Léon hører normalt godt efter, så hvis man læser en bog om “et egern” eller “et får”, er der en god chance for, at han vil gentage artiklen korrekt, hvis man taler med ham om historien eller billederne.

Men det gik op for mig i forgårs, at hvis man stiller ham spørgsmål om ting, man ikke lige har talt om, og hvor det oplagte svar er “et”, siger han altid “en”:
– Hvor mange borde er der på billedet?
– Én.

Så jeg har nu brugt et del tid på at stille pædagogiske spørgsmål, så han kan få lært at bruge køn korrekt. Han er trods alt næsten 4½ år gammel og skal starte i skolen efter sommerferien.

Han skal nok blive glad for det i længden. Jeg har i hvert fald ofte ærgret mig over, at jeg kun fik lært tysk køn og kasus i det omfang, det var nødvendigt for at forstå talt tysk.

Det er jo forbandelsen ved at være tosproget i en situation, hvor man næsten aldrig har brug for at tale sprog nummer to: Man lærer at forstå det som en indfødt, og ens udtale er stort set perfekt, men man laver stadigvæk dumme fejl, der straks afslører en som ikke-indfødt.

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The famed three-volume Georgian-German dictionary by Kita Tschenkéli (კიტა ჩხენკელი), “Georgisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch”, which is the best bilingual dictionary of Georgian into any language, including English and Russian, is in print again!

When I studied Georgian in Tbilisi, my dad had to get all 2508 pages photocopied from the university library’s copy and sent to me because it was absolutely essential but impossible to buy anywhere.

The price is €145, which is really quite cheap for this type of work. The only reason I’m not ordering it is because I still have my prized photocopies.

They’re also selling his excellent Einführung in die Georgische Sprache at €75. This is not essential in the same way, but it’s definitely worth having if you’re serious about learning Georgian. I don’t own it, but I’ve spent many happy hours with it in the library of the Department of Linguistics in Aarhus.

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Danish newspapers are reporting that Danish scientists have decoded the DNA from an individual from the Greenlandic Saqqaq culture (which died out completely).

According to their results, they were most closely related to the Aleut people.

If this is the case, I don’t quite understand why they called the individual Inuk (“person” in Greenlandic), rather than anĝaĝinax̂, which is the modern Aleut word.

Hmmm, I wonder whether the Aleuts could demand to get Greenland back from the Inuits?

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Forleden råbte jeg til Léon, der stod i badeværelset: “Husk at skylle ud!”

Han svarede: “I did skyl ud!”

Dette svar overraskede mig, da jeg havde forventet “I did skylle ud!”

Ved nærmere eftertanke er det nu ikke så underligt.

Selvom vi på dansk skriver “husk at skylle ud”, plejer vi at udtale det som “husk og skyl ud” (hvilket jo er grunden til, at DSB kunne kalde deres blad “Ud & Se” og ikke “Ud At Se”).

Man lærer meget om sit eget sprog ved at lære det til et barn!

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It’s always a bit sad when kids drop their homemade words in favour of the real ones.

For instance, Anna’s love of ɬa (“meat, sausage”) meant that she had a whole list of words for types of meat, including ˈmuːɬa “beef”, ˈmɛːɬa “lamb” and ˈbuɬa “sausage”.

However, the latter word (which sounded like a hypothetical Welsh word “bwlla” or Zulu “buhla”) has now been replaced by ˈsɔsɪs.

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We gave Anna a pair of twin baby dolls for Christmas. One is dressed in pink, and the other one in yellow.

Anna calls them Baby Purple and Baby Green.

Although she has words for other colours, she seems to regards purple and green as the primary colours, so the other colours are most frequently mapped to the two basic terms.

This seems to contradict Berlin and Kay’s 1969 study that concluded that the most basic colour terms were black, white and red, followed by yellow and green (in no particular order), followed by blue, then brown, and finally other colours such as purple.

Of course, their study was about languages spoken by adults, so perhaps very different rules apply to child language development.

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I’ve put it all below and highlighted the worst bits.

Langtidsstegning af and	Long Drawing and
Min far og mig bruger hvert år denne opskrift fra dk.kultur.mad+drikke, når vi skal lave juleand (tak til Stig Bergmann):	My father and I spent each year this recipe from soc.culture.laos when we do juleand (thanks to Stig Bergmann):
Ænder bør altid veje 3.000 gr og derover, der er ikke megen kød på mindre ænder.	Ducks should always consider the 3000 degrees or more, there is not much meat on the smaller ducks.
Anden renses og gnides ind og udvendigt med salt og peber.	Second cleaned and rubbed in and outside with salt and pepper.
Til fyld renser du og skære 3-4 æbler i skiver, det må gerne være Belle Boskop eller endnu bedre Cox Orange.	To fill purifies you and cut 3-4 apples into slices, it must be like Belle Boskop or even better, Cox Orange.
Bland de skivede æbler med en håndfuld svedsker uden sten, luk anden med kødnåle.	Mix the sliced apples with a handful of prunes without stones, close second with kødnåle.
Læg anden på bradenpanden, fuglen skal vende brystsiden nedad.	Put the other on a roasting tin, the bird must turn breast side down.
Lad den stege i en 130 grader varm ovn i 4 timer.	Let the roast in a hot oven 130 degrees for 4 hours.
Vend derefter dyret om og lad det stege færdig i 2 timer.	Then turn on the animal and let it cook finished in 2 hours.
Den er nu så mør at den knapt skal parteres.	It is so tender it barely be parties.
I år er jeg dog kommet for sent i gang, så jeg har været nødt til at skrue lidt op for temperaturen	In the years have I come too late in time, so I had to screw up a bit of temperature.
Glædelig jul, i øvrigt!	Merry Christmas, also!

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Jeg har ikke det fjerneste mod Postman Pat, men hvad er det for en analfabet, der har fundet på hans danske navn og flg. sangtekst?

Her er Per, Postmand Per
i sin bil, med sin lille kat Emil
Per kører ud med pakker
og breve i store stakker
Postmand Per er en meget herlig mand

For det første hedder det et postbud på dansk, ikke en postmand! Og man kalder normalt ikke et postbud for Postbud Per, men Per Post.

For det andet er pluralis af stak naturligvis stakke, ikke stakker – er teksten blevet oversat af en nordmand?

Det ville ikke irritere mig så meget, hvis det var en sang for voksne, men vi ser formentlig generationer af danskere vokse op, der tror, postmænd har breve i stakker.

Den oversætter kan bare vente sig, når revolutionen kommer!

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En af seriens to forfattere har skrevet et virkeligt interessant blogindlæg på Sprogmuseet.

Jeg husker stadig med fryd de tidlige Krister-serier i Mads Føk, så der er yderst fornøjeligt at få dem genopfrisket.

Deres nye bog kommer forhåbentlig til at ligge under mange juletræer i år!

PS: Dette indlægs titel er (naturligvis) fra en gammel Krister-stribe.

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I never met the man, but I love his Practical Introduction to Phonetics, which is a great introduction to articulatory phonetics, teaching you how to produce all sorts of speech sounds.

All high schools should teach all their students phonetics like this – I’m sure it would improve the pronunciation of foreign languages immensely!

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