Rings, Returning, and the Narniad, part one: Christianity in Literature (plus something about Christmas)
This month’s words: Merry Christmas! Japanese has Meri Kurisumasu ; these are loanwords and sound closer to the original English than they look — the U’s all but disappear in quick speech (though they reappear in song). Hawaiian supposedly has Mele Kalikimaka : I don’t know if this is “real” or a later invention (and a song), but again it’s obviously derived from English. If you think K doesn’t really sound like S, think about the letter C and a cat in a city. (That form of palatalization is common in the world’s languages.) Italian has Buon Natale , the cognates of which are two women’s names: Bonnie Natalie. Actually the first comes from the same root as “bonny” (=”good” or “pleasant”, as sung in in folk songs) and the second is related to “Nativity” with a different suffix (the word “natal” is not entirely foreign to English). So: Good (or pleasant) Nativity. In my Fyorian conlang (for my Tond books ), one could either wish someone Méri Krísmas (obviously English loanwords agai...