A Foreign Language Vocabulary Thread: In Which We Look For Things That Have A Different, Non-Cognate Name in English/French/Spanish/German.

Earlier mention of water itt:

Hmm, so how do I interpret the colors for the etymology map of, say, water? Because "eau," "agua," "water/wasser/etc." are correspond to PIE?

― Matt Groening's Cousin (Leee), Monday, November 11, 2013 11:50 AM (three years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There are three PIE roots meaning "water" from which contemporary languages derive their terms for water, and each color corresponds to one of them. The shades of each color refer (I am guessing) to terms that have younger common ancestors that ultimately go back to the PIE root.

― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, November 11, 2013 12:00 PM (three years ago) Bookmark

https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Bubikopf
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubikragen
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubikopf_(Frisur)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soleirolia

english: lump (german: klumpen) (welsh: lwmp)
french: bosse
italian: grumo
spanish: terrón
portuguese: nódulo
dutch: brok
finnish: kyhmy

Dammit, French!

english: hideous (german: Scheußlich) (welsh: Yn wych)
french: hideux
italian: orrendo
spanish: repulsivo
portuguese: medonho
dutch: afschuwelijk
finnish: hirveä

http://languagehat.com/butterfly/

A fun etymology-related game I have been playing lately is to find one of the legion of lists of "untranslatable" words a la this one (which has lovely illustrations):

https://ellafrancessanders.com/untranslatable-words-from-other-cultures/

and the try and find English translations for as many of them as I can, ideally single-word, by looking at rarely used or archaic terms... or simply starting from the assumption that nothing is truly untranslatable between human languages and being poetically obstinate.

for example, the aforementioned list has the Swedish mångata, "the glimmering, road-like reflection that the moon creates on water" which in English is... moonglade! Which the OED first attests back in 1867.

I find a bit of googling the untranslatable words to be helpful to establish they really mean what the lists say they do, some are just flat-out wrong.

and then, not and the...

Oh, that is a cool endeavour. Please post more if you're up for it.

We have a Finnish word for the same concept as mångata too, it's "kuunsilta", literally "moon's bridge".

i love it!! moonglade!

also reminds me of the grant hart song
you're the moonglade, but you're not the moon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTH4Zu8gleA

Japanese: Komorebi
This is the word the Japanese have for when sunlight filters through the trees - the interplay between the light and the leaves

- surely this is 'dappling'

ooh, excellent idea LL!

along those lines, there is komorebi (木漏れ日) "sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees".

for this I would go with sun-dappled, which is an adjective and not a noun but brings us the same visceral image:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQbm2L9hKSs

(haha, xpost!)

what about pencil?
pencil, en
crayon, fr
lapiz, es
matita, it
bleistift, de

― Jibe, Wednesday, April 24, 2013 6:53 PM (four years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Could the Indonesian 'jayus' be… an 'anti-joke'?

On second thought, 'anti-joke' adds intent to the equation, so it's not quite the same thing.

En:
Fr: taille-crayon
Es: sacapuntas
It: affilacoltelli
De:Spitzer

Hit enter too bloody soon, English is sharpener, unsurprisingly following on from pencils above

Actually I think pencil sharpener is temperamatita in Italian too

The etymology of Italian's matita for pencil is interesting, apparently it's from ematite, or hematite, which they used for writing? Apparently there is a ton of hematite on Elba, compared to the giant graphite deposit found in England in the 16th century... which leads us to (mistakenly) call the stuff in pencils lead!

I always get confusion with that and a certain Tom Jobim lyric.

hahaha, my first impression of temperamatita was "what? paint killer?"

en: toad - From Middle English tode, toode, tade, tadde, from Old English *tāde, a shortening of tādie, tādiġe (“toad”), of unknown origin, possibly from Proto-Germanic. Cognate with Scots tade, taid, taed, ted (“toad”). Compare also Danish tudse (“toad”), possibly from the same root; also Swedish tåssa, tossa (“toad”), Old English tāxe (“toad”), Old English tosca (“toad”) by contrast.

fr: crapaud - Probably from Frankish *krappō, *krappa (“hook”) (because of a toad’s hooked feet) +‎ -aud. Compare Catalan gripau, Occitan, grapaut.

es: sapo - Unknown, possibly from Iberian, cognate with Basque apo.

it: rospo - Uncertain, possibly of Germanic origin

de: kröte - From Middle High German krotte, kröte, krëte, from Old High German chrota, krota, kreta (“toad”), from Proto-Germanic *krudō, *kredō (“toad”), from Proto-Indo-European *guredʰ- (“toad”). Cognate with Middle Low German krōde (“toad”), dated Dutch krodde (“toad”).

what's the word for toad-sharpener in Italian?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOCxplCFYCE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erIxsjOAKc4

This is very close but slightly unsatisfactory

en: raccoon
sp: mapache
fr: raton laveur
de: Waschbär

because the German and the French both have the idea of washing, and Spanish has the term "oso lavador," not sure which term is more common in Peninsular vs. American Spanish. But we also have

it: procione
pt: guaxinim

My wife who's from Costa Rica says she's never heard the name "oso lavador", mapache is the only word for raccoon she knows.

In Finnish we call it "pesukarhu", which also means "wash bear". Probably comes from German via Swedish, as raccoons don't live here, so we wouldn't have an "indigenous" word for them.

en: spats
es: polainas
fr: guêtres
de: Gamaschen

is ruined slightly by French origin of "gaiters" and by the fact that spats are short and gaiters are long, whereas afaik the same word is used for both in other languages, or really only for the long form.

(En) bird
(Es) pájaro
(Fr) oiseau
(De) Vogel
(It) uccello

Oiseau and uccello both come from the same Latin word, aucellus.

Was wondering. But the first four seem to work, I think.

Vogel / fowl

Okay, thanks but “fowl” and “bird” are not related.

Think maybe I found another, if my Zing search worked properly

Not a 'thing' per se depending on your definition but…

E: now
F: maintenant
S: ahora
G: jetzt

Bonus Romanian: acum

Inspired by Learned League.

E: ugly
F: laid
I: brutto
S: feo
G: hässlich

E: duck
F: canard
S: pato
G: ente
I: anatra

Maybe ente and anatra are related?

Apparently so, if you go as far back as proto-Indo-European, which seems kind of tenuous anyway.

This is the one I was thinking of
E: room
F: pièce
S: habitación
G: Zimmer

Which is somewhat unsatisfactory because of the chambers and salons I am avoiding.

Yeah I think there are metaphysical problems there of what is a room

English: pillow
German: Kissen
French: oreiller
Spanish: almohada
Italian: cuscino
Portuguese: travesseiro
Welsh: gobennydd

― Alba, Friday, July 14, 2017 5:51 AM (three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

this one occurred to me today.

although "guanciale" might have been a better, if slightly awkward, choice for the italian — since both "Kissen" and "cuscino" seem to come via old french "coussin"

This thread inspired me (in part) to name a set of songs i recorded after HEDGEHOGS in 7 different languages. Thank you to emil.y for the hedgehog inspo and all thread contributors for non-cognate inspo <3

https://on.soundcloud.com/xW2Xp

English/French/Spanish/Language Makes No Sense

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shorts

Listening to the hedgehog songs now - they're great, LL!

Thanks for listening!! 💕 I’m proud of these, hence the proper names.