Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Georgian's case, mom is deda and dad is mama
Reminds me of Hebrew where Who is he, He is she, and Me is who.
Didn’t the Beatles write song like that?
Are any words the same in all languages?
211–220 of 511 posts
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
And yet the word for grandma is suspiciously similar to mama.
The word for grandma is "isoäiti", at least in sentences like "I went to visit my grandma last weekend". Monikers such as "mummo" are borrowed from Swedish, which means that not too long ago, the finnish language seems to have been without any "mama"-related words. Which is more interesting than the fact that some of those have been borrowed into modern day finnish, since it shows that "mama" is not a universal featu…
> Monikers such as "mummo" are borrowed from Swedish, which means that not too long ago, the Finnish language seems to have been without any "mama"-related words.
I'm not sure we can conclude that? Borrowings can displace existing words, so the current state of the vocabulary doesn't necessarily tell you what was there before.
As a slightly related example in German: 'Base' and 'Vetter' for your girl and boy cousins have been replaced in the last few decades with the French borrowings 'Cousine' (also spelled 'Kusine') and 'Cousin' (also spelled 'Kuseng'). Looking just at the current vocabulary, you might conclude that German did not have specific words for these people until the French come along.
Germans also replaced 'Muhme' and 'Oheim' with 'Tante' and 'Onkel'.
Fun aside: the English word 'boss' has etymological ties with the German 'Base'. (English got 'boss' from Dutch.)
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#213These seem like very bad candidates. All are loan words, which is interesting, but we could go deeper if we're considering pineapple/ananas and coffee. And let's be real, words like robot and computer are mostly the same in this respect too, especially if we're considering taxi. But what about words that are more "native"? How about "mama" and "papa"? There are variations, but these seem to be pretty small and mostly…
Turkish has an interesting deviation from the pattern: the Turkish word for mama is 'anne'. Turkish dad's follow the usual pattern though with 'baba'.
Is this similar to the name Annie? Or more like "ah-knee"? Either way, interesting note! I'm just really surprised that these words are similar across such varieties of languages. Like the fact that you have Asia, Europe, Africa, and from what I can find even the mama is similar in Cherokee[0]. So that's all continents! To me that's crazy. And extra fucking interesting that there appears to be (from my non-expert point of view) higher variance in papa than mama, and by a lot.
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#214Very surprised to see Amen not making the list. I know it is a Christian word at the end of a prayer meaning "so be it". However, even if the prayer language is changed I understand Amen to remain untranslated.
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is that different than "chocolate" simply being a Spanish word which is very popular? Stealing words from other languages is arguably how most words get created.
"Stealing words" That's a bit harsh. We borrow words (or loan them). We certainly don't steal them - you are welcome to take them back at any time. My favourite borrow word conundrum is "biftek". That is a loan word from French by quite a few languages (not English) - bifteck. Now, bifteck is derived from "beef steak" (English) English is a bit odd due to having several different words for an animal and its flesh via…
Sounds also eerily similar to spanish's bistec btw
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
Turkish has an interesting deviation from the pattern: the Turkish word for mama is 'anne'. Turkish dad's follow the usual pattern though with 'baba'.
Is this similar to the name Annie? Or more like "ah-knee"? Either way, interesting note! I'm just really surprised that these words are similar across such varieties of languages. Like the fact that you have Asia, Europe, Africa, and from what I can find even the mama is similar in Cherokee[0]. So that's all continents! To me that's crazy. And extra fucking interesting that there appears to be (from my non-expert poi…
> Is this similar to the name Annie? Or more like "ah-knee"?
It's probably easiest if you ask Google Translate to pronounce the word for you: https://translate.google.com/?sl=tr&tl=en&text=anne&op=trans...
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anne#Turkish gives the pronunciation as ɑnːe/, [ɑ̽n̪.ˈn̪e̞]
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think new words is the right approach in general, but golem.
"Sushi" and "jazz" seem to be good candidates too. Chinese often seems to be the language that adopts very different terms even for quite culturally specific terminology (e.g. I'd tried niqab/burqa plus a bunch of less common musical instruments or styles from other cultures and they all seemed to have their own word in Mandarin. But the word for "jazz" superficially sounds similar at least).
Many things considered to fall under the umbrella of 'sushi' in English would probably be called 'gimbap' in Korean.
Japanese also has different words for what English speakers would call 'sushi'.
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the line is _very_ thin, but I think I understand what OP means: "ok" is taken verbatim from english and has not undergone any "modifications" to adopt it to a local language (though, I guess, that is not 100% true? in polish we sometimes spell it "okej", but I would argue that "ok" and "okej" have slightly different connotations.) Whereas "chocolate" is "localized" into many other languages, "Schokolade" in…
I would imagine that "okej" is more akin to English's "okay".
I can’t really explain why or how and my fellow countrymen could reasonably disagree with me, but „okej” to me has slightly negative/aggressive connotation?
Like in an argument I’d type „okej, but you understand why that makes me feel bad”, whereas I _think_ I’d still use „ok” in English in that case?
It’s really weird to explore the subtleties of your own language use to that degree, gotta say :P
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#219These seem like very bad candidates. All are loan words, which is interesting, but we could go deeper if we're considering pineapple/ananas and coffee. And let's be real, words like robot and computer are mostly the same in this respect too, especially if we're considering taxi. But what about words that are more "native"? How about "mama" and "papa"? There are variations, but these seem to be pretty small and mostly…
In Georgian “mama” means father
Georgians have been gender-unassuming since ancient time