Author Topic: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus  (Read 1745 times)

FifeingEejit

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Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« on: 28 July, 2020, 03:29:08 pm »
- 23 mensen opgenomen in het ziekenhuis (totaal: 11.919 )

right... digression this has been interesting me a while;

German: Krankenhuis
Dutch: Ziekenhuis
Frissian: sikehûs
Icelandic: sjúkrahús
Norwegian: sykehus
Swedish: sjukhus

Danish: Hospital
Afrikaans: Hospitaal
English: Hospital
Scots: Hospitale/Spittal
Luxembourgish: Spidol
Yiddish also appears to be this: Google gives shpitol as the latin script form.

The use of the Latin form makes sense for Scots and English as the Normans probably brought it into Middle English V. early on; (Scots started developing in isolation of Northumbric around 1300, and Northumbric from Middle English a bit earlier than that), and Luxembourgish seems a weird mix of German with French, but Danish?

DSL gives:
[ME. hospitall (15th c.), -ayle, -ale, -al (c 1300), OF. hospital, med. L. hospitale, place for the reception of guests, hospice.]

And Spittall (most often seen is Scottish Geography) gives:
[ME and e.m.E. spitel (Ancr. R.), spitele (Wyclif), spitell (c1425), spyttell (a1529), spitall (1634), aphetic f. Hospital(e n. Cf. MLG spittel, spettel, MDu. spit(t)-, spetael, med. L. spitalerius (1342 in Du Cange).]



Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #1 on: 28 July, 2020, 03:49:20 pm »
A Dane will be along soon...

Possibly to do with the development of hospitals in Denmark? Or, wild theory, Latinate forms could have been adopted after the Schleswig-Holstein War as a reaction against things Germanic? Similar happened in Czech and Slovak with deliberate reintroduction of old Slavic forms in the 19th century as a reaction against Germanic (Austrian) influence, so they have variants on bolnica whereas Polish has the Latinate szpital.
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Wowbagger

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #2 on: 28 July, 2020, 03:52:07 pm »
When my dear wife fell off her bike whilst we were touring Denmark, we looked on teh Garmin for anything that seemed promising for a hospital. "sigehaus" was present in Slagelse, the nearest large town, and my guess was that that was a hospital, which proved correct.
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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #3 on: 28 July, 2020, 03:58:24 pm »
More language lessons FifeingEejit please! Maybe in another thread?
As a Scot who has lived in NL and Denmark I want to learn more.
They have bairns and quines in denmark. But did not know what I meant when I Asked about loons.

hellymedic

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #4 on: 28 July, 2020, 04:07:08 pm »
Danes tend to use Hospital or its variants if my Google maps search is indicative. https://www.google.com/maps/search/hospital/@55.6925959,12.4206881,12z/data=!3m1!4b1

T42

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #5 on: 28 July, 2020, 04:30:53 pm »
Italy has the annoying habit of calling entire towns Ospedale, which caused a somewhat acerbic discussion in our GPS-less group when we got lost in the neighbourhood of Rimini in 2009. "Nah, we don't want to go there, it's just a hospital".
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #6 on: 28 July, 2020, 05:48:14 pm »
Danes tend to use Hospital or its variants if my Google maps search is indicative. https://www.google.com/maps/search/hospital/@55.6925959,12.4206881,12z/data=!3m1!4b1

In Denmark public defibrillators are labelled Hjertestarter
Makes a lot of sense!

FifeingEejit

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #7 on: 28 July, 2020, 06:00:28 pm »
They have bairns and quines in denmark. But did not know what I meant when I Asked about loons.

Barn and Kvinna
Kvinna/Quine comes from the same root as Queen.

In Aarhus (Suspiciously like the Aros at Port Righ) I was told by a cashier in 7-Eleven she'd had a Lang Dag; the g in Dag being like the y in Day; it was like I was in Angus.
I went to the big museum there (the old town) and mentioned in to one of the staff, they said that if you go to Esbjerg you'll find that the people there will speak even more like someone from Arbroath than someone in Aarhus.


Sounds like both the Latin and Germanic are in use for a place where you'd find Sick people in Denmark then if Sigehaus are used or Hospital may just be Google BS?

A lot of the basic germanic terms like Foot Goer or Sick House only seem simple because the Normans obfuscuated English with a load of their brand of french; Pedestrian means exactly the same thing as Foot goer it's just we kept basic germanic and lobbed norman french on top; just to mess everyting up further the Normans were of course Vikings and therefore Germanic users who had settled in France and taken on the language of Normandy


hellymedic

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #8 on: 28 July, 2020, 06:10:16 pm »
Google ain't BS as several (but not all) locations have 'hospital' in their title.

Isn't Woolly from Århus?

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #9 on: 28 July, 2020, 06:40:02 pm »
I suspect that our Norman-derived Modern English terms are in some cases closer to their Latin roots than modern day French is. Well at least retaining the d in pedestrian would suggest so!
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orraloon

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #10 on: 28 July, 2020, 07:42:25 pm »
More language lessons FifeingEejit please! Maybe in another thread?
As a Scot who has lived in NL and Denmark I want to learn more.
They have bairns and quines in denmark. But did not know what I meant when I Asked about loons.
* cough *

Onywye, fit like?

FifeingEejit

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #11 on: 29 July, 2020, 12:02:28 am »
Loon, variation of Loun
https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/loun


Seems a bit like the opposite of what Dundonians have done with Gadgie.

FifeingEejit

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #12 on: 29 July, 2020, 12:12:54 am »
Looking at bit more at Danish ones, it seems the move to Hospital over Sygehaus is more recent; I found results saying things like "Roskilde University Hospital, Formerly Roskilde Sygehaus"


From Helly's post that's still in the coronavirus thread, Infirmiry also appears to be from Latin, there's still a fair few infirmiries up here.
GRI, RIE, PRI, Arbroath are the first 4 that come to mind.

Sanatorium has presumably gone along with common Convalescence with TB.

If I keep digging it'll be 4am better stop...

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #13 on: 29 July, 2020, 08:17:50 am »
Bristol Royal Infirmary. But all the other hospitals in Bristol are Something Hospital.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #14 on: 29 July, 2020, 08:24:32 am »
I did not know that Spittal of Glenshee indicated a hospital. Was that something like a hostel for travellers?

Roskilde - I have been there. Lovely place. They have the Viking centre with the longboats they unearthed.
I went on a trip to row a longboat for an hour!  Me is therefore a viking, innit.

Salvatore

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #15 on: 29 July, 2020, 09:18:00 am »
My bike ride home from school took me up Spital Hill. If I'd carried on for about 10 miles eastwards on the A631 (and sometimes it did) I would have reached Spital-in-the-Street which is on the A15, otherwise known as Ermine Street.  There aren't any villages on Ermine Street on the 25 miles north of Lincoln (but plenty a couple of miles to the east west at the foot of the escarpment where there are springs), and it's thought the original settlement was established to give aid to travellers, and later became a hospital for the poor.
Quote
et avec John, excellent lecteur de road-book, on s'en est sortis sans erreur

Salvatore

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #16 on: 29 July, 2020, 09:46:51 am »


A lot of the basic germanic terms like Foot Goer or Sick House only seem simple because the Normans obfuscuated English with a load of their brand of french; Pedestrian means exactly the same thing as Foot goer it's just we kept basic germanic and lobbed norman french on top;

See also terms for (germanic) live animals and (norman) foods:
- sheep v mutton (cf modern french mouton)
- cow v beef (cf boeuf)
- pig v pork
- calf v veal (cf veau)
- deer v venison
etc
The theory is that the germanic speaking herdsmen looked after the live animals in the fields, and the Norman overlords ate the meat.
Quote
et avec John, excellent lecteur de road-book, on s'en est sortis sans erreur

Mr Larrington

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #17 on: 29 July, 2020, 10:28:50 am »
"Pig" is the odd one out.  "Swine", OTOH.
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Salvatore

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #18 on: 29 July, 2020, 10:47:16 am »
"Pig" is the odd one out.  "Swine", OTOH.

Venison is a bit dodgy as well, because the Norman overlords liked to do a bit of hunting now and then. But it's still a Norman word used for a type of dead meat (and, I gather, was used originally to refer to any hunted meat such as rabbit or boar).
Quote
et avec John, excellent lecteur de road-book, on s'en est sortis sans erreur

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #19 on: 29 July, 2020, 11:55:33 am »
Mr Google says venison comes from Latin venari, to hunt.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #20 on: 29 July, 2020, 08:04:34 pm »
My bike ride home from school took me up Spital Hill. If I'd carried on for about 10 miles eastwards on the A631 (and sometimes it did) I would have reached Spital-in-the-Street which is on the A15, otherwise known as Ermine Street.  There aren't any villages on Ermine Street

Veering wildlly off topic, there was a time where I worked at Lord Sugars Emporium of Fine Computers. Located at what was the Handley Page factory north or London, where Victor bombers were built to
a) rain death on the Russkies
b) excite small boys in short trousers

I digress. Said Emporium was on Watling Street just past the high hills north of London. Across the road I visited a house where a lady had a Christmas present shop. She showed me the old inn sign from many years ago where her cottage had been the first stop for travellers on the way north on Watling Street.



Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #21 on: 29 July, 2020, 08:58:39 pm »
What amazes me is the unmarked line between Latin origin ( French) and Germanic origin ( Flemish Dutch). I spent some time racing along the border, but the border isn’t the line. You can be in a Flemish village one minute, and 5km away, still in Belgium, it’s French that the crowd is shouting in.
There’s a fascinating history of language in Belgium. Did you know that until comparatively recent French was the only official language, and that the campaign to get Flemish accepted was headed by the only Flemish newspaper - the cycle racing newspaper!

Re: Language Was Re: CoronaVirus
« Reply #22 on: 29 July, 2020, 09:43:01 pm »
If 'official' means 'recognized by law' then, since 2011, Welsh is the only offical language of the UK, apparently.