Word for the Travel Wise (06/01/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

America is one of the biggest melting pots around – hands down. With each turn in most major cities the traveler is bound to find different tastes, smells, and even sounds. While some words in various languages slowly sneak their way into to the average American’s vernacular many won’t. There are several words that wiggled their way in long ago and the average person has little knowledge of the word’s origin with the exception of child geniuses in spelling bees. Tonight I want to toss to you a word from a smaller melting pot in the world where certain words have close ties to those such as: Malay, Tamil, English, Spanish, Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian.

Today’s word is a Tagalog word used in the Philippines:

alak – liquor

Alak is a loanword from the Persian language used in the Philippines according to this table found here.

Tagalog is one of the major languages in Central Philippines and part of the Austronesian language family. For some reason I was surprised by the number of free GOOD resources available to prospective Tagalog student. Wikipedia has great background info on the lingo as well as related languages, Bikol, Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, and Cebuano. Mongabay pretty much covers all the really good, up and running links to sites that help teach Tagalog, after checking out a few I’ll do the favor of pointing the best out. The first is an interactive language and Filipino culture resource site tools are provided for both teachers and students. A pretty intense breakdown on local slang and how it is derived can be found here. Travel Lang has word and phrase generator that spits out all the basic words you’d use while visiting.

Past Tagalog words: taon, kalye

Moleskines Expand

by Erik Olsen on

For many many years I’ve kept a journal. I must have literally 10,000 pages of stuff written about places I’ve been, people I’ve met, the changing colors of lint in my navel. In the early, Pre-Cambrian days, I wrote in a paper journal, a Letts of London or another, more famous kind. What kind you ask? A Moleskine.

But in those days the Molskine was just a regular old blank-paged journal. No more. Moleskine is entering the guidebook market, or something near to it. They are about to publish DIY guidebooks with a city guide that will contain a maps, metro guides, and 36 pages of neighborhood maps. Of course, in the other pages of the book there are blank pages for making notes, and jotting down your thoughtful scribbles.  The guides are only European cities to start, including Paris, Prague , Berlin and Rome. American cities are coming, though, including L.A. and Boston next year.

Photo of the Day (5/29/06)

by Karen Walrond on

I’m intrigued by this photograph of stromatolites, which I’ve just learned are “fossils which show the life processes of cyanobacteria (formerly called blue-green algae).”  Who knew?  This picture was talen by laRuth at Lake Thetis in Western Australia, on what appears to be her honeymoon.  Congratulations, laRuth!

If you’d like one of your travel photos to be featured in our Photo of the Day, be sure to visit our Flickr Pool, and upload your best shots there.  Every day we’ll pick one to be featured here on Gadling.

One for the Road: Places in Time: Reflections on a Journey

by Erik Olsen on

Here’s a book that looks promising for its breadth and depth of reflection. Maxine Rose Schur’s book, out in paper back, is called Places in Time: Reflections on a Journey, and chronicles her round-the-world honeymoon more than 30 years ago. The year and a half adventure starts in Berkeley in 1971. She and her new husband discover free spirits and the kind of raggedy weirdness that all travelers discover, both then and now. They hit the road, going full-bore through Mexico, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia and the Pacific, eventually settling in New Zealand. There are exotic locales and banal ones, but her effort to look back really is what seems to make this a fine summer read, perhaps worth checking out.

Word for the Travel Wise (05/26/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Considering voodoo dolls are a big enough issue to make news all over, now seems like the perfect time to flip through our Chinese dictionaries for a word that could become just as recognizable as the illegal sale of the toy.

Today’s word is a Mandarin word used in China:

xiang zi – suitcase

Although there haven’t been any known voodoo doll arrests you surely don’t want to be the first to get caught red-handed. By no means am I suggesting you smuggle the dolls in and out of China’s borders, but I know how it is when you just have to have something. If this should be your case make sure you’ve got some decent luggage. Request the kind of suitcase or xiang zi with tons of hiding space, I mean pockets.

Mandarin is the most widely spoken of the Chinese language and can be a bit difficult to learn, but there are many sites online that can help get you started. The best will probably cost a small amount of money and the links are many so for sources pointing to additional sources check out About and Mandarin Tools. Mandarin tools is good if you’d like to add pinyin tools and other Chinese text files to your computer. Zap Chinese is free and has small dictionaries of common words with audio. Mei Wah is an awesome and funny site on becoming more aware as an eater and learning Chinese by way of menus and restaurant signs. China Language online is another excellent site I recently stumbled upon providing info on Mandarin, Cantonese and Hakka. In addition to these past recommendations check out the Hong Kong Language Learning Center (HKLLC) for study abroad in Hong Kong or Beijing. Qi Journal has a section dedicated to Chinese culture and language study.

Past Mandarin words: zhu ni hao yun, guo nian ha, mu di di, hao