Morning made

Here's the song I sang on the way into work this morning:

I'd like to teach
The world to clean
Their walks of snow and ice!

I'd like to buy
The world some salt
To keep me off my ass!

(Nu, so it doesn't rhyme. It's modern.)

Last night's soft moist snow was lovely, but I knew when I saw the temps in the forecast it would be trouble. Sure enough, this morning's skating rink did not disappoint. And unlike the previous one, it's not going anywhere.

Despite these hazards, I actually managed to catch the early shuttle. For that, I have to thank my neighbour who started scraping ice off their car outside my window at 7 a.m. It still took me a while to get going. I was stuck for a motivation until I remembered the dishes in the dishwasher from last night. (They'd been too wet to put away before I went to bed, so I'd left them out to air dry.) I warmed at the idea of going to the kitchen and putting on tea while I made everything tidy, starting the day with a sense of house pride and accomplishment. Then I got there and found that monshu had beaten me to it.

So I sat down in front of the computer and cracked one off.

WotD: Fireplace Vocabulary VIII

Korean

• 벽난로 (壁煖爐) "fireplace"
• 노상 (爐床) "hearth"
• 굴뚝 "chimney"
• 연도 (煙道) "flue"
• 바람문 (바람門) "damper"
• 벽난로선반 (壁煖爐선盤) "mantlepiece"
• 화열 가리개 (火熱 가리개) "fire screen"
• 난로울 (煖爐울) "fireguard"
• 난로의 쇠살대 (煖爐의 쇠살대) "fire grate"
• 장작받침쇠 (長斫받침쇠) "andiron"
• 난로용철물 (煖爐用鐵物) "fire irons"
• 부지깽이 "poker"
• 풀무 "bellows"
• 부젓가락 "fire tongs"
• 장작(長斫) "firewood"
• 불쏘시개 "tinder, kindling, spill"
• 검댕 "soot"

आज का शब्द / آج كا شبد / ਅੱਜ ਦਾ ਸ਼ਬਦ

पुस्तकालय pustakaalay, ਪੁਸਤਕਾਲਾ pustakaalaa, کتاب گھر / ਕਿਤਾਬ ਘਰ kitaab-ghar, دارالکتب daarulkutub "library"

So far, there's been great unanimity in the vocabulary I've been presenting, but that isn't by design. It's a by-product of the fact that I've been sticking mostly to basic vocabulary, which tends to show little difference between Hindi and Urdu (and Panjabi, in most instances). But you don't have to stray very far into the realm of "higher vocabulary" before you start hitting divergences.

The word किताब / کتاب / ਕਿਤਾਬ kitaab for "book" (from Arabic via Persian) will be understood anywhere, but that doesn't mean it's always the preferred usage. Shapiro's Primer, which explicitly teaches the sort of "shuddh-Hindi" found in the Indian educational system, ignores it completely in favour of पुस्तक pustak (a direct borrowing of Sanskrit पुस्तकं). (Always a bit more practical, McGregor alternates between the terms, but with noticeable bias towards पुस्तक.)

ਪੁਸਤਕ pustak is also the first translation listed in the Mahan Kosh Panajbi lexicon and enters into more compounds and collocations in the Singh Brothers dictionary than ਕਿਤਾਬ. But the latter is the only term used by Shackleton in his basic Panjabi grammar; it also beats out its Sanskritic rival 44,700 Ghits to 8,820. Perhaps needless to say, but Teach Yourself Urdu recognises only كتابيں kitaabeM and not *پستكيں pustakeM.

Since all the common terms for "library" basically equate to "book house", it's not surprising to find divergent NIA equivalents. The second element in the Hindi word listed above is Sanskritic आलय aalay "abode" (as in हिमालय Himaalay "abode of snow"), which has the Panjabi form ਆਲਾ aalaa. Panjabi ਪੁਸਤਕਾਲਾ gets about ten times the hits of ਕਿਤਾਬ ਘਰ kitaab-ghar which is literally a "book house", but I suspect that's because only Indian Panjabis commonly use Gurmukhi. Pakistani Panjabis rarely write their language and, when they do, many words are indistinguishable from their Urdu cognates. (کتاب گھر kitaab-ghar is, naturally, good Urdu as well.)

It's impossible to determine easily the relative frequency of کتاب گھر and دارالکتب in Urdu because the latter is lifted wholesale from Arabic. Literally, it is a "dwelling place (daar) of books (kutub)". If you're wondering about the different spelling here, it's because this word incorporates an Arabic "broken plural", a usage typical of higher registers of Urdu, Persian, and other Arabic-influenced languages.

And if this terminological richness weren't enough, there is also the recent English loan लाइब्रेरी / لايبريري / ਲਾਇਬਰੇਰੀ laaeebreree. I'm not sure exactly what niche it fills in the respective languages' ecologies, but certainly the related borrowing लाइब्रेरियन / ਲਾਇਬਰੇਰੀਅਨ laaeebrerian seems to be giving native coinages like पुस्तकाघ्यक्ष pustakaadhyaksh ("book supervisor") and ਪੁਸਤਕ ਪਾਲ pustak-paaL ("book protector") a run for their money. (I have to confess, I was kind of hoping for "library-wallah" myself.)