Language Trainers Blog

The capital of Thailand is abbreviated by all Thais to Krung Thep, and referred to as Bangkok, meaning literally ‘grove of the wild plums’. But, bearing in mind that there are no spaces between words in written Thai, its full correct name is:

Krungthephphramahanakhonbowonratanakossinmahintharayuthayamahadilokphiphobnovpharadradchataniburiromudomsantisug

meaning: City of Angels, Great City and Residence of the Emerald Buddha, Impregnable City of the God Indra, Grand Capital of the World, Endowed with the Nine Precious Gems, Abounding in Enormous Royal Palaces which resemble the Heavenly Abode where reigns the Reincarnated God, a City given by Indra and built by Vishnukarm.

It rather leaves the Welsh

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwillantysiliogogogoch

meaning St Mary’s Church by the pool of the white hazel trees, near the rapid whirlpool, by the red cave of the Church of St Tysilio in the shade.

At the other end of the scale are three places called A (in Denmark, Norway and Sweden), and two more, in Alaska and France, called Y.

In the Kiriwinian language of New Guinea a bukumatala is a ‘young people’s house’, where adolescents go to stay on reaching puberty.

As the main aim is to keep brothers and sisters away from the possibility of incestuous sexual contact, they never stay in the same house. The boys return to the parental home for food and may help with the household work; the girls eat, work and occasionally sleeps at home, but they generally spend the night with their adolescent sweethearts in one bukumatala or another.

Conclusions cannot always be drawn about historical connections. Some words are similar in numerous languages.  Linguistic research has led to the theory of an Ur-language (Indo-European) spoken some fifty thousand years ago, from which most other languages have descended. Papa, for example, is used for ‘father’ in seventy percent of languages across the world.

Meanwhile, essential latterday vocabulary has crossed languages as easily as the jet-setting executive who uses it:

Taxi is spelt and means the same in French, German, Swedish, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Czech, Slovak, Portuguese, Hungarian and Romanian

Sauna is spelt and means the same in Finnish, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Dutch, Danish, Lithuanian, Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian, Romanian and Norwegian

Bank is spelt and means the same in Afrikaans, Amharic (Ethiopia), Bengali, Creole, Danish, Dutch, Frisian (Germany and Holland), German, Gujarati (India), Hungarian, Indonesian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Sinhala (Sri Lanka), Swedish and Wolof (Senegal and Gambia)

Hotel is spelt and means the same in Afrikaans, Amharic, Asturian (Spain), Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Frisian (Germany and Holland), Galician (Spain), German, Icelandic, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Tswana (Botswana), Ukranian and Yiddish.

Some words must remain a mystery to all except native speakers. You would have to live in these places for quite a while to understand how to use correctly some of the following, which in their simply translated definitions contain what seem to us contradictory meanings:

 Hay kulu (Zrma, Nigeria) anything, nothing and also everything

 Irpadake (Tulu, India) ripe and un ripe

 Sitoshnna (Tulu, India) cold and hot

 Merripen (Romani, Gypsy) life and death

 Gift (Norwegian) poison and married

 Magazinschik (Russian) a shopkeeper and a shoplifter

 Danh t (Vietnamese) a church and a brothel

 Aloha (Hawaiian) hello and goodbye (the word has many other meanings including love, compassion, welcome and good wishes)

An urgent need to communicate can create a language without native speakers.

Pidgin, for example, has developed from English among people with their own native tongues. Fine examples of pidgin expressions in the Tok Pisin language of Papua New Guinea are: liklik box you pull him he cry you push him he cry (an accordion) and bigfella iron walking stick him go bang along topside (a rifle).

When the Duke of Edinburgh visits Vanuatu, in the Pacific, he is addressed as oldfella Pili-Pili him b’long Missy Kween, while Prince Charles is Pikinini b’long Kween.

The Western ideal of monogamous husband and wife is not universal.

There is, for example, no word for father in Mosuo (China). The nearest translation for a male parental figure is axia. An axia has a series of night-time trysts with a woman, after which he returns home to his mother.

Any children resulting from these liaisons are raised in the woman’s household. There are no fathers, husbands or marriages in Mosuo society. Brothers take care of their sisters’ children and act as their fathers. Brothers and sisters live together all their lives in their mothers’ homes.

Who better than the pragmatic French would construct a precise terminology for love as business, ranking from a passe raide, the basic price for a sex session, to the kangourou, a prospective client who hesitates (hops around) before deciding on a girl.

When it comes to those who ply their trade, there are many equally specific terms. An escaladeuse de braguette is, literally a zipper climber; a beguineuse is an unreliable prostitute; a wagonnière is a woman who solicits on trains; a truqueur means a rentboy who blackmails his clients; while a cocotte-minute is a pro who turns many tricks very quickly (literally, a pressure cooker). There is even an expresión, commencer à rendre la monnaie, to show signs of age, which is said of prostitutes who in better days didn’t have to give change for large notes.