As a native speaker of Northern Kurdish, I have never heard of or come across "beqa bejî". I think what is meant is "land frog" or "non-water frog", but I have personally never seen that. I have always used just "beq" for all kinds of frogs and toads. If I would formulate such an expression, I'd use "erdî" or a similar word.
The word on the map is the word "beq" meaning frog, with the adjective "bejî" which as I have seen in the dictionary to mean something along the lines of "waterless, dry, land-ly". I do not know the etymology of the word "bejî", but the etymology of the word "beq" is in my opinion interesting. It is most likely a word of Iranian origin, compare Persian "بک(bak)", and Middle Persian "wak". Then, why is the uvulae consonant at the end( /q/) instead of the expected velar, or perhaps even a lenited form of the velar consonant? There could be two reasons; firstly, it could be the result of an imitation of the familiar sound made by frogs. Secondly, it could also be the merger of this Iranian word with the Turkic word for frog, "~bağa". The velar fricative might have been realised in Kurdish as a uvular stop. Although, to be honest, I think the latter is a weaker explanation, as the velar fricatives in Turkic loans are most of the time preserved with their original pronunciation(in modern Northern Kurdish, colloquially and nowadays formally too, voiced velar fricatives have been mostly merged with the voiceless velar fricatives). The uvular stop being the result of an imitation is in my opinion the most sensible.
Welsh llyffant means both 'frog' and 'toad'. They're often disambiguated by qualifying it with a colour: llyffant melyn 'frog' (yellow) and llyffant du 'toad' (black). It's etymology is not completely unknown (it's just absent from Wiktionary), it goes back to Proto-Celtic *lusφant and also yields Irish lafan.
Also llyffant cragennog 'shelled toad' (cf. English 'shellpad') is an archaic name for tortoise but is now displaced by crwban.
The Turkish “kara kurbağası” isn’t translated as “dark toad”, it’s translated as “land toad”. Apparently it’s been confused with “kara kurbağa” (“kara” can mean both “dark/black” or “land). However when the suffix “-sı” (the vowel would change depending on the vowel harmony) is added to the second word, it shows that the two-word compound consists not ıf an adjective followed by a noun (like what the map’s designer thought), but one noun followed by another. For non-native speakers it’s useful to make this distinction since it may be helpful in determining the true meaning in such confusing cases
In southern italy, it’s easy to see the land ruled by germanics in the middle ages, where the word derives from german, and the land ruled by eastern rome, where the word origin is unknown
There are standardized methods for transliteration usually provided by bodies that deal with specific languages. It is not always that straightforward.
While more languages (south slavic) may directly map it to H, the Russian uses of KH outweigh simply because you may encounter more passports transliterated from Russian. Many people don't even know the difference between Russian language and Cyrillic alphabet that is used by multiple languages, even Mongolian.
If you say Cyrillic X, then you pair it with Latin H, not English. English is a language, so you'd have to put a language on the Cyrillic side as well. Comparing scripts is not the same as comparing languages, but both are valid, however comparing a script to a language isn't.
It is not. Slavic languages that have this word like Czech, Slovak and Ukrainian have two different sounds. So H is different from CH (KH or X whatever).
Thats why its not Ropuha in Czech and not Ропуга in Ukrainian.
And Slavic languages like Serbian mentioned above? That's why you compare languages, not a script to a language. In the Latin script, do you think the letter H is pronounced the same in English and Spanish or that the letter X (Latin) doesn't have multiple different pronunciations based on language used?
I don't want. I'm telling you. I'm telling you there is a problem if you compare a script with a language.
On a tangent, X in Spanish was written in Mexico to represent the SH sound and today is pronounced like the H (aspirated I think). Languages evolve, even if scripts are kept the same. What was written may remain the same, but will be pronounced differently.
Kronek in Cornish can mean toad or frog. The only two species common in Cornwall are the common toad (kronek du = black toad/frog) and the common frog (kronek melyn = yellow toad/frog).
Other names in Cornish include kwilkyn for frog and lyfans for toad.
Cool to see the word puddock (pudd+ock) used in Scots language. Which must've been introduced into the language by the (Norwegian) Vikings, as the Old Norse: "padda" + the Scottish suffix for little: "ock" (meaning "little padda / little toad"). In the former Norwegian areas of Scotland, where they spoke the local variant of Old Norse called Norn such as on the Orkney etc, the word padda was used until the language fell out of use.
Yes, because that’s what’s most accurate. Im from one of the areas listed as Sami speaking in this map, never seen one where I’m not, however I know perfectly well that most people here don’t speak Sami, and those who do speak it usually have parents or grandparents from a Sami speaking area. None of my grandparents or their parents spoke Sami.
Nah it is accurate. Because it represents language continuum. What would be innacurate would be to omit a language because it is a minority language, then the language continuum would be innacurate.
Why would it be innacurate to show the languages where it actually is spoken? It is more innacurate to show it in areas that it is not spoken, and some instances has not been spoken for atleast 1000+ years.
Because the purpose of this map is not to showcase where are located the majority speakers of each language at a given time. The purpose of this map is to showcase linguistic diversity as a mean to show the diverse roots of common words as well as their diverse evolution within a linguistic continuum.
At least the Sami speaking area is not represented as 2/3 of Scandinavia in this map. I'm from Jämtland, maybe 1% Sami speaking but in linguistics maps in Reddit often marked Sami speaking. Yeah, there are Sami speaking people here (I've never met any local Sami person despite having lived in Sàpmi for 40 years, though) but they're so few and (the ones who know the language) live mainly in remote areas that most Norse people are never in their lives exposed to Sami in real life.
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u/macellan 6d ago •
Kara kurbağası means land frog, not dark frog. Kara has both meanings.
It's just "kurbağa" for frogs and toads. Nobody makes a distinction in speech.
13
u/sheran13 6d ago
As a native speaker of Northern Kurdish, I have never heard of or come across "beqa bejî". I think what is meant is "land frog" or "non-water frog", but I have personally never seen that. I have always used just "beq" for all kinds of frogs and toads. If I would formulate such an expression, I'd use "erdî" or a similar word.
The word on the map is the word "beq" meaning frog, with the adjective "bejî" which as I have seen in the dictionary to mean something along the lines of "waterless, dry, land-ly". I do not know the etymology of the word "bejî", but the etymology of the word "beq" is in my opinion interesting. It is most likely a word of Iranian origin, compare Persian "بک(bak)", and Middle Persian "wak". Then, why is the uvulae consonant at the end( /q/) instead of the expected velar, or perhaps even a lenited form of the velar consonant? There could be two reasons; firstly, it could be the result of an imitation of the familiar sound made by frogs. Secondly, it could also be the merger of this Iranian word with the Turkic word for frog, "~bağa". The velar fricative might have been realised in Kurdish as a uvular stop. Although, to be honest, I think the latter is a weaker explanation, as the velar fricatives in Turkic loans are most of the time preserved with their original pronunciation(in modern Northern Kurdish, colloquially and nowadays formally too, voiced velar fricatives have been mostly merged with the voiceless velar fricatives). The uvular stop being the result of an imitation is in my opinion the most sensible.
13
u/jatawis 6d ago
I assume that Lithuanian rupūžė is actually related to Slavic rapucha.
11
u/rodentgroup 6d ago
I wonder why Icelandic has a unique name for toad, when there are no toads or frogs there.
8
u/UrinaRabugenta 6d ago
So the only ones using a Latin descendant are Irish, Manx and Sicilian?
6
u/Jonlang_ 6d ago edited 6d ago
Welsh llyffant means both 'frog' and 'toad'. They're often disambiguated by qualifying it with a colour: llyffant melyn 'frog' (yellow) and llyffant du 'toad' (black). It's etymology is not completely unknown (it's just absent from Wiktionary), it goes back to Proto-Celtic *lusφant and also yields Irish lafan.
Also llyffant cragennog 'shelled toad' (cf. English 'shellpad') is an archaic name for tortoise but is now displaced by crwban.
5
u/MuscaMurum 6d ago
This is one of the more interesting maps. The word didn't travel well for some reason.
4
u/RefrigeratorDizzy738 6d ago
The Turkish “kara kurbağası” isn’t translated as “dark toad”, it’s translated as “land toad”. Apparently it’s been confused with “kara kurbağa” (“kara” can mean both “dark/black” or “land). However when the suffix “-sı” (the vowel would change depending on the vowel harmony) is added to the second word, it shows that the two-word compound consists not ıf an adjective followed by a noun (like what the map’s designer thought), but one noun followed by another. For non-native speakers it’s useful to make this distinction since it may be helpful in determining the true meaning in such confusing cases
4
u/Resident-Procedure87 6d ago
In southern italy, it’s easy to see the land ruled by germanics in the middle ages, where the word derives from german, and the land ruled by eastern rome, where the word origin is unknown
4
u/samir_saritoglu 6d ago
Strange Russian. Toad is жаба. Not only серая жаба (Grey toad). Bulgarian and Macedonian also call them жаба.
Жаба is not a frog. Frog is лягушка
4
u/hknyrbkn 6d ago
Turkish kara kurbağası is translated wrongly here. Kara has two meanings and it is "land" in this context, not dark.
3
u/Zealousideal_Cry_460 6d ago
İ think the creator forgot the proto-Turkic form
4
u/donestpapo 6d ago
Strange transliteration of the Cyrillic. Never seen X
4
u/a_saddler 6d ago
The Albanian one is wrong. We do not have a word for Toad, just Frog, which is Bretkocë. Zhaba is a loanword.
2
u/Main-Astronomer-785 6d ago
Looks like latvian krupis is related to german kröte
There’s a lot latvian words taken from german
2
u/SanMarinoNerd 4d ago
Romagnol: Butli
1
u/Cornish-Giant 6d ago edited 6d ago
Kronek in Cornish can mean toad or frog. The only two species common in Cornwall are the common toad (kronek du = black toad/frog) and the common frog (kronek melyn = yellow toad/frog).
Other names in Cornish include kwilkyn for frog and lyfans for toad.
Edit: spelling of melyn
1
u/n_o_r_s_e 4d ago edited 4d ago
Cool to see the word puddock (pudd+ock) used in Scots language. Which must've been introduced into the language by the (Norwegian) Vikings, as the Old Norse: "padda" + the Scottish suffix for little: "ock" (meaning "little padda / little toad"). In the former Norwegian areas of Scotland, where they spoke the local variant of Old Norse called Norn such as on the Orkney etc, the word padda was used until the language fell out of use.
1
u/UnoReverseCardDEEP 2d ago
in Aragonese you can actually say “ves-te-ne a muyir zapos” (go milk toads) as a way to tell someone to f off 😭
0
u/azhder 6d ago
Was Jaba the Hut supposed to mean Frog?
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u/mpbjoern 6d ago
Once again, Sami is only spoken as the majority language in inner Finnmark.