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Are any words the same in all languages?

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Re: Are any words the same in all languages?

#431

Post by numpad0 »

rizzaxc wrote: post #422
wodenokoto wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japanese has a lot of words for mother and unlike in English with mom, mommy and mother, they aren’t related. The most common are okaasan (with a few variations of its own), haha and mama. But mama is written with katakana suggesting it is a loan word. Which I find interesting in terms of the babble word theory. It could also be katakana because it is considered derived from a sound like how onomatopoeia are often wr…

haha is Chinese, so also a "loan" word

The literary character 母 is Chinese, spoken word はは is not, and some believe old pronunciation was closer to papa.

Re: Are any words the same in all languages?

#432

Post by tintedfireglass »

wizofaus wrote: post #114

Any languages that use a distinctively different word for "robot"? Well other than Chinese and Arabic (which also use very different words for "taxi" than most other widely spoken languages). Btw my other candidate is "chihuahua" (though there's probably other dog breeds...). And yes it's the essentially the same in Chinese and Arabic if Google translate is to be believed.

Tamil uses Enthiran and Telugu uses maramanishi but colloquially the English word robot is used

Re: Are any words the same in all languages?

#433

Post by vidarh »

klausa wrote: post #218
tmathmeyer wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's tricky because the pronunciation in English and Scandinavian languages (no idea about Polish) would be pretty much the same between OK/ok and okay/okei/okej (Swedish also uses okej; Norwegian okei) unless you spell out the "OK" which you sometimes do, sometimes don't in Norwegian at least (it's hard to tell because people might spell it out using English pronunciation), but my feeling is that especially if you intend the letters "O.K.", whether or not you spell it out, it tends to have a more positive, confirmatory sense, while if you use the word "okei" in Norwegian, you have more room to alter the pronunciation to imply sarcasm or doubt, e.g. stretching the syllables.

I wonder if that may play in with other languages too. I think I'd be inclined to type out "okay" if I wanted a better shot at conveying that same thing in English in writing, perhaps with some ellipses. Eg. "Okay... But .." rather than "OK... But" or "OK, but". Maybe just because the short, abrupt "OK" feels more like it must mean certainty. This may very well be entirely personal, though, and I have no idea if others would notice the distinction.

Re: Are any words the same in all languages?

#435

Post by throwaway22032 »

Delk wrote: post #250
godelski wrote: post #151

These 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…

Robot intuitively sounds like it could be a good candidate. I don't think "computer" is quite that universal, though. AFAIK it's something else at least in French ("ordinateur"), Swedish ("dator"), Norwegian ("datamaskin"), Finnish ("tietokone"; lit. "knowledge/data machine") and Estonian ("arvuti"). I think Chinese has its own unrelated word, too. And about half of the African languages that I can easily check in Wi…

Chinese: 电脑 Diannao, lit. Electric brain

Re: Are any words the same in all languages?

#437

Post by coopierez »

gerdesj wrote: post #139
mminer237 wrote: post #74

Earlier 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…

> English is a bit odd due to having several different words for an animal and its flesh via the Norse invasion in 1066.

It's not _that_ unusual to have different words for the meat and the animal. The slightly odd thing about English is that the word for the animal comes from Germanic roots and the word for the meat comes from the French root.

Weirdly enough, Japanese sort of has the same situation: the word for "cow": 牛 (pronounced "ushi") and the word for "beef": 牛肉 (pronounced "gyuuniku") being a loan word from Chinese.

Re: Are any words the same in all languages?

#438

Post by [deleted] »

skhr0680 wrote: post #390
Delk wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robot intuitively sounds like it could be a good candidate. I don't think "computer" is quite that universal, though. AFAIK it's something else at least in French ("ordinateur"), Swedish ("dator"), Norwegian ("datamaskin"), Finnish ("tietokone"; lit. "knowledge/data machine") and Estonian ("arvuti"). I think Chinese has its own unrelated word, too. And about half of the African languages that I can easily check in Wi…

Chinese and Japanese = formally 電子計算機 (electronic calculating machine), everyday language uses a transliteration of "computer" in Japanese and 電脳 "electric brain" in Chinese.

[deleted]

Re: Are any words the same in all languages?

#439

Post by aristus »

The correct answer is "spam". Spam was a novel problem that hit the entire world almost at once, just as that entire world was becoming able to talk with itself easily. So an invented word was immediately adopted in all languages. Just check out the bottom of the wiktionary page.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/spam

Re: Are any words the same in all languages?

#440

Post by garaetjjte »

ajuc wrote: post #312
harel wrote: post #156

There is one word which I think is the same in all languages: Tariff. And it makes sense - it's the "how much?" that would be (and is) asked at any port and travelling hub.

Polish has cło (modern, borrowed from German) or myto (archaic, Slavic root, implies it's different in every city). There's taryfa but it's mostly used as a slang word for taxi or any kind of constant payment for a service with slightly mocking tone. There's also taryfikator which is the word for the list of fines for speeding tickets depending on the speed :)

taryfa is used in many contexts as published listing of fees, also in taryfa celna.
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