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Showing posts with label Languages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Languages. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

#17: Útlenska


If you encounter an Icelandic noun that ends in -(n)ska, it's a decently safe bet that it refers to some kind of language. In addition to popping up in íslenska and enska, it also appears in words like danska, spænska, hebreska, finnska, kínverska (Chinese), þyska (German), and even klingonska. That's because it's a suffix much like the -ese in "Japanese" or the -ish in "Swedish." Of course, there are exceptions (such as latína, úrdú, and norræna [Old Norse]), but they are relatively rare. And, floating in this sea of -(n)ska words there is also útlenska, the Icelandic term for "foreign language." But perhaps a more accurate translation would be something like "Foreignese."

Monday, November 19, 2012

#1: Máltaka

I suppose that it's only natural that I use my first "real" post to explain the title I gave to my new project: Dagleg Máltaka. Dagleg isn't a very exciting word; it's just the feminine form of daglegur, which means "daily."  The masculine suffix -legur (which becomes -leg in the feminine and -legt in the neuter) is a very common means of forming adjectives out of nouns in Icelandic; here, it was appended to the root of the word dagur, which means "day." The more interesting word, and the one that I really want to talk about, is máltaka.