Liam, this could be the desired unblocking of your blogging flow. Why not write a post on your blog about this?

I remember a trip to Croatia (or Hrvatska in the local tongue) a few years back that illustrates my theory. As usual, I’d made a little effort to learn a few phrases in the local language – the usual salutations and pleasantries – and did my best to use them. After consistently being misunderstood, I asked a good English speaker what I was doing wrong. After much discussion, he realised that I was merely putting an accent onto the wrong syllable of some words, rendering them unintelligible to the listeners. However, I have no problem understanding English learners as they butcher the grammar and pronunciation. It made me realise that perhaps English is simply able to stand up to this sort of thing better than lots of other languages, probably because of it’s mongrel origins from a variety of Scandinavian and Romance tongues.

English is a really tough language to master. My experiences as a primary school teacher definitely stand as witness to that! However, it’s a really easy language to make yourself understood in and it can withstand all sorts of misuse and abuse while retaining the kernel of meaning intact. Ever seen two people from different language backgrounds using English as a common tongue? That’s got to be for reasons more practical than simply the determined colonial efforts of our forefathers…

But I’m straying off topic now! Sorry.

When OpenOffice was first localised* there were many commands that needed translating. One of the the most common is save (document).

In English, save has many different meaning, and in Welsh there’s a different word for each

save money (as in BOGOF) – arbed
save money (in a saving account) – cynilo
save someone (from drowning) – achub
save a penalty – arbed

But thankfully, whoever translated OpenOffice (people behind meddal.com I assume), choses cadw (keep) for save. When the Microsoft Office software were eventually localised, they also went with cadw.

*Even though OpenOffice had already been localised, some well meaning people from Aberystwyth Uni got some European funding to pay for an updated version. They went ahead and commissioned and also produced a nice looking user guide to go with it. Sadly, they chose to ignore the original version of OpenOffice and use arbed in place of cadw. There might have been other differences as well. Of course, people from meddal.com went ahead and localised the updated version of OpenOffice and then there was the silly situation of two versions of the same software with slightly different.

Hofrenydd – helicopter

I’ve often heard ‘helicopter’ cited as being a modern word that Welsh has no equivalent to. I think that Paul Whitehouse was inspired by hearing a program on S4C where they were speaking – to him at least – gibberish punctuated regularly by the word ‘helicopter’. It made him laugh and he thought of the cod Spanish TV sketch for the Fast Show. Obviously, ‘helicopter’ is a made up word in any language. And a good one too.

I agree with you Carl – I like the words that are not literal translations but rather express something of the relationship the language users have with the object in question.

They are mainly nouns though. Any interesting verbs and adjectives that are specific to the modern age? To download, to action, and all of that kind of speak?