"Kana" seems to have longestmost Wiktionary page. Some might draw a map how these different Kanas relate. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kana
Are any words the same in all languages?
381–390 of 511 posts
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#382I thought I learned at one point that “kaka” (poop) was one of the earliest proto-Indo-European words [0] and think it is present in many languages but “all” is a pretty high bar. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/8lefir/why_doe...
Fun thing I only recently realized, that's what the Gremlins are calling Gizmo in the movies (and just shouting in general in the recent cartoon). Apparently that word is cross-species.
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve never really thought about it, but that most sounds simpler than all the step/in-law/twice removed nonsense in English.
The English "nonsense" is a simple system that is easily understood. Every language that has separate terms for relatives is an impenetrable mess.
You're saying this like it's an objective fact...?
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#384These 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…
In Icelandic "computer" is tölva, a portmanteau of the words for number and seeress.
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#385There is also an interesting contrast with the word for "butterfly" which tends to be quite different between languages[0] -- "mariposa", "papillon", "farfalla", "borboleta", and "fluture" all come from romance languages, for instance.
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#386These 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…
Greenlandic: Anaana, Ataata (T is pronounced more like a D)
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#387A Dutch friend once said that the one word from his language that has had universal reach was "apartheid"... I'm sure that if there are any truly global words they are probably ones like that (initially) attached to a specific geographical context.
There is another Dutch word that must be pretty widespread in STEM circles: ‘eigenvector’.
In french, it is "vecteur propre" (which has the same meaning).
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#388These 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…
[deleted]
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
The English "nonsense" is a simple system that is easily understood. Every language that has separate terms for relatives is an impenetrable mess.
You're saying this like it's an objective fact...?
It is an objective fact. As a speaker of Russian (native), Romanian and Turkish.
E.g., in English a spouse's parents are just that, parents-in-law. And the spouse's brothers and sisters are brothers- and sisters-in-law. That is it.
Let's take Russian. Each of the following is a separate term:
- husband's mother
- husband's father
- wife's mother
- wife's father
- husband's brother
- husband's sister
- wife's brother
- wife's sister
The inverse is also true. Your daughter's husband's siblings and parents have a different term from your son's wife's.
Very, very simple.
These are variations on the Sudanese Kinship category, and they are both arbitrary and complex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_kinship?wprov=sfti1
Re: Are any words the same in all languages?
#390These 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 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.