Songs In Languages I Don't Speak - Round 16: Sámi Soga Lávlla

L.I.D.S.: Northern Sámi!

It might seem odd, but there are a couple national anthems that I really adore. Romania, Finland, Israel, Russia, and this one right here are my favorites.

So yes, this is the national anthem of the Sámi. What first caught my attention was how calm and lovely it is - it doesn't sound much like an anthem, as my piano teacher put it when I played it to her. (Unfortunately this video only has the first verse - there was a longer one up, but now I can't find it.)

I am incredibly fascinated by all the Sámi languages. Sámigiella in particular, but all of them have this incredible, unique sound that is a marvel to listen to. And even more than the way the languages sound, I love the way they look - the letter combinations are fascinating, and the words are a sight to behold. (Try taking a look at the lyrics of the song in many of the languages.)

My Words Are Fine, Your Sentences Are Too Long!

The most interesting thing I like to see, in relation to language, is how people perceive certain aspects of language. Specifically, their perception of how those aspects indicate some sort of  "difficulty" in the language to them.

For example, one day I had a Finnish book with me just before I went to my comedy troupe's rehearsal. After a couple of people looked at the book and suggested it (everyone's very close-knit), I jokingly stood by the door and said "Thou shalt not pass until thou can read this word aloud to me!" The word I pointed to? Seitsemänsataayhdeksän. (I must give props to the couple people who actually tried. Most people just gaped open-mouthed at the word.) 

The primary reason people I asked gave for why the word seemed difficult to pronounce was that it was "so long".

But the word is actually very simple - it means seven hundred and nine. Look at the two:

Seitsemänsataayhdeksän = 22 letters.

Seven hundred and nine = 19 letters.

There are only three letters worth of difference between the two. So why should the first seem "long" if the second doesn't? It's because of the spaces, of course. There's barely a difference between the length of those two numbers when said out loud. Here's another one.

The Latin word advesperascere means, roughly, that 'it is growing dark'. It's used to indicate that evening is coming, night is falling. In my class, some of the chief complaints about Latin words was "they're so long!". This was one of those words that I've shown to people and gotten the "too long to pronounce" reaction. But let's take a look:

Advesperascere = 14 letters.

It is growing dark = 15 letters.

They're pretty much exactly the same length - in fact, the English way of saying it is slightly longer than the Latin. So when there's virtually no difference in how long it takes to say something, why is one thing considered "long" by some English speakers while the other isn't? It can't just be the spaces, can it?

But from everything I've observed, I think it can. English is a choppy language - what with our lack of verb endings and all. But we especially don't have that many compound words. In languages like Finnish, as one teacher said, you can simply "stick a bunch of words together into one and that word will mean the combination of all of them". But in English, we're so used to having our meanings separated out into their own little words, that when those spaces are removed, we see that as "long". Even when there's not really a difference in length at all.

Songs In Languages I Don't Speak - Round 15: Pidä Kädestä

L.I.D.S.: Finnish!

Everyone loves to poke fun at the fact that pop music was what really kickstarted my curiosity about Finnish. But what better way was there? Songs like this one intrigued me - already lovely music was complimented by this completely foreign but even more lovely language, and I just kept thinking, "I need to know more about this."

Temporary Absence Alert

I'll be gone for the next two weeks at camp, so that means even less posting than I've been doing lately. Can't wait to get back!

Settling For Similarity

"I knew it. Giant bull heads weren't enough, now we have sea monsters attacking our boat-"

"Attacking our ship," said Julie.

That's an excerpt from the book "Voyage Of The Jaffa Wind", part of the children's series The Secrets Of Droon. (Which I happen to love.) There's a running gag in the book - the heroes are taking a journey in a sea vessel called the Jaffa Wind, but the group keeps arguing over whether it's a boat or a ship.

It seems like such an odd thing to disagree over, right? They basically mean the same thing, don't they?

But of course, they don't. No two words in a single language ever mean exactly the same thing. As I touched upon in my post on verbs a while ago, words that may evoke the same general action still put a different mental picture in the mind of the reader/listener. The words "run" and "dash" evoke subtly individual parts of the tableau that constructs the meaning behind the words.

In each of the dictionaries in my home, the only big difference in the entries for "boat" and "ship" are the sizes assigned to each vessel.  Sometimes "small" and "of a considerable size" is the only thing separating two similar nouns. But that is a difference, and it does matter when describing something. Writing "our large boat set sail..." will make your readers think something different than "our large ship set sail...", or even "our small ship set sail..."

And that's why "synonyms" never made sense to me in first grade, and still don't work now. I think a couple of times I actually raised my hand to say "But, 'yellow' and 'gold' are different..." when we would have those lessons. Of course, I understood what they wanted me to say, so I never did badly on an assignment about synonyms, but in the back of my mind I always kept thinking "This is WRONG. These words do not mean the same thing!"

If you regularly visit the website Freerice, like I do, then you've probably done their "English synonyms" category. And some of the so called "equivalents" in there really strike me - for example, one I saw today was "Boat means:" and the correct answer was "ship". Hmm.

So when dealing with synonyms, I really do not think teachers should be telling their students that the words "are the same", "are equal", or worst of all, "mean the same thing". Because no two English words are equal in meaning. Whether they're in different places along the verb continuum of strength, speed, or scope, or the continuum of size for nouns, no words are completely equal. 

There are words that are similar to each other. And that's how they should be approached and recognized - words that have similar general meanings, not the same meaning.

And to be honest, this attitude by a lot of writing teachers of "use the thesaurus to spice up your writing!" just leads to a lot of nonsensical word uses. Because if someone is throwing a football over their shoulder to someone far away, they are throwing it. They're not tossing it, because it would be incredibly awkward and wouldn't reach the person. They are not heaving it, because that evokes a comic image of someone straining and grunting to throw this light little object.

This misuse of similar-but-not-equal words is also the downfall of many a writer. I've seen even great authors make this mistake once or twice, but for genuinely not-at-all-talented writers, it's abused at least once a page. This is one of the many reasons people (including me) cite as to why we don't enjoy Stephenie Meyer's writing. In an incredibly epic blog, Twilight Snarker, the author actually has a count for how many times Meyer misuses a so-called synonym. They point out that the use of the word "saunter"in the preface completely ruins any drama Meyer was going for when she tried to evoke something like "slowly stalk".

So this is how I feel about synonyms. Writing and education would be much more realistic, practical, and better-sounding, if people just recognized that words are never equal, only vague similar.