From Amourette to Żal: Bizarre and Beautiful Words from Europe

(For When English Just Won't Do)

Alex Rawlings

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780750987738
• eBook ISBN:
  9780750989664
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Fjaka: the sublime state of aspiring to do absolutely nothing. Warmduscher: a 'warm showerer', meaning a bit of a wimp. Tener mano izquierda: literally 'to have a left hand'; to be skilfully persuasive. For all the richness of the English language there are some nuances that other languages capture much better, whether it's a phrase that beautifully articulates a feeling, a wonderfully understated insult that just hits the spot, or a curious idiom. From the melancholic to the funny to the downright peculiar, From Amourette to ?al takes us on a fascinating journey around Europe in twelve languages, celebrating our cultural similarities and differences along the way.

EPILOGUE

The IPA: Learning to Read Any Language in the World

Language fans across the world were delighted when IPA started appearing in all respectable drinking establishments. Finally, they thought, the dream of having a universally readable writing system that could be applied to any language would become a reality. And who would have thought that the first frontier to be conquered would be their local pub?

However, the craze for IPA was nothing to do with linguistics, although it has become the punchline of many niche language jokes since. The IPA which we’re discussing in this section of the book does not, of course, stand for ‘India Pale Ale’ but for ‘International Phonetic Alphabet’, and refers to something different to the orangey, hoppy drink you’ll find all over East London. The International Phonetic Alphabet was set up in order to find a solution to a very specific problem.

One of the biggest obstacles to writing books about language like this one is to make sure that the reader knows how the words that you are including sound. Languages do not have consistent or universal writing systems, which means that letters can be pronounced totally differently and unpredictably. The letter ‘r’, for example, sounds in English like a toothy ‘w’, in French like a guttural clearance, in Spanish like a gentle drill, and in certain positions in some dialects of Portuguese even like an ‘h’. Attempts have been made in this book to circumvent this problem by deploying an exaggerated anglicised transcription next to each entry, but this has clear limitations in terms of whom it would mean something to.

In the nineteenth century, the International Phonetic Association was acutely aware of this problem, and so they developed the International Phonetic Alphabet. Its aim was and is to be able to provide a transparent and universal phonetic transcription of any spoken language in the world. At first it was developed specifically within Europe for European languages, but gradually has been expanded to include as many sounds, or phonemes, as linguists have found to exist.

The English version of the IPA was completed in 1847 by Isaac Pitman and Henry Ellis, and means that we have a way of writing the English down without getting mixed up with its confusing silent consonants and irregular vowels. For example, the activity of ‘reading’ and the town of ‘Reading’ cannot be confused in IPA, for one is written ˈriːdɪŋ and the other ˈrϵːdɪŋ.

However, one barrier that stops people from engaging with the IPA is that some of its symbols look unfamiliar and strange. The good news is, though, that every symbol consistently represents one single sound, which means that learning to read the IPA is simply a questio...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• French
• Spanish
• Portuguese
• Italian
• Greek
• Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian
• Hungarian
• Dutch
• German
• Swedish
• Polish
• Russian
• Epilogue
• About the Author