The Click Song

Whenever I first heard about the click talking Africans, I didn't give it much thought. Even though I didn't exactly think it sounded like this...

I didn't really have a clue as to what it actually did sound like. I still don't. However...
I have recently been compelled to do some research on Xhosa, which I used to pronounce as "Zosa." The first thing I found out was


HEY! ZOSA IS ONE OF THOSE CLICK LANGUAGES!!! ALRIGHT!!!

The next thing I found out was

OH!!! IT'S NOT "ZOSA"! Oh boy...yeah...definately not...yeah I'm an idiot...

You heard it, a CLICK for the "X"
My first thought: She has a CLICK in her NAME!
My second thought: Why is she in Spain when she could be in South Africa? (no offense to Spain, but they don't have zebras ya know)
My third thought: Is this some kind of a trick or are those noises really coming out of her mouth? It must be magic!

I was intrigued by her song, which she called "The Click Song". After some research, I found out that the Xhosa title is "Qongqothwane", but with both q's representing clicks, the Afrikaners who settled in South Africa simply called it "The Click Song." It was popularized by Miriam Makeba and is traditionally sung at weddings.

Xhosa lyrics:

Igqira lendlela nguqo ngqothwane
Igqira lendlela nguqo ngqothwane

Sebeqabele gqi thapha bathi nguqo ngqothwane
Sebeqabele gqi thapha bathi nguqo ngqothwane

 Translation:
Igqirha Lendlela - NguQongqothwane
Diviner of the roadways - the knock knock beetle
Diviner of the roadways - the knock knock beetle

Sebeqabele gqi thapha bathi nguqo ngqothwane
It just passed by here - the knock knock beetle
It just passed by here - the knock knock beetle
I think there are different versions, but this seems to be the most common one.

I know I'm loading this post up with videos, but this is just so fascinating.

                                 I WILL be learning that prayer...

@#!$//#!!!

Oh, don't get offended - I was just telling you about the zebras...sheesh...

PS
If you happen to know more about this than I do, please feel obligated to correct me if I've given false information.

PPS
And if you speak Xhosa, please feel obligated to teach me. Enkosi!

Forgotten Poetry I

I have always had the silly habit of thinking that every beautiful word written on paper is worth keeping, no matter how terrible the writing talent of the author. Ever since I can recall writing poems for a class, I have been sneaking graded, unwanted ones from the trashcans. Once I even saved a poem some kid had written in a geometry book. It was half in English and half in Spanish; I couldn't make heads or tails of most of it, but...I just didn't have the heart to let it get erased forever (to tell you the truth, I just couldn't comprehend that one of that sarcastic high-school lot had the...humility? certainly interest...to write a poem on their own). I have desperatly tried to preserve every scrap of writing I've ever done, no matter how dreadful it is. Call it pack-ratish and unnecesary, but it tears me to let words go...

Which reminds me...

I happen to have in my possesion 21 small, blue, ancient books. They are a series from 1922 entitled "The Pocket University". They are collectons of various poems, short stories and other writings by various well-known as well as obscure authors. I'm not sure how well known and/or distributed these books are, but I think it is safe to say that some of their contents are not likely to be found anywhere else.

I would like to start a second series, a series of Forgotten Poetry. Many or most of the poems I put on here will probably not really be forgotten by everyone, but at least by most people. I hope to draw some attention to poetry that many people may never get the chance to read - poetry that actually deserves to be preserved and is not just some silly spluttering of a ninth grader. Of course there's always the chance that anyone who reads these will scoff and cry out "How perfectly absurd! How is it possible that this person really thinks these poems are forgotten? What ignorance! What gall!!!".......but somehow I think not. If you have read any of these, forgive me. At the very least I have refreshed them in your mind. Here is the first one...one that I know for sure is not entirely forgotten.

The Fool's Prayer

                           by Edward Rowland Sill

The royal feast was done; the King

Sought some new sport to banish care,

And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,

Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,

And stood the mocking court before;

They could not see his bitter smile

Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee

Upon the silken stool;

His pleading voice arose: "Oh Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart

From red with wrong to white as wool:

The rod must heal the sin; but, Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!

"'T is not by guilt the onward sweep

Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;

'T is by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,

Go crushing blossoms without end;

These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust

Among the heart-strings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept-

Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung!

The word we had not sense to say-

Who knows how grandly it had rung!

"Our faults no tenderness should ask,

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;

But for our blunders-oh, in shame

Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

"Earth bears no balsalm for mistakes;

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool

That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose

The King, and sought his gardens cool,

And walked apart, and murmered low,

"Be merciful to me, a fool!"

I've always found the "wise fool" theme to be a very interesting one...for where is knowledge without wisdom? Without wisdom, knowledge (and indeed wealth and power and almost anything else) can be a terrible and dangerous thing. As Alexander Pope wisely observed,

A little learning is a dangerous thing;  

drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: 

there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, 

and drinking largely sobers us again.

Whereas with wisdom, a little seems to be better then none at all. 

English Wants Macrons Too!

If you look at any text in Classical Latin, there's a good chance that it will be splattered throughout with macrons (if you don't know what they are, they are the little lines above some vowels -  ā, ē, ī, ō, ū). Macrons are helpful fellows who tell you if  the vowel it hovers over is long as opposed to short. Short, meaning pronounced for one mora (literally, delay), or long, pronounced for two morae. When the average English speaker first attempts to practice this peculiar thing, it seems very strange indeed. Because, of course, in English long and short describes the quality of the vowel, not the literal length of it!

However...if you think about it...all may not be what it seems.

I would like you to say "beat" out loud - or under your breath, if  you're in a public place :) -
(bear with me, there is a point to this)

Now, say "bead".

Let it soak in...

It's the same sound (ee) but when said in "beat" you must say it for only one mora, and in "bead," two. If you switch it around,  it just does not work. It sounds wrong. When I discovered this (I think it was on some Anglo-Saxon site) I was absolutely bowled over. Yes, I am easily impressed. I drove everyone I knew crazy for a week telling them to say "bead" and "beat". Yeah, most people weren't that excited. But I know it sure made me think.
I think English wants (and rightly deserves) macrons too!
I feel so strongly about this that I made a ribbon for the cause!

Yeah! For English!!!!!!!!!

Now we just have to figure what letter to put it over...beād, bēad...hmm... bēād?

A Told Number of Negations, Said with Strong Givings.

I ran across this on Ojo's Linguistic Fun Page. This is absolutely hilarious! I won't give away what it's about. Figure it out yourself.

How I Met My Wife

-Jack Winter/The New Yorker

It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate.

I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way.

I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I'd have to make bones about it since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn't be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do.

Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or a sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion.

So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads or tails of.

I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and it nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen. Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt capacitated--as if this were something I was great shakes at--and forgot that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number of times. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings.

Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. Wanting to make only called-for remarks, I started talking about the hors d'oeuvres, trying to abuse her of the notion that I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a few myths about myself.

She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. "What a perfect nomer," I said, advertently. The conversation become more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.

If for some reason you haven't figured out what the deal is (which may be due to density or an overly Carrolistic view of language), the "story"  uses nonstandard negations throughout the text. It would be interesting to make a list and find out how many of those words are technically correct, or even used to be used frequently and simply dropped out of usage. It seems hard to imagine that all (or even most) never had a positive form. Maybe I'll look into it sometime. Then I can chalantly slide a few into my conversations.

For Your Listening Pleasure I

I intend to start a little series titled "For Your Listening Pleasure" for your listening pleasure, in which I shall post some of the best songs Youtube has to offer (in my humble opinion, of course). I can guarantee you with 350% certainty that no rap or hip-hop songs will ever appear under that heading. This is the first video of the series.

(Now I can't hear this song below without thinking of Jamie Hyneman from the Mythbusters.)

The Bonny Ship The Diamond by The Connemara Stone Company

Hearing this song, you can get the ghost of a feeling of what it must have been like to be those hard, weatherworn fishermen...you can feel their awe and terror of the mighty seas they travel. This song (but not quite this version)  more than any other has given me a genuine understanding and appreciation for those men who "sailed the ocean wide, where the sun she never sets, me lads, nor darkness dims the skys..." Unless, of course, it storms, but who lives to tell of that?

The Mystery of the Magical Forearm Lines

Maybe you can help me solve it.

Sometimes you find or think of something very interesting - something you would like to know more about. You search and search and ask and ask...but no one seems to have the answer. There's only one thing you can do...find the answer for yourself.

The other day my cousin pointed out to me a little horizontal line about an inch or two above her elbow crease. It was faint, and looked kind of like a scar or wrinkle. She told me that only the girls in our family have it. I looked and discovered (to my intense confusion) that I had them too, on both of my arms. We did a little survey and it appeared that while most of the girls (except one) seemed to have them on one or both arms, the boys didn't - except one, but his were very faint. Another thing we noticed was that the lines appeared to be more prominent on the left arm, excepting two cases (there were about nine "test subjects" in all). It seemed highly improbable that this was something peculiar to our family, so we decided to do some research.

While searching the internet, we found nearly nothing about this mysterious "crease". However, we did run across a few things. There were only two articles we found that mentioned this "crease" at all. What we found was that some people think that this line is found in people of Han Chinese descent. This was perplexing, because our family has absolutely no Asian ancestry AT ALL. However one site has a whole forum discussing this. It appears that people of Scandinavian or Celtic blood may have these as well. My mother's side is Irish and Scandinavian, and most of her family have them. Other people say that they're just wrinkles, stretch marks, caused by the sun etc. I suppose it may be something like this, but if they are genetic (and specific to a few specific races) that would be a really interesting thing to know. I'm dreadfully sorry that I couldn't come up with any picture.

So maybe you can help me get a bit closer to the answer to this Riddle of the Line.
Here are some things to think about:

1. Do you have these lines?
2. Do you have them on one or both forearms?
3. Which side of your elbow crease are they on (above or below)?
4. Do you have "doubles" (my little sister has one above and below her elbow crease on both arms)
5. How faint are they?
6. Are they more prominent on one arm?
7. What is your ancestry?

I encourage you to report your findings to the Comment Box.

What Middle-Earth Race Do You Most Resemble?

Yes, I am a Tolkien Nut (Ringer, is the correct term, I think), and yes, I am a teenage girl. And yes, I know plenty of people such as myself who are interested in the answer to the question in the heading. And NO, people are NOT generally good at making in-depth, unbiased online quizzes. I got tired of searching fruitlessly and decided to make one myself. With the help of my dwarvish brother, I have hopefully somewhat succeeded in creating a quiz that searches your true personality and is not incredibly silly and predictable (ie. Q. Are you short and have hairy feet?). And no, Orcs, Cave-trolls, Nazgûls and Emancipated Hobbits are not options. Neither are Wizards. Sorry.

And, please,

1. Don't be offended if you disagree with what you get - I tried to make it as accurate as possible based on my own knowledge and suppositions. And I'm sorry if the questions are silly.
2. The more honest you are, the better.
3. This quiz does not really take physicality into account.
4. Do not be put off that my user name is I am Cow. There is a story behind this.
5. COMMENT!!! It's been up there for ages and I only have 2 comments!!! This makes me distraught. Comments make me happy. In fact, while you're at it, comment here, on this blog. So far I have no comments and am very sad.

Here are my results. Fairly accurate, I think.

Which Middle-Earth Race do you Most Resemble? Your Result: Elves   You most resemble the Elves, the first-born children of Arda. Elves tend to be mysterious and thoughtful, wise and skilled. They are extremely curious (which may lead to trouble) and excel in music, poetry, and song. The Elves were the favored race of Tolkien, and therefore are a beautiful race. However, they may be seen as unconcerned with the troubles of other races, and can be easily seduced by power.
Ents
Hobbits
Men
Dwarves

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Ye Olde Thorn

If you've ever been to a Renaissance Festival (or even if you haven't), chances are you've run across plenty of "Ye Olde fill in the blank"s. Generally Ye Olde Inne or Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe or something like that. Well, maybe I'm the only person on earth who didn't know this - and thought they were perhaps clumsily telling me that it was my coffee shoppe - but apparently Y used be the printer's adaptation of the thorn (þ). So, basically, "ye" is just "the". The Olde Inne. The Olde Coffee Shoppe. Well, that clears that up. Now I just have to figure out why the Disney logo has a big, deformed, backwards G where the D should be. Oh, and the Y is a P.


Yes, I am very stupid. I'm working on it.

The Flower of the Trees and The True Goths

Gothic is neat. Very cool and very strange. The language, I mean. If you look into it at all, it will make those ridiculous "goths" who wear all black and spikes and things seem very...silly. SO silly you may have to stifle extreme laughter while in their presence.

´Cause they just don´t know what they´re missin'.

Gothic is an extremely old East-Germanic language, and it looks like nothing you've ever seen before. I'm certainly no expert, so I'll let Alexander Arguelles tell you all about it. This guy is amazing. He has tons of Youtube videos (mostly of Germanic languages, but a few other things as well) that are extremely interesting and informative. Through him I've gotten a pretty fair appreciation of the so-called "harsh" and "unmelodic" Germanic languages. They aren't harsh - they're strong. And I wouldn't say unmelodic, I would say that they are, as Legolas Greenleaf said, "like to the land itself, rich and rolling in part, and else hard and stern as the mountains...laden with the sadness of Mortal Men" (Legolas was referring to Rohirric, which is more or less the same as Old English. As for the "sadness of Mortal Men" part...well, that's just an Elf's perspective).

Anyway, here's Dr. Arguelles:

After you've become intrigued by this tongue of tongues, you may be interested in this little-known poem by the Good Professor (Tolkien, that is). Being a philologist interested in these types of things, he went ahead and wrote an entire poem in Gothic. Yes, an ENTIRE, WELL WRITTEN POEM IN A COMPLETELY DEAD, KIND OF OBSCURE LANGUAGE WITHOUT THE INTERNET! That's what's so neat about philology. Many people may disagree with me on this point, but I think that even though it's great to be able to speak four or five different languages (polyglottery), it's even better to be able to simply read and write in (and perhaps speak a bit of) an untold number of languages (philology). That is, being able to delve deeply without devoting an entire life to just a few tongues. I guess I'm just fascinated by the fact that Tolkien was able to have a good enough grasp on the Gothic language to write poetry in it and no one ever really gives it a second thought. Nowadays it seems like it would take forever to be able to do something like that, even with our unlimited modern resourses.
Enough of that; here's the poem:

Bagme Bloma
Brunaim bairiþ bairka bogum
laubans liubans liudandei,
gilwagroni, glitmunjandei,
bagme bloma, blauandei,
fagrafahsa, liþulinþi,
fraujinondei fairguni,

Wopjand windos, wagjand lindos,
lutiþ limam laikandei;
slaihta, raihta, hweitarinda,
razda rodeiþ reirandei,
bandwa bairhta, runa goda,
þiuda meina þiuþjandei.

Andanahti milhmam neipiþ,
liuhteiþ liuhmam lauhmuni;
laubos liubai fliugand lausai,
tulgus, triggwa, standandei.
Bairka baza beidiþ blaika
fraujinondei fairguni.

The Bitter Scroll has come up with a pretty good  English translation, which I've given you below, but his notes on it are very interesting and worth checking out at his site.

The Flower of the Trees
On glorious branches, glittering and
Pale green as she grows,
The birch tree bears her lovely leaves,
The flower of flowering trees,
Fair of hair and lithe of limb,
The mistress of the mountain.

The winds now call, soft winds are stirring,
She lowers her limbs in play.
Sleek and straight and white of bark,
She utters a trembling tongue.
Great mystery, bright token is she,
A blessing on my people.

The twilit sky obscured by clouds
Is bright again with lightning.
And standing strong and faithful while
Her lovely leaves take flight,
The birch will wait there, bare and white,
Still mistress of the mountain.

Pretty neat, huh? More and more am I growing weary of rhyme and becoming fond of alliteration...

So I ask you, what's more Gothic?
                                                     This...

Or this?

Happy Mother's Day!!!

In light of that well earned holiday, Mother's Day, I offer a link to a very informative article on the subject. It's rather interesting, actually. I would sum up what's in it, but you might as well just click the link and find out yourself.
I love this poem, and I thought that it would be good to post on Mother's Day.

The Boy Who Kissed His Mother

           By Eben E. Rexford

She sat on the porch in the sunshine,

as I went down the street-

A woman whose hair was silver,

But whose face was blossom sweet,

Making me think of a garden,

Where, in spite of the frost and snow

Of bleak November weather,

Late, fragrant lilies grow.

I heard a foot step behind me,

And the sound of a merry laugh,

And I knew the heart it came from

Would be like a comforting staff

In the tie and the hour of trouble,

Hopeful and brave and strong;

One of the hearts to lean on

When we think that things go wrong.

I turned at the click of the gate-latch

And met his manly look;

A face like his gives me pleasure,

Like the page of a pleasant book;

It told of a steadfast purpose,

Of a brave and daring will- 

A face with promise in it

That God grant the years fulfill.

He went up the pathway singing,

I saw the woman's eyes

Grow bright with a wordless welcome,

As sunshine warms the skies.

"Back again, sweetheart mother,"

He cried and bent to kiss

The loving face that was lifted

For what some mothers miss.

That boy will do to depend on, 

I hold that this is true-

From lads in love with their mothers

Our bravest heroes grew.

Earth's grandest hearts have been loving hearts,

Since time and earth began,

And the boy that kissed his mother

Is every inch a man.

It seems that in modern American society, everything is BAD until proven GOOD, not the other way around. This certainly includes the way kids look at their parents. Whenever I meet one of someone's parents, I expect them to be evil or crazy the way the kids talk about them. Not many boys I know would even dream of showing affection towards their mothers. However, it's a rare but wonderful quality; a girl always likes to see a lad in love with  his mother, because its from them our bravest heroes grow. 

Welsh, a Revelation of Beauty

Dwi'n leicio siarad Cymraeg.

The first language I ever tried to learn (aside from English, of course) was German. That was probably sometime around third grade. Of course, not being in a formal class or even having a formal course didn't get me very far. I had an old German book of my Mom's that I tried to decode as best I could. Needless to say, I didn't get very far. My Mom tried to help me of course, but it is often very difficult for an American third grader to grasp not only masculine, feminine and neuter, but also all the odd conjugations and things that make German so hard. The only thing I really retained from my third grade pursuits was der kugelschreiber, the pen. However, I loved it. From that time on, I adored language. Words, to me, were the most wonderful and fascinating thing I'd ever encountered (and even though German is not always thought of as the most beautiful language in the world, I thought it was, and I still have a soft spot for it to this day). After that, there was rarely a period where I wasn't at least dabbling in some tongue or another. Fourth grade was French; fifth, Russian and Italian; sixth, Spanish and Japanese, et cetera, et cetera. Mind you, I don't consider this anything extraordinary - nay, I'm sure many of the people reading this will have had done the same or similar thing, perhaps getting much farther than I. I never really got to speaking level, but I tried. You can only do so much on your own. What I did get though, was a fair knowledge (at least a secondary knowledge) and feel for language itself. Though I couldn't speak a fluent German sentence, I could usually tell if a word was German and perhaps guess at the meaning. And by learning primarily Germanic and Romantic languages, I was able to see the connections between all of them, thus making it easier to learn any one of them. My understanding of English itself was improved, as well.
Then there was 9th grade. It was my first year of high school, and indeed my first year of public school (I had gone to Catholic school all my life). I absolutely detested it. It was horrid, hostile and sterile looking - and the level of work was horrendous! Everyday we had to make some new poster, or mobile, or something like that! In English class, we only read one book the entire year, and that was out loud! Aughh! It was the worst year of my life. Homeward Bound by Simon and Garfunkle became my official theme song. Weekends became the most glorious moments in the entire history of my existence. And the stupidity and false cheerfulness was absolutely stifling.

One day, my Mom, who was pregnant at the time with a girl, began discussing baby names with me. We were going alphabetically through a babyname book. We were on B.

"Hey, how about Bronwyn? (hahaha)"
"Oh, I've always loved that name. (hahaha)"
"Wouldn't it be funny (hahaha) if we named her Bronwyn?"

...
...
...

"Well why the heck not?"
"Well, because it's..."

...

It was Welsh. We weren't Welsh. Most people around here don't even know what "Welsh" is. I knew one person who literally thought it was what whales spoke. My mother's side of the family is Irish/Italian/German, but so far as we knew no one in our family had ever had anything to do with Wales. But still...it was a nice name. It was unique, but not made up or even too weird. My mom and I fought the battle and won, and my youngest sister is now named Bronwyn.

But Welsh, really? Being name people, we had to research the etymology of the name and everything that had anything to do with it. It means "white breast" spelled Bronwyn, but "white raven" spelled Branwen, which was actually my preferred spelling, but which was deemed too masculine (which is funny, since this is actually the more feminine form in Welsh) and confusing. For obvious reasons, we opted to use the second definition for all practical purposes. Many strange things came about regarding that name, all of which will be discussed at some later date. But there was one thing that happened which I shall expound upon you.
We began to get into Welsh the language. It was incredible. It was something I had never seen the likes of before. It was graceful, mysterious, enchanting and challenging. I no could longer simply guess with 80% accuracy what a word meant. It was not related to anything I had ever studied. As the good professor J.R.R. Tolkien said, it "pierced my linguistic heart" and had "an abiding linguistic-aesthetic satisfaction." And thus my long affair with the language of the gods began.

I first began to use the BBC "Big Welsh Challenge" program online, which, though helpful, is only a conversation course. I really wanted to learn the whole thing, grammar and all. I was now more serious about this language than I had ever been about any before (except perhaps Esperanto). I searched and searched, and finally found a very good site. I didn't think I could buy a course (though I do have a book and CD now), so I had to find a free online one. What I found was this wonderful website. Say Something in Welsh is an amazing place. It is completely free and offers 25 beginner lessons at 30 minutes each. Since Welsh is so strange grammatically, it's pretty difficult to learn the traditional way (textbooks). This method (a bit like the Pimsleur method I think, which is kind of silly for something easy and regular like Spanish, but quite appropriate for Welsh) relies solely on listening and speaking. In fact, they tell yon that you are not allowed to see how the words are spelled. This allows you to quite literally learn like a baby. It is rather easy and by the third lesson you start to feel like learning Welsh, once very intimidating, is a very doable thing. I highly recommend it.

If one is perhaps interested in learning Welsh, another thing I would highly recommend is listening to and learning Welsh songs. Bronwyn (2) already knows all the words to Calon Lân, her favorite Welsh song. In fact, she frequently requests "Tewys Matoos!", whom the rest of the world knows as Cerys Matthews, a Welsh singer. Her second favorite is Arglwydd Dyma Fi, and third, Bachgen Bach o Dincar. She is an odd child.
                                                        

LEARN WELSH!! It is an endangered language, and it must be kept alive!!!
LEARN WELSH!! Even if you are already learning another language, because, of course,

Dyw un iaith byth yn ddigon!
(One language is never enough!)

Hwyl!

"Get out your skelets or I'll tickle your bases!"

If the above sentence made any sense at all to you, you are either fooling yourself, insane, or a member of my family.

Ah, language, that glorious flowing entity, that delightful, ever-changing dimension of humanity! Why is it that languages are so diverse? What is the reason for over 6,500 different tongues out there, with every conceivable syntax and every phoneme humanly possible? Don't mistake me, I by no means think that this is a new question. Neither am I going to give a fancy, linguistically correct explanation. I simply wish to share an observation that many of you have no doubt observed yourselves.

Whenever a group of people is cut off from the rest of their "tribe" (such as the colonial Americans were somewhat cut off from the British) many curious things regarding their language tend to happen. Like the Americans (upon leaving England), changed their accents and much of their daily terminology, average people (upon leaving the rest of the world) do much the same when they enter the home and family life. Now, I'm not suggesting that the switchover is nearly as drastic as British to American, but surely we can admit that there is some change taking place? Even if it's as simple as using diminutives on objects not often diminutized when speaking to a smallish person, this is still a change worth noting. Especially when this diminutized or otherwise mutated word evolves and becomes part of the family language. When you have one parent seriously telling the other that they need to buy more ba-bas (bottles), something extraordinary has happed. The language has changed. A new, functional, often completely unique word has been born. What's more, these words are often passed down from generation to generation as family heirlooms, occasionally leading to embarrassment when used outside the "tribe". As an American is likely to get blank stares or be laughed at when she tells an uninformed Brit that she made some cookies (not biscuits), so would a man be who tells his boss he was late because he had to buy ba-bas.

The words resulting from diminutization are not even the most interesting. The most fascinating examples of this phenomenon occur when something more complicated (or even simpler) takes place. However, I must admit that even these types are often or usually connected with children. For instance, one day when my aunt was little, she went up to several members of the tribe and asked if they wanted to see her base. At first they thought she maybe meant face....but, no - she meant her base, which in Modern English is known as the armpit. To this day no one knows why she insisted on her armpits being called bases, but they have remained bases to this day. In fact, this was so ingrained in our family culture, that I only learned that they were armpits (what a terribly vile word! I shudder as I say it) to the rest of the English speaking world when I was old enough to have said bases 30,000 times in public(!!!), oblivious no doubt to the odd faces I was receiving. This one word spawned at least one new term, basedrilling, which means, roughly, "To mercilessly tickle an individual's armpits to the extent that it is rather painful and often results in a wrestling match and/or crying".

Of course, not all of these words come from the small people. When my mom was little, my grandfather used to call the clothes that you would put out at night for the next day skelets. My grandfather, being quite clever, (albeit a bit eccentric) drew this word from skeleton, so I'm told. Again, it is regularly used to this day, and, once more, I was left in the dark till just recently (Well, how was I supposed to know!? It's not a concept frequently discussed, you know).

So there you have it. Family-Speak is a language, or at least a dialect. Perhaps in this way one can more easily grasp one aspect of how languages evolved. Who knows what our family would be speaking if we were all isolated for hundreds of years! And who knows how much of any given language came about like this, in which case it would be nearly impossible to discover the etymologies of the words in question? Who knows, indeed.

Examples of our family vocabulary:
Base: Armpit
Skelet: Clothes set out before bed
Ba-ba: Bottle
BeeBoBie: Peanut butter sandwich - warped child-speak
Bomb: Bottom; behind; butt - child-speak (unable to say bottom)
Boom: Feces; poop - In an attempt to avoid vulgarity, my nurse grandmother used B.M. (bowel movement) with her children, which evolved into boom.
Guarantees: A certain type of candy. My grandmother always told my mother that she would "guarantee you won't like them." So my toddler mother always called them "guarantees"
Hairstyles: Ponytail holders, ribbons, et cetera