Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Are any words the same in all languages?

blog.duolingo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 511 posts

Re: Are any words the same in all languages?

#42

Post by downvotetruth »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #27
rvieira wrote: post #9

Cats "meow" (miˈaʊ̯) in all languages. Dogs can woof, blaf, ham, ao, ...

One would think animal sounds would be basically universal but it isn't so--other than meow I can't recall any animal sound that was understandable to my wife (native Mandarin speaker.)

Imitative hiss noise? owl who?

Re: Are any words the same in all languages?

#43

Post by yongjik »

Cyph0n wrote: post #13
jangliss wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Turkish those are "anne" (an-ney) and "baba"... And "mama" means baby food!

In Tunisian Arabic baby speak, “mama” means “mama” but “mam-ma” (see [1]) means food/eat. Quite confusing, but it seems to work? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadda

In Korean, "mamma" is baby-talk for food, "eomma" is mom, and "mama" is "Your Highness" (which is also a euphemism for... measles).

Re: Are any words the same in all languages?

#44

Post by reducesuffering »

legohead wrote: post #2

My first thought was "mama" (and possibly "dada"), as I believe I've seen it attributed to the fact it's an easy word for babies to make since it mimics the first sounds we make. But it's not even mentioned..

In Georgian's case, mom is deda and dad is mama

Re: Are any words the same in all languages?

#47

Post by delecti »

self_awareness wrote: post #36
xnx wrote: post #10

"OK is frequently used as a loanword in other languages. It has been described as the most frequently spoken or written word on the planet." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK

Isn't it simply an English "word" which is very popular?

The etymology of "okay" is so disputed that it almost feels like something that must have popped up independently multiple times.
Post reply on HN