By air

Air travel, although environmentally not the best thing, gets us fast where we want. In this article you can find links for the bigger airlines (this is being updated), how the name airport is said in the seventeen MD-languages and finally abbreaviations for some international airports.

Here is a simple list of national airlines, in alphabetical order. The name link gives the company homepage in English, the W-link gives the Wikipedia page about the company in their respective language.

Air France - W
American Airlines - W
Austrian Airlines - W
British Airlines - W
Finnair - W
KLM - W
Lufthansa - W
Scandinavian Airlines - W

Airport in other languages

See below how the word airport is said in all the 17 MD-languages (look for the colors here):

airport  lentokenttä flygplats/flygfält flyveplads flyplass flugvöllur  
Flughafen(m) aéroport(m) aeropuerto aeroporto(m)  
αεροδρόμιο(n) аэродрóм kuukoo

Airport abbreviations

And then here is something that might interest those flying a lot - and even those who don't: abbreviations for airports around the world. Here is a good site for that, and a short list follows:
ADL = Adelaide International Airport (Adelaide, Australia)
AGP = Pablo Ruiz Picasso (Malaga, Spain)

ARN = Arlanda (Stockholm, Sweden)
BNE = Brisbane International (Brisbane, Australia)
CDG = Charles De Gaulle (Paris, France)
CPH = Kastrup (Copenhagen, Denmark)
DFW = Dallas/Fort Worth International (Dallas, Texas USA)
FRA = Frankfurt International Airport (Frankfurt, Germany)
GOT = Landvetter (Gothenburg, Sweden)
HEL = Helsinki-Vantaa (Vantaa, Finland)
HND = Tokyo Haneda International (Tokyo, Japan)
JFK = John F Kennedy International (New York, USA)
KEF = Keflavik International (Reykjavik, Iceland)
LAX = Los Angeles International (Los Angeles, CA USA) 
LGA = La Guardia (New York, USA)
LHR = London Heathrow (London, England)
LPA = Las Palmas (Gran Canaria, Spain)
MAD = Barajas (Madrid, Spain)
MCO = Orlando International (Orlando, FL USA) 
MIK =Mikkeli (Mikkeli, Finland)
MMX = Sturup (Malmö, Sweden)
NRT = Narita International Airport (Tokyo, Japan)
NYO = Skavsta (Stockholm, Sweden)
OSL = Oslo (Gardermoen) (Oslo, Norway)
OUL = Oulu (Finland)
PEK = Beijing Capital Int. (Beijing, China)
PIE = St. Petersburg-Clearwater International (Clearwater, FL USA) 
RIX = Riga International (Riga, Latvia)
SFO = San Francisco International (San Francisco, CA USA)
TKU = Turku (Finland)
TLL = Ulemiste (Tallinn, Estonia)
TMP =  Tampere-Pirkkala (Tampere, Finland)
TPA = Tampa International (Tampa, FL USA)
TXL = Berlin-Tegel (Berlin, Germany)
UKB = Kobe (Kobe, Japan)
URE = Kuressaare (Kuressaare, Estonia)
VIE = Schwehat International (Vienna, Austria)
YOK = Yokohama (Yokohama, Japan)
ZRH = Zürich-Kloten (Zurich, Switzerland)

This page is being updated.

Swahili is everywhere!

Karibu! The importance of Swahili seems to be growing these days. There are quite a few Swahili words in common use. Words like safari (journey), jenga (to build) and simba (lion). Or Hakuna matata (don´t worry)! The last two of course from the 1994 movie Lion King.

A good site to find out more about Swahili is http://www.yale.edu/swahili/ It contains a large dictionary and looking for words there makes you realize how popular this language really is. There is a lot of good information in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili_language. Here are all the weekdays for starters - from Mercury Dictionary (in a simpilified way, you can get the full contents here), Swahili is written in ochra:

By the way, karibu means welcome!

Sunday sunnuntai pühapäev söndag søndag søndag sunnudagur Sonntag dimanche domingo domingo domenica diēs Sōlis Κυριακή воскресéнье Jumapili nichiyoobi

Monday maanantai esmaspäev måndag mandag mandag mánudagur Montag lundi lunes segunda-feira lunedí diēs Lūnae Δευτέρα понедéльник Jumatatu getsuyoobi

Tuesday tiistai teisipäev tisdag tirsdag tirsdag þriðjudagur Dienstag mardi martes terça-feira martedi diēs Mārtis τρίτη втóрник Jumanne kayoobi

Wednesday keskiviikko kolmapäev onsdag onsdag onsdag miðvikudagur Mittwoch mercredi miércoles quarta-feira mercoledi diēs Mercuriī Τετάρτη средá Jumatano suiyoobi

Thursday torstai neljapäev torsdag torsdag torsdag fimmtudagur Donnerstag jeudi jueves quinta-feira giovedi diēs Iovis Πέμπτη четвéрг Alhamisi mokuyoobi

Friday perjantai reede fredag fredag fredag föstudagur Freitag vendredi viernes sexta-feira venerdi diēs Veneris Παρασκευή пятница Ijumaa kinyoobi

Saturday lauantai laupäev lördag lørdag lørdag laugardagur Samstag samedi sábado sábado sàbato diēs Sabbatī\Sāturnī Σάββατο суббóта Jumamosi doyoobi

PS. The Japanese kanji are not shown in the blog at the moment. 

Ich bin ein Berliner

John F. Kennedy coined the phrase Ich bin ein Berliner back in 1963. It was a promise and a boost for all West-Berliners who feared for their freedom in the cold war era (read the Wikipedia article). These days though the phrase is frequently used in the post-unification Berlin very much in the same way as e.g. I love New York. T-shirts with the print are bought by tourists wanting to express their support for and affection of this vibrant million city - and take a piece of Berlin home with them.

Truth is, once in a while you arrive in a place and feel right away that this is it, this is my kind of town! Berlin did that for me and many others who were attending the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics this August. The phrase Ich bin ein Berliner became reality to us. The Games themselves were finely organized and the stadium of course superb!  

A Berliner would skip the indefinite article ein though, and just say ich bin Berliner. You can add the article if you are not actually from Berlin, but just want to let know that you sympathize with the city. The word Berliner was and is being used of the German Pfannkuchen only outside Berlin itself - so Kennedy's usage of the word was quite correctly understood by Berliners.

From now on every time that I have a Berliner with my coffee home in Helsinki - they are glazed with pink sugar (with or without sprinkles) and called berliininmunkki in Finnish - I will be thinking of you, Berlin! And next time I will definitely have a Pfannkuchen!

PS. Want the dictionary-file MD-be sent to your e-mail? Follow the instructions.

Kiss & bajs - ENG & SWE

Living in two different cultures is interesting but also a bit confusing at times.
My two sons had been to daycare in Stockholm, and learned quite a lot of Swedish. At least all the relevant words and phrases for a two and a three-year old. Words like kiss (pee in English) and bajs (that of course means boo!) which together formed the hilarious phrase kiss & bajs, uttered over and over again. So in Largo, Florida, they would of course continue to play with these words that had induced so much laughter at kindergarten. Only in America the reaction was - as you would expect - a bit different. Usually it made people confused. But by and by my sons forgot their Swedish - which they didn´t talk with anyone - and kiss became the one word that the surrounding world understood it to be.

Thistels and burs - ENG & FIN

This is as good enough lesson in the Finnish language as any:

Living in Florida, my firstborn was learning more and more English. It is a natural process of course, especially with a small child, to learn the local language. Still I couldn´t help feeling kind of proud of him as he one day pointed at my coat hanging in the open closet, and said: Takki, I see!

Well, at this point you have to know that takki is Finnish for coat. But I soon realized that he wasn´t saying anything of the kind. You see, the coat was full of burs. I must have stood too near the thistles at the bus stop. So my coat was full of burs and, you guessed right: burs, or more exactly the plural indefinite form of burs, is takiaisia in Finnish! He of course would pronounce it in a childlike way with double k and the Helsinki way of saying one long - ii in the end instead of what would take a longer time to pronounce, -ia! Got it?

PS. Click at the map to get a better look at the wonderful state of Florida!

Newspapers & magazines

Newspapers, magazines and children's books are a wonderful way to get acquainted with a language. Here follows a list of the newspapers, magazines and online news channels as well some educational blogs that this blog is using to expand the dictionary and get the feel of the world. These are in alphabetical order under each language - which even here are in the order of the dictionary - let's call it MD-order for short. The list is yet somewhat incomplete.

ENGLISH

Daily Express - UK
Guyana Observer - Guyana
Metro - UK
New York Post 
St.Petersburg Times
The New York Times
The Tampa Tribune

FINNISH

Aamulehti
Helsingin Sanomat
Ilta-Sanomat
Keski-Pohjanmaa

ESTONIAN

Eesti Päevaleht
Postimees

SWEDISH

Aftonbladet
Dagens Nyheter
Expressen
Svenska Dagbladet

DANISH

Det Groenne Område 
Jyllands-Posten 
Weekendavisen

NORWEGIAN
Verdens Gang

ICELANDIC
Morgunbladid
Víkurfrettir

GERMAN
Berliner Zeitung
Der Spiegel
Frankfurter Allgemeine
SonntagsZeitung - Switzerland
Stern

FRENCH
Le Figaro
Le Matin - Switzerland


Le Monde
Metro

SPANISH

El Mundo

PORTUGUESE

x

ITALIAN

Corriere della Sera
Metro News

GREEK

Ta Nea

RUSSIAN

Komsomolskaya Pravda
Novaya Gazeta
Pravda

SWAHILI

Raia Mwema - Tanzania

JAPANESE

About.com: Japanese language
Asahi Shinbun
City of Yokohama (English/Japanese etc.)
Sports Nippon

Updated 30.8.2009

Get a sample!

To get a free sample of the dictionary, you need to write to kivita@gmail.com. Please state your place of residence, nationality and native language. These are purely for statistical reasons in order to see what kind of people use the dictionary and read the blog -  this will also help shaping future contents. No names and addresses will ever be forwarded to anyone.

The sample file will be sent to your e-mail. For example the file MD-aa-ac. It will  consist of all of the words and phrases starting with aa, ab and ac that  have been added to the dictionary so far - all in pdf-form. PDF is very convenient to use as the form can be enlargened  e.g. to get a better view of all the different kanji. Open a new folder on your computer, name it e.g. MD, and place the file therein.

If you like what you see, you can order another file to be sent to you - always free of charge! You may request for a particular file. Put that in your new MD-folder as well. By and by your folder will grow, and later on you can get updates for already existing files. All in all there are more than 200 of them - all of which are being updated on a daily basis. 

This dictionary is mercurial, continually growing, and continually changing its contents. By the way, the kanji to your right is ai, spelled "I" or "eye" - and it means love.

Mercury Dictionary

Mercury Dictionary is a multi-language dictionary consisting of 17 languages. You can see the list of languages here below, but let me tell you first a little about them. There are 5 Nordic languages (Finnish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic ), 2 Finno-Ugric (Finnish and Estonian), 6 Germanic (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, German), 5 Latin (France, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin), 2 Cyrillic (Greek and Russian,), one African (Swahili) and one Asian (Japanese). They are all color-coded to make for easy distinction between the different languages.And here they are in the order they always appear:

English Finnish Estonian Swedish Danish Norwegian Icelandic

German France Spanish Portuguese Italian Latin

Greek Russian Swahili Japanese

This blog aims to make each and one of those languages familiar to you - if you are up for it! There is no certain order in the blog articles, but there is a definite order in the way the languages are presented in the dictionary. You may not be able to see the order at first hand, but it is there, as fool-proof as ever! For everything is in an alphabetical order, which is also given on top of each page - lest you forget.

15 of these MD-languages are search languages, i.e. you can search words and sentences in all of them. Greek and Russian are excluded (at least so far) - being Cyrillic, they are much harder to incorporate in the search function. The dictionary functions on all 17 languages at once, i.e. you find all the languages intermingled, but everything in alphabetical order. The alphabetical order of MD is as follows:

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzåäö

National preferences have not been taking into consideration but there is instead a uniform order which for example the German u/ü and o/ö  is restricted to. Same goes for the Icelandic á and í.  Some  more additional  national letters exist. Japanese search words are written with romaji, but also kanji and kana are given. Read more about the individual languages in their own pages. 

Later on you will be able to click at any of the above languages in color, and get an individual page for that language. Furthermore, articles will show in headline what languages any specific article deals with.   

The birth of a dictionary

It started as a small project at Helsinki University. A Norwegian glossary for the next class. Finnish or Swedish being the other language. I added Danish for myself, for that would come next in my studies in Nordic languages. Icelandic would be after that, so I put in that too. And I added English for the fun of it. By and by I started adding some other languages - you never know when they would come in handy. Soon I had a bunch of files in ten languages. Then thirteen.

And then I started thinking that I couldn´t and shouldn´t keep all this for myself - I should share it! Four more languages were incorporated in what now started to look like a budding dictionary. Something for each continent!

Needless to say, I have a thing for languages. My first thought usually is: how do you say this in x-ish? Can´t help studying the local language at the airport or border station, or listening to a foreign melody with increasing curiosity. I am clearly lost in languages, and I hope you will be too, traveling here and there, and cruising in the Mercury Dictionary which could soon be expanding in your computer as well. Lost in the richness of idioms, and just the everyday usage of language. The dictionary is mercurial in nature, changing all the time, always expanding, always making more room for human expression. You have to see it to know it!

Welcome!

This is a brief introduction to what this blog is all about. It will be huge, and  I hope to get readers already from the start as the journey that is to begin is pretty interesting and involving. Let us begin!

This blog is about world travel and languages. It has as its basis Mercury Dictionary that I have been working on the past seven years. This dictionary consists of 17 languages - something from each continent! My aim is to be telling travel stories with a view to the language spoken in those places, and always leave the reader with the thirst for more details. Read about The birth of a dictionary - and about the different languages here.

The email address to blog editor is kivita@gmail.com. Please send sample requests with the subject sample, inquiries about the dictionary with MD, and inquiries about the blog in general with TL. And please do feel free to use the blog's comments section.