Vermelho

When switching from Cyrillic to Latin it is important to keep it short. Given our continuous exposure to English, a "sh" might seem natural. However, this doesn't consider that: - English has years and years of writing sh - Cyrillic had years and years of writing ш, a single letter Last week, on the 37th anniversary of Uzbek becoming a state language, a new law was passed. It corrected a historic mistake and made the following changes: O' will become Ö G' will become Ğ Sh will become Ş Ch will become Ç #uzbek

The Croatian passport is special in at least two ways, apart from being one of the most powerful passports in the world. You see, there is a recommendation for the EU passports to be in the shadow of burgundy and all of the member states follow it. Yugoslavian red passport used to be one of the most convenient passports of its time, having freedom of travel in both West and East blocks. But Croatia didn't want to be associated with its communist past and opted for the dark blue cover after declaring independence. EU membership didn't change this fact. The vast majority of the world's passports have some sort of the word resembling "passport". It may be "pas" or "Reisepass", but still recognizable. Off the top of my head I could come with two exceptions: útlevél, or a road letter, is what Hungarians call their passport and төлқұжат, or an own document, how the Kazakh passport should have been called. The Croatian passport is called putovnica, or something you take with you on a path. #croatian #hungarian #kazakh

Have a Nice week!

The world's most prominent football match is the one between Barcelona and Real Madrid. Both are among the world's wealthiest and the most successful clubs and Catalonia's independence movement adds an extra depth and meaning to the game. The game is highly regarded and anticipated everywhere and even has its own name: El Clásico. When in 2013 Robert Lewandowski scored four goals and led Borussia Dortmund to the finals against Bayern Munich, the Germans were quick to react. El Clásico Der Klassiker Yesterday I learned that the game between Manchester City, owned by the United Arab Emirates, and Paris Saint-Germain, owned by Qatar, is mocked as El Cashico (also known as Oil Clasico). #spanish #german #english

The Romans divided the day into twelve hours of night and twelve hours of daylight. The sixth hour from dawn was therefore midday, or hora sexta. Since the sun is at its peak at this time, people would rest after lunch, usually sleeping. This is how the Latin sexta turned into the Spanish siesta. #latin #spanish

Born in Philadelphia, Grace Kelly was a Hollywood star in the early to mid 1950s. After marrying Prince Rainier III in 1956 she became the princess of Monaco. The current prince of Monaco, Prince Albert II, is her son. Mass tourism is a dire problem in Barcelona. The cleaners are expected to clean more rooms and apartments in an ever shorter time. To fight for their rights, the cleaners formed a worker union called Las Kellys. My first thought was that the name is an allusion to the Princess of Monaco. It turns out, it is a wordplay from the phrase: "las que limpian", meaning those who clean. #spanish

La Cène is how the French call The Last Supper, the painting of Leonardo da Vinci, depicting Jesus and the twelve apostles. La Seine is the river flowing through Paris. During the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris the French decided, to put it mildly, to surprise the World, using the three words that sound the same. La Cène en scène sur Seine was a celebration of diversity with drag queens and the Greek God of Wine Dyonisus. #french

Did you know that Dutch Sjaak Galician Xaime Hawaiian Kimo Irish Séamus Italian Mino Malayalam Chacko Maori Hēmi Portuguese Thiago Romanian Iacov Sicilian Giacumu Spanish Santiago Turkish Yakup Walloon Djåke are all variations (among others) of the English name James Latin name Iacobus Didacus? Note how each one of them starts with a different letter.

These dishes are well known! Chicken tikka, chicken korma, chicken vindaloo. Tikka means pieces from Persian. Vindaloo comes from Portuguese vinho d'alho, a garlic vinegar. Last week I was in an Uyghur restaurant. While not all of the Uyghur dish names ring a bell, a lot of their name parts do. So, when I saw "Qoorma", as a Kazakh, I understood that it means something fried. That led to a discovery that Indian Korma indeed comes from the Turkic verb to fry. With time, it slightly shifted in its meaning, becoming braising instead. But still! #hindi #persian #portuguese #uyghur

Here are some Arabic verbs: To write (kataba) - كتب To study (darasa) - درس To prostrate (sajada) - سجد To sit (jalasa) - جلس To be (kana) - كان When prefixed with ma-, these words become nouns. So a place to write, مكتب (maktab), is an school office. A place to study, مدرسة (madrasa), is a school. A place to prostrate, مسجد (masjid), is a mosque. A place to sit, مجلس (majlis), is a parliament. And a place to be, مكان (makan), is a location. #arabic

Since her debut in 2006, Shakira has participated at more World Cups than Italy. It has almost become the norm that whenever there's a new World Cup, there is also a new song from Shakira. And during the last one, I wondered about her name. You see, in Spanish, there is no sh. Nor is there a k, the native Spanish words use either c or qu. Even though she is Colombian, her name is definitely not Spanish. The Arabic word for thankfulness is شُكْر, shukr. This is also the word, from which the Arabic word for thanks, شُكْرًا, shukran, derives. And if a male person is thankful, he is called شاكِر, which is also a name. The full name of the Colombian singer-songwriter, who is of Catalan and Lebanese descent, is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll. #spanish #arabic

Especially if you work with Brits, you may hear them refer to public holidays as bank holidays. I wondered why and it turns out, it is because of the banks, duh. In 1871 Liberal politician and banker Sir John Lubbock introduced the Bank Holidays Act, which declared Easter Monday, Whit Monday, First Monday of August and Boxing Day as bank holidays. Under the Act,

no person was compelled to make any payment or to do any act upon a bank holiday which he would not be compelled to do or make on Christmas Day or Good Friday, and the making of a payment or the doing of an act on the following day was equivalent to doing it on the holiday.

Lubbock argued that the act was passed with relative ease because of the naming as a 'bank' holiday, with those who might have opposed it thinking it only applied to banks. People were so grateful that some called the first bank holidays St Lubbock's Days for a while. #english

Fußball-Club Bayern. Pretty standard, I would say. The majority of the football clubs in the world call themselves so, translated into their own languages. FC Name, often the name of a location. So far, so good. But then come the Germans and they love the abbreviations. Hertha BSC - Berliner Sport Club, a sports club from Berlin BVB Dortmund - Ballspielverein Borussia, a ball games club Borussia VfL Wolfsburg - Verein für Leibesübungen, a club for physical exercises VfB Stuttgart - Verein für Bewegungsspiele, a club for movement games VfR Mannheim - Verein für Rasenspiele, a club for lawn games TSG Hoffenheim - Turn- und Sportgemeinschaft, a gymnastics and sport community Hamburger SV - Sport-Verein, a sports club SSV Ulm - Schwimm- und Sportverein, a swimming and sports club SpVgg Unterhaching - Sportvereinigung, a sports union #german

🇨🇦 What is your name? 🇦🇹 Wie ist dein Name? (how) 🇰🇿 Атың кім? (who) 🇦🇷 Cual es tu nombre? (which) #english #german #kazakh #spanish

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The English word border comes the French bordeure 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 The German word Grenze comes from the Polish granica 🇵🇱 🇹🇷 The Turkish word sınır comes from the Greek σύνορον (súnoron) 🇬🇷 #english #french #german #polish #turkish #greek

At Sun Microsystems a team led by James Ryan Gosling developed a revolutionary for its time programming language Java. More than three billion devices ran Java. Later, IBM decided to create an integrated development environment (IDE) for Java. When it comes to its name, how would you take down Sun? Eclipse. #english

A fabric of a medium quality and a reasonable cost was developed for a general workwear in the 16th century Genoa, Italy. A century later weavers in Nîmes tried to reproduce the fabric and achieved something similar. This is why we now have jeans (from French Gênes for Genoa) made of denim (de Nîmes - from Nimes). #french #english

🇮🇹 Broccoli, zucchini, pepperoni, scampi, panini Did you know that these food names that come from Italian are actually in their plural form? #italian

Bosnians, Serbians, Croatians and Montengrins: “We speak different languages”. "Pušenje uzrokuje rak pluća." - nooo I don't understand what this even means!! "Pušenje uzrokuje rak pluća." - ah, here it is, thank god they put translation into my language! #bosnian #serbian #croatian

Speaking of vowel-inclusivity, I think I found another example. Let's reiterate the main vowels again: a, e, i, o, u. Can you think of a word, that contains all of them? Well, French can. The word for bird is oiseau. #french