An Academic Blog Duo
It’s always a pleasure to have a dialect word that properly belongs in a garden, and this one definitely does. I think the written form probably has an <ö> but is pronounced with an unrounded vowel, hence the <e> in “Merdlan.” I had no idea what this way when I heard first it (on April […]
Here’s where I keep a list of words to harvest later. If you have any dialect word suggestions, please leave a comment! herummurksen
In the Mundartgarten there’s also a plot set out for flowers and the wonderful names they have in dialect. In this entry we’re looking at the term “Naglstock,” which appears in Mathilde Ressmann’s poem “Wenn ih niama bin”: Tua die Vogalan fuattern, wenn ih niama bin, und die Bamlan beguatn im Obstgartlan drin. Die Blüamlan […]
So, I don’t imagine you’re reading any of this linearly; I hope not because I’m not writing it linearly. This is absolute Faulknerian stream-of-learning-consciousness that you’re enjoying now. My greatest ambition having been dashed by trying to understand something much too complex in Lesson 19, I know present you something you may already know: the […]
John 13:1 (KJV, 1611): “Now before the feast of the Passeouer, when Iesus knew that his houre was come, that he should depart out of this world vnto the Father, hauing loued his owne which were in the world, he loued them vnto the end.” How do you know when your hour has come? In […]
Many of the dialect words I encounter are in printed. Though I interact with dialect speakers fairly frequently, there’s an element of on-the-spot communication that keeps me from remembering new words that might sprout up in the conversation. Sometimes I can figure out the meaning from context while I might be lost at other times […]
I’ve got a joke for you: “An ox walks into a house…and makes an alphabet.” Wait, what? Where’s the punchline? For this, we’ll need to take a short trip back to the birth of the alphabet (to see the evolution of all major writing systems graphically represented, there’s a great chart in my office…and available […]
K-a-j-o-n. This word does not look German to me. It has a flair that hints at an origin not in the Germanic family. How did it end up in the language? What’s it doing? A windy path will lead us to an answer connected to human anatomy. Walk with me! My first encounter (as best […]