LANGUAGE
Glebe Report March 18, 2022
Adjectives
Robin to nouns’ Batman
By Michael Kofi Ngongi Every year, the Hollywood glitterati descend on downtown Los Angeles for a grand celebration, an annual jamboree known to us all as the Oscars. In an industry defined by its glitz and glamour, Oscar night is the apogee of the film awards season. It is the flashiest, most lavish event on the social calendar. With their swanky dresses, elegant tuxedoes and million-dollar smiles, award nominees walk the red carpet hoping to end the night clutching one of the iconic golden statuettes. And the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor goes to…adjectives! That is what adjectives are: supporters. They can never be lead actors; that role belongs to nouns. Nouns are the protagonists of our stories; without them we simply would have nothing to talk about. Nouns are the superheroes and adjectives are their sidekicks. Like Robin does with Batman, adjectives tag along and assist the heroes in their quest for truth, justice and better stories. Yet, though theirs is a supporting role, adjectives’ contributions are significant and essential. Adjectives modify nouns and pronouns. They allow us
to add compelling details and nuance to our discourse. They supply colour, character, definition and even distinction to nouns. Without adjectives, we would lose the ability to describe people and things in any kind of detail. Everyone and everything in our world would be indistinct and indistinguishable, neither describable nor comparable. No one and nothing would be bigger or smaller, greater or lesser, richer or poorer. There would be no rough places to be made plain, no crooked places to be made straight. Skies and seas and mountains would all be alike, none clear, none deep, none high. No, adjectives cannot be our stories’ leading actors. Yet, they are no less important and deserve your special consideration. If you ignore them, you’ll soon discover the truth of the adage: you never miss your water ‘til the well runs dry. Michael Kofi Ngongi is a new Canadian originally from Cameroon, another bilingual country. He has experience in international development and is a freelance writer interested in language, its usage and how it can unite or divide people.
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Ukrainian the nightingale language By Sophie Shields At the time of writing, it’s been three days since Russia invaded Ukraine. And so, it is only fitting for me to dedicate this column to my mother tongue – Ukrainian. Let’s start out with a mini history lesson. Ukrainian is part of the Slavic language family, which also includes Polish, Czech, Russian, Croatian, Bulgarian, etc. More specifically, Ukrainian, along with Russian and Belarusian, originated from the Old East Slavic of Kievan Rus (~9th-13th century). However, after the Rus’ fall, the languages went their separate ways. Whereas Russian steadily evolved with some influences from central European languages, Ukrainian was ever-changing, highly influenced by the country’s time under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. By the mid-17th century, the languages were mutually unintelligible. To put that in perspective, Russian and Ukrainian have about 62 per cent lexical similarity, Polish and Ukrainian have 70 per cent and English and German have 60 per cent. Would you say you speak or understand German? Because I sure don’t know Russian. With that cleared up, let’s take a dive into the language spoken by
more than 45 million people. Recognized as one of the most melodic languages in the world, Ukrainian is poetically called the солов›їна мова /solovyina mova – the nightingale language. Words like тішитися / tishytysia (be pleased with yourself or something), блакитний / blakytnyi (heavenly blue colour), затишок / zatyshok (cosy place away from wind) and вирій / vyriy (mystical destination birds migrate to in winter) are only some of the unique untranslatable words the language holds. But if you are to know anything about the language of Україна / Ukraina, it should be that it is patriotic. Currently, the most common Ukrainian greeting (almost as common as dobreyden – hello) is Слава Україні / Slava Ukraini (Glory to Ukraine), to which the recipient responds Героям слава / Heroyam slava (Glory to the Heroes). In both times of war and peace, expressions like this one give us hope that this solovyina mova will live on. Slava Ukraini! Sophie Shields is a Carleton student studying global literature and a proud Franco-Ukrainian who is learning German. She is the social media coordinator for the Glebe Report.
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