Molossus (TLL VIII 1388, 9, first instance Lucretius) and bombyx (TLL II 2070, 20, first instance Propertius, though he uses it of silk) are classical.
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Takumi writes biáng.
As discussed before, biáng is a type of noodle popular in Shaanxi.
I’m running out of language videos…
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Who's up for a noun recap?
(I made this in a bit of a hurry~)
#1 2D shapes
shape, circle, oval, triangle, square, rectangle
#2 3D shapes
sphere, spheroid, pyramid, cube, cuboid
#3 Plant stuff
plant, leaf, flower, seed, root
#4 Fruits
fruit, apple, pear, orange, strawberry, banana
#5 Trees
tree, oak, pine, beech, maple, willow
#6 Insects & co.
insect, flea, beetle, fly, spider, scorpion
#7. Small animals
animal, mouse/rat, frog/toad, lizard, fox, racoon
#8. Large animals
sheep, cow, horse, zebra, elephant
#9. Predators
predator, wolf, bear, lion, tiger, crocodile
#10. Sea tetrapods
turtle, iguana, otter, seal, whale
#11. Fish
fish, cod, herring, mackerel, eel, shark
#12. Musical instruments
(musical) instrument, drum, guitar, trumpet, piano, violin
#13. Water formations
water, stream, river, lake, waterfall, sea
#14. Birds
bird, sparrow, pigeon, crow, eagle, ostrich
#15. Flooring
floor, tile, mosaic, carpet, rug, plank
#16. Drinks
drink, wine, cider, beer, juice, milk
#17. Scribal things
book, pen, ink, page, letter, manuscript
#18. Transport
transport , bicycle, car, chariot, aeroplane, ship
#19. Weapons
weapon, sword, axe, spear, gun, bomb
#20. Household objects
kettle, iron, knife, oven, table
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The full title is cutoff, but here it is:
As an American in the UK, I’m learning all sorts of new words! Today I discovered that “queues” can also be called “wait rows!”
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Let’s try this in Latin. Vowel quantity in these answers (usually) unmarked in endings.
#1 shape, circle, oval, triangle, square, rectangle
fórma, -ae; ánus, -i; óvum, -í; triangulum, -i; quadra, -ae; fórma réctangula
#2 sphere, spheroid, pyramid, cube, cuboid
globus, -i; sphaerois, -idis; méta, -ae; 1 cubus, -i; cubois, -idis 2
- Also cone
- Self-coined
#3 plant, leaf, flower, seed, root
grámen, -inis; folium, -ii; flós, -oris; sémen, -inis; rádix, -icis
#4 fruit, apple, pear, orange, strawberry, banana
pómum, -i; malum, -i; pirum, -i; arancium, -ii; arbutum, -i; ariera, -ae 1
- Or banana, -ae
#5 tree, oak, pine, beech, maple, willow
arbor, -oris; quercus, -ús; pínus, -ús/-i; fágus, -i; ácer, -eris; salix, -icis
#6 insect, flea, beetle, fly, spider, scorpion
insectum, -i; púlex, -icis; coleoperum, -i; culex, -i; aránea, -ae; scorpio, -onis;
#7 animal, mouse/rat, frog/toad, lizard, fox, racoon
animalum, -i; mús, -uris; rána, -ae; lacerta, -ae; vulpis, -is; procyon, -onis 1
- From the scientific name, though this is reflected in Italian.
#8 sheep, cow, horse, zebra, elephant
ovis, is; vacca, -ae; equus, i; zebra, -ae; elephas, -antis
#9 predator, wolf, bear, lion, tiger, crocodile
vénátor, -oris; 1 lupus. i; ursus, i; leo, -onis; crocodílus, i
- Technically “hunter”
#10 turtle, iguana, otter, seal, whale
testúdo, -inis; iguana, -ae; 1 lutra, -ae; phóca, -ae; cétus, i
- From the genus name. A more Latin-sounding name would be equána or aquána, though.
#11 fish, cod, herring, mackerel, eel, shark
piscis, -is; gadus, i; clupea, -ae; 1 scomber, -bri; anguilla, -ae; squalus, -i
- From the genus name. In Classical Latin, a clupea was a type of shad.
#12 musical instrument, drum, guitar, trumpet, piano, violin
organum, -i; tympanum, -i; cithara, -ae; cornu, -ús 1, clávile, -is; violína, -ae
- Literally horn. cf. tuba, a long trumpet.
#13 water, stream, river, lake, waterfall, sea
aqua, -ae; rivus, -i; flúmen, -inis; lacus, -ús, cataracta, -ae
#14 bird, sparrow, pigeon, crow, eagle, ostrich
avis, -is; passer, -is; columba, -ae; cornix, -icis; aquila, -ae; strúthiocamélus, -i
#15 floor, tile, mosaic, carpet, rug, plank
solum, -i; later, -is, tapés, -etis; axis, -is;
I can’t push myself to do the final 25 right now.
Today I discovered that “queues” can also be called “wait rows!”
Carlin used to have good collections of things like that 
here is a “rare” example which was not part of his most famous routines that appeared in his specials:
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Why not animale, -is?
orbis, -is is more natural.
Here, you forgot the t after the p. But I think there must be a more natural word for beetles.
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Ah, yeah, I misremembered animalum.
Although the nominative is actually animal, says Wiktionary.
When would we want to use ánus, or orbis, or circulus?
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What’s a Christmas tree in different languages?
Let’s explore~ (with thanks to Glosbe)
| Language | Word |
|---|---|
| Old English | trēo, trēow |
| Middle English | trew, trow etc. |
| Modern English | tree |
| Old Norse, Icelandic | tré |
| Norwegian | tre |
| Danish | træ |
| Dutch | boom |
| German | Baum |
| Gothic | 𐌱𐌰𐌲𐌼𐍃 bagms |
| Irish | crann |
| Welsh | coeden |
| Old / Poetic Latin | arbōs |
| Latin | arbor |
| Italian | albero |
| Siciliann | àrbulu, àrvulu etc. |
| Spanish | árbol |
| Portuguese | árvore |
| French, Catalan | arbre |
| Romanian | arbore |
| Russian | де́рево dérevo |
| Polish | drzewo |
| Czech, Slovak | strom |
| Latvian | koks |
| Lithuanian | medis |
| Hungarian | fa |
| Finnish, Estonian | puu |
| (Modern) Greek | δέντρο déntro, δένδρο déndro |
| Armenian | ծառ caṙ |
| Turkish | ağaç |
| Arabic | شجرة šajara |
| Persian, Urdu | درخت daraxt |
| Sanskrit | वृक्ष vṛkṣá |
| Hindi | पेड़ pēṛ |
| Nepali | रुख rukh |
| Tamil | மரம் maram |
| Telugu | మ్రాను mrānu |
| Tibetan | ཤིང shing |
| Standard Chinese | 木 / ㄇㄨˋ / mù |
| Hokkien | 木 bo̍k |
| Japanese | 木 / き ki (and other readings) |
| Korean | 나무 namu |
| Jeju | 낭 nang |
| Malay. Indonesian | pohon |
| Thai | ต้นไม้ dtôn-máai |
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Wrong. No one calls it “koks”.
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What word do you use?
This is the only option Glosbe gave me, and I checked it against Wiktionary.
“Koks” means “tree”, yes. But for “Christmas tree” we use “winter-fest sprucey”. Yes, it’s that stupid.
Oh and in Latvian – Ziemassvētku eglīte.
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I never actually mean to imply that I was listing tree as a component of Christmas tree.
I was just listing words for tree.
but everyone is confused
“tree” is part of “Christmas tree” in English, but it may has nothing to do with it in other languages
more clearly would be something like:
Since its Christmas today, lets explore word “tree” (from Christmas tree)
*please note that some languages may use completely different words for “tree and Christmas tree”
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True, true. My Anglo mistake.
In other matters, here is a reader for An Icelandic Primer with grammar, notes, and glossary (1895).
Although not stated, this is a primer for Old Icelandic, “between 1200 and 1350”.
This language might also be called Old West Norse or simply Old Norse.
A small table from the second page:
| C/O | - | - | - | - | - | - |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| open | e | ē | o | ō | ö | œ |
| closed | ę | æ | ǫ | – | ǫ̈ | – |
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Another tidbit, this time from Page 17: numbers in Old Norse.
For a more detailed look, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4wGnzp2T2s Numbers in Old Norse, Jackson Crawford
| English | Old Norse |
|---|---|
| 1. one, first | einn, fyrstr |
| 2. two, second | tveir, annarr |
| 3. three, third | þrir, þriði |
| 4. four, -th | fjōrir, fjōrði |
| 5. five, fifth | fimm, fimmti |
| 6. six, -th | sex, sētti |
| 7. seven, -th | sjau, sjaundi |
| 8. eight, eighth | ātta, ātti |
| 9. nine, ninth | nīu, nīundi |
| 10. ten, -th | tīu, tīundi |
| 11. eleven, -th | ellifu, ellifti |
| 12. twelve, twelfth | tōlf, tōlfti |
| 13. thirteen, -th | þrettān, þrettāndi |
| 14. fourteen | fjōrtān |
| 15. fifteen | fimmtān |
| 16. sixteen | sextān |
| 17. seventeen | sjautān |
| 18. eighteen | atjān |
| 19. nineteen | nītjān |
| 20. twenty | tuttugu |
| 21. twenty-one | einn ok tuttugu etc. |
| 30. thirty | þrīr tigir etc. |
| 100. (one / a) hundred | tiu tigir |
| 110. (one / a) hundred and ten | ellifu tigir *1 |
| 120. (one / a) hundred and twenty | hundrað *2 |
| 1200. (one / a) thousand, two hundred | þūsund *3 |
*1 Perhaps the inspiration for Tolkien’s “eleventy-first”, Bilbo’s birthday at the beginning of LOTR.
*2 The “Germanic hundred” represented 120 in Germanic languages. It was written C in manuscripts, just like the “Latin hundred” (100). Eventually the Latin hundred replaced it.
*3 So too, the “Germanic thousand” was 1,200.
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Billy Go’s Beginner Korean Course
Might be decent? Never watched it. There’re another 62 videos in the series so far.
The youtuber himself makes some pretty respectable Korean-related content, so I’d have reasonable hopes.
New video from Satura Lanx’ Latin podcast
And something new from Wikitongues
What’s the word for year in different languages?
| Language | Word (nominative), plural, dual |
|---|---|
| Proto-Germanic | *jērą, - |
| Old Norse | ár, - (definite) / -in (indefinite) |
| Old English | ġēar, - |
| English | year, -s |
| Spanish | año, -os |
| Italian | anno, -i |
| Latin | annus, -i |
| Attic Greek | ἔτος, -η, -ει (étos, -ē, -ei) |
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Today I was reading my bilingual edition of Metamorphoses (Metamorphoses Libri, the Book of Transformations). (Loeb, Metamorphoses Books 7–11, Apuleius; edited & translated by J. Arthur Hanson).
This is an early-first-century Latin story set in Greece, in Thessaly. Early in the book, our hero is transformed by a magic ointment into the form of an ass (donkey); after a series of fortuitous and infortuitous events, he is presented in Book 8 for sale at a market.
He is there purchased by a man named Philebus; along with a group of catamites, they travel the countryside begging in the role of religious mendicants. This name is perhaps a sexual pun, meaning both “lover of youth” and “lover of youths”. Philebus is described as cinaedum et senem cinaedum.
The word cinaedus is a vulgar term which Wiktionary translates as “sodomite, catamite”. Latdict offers the additional senses of “effeminate man, male erotic dancer” and simply “pervert”. Hanson goes for the most general translation: “a pervert, and an old one at that”.
The most interesting part of this scene is a little literary trick available to writers in a gendered language. Philebus is concerned for the safety of a divine statue in his keeping and complains thus:
An me putas, inepte, iumento fero posse deam committere, ut turbatum repente divinum deiciat simulacrum, egoque misera cogo crinibus solutis discurrere et deae meae humi iacenti aliquem medicum quaerere.
egoque means “and I” or “and me”. misera is an adjectve that means “poor, wretched, miserable” and so on. However, misera is a feminine adjective (the masculine form is miser) and Philebus is a male speaker applying the word to himself. As a probable eunuch and so-called cinaedus, this small detail makes his speech sound much more effeminate in a way that cannot be directly translated into English.
A similar effect could be achieved in Japanese, for instance, by having Philebus refer to himself with a feminine pronoun like uchi.
Hanson’s translation of the paragraph runs:
“You fool, do you suppose I could entrust the goddess to an animal who was wild? He might suddenly upset her divine image and throw it off his back, and I would be forced to run around like a poor girl with her hair all over the place and hunt for a doctor for my goddess lying on the ground.”
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One of my mother tongues has no former written system ( Taiwanese Holo, a dialect of Hokkien), the way to learn it would be actually talking to a speaker. It could be written with loaned words of multiple sources (Chinese, Latin script, even Phonetic Symbols, or Japanese kana), a lot of times mixed together.
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