A Cache of Languages

Little did I know my new hobby has some relevance to linguistics...

I recently decided to try Geocaching because of my love for the outdoors and hiking. Right away I was introduced to the language of Geocaching through its Glossary of Terms (many initialisms).

It wasn't until I found this adorable fellow that I discovered there is more to Geocaching than meets the language-loving tongue.

Here are his tags -

In English:

In French:

And in German (his first language):

P.S. I will not mention the prescriptivist issue with Volker's tag.

An Example of Siri's French-Influenced, English Dialect

ESL, EFL, Etc. and Location, Location, Location

ESL - English as a second language
EFL - English as a foreign language
TESL - Teaching English as a Second Language
TEFL - Teaching English as a Foreign Language

If a language is a foreign language to a speaker, it seems obvious that it would be that speaker's second language (or third or forth), so why the differentiation?

The answer is location.

English is considered a foreign language when it is taught or learned in a non-English speaking country; it is considered a second language when it is taught or learned in an English speaking country.



Thanks to 22 Words for bringing this uproarious video to my attention.

However, if the class mentioned in the video is truly EFL, I would think the enrollment counselor would not be speaking English. It would be more semantically correct if the class was ESL, but it wouldn't be as humorous.

Learning English Sounds

I recently came across this chart from bab.La and immediately noticed a very telling theme. I am not surprised by the theme, just fascinated to see it illustrated. (click on image to enlarge)

By my count, 19 of the 100 most listened to English words and expressions contain a th-sound, either word-initially as with "thanks", word-internally as with "mother" or word-finally as with "earth".

The reason I am not surprised by the number of words and expressions that contain the th-sound is that th-sound is notoriously challenging for ESL students to learn. Indeed, even native English speakers struggle to acquire the sound as children.

Phonetically, the th-sound is articulated either as a voiced dental fricative called "eth" and transcribed as /ð/, or a voiceless dental fricative called "theta" and transcribed as /θ/. The eth is heard in the word "though" and the theta is heard in the word "through".

Not only are both phonemes hard to learn, they are also hard to differentiate. Check out this previous post for more about theta and eth.

The bab.La site also has an R-rated version of the the 100 most listened to English words and expressions that includes many thetas and eths.

Translation Dead Giveaway

Having read all three of the books in Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, I found it surprising that it wasn't until page 424 of the hardcover edition of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest (the third book in the trilogy) that I noticed a dead giveaway that the book was translated from a different language (Swedish in this case).

"I won't make any promises. My marriage broke up because Erika and I couldn't keep away from each other," he said, and then he added in English, "Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt."






I wonder... do other countries really associate "Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt" with Americans as much as we associate "C'est la vie" with the French and "Que sera sera" with the Spanish?


C'est la vie. =That is life.

Que sera sera. = What will be will be.

The Japanese Suffix -San and other Honorifics

A common feature of Japanese morphology that most people are familiar with even if they don't know Japanese is the use of the suffix san. The suffix san when added to a person's name signifies that the speaker has great respect for the person he or she is addressing. What some people may not know is that in linguistics this type of suffix is called an honorific. There are many other Japanese honorifics as well, including: Kun, Chan, Sensai, and Shi.

Honorifics appear as suffixes and in other forms in many other languages and cultures too. English has honorifics, though they precede and are not attached to a person's name. English honorifics include: Mr., Mrs., Miss, Master, Sir, Dr. and the like. You might be surprised to know that even words like dude, bro, and girl can be used as honorifics.