Monday, April 19, 2010

Klavier

In English, there is a big musical instrument called piano. Piano was created since the Middle Age. It consists of strings and hammers.

We know that English is originated from German. In German, piano is called Klavier. Why does it called Klavier? In English, there is another word - clavier to describe musical instrument - keyboard. It is same as the Clavier from French. Klavier may come from Latin (claves), clavile in Modern Latin. It is Klavír in Solvenian and Czech, Glasovir in Crotian. Clavier may mean key-bearer, key is clavis in Old Latin.

The name piano comes from pianoforte, same as Italian and Russian (Фортепиа́но) name. It is fortepian in Poland.

The most strange is that piano is Zongora in  Hungarian. Why Zongora?

Thursday, April 01, 2010

German and English 2

There are lots of similarities between English and German.

When we say "How old are you?" in English, we would say "Wie alt sind Sie?" in German. They are literally equivalent.

When we say "What is your name?" in English, we would say "Wie ist Ihr Name?" in German, literally "How is your name?".

"How are you?" in English. Then "Wie geht es Ihnen?" in German, literally means "How goes it you?". I guess it is more like "How is going on you?".

Kindergarten was absolutely borrowed from German. Kinder is plural form of Kind which means child. Garten is garden. Therefore, kindergarten means garden of children.