by LoveUniHateExams 180 Replies latest jw friends
Some Irish folk speak with such a strong accent that you need subtitles !
North Cork comes to mind, and some of the Dublin folk,but it depends which part of the City. I just love the Irish for the humour in their speech, it just cracks me up !
A lot of them have a lovely gentle sound to their speech, and they all seem to have "kissed the blarney Stone" !
I find the Jamaican dialect is interesting. It's actually more English than many realize. Many of the words are actually contracted forms of English words (e.g. "pon" = upon) and there are a few coined words derived from existing English words (e.g. "backer" from back = behind). But to someone not familiar with the Jamaican accent, it can be difficult at first for these English-derived words to be immediately recognized as being such.
Another interesting thing about the Jamaican dialect is that it contains a lot of sayings and proverb-like idioms that do not literally mean what the English equivalent of the vocabulary would suggest. "Wah you deh pon" is literally: "What are you there upon?" but has the actual dynamic equivalent meaning of "What are you doing". So in addition to learning the vocabulary of words you have to learn the vocabulary of certain whole phrases.
Jamaican dialect reminds me of the fictional language Grounder (or Trigedasleng) from the tv show The 100. Both languages have English derived words and both languages involve the use of proverb-like sayings that have semi-literal meanings.
Here's a quick primer on the language:
"Di cokanat dem spwail"
Love it! ... 'dem' is a postpositional particle used to denote the plural in Jamaican Hinglish.
'Bring di box' is ambiguous - it could mean wan box, tree box, faiv box, eeyat box, etc. If it were many boxes, a Jamaican guy would say 'bring di box dem'.
I used to work as a porter with a couple of Jamaican guys at the Natural History Museum, and one of them did say to me "bring di box dem and dash it away" (take the boxes and throw them out).
Dem is obviously from the Standard English word them. But the way it's used, i.e. the grammar involved, might be from an African language.
Here's a funny thing about Arabic: it is logical in some aspects but batsh1t crazy in others.
A lot of nouns have broken plurals which is another topic altogether but some nouns have sound plurals in both masculine and feminine:
So, mudarris (male teacher) becomes mudarrisoon (male teachers); mudarrisa (female teacher) becomes mudarrisaat (female teachers). There is also a dual so 'two male teachers' is mudarrisaan;' two female teachers' is mudarrisataan.
Adjectives must agree with the noun in terms of number and gender so ...
Al-mudarris taweel - the teacher (m) is tall
Al-mudarrisa taweela - the teacher (f) is tall
Al-mudarrisaan taweelaan - the two teachers (male or one man, one woman) are tall.
Al-mudarrisataan taweelataan - the two teachers (f) are tall.
Al-mudarrisoon taweeloon - the teachers (male or mixed) are tall.
Al-mudarrisaat taweelaat - the teachers (f) are tall.
This may be a lot to take in initially but it makes sense.
Now, here's what doesn't make sense to me, a native English speaker ... the above only applies to nouns referring to humans. To refer to a group of any objects or non-human animals, adjectives must be used in the feminine singular! And not only adjectives but also verbs and pronouns must be used in the feminine singular.
So, the simple sentence hiya jameela can mean, depending on context ...
She is beautiful (talking about a woman or girl, etc.)
It is beautiful (talking about a feminine noun, e.g. a car)
They are beautiful (talking about a group of animals or objects, even if the noun is masculine!).
Fact: It's impossible to say "We're cooking some Beer Can Chicken" without sounding like you're saying "Bacon" with a Jamaican accent.
Fact: It's impossible to say "We're cooking some Beer Can Chicken" without sounding like you're saying "Bacon" with a Jamaican accent - hahahaha!
Yep, you got me ... that's pretty funny XD
I had also learnt my first two groups of broken plurals at around the same time I posted the above comments on sound plurals.
So, qalam (pen) becomes aqlaam (pens); bayt (house) becomes buyoot (houses).
Two things I found particularly interesting:
1. Arabic sometimes makes loan words fit into one of the broken plural patterns. So film becomes aflaam (films); bank becomes bunook (banks). English similarly adapts its loan words - we tend to say 'referendums' and 'stadiums' in everyday speech (not referenda, stadia). We definitely say 'dachshunds' and not Dachshunde.
2. The concept of broken plurals is strange to me, an English speaker, but it kinda introduced me to Arabic tri-literal roots. The three root letters of, say, qalam is q,l,m and this is kept in the plural. The loan word film is treated as if it has three root letters (f,l,m) which are kept in the plural, aflaam, and in the same order.
And now for something very logical yet alien to me at the same time: the root letters have a basic meaning and new words can be made from them by changing vowels inbetween and sometimes adding prefixes and suffixes but the root letters must remain in the same order.
The root letters d,r,s have the meaning of studying. This is shown in the simple past tense: darasa (he studied), darastu (I studied), darasta/i (you studied) ... in the present tense: adrus (I study), tadrus (you study), etc. ... and in the noun dars (lesson). The prefix ma means 'place' so madrasa means school, i.e place of study. The prefix mu means the one doing the verb so mudarris means teacher, i.e. one who causes others to study. Pretty neat, huh?
Just have to give one more example - I'm geeking out here! XD
Root letters k,t,b (writing) gives kataba (he wrote), katabtu (I wrote), kitaab (book), maktab (office/desk) and maktaba (library). I don't know the word for 'librarian' but I expect it to be something like mukaatib.
I can remember only a few more off the top of my head - e.g. khubz (bread) and khubbaaz (baker); muhaasib (accountant) and hisaab (bank account) - but I know matbakh means kitchen. It must mean place where one cooks so t,b,kh must mean cooking. Gotta be, hasn't it?
I love this.
Arabic and Hebrew share similarities.
Arabic and Hebrew share similarities - yes that's right.
There are some similarities in grammar and vocabulary.
Hebrew has three consonant roots too - shalom and salaam mean 'peace' in both languages.
In both languages, possessive pronouns - my, your, etc. - are suffixes, tacked onto the end of the noun.
From what I remember, in Hebrew a way of asking someone how they're doing is ma shlomkha? (literally 'what's your peace?'). Compare this to Arabic ma ismuka? or ma ismak? (what's your name?). In both languages ...
1. the word for 'what' is identical or very similar
2. the verb 'to be' isn't used in the present tense
3. the word for 'your' is tacked onto the end of the noun - shlom-kha, ismu-ka (ism-ak).
Although I have an interest in languages, I'm a beginner really. The following video is of a Palestinian woman and Israeli citizen (Maha Yakoub). Her first language is Arabic but she's also fluent in Hebrew, Italian and English. Her youtube videos taught me the Arabic alphabet. More power to her, I think she's brilliant.
Enjoy!
Thank you.
I recognized some of the Arabic words because, years ago, I spent a little time with the Nation of Islam.
Interesting, too, is that different suffixes are used for male and female.
