not observing any wary attitude, and I had (mistakenly) a strong hope that the interviews would
be in the same vein.
44 ●●peddera
Interview results
During these interviews, I asked simple and general questions as “What do you think about the Romanian
man, in general?”, repeated for women, and then Bucharest. As I just implied, a certain amount of negative
and simplified images are to be noticed in the interviews…
• Romania and Romanians would be poor
This is the majority of answers we have had, in 9 interviews out of 10. I noticed them in such lexemes as
(needless to say) pauvre (poor), pauvreté (poverty), misère (impoverishment/penury), or mendicité
(begging).
I noticed, as well, life conditions in Romania thought to be different, alongside poverty. I came across
samples like Différences de condition de vie (Life condition differences) or Pays avec de meilleures
conditions de vie (Better life condition countries), talking about Western European countries.
• Romanians would be badly dressed
I’ve found this element in two interviews. Both interviewed had an image of Romanians dressed in a non-
aesthetic way. This is visible throughout these examples: Des gens habillés de façon négligée (People
dressed in a neglected/careless way), and Pas à la pointe de la mode (Not trendy/at the trend forefront).
• Romanians would be disrespectful
Once again, I have noticed this idea in two interviews. Indeed, the interviewed used lexemes as pénible
(annoying/irritating) or obviously irrespectueux (disrespectful), and even syntactic units as Pas trop dans la
politesse (Not rather polite/in politeness).
• Romanians would be different “from us”
That is the last simplified image concerning the Romania’s social side, found in 3 interviews. It is
interesting to note that this difference is described in an economic way (as we’ve seen in the poverty cliché),
but on some kind of a way of life as well (unfortunately stamped of value judgement).
In fact, a subject told me that Romanians were sans le sens de la famille et de l’éducation (without the sense
of family and education), and another said that they were pas comme nous (not like us). This “us” is
particularly interesting, given that it seems to express a sort of occidental identity, and especially a French
identity.
• Bucharest would be an austere city
The last question gave me several lexemes conveying stereotypes. In 5 interviews out of 10, I got examples
like the following: sale (dirty), pollué (polluted), délabré (dilapidated/ruined), vieilles infrastructures (old
infrastructures), très vieillissant (really ageing). One interviewed even told me about the Soviet buildings
making the city austere.
●●pimp 45
To conclude
If the questionnaires seemed positive, the interviews were not, as I encountered several stereotypes.
Reassuringly, some interviewed told me about Bucharest’s beauty and their desire to visit it. Moreover, one
of the people interviewed added that he thought the political problems which Romania has been suffering
from, might justify the possible austere features of the capital city. French people, at least the ones I had the
chance to interview, seem to not be mistrustful of Romania and its inhabitants. However, most of their
representations are not positive at all.
I went to Romania once, and I must admit I had some stereotypes stuck in my mind. I met very helpful and
nice people, I visited some beautiful cities such as Arad and Bucharest. It made me give up the simplified
images. From now on, I encourage anybody to visit that beautiful country which, despite a hard history, has
magnificent things to offer.
Thank you for reading!
____________________
26 Amossy, Ruth, Herschberg-Pierrot, Anne. 1997. Stéréotypes et clichés, Paris, Nathan université, (coll. 128), p29.
27 "Licence" is the French equivalent of a bachelor’s degree.
46 ●●ithy
Dina Stanković language even harder. After coming across so

Since I overcame my aversion towards Slovenia and many false friends during my life in Slovenia, I’m
its language and I’m now actually proud when going to introduce you to some of them that made
people talk to me in Slovene and I can fluently me think twice sometimes.
respond, I decided to write a couple of lines about
misunderstandings that can occur when you are The first thing that comes to my mind is word
native Serbian speaker learning Slovene language. tečna. So, you see, as Serbian is my mother tongue,
It is interesting to see how this language diversity and practically the only language that I spoke at the
can often be really unnoticeable at first. time, the word seemed quite normal to me. It
means “liquid”. So when a classmate once told me
So I moved to Ljubljana (Slovenia's capital) at the Kva si tečna!, I literally stood there thinking “Is my
age of 15, not knowing a single word of Slovene, I nose running?” Turns out, no, my nose was fine.
wasn’t able to communicate with my classmates. Slovene people use this word to describe a really
Even though Slovenia and Serbia were both part of annoying person. So turns out I wasn’t sick or
Former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia anything, I was just annoying as hell. Good to
and the languages do belong to the South Slavic know.
group of languages, they are quite different. You
must also consider the fact that people in Ljubljana A similar situation occurs with the usage of the
speak differently from the Standard Slovene word butasto. The form of the word is different in
language, which makes the process of learning the Serbian, but the root makes you think it has
How
Slovene
Changed My
Perspective on
Serbian
●●mithy 47
something to do with stuffing things into a box. No, it does not. It means something/someone is stupid.
Simple as that!
Another funny situation that often happens is when the word nadležna comes up. People in Slovenia,
apparently, love to give different names to boring, annoying creatures. This is one of them, too. In Serbian,
however, it means someone who is in charge. So my mom, who is a doctor in Ljubljana, wrote nadležni
zdravnik, wanting to name a fellow colleague who was in charge that day, but it actually meant “boring
doctor”, so that colleague of hers wanted to know why is she annoying/boring. They had a good laugh and it
all turned out good!
It took me a while to get used to the phenomenon with obraz and lice. In Serbian, obraz means “cheek” and
lice means “face”. Slovene, however, uses these terms exactly
inversely - obraz means “face“, while lice means “cheek“. Quite confusing, right? I always have to be
concentrated when speaking about these body parts.
Not that common, but still worth mentioning is the beautiful expression “podložiti nekoga/nekaj”. When
you want to place something underneath someone/something (like a pillow under your head or making
sure some object doesn’t move by placing something underneath it), you use the word podložiti. But be
careful! In Serbian, it means setting someone/something on fire. So my family tends to use some Slovene
words when we speak to each other and it’s always funny to see the expressions on people’s faces when they
hear we “podložili sto da se ne mrda.” (put something under the table so it wouldn’t move). To people who
only speak Serbian, it means we set the table on fire.
Some words, however, look the same but the place of word stress makes total difference. Those kind of
words tend to confuse both sides. Pronouncing them in a Serbian way while speaking Slovene can really
bring to some misunderstanding between two co-speakers. The word veliko is the kind of word I’m talking
about. In Serbian, stressing the first syllable makes the word mean “big/huge”. In Slovene, too. But here’s
the thing. If the second syllable is stressed, the word changes its meaning to “a lot” in Slovene. So people
from Serbia tend to stress the first syllable while wanting to express quantity. E.g. work they’ve done so far.
It can really mess things up with only Slovene speaking party.
Since a lot of people from Serbia moved, and are still moving to Slovenia, this type of language enigma
occur on everyday basis. I eventually learned to just accept them and think separately in Slovene, separately
in Serbian. So now, when a word like that comes up, the meaning of it depends on the language the
sentence is written in. Speaking two Slavic languages helped me a lot with understanding the development
of the Slavic languages in general and also helps me with learning Russian. But it’s always fun to be just a
little bit confused.
48 ●●owera
LanguageandCulture
Gil Cohen
Disclaimer: As this piece has much to do with cultures, I am going to write about people and their culture.
None of what I am about to write is means in a derogatory way, only thoughts and questions that I have.
Why do we learn languages? What is it that fascinates us? Language isn’t just the most basic tool of
communication that we have, it also allows us to look into another culture, or maybe even our own. Which
one affects the other? Does language affect culture, or does culture affect language? I would like to tell you
my thoughts on the symbiotic relationship between language and culture.
I guess most of you have heard of the word Schadenfreude in German, which translates into “pleasure
derived by someone from another person's misfortune”. That’s one hell of a complication for just one
word! There just isn’t a word in English that corresponds to it. That’s just one example, and there are many
words in many languages that have that exact same predicament.
But why do German speakers have a word for that emotion, while English speakers don’t? Do German
speakers enjoy people’s suffering more than English speakers? Perhaps, but that’s beyond me. What other
reason is there for the existence of that word? I’m sure that’s a concept English speakers are familiar with,
but they haven’t felt the need to make a word for it. After all, communicating ideas and concepts is the sole
purpose of language, so maybe there is a cultural difference between English speakers and German
speakers.
There are many similar examples:
• In Arabic, there are different words for “aunt from the father’s side” and “aunt from the mother’s
side”, and the same goes for uncles. Why? What difference does it make if I am referring to my
mother’s sister or my father’s sister? Apparently, there was a reason for this at some point,
otherwise these words would not have existed.
●●lowera 49
• In Indonesian, there are different words for “inclusive we (we including you)” and “exclusive we
(we not including you)”. Why is that? Do Indonesian speakers like to exclude people? I must admit
that not having different words for these two kinds of “we” causes some problems, but perhaps not
as problematic as it had once been for Indonesian speakers.
• In German, the word Schlange means both “snake” and “line (of people)”. Etymologically, this
word is related to other Germanic words for “snake”, so we know that the “snake” meaning
predates the other one. Now, why is a queue called a “snake”? Stereotypically, Germans wait in line
in an actual line, as opposed to Israelis, who usually wait “in line” as a blob. But why do Germans do
that? Do they wait in line like that because of the word Schlange (that is, the language has affected
the culture in this case), or has the meaning of Schlange been extended to the meaning of “line”
because that’s how German speakers have always waited in line, even before they had a word for it
(that is, the culture has affected the language)?
As you may have known, (most) Israelis must serve in the military for a few years. I served in the military for
3 whole years of my life, and being there has dramatically changed me and how I speak, and I am not the
only one who has gone through that change.
Naturally, military service has affected the Hebrew language, with “military talk”. One of the many
characteristics of “military talk” is the use of slang, that almost every Hebrew speaker knows came from the
military. Whenever someone stays at their base for the weekend or during a holiday, it’s called “closing”,
and whenever they go home, it’s called “going out”.
Since Israel isn’t a big country, not at all, students who go to university at some other city sometimes return
to their hometown for the weekend. Some people still use “military talk” and say that when they stay for the
weekend, and not return to their hometown, they are “closing the weekend”. That use is sometimes
frowned upon, but that is a perfect example of how language has been affected by culture (military service
created “military talk”) and how that same language has affected the culture (people have gotten used to
“military talk”, so they use it outside of the military).
Can you think of cases in which your culture has affected your language and cases in which your language
has affected your culture? Perhaps a different language has affected your culture, or maybe a different
culture had an effect on your language?
____________________
Links:
Schadenfreude
h�ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude
50 ●●dig
Paula Zamorano Osorio

Languages of Music is communication: it is a collection of sounds
which attempts to convey some sort of meaning, exactly
how you might describe language.
Old in Music Nowadays, thanks to globalisation, technology, the
internet, and so forth, it is not unusual to hear a mix of
of Today languages used in music. This may be special and
attractive, especially to the ear of the linguist, but what
might be even more exciting is the possibility of reviving
dying, dead, ancient or old languages through music.
In this article you will discover the ways that language

roots itself in culture, and particularly, how it enhances
musical communication. Let’s explore two different
artists, Ustad Saami and Ghost, who innovatively use
ancient or old languages in their music. Both artists are
extremely different in several ways, but perhaps one
similarity is that they show the flexibility and nuance of
language. The first, Ustad Saami, works with various
languages, and invites us to listen and engage with past,
present and future. The second, the popular band Ghost,
use the essence and meaning of language to create
atmosphere and to support their devilish image. Quite
different, but language is about adaptation, and these
musicians are about innovation. Let’s see what they do
with languages!
1.Ustad Saami
“[...] Nor is it an example of some sort of folk relic, to be
listened to with an understanding only of the past, which
somehow needs to be preserved just because it’s old.”28
The Pakistani singer, Ustad Saami, is the last living

master of the thousand-year-old style of music called surti
- perhaps a relative of the Sanskrit word, shruti or śruti
(/ʃrut̪i/), which in traditional Indian music means the
infinite intervals of pitch that can be detected by the
human ear and produced by the human voice.29 He
practises his 49-note-per-octave version of the musical
tradition, and sings in various languages, including Urdu,
Hindi, Farsi, Arabic, Sanskrit, and the ancient and dead
language of Vedic - plus gibberish! To say that the music
itself is impressive and unique would be an
●●ain-a-dig 51
understatement, and it would be interesting to the intellect. Maybe the point of using so many
investigate the musicality of it, but let’s focus on languages in his music is that we should just listen
his use of languages here, particularly on Sanskrit and feel them, and not try to understand them
and Vedic. literally or cognitively.
Sanskrit forms part of the Indo-Aryan group of Through musical practice and oral tradition, Ustad
languages and crucially, is the root of many Indian Saami looks back in time to his ancestry. He
languages. Once a common tongue, the 3,500- revives past generations, forgotten traditions. I like
year-old language of ancient India is currently the to consider his mix of language as a means of
subject of much debate. Although in recent ages it connecting past and present, in the hope that his
had been reserved for religious occasions, Sanskrit music can be carried into the future. Ustad Saami’s
has seen a relatively sharp rise in native speakers music and his use of current and ancient languages
over the past decade or two. Does Ustad Saami’s reminds us that languages might seem chained to a
music reflect this modern change in attitude period, but that actually, they can find a place
towards Sanskrit? Perhaps in using Sanskrit in his throughout history.
music he is showing support for the language’s
revival. Perhaps he uses it as a unifier of peoples, 2. Ghost
whose languages derived from it. Even in a completely different genre, ancient
languages endure. What’s more, they can serve a
The precursor to classical Sanskrit, Vedic completely different purpose in music!
Sanskrit, also features in Ustad Saami’s music;
however, it cannot be said that this language too is The Swedish band31, Ghost, revels in theatricality.
seeing an increase in usage. This Indo-European This is a band whose aim is to be “larger than
language, branching from the Indo-Iranian group, life”32 and therefore, they put on a show using
was used in texts called the Vedas of Hinduism, costumes and stage sets to enhance the effect that
which were compiled between the mid-2nd and they create with music. Beyond the visual
mid-1st millennium BC. It turns out that the Vedas aesthetics lies a whole other level of appeal: the
are also called śruti (in this case, meaning "what is magic surrounding their music partly roots in the
heard") literature. This ancient language makes an power of language, not only in its meaning, but
appearance in the master’s debut album, ‘God Is also in its essence.
Not A Terrorist’, released in January 2019. Just
Ghost’s songs and performance emerge from the
take a moment to reflect on the fact that Vedic
traditions of the Roman Catholic church, and they
Sanskrit is 4000 years old, and is still enjoyed
present biblical (or to be precise, satanic) themes.
today!
The singer dresses as a satanic priest/cardinal;
If you listen to Ustad Saami’s creation, language their songs replicate the veneration of God but are
and music might sound inseparable. It would in in fact for the Devil; and amongst all this, their
theory be interesting to analyse the lyrics, to album and song titles and lyrics match the language
understand the meaning behind the songs better of the Bible - to the point that they even sprinkle a
and to see how it is that he uses all these languages. bit of Latin here and there. In the way that Ghost
However, the master preaches that “to sing is to does with most things, they dress language up to
listen”30, and he believes that information should create their image: Latin, the language of the
be passed from heart to heart rather than through Roman Catholic Church, is to their lyrics what the
52 ●●pein-a-dig
priest costume is to the singer. thousands of years back to the Saxon era. Old
English is linked to the dark ages, which has its
Latin also adds a sombre and cryptic touch to the own list of connotations of feudalism and instilled
music, as it is not widely understood nowadays. religion. Within Ghost, Old English can bring up
Ghost is all about creating an atmosphere, and this times where fear of devilry was wide-spread and
ancient language helps them do exactly that. institutionalised. Once again, it sets them up to be
rebels, taking history and puts in the world of
Consider the title: per aspera ad inferi33 vs the
today.
translation: “Through hardships to hell”.
So! We have seen that these languages of old have
The English version sounds hardcore anyway,
left a long-lasting mark in human history and
because we can understand it. Also the alliteration
culture. The magic of ancient languages is that
makes it punchy. Yet, the Latin version has an
they come with a large side of mystery and dressed
essence of obscurity, a veil of mystique. Whilst the
with their individual essence. It is amazing to see
meaning doesn’t necessarily lay out in the open, it
how their powerful legacy can influence artists
is still there, hiding within a dead language. As
today, whether they are commenting on social or
another plus, it allows Ghost to twist the traditional
religious topics, or whether they use it as a tool for
saying per aspera ad astra (through hardships to
creative purposes. It is probable that you would be
the stars) to add to their image as followers of the
able to find other ancient languages in different
adversary.
genres of music as well as in other art forms, where
Latin has developed a powerful essence, but it they might serve a completely different purpose!
doesn’t mean that other languages of old can’t The flexibility of language is truly infinite, and this
compete with it. is what makes them so enduring. Languages are
about so much more than just everyday
One of Ghost’s top singles is titled ‘Cirice’. Upon communication, and I hope that this piece proves
first glance it could seem like a woman’s name, it.
easily confused with the name Circe, from Ancient
Greek mythology. However, it actually means ______________________
“church” in Old English!34 I would argue that 28 Miller, Bruce. Ustad Saami, God Is Not a Terrorist,
Latin is quite recognisable even if it isn’t Gli�erbeat. RootsWorld, 2019.
h�p://www.rootsworld.com/reviews/saami-19.shtml.
understood; Old English, however, isn’t so well-
29 The Concise Garland Encyclopedia of World Music,
known as even to be recognised. Maybe for those Volume 2. (Routledge, Abingdon). p.936.
listeners (like me until recently) who don’t know
30 Ustad Saami. Bandcamp, 2019.
what cirice means or where it comes from, Old h�ps://ustadsaami.bandcamp.com/
English doesn’t add as much to the song in essence 31 Although they are Swedish, they sing in English -
or meaning as Latin might. mainly! Italian and La�n are also common in Ghost.
32Remfry, Dedman. Ghost’s Tobias Forge: ‘Bands need

Nevertheless, it does offer a similar sense of to be larger than life’. The Guardian, 2018.
mystery that might incite curiosity. And once you h�ps://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jun/07/gho
sts-tobias-forge-bands-need-to-be-larger-than-life
find out what it does mean, the title suddenly sets
33 (sic.) - Let’s not dwell on grammar, but on the
the entire song, which you could be listening off essence of language.
from your wireless speakers via a high-tech phone,
34 Check out the etymology for the word cirice here.
within a whole different world, transporting you h�ps://en.wik�onary.org/wiki/cirice
●●para-a-dig 53
Late
Talkers Camille Masson
In this article, we will go over the concept of late language emergence (LLE), or “late talkers”. This article
will explain what it means, what we know about it, and what questions we still have.
A bit of theory
The term “late talkers” refers to infants whose language production appears later than their peers, without a
diagnosed motor or neurological cause. Although the concept itself appears rather simple, in reality it is a
complex occurrence. There are two types of “late talkers”: those who exert a delay in speech production,
and those who exert a delay in both speech production and comprehension. For both of those types, it can
be further broken down into those who will catch-up with their peers, and those who will not.
One important distinction to make before we continue with this article, is that “late talking” is not
considered a language disorder in itself. However, it is risk factor of the future development of a language
disorder. This means that while a majority of “late talkers” end up developing their language fast enough to
get back on track with their peers, some will end up developing a language disorder.
54 ●●peddera-a-dig
Though there is quite a bit of research on the subject, a number of questions still remain. In the sections
below, we will highlight what has been determined through research, and what aspects of “late talkers”
researchers are still trying to understand.
What does the research say?

Upon determining that amongst “late talkers” there were those who would catch up with their peers and
those who would not, researchers pursued the following question: Which factors can predict the future
development of language production in “late talkers”? Based on their research they found that it is nearly
impossible to determine immediately whether the child would develop further delays, or if they would catch
up to their peers. However, researchers found that those who did catch up typically used more
communicative gestures, and exhibited fewer understanding deficits when compared to “late talkers” who
did not catch up to their peers. These however are only hints and not a definitive criteria.
In another study, “late talkers” who were able to catch up to their peers were tested on their range of
language comprehension and expression skills (performance touch narrative skills, morphosyntax, reading
and spelling, vocabulary, etc.). Based on the research it was determined that these “late talkers” were able
to perform within the regular range of children with a similar socioeconomic status and age. However,
within that regular range, their scores were still lower than average.
Finally, a study that examined “late talker” toddlers who had a deficit in both speech production and
comprehension determined that these children are at a higher risk of presenting difficulties in speech later
on. Children who still exhibit language abilities below what is expected for their age at school age without
explanatory factors such as sensory impairment or autism, may be presenting a specific language
impairment.
What can cause late language emergence?

There are no definitive causes of late language emergence. What we do know though is that risk factors and
protective factors may have an impact. Of course, risk factors are only that: factors. They do not cause the
occurrence, nor do the protective factors eliminate all risks factors.
Risk factors can be linked to attributes of the child, or of the environment the child is in. Here are some of
these factors:
• Boys are more often found to exhibit LLE than girls.
• Delayed motor development is often observed in comorbidity with LLE.
• Late talkers often have other family members who were also late talkers.
Protective factors can be:
1. Learning opportunities such as vocabulary exposure
2. Involvement in group play
3. Conversations and motor activities.
●●bunfit 55
What can you do if your child is a late talker?

Considering the fact that language exposition is a protective factor, it is an easy way to help your child. Of
course, if you have concerns, it is best to have him or her evaluated by a speech and language pathologist.
Here are some ways to easily expose your child to a wide and rich vocabulary:
Provide language models
• Imitating and expanding the child’s words
• Give the child time to initiation or answer
• Promote the child’s involvement in its environment
• Reading a book together actively (while asking questions)
In conclusion
It is fundamental for children to receive language and speech exposure early on. Just like motor skills games
and activities, it is important for their development.
While it can difficult for a speech and language pathologist to predict the outcome of a “late talker”, it is
important to have the child evaluated if you have any concerns.
56 ●●aina-a-bumfit
Emma Tolmie
Maybe if you aren’t a biologist or a rugby player the language associated with these two professions seems
ludicrously different. Maybe even if you are a professional rugby player who spends their weekends in a
science lab, protein synthesis and set plays might come to mind as an example of two concepts which have
nothing in common. However, at school, I studied A-level biology and played for the school’s rugby team,
and I found that the similarities between the triplet code and our team’s commands were striking; both are
systems of communication which allow stored information to be transferred into physical events — although
admittedly making a protein is quite a different outcome to scoring a try.
Firstly — and apologies for the flood of jargon — I need to explain DNA and protein synthesis in order to
make this comparison possible. Protein synthesis is the process in which DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)
molecules are unwound and used to make the proteins which form our bodies. Watson and Crick’s ground-
breaking paper in 1953 outlined that the structure of DNA is a sugar-phosphate ‘backbone’ to which four
Language as a
Link Between
Rugby and DNA
●●pein-a-bumfit 57
different groups of chemicals called bases (known When the next amino acid is in place, a strong
as A, T, G, and C) are attached, quite like rungs to chemical bond is formed between them, leaving
a ladder. DNA molecules are astonishingly long, them connected like paper-clips in a chain. As
and we can split them into shorter sections called more and more amino acids are added, the chain
genes. Each of these genes contains information becomes longer and is known as a polypeptide
which is used to produce a particular protein, and (‘poly’ meaning many, and ‘peptide’ because the
the combination of specific proteins that make up bonds between the amino acids are called peptide
an individual determines everything from skin bonds).
colour to shoe size.
So, to summarise, the DNA in a cell contains
When a cell experiences a specific triggering information in the form of bases in a particular
factor, a cascade of chemical changes begins the order, and this information is transcribed a strand
process known as DNA transcription; an enzyme of mRNA, which is then translated by a ribosome
called helicase temporarily unwinds the DNA into a specific protein.
molecule, exposing the sequence of bases. A
shorter molecule known as mRNA (messenger Although this is all pretty long-winded and far
ribonucleic acid) is created using this exposed more detailed than most of us need for our daily
strand of DNA as a template. The order of bases on lives, an understanding of transcription and
the mRNA strand corresponds to the order on the translation are required for my linguistic analogy to
DNA strand and in this way information encoded make sense. The process through which
on the original gene in the form of base sequence is information contained in DNA is transferred into
passed on into the new molecule of mRNA. mRNA by transcription and then a polypeptide by
translation is similar to the way in which spoken
This strand of mRNA then leaves the centre of the commands work. The speaker thinks of words in
cell and travels to a structure called a ribosome, their head, then ‘transcribes’ this information into
where the process of translation will take place. (It spoken words in order to pass it on to whoever will
was the unexpectedly linguistic-sounding terms be carrying out the command. This second person
that made me interested in the idea of DNA as a understands the information given to them and
language in the first place.) Translation is how the ‘translates’ it into a physical action.
information which is encoded as a sequence of
bases is converted into a chain of chemicals called At this point you may be beginning to understand
amino acids, which are the building blocks that how biology and rugby can be linked. In our rugby
make up proteins. The process begins when a team, we had a pre-arranged code of requests and
molecule of a specific amino acid is brought commands which, when spoken out loud, would
alongside the mRNA strand. Which exact amino lead to a successful pass, dodge, tackle, etc.
acid is brought is coded for by a sequence of three
Our simplest commands resulted in the simplest of
bases and this is known as the triplet code. Every
actions — or proteins, as far as this comparison is
possible combination of three of the bases A, U35,
concerned. If one of us shouted “left!”, then the
G, and C will cause a particular amino acid to be
player holding the ball would pass the ball to
brought to the ribosome to become part of the
someone who was on her left. The first player
protein. For example, if the sequence of bases on a
transcribed her thought into spoken words, and
section of mRNA was “UCG” then the amino acid
the second heard them and translated them into a
serine would be brought.
58 ●●par-a-bunfit
physical pass. Other plays were more complicated, don’t actually affect the outcome, so aren’t
so we needed to combine more than one noticed. In DNA these are known as ‘hidden
command. mutations’ and an example could be that the trio of
bases UCC and AGC both happen to code for the
A boss pass was a pass which went from the ball amino acid serine; the same result even though the
carrier to whoever shouted for it, skipping out at base sequences are very different. Likewise “boss”
least one player who was between them, in order to and “miss move” are two very different sounding
get the ball further out in a shorter time or confuse commands that have the same result; the ball
the other team. Therefore calling “boss right” missing out a player in the line.
would lead to a pass to the right which missed out a
player or two; the simple calls “boss” and “right” However, sometimes mistakes are too significant
were combined into a more complicated pass. to remain hidden. A simple swap of “left” for
Similarly, complex proteins can be made of more “right” or A for C could lead to a pass or protein
than one polypeptide so sometimes more than one that’s too different to work properly. In DNA,
gene is required. these mutations are not hidden, and are the cause
of genetically inherited conditions like cystic
Like any communication system, both DNA and fibrosis, and in rugby these errors can mean the
rugby codes depend on three main factors: the opposition takes the ball – both can cause
information given in the first place needs to be problems for the organism/team in question.
correct; this information needs to be transferred
correctly; and the receiver needs to understand Mutations in DNA are the causes of evolution,
what to do with it. If a small mistake is made in the giving us different characteristics which make us
transcription process — for example a molecule of fitter or less fit for our surroundings and therefore
base G where there ought to be a molecule of base more or less likely to emerge victorious from the
A — then the information transferred into the constant competition of natural selection. A
ribosome would not be the correct information. creature in the past may have had a mutated gene
(altered information), faulty transcription process
Similarly, if there wasn’t some form of pre- (wrong information is passed on), or
arranged code (as yet it is unknown how the triplet malfunctioning ribosomes (wrong action is taken)
code evolved) for what to do when the mRNA was which caused it to produce slightly different
delivered to the ribosome, then the information proteins to its peers. If this mutation stopped them
translated from the DNA would just be a useless from being able to do something necessary for
series of chemicals, and would never be transferred survival in their habitat, such as being able to reach
into a valuable protein. If a player on our rugby the food growing on a tall tree, they would not be
team didn’t know our codewords then she able to out compete their peers and would not
wouldn’t be able to use or respond to them survive.
properly, so wouldn’t be able to contribute to the
team’s plays. On the other hand, if it was by chance an
advantage, like being small enough to hide from
Sometimes an organism’s DNA will have a predators, they would live to compete another day
mutation — an altered sequence of bases which and be more likely to pass their new DNA onto
happened due to a random mistake as they copied their offspring. In the same way if a rugby team has
their DNA for new cells. Occasionally, mistakes an ineffective communication system, consistently
●●pedder-a-bumfit 59
poor tactics, or insufficient passing skills they won’t win their matches and will probably be knocked out of
the competition. If they happen to get lucky by a mistake turning into an advantage, they may go on to win
and develop this new tactic to help them win later games.
In my opinion, the main difference in the principles of these two languages is that rugby teams can adapt
much faster and — crucially — at will. DNA mutation is blindly guided by evolution, and organisms with base
sequences which result in disadvantageous proteins will die out. When our rugby team lost a match, we
could analyse exactly what went wrong and decide how to change it. If we couldn’t respond to commands
effectively, we would then practice our passing. If our tactics were ineffective, we could come up with new
ones. Finally, if our communication system was flawed, we were able switch to a different one, one which
could translate our ideas into success.
The hallmark of a language is that it is a system of transferring information from one person or place to
another — which both the systems of transcription/translation and our rugby team’s codes are capable of
doing. Even though DNA is a bank of information contributed to by innumerable life forms over millions of
years and our rugby tactics were developed over just two seasons, they both mean we can react to situations
successfully. The key to this is how we transform our stored information into actions, so whether this begins
with the enzyme helicase or the referee’s whistle, it is communication which enables our success
_____________________
35 In DNA the base T is used, but in mRNA the base U is used instead.
60 ●●giggy
BOOK
REVIEW:
“Because Internet”
Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language
Gretchen McCulloch
Riverhead Books, $26
We at Silly Linguistics are a little late to the party that is the reviews of such a great book. But then the book
was published 3 days to late for a review of it to make the August issue…
(Now do any of you get a passive aggressive hint from that ellipsis (as if it is hinting that an advance copy of
the book would have been appreciated) or just think it indicates a pause?)
Considering our readership demographic, the former assumption might well be spot on. 'Because Internet'
makes it impossible not to second guess every little detail of language used and how it might be perceived by
different people. Is “Dear” in an email phatic? Doe anyone every shout “Hi, Hi, Hi” down a phone when
the connexion broke? Does the rather archaic spelling of “connexion” suggest something about people
who use it? Can anyone read this book without seeing through the looking-glass and reviewing every thing
they write on the internet?
But for a moment, suspend this self questioning, and take book's dedication “to the people who make
internet language” as an invitation. For we at Silly Linguistics exist to serve the language and do so via the
medium of the internet. McCulloch devotes a whole chapter to memes which are the current mainstay of
Silly Linguistics. Yet having read far too many other reviews of 'Because Internet' it is somewhat
disappointing that the focus is mainly on funny memes, LOL, and 1337speak. For these reviewers have, in
the main, failed to grasp how this book's focus is on countering the idea that the internet is somehow
harmful to language.
McCulloch may well give a brilliant analysis of the social history of the internet and how this has formed the
language used on it, but this alone would not have created such a brilliant book. It is McCulloch's wider
argument that language change is a benevolent creative force, that draws the reader to keep reading. How
many other books on what could be a dry topic, can draw the reader in so fluidly.
●●●Yan 61
So let's focus back on the

dedication which describes the
book as a map, for it so
brilliant expresses linguistic
descriptivism. We can
conceptualise linguists as
cartographers trying to sketch
out the lay of the linguistic
strata, setting out noun
paradigms with as much
accuracy as Mercator trying to
flatten a globe onto paper.
This metaphor is the first step
of a book that resists the urge
to try and pin down the changing landscape of language and thus understand that descriptions of grammar
should be seen as guides (each with their own cartographic distortion) rather than rules to be followed.
This embracing of descriptivism can even be seen in McCulloch's own style as she strives to boldly go
beyond Latinate prescriptivism, and is fully happy with splinting infinitives. In doing so she casts off
dogmatic grammatical rules, and shows that the influence of the internet can act as an invigorating force for
written language. Her suggestion that the ubiquity of printed text in books has almost killed the language
and so is “rendering it fixed and dead for eternity” is contrasted by her own acceptance of internet norms
for orthography. She continues to rally against the idea of “books as a way of embalming language” and
gives a sense of the vitality of the internet to her printed text. For it is about books like 'Because Internet'
that we can now “think of [books about language] as maps and guidebooks to help people navigate
language's living, moving splendor.”
McCulloch artfully uses such metaphors and gives the book a cyclical structure devoting the final chapter to
the use of metaphor to conceptualise language. She charts the change from language as a book to the web as
language and thus suggests that the internet can be a revitalising force for language. For languages must
change to live, and the multiple registers of the internet give space for this evolution.
And so the final sentence of the book fully answers the implicit question of what the “New Rules of
Language” are. For McCulloch says: “There's space, in this glorious linguistic web, for you”. Understand
that the 'rules' are what you wish them to be. So go read 'Because Internet' and (allow me to abuse the
words of Tony Walsh36 here) “pick up a [virtual] pen”, take its power, and keep language creative.
_____________________
36 Poet, aka Tony Longfella.
62 ●●●tan
Cover Photo
photo credits...
18 Tayyab Khan 48 Juliano Ferreira
Mark Dalton Marius Masala
20 Niklas Weiss
5 John Nail 50 Vlad Bagacian
21 George Hiles
6 Henrique 53 TimGouw
Craviero 22 Tembela Bohle Michael Mims
Alexander
7 Markus Spiske 26 Eric Welch Dummer
Ben White
11 Ste Wright 30 Elijah O’Donnell
55 Pragyan
12 Mitchell Orr 34 Kellen Riggin Bezbaruah
13 Ioan Davies 41 Jacek Dylag 59 Gerd Altmann
14 Provided by 45 Alisa Anton 61 Gerd Altmann

Charles Wilson
(author) 46 Pixabay 62 Iqbal Nuril
Anwar
●●●tether 63
Thanks for reading Silly Linguistics Issue #16

We hope you enjoyed it!
Send any comments or questions you might have to

magazine@sillylinguistics.com
Do also get in touch if you fancy writing for us.
Check out Steve the Vagabond on Facebook at:

facebook.com/stevethevagabond, and also check out Silly
Linguistics online at:
Sillylinguistics.com
Silly Linguistics Magazine was brought to you by, Silly

Linguistics Pty Ltd.
Editor: Ed Bedford
Graphic Designer: Grace Cairns

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BOOK

CAN YOU REVIEW:

in this issue: :SEPTEMBER 2019:

7 Revitaliza�on of Welsh – An Overview 46 How Slovene Changed My Perspec�ve on

27 How to Talk Like a Viking

30 The Mul�tudinous Peeves of a

34 Dude, what is my gender, man?

37 To *E or not to *E: Gender Neutrality in

journey, time and time again. Submit. Submit.

S is for... Linguistics team, with myself again, and so on. It’s

Communication is all about that. Give and take.

More specifically I think about this; given that

Anyway, submit, my point is you have to get over

New Featured Topics

\Before you dive into these

Currently, Welsh is a minority

Appendix A: an overview of Welsh morphology

Hen Iaith Fy Nhadau3

The relevance of the

and daubing English road signs to pay television licence fees7,

speakers in 2011, the number of

5 A UK governmental body responsible for

6 Ellen Bialystok, “Bilingualism: The good,

7 Mandatory fees in the UK, payable by

8 Plaid Cymru is a poli�cal party in Wales

How are P-Celtic and

The relationship can be seen in place names.

Dumbarton is a Goidelic name and Balerno is a Gaelic name and

• be.PRESENT subject.1SG preposition ‘in’ expect.INF

• y fuwch fawr /ə vjux vaur/

• a’ bhò mhòr /ə voː voːr/

• Irish Oibrím in Albain

• Welsh Dw i’n gweithio yn yr Alban

• Gaelic Tha mi ag obair ann an Alba

Goidelic language was the main community language.

Even though Gaelic is an endangered language due to its small number

Ò gur mòr mo chùis mhulaid,

The Celts didn't write their history. They sang it.

“Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,

And this wound up being the perfect moment for taking

I checked my watch, a cheap little analog wrapped just

And I would have run in that moment if he hadn’t been

Dous? languages of the United

of Scots Scotland, you may even know

Scots is the Germanic language

Except that it was.

“If anyone wants to register, he or she should do so immediately.”

“Whenever the first guest arrives, I’ll go to pick them up.”

“Someone left their backpack here.”

blue nuisance Hours of cheery trawling as a professional.

20 Look up and try sklandrausis to find out what an

Stefano Nunes charge in the vocabulary and typical person we stereotype as

Victoria Martinez Mutri

I’d wager we won’t have to wait so much.

What do French People

think about Romania?

Multiple-choice questionnaire results

• Romania and Romanians would be poor

• Romanians would be badly dressed

• Romanians would be disrespectful

• Romanians would be different “from us”

• Bucharest would be an austere city

Thank you for reading!

27 "Licence" is the French equivalent of a bachelor’s degree.

37 To E or not to E: Gender Neutrality in