Some funny things happen when one tries to straighten out the relationships among these three names for one of the world's most challenging board games. First of all, if I put wéiqí 圍棋 / 围棋, the Chinese name of the game, into Google Translate (GT) and ask it to translate that into Japanese, out comes […]
In case you hadn't heard: "Cambridge Dictionary updates definition of ‘woman’ to include trans women" By Timothy Bella, Washington PostDecember 13, 2022 A few paragraphs excerpted from the article: The Cambridge Dictionary recently updated its definitions for “woman” and “man” to include transgender people, becoming the latest dictionary to formally expand what it means to […]
After uttering that affirmation in response to Peter Grubtal's wish (here) that "the [Butkara] stupa doesn't get destroyed like many other Buddhist relics in that area" — thinking of the Taliban and Bamiyan — I worried that what I said may have been too Christian and Jewish. Upon reflection, however, I realized that nothing could […]
The start of today's 9 Chickweed Lane:
The giraffe is such an outlandish animal that many otherwise sensible people have thought that it must be a combination of several species. From the concept of a giraffe being an amalgam of several animals jointly; compare Persian شترگاوپلنگ (šotorgâvpalang, “giraffe”, literally “camel-ox-leopard”) and Ancient Greek καμηλοπάρδαλῐς (kamēlopárdalis, “giraffe”). Noun زَرَافَة • (zarāfa) f (plural زَرَافَات […]
If you stroll through the grounds of the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania, you may come upon this phenomenal tree:
We've had two consecutive posts on oil-related words (see "Selected readings" below). julie lee made this comment on the first of the two: Old Chinese/Old Sinitic *lew is similar in sound and meaning to Welsh OLEW "oil". [From Middle Welsh olew, form Old Welsh oleu, from Proto-Brythonic *olew, from Vulgar Latin *olevum, from Latin oleum […]
[This is a guest post by Nathan Hopson] If you’re Japanese, chances are it’s the latter. Nekojita (猫舌 lit. “cat’s tongue”) is a phrase in Japanese most commonly used to describe people who can’t or don’t like to eat or drink hot things. The word means both the actual tongue itself and, by extension, a […]
James Millward sent in a very interesting and important communication (copied in full below) touching upon the ethnic composition of what has now become the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) a thousand and more years ago, especially its Turkic and Proto-Turkic components, together with its proto-Mongolic and para-Mongolic congeners. Since it is of crucial significance […]
[This is a guest post by Penglin Wang] The great difficulties we have with trying to study Xiongnu language persist from trying to glean Xiongnu words, especially the glossed ones, in early Chinese sources for comparison in order to know what linguistic affiliation it seems to have in the central Eurasian region. Since these […]
Figuring out the etymologies of words has always been one of my favorite things in life, almost as much as eating flavorful food. All the way back in second grade of primary school, my Mom gave me a Merriam-Webster dictionary, and I treasured it above all my other belongings because of its etymological notes. Much […]
AntC led me down a deep, dark rabbit hole by asking: "Hi Professor Mair, is the Contributing Writer confused, or is it the interwebs?" He was prompted to ask that question by having read the following statement in this article, "Orion’s love affair, Shen Xiu’s long-distance friendship on Taiwan’s winter sky", Taiwan News, by P.K. […]
Here at Language Log, we have shown how the most common word for "lion" in Sinitic, shī 獅, has Iranian and / or Tocharian connections (see "Selected readings"). The etymological and phonological details will be sketched out below. For a magisterial survey, see Wolfgang Behr, "Hinc [sic] sunt leones — two ancient Eurasian, migratory terms […]