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Martin Rundkvist's blog. Archaeology, skepticism, Sweden. And books and music and stuff.
Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
Category: Language
Dungeon: a massive inner tower in a Medieval castle or a dark usually underground prison or vault. Traceable back to Latin dominus, lord. Dudgeon: a wood used especially for dagger hilts or a fit or state of indignation. Traceable back...
Posted by Martin R at 10:14 AM • 15 Comments •
Category: Language
When I was 16 in 1988 I spent a couple of days in Paris with a language school. I brought the address for a game store, one that advertised in White Dwarf magazine. It was on Rue Poirier de Narcay,...
Posted by Martin R at 4:58 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: Language
On the rover is a sundial cum camera calibration target, designed by Jon Lomberg who already has three pieces of art on Mars.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 5 Comments •
Category: Language
The Swedish language originated 1200 years ago as an effect of language change. It has since become heavily influenced by Low German, French, High German and, recently, English.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 30 Comments •
Category: China
My wife just returned from Beijing where she's been collecting interviews for a TV project. And I find that her beauty is not luxurious imagination....
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Language
Dear Reader, please try saying "ENSKTBLEH". Yes, six consonants in a row. ENSKTBLEH. OK? Now sing it, loudly and happily. Go! I've spent three happy days at the first ever Picture Stone Symposium in Visby, listening to papers, moderating some...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 8 Comments •
Category: Language
When annoyed, my dad (born in '43) will sometimes use a pretty awesome expletive that has largely fallen out of fashion. Men då får han väl se till och ordna det då, för höge farao! "So he'd better make sure...
Posted by Martin R at 2:45 PM • 14 Comments •
Category: China
My wife's from Zhejiang province, and so is this can of pickled cabbage that she bought yesterday. I like the label a lot. It's not quite Engrish: of course, we would say "people's mess hall", but the Chinese characters...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 14 Comments •
Category: Children
Fecal sample submission window....
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 13 Comments •
Category: China
"Lie Fallow" means "in your spare time, without a prior appointment" in Engrish. Everybody loves Engrish, the surreal dialect of English found on signs, in menus, on clothing etc. in the Far East. Much of it seems to stem...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 20 Comments •
Category: Language
One of the stranger concepts in Tolkien's writings is that of "High Elves". Why are these elves high? It has nothing to do with drugs, though in the Tolkien Society we used to joke about them smoking lembas. And it...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 22 Comments •
Category: Books
I'm a picky reader when it comes to entertainment, and if I don't like the first 50 pages of a novel I rarely continue. The most recent casualty of this policy is a book I was very kindly given by...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 12 Comments •
Category: History
Where do all these weird mountain names come from and what do they mean?
Posted by Martin R at 8:27 AM • 21 Comments •
Category: Tech
We're told that Wikileaks is "partly hosted on a server in Sweden that is lodged in a former nuclear bunker drilled deep inside the White Mountains". This confused be for a moment, since there is no mountain range of that name in Sweden.
Posted by Martin R at 3:34 AM • 7 Comments •
Category: Language
Apparently, what these writers do is take opinion A and the unrelated opinion B, and just slot them blindly into an IF A THEN B statement.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 11 Comments •
Category: History
And here's star philologist and religion scholar Ola Wikander with a guest lesson in Akkadian.The word of the day is nuḫatimmu. It means "a cook" in Akkadian (or sometimes "a baker"). Maybe something to interest Gordon Ramsay? And wouldn't...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Humour
My buddy Micke and his Japanese college room mate: "I'm Ken Nakamura. Ken means 'heresy'!" "Really? That's kind of... odd." "Yes! It means 'HERESY'! Rike when you are never sick!" "Ahaaa, you mean 'healthy'..." "Yes! Correct! What does your name...
Posted by Martin R at 3:33 PM • 9 Comments •
Category: Children
When a family migrates, the members who pick up the local lingo first and best are generally the children, and they soon become little interpreters.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 10 Comments •
Category: Language
Scandinavians generally speak pretty good English. But every now and then you come across reminders that they are still very far from being native speakers. Witness this pail of wall-paper glue that I bought earlier today. Dear Swedish glue-maker,...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 13 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
On Monday, Archaeology Southwest's new issue reached my mail box on snowy Boat Hill, and I was soon enticed to read it from one end to the other thanks to its fine graphic design, its lovely photographs and its exotic theme.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Denmark
Danes often have tripartite names. I've been wondering how these names are inherited. Specifically, which names get dropped and which ones get passed on to the kids?
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 15 Comments •
Category: Food
Everybody knows that English has borrowed the words ombudsman and smorgasbord from Swedish. But did you know that rutabaga is another Swedish loan? And that it was borrowed from a rural Swedish dialect, not standard Swedish? "Rutabaga" is an American...
Posted by Martin R at 1:19 PM • 17 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
Runologist James E. Knirk has published a report on the recently found Hogganvik rune stone. His transliteration is[?]kelbaþewas:s(t)^ainaR:aaasrpkf aarpaa:inanana(l/b/w)oR eknaudigastiR ekerafaRHis translation isSkelba-þewaR's ["Shaking-servant's"] stone. (Alphabet magic: aaasrpkf aarpaa). ?Within/From within the ?wheel-nave/?cabin-corner. I NaudigastiR [="Need-guest"]. I, the Wolverine.So...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 11 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
Inscriptions in the early 24-character futhark are rare. And when you find them, their messages are usually not straight-forward.
Posted by Martin R at 9:56 AM • 11 Comments •
Category: Music
Some of the most intensely loved musical styles have names that mean "copulation music".
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 5 Comments •
Category: Language
Here are two pieces of convoluted Scandy and English etymology that converge in my head.
Posted by Martin R at 8:21 AM • 7 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
Current Archaeology's July issue offers a lot of good reading, of which I particularly like the stories on human origins (see below) and garden archaeology at Kenilworth Castle.
Posted by Martin R at 8:21 AM • 7 Comments •
Category: Humour
A lesson in Swedish from the mall at Sickla. Last = noun from the verb lasta, "to load". In = in Fart = noun from the verb fara, "to travel", cf. "wayfarer" and "fare thee well". Load-in-travel. Delivery entrance....
Posted by Martin R at 8:27 AM • 13 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
Anglophones find it really funny that one of Sweden's oldest towns is named Sick Tuna.
Posted by Martin R at 8:28 AM • 8 Comments •
Category: Language
Essentially, they're the same guy: a storm god called "the Lord".
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 23 Comments •
Category: Language
In Chinese, polite figures of speech mark a distance.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 65 Comments •
Category: Language
Hear ye, Americans! When you put that gratuitous "of" there, you sound like demented hillbillies!
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 38 Comments •
Category: Humour
Conversing with a friend recently, I mused, what could be the background to the expression "batshit insane"? My friend suggested that it might have something to do with having bats in the belfry. I then wondered what the Swedish equivalent...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 31 Comments •
Category: Humour
So you're the principal of an English-language high school in Stockholm, Sweden. And you decide to put some serious money into an advertising campaign in the city's subway. Now, you want to express what we in Sweden call att...
Posted by Martin R at 12:49 PM • 28 Comments •
Category: Language
Two farmsteads in a parish can't have the same name, because that would lead to confusion.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 9 Comments •
Category: Humour
I take a childish pleasure from the fact that Shanghai International Airport is named Poo Dong -- snigger, snigger. Now, reading about tea, I find my scatological spot tickled further by the Poobong Tea Company in Calcutta. Poo bong. Stick...
Posted by Martin R at 4:39 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: Biology
It is an adjective ending in an S, just like erectus, afarensis and neanderthalensis.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 26 Comments •
Category: Language
Swedish has many subtleties to keep furriners from learning the language of glory and heroes.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 34 Comments •
Category: Language
Noreen Malone at Slate explains why Georgia and Georgia are both named Georgia. Basically it's:George means "ploughman" in ancient Greek Saint George dies in AD 303 Part of Central Asia (Georgia) becomes associated with the saint for unknown reasons Crusaders...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: Humour
Looking closer at this cover of a Chinese pirate edition of Disney's 1937 animated feature Snow White, we find a couple of fine Engrish phrases. "Latinum Edition" is pretty good. But wouldn't you agree that "Still the Fairest of...
Posted by Martin R at 12:45 PM • 8 Comments •
Category: History
The names that dot the landscape once meant something about those places.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 10 Comments •
Category: Humour
I've posted a fine example of Ansiktsburk song lyrics before: listen to a song in a language you don't understand, and try to imagine that it is actually sung in your own language though with a funny accent. Then...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 8 Comments •
Category: Children
"People will breathe using space suits, and at home they will have air inside their houses."
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 13 Comments •
Category: Language
A dialect is split into sociolects, that have to do with social class.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 35 Comments •
Category: Blogging
I've twiddled some knobs behind the scenes.
Posted by Martin R at 5:22 PM • 22 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
I'm a big fan of Danish archaeology. In my opinion it is the best in Scandinavia, both regarding the sites they have and what they write about them. This love of Danish archaeology has been a strong incentive for...
Posted by Martin R at 3:15 AM • 18 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
I disagree with Razib's interpretation of some interesting genetic studies over at Gene Expression.
Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 84 Comments •
Category: Humour
Scandy readers will be very familiar with this. As we learned from "Hatten Är Din", "Ansiktsburk", "Fiskpinnar" and other Turk Hits back in 2000, you can get wonderfully absurd results if you listen to a song in a foreign language...
Posted by Martin R at 3:44 AM • 5 Comments •
Category: Language
Does Al-Qaeda have its own star in the sky?
Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 15 Comments •
casaubon's book 02.13.2012
denialism blog 02.13.2012
respectful insolence 02.13.2012
evolutionblog 02.12.2012
starts with a bang! 02.11.2012
