Language: Welsh

Meaning: Hello, How are you?

It’s still questionable as to whether Jessie and I will be driving over to Cardiff today to visit the parts recycler (rather leaning towards no, since they don’t actually appear to have any parts we need, but still, I’ve never been to Wales, so might be a nice trip anyway), but thought I’d throw in some Welsh vocab anyway.  Welsh appears to be yet another incredibly bizarre and difficult language.  Maybe not quite as bad as Georgian, but still pretty bad.  We’re talking about a place that has city names like Llanfairpwllgwyngyll and Bryngwran and Rhydyclafdy.  The guys at the parts recycler shop were about that easy to understand, as well.  Once at my aunt’s fourth of July party a Welsh woman told me I could look Welsh if only I was shorter and squatter.  Since then I’ve always been curious to check it out, maybe I should sieze this opportunity!

Language: Bulgarian

Meaning: Bon Voyage!

As I’m about to get on a plane to head to London, I figured “bon voyage” would be a good word for today.  Once again, as with bon appetit, we are at the mercy of the French to be able to say things succinctly.  In English we say “have a good trip” which is twice as many words as is necessary (though only a third more syllables).  Although we are currently planning to go through Bulgaria, I met a man at David Mann and Ronalee Lo’s wedding this weekend that suggested we go through his hometown of Thessaloniki instead.  He was a very nice man, so I can only assume Thessaloniki is a very nice place.  It looks a teensy bit out of the way, but maybe we’ll see how we’re doing on time.  Word of the Day may be more like word of the week from now on, but hope everyone is enjoying the feature!

Language: Serbo-Croat

Meaning: To meet, to get to know

While we have to drive pretty quickly, with only a month to cover 10,000 miles, however we will hopefully still have the chance to meet and get to know lots of people on our journey.  Hospitality in Turkey and Central Asia is almost like a religion.  Stop to ask directions and you might get invited to lunch (or at the very least, tea) or to stay or just to be shown around town.  If you’re friendly and smile and attempt to communicate with people, they tend to be pretty friendly and welcoming.  As we all know, David Sedaris’s favorite “get to know you” line is “What do your roosters say?”  In Serbo-croatian they say “ku-ku-ri-ku.” In Turkish they say “ü ürü üüüüüü”…that’s a lot of umlauts…

Language: Turkish

Meaning: How are you doing?

The transcription of the pronounciation isn’t quite right there, but I’m not sure how to describe how to say “ı.”   Although it takes some practice and you might not believe me, nasılsınız will eventually roll off your tongue just like “how’s it going?” now does.  When someone asks you “Nasılsınız?” the easiest way to respond (as we do in America) is “Iyiyim” or “I am well” (iyi meaning good and, as we learned last time, the “m” on the end making the noun refer to the subject).  If you’re polite, you can say “Iyiyim, senden?” (I am well, and you?) and your conversational partner will likely say “Ben de iyiyim” (I am also well).  If you want to start complaining about life, the conversation gets a lot more complicated, and anyway, no one likes a whiner; just say you’re doing well and get on with the more interesting parts of the conversation!

Language: Turkish

Meaning: Job/occupation

“Ne iş yapıyorsun?” (”what do you do,” or “what is your job?”) is a common question for people in every language, especially when they are wondering why on earth you are travelling to their country (yesterday in the waiting room of the Azeri embassy someone asked my why I was going to Azerbaijan and whether it had to do with “war”).   In Turkish, “my” and “I am” are equivalent and are just expressed by adding an m to the end of the noun.  So, depending on the context you could say “öğretmenim” and that could either mean “my teacher” or “I am a teacher.”  In our case, I would say “öğrencim” (I am a student), Anand would probably say the same, or, if he wanted to get fancy he could say “istatistikçim” (I am a statistician).  Jessie would say “tanımlama araştırmacım” (I am a picture researcher), and Andrew would say “programcım” (I am a programmer).

Language: Kyrgyz

Meaning: Air conditioning

Not sure if our car has air conditioning, but we’re probably going to blasting the heat anyway, trying to cool off our poor overburdened engine.  As soon as we get into Turkey, it’s going to start getting hot.  The average temperatures in the Stan’s in the summer are around 100 and sometimes it even gets up to the 110’s and 120’s (or so my Uzbek friends claim)!  Kyrgyzstan is one of the poorest countries in the region (along with Tajikistan), so I’m guessing we’re not going to be finding a lot of air conditioning around and about.  Luckily we’ll probably be camping around in a great, well ventilated tent courtesy of Sierra Designs.  Who needs AC?!

Language: Turkish

Meaning: Goodbye

Allahaısmarladık is quite a mouthful to say.  You say this when you’re leaving and generally the proper response from the person staying behind is “güle güle!” Allahaısmarladıkmeans something along the lines of “go with god” or “I leave you in god’s care.”  An easier (possibly) way to say goodbye in Turkish is “Görüşürüz!” (geur-ieu-shieu-rieuz) which means, “see you later!” (görmek means “to see”).  All said, it’s way easier to be staying than leaving in Turkey.  Maybe we’ll just stick to waving.

Language: Turkish

Meaning: Molasses

Specifically, pekmez is fruit molasses.  It’s like a really thick fruity version of maple syrup, but thinner than jam or jelly.  Pekmez can be poured over yogurt or kaymak (clotted cream) or, apparently, mixed with Tahini for breakfast.  I never saw the latter, but pekmez did make numerous entries into snack time out in the Black Sea mountains in Turkey.  A favorite pekmez there is made from dut (mulberries) – a favorite fruit generally speaking.  I can’t wait to get back to the glorious Turkish breakfasts of shepherd’s salad (cucumber and tomato), olives, kaymak and pekmez, and giant slabs of honeycomb.

Language: Dutch

Meaning: Eat deliciously

Bon Appetit,  Buen Provecho, Afiyet Olsun,  Eet Smakelijk.  Almost every language has a simple phrase for wishing people a good meal, except English.  Maybe some people say “eat well” or “dig in” or sometimes we wander over into french, but it seems that in general, Americans mostly just start eating.  In my family we say Eet Smakelijk, which to me is a nice way to signal the beginning of a meal together, requiring you to look up and see the other people sitting with you before burying your face in your plate.  In Turkey the appropriate response to Afiyet Olsun (roughly, may it contribute to your health) when eating a homemade meal  is “Elinize Sağlık” (may your (the cook’s) hands be healthy).

Language: Czech

Meaning: hello

(09:12:46 AM) Sarah Olmstead: I think I’m not going to be able to get a word of the day up today (on my way to alcatraz with my aunts), so if there’s any french vocab you think people are missing, feel free to throw it up there
(09:13:16 AM) Andrew Cole: i was thinking about the czech hello “ajoi” — ahoy
(09:13:23 AM) Andrew Cole: it’s just so much fun to pretend you’re a sailor
(09:13:33 AM) Sarah Olmstead: yeah, I love ahoj. I almost did that yesterday, actually
(09:13:42 AM) Andrew Cole: ah, you even spell it correctly
(09:14:04 AM) Andrew Cole: i was spelling in spanish
(09:14:14 AM) Sarah Olmstead: I do that all the time