They Might Be Linguists

The hiatus isn't completely over, but I'm going to see if I can wear it down with some old news, that I'm just hearing now.

One of my favorite bands is They Might Be Giants, and while they are always full of fun and interesting word play, sad to say I've missed out on some interesting language related business that they have been involved in recently. On their newest release, The Else, they put out the song "Contrecoup" which I had heard before, but I never really gave it a listen. In doing some research, I learned that John Linnell, at the behest of Erin McKean, wrote a song using three words that she considered to be endangered: CONTRECOUP, CRANIOSOPHIC, and LIMERENT.

A breif definition for people who aren't up on exotical specialized terms. Contrecoup is an injury occuring opposite of the point of an impact. Craniosophic means having skill at phrenology (though there seems to be no mention of this online I can say with certaintly is unrelated to this song). Limerent was the only word with which I was familiar before learning about all of this, and it means the intense desire of reciprocation of feelings, to a point of infatuation.

Considering their meanings, I'm not surprised they are used more often.

Linnell seems to also been the main impetus behind the language themes, as he also recorded what is called Lesson 16 for their podcast (though I think Fritalian was a Flansburgh song). In the lesson, you hear speaking in another language, and then the English translation. It lacks sufficient evidence to do a full gloss, I feel, but it seems to be pretty consistent in its structure and technique. Lesson 16 can be read here. There was some analysis on the site, but I didn't find it that interesting, or even necessarily accurate (see the Skitt-ish Bad English in TMBG songs). As far as translations and They Might Be Giants go, I'm wondering if anybody knows what the lyrics to Anqui translate to?