Random writing question

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Oh hey! It's been a minute.

This seems really random, but do y'all think that the name Isskalt Abyss a little on the nose as a name for an artic region in my story? Isskalt means freezing cold in Icelandic, but I just thought it made for a funny pun because it sounds like "Is cold" when it's pronounced in my American accent.

Comments

Works for me

Patricia Marie Allen's picture

Great pun as well.

Hugs
Patricia

Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann

Occurred to me.

Daphne Xu's picture

Istkalt. Although as I recall, "Sie ist kalt" means, "She is frigid."

-- Daphne Xu

Perhaps less a "co-incidence" than ...

... than you think.

Icelandic is in the Germanic language family, as is the base of English. If you dig maybe deeper than this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_language, you might find many words in Icelandic and English that share a Germain root.

A 'classic' example of similarities between present-day English and German is "Ich bin eine Mann" (I am a man.)
---
I suspect this: Isskalt = Iss - ist - is + kalt - cold.

Also: English: "the weather is cold." - > German: "das Wetter ist kalt." -> Icelandic: "veðrið er kalt". The third and sixth letter (looks like a lower-case 'd' with a bar) is 'eth', pronounced as a 'd'. So: veðrið er kalt - > "vedrid er kalt."
"

Google is not your friend!

Speaker's picture

It has taken me nearly fifty years to speak German correctly, and I'm a professional interpreter :D
"Ich bin eine Mann" is classic Google: the algorithm is not very reliable when it tries to translate gendered nouns and adjectives, which are especially confusing in German as there are three grammatical genders which have separate forms in the singular but are identical in the plural. "Eine" is the feminine form of the article. "Ich bin ein Mann" is the correct form. My favourite commentary ever on the madly illogical aspects of German is Mark Twain's "The Awful German Language" which has a lot of fun with the fact that "Mädchen" (girl) is neuter while "Rübe" (turnip) is feminine. I first read it in a German translation which made it even funnier.

Speaker

Appropriate, sort-of

Daphne Xu's picture

... for this site. "Ich bin eine Mann" -- "I am a female man," or something of the sort.

I've always wondered what pronoun to use replying to, "Das Kind ist mein Bruder." Alternatively, perhaps, "Mein Bruder ist das Kind."

-- Daphne Xu

"Ich bin eine Mann"

Patricia Marie Allen's picture

Love it. I may just have to add that to my signature line. I already have a Latin phrase, "Semper in femineo gerunt" - "Always in feminine wear"

Hugs
Patricia

Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann

:-)

Daphne Xu's picture

:-)

-- Daphne Xu

I know a little German and

Daniela Wolfe's picture

I know a little German and mostly relied on online sources for the Icelandic. I did also know that English, Icelandic and German were all part of the Germanic language family. It seemed likely that the similarity was not coincidental.


Have delightfully devious day,

The Most Famous Faux Pas

joannebarbarella's picture

Now that's already mixing things with the insertion of the French phrase!

But JFK's "Ich Bin Ein Berliner!" had native-born Germans rolling on the floor, as a "Berliner" is a hamburger.

Not such a faux pas.

Daphne Xu's picture

Actually, a Berliner is similar to a filled doughnut. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krapfen_(doughnut)

I've seen several sources saying that Germans didn't react badly like that, and that "Ich bin ein Berliner" wasn't such a faux pas.
I think I saw it in a video of https://www.youtube.com/@FelifromGermany, although I can't find which one. Also here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner

Crowd laughter was in response to, "I appreciate my interpreter translating my German."

-- Daphne Xu

Maybe . . .

Emma Anne Tate's picture

I like the name. I do. But I probably would be unable to resist changing the last name to Azhit.

Emma

pick-nitting

Isskalt translates directly as "ice cold". My extremely rudimentary icelandic is definitely not good enough to know whether the adjective is in the correct gender form for Abyss (which probably doesn't exist as an Icelandic word). Which of course is completely irrelevant for a name in a story set in a fictional setting. In my opinion the name is a very good one.

ð is a "Voiced dental fricative" as in "father"

The "Ich Bin Eine Mann" thing is 'my bad' ...

It got 'stuck (wrongly) in my head a very long time ago, and predates Google.

The rest of any translation problems ... well, if I'm having a "Smart Day", I know when to shut up (and read.)