News from JMS
Welcome to our blog, where we plan to feature news, views and translation clues. Things like: did you know that English cats say ‘meow’, German moggies ‘miau’, French felines ‘miaou’, and Spanish Siamese ‘miau’. Pause for thought…
Language: owning and loaning
Loanwords are interesting. They enter our language from different countries and become part of our regular vocabulary without us really being aware of their source language. Here are just a few (more to come in another blog):
My windscreen wipers were kaputt (German) so driving my car was verboten (German). I woke up full of angst (German) thinking about having to schlep (Yiddish) in the rain to the craic (Irish Gaelic) on a variety of buses in my anorak (Eskimo). I set off feeling very bolshy (Russian), but I soon cheered up after a delicious smorgasbord (Swedish) of salads, a great pizza (Italian) and hours of karaoke (Japanese).
Ciao for now.