#language shenanigans

Fact 1: Jason calls Damian 'Demon Brat' (not sure if it's fanon or canon, I think I've seen a research post about Batfamily nicknames somewhere but I can't find it right now)

Fact 2: Jason speaks Russian (I'm pretty sure this is canon, I've seen mentions of it)

Fact 3: In Russian, the word 'брат' [brat] means 'brother', literally, and 'demon' is pronounced and spelled the same way as in English, 'демон' [dæmon], so 'demon brat' would translate to 'demon brother'

jannik: Feliz Navidad! 🎄😄

carlos: buon natale!! 😁🎅🏻🎄🎁

*five minutes later*

I had these guys for two (2) episodes and I'm already insane about them, no joke.

That said, the second episode was a bit less rich in terms of hidden cultural or language meanings, but I found some untranslated stuff and wordplay! So let's dig in 👀🧭

// Language+Cultural comments for LfLs Episode 1 is here //

Episode 2

Messages that Myungha texted to Yeowoon after their first meeting:

[Yeowoon-ah, sleep well^^] (affectionately, btw YW called MH kkondae again for using old ^^ emoji lmao don't call us out I love using it too)

(my screenshot doesn't have the best quality so I can't read this one:()

[You're already sleeping?]

[Are you really sleeping?]

[You have to answer!!!]

[I guess, you really are sleeping, have a good night^^]

[I'm gonna text you tomorrow again!!!]

[Good morning!! Lol lol]

[Did you sleep well, Yeowoon-ah?^^]

Lmao, he is so annoying (affectionately).

Since the debuff was all three guys eating extremely spicy food, Myungha offers both Kyunghoon and Yeowoon water. Later, the two of them are outside and you can see Myungha caring about Yeowoon once again, asking him whether he was alive and bringing him "delicious milk".

It's nothing special, but if your country's cuisine doesn't really have spicy food (like mine), finding out that the best defence against spicy food is milk and not water usually is a surprise.

«What's this? You're here to bully Senior Glasses (안경형)?»

And this is where I laughed :D The writers of this show are funny because they keep playing with character's names. In my previous post I talked about how Cha Yeowoon's name got used along with the term "my favourite".

And here, Sangwon shows that he has a nickname for Ahn KyungHoon (안경훈) as Ahnkyung Hyung (안경형), which translates to "Hyung with glasses" aka "Senior Glasses". (Hyung means "older brother/older male friend" in Korean)

So writers literally hid "Glasses" in the surname+name of the character wearing, well, glasses. I don't think it's a cheap move because he is literally a character from the book and other characters-bullies get to use the wordplay. At first I didn't even realize it because I read Ahn as a surname and Kyunghoon as a name, but if you read it all together, there are glasses (ahnkyung) inside 😅

since kyrylluga are students in liyue, that means liyuean titles are on the table (i will be taking my chance at using xiaoshaoye and running), but since kyryll also speaks nefilheimsmal, that also means old norse titles are on the table. do you happen to know any fun titles that are adjacent to "young master" in old norse?

these will all be used for a good cause, namely making illuga throw his phone against his bed before screaming into his pillow as this would happen during their temporary summer break long distance relationship arc. kyryll will be concerned for illuga's phone of course, but he can't help but be pleased at illuga's reaction when he guesses (wrong once again) what flins called illuga in their past life

hi hi! i am taking a brief reprieve from the snorra edda to catch up on some Friend Shenanigans, of which i am counting this. hello!

young master in norse... there's a few words that have like. similar connotations. there's konungr, which is king, but not. not the same as we understand it now. it's more akin to "chieftan," and they were elected by popular vote instead of "divine right of kings," but that's not quite accurate.

oddly enough, the old english æðeling might have more similar connotations-- it refers to the person who's next in line to be ruler. not the same as prince, because again, there's a level of people's choice involved, which carries a different sort of respect to it. (i don't know if there's an old norse one-to-one equivalent, but if there is i think it would be something like oðaling? but that gets difficult because oðal has connotations with "ancestral right to land by blood" but not like. (hhhhh why is old norse so complicated) it's like in muspelheim, right, it's said in the prose edda that the land is "impassible to those who do not have ancestral land there" implying that if their blood is not of muspelheim's stock, they will literally be burned to a crisp if they try to walk across it. (muspelheim is the realm of fire.) in effect it sort-of gives you special powers.)

MOVING ON THOUGH there's jarl, from which we eventually get 'earl,' but it's usually translated as "noble (person)" (my beloved dictionary translates it as "poet. a highborn, noble man or warrior;" so there's also the poetic sense going for it) (i think of all of them 'jarl' might be closest. here i'm gonna include the wiktionary link with its declensions for you it's a very nice standard word: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jarl#Old_Norse) as for making it say young master, though, that's another matter. i'm quite certain the suffix for making diminutives in norse is -lingr, but you'll notice the difficulty in jarllingr. i'd be inclined to say, "jarlingr," but i think both would be correct-- i've seen double Ls in norse before. (as for this new word's declension, i'm going to link a word which should decline the exact same way with regard to what that singular R is doing at the end of the word https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/draugr#Old_Norse)

like Chinese tim with mandarin as a first language, dicks is canonically romani, Jason with Spanish (I hc him as Mexican but yk thats up to interpretation even within the au) and damian with arabic/league dialect......

Actually, Khalila really loves manga and prefers to read them in original Japanese. And Wolfe was just bored, so of course he picked one of the most complicated languages out there.