Why we don't eat "pirrodge" for breakfast

[GeoffW]

Chris. You are quickly becoming byelingual, just like Argus.

[ChrisGreaves]

Chris. You are quickly becoming byelingual, just like Argus

Sexalingual, more like it! (G&DR)
Cheers
Chris

[HansV]

Chris: "I'm sexalingual and I know it!"

[ChrisGreaves]

Chris: "I'm sexalingual and I know it!"

It's worse than you think:-
"I'm sexalingual and can't wait to get more online". :skatingonthiniceiknow:
Cheers
Chris

[Argus]

Dear Chris,
You don't have to translate the whole article (but it was good humour, thank you; oops, good work); in fact you don't have translate anything; but I thought you perhaps would like to have a go at that example of late runes. (I know there are translations in the Swedish article, but not to English (but they can be found elsewhere).)

[ChrisGreaves]

You don't have to translate the whole article

Nor could I!

You, however, now have 12 pages of homework.
In the rightmost column you must put a "Y"es whenever you can generously credit me with a good guess.
I want the assignment on my desk by five o'clock Friday (Grin!)

I am using this as a test of my theory that english-speakers can understand more of what we think is an impossibly-foreign language than we think we can.
That is, if i were 'chuted into Scandanavia, a great deal of the Norse content of English would stand out and help me get by.

I found that to be true in Spain (Denia) after only four months in Paris.

To avoid embarrassing me with my abysmally low score you have the option to email me the returned document.

Cheers
Chris

[Argus]

I expect a good result! The English and Scandinavian languages, well perhaps not Danish (note: Finland isn't part of the Scandinavian peninsula) are more or less cousins (and after listening to several episodes of the pod, if not before, we now know that the influence came during several periods, incl. during the Normans).

Then there are so called false friends; you/I think you know what it means, since it's almost identical to a word in your own language, but it's something completely different.

[Argus]

By the way, congratulations to making your 30th post.

Chris 30.PNG

[ChrisGreaves]

By the way, congratulations to making your 30th post.

Thanks Argus.
That can be taken two ways!
Some would argue that only 1,111 were anywhere close to approaching worthwhile!
Cheers
Chris

[Argus]

57 (incl. 4 "almost", but I was kind) out of 84 guessed/"thoughts", I think. That's what, 67.9 %. You're now an authorised translator, Chris!* **

* An awful lot was "sten", "stenen", :) i.e. "stone", "the stone".
Remember the episode in the pod cast which discussed prefixes and suffixes in German languages! (Compare stone and house, sten and hus. "The stone", "it", SE "stenen", "den"; "the house", "it", SE "huset", "det"; different suffixes depending on "den" or "det" article.)

** Perhaps I shouldn't have given you points for family names. Still a good score.

[ChrisGreaves]

57 (incl. 4 "almost", but I was kind) out of 84 guessed/"thoughts", I think. That's what, 67.9 %. You're now an authorised translator, Chris!* **

Thanks Argus!
I might be authorized, but I'm not all that good.
Still and all I think that you are right to be generous. If this were an exercise in spoken/aural comprehension I know that the host always understands my bad guesses in context. (In Denia Spain, which is not served by railway trains, "l'estaçion" will get you to the bus depot)

* An awful lot was "sten", "stenen", :) i.e. "stone", "the stone".

True, but then if it hadn't been about stones, the article would have been about "Australian bushfires" or "Trump", so in most articles we will find the object of study mentioned several times.
And anyway, you would have been disturbed if I translated several instances of "sten" as "stone", then "ice-cream", then "model railway", then "Triang" etc! Be honest now (grin!)

Remember the episode in the pod cast which discussed prefixes and suffixes in German languages! (Compare stone and house, sten and hus. "The stone", "it", SE "stenen", "den"; "the house", "it", SE "huset", "det"; different suffixes depending on "den" or "det" article.)

No. I don't. I am at Episode 94 and still can't recall why Kevin keeps referring back to The Grimm Code. Listening to these podcasts is such a Labour Of Love marred only by the exquisite knowledge that once I catch up, I'll have to listen to them all, all over again, to get to the meat of the matter. hah hah

** Perhaps I shouldn't have given you points for family names. Still a good score.

But you should give points. One of the hardest parts of comprehension for me 40 years ago was NOT realizing what was a proper name in French. For example someone would include "Pré-Saint-Gervais" within a sentence, and since I did not yet know that that was a nearby Metro station, I would be struggling to translate that heard phrase into some sort of verb/noun structure. You might feel the same if some Western Australian dropped "the cun uh n'op pin muck in booden where are lackin' booed a rock in road"⁽¹⁾ smack dab in the middle of a closed-mouth(to keep out the flies) conversation.
Three or four years ago when I started listening to podcast news in Spanish, I agonized over that old Humphrey Bogart/Ingrid Bergman movie and why it was featured in every broadcast.
Then it dawned on me. The White House.

OK, here's my end-of-match wrap-up:
I count 254 unique non-numeric terms
I made 84 essays (That doesn't mean much. I could have guessed a lot more just to boost this number with no real measure of comprehension)
So my "courage" is measured as 33%

You marked 57 "correct", so 68% of what I had the courage to try.
But those 57 are but 22% of the total (254) terms.

This is how I appear in a Café in the Île de France: A large coffee, the morning's "Le Figaro", pencil in hand, finger tracing down each column, tongue peeking out of the right corner of my mouth, Madame Sylvie watching with amusement, ...
I would be the same in a cafe in Norrtälje (home of the Pythagoras Mechanical Workshop museum), but instead of, say 80% comprehension, about 20% comprehension.
Of course, in Swedish newspapers there's is always a picture of Sydney Harbour Bridge when they report bush-fires anywhere in 3,000,000 square miles; that always helps ...

⁽¹⁾ Kununoppin Mukinbudin Warralackin Boodarockin
THANK YOU, ARGUS, for this feedback.
Cheers
Chris

[Argus]

* An awful lot was "sten", "stenen", :) i.e. "stone", "the stone".

True, but then if it hadn't been about stones, the article would have been about "Australian bushfires" or "Trump", so in most articles we will find the object of study mentioned several times.
And anyway, you would have been disturbed if I translated several instances of "sten" as "stone", then "ice-cream", then "model railway", then "Triang" etc! Be honest now (grin!)

True. And I'm honest. But in a way that's what you did, sort of. You translated both "sten" and "stenen" as "stone", but as I explained, it's "stone" and "the stone". Notice the suffix "en". But you got points in all those cases.

Remember the episode in the pod cast which discussed prefixes and suffixes in German languages! (Compare stone and house, sten and hus. "The stone", "it", SE "stenen", "den"; "the house", "it", SE "huset", "det"; different suffixes depending on "den" or "det" article.)

No. I don't. I am at Episode 94 and still can't recall why Kevin keeps referring back to The Grimm Code. Listening to these podcasts is such a Labour Of Love marred only by the exquisite knowledge that once I catch up, I'll have to listen to them all, all over again, to get to the meat of the matter. hah hah

You really are listening at double speed, aren't you; I'm on episode 47-48-49 something.

You can get a copy of the file with some more (quick) translations, if you would like. Maybe I've counted wrong and your score is higher.

I agree with you what you say about family & place names etc; just thought that repeating "Larsson", or "the Larsson family", spelled as "Larsson" in Swedish was a tiny bit easy. But of course, you are perfectly right; a newspaper column or similar will contain a mix of "easy" and "difficult" words, sort of.

Ah, yes the Pythagoras, I have wanted to see that place for quite some time (30 or so years).

[ChrisGreaves]

Have you seen the History of English Podcast? I've been listening to it for a few years now.

Yes, it sure feels like years to me (but it is only 3.5 months).
Now thanks to you, I have been saddled with this page and a whole lot of nifty VBA-procedures is pushing through the crust of reasoning in this old brain.
Cheers
Chris-141

[Argus]

Have you seen the History of English Podcast? I've been listening to it for a few years now.

Yes, it sure feels like years to me (but it is only 3.5 months).
[...]
Cheers
Chris-141

And now all listeners to the History of the English podcast knows, if not before, that bait is from Old Norse.
(If he didn't repeat himself, and explain what is most probably already understood, I guess he could cut 20-25 %.)
Argus/73.

[Argus]

A new, previously unknown, stone found. (Not that often nowadays!) Should be a piece of cake to translate it now when listening to the pod (at double speed), Chris ... They (1) think it's from the first part of the 11th century. They (2) found it while ploughing a couple of years ago; moved it away from the field, but noticed the inscription just some days ago when they were going to use it as a stepstone to one of the buildings. (It's ~2x1 m.)

kerþar raisþi : stin : þansi : at : sitiarf – faþur : sin : buanta : aykerþaR

https://svenskhistoria.se/sensationellt ... n-i-tjust/

(1), (2) Different persons.

They have found another one, a couple of days ago, not seen in around 300 years. Believed to be from the 900s. One of eight in a monument (#6 in documents from the 1600s.) No words to translate though, the monument included two rune stones and three with images, as this one.

https://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/lansstyre ... ad-3060049

Hunnestad Monument [wikip.]

[ChrisGreaves]

Ah, yes the Pythagoras, I have wanted to see that place for quite some time (30 or so years).

Oh Good!
I was wondering what to get you for Christmas.
Now I have it:-
Your assignment for this Christmas season is to visit the Pythagoras Museum and report back here!
Now you have it!
Cheers
Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

A new, previously unknown, stone found. ...

Lucky for me I have access to Jay Freedman's excellent tip for bookmarking, and have dropped this post into my Pending folder!

Thanks Argus; I was wondering how to spend Christmas morning in bed munching junk food. This year is the letter "T".
Cheers
Chris

[Argus]

I was wondering what to get you for Christmas.
Now I have it:-
Your assignment for this Christmas season is to visit the Pythagoras Museum and report back here!
Now you have it!

Thank you, but will be difficult I'm afraid. I'm in the right county so don't have to travel far. However, as you know, it's unusual times (and new restrictions the other day). As for the museum, it's closed for the rest of what's left of this year, and no news about 2021 yet apart from following the recommendations, and allowing small groups, prebooked visits.

[Argus]

A new, previously unknown, stone found. ...

Lucky for me I have access to Jay Freedman's excellent tip for bookmarking, and have dropped this post into my Pending folder!

What took you so long; one should always click, drag, right-click on everything, otherwise there will be no new discoveries.

(Lord knows what's with the net today, or the browser, or the lounge; logged out three times in a couple of minutes, it worked once to go back to previous page. Other sites have also shown slow log in or errors, and of course a new browser version the other day. Nah, it will be time for

[ChrisGreaves]

A new, previously unknown, stone found. ... They have found another one, a couple of days ago, not seen in around 300 years. ... the monument included two rune stones and three with images, as this one.

Hello Argus. I had a shot at the translation the day after your post; failed in all words except the two <Proper Name>s, which means I cheated by reading the reference.
So I set the inscription aside for three weeks to try to forget what I had read, and tried again. This second time I "guessed" raise(d), stone, and father.
I suspect that over the past two or three months I had lost some of my confidence, and that if I did this on a daily basis I'd be a little more adventurous.
FWIW I suspect we are skating on thin ice here between the edifices of "rune" and "ruined". Punch magazine had a great cartoon of a friar sitting on a stone surrounded by empty bottles; the tour guide says something like "And here we have the ruined abbot of Abbotsford".

Kevin Stroud is making me do double-takes. I am back at Episode 40, but in Episode 35 towards the end he says:-
The word laugh also follows the same pattern. Believe it or not, laugh was originally spelled H-L-AE-H-H-A-N. And It was pronounced something like /hle-xan/. The H’s in the middle became a GH as we’ve seen. And the H at the very beginning was dropped over time. But again, the pronunciation at the end later changed to an ‘F’ sound, and we got the modern English laugh.
That makes me glad that we have
Cheers
Chris