I Never Knew There Was a Word for It - Adam Jacot De Boinod [45]
Cities
Cuzco (Quechuan, Andes) navel of the earth
Khartoum (Arabic) elephant’s trunk
Topeka, Kansas (Sioux Indian) a good place to grow potatoes
Countries
Anguilla: from the Spanish for eel, so named by Columbus due to its elongated shape
Cameroon: from the Portuguese
Rio de Camarões, River of Shrimps
Faroe Islands: from the Faroese
Føroyar, Sheep Islands
Barbados: from the name Os Barbados, the Bearded Ones: the island’s fig trees sported long roots resembling beards
Keeping in touch
Advances in technology have ensured that we are always on call, but whether that improves the quality of our lives is somewhat debatable:
yuppienalle (Swedish) a mobile phone (literally, yuppie teddy: as they were like security blankets for yuppies when they first came out)
proverka sloukha (Russian) an expression used in telephone conversations, meaning ‘I have nothing special to say – I just called to say hello’ (literally, a hearing test)
telebabad (Tagalog, Philippines) talking on the phone for a long time
prozvonit (Czech and Slovak) to call someone’s mobile from your own to leave your number in their phone’s memory, without the intention of the other person picking up
Tower of Babble
Not that we should ever take communication of any kind for granted. At whatever pace, misunderstandings are all too easy:
geop (Gaelic) fast talk which is mostly unintelligible
beròhina (Malagasy, Madagascar) to be spoken to in a strange dialect, to be perplexed by hearing provincialisms
betenger (Manobo, Philippines) to speak another language with a pronunciation that reflects one’s own native language
tener papas en la boca (Chilean Spanish) to speak in a stuffy or incomprehensible manner (literally, to have potatoes in the mouth)
False friends
Those who learn languages other than their own will sometimes come across words which look or sound the same as English, but mean very different things:
dating (Tagalog, Philippines) arrival
phrase (French) sentence
dating (Chinese) to ask about, enquire
Handy (German) mobile phone
Baloney
And sometimes people just speak rubbish anyway:
höpöhöpö (Finnish) nonsense
prietpraat (Dutch) twaddle
botalo (Russian) a chatterbox, a babbler (literally, a cowbell)
poyipoyi (Tsonga, South Africa) a person who talks at length but does not make sense
bablat (Hebrew) baloney (an acronym of
Beelbool Beytseem Le-Io Takhleet: bothering someone’s testicles for no reason)
ich verstehe nur Wortsalat (German) I don’t understand a thing you are saying (literally, all I hear is the word salad)
Q and A
Information is power, they tell us; but finding out what we need to know isn’t always as straightforward as we’d like. Sometimes we have to adopt special methods:
candrā nā (Hindi) to make an enquiry with a feigned air of ignorance
antsafa (Malagasy, Madagascar) enquiries about things of which one is fully cognisant beforehand
… although of course two can play at that game:
gadrii nombor shulen jongu (Tibetan) giving an answer that is unrelated to the question (literally, to give a green answer to a blue question)
kinkens (Scots) an evasive answer to an inquisitive child
iqsuktuq (Iñupiat, Inuit) to respond negatively by wrinkling the nose
Mhm mmm
So sometimes it’s ‘yes’ …
mhm Lithuanian
hooo Agua Caliente (California, USA)
ow Amharic (Ethiopia)
eeyee Setswana (Botswana)
uh-uh-huh Tamashek (West Africa)
… and other times ‘no’:
mmm Pulawat (Micronesia)
uh uh Shimasiwa (Comoros, Indian Ocean)
yox Azerbaijani
bobo Bété (Cameroon)
doo-yee Kato (California, USA)
halo Chinook (North America)
pepe Chitonga (Zambia)
hindi Tagalog (Philippines)
yuk Tatar (Russia)
Just be sure you know which m(h)mm is which.
IDIOMS OF THE WORLD
It’s all Greek to me
People fail to understand each other all the time it seems. The English idiom ‘it’s all Greek to me’ has counterparts throughout the languages of Europe. To the Germans