How do you say - - ?

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Arvi
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Re: How do you say - - ?

Post by Arvi »

Liis wrote:Any fishermen around?
What do you say for sikuska in English - is jig or pilk something you would recognize?
I have already, cowardly, crept past it in two of Kristel Vilbaste's weekly chronicles, so it had better be properly translated now ...
Search for 'sikuti' in http://www.dict.ee/ - it gives 'jig' as answer
'Sikuska' is russicism - it probably originates from old belivers on Peipsi shores.
And right Estonian name for it is 'tirk', but it is missing in dictionaries, and 'sikuti' is more common in use.
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Post by Liis »

Thanks, Arvi !
As usual, dictionaries are quite OK - if you know what to look for. And what to choose: "Tirk" is actually there in the http://enet.animato.ee. But no very good translation alternatives for fishing ....
And thanks for another dictionary, can't have too many of them, obviously. :dunno: .
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Post by Liis »

Is põder, Alces alces, an elk or a moose?
I have always thought an elk, but hunting acquintances now say hmm-mhh, no, moose, really.
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NancyM
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Post by NancyM »

Liis,

It seems to depend where you live. I googled the scientific name, and among other hits, found this:

"Moose is an Indian word meaning "eater of twigs" and tends only to be used by North Americans to describe Alces. In Europe, Alces is usually called elk."
http://www.aquatic.uoguelph.ca/mammals/ ... /moose.htm
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Post by Liis »

Yes, - and then I Googled & read some more. First somebody explained that elk and moose are the same animal, it is a choice of British/European English or US, as you wrote, Bociany. Then somewhere else it was added that same animal, initially, BUT - having been isolated from each other - slightly different populations, possibly races. So elk, then, for Estonia.
Whereupon one more aspect came in. European elk lives only in Europe/Asia. So no real elks in US. But there is still a US elk, the Cephalus canadensis, wapiti in European terminology. Whereas the European "US elk", Cephalus elaphus, is called red deer in England, which (red deer, that is) some people also use for deer, Capreolus capreolus. The long & short of that was that the real elk should be called moose, to avoid being mistaken for the wapiti (in writing, that is, not much risk in nature, I guess).
Decision: the real elk will get to keep its proper name, and the wapiti will have to manage as best it can!
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NancyM
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Post by NancyM »

Liis, those popular or folk names will do nothing but confuse us! The scientific binomial nomenclature (Linnaeus is my hero!) helps to keep every species clear.
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Post by Liis »

bociany wrote:Liis, those popular or folk names will do nothing but confuse us! The scientific binomial nomenclature (Linnaeus is my hero!) helps to keep every species clear.
But the confusions make for fascinating excursions too :dunno: ... They do take their time, of course - and mostly, you land where you started.
The thing is, Estonian is basically very much for having proper Estonian concepts for most things, none of the usual slightly-nativised Latin or English (is coming, though) names. Example: Gingko biloba is gingko, in most languages; Estonian: hõlmikpuu. So even when it is a plant that is not native in Estonia (there is a really big Gingko, 120+ years in Tallinn, though) it gets an Estonian name.
Same goes for other science areas. Admirable but tough, for translating :D
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Post by NancyM »

But the confusions make for fascinating excursions too :dunno: ...
yes, like way you came up with a name for chick that might be born to Ricky's favorite duck :laugh:
viewtopic.php?p=14496#p14496
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Post by Liis »

English translations -
with all the fun and festivities and camera events the translations are a little bit late. :book:
Up in Estonian, coming in English:
the fall of the salt pole and deer visit with video link, migrating eagle visits with video link, call for snowmum building against global warming with links to earlier snowmum action pictures, Kristel Vilbaste's weekly chronicle (telling about lynxes beginning to yawl)
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caysa
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Post by caysa »

Liis wrote:English translations -
with all the fun and festivities and camera events the translations are a little bit late. :book:
Up in Estonian, coming in English:
the fall of the salt pole and deer visit with video link, migrating eagle visits with video link, call for snowmum building against global warming with links to earlier snowmum action pictures, Kristel Vilbaste's weekly chronicle (telling about lynxes beginning to yawl)
Aww Liis, I hope I didn't give you stress by noticing that the deer video wasn't up on the English page :slap:
I didn't mean to.... And now I know where to look for new videos!!

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Liis
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Post by Liis »

caysa wrote: Aww Liis, I hope I didn't give you stress by noticing that the deer video wasn't up on the English page :slap:
I didn't mean to.... And now I know where to look for new videos!!
No problem. Hadn't even noticed :mrgreen:
Maybe a little bit of explaining is in place. Translation works like this, mostly: something goes up on Estonian LK front page, I grab it & translate, send translation to webmaster who fixes proper links, html codes, etc., puts up on LK English page.
And since mostly everybody does volunteer work, it gets done somewhere in spare times. :D
So there may be delays, but that is only to give you all a chance to read Estonian, of course.
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caysa
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Post by caysa »

Liis wrote: No problem. Hadn't even noticed :mrgreen:
Maybe a little bit of explaining is in place. Translation works like this, mostly: something goes up on Estonian LK front page, I grab it & translate, send translation to webmaster who fixes proper links, html codes, etc., puts up on LK English page.
And since mostly everybody does volunteer work, it gets done somewhere in spare times. :D
So there may be delays, but that is only to give you all a chance to read Estonian, of course.
I can sure see how it works!! I have been doing abit of that myself too so i know...
And I used to start with the Estonian page but since my friend from usa joined and reads the forum every day, I pointed out to her that there is an English page too... and then I kind of was left with that myself :whistling:
And I love to read Estonian - I try to understand as much as possiible...
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Post by Liis »

The Wolf Pack Howl video link is up in Estonian http://www.looduskalender.ee/node/2819, translation of text (not wolves :mrgreen: ) coming.
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Post by Liis »

About words for wolf in Estonian, or rather the one & only original word back in history -
Hi, Arvi viewtopic.php?p=21022&f=12#p21022 :wave: - I did check before posting my question, as best I could, by some Google searches and some comparing in Swedish etymological books (they sometimes kindly take a look outside Swedish too).
One source said - sorry, didn't think of noting URL - that Estonian 'hunt' is borrowed from old (14-15th century?) Baltic nobility German, and probably was used as 'metsakoer' - wolf as 'forest dog'. Hound (Engl.), hund (Swedish), Hund (German) etc. probably - never know with languages! - have the same roots, somewhere.
That susi actually might be older than hunt has a little bit support from the fact that in Finnish wolf=susi (at least according to my dictionary). But both - hunt, susi - may still be later-day noa-words, that is words for something you do not want to say, to avoid calling forth an evil thing.
No good etymological Estonian word book at hand - anybody know of one, electronic or print?
EDIT. Found one of the sources, newspaper EPL article on animal names, Estonian, tricky to translate.
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Olga
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Post by Olga »

I happened to find the name of wolf in almost 'all' about 90 different languages! To copy it was disabled:

some examples:

Hindi: Hundar Bheriya
Lithuanian: Vilkas
Hebrew: Ze'ev
http://www.starstuffs.com/wolves/languages.html

In our Finnish language the name 'susi' - wolf - originates from ancient times (behind how many thousands of years I have no idea) . It was said in some page on linguistics that in our language it is a loan from proto-Baltic and proto-Germanic languages.

Estonians, do you have a word that resembles the word 'hukka' - it is a byname to wolf In finnish?
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Post by Arvi »

renandeli wrote:Estonians, do you have a word that resembles the word 'hukka' - it is a byname to wolf In finnish?
Hukk = perishing/death
Hukkama = put to death/execute
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Olga
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Post by Olga »

Arvi wrote: Hukk = perishing/death
Hukkama = put to death/execute
That is intersting. We have those words too, with not exactly same meanigs, but anyway 'negative' meanings. Also 'hukka' means wolf to us Finns. But we too have many more abstract words which are propably derivatives from 'hukka': hukkua-verb -> to be drowned, to be lost. Hukata-> to lose things, what ever things, even 'the whole life'.. Old words, root words, are interesting, their meaning are always concrete. Hukka, susi, wolf, was understood as a way as a concrete threat for people and their animals, even death.

Really - was it??

I think it was not just the wolves themselves which were experienced as dangerous. The real danger has been the 'forest' (for us Finns at least..). A forest was full of dangersfor life, to get lost, to perish.. the forest, a dense labyrinth, like an 'other world' without clear limits, there were no compasses, forests were hudreds of kilometres wide and no human made paths, a scaring and unknown area, where the real enemies, some other humans, could hide in concrete.

I think the wolves were labeled to represent all the dangers of forests. There are not many real stories of the evil, cruelty or violence of wolves, - many of them are legends and mythes...To kill an other animal by a wolf is not 'cruelty'. A bear could be a dangerous and scaring animal too, but it was not hated like the wolf was. All other way round. A bear was worshipped before hunting, and again after it was killed. Legends and mythes of bears are not 'bad'. Why?.. There is something 'human-like' in wolves, isn't it?..In their nightly voices, their cleverness, how they co-operate.. etc..

uups..what a writing by me...(well I just thought aloud, what just jumped into my mind and what I happened to remember..)..
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Liis
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Post by Liis »

About the new eagle camera and technical set-up around the nest:
on LK Estonian main page http://www.looduskalender.ee/node/2884, with picture of nest tree, & telling that camera was in place already in January so as not to disturb the birds. Translation coming!
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Post by Liis »

Hauduma = laying on the eggs, in English?

Incubate, brood, hatch seem to be the options.
Incubate is excactly what is is, but a little bit too scientific sometimes. Hatch is to me when the chicks come out, 'kläcka' in Swedish. Brood, don't know.
Opinions, please, there will be a lot about it for some time now!
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Post by Jo UK »

The words most commonly used for this activity are brooding, or just "sitting" (on eggs).
On another forum last year, we mentioned "the sitting adult" if we didn't know which parent it was. The activity of keeping the eggs warm and rotated by either adult bird is known as brooding.
Incubation is an accurate, precise word - some may feel it is too formal!

I expect we shall get around it by saying Donna is on the nest now or Sulev is sitting. Language is very mobile!
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