10 episodes

Radio Omniglot is a podcast about language and linguistics, brought to you by Simon Ager, the man behind Omniglot.com, the online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages.

Radio Omniglot Simon Ager

    • Education
    • 4.7 • 3 Ratings

Radio Omniglot is a podcast about language and linguistics, brought to you by Simon Ager, the man behind Omniglot.com, the online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages.

    Omniglot News (17/03/24)

    Omniglot News (17/03/24)

    Here’s the latest news from the world of Omniglot.

    New writing system: Ogan Script, which is used to write Ogan, a Central Malay language spoken in South Sumatra and Lampung in Indonesia.

    There are new language pages about:



    * Ogan (Base Ugan / بهاس اوڬن), a Central Malay language spoken along the Ogan River in South Sumatra and Lampung provinces in eastern Indonesia.

    * Longgu, a Southeast Solomonic language spoken on the northeast coast of Guadalcanal Island in the Solomon Islands.

    * Lop (Ľor télé / لوپنۇر تېلې), a Karluk Turkish language spoken in the Lop Nur region in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the northwest of China.



    New numbers pages:



    * Kongo (Kikongo), a Bantu language spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo and Angola.

    * Northern Ndebele (isiNdebele), a Bantu language spoken in southwestern Zimbabwe and northeastern Botswana.

    * Lozi (siLozi), a Bantu language spoken mainly in the southwest of Zambia, and in neighbouring countries.



    On the Omniglot blog, may I ask you to read, comment on and share a new post about imperatives phrased as questions, a.k.a. Whimperatives, and there’s the usual Language Quiz. See if you can guess what language this is:

    Here’s a clue: this language is spoken in Peru and Ecuador.

    The mystery language in last week’s language quiz was Soninke (Sooninkanxanne), a Mande language spoken mainly in Mali, and other parts of West Africa.



    In this week’s episode of the Celtic Pathways podcast, Horny Peaks we find Romance horns among Celtic peaks and mountains.



    On the Celtiadur blog there’s a new post about words for Thin and Slender and related things, and I made improvements to the posts about words for Mountains and Roads.

    I also made improvements to the Soninke language page.

    By the way, Happy St. Patrick’s Day! / Lá fhéile Pádraig sona dhuit!

    For more Omniglot News, see:

    https://www.omniglot.com/news/

    https://twitter.com/Omniglossia

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/omniglot/

    https://www.facebook.com/Omniglot-100430558332117



    You can also listen to this podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, TuneIn, a href="https://www.podchaser.

    • 2 min
    Celtic Pathways - Horny Peaks

    Celtic Pathways - Horny Peaks

    In this episode we find Romance horns among Celtic peaks and mountains.



    In Proto-Celtic, the word *bandā means top, peak or horn, and *benno means peak or top. They are thought to be related, and possibly come from the PIE *bendʰ- (pin, point).

    Related words in the modern Celtic languages include:



    * beann = horn, antler or fork prong in Irish

    * beann [bjaun̪ˠ] = horn, peak or top; and beinn [bein̪ʲ] = mountain or high hill in Scottish Gaelic

    * beinn = mountain, summit or pinnacle in Manx

    * ban [ban] = top, tip, summit or peak in Welsh

    * ban = prominence in Cornish

    * bann = rising, uphill, post or column in Breton



    Words from the same Celtic roots include ben (mountain, hill) in Scots, as in Ben Nevis (Beinn Nibheis), etc, banya (horn) and banyut (horned, unfaithful) in Catalan, and bana (horn) in Occitan [source].

    Words same PIE roots include peak and pin in English, pinne (chopstick, perch, point) in Swedish, pind (stick, perch, peg) in Danish, and pin (peg, pin) in Dutch [source].

    More about words for Peaks and related things in Celtic languages.

    You can find more connections between Celtic languages on the Celtiadur blog. I also write about words, etymology and other language-related topics on the Omniglot Blog.

    Radio Omniglot podcasts are brought to you in association with Blubrry Podcast Hosting, a great place to host your podcasts. Get your first month free with the promo code omniglot.

    • 1 min
    Omniglot News (10/03/24)

    Omniglot News (10/03/24)

    Here’s the latest news from the world of Omniglot.

    There are new language pages about:



    * Andoque (Paasi-ahá), a language isolate or a Witotoan language spoken in southern Colombia.

    * Berom (Cèn Bèrom), a Benue-Congo language spoken in the north of Plateau State in central Nigeria.

    * Hdi (xdí), a Chadic language spoken mainly in the Far North Region of Cameroon



    New constructed script: Wind-and-Leaf Script, an alphabet invented by Kitsune Sobo as the native script of the Gods of Ooseyard (“God World”) in the Rhodinoverse (a fictional multiverse).



    New fictional script: Neo-Chakobsa, a constructed script and language developed by American linguist David J. Peterson for the Dune film series.



    New numbers pages:



    * Berom (Cèn Bèrom), a Benue-Congo language spoken in the north of Plateau State in central Nigeria.

    * Hdi (xdí), a Chadic language spoken mainly in the Far North Region of Cameroon.



    There’s a new Omniglot blog post entitled Clinking Hardware about the French word quincaillerie (hardware store, hardware, junk), and there’s the usual Language Quiz. See if you can guess what language this is:

    Here’s a clue: this language is spoken mainly in Mali, and also in other parts of West Africa.

    The mystery language in last week’s language quiz was Paicî, a New Caledonian language spoken in the North Province of New Caledonia. From YouTube.

    In this week’s Adventure in Etymology, Shambling Shambles, we shamble around looking into the shambolic origins of the words shamble and shambles.



    On the Celtiadur blog there’s a new post about words for Thin and Slender and related things.

    I also made improvements to the Southern Ndebele, Northern Ndebele, Swati, Tswa and Tsonga language pages.

    For more Omniglot News, see:

    https://www.omniglot.com/news/

    https://twitter.com/Omniglossia

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/omniglot/

    https://www.facebook.com/Omniglot-100430558332117



    You can also listen to this podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, TuneIn, a href="https://www.

    • 2 min
    Adventures in Etymology - Shambling Shambles

    Adventures in Etymology - Shambling Shambles

    In this Adventure in Etymology we’re looking into the origins of the word shamble (and shambles).



    The Shambles in York

    To shamble means to walk while shuffling or dragging the feet, and a shamble is one of a succession of niches or platforms, one above another, to hold ore which is thrown successively from platform to platform, and thus raised to a higher level in a mine.

    It comes from Middle English schamel / schambyll [ˈʃaːməl] (footstool), from Old English sċamol [ˈʃɑ.mol] (stool), from Proto-West Germanic *skamil (stool, bench), from Latin scabellum (footstool, a kind of percussion instrument played with the foot), from scamnum (stool, step, bench, ridge), from PIE *skabʰ- (to hold up) [source].

    Words from the same roots include scanno (seat, bench, stool) in Italian, escano (bench, footstool) in Portuguese, scaun (chair, seat, stool, throne, residence, butcher’s block) in Romanian, Schemel (footstool) in German, and iskemle (chair) in Turkish [source].

    In the plural, shambles means a scene of great disorder or ruin, a great mess or clutter, a scene of bloodshed, carnage or devastation, or a slaughterhouse, and it used to mean a butcher’s shop. It comes from the same roots as the singular shamble [source].

    There’s a street in York in the north of England called The Shambles (see the photo above), that was once home to many butchers. They originally displayed their wares on stalls or benches known as shamels or schambylls, which gave the street its name. There are several similarly-named streets in other parts of the UK and Ireland [source].

    Incidentally, a German equivalent of shamble is schlurfen [ˈʃlʊɐ̯fn̩], which means to shuffle (walk without picking up one’s feet). It’s related to the English word slurp [source].

    Now it’s time to shamble off. I made a bit of an omnishambles of this post – I wrote most of it, then accidentally deleted half of it and had to rewrite it as I couldn’t retrieve the lost bits. I hope it’s not too shambolic.

    You can also listen to this podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Podchaser,

    • 2 min
    Omniglot News (03/03/24)

    Omniglot News (03/03/24)

    Here’s the latest news from the world of Omniglot.

    There are new language pages about:



    * Ghomalaʼ (Ghɔmáláʼ), a Bamileke language spoken in the West Region of Cameroon.

    * Feʼfeʼ (Fèʼéfěʼè), a Bamileke language spoken in the West Region of Cameroon

    * Lengo, a Southeast Solomonic language spoken on Guadalcanal Island in the Solomon Islands.

    * Lau, a Southeast Solomonic language spoken on Malaita Island in the Solomon Islands.



    New constructed script: Fana, a syllabic script created by Brian Drake to write his constructed language, fana, which is based on Toki Pona, but with more phonemes, a more complex grammar, and a larger vocabulary.



    New numbers pages:



    * Ghomalaʼ (Ghɔmáláʼ), a Bamileke language spoken in the West Region of Cameroon.

    * Lengo, a Southeast Solomonic language spoken on Guadalcanal Island in the Solomon Islands.

    * Lau, a Southeast Solomonic language spoken on Malaita Island in the Solomon Islands.



    There’s a new Omniglot blog post entitled Overflowing Vases about ways to say ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’ and similar things in various languages, and there’s the usual Language Quiz. See if you can guess what language this is:

    Here’s a clue: this language is spoken in New Caledonia.

    The mystery language in last week’s language quiz was Xong (Dut Xonb), a Hmong-Mien language spoken in southern China.



    In this week’s episode of the Celtic Pathways podcast, entitled Bijou Fingers, we find Celtic fingers among French jewellery.



    On the Celtiadur blog there’s a new post entitled Long Distance, about words for long, distant and related things, and I made improvements to the Fingers and Toes, Silver & Money and Streams and Currents posts.

    I also made improvements to the Paicî and Huambisa language pages.

    New song: Colourless Green Ideas – based on the sentence ‘Colorless green ideas sleep furiously’, which was coined by the linguist Noam Chomsky in his 1957 book, Syntactic Structures, to demonstrate that a sentence can be grammatically correct, but semantically nonsensical. I started writing it in May 2023, then forgot about. I came back to it in and finally finished writing and recording it in January / February 2024.



    Simon Ager · Colourless Green Ideas

    ...

    • 3 min
    Celtic Pathways - Bijou Fingers

    Celtic Pathways - Bijou Fingers

    In this episode we find Celtic fingers among French jewelery.



    The French word bijou means a jewel or piece of jewellry. It was borrowed from the Breton bizou (ring, jewel), which comes from biz (finger), which is ultimately comes from the Proto-Celtic *bistis (finger), from the PIE *gʷist- (twig, finger) [source].

    Related words in the modern Celtic languages include:



    * bys [bɨːs / biːs] = finger (of hand/glove), toe, medium, agency, hand (of clock) or latch and byson = ring in Welsh

    * bys = finger, digit, and bysow = ring in Cornish

    * biz [biːs] = finger, hand (of clock), tooth (of tool), leg (of anchor), tentacle or tendril, and bizou [ˈbiːzu] = ring, jewel in Breton



    Words from the same PIE roots possibly include kvist (twig, stick) in Norwegian and Swedish, and gisht (finger) in Albanian [source].

    The French word bijou was borrowed into English and means a jewel, a piece of jewellery, a trinket, or a small intricate piece of metalwork, which are collectively called bijouterie / bijoutry [source].

    Bijou in English can also mean small and elegant (residence), or something that is intricate or finely made. This sense comes via Sabir (Mediterranean Lingua Franca) from Occitan pichon (small, little), which possibly has Celtic roots: from Proto-Celtic *kʷezdis (piece, portion) [source].

    In Polari, a cant used in the London fishmarkets, in the British theatre, and by the gay community in the UK, bijou means small or little (often implying affection), and a bijou problemette is a little fault or problem [source].

    More about words for Fingers and Toes in Celtic languages.

    You can find more connections between Celtic languages on the Celtiadur blog. I also write about words, etymology and other language-related topics on the Omniglot Blog.

    Radio Omniglot podcasts are brought to you in association with Blubrry Podcast Hosting, a great place to host your podcasts. Get your first month free with the promo code omniglot.



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    • 2 min

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