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Language Log
The simian technology of voice impersonation
Many Language Log readers are probably aware of the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, who is one of the leading characters in the famous Ming Dynasty novel, Journey to the West. I wrote about him in "'Baton' and 'needle' in space" (6/17/21):
In the 16th-century novel, Journey to the West, the simian hero, Sun Wukong ("Monkey Enlightened to Emptiness") possesses a magical staff, the jīngū bàng 金箍棒 ("golden cudgel / rod / baton") that has transformational properties. One of its forms is that of the dìnghǎi shénzhēn 定海神针 ("numinous needle that stabilizes the sea"), which was actually the original source of the jīngū bàng 金箍棒 ("golden cudgel / rod / baton"). Thus we can see that both of the objects that Martin asked about are attributes of the supernatural simian, Sun Wukong, of Journey to the West. (Of course, the meaning of "baton" for relay racing is also operative.)
In the context of this post, It is pertinent to note that Sun Wukong is capable of flying 108,000 li / tricents (54,000 km, 34,000 mi) in one somersault. For this and all manner of esoteric lore about the magical monkey and the novel in which he appears, see the remarkable website of Jim McClanahan, Journey to the West Research.
This continues the tradition of using terms from Chinese legend and myth for names of objects, equipment, places, etc. in space related research and technology.
Jim McClanahan has issued another installment in his unending stream of deep researches on Sun Wukong (aka "Monkey") and the novel in which he is featured, Journey to the West (Xīyóu jì 西遊記). This one is titled "Archive #46 – A Catalog of the Monkey King’s Magic Powers and Skills" (8/11/24)
Number 22 of Monkey's "Definite powers" is that of Voice impersonation
This power allows him to exactly copy the voice of any figure that he transforms into. He displays this throughout the novel.
Note that Monkey possesses "72 transformations" (qīshíèr biànhuà 七十二變化), so this multiplies his abilities greatly, one could say almost infinitely.
I was prompted to write this post because I thought it was nothing short of amazing that a 16th-century novelist would include voice impersonation among the countless extraordinary skills and powers of the magical monkey Sun Wukong. In light of the growing powers of AI in today's world, I was also prompted to ponder how Sun Wukong's 16th c. voice impersonation powers would stack up against those of contemporary LLMs. Selected readings
* "Persian peaches of immortality" (1/22/21)
* Diana Shuheng Zhang, "The Reins of Language: The Mantra of the Heart Sutra in The Journey to the West," Sino-Platonic Papers, 286 (June, 2019), 1-61 (free pdf)
* Jan Nattier, "The Heart Sūtra: a Chinese apocryphal text?" Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 15.2 (1992), 153-223. (online)
* Victor H. Mair, "The Heart Sūtra and The Journey to the West", in Wang Gungwu, Rafe de Crespigny, and Igor de Rachewiltz, eds., Sino-Asiatica: Papers dedicated to Professor Liu Ts’un-yan on the occasion of his Eighty-fifth Birthday. Canberra: Faculty of Asian Studies, The Australian National University, 2002), pp. 120-149. Detailed study and complete translation of the preface to the Heart Sūtra on Dunhuang manuscript S2464 which shows, inter alia, that it constituted a prototype for Journey to the West, the earliest kernel of the great Ming Dynasty novel. Also featured in this paper are Liang Wudi, Xuanzang, Avalokiteśvara, and Amoghavajra. In addition, the paper accounts for the narrative elaboration and fictionalization of Xuanzang's pilgrimage to India and demonstrates clearly how the Heart Sūtra ultimately lies at the core of the novel.
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Language Log
Harris'(s)
Holly Ramer, "There’s an apostrophe battle brewing among grammar nerds. Is it Harris’ or Harris’s?", AP News 8/13/2024:
Whatever possessed Vice President Kamala Harris to pick Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, it probably wasn’t a desire to inflame arguments about apostrophes. But it doesn’t take much to get grammar nerds fired up.
“The lower the stakes, the bigger the fight,” said Ron Woloshun, a creative director and digital marketer in California who jumped into the fray on social media less than an hour after Harris selected Walz last week to offer his take on possessive proper nouns.
The Associated Press Stylebook says “use only an apostrophe” for singular proper names ending in S: Dickens’ novels, Hercules’ labors, Jesus’ life. But not everyone agrees.
Debate about possessive proper names ending in S started soon after President Joe Biden cleared the way for Harris to run last month. Is it Harris’ or Harris’s? But the selection of Walz with his sounds-like-an-s surname really ramped it up, said Benjamin Dreyer, the retired copy chief at Random House and author of “Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style”.
My initial reaction is the traditional linguists' complaint — this is just a fuss about spelling conventions, and has nothing to do with "grammar". But there's at least an overlap with morphophonology, which emerges as the AP article proceeds:
Dreyer was inundated with questions within minutes of the announcement, which came while he was at the dentist.
“I was like, ‘All right, everybody just has to chill. I’ll be home in a little while and I can get to my desk,’” he said.
While there is widespread agreement that Walz’s is correct, confusion persists about Harris’ vs. Harris’s. Dreyer’s verdict? Add the ’s.
“To set the ’s is just simpler, and then you can take your valuable brain cells and apply them to more important things,” he said.
Woloshun chimed in with a similar opinion on the social platform X, where apostrophes are being thrown around like hand grenades. “The rule is simple: If you say the S, spell the S,” he argued.
That puts them on the same side as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal — and at odds with AP.
What does Woloshun mean by "say the S"?
If you're talking (not writing) about "Harris'(s) first name", you'd pronounce it with three syllables, not two, no matter how you spell it: /ˈheɹəsɪz/ in IPAish. At least I would.
This is a general fact about English morphophonology — both plural /s/ and possessive /s/ are (generally) pronounced as /ɪz/ after words ending in /s, z, ʃ, z, tʃ, dʒ/.
Except not always. The possessive of a (regular) plural is pronounced the same as the plural — if we're talking about a nest belonging to some ants, it's the /ˈænts/ nest, not the /ˈæntsɪz/ nest. That's an interesting fact worth exploring, but it's not relevant to the possessive form of names ending in /s, z, ʃ, z, tʃ, dʒ/.
However, there's an additional historical complication, which again emerges later in the AP article:
Timothy Pulju, a senior lecturer in linguistics at Dartmouth College, said that until the 17th or 18th century, the possessive of proper names ending in S — such as Jesus or Moses — often was simply the name itself with no apostrophe or additional S. Eventually, the apostrophe was added (Jesus’ or Moses’) to denote possession, though the pronunciation remained the same.
“That became kind of the standard that I was taught and adhere to, even though in retrospect, I don’t think it’s a great standard,” he said.
That’s because linguists view writing as a representation of speech, and speech has changed since then. Pulju said he expects the ’s form to become dominant eventually. But for now, he — along with the Merriam-Webster dictionary — says either way is acceptable.
FWIW, I agree with D[...]
Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
XYZ
"code" said to alert someone that their zipper, or fly, is open
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Idiom of the Day
late model
Especially regarding an automobile, of a relatively recent design or model. Watch the video
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Word of the Day
fervent
Definition: (adjective) Having or showing great emotion or zeal.
Synonyms: ardent, fervid, fiery, impassioned, perfervid, torrid.
Usage: She was a fervent opponent of the death penalty and organized a monthlong hunger strike to protest the practice.
Discuss
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or meat (plus vegetable) filling, the phonetics of Slavic words like Czech and Slovak pirohy and Ukrainian pyrohy match better than Turkic börek as the source of Polish (> English) "pierogi".
A few miscellaneous, yet relevant, matters to clear off the table.
Carol Kennedy tells me:
My grandmother (who was a Jew from Odessa, who spoke Russian and Yiddish) always called them “vareniki", which just means “boiled”. She never called them “pierogi”.
The same is true of other, diverse parts of Eastern Europe, where boiled dumplings are also called "vareniki". Thus, cherry pierogi = cherry vareniki.
Eastern Europe, where pierogi / vareniki originate, was not too far from Tang China either, and even closer to medieval Eastern Central Asia (ECA).
Since we have textual evidence of what conceivably may be considered the equivalent of cherry pierogi in medieval Sinitic, namely yīngtáo bìluó 櫻桃饆饠 (Middle Sinitic [ca. 600 AD] 'eang daw pjit la), where the second pair of syllables is evidently a transcription of a borrowing, I'm led to consider the possibility that the original language may have been related to an early version of the Slavic word "pierogi", though not necessarily Slavic itself.
Don't take the final -t of pjit too literally because it is there only to indicate an entering or checked "tone". It's not really a tone in the phonetic sense, but rather a type of syllable that ends in a stop consonant or a glottal stop. There are two other so-called "entering tones", -p and -k, hence the holy trinity of so-called "entering tones" (rùshēng 入聲 [a calque]) "-p, -t, -k".
What I discuss next are archeologically discovered pastries made of wheat dough from medieval ECA. They are not dumplings per se, but evidently had an open filling of some sort (quite likely fruit jam) in the center of a dough pastry that was made to look like a cherry / plum blossom.
For photographs and descriptions of such archeologically recovered pastries, see:
Victor Mair, ed., Secrets of the Silk Road: An Exhibition of Discoveries from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China (Santa Ana, CA: Bowers Museum, 2010).
p. 123, 23-1 "Plum Blossom Shaped Dessert", 7th-9th Century, Excavated from Astana, Turfan; Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Museum Collection
p. 125, 23-4 "7-peteled Flower Dessert", 7th-9th Century, Excavated from Astana, Turfan; Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Museum Collection
Since we have archeological evidence of pastries made of dough in the shape of cherry / plum blossoms and with what may have been fruit filling in the center recovered from the medieval Astana cemetery (42.882°N 89.529°E) near Gaochang 高昌 (Khocho, Karakhoja, Qara-hoja, Kara-Khoja, Karahoja, Chotscho, Khocho, Qocho or Qočo), we are within the ballpark of those "yīngtáo bìluó 櫻桃饆饠" ("cherry [?something?]") documented in the celebrated 9th c. Yǒuyáng zázǔ 酉陽雜俎 (Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang); 34°15′40″N 108°56′32″E incidentally, I know personally from having visited Uyghur families in their homes that such pastries are still popular in that region today, so I wonder what they are called in recent and contemporary Uyghur and other ECA languages. Selected readings
* "Respect the local pronunciation: runza and Henri" (6/13/24)
* "Pork floss Beckham" (8/10/21) — Chinese nosh
* "Beijing Noshery" (10/23/15)
* Reed, Carrie E. (2003). A Tang Miscellany: An Introduction to Youyang zazu. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-0820467474 Under the name Carrie Wiebe, the author of this book has written many other scholarly studies and translations based on Yǒuyáng zázǔ.
* Beauchamp, Fay (2010). "Asian Origins of Cinderella: The Zhuang Storyteller of Guangxi" (PDF). Oral Tradition. 25.2: 447–496.
* Victor H. Mair, tr., “The First Recorded Cinderella Story,” in Hawai’i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture, ed. by Victor H. Mair, Nancy Steinhardt, and Paul R. Goldin (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press), p[...]
Language Log
More probably
This post is following up on "Probably", 8/11/2024, which sketched the spectrum of probably pronunciations, from the full version with three clear phonetic syllables and two full /b/ stops between the first and second syllables, to a fully-lenited version with just one phonetic syllable and no residue of the intervocalic consonants:
Your browser does not support the audio element. Your browser does not support the audio element.
But as that post noted, there are many variants in between, and this post will exhibit a few of them.
Here's one with the two intervocalic onsets still there, but lenited to the status of approximants rather than stops:
Your browser does not support the audio element.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/Probably3X1.png
(From Morning Edition in 2009…)
And here's one where the first /b/ is totally gone, but the /bl/ is rendered with a full stop gap:
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http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/Probably4X1.png
Zeroing in on "probably":
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And just the "proba-" part, illustrating the loss of the first closure, and sounding in isolation more like "pow":
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(That general pattern — rendered as something like "probly" in eye dialect — is by far the most common one, at least in my little random sample of 100. This example was from All Things Considered in 2010.)
Here's another monosyllabic version, from President Barack Obama in in 2010:
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Zeroing in:
Your browser does not support the audio element.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/Probably5X1a.png
Here's one, from All Things Considered in 2007, where the first intervocalic stop becomes an approximate, and the /bl/ is reduced to just a weak /l/ — "probally" in eye dialect:
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And zeroing in on "probably":
Your browser does not support the audio element.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/Probably8X1.png
And finally, here's an example (from Weekend Edition in 2013) of the case rendered in eye-dialect as "prolly" — which was actually rather rare in my sample:
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A bit closer:
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http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/Probably10X1.png
And just the word "probably":
Your browser does not support the audio element.
There are plenty of other variants Out There — reinforcing the point, made many times in these posts, that most aspects of allophonic variation are not symbolically mediated.
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: encyclopedic
This word has appeared in 72 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
put out (1)
to stop something from burning
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Word of the Day
labyrinthine
Definition: (adjective) Resembling a labyrinth in form or complexity.
Synonyms: mazy.
Usage: A labyrinthine maze of sculpted bushes surrounded the estate.
Discuss
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Language Log
Prefixes and suffixes for common Japanese dishes
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/decoding.jpg
From Bored Panda (8/5/24). For people who love food and the culinary arts, this issue of Bored Panda, which has fifty parts, is almost like a bible.
Alas, no shime (see first item under "Selected readings" below, though nabe is mentioned in that post).
Selected readings
* "Phoshime" (8/7/24)
* "Chinese and Japanese Terms for Food Textures" (8/10/23)
* "Zo sashimi" (8/10/19)
[Thanks to Mark Metcalf]
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Learn English Through Football Podcast: 2024 Olympic Finals
Читать полностью…
Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
fib
a small, harmless lie (n.) | to tell a small, harmless lie (v.)
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Idiom of the Day
the last thing (one) wants
Something which one absolutely does not want or has no use for. Watch the video
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Language Log
Tocharian in South Asian languages?
In a comment to this post, "Yuezhi archeology without concern for Tocharian language" (8/4/24), Gokul Madhavan raised an interesting question:
I’m very curious to know if there are any reliable and up-to-date sources for Tocharian loanwords into Sanskrit or other Indo-Aryan languages.
Given both the use of Gāndhārī Prakrit across the region and the presence of the Kuṣāṇa empire in India, I would expect to find at least some Tocharian-origin names or words that got absorbed into Indo-Aryan languages.
I agree with Gokul that this is an interesting question, and it seems likely that there ought to be traces of Tocharian in South Asia. Aside from the Kuṣāṇa (c.30-c. 375 AD) vectors in India mentioned by Gokul, even afterward there was considerable coming and going between India and Tocharia during the heyday of the latter (2nd-7th cc.). For example, the famous Indian monk-translator, Kumārajīva कुमारजीव (344-413 AD; Jiūmóluóshí 鳩摩羅什), was married to a princess of Kucha, when the latter was the center of Tocharian B speakers. Consequently, for all such reasons, there is likely to be a significant number of Tocharian names and terms in Indo-Aryan languages, but I do not know of a systematic study or collection of such words. Perhaps this post will elicit helpful references from Language Log readers.
Selected readings
* "Yuezhi archeology without concern for Tocharian language" (8/4/24)
* "Rethinking the Yuezhi?" (8/5/24)
* "The origins and affinities of Tocharian" (8/20/23) — with very long, classified bibliography
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reyer, Woloshun, and Pulju. But English orthography is irrational in so many ways that one more divergence between pronunciation and spelling is not worth fussing about.
For another interesting linguistic aspect of English possessives, see
"A correlate of animacy", 9/27/2008
"The genitive of lifeless things", 10/11/2009
"Mechanisms for gradual language change", 2/9/2014
Update — Bob Moore laid out a somewhat different take on Facebook:
For English grammar nerds only: What is the possessive of Harris, Harris's or Harris'? I am shocked to learn that the AP style guide says that if a singular noun ends in s, the possessive is always formed simply by adding ' (apostrophe). In the dark ages, when I was taught "proper" grammar, the rule I learned was the possessive of any singular noun is formed by adding 's, however the noun ends. In recent years, however, I have noticed that in informal language, the possessive of some singular nouns ending in s can be pronounced just like the base noun, which would be written by just adding '.
But I don't think this works for all nouns ending in s, as the AP would have it. To get super nerdy, I believe that the possessive of a singular noun ending in s can only be pronounced the same as the base noun if removing the final s leaves a phonologically possible word. It may come as a surprise to some, but not all sound sequences possible in a language can be single words in the language. To take a simple example, batman is a word in English, but tman not only isn't a word, it couldn't be an English word, because it's impossible for native English speakers to pronounce. English has other sorts of restrictions on possible words that are not exactly impossible to pronounce, but just don't seem natural. As far as I can tell one of these restrictions is that an English word can't end in a short i. So if you try to take the s off the end of Harris, you are left with Harri ending in a short i, which is not a phonologically possible word in English.
So how does this affect how the possessives of singular nouns can be formed? Consider the name of a guy I used to work with, Dave Wilkins. If I wanted to say I was going to his house, I could say either, I'm going to Dave Wilkins's house, or, I am going to Dave Wilkins' house. Either one sounds fine to me. But this works because Wilkin would be a phonologically possible word of English. I never heard of anyone with that name, but if I did, it would sound perfectly natural. So it's almost like I am pretending my former colleague's name is Wilkin, and forming the possessive like most singular nouns do, by adding 's to get Wilkin's, which would be pronounced exactly like Wilkins'.
This doesn't work in the case of Harris, because Harri ending in short i is not a possible name in English, so Harris' with a short i is not a possible possessive in English.
I agree with Bob that both pronunciations are possible with a name like "Wilkins" — though this doesn't generalize for me to all other proper names ending in /s, z, ʃ, z, tʃ, dʒ/ after something that could stand alone as a possible word, like "Case" or "Texas", and even those whose pronunciation could be analyzed to have an /s/ affix, like "Wicks" or "Schwartz".
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: boycott
This word has appeared in 308 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
come back
to return to a place
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Language Log
It's Japanese soup
A Facebook post sent to me by shaing tai:
shì rì lì tāng
是日例汤
"soup of the day"
The mistake here derives from the fact that, in Classical Chinese, "shì rì 是日" means "this day", whereas in vernacular it means "is Ja[pan]".
All of the other entries have some weird or exotic aspects. I will not give complete LL style treatment for the other entries, but only point out a few particularly interesting features.
In the first entry, while jīgǔcǎo 鸡骨草 literally (character by character) means "chicken bone grass", a more idiomatic rendering would be "Canton love-pee vine", "prayer-beads", etc. a medicinal plant with the scientific name Abrus pulchellus subsp. cantoniensis.
Zhū hénglì 猪横脷 does mean "pig's tongue".
The last two characters of the second entry signify "house soup".
Lou5 fo2 tong1 老火湯 is slow boiled / simmered soup (lit., "old fire soup")
Lou fo tong (Chinese: 老火湯) is a distinctive variety of soup in Cantonese cuisine popular among Chinese people in Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macau, and overseas. These soups are usually made by simmering various vegetables, fruits, meat or Chinese herbs in a pressure cooker, vacuum cooker, claypot, wok or clay jar for a few hours, and are believed to have skincare, heart-protective, vision-enhancing, bile-reducing, and bone-strengthening benefits. Owing to the hot and humid climate in the Lingnan region, the locals have developed a penchant for drinking lou fo tong for its nourishing and health-boosting effects.
(Wiktionary)
Then comes "It's Japanese soup".
The last item is correctly translated, though Cordyceps militaris would be more easily understood by its common name, caterpillar fungus.
Selected readings
* "Too hard to translate soup" (9/2/18) — pimple soup
* "Braised enterovirus, anyone?" (7/16/08)
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p. 362-67.
[Thanks to Mehmet Olmez, Juha Janhunen, Peter Golden, Peter Hoca, Marek Stachowski, Marcel Erdal, and Sattar Salam] ]
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literally "little pirog"). In the 18th century, Volga Germans (ethnic Germans who settled in the Volga River valley in the Russian Empire at the invitation of Catherine the Great because of their skill in farming), adapted the pirog /pirozhok to create the bierock, a yeast pastry sandwich with similar savory ingredients.
(source)
This is encouraging.
Having come this far, I have not been disabused of the notion that bìluó 饆饠 might somehow be related to pierog.
A few more preliminary remarks before plunging headfirst into the philology of this conundrum. Coming to the crux of the matter, we have to decide whether the word "pierogi" has a Slavic or a Turkic basis, which has been endlessly debated. Here I must say that I come down on the side of the Slavicists and will explain why in a moment.
Borrowed from Polish pierogi, the plural of pieróg (“dumpling”), which ultimately is derived from Proto-Slavic *pirъ (“party” [VHM: also "banquet"]). Unrelated to Turkish börek. Doublet of pirogi (from Russian), pirohy (from Czech and Slovak), and pyrohy (from Ukrainian).
(Wiktionary)
To say that "pierogi" is "unrelated to Turkish börek" may sound somewhat abrupt, because börek may in some way have been influenced or cross-fertilized by Slavic pierogi. Still, for all of the many reasons I am about to list, I must declare that I am in agreement with the Wiktionary editors.
I have discussed this matter at great length with my learned Turkologist colleagues, but, in the end and after devoting much time and thought to the problem, I have decided that the case for a Turkish derivation of "pierogi" is not nearly so compelling as one that it is from Slavic. First, and above all, we can trace the Slavic word back to Proto-Slavic.. Second, if we attempt to connect the Slavic word to Turkic börek, we run into all sorts of difficulties, phonologically and semantically. Third, chronologically it is hard to demonstrate that Turkic börek was present in Eastern Europe by the time pierogi were popular there. Borek derives from Ottoman Turkish (14th-20th centuries AD). Fourth, the etymology of Turkic börek is confused and contested, with some authorities tracing it back to an old Turkic word for kidney, from the supposed shape of the pastry to the organ. Fifth, pierogi are dumplings, usually boiled in water (see below), whereas börek are flaky, crusty pies made of filo dough that are savory and baked or fried in a pan. Sixth, börek are savory and usually have vegetable ingredients such as spinach and potatoes or meat and cheese. I am unaware of fruits being used as filling for börek.
There are numerous different, conflicting theories about the origin of the word börek. Many of them are given in the "Origin and names" section of the Wikipedia article on börek, from which I offer just the first:
According to lexicographer Sevan Nişanyan, the Turkish word börek is ultimately originated from Turkic bögrek, from böğür (meaning 'kidney'). Nişanyan noted that the word is also used in Siberian Turkic languages such as Saqa as börüök.
In contrast, Marcel Erdal holds:
The pastry name börek is first documented in two Mamlûk sources from Egypt, both early 14th century. There is not the slightest reason to think that it ever had the shape of a kidney. The kidney is called böbrek in Turkish and it seems quite certain that the phonetic similarity is a coincidence.
The 'kidney' word (originally bögür ~ bögüräk, related to Mongolic böere 'loin') is discussed in Doerfer's TMEN, 2nd vol., pp. 353-354.
(personal communication)
All things considered, Occam's razor impels me to choose the Slavic origin of "pierogi" over a Turkic one. Aside from the Slavic semantics being simpler and neater than the Turkic as the source of "pierogi" meaning dumpling with fruit[...]
Language Log
A medieval Chinese cousin of Eastern European cherry pierogi?
As a starting point for pierogi, here's a basic definition:
Pierogi, one or more dumplings of Polish origin, made of unleavened dough filled with meat, vegetables, or fruit and boiled or fried or both. In Polish pierogi is the plural form of pieróg (“dumpling”), but in English the word pierogi is usually treated as either singular or plural.
(Britannica)
Now, turning to Asia, we are familiar with the Tang period scholar, poet, and official, Duàn Chéngshì 段成式 (d. 863), as the compiler of Yǒuyáng zázǔ 酉陽雜俎 (Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang), a bountiful miscellany of tales and legends from China and abroad. Yǒuyáng zázǔ is especially famous for including the first published version of the Cinderella story in the world, but it also contains many other stories and themes derived from foreign sources.
Knowing of my interest in such matters, Zihan Guo called my attention to a terse mention of a culinary item called "yīngtáo bìluó 櫻桃饆饠" ("cherry [?something?]") in Yǒuyáng zázǔ. One look and I was hooked. "Yīngtáo 櫻桃" doesn't present any major problem of its own; that's just the usual word for "cherry" in Sinitic, though, if I had all the time in the world, I would do an etymological and botanical study on its origins. As for bìluó 饆饠, I could tell from the extreme rarity of the characters and the word, plus the fact that it is disyllabic, that it almost certainly had a foreign origin. That suspicion is reinforced by the additional fact that it has a variant orthography, viz., bìluó 畢羅. The Middle Sinitic reconstruction of both written forms is pjit la.
I'm not the only person who suspected that bìluó 饆饠 / 畢羅 had a foreign derivation. Since it bore a superficial resemblance to "pilau", i.e., "pilaf", many scholars jumped at this equation, to the extent it has become more or less a commonly accepted etymology (as in Wiktionary and zdic) that the Sinitic word comes from Persian پلاو (pelâv). But there are three (actually more) strikes against such an assumption. First, and most obvious, the Middle Sinitic reconstruction doesn't work as well as the Modern Standard Mandarin. Second, neither of the variant orthographies of bìluó 饆饠 / 畢羅 use the "rice" radical mǐ 米 (Kangxi 119). Instead, the first variant just uses the general "eat" radical shí 食 (Kangxi 184) on both characters. Third, although cherry pilaf is possible as a dish, cherries are not one of the usual ingredients for pilaf, and it's not likely in any case that it would be so important an ingredient that a pilaf dish would be named after it. Fourth, other, more detailed, Tang recipes for bìluó 饆饠 / 畢羅 indicate (so Zihan tells me) that it is made of baked wheat dough and has meat filling.
With "pjit la" in the back of our mind (more about that later), we have to look elsewhere.
The first thing I thought of was "pi[e]rogi". It is made of wheat and has a filling (can be either meat or fruit). Pierogies are usually boiled, less often pan fried, but they can also be baked. Moreover, the sound of pjit la is vaguely similar to that of pierogi. Now we have to dig deep into the history and nature of pierogi.
As a matter of fact, when we were examining the background of that delicious Nebraska nosh, runza, we looked into pierogi a bit.
A runza (also called a bierock, krautburger, or kraut pirok) is a yeast dough bread pocket with a filling consisting of beef, cabbage or sauerkraut, onions, and seasonings. Runzas can be baked into various shapes such as a half-moon, a rectangle, a round (bun), a square, or a triangle.
The runza sandwich originated from the pirog, an Eastern European baked good or more specifically from its small version, known as pirozhok ([...]
Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
guts
courage
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Idiom of the Day
latchkey kid
A child who is home alone after school or in general because their parents or guardians are at work. Watch the video
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Language Log
Theme — border Russian: variations — cats
A random cat video that showed up on Facebook:
Victor Steinbok, who called this post to my attention, notes:
I immediately noticed an oddity in the Russian signage before even noticing the Chinese. On the right side, the white lettering on top of the building reads "Groceries" (lit. "Products"). The green sign on the left is more unusual. It reads, "Fruit (plural) store beverage (singular) beer//tea candy vodka", followed by Chinese characters. Most of the Chinese signage is under the marquee.
The word that looks really odd is "beverage". Normally, Russian signage would have it in plural (напитки). I'm guessing this must be somewhere in the Russian Far East or possibly anywhere east of Irkutsk (it's a long Chinese border). Alternatively, there's some Chinese presence in Kazakhstan, but then the signage would likely be trilingual.
I think that Victor Steinbok is right when he first says "somewhere in the Russian Far East". On a yellow vertical Chinese sign with blue lettering that appears for a fleeting instant at the extreme left I see the name of the city of Suifenhe, which lies about 100 miles to the NNW of Vladivostok:
Suifenhe (Chinese: 绥芬河) is a county-level city in southeastern Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China, located where the former Chinese Eastern Railway crosses the border with Russia's town of Pogranichny, Primorsky Krai. In January 2014, Suifenhe became the only Chinese city in which trading with Russian Ruble is officially allowed. The city shares its name with the Suifen River, and is under the administration of Mudanjiang Prefecture-level City.
(Wikipedia)
Five Chinese characters at the bottom left of the green overhanging panel above the metal door read:
Lìyà shípǐn tīng 莉娅食品厅 ("Leah Food Hall")
That sounds like a typical name for that part of Heilongjiang province.
Other Chinese characters that are visible on the store indicate that it sells tobacco and offers postal services.
As for the cats, the two gray pusses are lucky to be protected by the windshield from the big guy outside on the hood. To the right, there are five other cat videos. I would not encourage you to watch the fifth, and especially not the sixth, which is needlessly vicious and cruel.
Selected readings
* "A Northeastern topolectal morpheme without a corresponding character" (6/9/20)
* "Another Northeastern topolectal term without specified characters to write it" (7/22/20)
* "Russian Loans in Northeast and Northwest Mandarin: The Power of Script to Influence Pronunciation" (1/23/11)
* "Manchu loans in northeast Mandarin" (10/7/13)
* "Northeastern Mandarin"
* "Cat phonetics" (3/13/16)
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Language Log
The Sinitic Word for "million" in Southeast Asian Mandarin, part 2
[This is a guest post by Liam Kelley.]
Looking up "triệu" in this Nom dictionary brings up an example from a line in a work that appears to date from the early twentieth century that states: "The soul of the 4,000-year-old country has yet to awaken. The 25 million [triệu兆 ] people are still deep in slumber."
There was definitely modern Mandarin terminology that entered classical Chinese in Vietnam at that time (I haven't looked at many Nom texts from that period so I can't say about Mandarin terms in the spoken language, but it would make sense that some would be there too), and the topic here (soul of a country/nation, awakening from sleep) is the type of new nationalist concepts that spread from Japan/China to Vietnam at that time.
So, I don't know where exactly triệu comes from, but between what the author of this post wrote and this tidbit of information here, I would bet my money on it being a term that was in circulation in Mandarin/Southeast Asian circles in the nineteenth century.
Selected readings
* "The Sinitic Word for 'million' in Southeast Asian Mandarin" (8/10/24)
* "Unspecified large number" (8/7/09)
* "The cognitive technology of number" (7/11/08)
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: centennial
This word has appeared in 125 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
knock over (1)
to hit somebody with a vehicle and injure or kill them
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Word of the Day
brow
Definition: (noun) The projecting upper edge of a steep place.
Synonyms: top, summit, peak, edge, tip, crown, verge, brink, rim, crest, brim.
Usage: The sun set behind the brow of the distant hills.
Discuss
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: luminescent
This word has appeared in 13 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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