Thursday, June 01, 2006

Ursprache

I was pulling hard for my homegirl Finola Mei-Hwa Hackett last night in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee last night, but she hadn't studied her German as hard as her French, and "Weltschmerz" bit her.

After spelling "kundalini" (which sounds like something that would be nice with a marinara sauce), Katharine Close showed her how German is done with "Ursprache."

I'm practicing for my turn in about nine years:

"Can you please tell me the origin of that word?"


--Maddie

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Maddie,
Since when does the National Spelling Bee require contestants to spell German words? "Weltschmerz" has arguably been taken over into English, but "Ursprache"? It's a pefectly good German word, but I've never seen it used in English. Maybe by the time you get to participate in the Bee, you can persuade them to use Chinese words.
Love,
Grampa

Anonymous said...

Really amazing! Useful information. All the best.
»

Anonymous said...

Greets to the webmaster of this wonderful site! Keep up the good work. Thanks.
»