Tag Archives: Afrikaans

Pronunciation tip: “Happy new year” in 27 languages

Posted on December 30, 2024 | Leave a comment

I’m overdue for a pronunciation tip video. Sorry – I’ve been busy doing things that earn money! (Also things that cost money. Travel in particular.) Here’s how to say “Happy new year!” in 27 languages: Afrikaans, Basque, Breton, Chinese (Mandarin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian, and Welsh. And I give a bit of linguistic geekery here and there too.

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7 languages that are like fusion cuisine

Posted on October 31, 2014 | Leave a comment

We tend to think of languages as easily organized into trees of descent: proto-Germanic split into proto-North Germanic, proto-East Germanic, and proto-West Germanic; proto-West Germanic split into various German and Netherland dialects; one of those dialects became English, another Dutch, et cetera. But sometimes languages take a bit from here and a bit from there. It’s like having nasi goreng made with couscous and kielbasa: fusion cuisine! My latest article for TheWeek.com is about seven fun languages that really mix it up. It’s been given the title

How languages are like food

 

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Posted in The Week

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