Night Train to Lisb- I mean Aarhus

The German for 'more' is 'mehr' and every time I see it I think 'ermegerd'...

Gammel Donaldsen havde en gård, Æ, Å, Æ, Å, Ø...

Word time: I asked Astrid what 'fjernelyset' meant. She kept saying something about 'the long lights', 'the lights that are longer than the others'. After a while we worked out that it meant high beams.

Winter, Christmas, and the way Danes talk

Word of the week: Vokse. Means to grow. Must be where we get 'to wax'.

Vinteren er her

The Danish word for 'armour' is 'rustning'. There MUST be some link to the word rust there.

The Linguist is a Spy!

This week I learned the Danish word for hostage is 'gidsel'. Don't ask me how.

Day of FUN!

Interesting Danish word this week: the word for porcupine translates literally as 'cave hedgehog'.

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If you enjoyed the facial hair in this blog video, please sponsor my moustache here. Proceeds to research and treatment of prostate cancer.

Nos Memorare

This week on 'Jordan learns Danish', I learned that they call gypsy toast 'poor knights'.

Winter is coming

I can't remember any of the words I learned in the last fortnight right now. So here's a picture of a polar bear:

A Lannister always pays his tab

I haven't learned any cognates this week, but I did learn that in Danish and Estonian, to call someone 'blue-eyed' is to call them naive. I think it's a great metaphor, does it exist in English? Has anyone heard it used like that? Answers on a postcard.

I wish I was at home for Christmas ... ♪

The band's called Balstyrko, if you would know its name.

Words from the week: The Danish call puffins 'sea parrots' which I think is adorable.
And a Badger is called a 'grævling', pronounced 'growling'. :D

Fuck off back to Legoland

So any towns in England ending in by are Danish settlements. The Danish word for ugly is 'grim'. So who decided to call a place Grimsby? Turns out 'grim' can also mean mask. Which must be where we get 'grimace'.

You tak the high road, I'll tak the bus.

Some etymology I found out analysing some OE text this week:
The OE word for region was "scīre". Shire.
The word for merchant was "cypman". Keep man.
The word for said was "cwaeð". Quoth.
=D

>9000

Supplemental: the blu-tac that holds my posters up took some of the paint off the walls, and Tip-ex is cheaper than paint.

Hjemve

Words I learned this week:
The Russian word for one is 'Odin'. Related to the Norse god maybe? I've already pointed out some Norse influence in Russian in their word for lightning, molniya (cf. mjolnir)
The Dutch word for a match is 'Lucifer', which I think is just a brand name that stuck, something we linguists call semantic broadening. The same reason hoover now refers to any vacuum cleaner. There are more examples in American English, such as Coke, Xerox and Kleenex.

Getting settled

Settle (v.) "come to rest," Old English setlan, from setl "a seat". Sense of "establish a permanent residence" first recorded 1620s; that of "decide" is 1620s. Meaning "reconcile" (a quarrel, differences, etc.) perhaps is influenced by Middle English sahtlen "to reconcile," from Old English saht "reconciliation," from Old Norse satt "reconciliation." Related: Settling. Settled "firmly fixed" is attested from 1550s.

Base established

In case you're wondering why I chose this song, everyone is blonde, and everyone is beautiful.

To Aarhus!

 

Aarhus: The city was mentioned for the first time by Adam of Bremen who stated that "Reginbrand, bishop of the church of Aarhus (Harusa)" participated in a church meeting in the city of Ingelheim in Germany.

During the Middle Ages the city was called Arus, and in Icelandic chronicles, it was known as Áróss. It is a compound of the two words ār, genitive of ā ("river", Modern Danish å) and ōss ("mouth", Modern Danishmunding; in Modern Icelandic this word is still used for "river delta"). The name originates from the city's location around the mouth of the stream Aarhus Å (English: Aarhus River) Å being the Danish word for a small river.

Through regular sound development, Medieval Danish Arus became Aars or Oes, a form which persisted in the dialects of the surrounding parishes until the 20th century. In 1406, Aarhus became prevalent in the written sources, and gradually became the norm in the 17th century. Today, the city is also called "The City of Smiles" among people in Denmark.

Week One Complete

Child = Barn. cf. Bairn?
Expensive = Dyr. cf. Dear?
Water = Vend. cf. Fen?
Nice = Dejligt. cf. Delight?
Cosy = Hygge. cf. Hug?

Taler du bananer?

Etymological fact of the day: The geordie slang word for home, 'yem' comes from the Danish 'hjem'. :)

The penguin has landed

I have no etymology fact for you today. I'm just letting you know the adventure has finally begun! :)

My parole's come through

Hat (n.) Old English hæt "hat, head covering," from Proto-Germanic *hattuz "hood, cowl" (cf. Frisian hat, Old Norse hattr), from PIE root *kadh- "cover, protect" (cf. Lithuanian kudas "tuft or crest of a bird," Latin cassis "helmet"). Now, "head covering with a more or less horizontal brim." To throw one's hat in the ring was originally (1847) to take up a challenge in prize-fighting.

From Russia with Love

Team (n.) Old English team "set of draft animals yoked together," from Proto-Germanic *taumaz (cf. Old Norse taumr, Old Frisian tam, Dutch toom, Old High German zoum, German Zaum "bridle"), probably literally "that which draws," from *taugmaz "action of drawing," from series *taukh-, *tukh-, *tug-, represented by Old English togian "to pull, drag" (cf. tow).

Fortress (n.) early 14c., from Old French forteresse "strong place" (12c.), variant of fortelesse, from Medieval Latin fortalitia, from Latin fortis "strong" + English -ess, a fairly uncommon suffix (duress, largess being other examples).

Anyway, here's the pic:

Germany used Thunder! It's super effective!

Thunder (n.) Old English þunor, cf. Swedish tordön literally means 'Thor's din'.
Another interesting footnote, the Russian word for lightning, 'молния' (molniya) comes directly from Mjolnir, the name of Thor's hammer in Norse mythology. Isn't that cool? :)

Beards, books and boredom

Beard (n.) Old English "beard," from West Germanic *barthaz (cf. Old Frisian berd, Middle Dutch baert, Old High German bart, German bart), seemingly from PIE *bhardh-a-"beard" (cf. Old Church Slavonic brada, Lithuanian barzda, and perhaps Latin barba "beard").

I have a etymological theory regarding beards that I might use in my dissertation.
The sources say the word 'barbarian' comes from the Greek 'barbaroi', meaning anyone who wasn't Greek (mostly the Persians) and that in turn came from 'bar-bar' which was mimicking the language of the savages.
I propose that instead of coming from 'bar-bar', it stems from the Greek 'barba' meaning beard. The Persians were a very hairy people compared to the Greeks, and I propose that 'barbaroi' actually meant 'the bearded ones'.
Where my theory falls down is that the Ancient Greeks were very keen on beards themselves, so perhaps further research is necessary.

Trouble Tea

Tea (n.)
1650s, earlier chaa (1590s, from Portuguese cha), from Malay teh and directly from Chinese (Amoy dialect) t'e, in Mandarin ch'a. First known in Paris 1635, the practice of drinking tea was first introduced to England in 1644.

Upon further research this 'bubble tea' malarkey contains neither bubbles nor tea. It is an anathema to my very fibre and must be stopped. >:(
The shop, NYTea, has the slogan 'Enjoy the new, fresh and urban tea experience.' -_- Fuck off with your hipster drinks and bring me a proper brew!

New Vlog is New

 

So, this is my new vlog.
Heh, vlog. Funny word. A contraction of 'video blog', and 'blog' is itself a contraction of 'web log', and 'log' is a clipping of 'log-book', which is so called because a wooden float at the end of a line was cast out to measure a ship's speed. Ahem.
Anyway, this is how I'll document my experiences abroad to you good people back in the UK. :) Thanks for watching!