It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

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Xing
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It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Xing »

:eng: It's all Greek to me

:con: Xingish

La-de er rene Esperanto (ad mi).
DIST-DEM be pure Esperanto (DAT 1s)
"That is pure Esperanto (to me)"
[ˈlɑːdə eːr ˈreːnə ɛspərˈantɔ ad mɪ]
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Creyeditor »

The thing I like about Xingish is that I understand every sentence. It seems to take lexemes almost exclusively from languages that I at least know of.

:deu: Standard German
Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof.
[(ʔɪ)ç fɐ.ˈʃteː nuɐ̯ ˈbaːn.hoːf]
ich versteh-e nur Bahnhof
1SG.NOM understand-1SG.NOM.PRS only train_station
It's all Greek to me

:deu: Colloquial German
Häää?
[hɛ̝͡ɛ͡ɛ̞ːː˧˦˥]
INTERJ
It's all Greek to me
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Lambuzhao »

Boy is it ever. All of it.
[:x]
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Iyionaku »

Creyeditor wrote:The thing I like about Xingish is that I understand every sentence. It seems to take lexemes almost exclusively from languages that I at least know of.

:deu: Standard German
Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof.
[(ʔɪ)ç fɐ.ˈʃteː nuɐ̯ ˈbaːn.hoːf]
ich versteh-e nur Bahnhof
1SG.NOM understand-1SG.NOM.PRS only train_station
It's all Greek to me

:deu: Colloquial German
Häää?
[hɛ̝͡ɛ͡ɛ̞ːː˧˦˥]
INTERJ
It's all Greek to me
Maybe it's interesting to note that your German translation is literally: "I only understand train station", a sentence that has become somewhat idiomatic for bad literal English spoken by Germans (which is propably why you avoided it).

There is also :deu:

Das sind für mich böhmische Dörfer.
[das zɪnt fyə̯ mɪç ˈbøːmɪʃʷə ˈdœɐ̯fɐ]
DEM.NEUT.NOM COP.3PL for 1SG.ACC bohemian.PL.NOM village.PL.NOM
For me, that are bohemian villages.

:fra: French

C'est du chinois.
[sɛ dy çiˈnwa]
DEM=COP.3SG of=DEF Chinese
That's from the Chinese. (about)

:tur: Turkish

Bir şey anladıysam Arap olayım.
[biɾ ʃeɪ̯ ˈanladɯɪ̯sam ˈarap ˈola.ɯm]
INDEF thing understand-??? Arab event-1SG.POSS.NOM
Let me be Arab if I understand anything.
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Iyionaku »

:con: Esperanto

ĝi estas por mi volapukaĵo
[d͡ʒi ˈestas pɔɾ mi ˈvolapukaʒo]
DEM.DIST COP.PRS for 1SG Volapük-made
It's all Volapük for me.

:hun: Hungarian

Ez nekem kínai.
[ɛs ˈnɛkɛm ˈkiːnaɪ̯]
DEM.NOM for-1SG Chinese
This is Chinese for me.
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Iyionaku »

:con: Yélian

Vat pabit Caelian pès rat.
[vɐ̆‿pabɨt kaˈeːlɪ̯ɐn pɛs ˈɾɐt]
DEM totally-COP.3SG.ANIM Caelian to me.
That's totally Caelian for me.

:con: Caelian

Bölkyat Raf berji Süljoren.
[bølˈkʲat, raɸ ʒylɔˈʋɛn bɛˈri ʒyljɔˈɾɛn]
all.DEM, 1SG.DAT COP.3CL>1SG Shellian.EQU
To me, it all is Yélian.

[;)]
Last edited by Iyionaku on 21 Jul 2017 12:44, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Dormouse559 »

Iyionaku wrote::fra: French

C'est du chinois.
That's from the Chinese. (about)
Du in this case is just the partitive article, meaning you're talking about a piece or unspecified amount of Chinese, so a back-translation would be "It's Chinese".

There's also C'est de l'hébreu. (It's Hebrew).
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Egerius »

Spoiler:
Creyeditor wrote:The thing I like about Xingish is that I understand every sentence. It seems to take lexemes almost exclusively from languages that I at least know of.

:deu: Standard German
Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof.
[(ʔɪ)ç fɐ.ˈʃteː nuɐ̯ ˈbaːn.hoːf]
ich versteh-e nur Bahnhof
1SG.NOM understand-1SG.NOM.PRS only train_station
It's all Greek to me

:deu: Colloquial German
Häää?
[hɛ̝͡ɛ͡ɛ̞ːː˧˦˥]
INTERJ
It's all Greek to me
Iyionaku wrote:There is also :deu:

Das sind für mich böhmische Dörfer.
[das zɪnt fyə̯ mɪç ˈbøːmɪʃʷə ˈdœɐ̯fɐ]
DEM.NEUT.NOM COP.3PL for 1SG.ACC bohemian.PL.NOM village.PL.NOM
For me, that are bohemian villages.
The original idiom in German:
Das kommt mir spanisch vor.
[das kɔmt miə ˈʃpaːnɪʃ fɔɐ]
This seems Spanish to me.
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Lambuzhao »

2-for-1 coupon:

:lat:

Græcum est; non potest legi.
greek.N.NOM.SG be<PRS.INDIC.3SG> | NEG be.able<PRS.INDIC.3SG> read<PRS.ACT.INF>

Græcum est; non legitur.
greek.N.NOM.SG be<PRS.INDIC.3SG> | NEG read<PRS.PASS.INDIC>3SG
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Lambuzhao »

Ancient :grc:

Βαρβαρίζει μοι.
[bar.ba.rí.sde: moj]
<speak.like.a.barbarian><PRS.ACT.INDIC>3SG 1SG.DAT

σολοικίζει μοι.
[so.loj.kí.sde: moj]
<speak.like.a.Solite><PRS.ACT.INDIC>3SG 1SG.DAT


**NB: 'barbarian' is cognate with the verb in the first sentence. 'solecism' comes from the verb in the second sentence.

**NB2: In a lot of the google hits for these verbs, they more commonly occur in a prohibitive sense:
'Don't speak like a barbarian' or 'Stop speaking like yer from Soloi' and the like.

I suppose, as in :lat: I could do a PASS version:


Βαρβαρίζεται μοι.
[bar.ba.rí.sde.taj moj]
<speak.like.a.barbarian><PRS.PASS.INDIC>3SG 1SG.DAT
It's being spoken to me like a barbarian

σολοικίζεται μοι.
[so.loj.kí.sde.taj moj]
<speak.like.a.Solite><PRS.PASS.INDIC>3SG 1SG.DAT
It's being spoken to me like someone from Soloi.

Claudii Galenii , q.v.
https://books.google.com/books?id=1LBdA ... 82&f=false

PS:
I would've thought that the less than PC Athenians would've said either "sounds Persian to me" or "sounds Scythian to me", but looks like a negatory. :wat:
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Creyeditor »

Egerius wrote:
Spoiler:
Creyeditor wrote:The thing I like about Xingish is that I understand every sentence. It seems to take lexemes almost exclusively from languages that I at least know of.

:deu: Standard German
Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof.
[(ʔɪ)ç fɐ.ˈʃteː nuɐ̯ ˈbaːn.hoːf]
ich versteh-e nur Bahnhof
1SG.NOM understand-1SG.NOM.PRS only train_station
It's all Greek to me

:deu: Colloquial German
Häää?
[hɛ̝͡ɛ͡ɛ̞ːː˧˦˥]
INTERJ
It's all Greek to me
Iyionaku wrote:There is also :deu:

Das sind für mich böhmische Dörfer.
[das zɪnt fyə̯ mɪç ˈbøːmɪʃʷə ˈdœɐ̯fɐ]
DEM.NEUT.NOM COP.3PL for 1SG.ACC bohemian.PL.NOM village.PL.NOM
For me, that are bohemian villages.
The original idiom in German:
Das kommt mir spanisch vor.
[das kɔmt miə ˈʃpaːnɪʃ fɔɐ]
This seems Spanish to me.
Just a quick note. I always thought that the meaning of the English idiom is 'I don't understand anything of it' whereas Das kommt mir spanisch vor. means 'It seems weird to me.', IINM.
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Lambuzhao »

Not much difference. The idiom in :eng: apparently goes back to Shakespeare Julius Caesar,
wherein the character Casca reacts to a speech by Cicero saying, whatever Cicero was saying made perfect sense to the others, but, to Casca himself, was strange/incomprehensible «'For mine own part, it was Greek to me.' »

The originaller idiom in :lat: was used by Medieval scribes to mark Latin text that was incomprehensible, and, to their mind, was perhaps either an original :grc: quotation, or somekind of commentary in :grc: made by the previous transcriber.

Which see
http://www.npr.org/2015/07/05/420335188 ... the-phrase


BTW, based on the wiki & omniglot charts on the subject, here's a link to a fun directed graph of who thinks what gibberish sounds like, language-wise
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1024
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by marvelous »

:eng: It's all Greek to me.

:con: Lairäts

Ker gä eitan ijelitäts.
/ker gæ ˈeɪtɑn iʒeˈlitæts/
ker gä ei-t-an ije-lit-äts
DIST EPIS be-GNO-EMP pest-person-language

That must be "Pestebian" [slur for Essebian].
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Lambuzhao »

So, for kicks, I tried finding what Copts & Ancient Egyptians might have said. The Copts apparently used the :grc: 'barbaros' (look like they really copt out, you might say) [¬.¬] .

The Ancient Egyptian word for foreign speech rendered some more interesting results, as usually happens with Ancient Egyptian.

There were a number of words in Ancient Egyptian for 'foreigner' or 'barbarian'. But, there seems to be
two phrases that we have attestations for 'foreign speech' (n)

A) aāā [ʔVʕVʕ] *[ʔa:.ʕaʕ] (Budge, Hieroglyphic Dictionary Vol II p. 911a)
Phonological realizations based on Loprieno Ancient Egyptian p. 53 &ff
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%EA%9C%A ... 5%EA%9C%A5


According to Loprieno, an older realization of this verb would have been something like
**[ʀa:.ʕaʕ] as is related to Proto-Semitic *lɣz, :ara: لغز laɣaza
'speak enigmatically/obscurely/ambiguously' and :isr: לעז lʕz 'speak a foreign language' (Loprieno, 31)
Also Syriac lʕz 'talk indistinctly' , 'chirp' (not in Loprieno, in Strong's Biblical Concordance, q.v.)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%DC%A0%DC%A5%DC%99%DC%90
http://slovar-axaz.org/statiy/1357-laaz.html



B) tchertcherȧt [tʲʼVr.tʲʼV.ryt], *[tʲʼir.tʲʼi:.rit] (¿?) (Budge, Hieroglyphic Dictionary Vol II p. 911a)
Phonological realizations based on Loprieno Ancient Egyptian p. 53 &ff

and its verb

tcherȧtcherȧ [tʲʼV.ry.tʲʼV.ry], * [tʲʼa.ri.tʲʼa.ri] 'talk an alien speech'; 'boast' (Budge p. 910)

And ultimately is related to the Egyptian tcher(u) [dtʲʼVr(w)] 'imit', 'boundary' (Budge p. 908)
In a kind of (glosso)poetic echo to how :ukr:Украї́на ukrajina originally meant 'borderland', 'outland', 'frontier'.
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Zythros Jubi »

Roguel:
Suman iyasdumarderek
su-man Ias-dumar-der-ek
1SG-as.for Ias-language-seem-3SG

It is Ias language to me.
*Ias is the name of a language spoken on an island next to Roguelia, which many Roguelians are familiar with because of trade and cultural connections in history; however, they belong to different language families.
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by marvelous »

:con: Aniszunian Essebian

In this case, it is the same for masculine and non-masculine speech.

Gaqētū kera lussreye.
/gäˈqeːtuː ˈkɛrä lʊsːˈrɛjɛ/
ga-q-ē-t-ū kera l-ussre-ye
DEO-3SG.INTR-be-GNO-EMP DIST INDEF-bird-dialect

That must be a bird dialect.
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Lambuzhao »

marvelous wrote:That must be a bird dialect.
Cannot avoid the marvelous sequitur, so here goes.

While I was looking up the words above, I did some possible Coptic reconstructions for

tchertcherȧt [tʲʼVr.tʲʼV.ryt], *[tʲʼir.tʲʼi:.rit]:

*THP.TPЄ [te:r.tre] or [te:r.thre]
*TѠP.TPЄ [to:r.tre] or [to:r.thre]
*TAP.TPЄ [tar.tre] or [tar.thre]
*TP.TѠP [tər.to:r]

There could also be an affricated /lambdacized (this is hallmark of Bohairic dialect of Coptic)
*ϪHλ.ϪЄλ [dʒe:l.dʒel]
*ϪѠλ.ϪЄλ [dʒo:l.dʒel]
*ϪAλ.ϪЄλ [dʒal.dʒel]
*ϪЄλ.ϪѠλ[dʒel.dʒo:l]


In my wanderings and readings, I saw a couple of Coptic words that came close.
They are reduplicated words, and, being a rabidly super fan of reduplication, they pinged on my radar like the CE3K/P-Funk mothership:


[cross] ϪAλϪЄλ - 'stronghold', 'fort' (Ancient *trtr)

and
:?: :idea:
ϪAλϪOϒ - 'bat', 'plover' (Ancient *drgyt) (Budge, Hieroglyphic Dictionary Vol II p. 891b)
ϪЄλϪOϒ - 'bat' (Ancient *drgyt) (Budge, Hieroglyphic Dictionary Vol II p. 855a)

the dictionary (i.e. Sahidic) form is ϬINϬλѠ [t∫in.t∫lo:] (Crum, p. 824a)
It seems the Bohairic forms above lenited/elided the final /λ/.

Nonetheless
Bat (Roussetus ægyptaicus)
https://www.mindenpictures.com/cache/pc ... 480498.jpg

Plover (Pluvianus ægyptius)
http://www.hbw.com/sites/default/files/ ... k=CiKzgZ4v

If they’re anything like the bats and the Weeberdeeber (i.e. Killdeer) that live around my way; that’s a whole lotta chitter-chatter going on.

:wat:

Looks like all my bats may be in the belfry avec raison
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/sci ... /95882424/

http://www.nature.com/news/bat-banter-i ... ed-1.21215

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DS1WI-Eo7I
(these sound like fast-forwarded foreigners on tape)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GaS5U4SCRE
(These especially sound remarkably like foreign children)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMlrecqEDC8
:!:
Last edited by Lambuzhao on 22 Jul 2017 19:38, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by holbuzvala »

Not to be a grumble-growzer, but why does it seem that all the conlangs have taken the idiomatic phrase "It's all greek to me" (meaning "I don't understand"), and just replaced 'greek' woth another language?

Why not have a phrase like: "It's an avocado in the mouth", for a culture who only eat avocados in smoothies and thus never eat them, so such an action is un-understandable?

Or even a weird ditty like, "words are birds and I'm no sparrow". (Harking back here to the 'bird dialect' from earlier)

Just a thought to stimulate some box-edge-pushing.
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by Lambuzhao »

Ha ha ha!
[xP]
You are pushing me to pushville (in a good way).

I enjoyed looking taking a gander over the different version on the wikipedia chart.
But what really stood out to me was :ice: Hrognamál 'fish egg language', Indonesian Cakar ayam 'chicken feet' (refers to writing), :esp: patas de araña 'spider feet' (refers to writing).

My mom & her siblings had this absolutely revolting phrase they used as kids for Tapioca Pudding (clearly not one of their favorite desserts) "fish eyes and monkey vomit".
[:x]
I think, b/c of your nudging, I will definitely use that phrase in (at least) one of my conlangs for this situation.
[:)]
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Re: It's all Greek to me (idiomatic)

Post by marvelous »

holbuzvala wrote:Not to be a grumble-growzer, but why does it seem that all the conlangs have taken the idiomatic phrase "It's all greek to me" (meaning "I don't understand"), and just replaced 'greek' woth another language?

Why not have a phrase like: "It's an avocado in the mouth", for a culture who only eat avocados in smoothies and thus never eat them, so such an action is un-understandable?

Or even a weird ditty like, "words are birds and I'm no sparrow". (Harking back here to the 'bird dialect' from earlier)

Just a thought to stimulate some box-edge-pushing.
That's a very good question and I like your suggestions. I'm going to think of a better way to say it in Leiräts. Having direct equivalents to English idioms doesn't really gel with what I'm trying to do with the conworld as a whole.

Lambuzhao, god I'm envious of you reading Coptic. I know the alphabet is just stylized Greek, but I've never put the time into learning the language. Funny thing is people know that in Esperanto people say volapukaĵo but less known is that people say hieroglifaĵo or hieroglifoj to mean the same thing... it's a bit more vanilla though so it's not talked about much.
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