random stuff about languages -27

[howsmyenglish]

I've noticed this between Russian and Czech a lot, but I'm not sure whether I ever noticed things like that in other very closely related languages. In Russian and in Czech, there often are words that sound almost the same, but have completely opposite meanings.

Like, "zapomnil" (запомнил) in Russian means "he remembered" (as in "learned by heart") and "zapomnel" in Czech means "he forgot".
Or, "bespechno" (беспечно) in Russian means "carelessly", while "bezpecne" in Czech means "safely".
Or, "krasny zivot"* in Czech means "beautiful life" and in Russian "red stomach".

There are, however, very simple explanations for this: in the (let me call this) old Russian "krasny zivot" used to mean "beautiful life" as well. In time "beautiful" came to mean "red" (what can be more beautiful than red?) and "life" came to mean "stomach" (no life without food, no life with stomach cut open etc.).
As far as the other things go, often this happens, when a word (or a word root) is used for the same idea, but with the opposite point of view. At least, this is how I explain this to myself.

Did you ever notice such things between English and German? English ad French? Spanish/Italian/French? etc.?



*forgive me for not using diacritics, I'm lazy

Comments

[grayswandir]

I'm enjoying your language posts! I know some Russian but I don't know any Czech, and it would never have occurred to me that similar-sounding words would have such opposite meanings in the two languages. Your explanation makes a lot of sense, and fits well with the similarity between the Russian words for "red" and "beautiful," too. (The Chinese word for "red" can also mean "beautiful." I personally find the association surprising, because "red" to me suggests associations like "blood/glory" or "fire/heat"... not so much "beauty." Though I think glory and beauty also tend to get pretty strongly associated in some cultures and languages -- maybe including English, at least in religious contexts.)

One thing I've found very difficult about learning Cantonese is that there are a LOT of words that sound either the same or almost the same (with just a difference in tone or a difference in vowel-length), but that have opposite or near-opposite meanings. Here are just a few examples:

maai⁵ (買) – to buy
maai⁶ (賣) – to sell

lei⁴ (嚟) – to come / to arrive
lei⁴ (離) – to go / to leave

daai⁶ seng¹ (大聲) – loud / loudly
dai¹ seng¹ (低聲) – quietly / in a low voice

ng⁶ (悟) – to realize / to understand
ng⁶ (誤) – to misunderstand / to misinterpret

ming⁴ (明) – clear / transparent
ming⁵ (冥) – dim / murky

gwaai¹ (乖) – good / obedient
gwai² (詭) – deceitful / crafty

Someone reminded me recently that when two words in the same language sound the same but have opposite meanings, they're called "contronyms." The only ones I can ever remember in English are "cleave" ("to cut apart" or "to cling to") and "raise"/"raze" ("to set up or create" vs. "to destroy").

[howsmyenglish]

Well, this here makes me think Chinese is even more complicated than I thought (and it was pretty complicated already!). Do you hear the difference between those words? Are you able to reproduce it? (does your teacher understand what you mean, for instance?)

I never even heard of contronyms. Thank you! :)

[grayswandir]

Do you hear the difference between those words?

Nope! :D I'm working on it, but so far I usually can't hear the difference even if the words are spoken right next to each other. (For instance, maai⁵ maai⁶ means "buy and sell," and maai⁶ maai⁵ means "sell and buy." I personally don't hear anything except "maai maai" either way. Are you buying a car? Selling a car? I have no idea!)

Luckily, context is helpful in most cases. Like, lei⁴ will pretty much always mean "come" (嚟) unless it's in a compound with another character that has something to do with "parting" or "separation," in which case it will mean "leave" (離).

[howsmyenglish]

You know, one of my students is a very good second year student of Chinese as well. Last year, she even won a competition and got a trip to China for free. And I have Chinese speaking earphones. Every time I turn them on they say the same thing. I've listened to it so often that I believed to be able to reproduce it exactly. So then one day I decided to ask that student what my earphone are saying. She listened to the sounds I made and said: this is not Chinese. :D
To be fair (don't know to whom exactly), when she herself listened to my earphones, she needed a couple of days to decipher the two words there were...
So... really, it amazes me that you're able to understand it at all :D

[aim_of_destiny]

my favourite english contronym has got to be 'chuffed': it's either 'pleased/happy' or 'displeased/angry'. i think i read somewhere that english has a lot of contronyms because, culturally speaking, the english are a very sarcastic people. hence, 'fat chance' and 'slim chance' mean the same thing, when the stars are out you can see them, but when the lights are out you can't see those, and if you put out a fire it's gone but if you put out energy it's available.

as for the russian/czech thing: i'm told (by polish and ukrainian speakers) that those phenomena are cause by minority cultures (ukrainians, czech people, poles and everyone else who isn't russian) being sarcastic to/about the dominant russian culture and language for several hundred years.

[grayswandir]

Hah, okay, thank you for explaining "chuffed"! I rarely hear the word, but it seems like every time I do hear it, I'm like, "Somehow I thought that word meant exactly the opposite of what it seems to mean in this context?" So then I revise my mental definition of "chuffed," and yet I still end up being confused by it again the next time I hear it. Now I know why. XD

the english are a very sarcastic people

Sounds likely. XD I recently saw an article about how Americans often misunderstand "polite" British phrases by assuming that they're intended sincerely (I think the example phrases were "I'll take that into consideration," "with all due respect," and "I hear what you're saying," none of which sound necessarily sarcastic to me, but apparently to British speakers they do).

But I think language also just has a natural tendency to be self-contradictory because of the way meanings are generated from opposition/contrast, or can be understood from multiple perspectives. Your phrases with "out" are good examples, because "out" expresses a motion "away from" some central or initial point, but depending on whether we're speaking from the perspective of the source or from some distant point of observation, something that is going "out" can be either arriving or departing, being generated or dispersing away, etc.

As a similar example, lately I've been having a lot of trouble with the way Chinese does this dual-meaning thing with the idea of something that is "left (behind)." The duality is actually similar in English: if you "leave" your regrets behind, then you don't have regrets anymore, but if you lose everything and all that's "left" is regret, then regret is the thing you still have. Chinese uses the same words for both "leave" and "remain," so it's always hard for me to figure out what the perspective is -- whether the thing that's been "left" is gone (we left it behind and went on without it) or is still present (other things went away from us but this thing stayed behind with us and is still left).

[matrixmann]

I think Plattdeutsch kann at times sound similar to English (well, better cut it down to British English only).
Meanings of words can also be the same - I only don't know if that is often the case or if there can be very false friends in between too.

One word I can think of in German in general with some opposite meaning in English is the word "Gift". ( = "poison" in German)
In English it means "present" as well as "talent".

Some term with ambivalent meaning for German thinking from the English language is the word "drugs".
In English, it can both mean the "illegal means to intoxicate onself" as well as "legitimate meds prescribed by a doctor" while German linguistically distinguishes between the two, calling only the real "drugs" "Drogen" in their literal sense. The meds are called "Medikamente" separately.
"Education" in English is such thing too (have to consider this often myself).
In English it means "school education" as well as "your upbringing", while German calls first thing "Bildung" and the other "Erziehung", being more distinct in what it wants to express.

[iddewes]

No, education only means education in English. Upbringing is more like Erziehung. If you say someone is well educated it means they went to school and maybe Uni. If you want to say they had a good upbringing you say they were well brought up. I'm a native English speaker.

[matrixmann]

Hm... Okay, then this is me rather struggling finding a corresponding term in English to what I mean in German in that situation.

[howsmyenglish]

Upbringing! Yes, what a nice word. I remember struggling to find it as well. Might it be just not as common as Erziehung is? I mean... the word? or, maybe, the subject?

[howsmyenglish]

As far as I know (my Grandma speaks Plattdeutsch), Plattdeutsch and English often have same word roots or even words. Like, my great granddad used to have many "Messer", but only one big "Knif" (the k is not silent), they also had a big standing "Clock" - as opposed to "Uhr", which usually was smaller.

And Droge in German used to mean Medicine, too, it sometimes still does today, but this meaning is kind of dying out. Still, Drogerien stay legal ;)

[matrixmann]

I don'r really speak it myself, but being a Northern light, I know it from other people who speak the idiom. And it's somehow a little obvious, being acquainted with English on the other hand too.

Ah, didn't know that so much, that it once was the same here too...
But you're right, "Drogerie" implies that a bit. They don't sell any strange possibly-illegal stuff over at the Rossmann store. ;)

[eller]

Don't forget "dröge" - in Platt, that usually means "dry" or "boring", but is occasionally also used as "sober" (in the sense of: didn't drink alcohol). At the same time, it can also (very rarely!) mean "sluggish" (in High German that would be "träge", which is a lot more common than its Platt equivalent) or actually (although I've only heard it once or twice in that context) "drugged".

And yeah, our Rossmann just sells unimaginable varieties of shampoo.

[matrixmann]

Oh, here it starts with terms I actually hear quite commonly... Didn't know it also connects to "Droge". Is that really so?
"Sluggish"... Well, there I know it simly as formed as "träge" (rather spoken like "treege"). Wouldn't connect "dröge" with it, but, as you say, that's posibly a rare meaning. Btw, Plattdeutsch in itself can also vary as an idiom, depending on which region in the North a person is from which speaks it.
"Drugged" I also wouldn't normally connect with it as a meaning. That's also due to other kinds than getting intoxicated with alcohol are relatively new compared to the time span of existence of the idiom.
And for being drunken with alcohol, they say "besopen" (in High German "besoffen").

[eller]

It might actually be two different words, just pronounced identically - it's always difficult to tell with dialects; it's entirely possible there's one "dröge" from dry and one (rare) "dröge" from drugs and they're technically not connected. Which region are you from? My family is from the fen areas around Bremen. I'm unfortunately not a native Platt speaker, but my father is, I'll have to ask him!

I haven't heard "besopen" for drunk; that just sounds like mispronounced High German to me (but I'm sure there's a Platt dialect out there where it's a proper word, LOL). If someone's drunk, we'd call that "duun/duhn" (not sure about the spelling...) or "stapelduhn" (for VERY drunk).

[matrixmann]

Yeah, I must agree on spellings. I often find difficult to figure out how to write the words correctly so that someone else is able to research them, in case he doesn't know their meaning. Mainly know them in spoken form...

The regional idiom I'm acquainted with should be rather located near the Polish border. Very, very strange area...
On one hand you get acquainted with Platt, on the other you also catch some kind of Berlin accent. (I think the latter isn't so common here anymore these days due to most of the heavy industry having been killed.)
And that even though Berlin's also far away...

"duun" I can't imagine anything as a meaning for it. Must be something that is regionally different...

"Shit", for example, I knew with its obvious meaning before getting to know English. In Platt they also have "Schiete" for it, but "shit" may be also encountered (or that's something Berlin peope say, who knows?).

[eller]

I also know the words in spoken form only. Actually, "duun" can also refer to a soft feather ("Daune"), but when used as an adjective about a person, it means someone is drunk. There's also "beswiemelt" for "slightly drunk" ("angeheitert"). There are so many interesting local languages! :D (And, yeah, "Schiet" sounds familiar, albeit without a pronounced "e" at the end.)

[matrixmann]

No, those two really unknown to me... They really only use "besopen" here and say someone's "full" (High German "voll"), when he's completely sloshed.

Ah, yeah, "Schiet" also exists, meaning "shit".
I know it one way as well as the other.

Do people from the Bremen area actually speak in their idiom like people from Hamburg - you know, with the prominent feature to talk like "walking over pointed stones"?
That is something people over here don't do too, for example.

[eller]

It depends. People in the countryside (villages and small towns around Bremen) usually do, and even in the city, you occasionally hear spoken Platt or people with a strong accent, talking High German but with slightly different pronunciation and also slightly different grammar. Hamburg is different, people there actually talk High German, just with a slight shift in the vowels, and the occasional "s" replacing "sch". Bremen's idiom actually has some grammatical differences compared to High German. At the university (I currently do my PhD at the Uni Bremen), people usually talk High German, though. Or English, in the international study programs.

[matrixmann]

Aha, so I don't need to imagine it like that...
It's a speciality for Hamburg only (but I think, people from Rostock could also have a little bit of that different way to speak s-sounds...).

Long time ago, I had someone in my internet community from Lower Saxony, she knew what to do with Platt, whereas someone else from Bremen I never saw or noticed her practicing idiom in her writing. Can't even remember if she used regional terms from High German common in the area... (Such exist too sometimes.)

[eller]

There is still a bit of local idiom, though. For example... I was in an international study program, so we had a lot of students who were just learning some German. And there was this guy from Bangladesh who noticed that people around the university were often greeting each other with "Moin!", and he first assumed it meant something like a (colloquially pronounced) "good morning", but of course, people around here use it in the evening as well... And he asked us (as in, the native German speakers) and it turned out only the ones of us from Bremen and the northern coast even understood "Moin", the students from middle and southern Germany also just understood it as "morning", LOL!

[matrixmann]

Yes, I think "Moin" can be used like that in the Northern regions as an allrounder term for saying "Hi!" at all times of the day.
I guess, personally I don't experience it used like that. "Moin" is for saying "hi" in the morning here, instead they use "Tach" here as such an allround term. "Nabend" exists too, but "Tach" can be used for all times of the day, no matter if morning or evening or night.
"Mahlzeit" also exists, but it's really only the most suitable for lunchtime. Some use that for all times of the day though, sometimes this can also be used in a little provoking fashion, like "Tach, Meister!".

[eller]

"Nabend" exists here as well - but if anyone greets me with "Tach", I'd assume they're from Berlin... LOL

"Moin" is clearly an allrounder term for all times of the day here. Oh, and you still have to differentiate that from "Moin Moin", which is only used in the Friesian regions.

[matrixmann]

See? Got some of the side of Berlin dialect here as well...
It's just a very strange area in that point.

I think it can be that some greeted you with "moin "moin"...
Friesian Platt, I think I heard, is already such an idiom which is hardly understandable to you, even if you're a Northern light yourself, as soon as people really get started talking in it.
Well, due to being close to the Netherlands, I could imagine they have one or the other similarity with that.
And Dutch, I find, you don't really understand it because it's too different from High German and even from idioms spoken in the North of Germany.

[iddewes]

As a native English speaker living in Germany, Denglish often amuses me - ie English words or phrases used in German, usually wrongly and sometimes hilariously. I'm sure you have heard about 'Handy' used for a mobile phone, but there are plenty of others - 'Mobbing' used for bullying, 'Bodybag' for a bag you strap to your body, 'Showmaster' for a TV presenter, 'Beamer' for a digital projector, 'Shooting' for a photography shoot, 'Public viewing' for a football match or something televised and shown in a public place, etc. Those last two and Bodybag are pretty dodgy 😂

[matrixmann]

Oh, yeah, fuck... That's really often hillarious.
It's very often better to check out a dictionary before talking to a native speaker just to get sure you express the right thing to him what you mean in your common wording in German.

[iddewes]

I think mobbing seems to be the one I've noticed Germans most often misusing in English, at least among my friends. Maybe because we don't actually use the word very often in English so they haven't seen it used in its proper meaning.

[matrixmann]

Might be possible.
To me, I don't see that happening so often, but that is because I know the term has been coined by Konrad Lorenz, who used it in a context to describe a bunch of crows attacking some other animal which a single one could never overcome.
So the emphasis here lies on the origin "mob", lesser on the behavior.

[howsmyenglish]

Wow, looking at them from the English point of view is completely new for me. Bodybag is hilarious! But if I think about it in German, I totally understand the logic :D