Wordplay 1   I’ve come across an online treasure trove of wordplays, claiming to be the world’s largest collection of tongue twisters. It claims to have 2712 entries in 107 languages, from common ones to languages you’ve never heard of. They include primarily tongue twisters, but also include some homonym play, also palindromes (spelled the same forward and backward), and similar things. I’ve skimmed them all (they all have English translations) and have reduced them to a small number that are easily recognizable, understandable (with a bit of help) and most important, doable. It is my plan to scatter them in upcoming series leading up to the Scandinavia trip, and use them as well during the trip, until the supply runs out. I have limited it to tongue twisters and homonym plays, since they work best for our purposes, which emphasize (spoken) language, not the writing system. I’ll also do a bit of academic analysis, not only for the fun of it, but if you see exactly what’s making something difficult to say, concentrating on that point can make it easier. There is only one wordplay involving spelling that I thought was worth repeating here, so I’ll start with it. Virtually everything here will require a lead-in as an explanation. Of course, an explained joke is hardly funny any more, especially if you explain it before telling it, but I still think you’ll enjoy these items.

You know how a dieresis is a spelling device used to show that two vowels are separate. French uses it all the time, including in words having entered English, such as naïve and Aïda. In both those cases the dieresis reminds to separate the A and the I. Most English speakers disregard the dieresis, including in words like coöperate (two separate O’s) and reëlect (two separate E’s).

But Dutch uses it. The Dutch word for sea is (no surprise) zee, as in Zuider Zee or Tappan Zee in the Hudson. The Dutch word for duck is eend (like German Ente). So if you have a sea-duck, you have a zeeëend. Startling to the eye, right?

That’s the only wordplay I’ll use that involves the eye. Everything else will involve opening your mouth and saying something out loud. If you don’t try it, you’ll miss out on the fun, and will also fall behind, since to some extent, some items will be cumulative.

To set the scene, I’m going to start out with two old warhorse tongue twisters in English, the only two in English I’ll use.

The first point is of course that with such wordplay, you have to suspend belief. You can go into your garden and pick peppers, but they cannot logically be already pickled. Tongue twisters and other wordplay almost always involve entering the world of the surreal. (Frankly, I’m not too sure there is such a thing as a sea-duck, either.)

In any case, the above is not much of a tongue twister. What’s tricky about it? A lot of words start in P. At best it’s a low-level tongue twister, not much of a challenge.

It does show something that is often typical, though. It says everything necessary in the first sentence. But why stop? So it says it all again in the second sentence, but backwards. This happens quite frequently. Now this one’s more of a challenge:

Now we’re getting somewhere. This one is tricky. Analyze it, and figure out exactly why. As I see it, it’s tricky because it doesn’t just repeat a P again and again. Instead, it keeps on contrasting two different sounds, S and SH, making it much more of a challenge. It does so in an irregular pattern: SH-S, S-SH, S-SH.

We’re going to see over time a variety of wordplays in numerous languages. I will help with pronunciation where needed (it isn’t always needed), but you have to keep one thing in mind when hopping from language to language, and it involves final –e. Speakers of English are used to ignoring that writing symbol. A word like “rise” has two vowels, but you don’t say anything after the S. This is equally true about French. As a matter of fact, a Germanic language like English derives this spelling peculiarity from French. Anyway, if you see a French word like the city of Lille, the E “isn’t there”, and it’s pronounced LEEL.

But in other languages, final –e is most definitely “there”. In Germanic languages it will be pronounced –uh, like German Fische (fish) is FISH-uh and Dutch deze (these) is DAY-zuh. In Italic (Latinate) languages it will be “eh” as in Spanish olé and Italian Firenze (Florence) fi-REN-tseh.

The first non-English tongue twister will be in German. Fritz is a common boy’s name. If he’s Fritz from the Fischer family, he’s Fischers Fritz. Let’s then talk about fresh fish, which is frische Fische (remember those E’s). What does Fritz like to do? Fish for them:

If you have trouble at first, then analyze the sentence. What makes it tricky? Just that everything starts with an F? If not, then what? If you can spot the problem that makes it a tongue twister, the result will come more easily.

The problem is the R. Every word starts with either FI or FRI. Moreover, they alternate perfectly, even better than with “seashells” above. If you concentrate on putting an R in, then leaving it out, you’ve got the problem licked.

This one has something in common with Peter Piper, and that is, if it’s fun to say once, then it’s more fun to say again, but backwards. Here’s the whole thing, and the alteration with or without the R is maintained perfectly throughout:

Red Hook   There are two new travel developments in the transportation world. Although I’m sorry to see the first one happen, I’m very glad to see the second one. As it works out, I’ll experience both of them within ten days of each other in July.

Arriving or leaving New York harbor has to be one of the major travel experiences possible. Maybe Sydney is special, and sailing down the Elbe from Hamburg perhaps, but still, the huge New York harbor is unique. New York Bay is hourglass-shaped. Ships arrive between Sandy Hook (great beaches) in New Jersey and Coney Island in Brooklyn to enter Lower New York Bay. Moving along, Staten Island and Brooklyn come closer and closer together to form the Narrows, which most people feel is really the harbor entrance. The Verrazzano Narrows bridge crossing the Narrows makes it feel like just that much more of a gateway you’re entering. The two towers of the bridge are so tall that they are five inches further apart at the top than at the bottom—because of the curvature of the earth! [Beverly and I took pictures of the bridge under construction in the 1960’s from the Staten Island ferry showing towers and cables--but no roadway yet.]

After the narrows, on the left, Staten Island pulls away, then comes the strait called Kill Van Kull, then Bayonne, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, then the rest of the New Jersey shore. After the Narrows on the right, the Brooklyn side, is another peninsula called Red Hook, with Buttermilk Channel separating it from Governor’s Island. Beyond that on the right is the East River with the Brooklyn Bridge, Lower Manhattan, and the West Side of Manhattan.

Arrivals are early in the morning nowadays, and it’s a problem at 6:30 to finish packing and grabbing a bite of breakfast before disembarking. What’s really spectacular and enjoyable are the departures from Midtown, when the sights are described on loudspeakers and flutes of champagne are for sale as you sail south past the Statue of Liberty and through the Narrows.

Although in past times ships docked all over the harbor, that has become more restricted. For freight, containerization has made all the difference. Most freighters sail up Kill Van Kull to Port Newark or Port Elizabeth. I don’t think there are any commercial piers left in Manhattan at all, so images of Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront” are now more historical than one may imagine. Where there were piers in Chelsea is now the Chelsea Piers sports complex and film studios. Battery Park City, where I live, is a landfill extension of Manhattan to the pier line, where piers used to be.

For passenger shipping, different companies used to dock in various locations, some in Hoboken and elsewhere in New Jersey, some in Chelsea, some in Midtown. I remember as late as the 1960’s driving south on the Henry Hudson Parkway, and, on leaving the park area, the first docks you would see on the right were for the Swedish-American Line at about 57-59th Street.

That all disappeared shortly afterwards. It was thought that passenger ships were dinosaurs, and all those private docks closed down. The City refurbished several piers around 53-55th Street in Midtown and called it the Passenger Ship Terminal, for whatever few passenger ships still came into port. That was the period when the Queen Elizabeth 2 appeared, and everyone thought it was a big mistake and waste of money to have built the ship. Things got even worse. Instead of sailing to the Caribbean from New York, people would fly to Puerto Rico or Florida to start sailing from a warmer climate. The outlook became bleak.

But of course, that all fortunately turned around. People now love to go on cruises, also Atlantic crossings, and passenger shipping is now thriving in New York. Ships go up and down past my windows all the time, amazingly, even in the winter more and more. But it’s all that good fortune that’s causing a problem. First, there are too many ships now for the 3-4 slips at the Passenger Ship Terminal, which is, shall we say, showing its age. Also, ships are getting bigger and bigger, and the Queen Mary 2, when it docks in Midtown, sticks way out into the river. What I’m about to describe is due to all this prosperity.

For some time now, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises ships no longer dock in Manhattan. Entering the Narrows, they veer to port (left) and dock in Bayonne NJ. I understand a big advantage there is supposedly a large parking lot. If arriving or departing passengers see the Statue of Liberty, it would be from the back. Perhaps connections westward are convenient, either driving or to Newark Airport, but if you want to go to Manhattan, you have a bit more travel ahead of you.

And then there’s Cunard. I first heard the rumor over a year ago, and now it’s happening. Four Cunard ships, including the QM2 and QE2, are going to start docking in Red Hook in Brooklyn this month. This means that arriving ships will veer to starboard (right) after the Narrows and not go much further. Fortunately, the view from Red Hook to the Statue of Liberty should be rather nice, but distant, across the Upper Bay, as long as it isn’t blocked by Governor’s Island. This means that the spectacular departures down the side of Manhattan and across the Upper Bay will be replaced by just a quick dash out the Narrows.

What this reminds me of is this: a number of guests arrive at your house for dinner. Most go all the way in to the living room and dining room, but two hardly go past the front door. One sits to the left and one to the right of the entrance. Of course, when it’s time to leave, they’re the first ones out the door, too.

I understand the terminal in Red Hook is going to be very nice, assuming it’s finished in time. There has always been sort of a large marina there called Atlantic Basin. The QM2 will be docking at Pier 12, one of three piers there. It will leave by sailing to port (left) into Buttermilk Channel to avoid Governor’s Island, and then straight out the Narrows. I understand that Red Hook, which had become a somewhat grungy neighborhood with the decline of the shipping industry, is now on the upswing, as it gentrifies with hotels, new restaurants, shops, and the like being opened. The Atlantic Basin facility is apparently going to be known as the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, and the Manhattan one, also due for upgrading, will be now known as the New York Cruise Terminal. [Brooklyn lost its independence in 1898 with the formation of Greater New York. Do the very distinct names of these two Cruise Terminals now portend a divorce, tacitly implying that Brooklyn is no longer “married” to New York (Manhattan)? Well, I suppose not. But do remember that an independent Brooklyn would be the fourth largest city in the United States, following (a smaller) New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Always keep in mind that New York as we know it today is so large because it’s a merger of a pair of twin cities.]

Here, too, transportation will be a problem, since Red Hook is not a standard taxi neighborhood like Midtown Manhattan is. I read online that Cunard is arranging with limo services to help with arriving passengers. There is no nearby subway either, not that one with luggage would normally want to do that, but you might recall, that just last summer, coming back from around the world by rail, I purposely took the unusual step of walking from the QM2 several blocks to take the subway home, to complete the rail trip wit--more rail. That wouldn’t be possible any more.

The Queen Mary 2 will arrive in Red Hook, Brooklyn, for the first time this month, on April 15. I’ve read online that some passengers are grumbling that they’re taking their first cruise into (or out of) New York and won’t be arriving in Manhattan.

Actually, as it turns out, the distance is closer for me. Taking a taxi from Midtown along the river to where I live is a straight shoot south, maybe for 20 minutes. Red Hook is actually only a third the distance, but a taxi then has to get into the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, which could have traffic problems. Actually, Red Hook borders the tunnel, as does where I am in Battery Park City. I suppose it’s just the psycological distance that makes the difference.

You should know more about the area. If you picture the western shore of Brooklyn, it looks like the silhouette of a very pregnant woman. Coney Island in the south is her (clown) shoes; her pregnancy shows where Brooklyn reaches out to Staten Island at the Narrows; her bust is Red Hook; her head is Downtown Brooklyn in the north, facing Manhattan.

When you look at the name Red Hook, and wonder where it came from, does a light turn on? Especially considering the history of the Hudson Valley? It looked suspicious to me, I checked, and of course it’s Dutch, Roode Hoek (ROH-duh HUWK). When discussing the Valley, I mentioned that President Martin Van Buren’s hometown upstate is Kinderhook, or Children’s Corner, which would have been originally Kinderhoek. It’s amazing how the Dutch word hoek is always mistranslated. It means corner, including a “corner” of land you have to sail around. In the Netherlands, ships sailing to Rotterdam enter the river at a place called Hoek van Holland, where the land juts out a bit. It would mean “Holland Corner”, but it’s inevitably translated “Hook of Holland” in English.

Brooklyn’s “pregnancy” at the Narrows was originally named Geele Hoek (KHAY-luh HUWK) “Yellow Hook” because of the yellow sand found there and because it was a sort of blockage you had to sail around. Similarly, Brooklyn’s “bust” was named Roode Hoek because of the red sand found there. [Red Hook, way in this northern part of Brooklyn, is part of the area known, surprisingly, as South Brooklyn, because it was originally the southern part of the town of Breukelen, while there was just countryside further to the south, in what is now southern Brooklyn. But nevertheless, today South Brooklyn is in North Brookyn.]

However, while there is still a Red Hook, there is no longer a Yellow Hook, and the reason why gives insight into human nature. In the mid-1800’s, when the Yellow Hook area was still relatively rural, there was a number of yellow fever epidemics, and yellow fever was on everybody’s mind. The people living in Yellow Hook decided that the word “yellow” had become unsavory. Who’d want to buy land and settle in a place that reminded you of yellow fever, whether there was any there or not? So in 1853 the name Yellow Hook was changed to Bay Ridge, for the slight rise in land overlooking the bay at the Narrows. Although I feel it’s a shame to have lost a historic name, especially one that neatly made a pair of “hooks” in Brooklyn, I’ve always felt that the new choice of Bay Ridge is one of the most beautiful names in the area, and it’s a beautiful neighborhood, right underneath the Verrazano.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof   Although I’m not happy about Cunard leaving Manhattan, at least it stayed in the city, and shouldn’t be to hard for me to reach. The other change, though, I find very pleasing. Instead of ships, this one involves rail.

As rail developed in the 1800’s, it was done by private companies. Each company would often build its own terminal in a city, which was great if you were changing trains within that company, but if you wanted another, you had to change terminals. In the US, Chicago, a huge rail hub, was perhaps the worst example of that. In the heyday of rail travel it had numerous stations circled around the Loop. I remember when we got married in Minneapolis, we took the (still pre-Amtrak) train to New York, and in Chicago, we had to get all our luggage, which included wedding presents, off one train, into a taxi, and off at another terminal. I remember reading about a Chicago photographer in the 20’s and 30’s who regularly took pictures and movies of all the movie stars going between New York and Los Angeles as they transferred terminals in Chicago. I remember seeing a clip he took of Laurel and Hardy cavorting for the camera while doing this. With the decline of rail travel and the coming of Amtrak, all passenger services are now consolidated in Union Station, and others are just for local commuter rail, or serve other purposes.

Boston has the major South Station (Back Bay Station is just an earlier stop for trains going here) and the smaller North Station. When the Big Dig was being built for auto traffic, it was hoped that a rail connection between the stations would be included, to no avail, so to this day, if, arriving at South Station you want to proceed to Maine, you take a taxi to North Station.

New York has the palatial Grand Central Station, always a symbol of a hub of activity (“it’s like Grand Central Station in here!!”). It served the New York Central (also New Haven), but is now only for commuter trains. Pennsylvania Station is Amtrak’s main station here, and its busiest station in the country. It’s easy to see why Penn Station was chosen over Grand Central, which is actually Grand Central Terminal. It’s a dead-end. Penn Station is a real station, with pass-thru service. Although New Jersey service from under the Hudson, and Long Island service from under the East River, do terminate here, through Amtrak service between Boston and Washington is quite normal.

London has a profusion of stations, all pointing to the center of the city. They have now built ThamesLink, an underground north-south connector, and are discussing an east-west connector. Paris has a circle of stations as well. When Beverly and I came in from the Channel Islands on our way to Rome, we had to unload at Gare de Montparnasse, take a taxi (with the wheelchair, of course) across town to the Gare de Bercy, which is behind the Gare de Lyon. (Actually, I had a nice chat in French with the woman taxi driver.) There is talk that when enough high-speed TVG lines are built, they may one day converge at a unified point to the east of Paris, instead of going into various in-town stations.

Moscow has a profusion of stations, so does Vienna. The cleverest solution I’ve always liked was what Brussels did. Like Boston, it’s main station is Zuid/Midi (South) but Noord/Nord (North) is almost as important. Right after World War II it did build an underground connection between them, with a Centraal/Centrale (Central) station in the middle of town, like a subway stop. Now all long-distance trains leave from the OPPOSITE station from what you’d think. For instance, trains going south to Paris start at North, then Central, then South, for maximum urban service, and vice versa.

This now brings us to Berlin, and to Germany in general. As I’ve said earlier, everyone knows the word Bahn because of Autobahn. I also said that Eisenbahn means literally Iron Road. In addition, I said that Bahn was so associated with rail travel that one can ask of you’re taking the Bahn or the Autobahn and it makes complete sense.

The Bahn stops at a Bahnhof, which literally means “rail-yard”, but actually just refers to the station itself. One word for head is Haupt, and just as you can talk of a headmaster or a head office in English, the main station in town is called the head station, that is, Hauptbahnhof. All German cities with one exception have a Hauptbahnhof (abbreviated Hbf). I’ll remind that when Beverly and I were going from Budapest to Amsterdam (Reflections 2004 Series 13), we had to change trains in München (Munich) before the overnight to Amsterdam. We had a two-hour layover in the Hauptbahnhof there and ate a Bratwurst and Löwenbräu (unfortunately from a can). It was Beverly’s last meal in Germany. Another major Hauptbahnhof is the one in Hamburg, also Frankfurt, also Köln (Cologne).

You will have noticed a name missing here. Berlin, like London and Paris, has never had a Hauptbahnhof. One of the first lines built in Berlin was to the little town of Lehrte near Hannover (why just to there, I don’t know), so in Berlin there was the Lehrter Bahnhof. A major station leading to the south to Sachsen-Anhalt was the Anhalter Bahnhof, a major prewar meeting place. Nearby was another station for the Dresdner Bahn. The stations were as numerous as in London, Paris, or Moscow.

But of course, Berlin had a different fate. While other cities are now trying to connect their numerous old stations, all but one of Berlin’s stations were bombed out during the war. It has no big rail stations to connect. They are all a part of the past. It is of course ironic that wartime destruction simplified Berlin’s choices. You don’t have to try to tear down or abandon historic stations if wartime destruction has already done that for you.

There was one saving grace in the way Berlin rail had been built. As you know, Berlin has the S-Bahn, which is an elevated urban rail system (really quite unobtrusive), and it runs in a very major route east-west through the city. During the division of Berlin, this east-west mainline was the route for outsiders to visit East Berlin, taking this train to the Friedrichstrasse station. [Berlin Transport’s website refers to its S-Bahn as “urban rail” and the U-Bahn as its “metro”. Together, the two offer an excellent way to get around town. Also, more and more cities are developing S-Bahn systems out to neighboring cities. Mainz, and Wiesbaden across the Rhine, are now both part of the Frankfurt S-Bahn system.]

The only station not destroyed in the war was the former Schlesischer Bahnhof (Silesian Station), renamed Ostbahnhof (East Station). It lies astride this main east-west route, and was the main station in East Berlin. As a matter of fact, at one point the easterners tried calling it their Hauptbahnhof. There was no big station in West Berlin. All trains arriving in West Berlin just stopped at S-Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten, or Bahnhof Zoo for short. Trying to think of an equivalent in New York, it’s as if there were no rail stations here, and all Amtrak trains had to stop instead at the Brooklyn Bridge subway station. What confusion that would be.

When I left Berlin last summer for Paris I got on at Ostbahnhof on this east-west rail route, passing through Friedrichstrasse and stopping at Bahnhof Zoo, before continuing to points west. But everything’s about to change.

Rail planners took a lemon and decided to make lemonade out of it. I’ve been following the progress online for several years now, and it’s about to become reality. I find it immensely exciting.

The east-west route runs just north of the center of the city. Just west of the Friedrichstrasse station a new station is being built straddling this main line. It’s located very close to where Lehrter Bahnhof used to be, but it’s now being called Berlin Hauptbahnhof. It’s got a beautiful glass roof and has connections to nearby government buildings. But this is really not the main point.

Just west of Unter den Linden, the Hotel Adlon, Pariser Platz, Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichstag Building lies Tiergarten Park. For some time now, a major north-south tunnel has been under construction under the park, the Tiergartentunnel. Part of it is for auto traffic, so cars can avoid crowding the streets around the old city, but most of it is meant to connect all the traditional north-south rail lines. Where this tunnel passes underneath the Hauptbahnhof will be one of the most major rail connections in Europe. East-west lines will cross under the glass roof above ground as they do now. Below that will be a concourse level, and below that will be all the north-south lines.

This is a major, major change. It is being rushed to completion just before the World Cup comes to Germany this summer. A huge change in the rail schedules is now being planned to take effect on Sunday, May 28. It will not only affect routes within Germany, but across Europe.

Although the word “tief” means deep (and is related to it—watch out if someone warns “Das Wasser ist tief!”), it is also used to mean “lower level”. I looked up online rail schedules before and after the changeover date. Trains arriving before go to Berlin Zoo. Those arriving after go to Berlin (tief). “Hauptbahnhof” is just understood!

I’ve read online that the construction people have put up some joke signs. One points north to Stockholm, and one points south to Kairo. This just shows the exhuberance that’s being felt. Trains can’t cross the Baltic north to Stockholm, and connections south to Cairo are just as improbable. But there never has been a train from Berlin across the Alps to, say, Rome. That could now be a possibility. And we’re talking high-speed. The four-hour trip to Hamburg is already down to 90 minutes.

There is already an S-Bahn rail ring around Berlin. Trains coming from each direction will make a stop at the edge of town before coming to the Hauptbahnhof. This is similar to how Boston trains stop at Back Bay Station first on their way to South Station, how trains coming into Grand Central stop at 125th Street first, and how Long Island Rail Road trains coming into Penn Station stop at Jamaica in Queens first.

This is, of course, more than I can resist. I am spending only three nights in Germany, one in Lübeck and two in Hamburg, before sailing on the Mary. I want to quickly re-visit those cities, as well as Bremen, all of which are very close to each other. But I am going to take a half day to take the 90-minute run to Berlin just to take a thorough look-around at the new Berlin Hauptbahnhof, then 90-minutes back. (Hamburg trains stop in Spandau at the edge of Berlin, coming and going.) I’m sure I can write on the laptop while underway, so there will be no time lost. Service is frequent, maybe half-hourly, and I was very pleased to note that the train I’m planning on taking back from Berlin to Hamburg will have started out early that morning in Hungary, in Budapest, stopping in Bratislava (Slovakia), Prague (Czech Republic), Dresden, Berlin (tief), Hamburg. Multiple long-distance routes are not only coming back to Berlin, but are being considerably extended.

The QM2 starts arriving in Red Hook on April 15. Just 43 days later on May 28, Berlin Hauptbahnhof opens and trains start arriving at Berlin (tief). I am happy to be experiencing both of these changes when within 10 days of each other, running over to Berlin from Hamburg and then sailing from Hamburg on the Mary. It will be an interesting end to an interesting trip.

Wordplay 2   Let’s move from tongue twisters to homonym plays, and let’s move to French, since that’s particularly rich in homonyms. The French word for “green”, related to the English “verdant”, is vert, pronounced VAIR. The word for “towards” is vers, prononced VAIR. The word for “glass” is verre, pronounced VAIR. Last but not least, the word for “worm” is ver, pronounced VAIR. So if you rather surreally wanted to say in French “The green worm goes toward the green glass”, you’d have:

Say it a few times. It’s easy.

We’ve had a few Germanic languages, Dutch, English, and German. Along with French, now let’s try another Italic (Latinate) language, Italian. You’ll need a buildup. You know how to pronounce pizza, so you can now generalize what ZZ is in Italian. Keep that in mind when you talk about a piece of pizza: un pezzo di pizza. Now let’s move on to a madman: pazzo. Rag is pezza, and this madman must be a ragpicker. A madman of rags is a pazzo di pezza. He seems to have a well, which is a pozzo. Finally this piece of pizza is in the well and it stinks: puzza. Here’s the whole thing, with the English as well. (Che is prounounced KAY.)

Analysis here is simple. We have a structure of P_ZZ_ in a number of words, which is really not overly difficult to pronounce. Although the last blank gets filled with only O or A, the first blank fills with all five possible vowels, which is the spectacular feature here.

One more easy one in Italian. Remember, E at the end is as in oLE. Also all I’s are as in SKI.

Here every word has the combination T + R, and always in that order, too. The difficulty comes in whether they are next to each other or if something else is in between, and it keeps on varying.

After some Germanic and Italic examples, let’s try some of what I call Russic (Slavic) examples. If you think I’ll start with Russian, you’re wrong. How about some Bulgarian? I found this one in Bulgarian online. You don’t know Bulgarian? That’s OK, neither do I. But why should that stop us? The English translation was included in that website, and among all the hard ones, this one was easy for me, and will be for you, to figure out. A major point I’m trying to make here is the similarities between related languages. Bulgarian is written in Cyrillic, and in case your Cyrillic is rusty from last summer, I’ll transliterate the text into Roman.

Clearly here we’re flipping R’s and L’s, usually around an A. But like in the tigers above, in one instance the A comes before them instead of between them. Now it could have been easier by the names having been made Karl and Karla, but why spoil the fun?

Just in case you really do need your fix of Russian, try this short one:

From just two words we can learn so much. Here are comments on pronunciation, then vocabulary, then grammar.

Both words end in an L, but the л in the first word has the soft sign ь after it (transliterated as an apostrtrophe), meaning that this L has a blended LY quality, and therefore differs from the L at the end of the second word.

Note for future discussion that the unstressed O is pronounced A.

One of the two French words meaning “word” is “parole”. A person noting down les paroles d’une chanson, is noting down the words of a song. If you are given someone’s parole d’honneur, it’s a word of honor. Words can easily leap groups. This word from the Italic (Latinate) group has crossed into the Germanic, and also the Russic (Slavic) language groups. English is unique in having borrowed the word to describe what a prisoner leaving jail early is doing, going on parole, presumably based on the “word of honor” idea. The other Germanic languages use it to mean “password”: German Parole, Swedish paroll, Dutch parool. Het Parool is the name of a leading Dutch newspaper. As noted above, Russian uses the word to mean password as well.

Russic (Slavic) languages, and many others, never developed articles (the, a/an) as did Germanic and Italic, which indicates the essential uselessness of these words. They are standardly dropped in English anyway in headlines as being useless space-wasters. A headline might say “Dog Bites Man in Park” instead of “A Dog Bit a Man in the Park”, and it’s perfectly understandable, in about half as many words. This “headline style” in English is essentially the normal style in Russic (Slavic) languages.

What is much more notable about Russian is that, although it does have a word like English is, German ist, French est, namely есть (YEST’), it is usually not used, as the example above shows, as being totally unnecessary. In writing, a hyphen is usually used in its place. “Chair - in kitchen and coat - on hook”, which is how Russian would say “The chair is in the kitchen and the coat is on the hook”, is as perfectly understandable as the earlier example, and gets it said in half as many words. Now say again “The password is eagle” in half as many words: Пароль - орёл.

Language Families   Most people are at least somewhat interested in family history. I have two groups of friends who do extensive geneology to find out their family background. But most people would just shrug their shoulders if asked about what family their language belongs to. Yet this information doesn’t have to be researched, since it’s all been figured out already. All we need to do is spread the word.

A language family is a group of related languages, which is then divided into subfamilies, just like families of people (great-great-grandpa, several uncles, all the cousins). Actually, the image of a clan would not be out of line here. Another language family would be like another clan, living elsewhere.

The largest language family in the world is Indo-European. The name tells you its home base covers not only Europe, but also India. It is so large because it includes English, French, Spanish, Russian, and many other major languages, which have spread well beyond the home base. You really must visualize a pie chart here. Indo-European takes up about half the pie. Now that’s a big family.

The second-largest piece of the pie is taken up by the Sino-Tibetan family, including all the variations of Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese), as well as Tibetan, Burmese, and Thai. There are a lot of Chinese, and this family takes up a full quarter of the pie. Just two families, and ¾ of the pie is already gone.

Since there are about 100 language families in the world, that last quarter of the world’s population has many subdivisions, a number of which are larger, but most very small.

For the sake of (pseudo) completeness, I’ll mention these: Malayo-Polynesian languages spread from Madagascar through Southeast Asia to Hawaii and Easter Island. Afro-Asiatic (Semitic) languages include Arabic and Hebrew. Caucasian languages include Georgian and Chechen (in Chechnya). Dravidian languages include Tamil in India. Austroasiatic languages include Vietnamese and Khmer (in Cambodia). Niger-Congo languages include Swahili and Zulu. Experts disagree where Japanese and Korean fit in.

I have a special purpose in mentioning these two quite small families: the Uralic family, centered in the Ural Mountains, and the Altaic family, centered in the Altai Mountains of Central Asia. I’ll get back to these later.

Those are the larger of the many families in that last quarter of the pie. Australia alone has 250 languages—in 23 families! It is also just a bit funny when, talking about the Americas, someone talks about an “Indian” word. Not only are there many “Indian” languages, there are many families involved. Just a sample: Iroquoian (Cherokee, Mohawk), Athapascan (Navajo, Apache), Algonquian (Cree, Mohican), Siouan (Sioux, Dakota [Lakota]), Eskimo-Aleut, Aztecan, Mayan, and lots more.

The estimate is that there is something just under 7,000 languages in the world. A very few cannot be connected to any other known language, let alone language family. These are called language isolates. The best known of these is Basque, in northern Spain and southwestern France.

Since the discussion will center on European languages (plus their spreading to the Americas and beyond), you might want to retain the concept of Indo-European, the two “mountain” families of Uralic and Altaic, plus the language isolate of Basque.

To discuss European languages (and before we get back to the tongue twisters we can practice them with), it would be useful to extend the family metaphor and picture a village. Great-Great-Grandpa Indo-European founded the village, and now a number of Uncles (sub-families) have homes there, some large, some small. Some Uncles have lots of kids (languages), some have only one. Within each sub-family, the languages are closely related, like siblings, and related like cousins to the languages in the other sub-families.

There are five small dwellings in this town. There would have been four large estates, but one uncle moved his family beyond the mountains, so there are only three estates left. There are also several immigrants.

Uncle Greek has a small house, with only one child, Greek.
Uncle Albanian has a small house, with only one child, Albanian.
Uncle Armenian has a small house, with only one child, Armenian.
Uncle Baltic has a small house, but has two kids, Latvian and Lithuanian.
Uncle Celtic has a tragic story. He once had a huge estate that included huge swaths of Western Europe, but over time, Uncle Germanic and Uncle Italic took over more and more of his land, and he was pushed almost into the sea. His small house is hardly more than a shack, considering that the point had been reached where not even one of his kids could assume their own identities, having to speak either Germanic (English) or Italic (French). With the establishment of the Irish Republic, finally Irish Gaelic could come back into its own. More recently, Welsh and Scottish Gaelic have made a slight comeback, as has Breton in Brittany, in France. But still, all of Uncle Celtic’s kids remain on life support in the intensive care unit, and all of them continue using English as well, or for Breton, French.

Those are the five small houses in town. To visualize the disparity between the five small houses and the four big estates, picture another pie chart. Divide it almost equally in four, but not quite, with each piece covering maybe 23-24% instead of a full quarter. The miniscule slivers of about 1-2% are what these five uncles just discussed have in the way of percentages of speakers of all of the Indo-European languages.

So who are the four uncles with big estates? Well, first there’s the one who moved out of town, Uncle Indo-Iranian, who moved out of Europe, to India and Iran. The three big ones left in town are Uncle Germanic, Uncle Italic (Latinate) and Uncle Russic (Slavic). Yet with the huge disparities in size, there are still nine uncles all told, in other words, Albanian, with only one descendant is on an equal footing with Germanic, with many descendants.

I mentioned some immigrants living in the village. Just as the large Indo-Iranian subfamily moved out of Europe into Asia, conversely some “children” of Asian families immigrated into Europe and settled among the locals. They are clearly not related to the locals. In the Ural mountains is a language family called, as mentioned above, Uralic languages. Although most of their “children” stayed home, a pair of twins emigrated to Europe and settled down facing each other across the Gulf of Finland, Finnish and Estonian. They are similar enough to each other so that, when Beverly and I were in Estonia in 1972 during the Soviet period, we found out that although Estonians couldn’t get uncensored news locally, they could receive Finnish television and radio across the Gulf, and could understand Finnish sufficiently to get the gist of the news.

Before continuing, it’s worthwhile pointing out the accuracy and inaccuracy of polital groupings. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have all been at various times under Russian domination. Also, Finland was for centuries part of Sweden. This has resulted in confusion as to where these peoples fit in. Finland is not part of Scandinavia, even though some people like to include it. There is no basis for doing so, other than it once belonged to Sweden. Also, there is a tendency to include only Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as the “Baltic Republics”. This is incomplete. All four of these countries are logically the Baltic Republics. Beyond that, these four countries can logically be further grouped together, so that Finland and Estonia would be a pair, as being “immigrant” Uralic languages and cultures, and Latvia and Lithuania would be a pair, as being the only two members of the Baltic sub-family of Indo-European.

There is one more “immigrant” Uralic language in Europe, Hungarian. It is apparently only distantly related to Finnish and Estonian.

In Central Asia, in the vicinity of the Altai mountains, is the Altaic family, which includes Kazakh and others, but notably includes Turkish. The Turks notably once had occupied all of the Balkans, but now are located just in the small corner of Europe around Istanbul, but that makes them the only “immigrant” Altaic language in Europe.

Finally, there is the language isolate of Basque. It is not known if it is an immigrant to Europe, or was there from before the time Indo-European surrounded it in the form of French and Spanish.

It has been suggested that the original Indo-European language might have been spoken in the region of Lithuania. This was done by tracing roots in many languages backward, and finding that there was considerable cold-weather vocabulary, such as a common word for snow, and also tracing the fact that there were names of animals, trees, and plants that only are common to that area. Therefore, since the other subgroups stayed within Europe, it has to be said that the huge Indo-Iranian group was the one that moved “out of town”. Just a bit of discussion on that subfamily, since the concentration here will remain on those that stayed in Europe.

First the Indic sub-branch of the Indo-Iranian group. The ancient (dead) language of India is Sanskrit. Its modern heir is Hindi, which is written in the Sanskrit alphabet when used by Hindus. When virtually the same language is used by Muslims, it is written in the Arabic alphabet and is called Urdu instead. I know of exactly two words in Sanskrit, which are both very illustrative. They both are words describing family members, bhratar and pitar. Any ideas?

Bhratar means, and is related to, English brother, Dutch broeder, German Bruder, Swedish broder, Russian брат/brat, and with change of initial consonant, Latin frater, French frère, Italian frat(ello).

Pitar might not be as obvious at first, but it’s the same as Latin/Greek pater, Spanish/Italian padre, French père, and again with initial consonant change, English father, Swedish fater, Dutch vader, German Vater (FA-ter).

The purpose here is to show two things. Not only is there a marked similarity in these European “cousin” languages, but we also do have a few cousins over in South Asia.

Curiously, one of those “cousins” came back to Europe in the 14-15C via North Africa and the Balkans in the form of Romany, the language of the Roma and Sinti, the peoples who are inaccurately referred to in English as Gypsies.

[A digression here. There are two foreign names applied to the Roma and Sinti. One derives from the thought that, having passed through North Africa, they were really Egyptians. This is the origin of English Gypsy, Spanish Gitano, and one of the two French words, Gitane, which is also a famous brand of French cigarettes. The other designation, as I discover online, has an unclear origin, perhaps from Greek, perhaps from one of two possible Persian sources (see below). They are used in many languages, and indicates a common borrowing, not a common origin: GERMANIC German Zigeuner, Dutch zigeuner, Swedish zigenare; ITALIC the other French name, Tsigane, Italian Zingaro, Portuguese Cigano, Romanian Ţigan; RUSSIC Polish Cygan, Russian Цыган (Tsygan), Bulgarian Циганин (Tsiganin); GREEK Greek τσιγγάνος (tsinganos); URALIC Hungarian cigány. The first sound in these words is TS (except in the Dutch, Swedish, and Portuguese words, where it’s just an S instead, since these languages can’t handle a TS at the beginning). Note the interesting spellings of TS, especially the Romanian T with a hook.]

The other branch of Indo-Iranian is then Iranian, formerly known as Persian. If you’ve heard the language described as Farsi, that’s perfectly correct, but compare the word Farsi carefully with Persi(an). Observation certainly seems to suggest that “Farsi” is in no way a separate language from Persian, but is simply how you say “Persi(an)” in Persian—once again, with that initial consonant change.

On occasion a dictionary will give a Persian reference to the history of a word. I find of particular interest the history of the words “checkmate” and “chess”, whose origins are Persian. Start with the Persian word for “king”, which, as you know, is “shah”. The German word for chess is “Schach”, which clearly comes from “shah”. The French version is échecs, which developed into English “check”. So clearly when a player says “check” it’s not some odd word you’re saying. You actually are saying “king!!!” as a warning. The word “check” then further developed into “chess” in English. The subsequent expression is then shāh māt, which became “checkmate”. Look closely at it, and you’ll see that there is really no “mate” in the word. Persian is an Indo-European language. If mort means dead in French (Italian morto, Spanish muerto, English mort(uary) and mort(al)), then māt also means dead in Persian, and when you say checkmate-- shāh māt--you really are literally saying “(the) king (is) dead”. It is also a curiosity that the Russian word for chess is шахматы/shakhmaty. It’s the only language I know where “mat” is actually part of the name of the game.

One more point here before getting back to Europe. The word “Aryan”, which became so popular with the Nazis in Germany, was quite simply a reference to the Indo-European (and therefore non-Semitic) background of most Europeans. The word is quite discredited today, but it has an interesting connection here. During the 1930’s, the Persian ambassador to Germany came under the inflluence of the Nazis. Apparently the word Persia was a name used only by outsiders, and the local name for the country was Iran. The ambassador became convinced that the Indo-European (or Aryan) roots of Persia should be emphasized, and he convinced his government to urge other countries to use the local name, Iran, instead of Persia, which subsequently happened, and now one rarely hears the old name. You may have noticed already that the word Iran is just a variation of the word Aryan. It is further ironic that so many people confuse Iran with its next-door neighbor Iraq, which is ethnically Arab, and that the result of the ambassador’s efforts, instead of creating a distinctive niche for his country, only caused confusion.

But again, the main order of business is to discuss the three main Indo-European sub-families within Europe. If the reader retains nothing else, this three-way distinction should be learned: Russic (Slavic) in the East; Italic (Latinate) mostly in the Southwest; Germanic in the Northwest.

Russic (Slavic)   I have to start with an apology. This is another of those words I’ve made up myself. This sub-family is officially referred to as the Slavic languages. Russic is my own word. But if the other names point to the language of origin (Italic: Italian; Germanic: German), then I see the need to have Russic refer to Russian.

Think Eastern Europe here. There’s the triple cluster of Russian, Byelorusan, Ukranian; then the triple cluster of Polish, Czech, Slovak. [Note: I’ve seen considerable online discussion about the words Byelorussia and Byelorussian. There is preference growing, and I agree, to instead say Byelorus and Byelorusan.]

However, the Slavic peoples do not live in one contiguous group. As they moved south, they eventually became cut off from other Slavs and Russic languages by Romania (Italic), Hungary (Uralic), and Austria (German, so Germanic). These peoples, separated from the rest, have therefore been referred to as the South Slavs. After World War I, there was an effort to unify all of these South Slavs into one country. The only South Slavic country that never joined is Bulgaria. All the others joined the country called Southslavia. Now if you’ve never heard of that country, it’s all a translation problem. The country was named in Russic. The Russian word for south is юг/yug, which, with a combining O, made the name Yugoslavia. Non-Slavs perhaps never really understood they were actually saying Southslavia.

But of course that effort failed with the Bosnian wars, and the South Slavs are mostly asunder again. The principal South Slavic languages form a third trio. They are Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian. Macedonian is a variation of Bulgarian.

Slovenia borders Austria in the North. Serbo-Croatian is one language, but don’t say that too loud near a Serb or a Croat. For that matter, don’t let a Macedonian hear you say their language is essentially Bulgarian, either. It becomes obvious that the definition of what constitutes a separate language becomes highly political. Anyway, what had originally been a single Serbo-Croatian people became divided. Croatia became part of Austria-Hungary, Roman Catholic, and wrote the language in the Roman alphabet. Serbia remained largely independent, Orthodox, and wrote the language in Cyrillic. That they couldn’t live together in Yugoslavia became particularly obvious in Bosnia, where lines have been drawn separating Croats, Serbs, and Muslims (descended from the Turkish occupation).

A bit more about politics here helping define what a language is. Someone speaking the Venetian dialect of Northern Italy would not be understood by someone speaking a Sicilian dialect in the south, yet we define it all as Italian. Conversely, most Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, with just the slightest bit of education and travel experience, will understand the gist of the other two languages of the three, yet they are considered separate languages.

Italic (Latinate)   What started out as the Italic sub-family had originally three branches. Two died out, leaving the Latin branch as the only heir. Usually the name Italic is used, but since all the descendants do come from Latin, Latinate is another possible name. These languages are also referred to by the idiotic name “Romance Languages”, which is a term I categorically refuse to use, although I include it here for completness.

The primary languages here are Italian, French, Catalán, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian. Clearly one thinks of Southwestern Europe when speaking of Italic languages. They form an east-west line from Italy to Portugal.

Some people are unaware about the Iberian peninsula. It has three Italic languages and ethnic groups. Historically, Castile in the center has lorded it over the other two. For a while Castile took over Portugal in the west, but it broke away and remained independent. Catalonia in the east (Barcelona, Valencia), never did break away, although presently it is getting more and more autonomy. Its official language is Catalán, and Spanish is largely on its way out there.

It is a surprise to many to find that Romanian, a language located way over in Eastern Europe, is Italic. Romania had been the Roman province of Dacia, and when the Slavs came south, and the Hungarians came in from the Urals, the Romanians were able to hold their own, but it remains the only Italic language isolated from the others. Also, do note the word Roman in the name Romania. At one time, Romanian shifted to the Cyrillic alphabet, no surprise when you realize that they are the only Italic people who are largely Orthodox. You can see inscriptions on old churches of Romanian written in Cyrillic. It has long since returned to the Roman alphabet.

There are minor Italic languages: Provençal in France; Sardinian in Italy; Rhetoromansch as the fourth official language of Switzerland; Ladino as the “Yiddish” of Spain; some others.

Germanic   We finish with the sub-family of which English is a member. Think Northwestern Europe here. The West Germanic languages are German, Netherlandic, English. (They’re referred to as West because there once was an East Germanic branch which included the Gothic language, but that branch died out.) The term Netherlandic is convenient to include Dutch, Frisian, and Plattdeutsch (Low German) in Germany, but it’s easier to often just call it Dutch.

The North Germanic (Nordic) branch includes Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, in other words, the Scandinavian languages. It is simplest to picture the Germanic languages as a backwards L, going west, and also north, out of Germany.

Remember the Germanic languages as being primarily those, although for completeness’s sake I will say that the three Scandinavian languages are technically only the east branch of North Germanic. There is another version of Norwegian that, with Icelandic and Faroese (in the Faroe Islands) forms a west branch.

Minor Germanic languages include Afrikaans, the variation of Dutch used in South Africa; Frisian, spoken on the West (Dutch) and East (German) Frisian islands, which has the distinction of being the language most similar to English, even moreso than Dutch; and Yiddish, a medieval branching off from German, which has the distinction of the only Germanic language written in the Hebrew alphabet.

Wordplay 3   We’ll finish now with some surprises. I am not going to translate the following wordplays into English. You’re on your own. The first one is in Danish.

What? You don’t know any Danish but you figured it out? And not because of English, but because of your knowledge of German? My, my. But now you see the similarity between Germanic languages, and how helpful it can be.

Seriously, this German tonguetwister is a commonly known one, and I found the Danish one on the tonguetwister website in the one-line version, which I’ve extended. I don’t know Danish, but here fisker, instead of being a family name, seems to mean “fisherman”. You’ll also notice a quirk of Scandinavian, that the verb ending can be –er, “fisker” also means “fishes (for)”. One important lesson can be learned here. The relationship between the sound SH in West Germanic (English fish, German Fisch) and the two sounds SK in North Germanic (Danish & Swedish fisk). Note the following in the same languages: Spanish, Spanisch, spansk; English, Englisch, engelsk; Scottish, Schottisch, skotsk.

Note two points about that last trio. If someone is dancing the polka-like schottisch(e) you now know what language that name is in, and also what ethnic group is being referred to. Do you now note something peculiar about the English word “Scottish”? As I see it, the Swedish word has SK twice, which is typical for North Germanic. The German word has SCH twice, which is typical for West Germanic. So why is the English word partially SK- and partially –SH instead of being a more typical Shottish? I would say that particular SK- is a result of the big influence of Scandinavian on early English as a result of the many Viking invasions of Britain.

Don’t take that point lightly. Picture a long old-style nightshirt from the neck to the knees. The Vikings brought “skirt” to what the English already had as “shirt”, and both words were kept, but specialized. Skirt began to be specialized as the lower part of that garment and shirt as the upper part. Similarly, “scatter” is of Scandinavian derivation, and “shatter” had been the English form. They are very different words today, but you can see how each involves something going in many directions.

Let’s try some Spanish:

You got that, too? And not through English, but because you knew Italian? Well, then, let’s try Portuguese:

You got that one too, eh? Well, that’s Italic languages for you. But you do need some help here. In Portuguese, an S is an S only if a vowel follows, as when you’re eating a “salada”. Otherwise an S is an SH, so what we have here are TREYSH TI-gresh. Read the whole thing with that in mind.

One last one. Let’s try Russian.

Well, our royal friends are still up to their usual tricks. Note again that the three unstressed O’s are all pronounced A. Note that the Russian version of the last word, unlike the Bulgarian version, has one syllable less than you’d expect. Also note that the Bulgarian word for king is shorter than the Russian version, but you certainly can see the similarity between Russic (Slavic) languages.