No place like Ddedwydd Nadolig

Just had my mother-in-law on the phone, much exercised that her Christmas Cards haven't been reaching a relative in Wales. Put the address she was using through a free Welsh-English translator. Turns out she'd been sending them to 'Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year'. Fail.

What's in a Name?

The Sagittarian has speculated about the title of my blog. My readers have varied tastes; in an attempt to please both of them, I will offer several different explanations, any or none of which may be true.

Bergman

A memorable event in my early life (in fact the only memorable event in my early life), was playing the part of the ferryman's son in Ingmar Bergman's 1961 film, 'Through a Glass Darkly'. I was offered it through an old family connection, and the location was the island of Fårö, which was closed to normal visitors at the time because it contained secret military installations. But Bergman lived there, and this was the first of many films he made on the island. I was only there for two days and have limited memories of it all. I do recall that Gunnar Björnstrand, who played the novelist, was always pleased to see me and taught me a traditional greeting which I still remember; 'Gå bort du otäck litten räka'. Sadly Ingmar Bergman was by then unrecognisable from his famous rôle as Ilsa Lund in 'Casablanca'.


Balloons

Newcastle's Long Bar is on the Great North Road, almost opposite Central Station. In those days it was very much a men-only bar. In retrospect it was a bad idea to have agreed to meet Tim Darkly there for a pint of Fed Special on the way to a party. I'd have been all right. Cherry loons and an Afghan coat might have escaped comment in a student town. But Darkly was dressed as a nurse, complete with balloons. It wasn't a fancy dress party; he always dressed as a nurse, and I should have remembered that. Even then, we might have got away with it, if he hadn't misjudged his embonpoint (the balloons were over-inflated) and jogged the arm of the diminutive Geordie standing next to him, causing him to spill beer down his shirt. The man said something very brief that neither of us caught, and very deliberately poured a significant amount of brown ale down Darkly's cleavage before turning away. Darkly asked me how we should respond and I, thinking that the best thing would be to buy the man a drink, said, "Through a glass, Darkly". Unfortunately he thought I said, 'Throw a glass, Darkly'.

I can tell you, should you ever be in a similar position, that the care offered in the Royal Victoria Infirmary is second to none.

Bible

My choice of hymn for our wedding was number 240 from Hymns Ancient & Modern, which is adapted from the poem 'Elixir' by George Herbert (1593 - 1632). It includes the verse, 'A man that looks on glass on it may stay his eye; or if he pleases, through it pass, and then the heaven espy'. (It's a pretty line, although the following verse gave me an opportunity to glance significantly at the Social Secretary; 'A servant with this clause makes drudgery divine: who sweeps a room, as for your laws, makes that and th' action fine'). The glass line seems to echo Corinthians 1, 13,8. "For now we see through a glass, darkly" - a line I've always had affection for, since I am not unknown for seeing life slightly hazily through a glass.

Il Fait Pluie

Aujourd'hui il pleut lentement. Il fait pluie sur l'herbe, et dans les lits. Il pleut tout au travers de la maison, et il pleut dans mon coeur avec un humidité le plus sérieux. Il fait pluie dans mon coeur parce que je n'ai rien sujét pour ma plume écrire autour. Oh non.

Little Known Facts: Languages of the Low Countries

The origin of Flemish is self-explanatory - a reference to the bronchial congestion which characterises the inhabitants of this low-lying, marshy terrain and which led to the guttural, throat-clearing peculiarities of the language.

Walloon or Walon, takes its name from its Welsh origins. It was carried to the continental mainland by migrant Welsh bulb growers following the daffodil blight of 1613-15. Even now, the current standardisation of the spellings of the several distinct Walloon dialects is known as 'Rhonda Walon', while the evidence of Welsh names can still be found in the tulip-growing areas of the Netherlands (Willems, Johannes, Van Rhys, etc).

Frisian developed along the North Sea coast - the continental 'frieze'. Pliny the Younger reported that the Frisians lived on turps; this may explain the anglo-saxon qualities of the language, which bears a close resemblance to the Low English of Romney Marsh, Britain's own nether land [cf: 'Anglo-Frisian Fricatives of Dungeness and New Romney'; Ivan I. Deare; School of Sport and Exercise Science, Loughborough University, 1981].

Latin, Swedish, Cornish

While I am on languages, I suppose I should cover these for the sake of completeness. There's not much to say about latin, except that I studied it and wrote it and translated it for more years than any Roman can ever have done. Poring over inky copies of Hillard & Botting's Elementary Latin Translation (never was the word 'elementary' less appropriately employed) and Kennedy's Shorter Latin Primer (always amended to 'Shorter Eating Primer). Caesar and Cicero and Pliny, the Punic Wars and the Conquest of Gaul. I hated every minute, and yet have a perverse fondness for it now, like rice pudding or matins.

A series of delightful au pairs left me with some useful phonetic swedish phrases. 'Gut nutt, sore got, vakna tot', for example, which meant 'Good night, sleep well, don't wet your bed'. The last bit must have been designed to wind me up, because I didn't have that problem. Honestly. And there was a satisfying sounding swear word, which sounded like 'Fy buskit!' I've no idea what it means, but I know I wasn't meant to hear it.

I met a Cornish Bard when I worked in Cornwall - one of a tiny handful of cornish speakers. He dressed up in druidic robes, but not in his day job with the council. His name was Dave.

The only cornish words I learnt were disparaging terms for tourists. People got so weary of the hordes of puddle-jumping cars clogging up the roads at Easter and in summer that residents wore stickers in the back windows of their cars which read, 'Non Emmet', which sounds more latin than cornish. An emmet is an ant, which is what tourists are called west of the Tamar. In Devon they are called 'grockles'.

Working in Cornwall was better than learning latin, but we worried about London and the rest of England, which seemed disadvantaged by being so out on a limb.

Greek

There's really nothing to be said for learning a second language that has been dead for a couple of thousand years. Let alone one that uses a different alphabet. I fell behind so quickly that I had to write tiny cribs which I copied out from North and Hillard's Greek Prose and stashed in the gap that ran up inside my tie. As time went by these strips of paper grew longer and longer, and the writing on them smaller and smaller. About the only phrase I can remember is 'kakos neanias', which means 'bad man'. Useful if one is ever propositioned in the Peloponnese, but the time would have been better spent learning something more relevant like origami or bell-ringing.

Arabic

I think I probably started life bi-lingual. At any rate, reportedly I used to chatter away in some anglo-arabaic hybrid with Mabruk (the statuesque, turbanned Sudani who looked after me in Khartoum). Sadly nothing of the language has stuck apart from a few orphan phrases - 'men fadlak' (please), 'shukran' (thank you), 'hasan fikra' (better idea), and something remembered as 'cut a carrot', the meaning of which has faded (perhaps, 'a'ta katra' - 'give me lots' ?)

'Give me lots' is possible. The combination of formula milk and a hot climate (it was 110 degrees Fahrenheit on the day I was christened) played havoc with my metabolism, and I went from starveling to piglet and back again with alarming speed. On one occasion a group of Sudanese girl guides peered into my pram and remarked, 'Kabir ahmar tama tim', which meant, 'Big red tomato'. Thanks, girls. Nothing like a good deed.

German

My only proper brush with german was in Austria. When they meet someone out walking, the Austrians invariably call a greeting. It sounds as if they are politely commenting on the day in broken english. 'Iss goot' they say, 'Is good'.

This much language I can handle, and I spent a gregarious week calling 'Iss Goot' in my best Bavarian accent to everyone we passed. As it happened most of them were British, and just giggled feebly. The locals looked a bit surprised, which made me feel a big success - an ambassador for good manners - hands across the water, and all that. It wasn't until later that I discovered that what they had actually been saying was 'Grüß Gott' ('Greet God').

One of the great advantages of making a prat of yourself abroad is that nobody knows you personally. They just think all Brits are prats, and contemplate armed invasion, World Cup victories and the like.

Afrikaans

I got off to a bad start with afrikaans, when Carin told us about an english friend visiting a restaurant in Cape Town, who had wanted to compliment the waitress on the cuisine. Mischeviously they told him that 'jy het oulike boudjies' (prounounced something like 'yite oleker bokis') means 'the meal is delicious'. What it actually means is, 'You have a nice bum'.

Unfortunately this useful phrase has stuck in a way that all those years of Latin and Greek have not. Even more unfortunately, by my third pint I generally become convinced that it would be a witty and amusing thing to say to the inevitable SA girl behind the bar. Which generally it isn't.

French

Considering french was taught at me for seven years, it's remarkable how little I absorbed. Aside from the usual franglais road directions to lost foreigners -'Allez a droit, et a droite un plus temps, puis prenez la gauche apres les lumieres traffique' - and once allegedly nearly causing a diplomatic incident by wishing a flemish Belgian 'Bon soir' on the office telephone (well, how was I supposed to know about the cultural politics of Flanders and Wallonia?), the zenith of my french-speaking career was a long conversation with a hitch-hiker in Skye.

The apparent fluency of this impressed my wife no end. What she didn't know was that the exchange revolved mainly around my not remembering the word for 'bus'. The nearest I could get was 'camion', which I seemed to recall meant a 'light lorry'; one of those essential words once included in every school vocab list. The poor girl must have been puzzled by my persistent assertion that she could travel on to Uig in a light lorry fitted with chairs, and seemed highly relieved when we dropped her off at a handy light lorry stop.

Of course the best reason for learning french was putting an end to grown ups resorting to it when they didn't want their children to understand what they were saying. 'Pas devant les enfants', and all that. So annoying, and so disappointing when you finally acquired enough french to discover that you hadn't been missing anything interesting anyway.

Australian

Anyone know the australian for '12-10'?

Italian

I prudently took a phrase book with me to Italy. On the day we arrived I found I had forgotten to pack toothpaste. Over wine and pasta that evening I learned from my book how to ask for toothpaste in a shop, and practised it until everyone agreed my accent sounded flawless; 'Mi scusi. Vorrei il dentifricio, per favore.'

The following morning we all walked into the village. Everyone wanted to hear me ask for toothpaste. All the way down, in the early morning sunshine, my lips were moving. 'Mi scusi. Vorrei il dentifricio, per favore. Mi scusi. Vorrei il dentifricio, per favore.'

We went into the shop. It was a supermarket. I picked some toothpaste off the shelf. I paid for it. When I was given my change I muttered 'grazie'. Everybody clapped.

My unused italian phrase is lodged immovably in my brain like a raspberry seed between the teeth, occupying space that I increasingly need for other, more important things. Like remembering why I have gone upstairs.

Gaelic

I do not have the gaelic, aside from the usual familiar greetings and toasts. When my grandfather first bought a house in the highlands (he had spent his early life in Glasgow), he walked into the village shop and introduced himself. It was something of a meeting place, and there were several local men gathered there. As he left one of them said something in gaelic, and the others laughed.

My grandfather went home, ordered a gaelic dictionary and grammar, and over the next few months taught himself to speak the language - or enough of it to hold a simple conversation. It was an impressive achievement, because it is a difficult tongue.

The next time he visited the shop much the same thing happened. He had crossed the threshold to leave when he turned back and, in gaelic, commented on the weather before wishing the assembled men good day.

He left to a stunned silence, and from that day on - he lived there for forty years - they always respectfully spoke english in his presence.

Kook Met 'n Aksent

Once, when we were preparing a meal, our South African friend asked if we had any paper. 'What sort of paper?' we enquired.

'Black paper', she replied.

It seemed an odd request at an odd moment, but she was a creative type. After an exhaustive search, my sister unearthed a sheet of black cartridge paper in an attic and triumphantly presented it.

'No', she said, looking at us as if we were disturbed. 'Black paper. You know - paper and salt. For seasoning.'