Parts of the body have long been used to define small distances, the foot in the imperial system of measuring, for example. The Zarma people of
Elsewhere we find:
Dos (
Muku (Hawaiian) from the fingers of one hand to the elbow of the opposite arm when it is extended
Sejengkal (Malay) the span between the tips of the stretched thumb and little finger
Dangkal (
Most first names, if not derived from myth, place, flower or surnames, have a specific meaning. Patrick, for example, means noble, from the latin patricius. Naomi means ‘pleasant’ in Hebrew, while the Irish Gaelic Kevin literally means ‘comely birth’. More unusual meanings of names from around the world include the following :
Astell (m) sacred cauldron of the gods (Manx)
Delisha (f) happy and makes others happy (Arabic)
Ebru (f) eyebrow (Turkish)
Farooq (m) he who distinguishes truth from falsehood (Arabic)
Fenella (f) fair shoulder (Manx)
Lama (f) with dark lips (Arabic)
Matilda (f) strength in battle (German)
Xicohtencatl (m) angry bumblebee (Nahuatl, Mexico)
Xiao-Xiao (f) morning sorrow (Chinese)
Ferdinand de Saussure supported the idea that language is an absolutely arbitrary system in which the name of a word and its meaning has no natural connection. He stated that even onomatopoeia depend on a particular language and are not natural at all.
Thanks to Adam Jacot de Boinod we can be sure Saussure was completely right. He gives us a list of animal sounds according to different languages - think of the sounds you were brought up with and compare them with the following from around the world:
Birds (tweet tweet)
Arabic: twit twit
Bengali: cooho’koohoo
Finnish: tsirp tsirp
Hungarian: csipcsirip
Korean: ji-ji-bae-bae
Norwegian: kvirrevitt or pip-pip
Bees (buzz)
Afrikaans: zoem-zoem
Bengali: bhonbhon
Estonian: summ-summ
Japanese: bunbun
Korean: boong-boong or wing-wing
Cats (meow)
Indonesian: ngeong
Malay: ngiau
Nahuatl: tlatzomia
Chinese: Mao
Chicks (cheep cheep)
Albanian: ciu ciu
Greek: ko-ko-ko
Hungarian: csip-csip
Indonesian: cip cip
Quechuan: tojtoqeyay
Slovene: civ-civ
Thai: jiap jiap
Turkish: cik cik
Cockerels (cock-a-doodle-doo)
Chinese: gou gou
French: cocorico
Italian: chicchirichí
Portuguese: cocorococo
Thai: ake-e-ake-ake
Cows (moo)
Bengali: hamba
Dutch: boeh
Hungarian: bú
Korean: um-muuuu
Nahuatl: choka
Crows (squawk)
French: croa-croa
Indonesian: gagak
Spanish: cruaaac, cruaaac
Swedish: krax
Thai: gaa gaa
Turkish: gaaak. Gaaak
Frogs (ribbit)
Afrikaans: kwaak-kwaak
Munduruku: korekorekore
Owls (to-whit-to-who)
Korean: bung-buung
Norwegian: uhu
Russian: sova ukhaet
Swedish: hoho
Thai: hook hook
Pigs (oink)
Albanian: hunk hunk
Hungarian: rof-rof-rof
Japanese: buubuu (boo boo)
Sheep (baa)
Mandarin: mieh mieh
Portuguese: meee meee
Slovene: bee-bee
Vietnamese: be-hehehe
Anybody remember when George H W Bush tried to signal ‘peace’ during a visit to Australia in the 90s by giving a huge crowd the time-honoured two-fingered salute? Though he didn’t know it at the time, he was actually telling the whole crowd to go screw themselves - and all because he made the seemingly innocuous error that his palm was facing inwards instead of outwards.
Nacho highlighted the danger of using certain hand gestures when travelling in an earlier post, as some have very different meanings in some countries from what we as Westerners believe them to stand for. Let’s take a look, shall we?
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Particularly popular with fans at football matches to taunt opposition players, Tony Blair famously copped a bit of embarrassment when the uncensored version of a photograph of him during his Oxford University days was shown on BBC2’s Newsnight: a photo that had later been photoshopped by the supplying press agency to cover up Blair’s rude – and delightfully unambiguous – hand gesture. Yes, Tony. You are. |
Interestingly, in Greece and Portugal the gesture is made with the palm facing the ground, implying that the person is rather fonder of wanking other men as opposed to himself.
2. The “Thumbs-Up”
First of all, let’s quash the urban legend of the ‘thumbs-up/thumbs-down’ being used by the audience in the Roman coliseum to vote on the life or death of a defeated gladiator, as furthered by such movies as Gladiator and Spartacus. There’s no evidence for this, and it’s just massively unlikely. Sorry.
While Western culture has become used to the thumbs-up as a positive, informal signal, generally indicating a job well done (probably stemming from World War II pilots using the signal to communicate that they were “good to go” with ground crews), there are cultures where a thumbs-up may land you in trouble. In most of Latin America and West Africa, as well as Greece, Russia, Sardinia and the south of Italy, the thumbs-up basically means the same as the middle finger: “sit on it and swivel”. Also, it’s generally not recommended to use the thumbs-up around the Middle East as it’s pretty much the biggest insult out there – and even worse if you pull off the emphatic version with both hands - so no Fonzie impressions, please.
Rather more charming is a thumbs-up in Germany and in the less-Westernised areas of Japan – they just see it as the hand signal for the number one. Bless.
3. The “Moutza”
Opening your palm to your target and stretching out your fingers seems harmless enough to most Westerners. Most of us would think you’re waving. In Greece, however, the gesture is known as a moutza, and is one of their most traditional manual insults. With fingers slightly apart, you thrust your hand into your target’s face, usually coupling the gesture with a brash “na!”, meaning “here you go!”. The basic suggestion is something like “eat shit”, implying that you’re not particularly impressed and would rather the target of the moutza leave you alone – comparable to the American interpretation of the same signal as “talk to the hand, because the face isn’t listening”.
The gesture is also an insulting one in Pakistan and many parts of Africa. The Japanese use a very similar sign to insult their old enemies, the Koreans. Roughly translating as ‘animal’, the signal is similar to the moutza in every way except they tuck the thumb into the palm.
Amusingly, Microsoft used to use a very similar-looking hand signal as an icon for warning dialogs in previous versions of Windows – what Greek users must have thought of that, I don’t know… “This application has performed an illegal operation - now, eat shit!”.
4. The “Dog Call”
Curling your index finger towards you in a summoning motion is a gesture generally linked with seductive temptresses in Hollywood movies, beckoning for their targeted men to follow them into another room.
Beware, however, of using this gesture in the Philippines – it’s a method of communication considered worthy only to use on dogs, and is actually punishable by arrest. Worst of all, they’ll break your index finger in order to prevent you from committing the same crime again!
5. The “A-OK”
Mainly used by scuba divers to mean “OK” (to prevent ambiguity with the thumbs-up sign, which means “ascend”), this hand gesture is generally called ‘A-OK’, and in America and the UK is often used to tell somebody that they’ve made a great meal, as talking with your mouth would just be impolite. Essentially the meaning comes out as “great”, or “absolutely fine”.
Not so, however, in a few countries in Europe, where the numerical interpretation gives the signal an insulting overtone – essentially you’re telling them that you think they’re a ‘zero’.
Far worse, however, is the meaning in Brazil, Germany and a few Mediterranean countries: the circular shape of the gesture gives it the meaning of “anus”, and is therefore used to call somebody an “asshole”, or, by extension, a homosexual.
6. The “Cutis”
While there isn’t really an equivalent in Western culture, the cutis in Indian and Pakistani culture is basically a thumbs-up, except you push the nail on your thumb against your front teeth and flick, while saying “cutta!”. It basically amounts to “screw you”, and famously appeared in the media when Pakistani fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar made the gesture in Melbourne as he left the field for a rain delay during the 2004 test series against Australia.
7. The “V Sign”
The age-old ‘V sign’ comes in two formats: one with the palm faced outwards, and one with the palm inwards. In America the two hand signals mean the same thing – ‘victory’, as popularised by Richard Nixon, or ‘peace and love’, which seemed to become the primary meaning after anti-Vietnam protesters used it during the 60s.
However, if the outside of your hand is facing your target, you’re giving somebody a long-established insult in Great Britain and many English-speaking countries such as Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. Winston Churchill famously used the ‘incorrect’ version of the V sign during the early years of the war, switching round later when he’d been told by his advisors that he wasn’t exactly giving the lower social orders a positive message. The V sign is also considered rude in Italy, especially if you place your nose between the two fingers, making the gesture resemble a crude vagina.
I myself have almost seen a fight start as a result of an American tourist ordering drinks in an English pub: when asked how many pints he wanted, he simply stuck two fingers up and looked straight into the eyes of the barman – perfectly normal on the other side of the Atlantic (it’s actually the signal for the number 2 in American Sign Language), but it’s fighting talk to the British.
8. The “Fig”
Nothing more than a fist with the thumb poking out from between the index and middle fingers, the mano fico (literally ‘fig hand’) is a gesture of Roman origin, used as a positive gesture to encourage good luck and fertility, and ward away the ‘evil eye’. The sexual nuance comes from from the hand’s resemblance to the female private parts (fica is actually Italian slang for “vulva”), with the nub of the thumb representing the clitoris.
There seems to be a lack of positive meaning to this sign these days, however. If you’re doing the ‘fig’, it probably means you’re denoting a letter T in American Sign Language. But if somebody else is giving you the same gesture (especially if they are of the Asian persuasion), they’re probably giving you a rather disparaging insult, roughly equivalent to “fuck you!”. This hand sign is also highly disparaging to Italians and Turks, and in India would be taken as a threatening gesture. Most non-deaf Americans or Brits, however, would simply see the mano fico as a bizarre-looking fist.
9. The “Corna”
Consisting of a clenched fist with the second and fifth fingers straightened out, the corna (‘horns’) hand gesture has most recently been adopted by fans of rock and heavy metal music, first used by Black Sabbath vocalist Ronnie James Dio. The gesture carries only a vague meaning, implying the presence of Satan, malevolence and loud guitar music, and is used in much the same way as headbanging. The gesture was actually popularised as a Satanic salute during the 1960s, appearing in many editions of the Satanic Bible. Nowadays many Americans use the gesture simply to mean “rock on”, or in support of the University of Texas in Austin (known as the “Hook ‘em Horns”).
Occasionally used by baseball players to indicate “two outs”, the corna is actually a positive hand gesture in Buddhism and Hinduism, known as the Karana Mudra in such circles, and is used to dispel evil – an interestingly opposite meaning to its contemporary significance.
Historically, however, the symbol basically means “cuckold” (or rather, “your wife is cheating on you”), and its origins are Mediterranean, possibly dating back to Ancient Greece. The corna is still popular in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Colombia, Brazil, Albania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and seems to be used most often to disagree with football referees - perhaps their wives are taking advantage of their husband’s occupation to score with hunky football players - though only when the referee make an incorrect decision, of course…
10. “The Finger”
Most likely derived from Ancient Greece, ‘the finger’ is one of the most widespread obscene gestures throughout the Western world. In a handful of Mediterranean and Arab countries the index finger is preferred to the middle, but the meaning remains crystal clear. There are a myriad of different stories for the origin of the finger (going back as far as 2500 years), making mention of Greek tragedies, phallic representation, perverse Roman emperors, English longbowmen, and annoyed deaf people - but we just don’t know.
Also known as the ‘flip-off’, the ‘bird’, the ‘highway salute’, ‘digitus impudicus’ and the ‘One-Fingered Victory Salute’ (thanks to President Bush’s famous TV blooper), the middle finger is probably the most universally-understood hand gesture in the world. This is owed mostly to its age, the sheer simplicity of the gesture, as well as the human preoccupation with somehow relating everything back to sexual organs.
Of course there are regional differences, from half-extending the second and fourth fingers (no doubt to represent the ‘balls’ either side of the middle finger ‘dick’) or combining the finger with another rude gesture, to being as creative as holding up your middle three fingers and telling your target to “read between the lines”.
Permanently.
A while ago I met two Irish students of Spanish. I thought it might be amusing to ask them about typical Irish greetings, and the one they told me was ‘How is she cutting?’, with the supposed answer ‘Top of the bog’.
Of course I simply accepted this strange idiomatic exchange without even trying to analyse it. But later I decided to try it with other English speakers, who weren’t of Irish origin. To my surprise, no matter where in England they were from, they just stared at me in a funny way. I tried to explain what I meant and they confessed it was the first time they heard the phrase - it is very interesting how the ‘same language’ can be so different that it can actually hinder communication among their speakers.
Another seemingly strange method of greeting between Irishmen and women is asking the question “What’s the craic?”; “craic” (pronounced ‘crack’) being an originally Gaelic word for debauchery of any kind. The standard response to this question is “The craic’s 90″.
Perhaps the most famous Irish greeting of all is ‘Top of the morning to you’. Any Irish out there care to fill us in with the correct response? That’d be grand.
Hand gestures should be used carefully when abroad, in case of misunderstandings. The cheery ‘thumbs-up’ used by the English and Americans (and lately, the Japanese) means ‘up yours’ in the Middle East, and ‘sit on this’ in Sardinia. In France, pressing a thumb against the fingertips means something is absolutely parfait, or just right; while in Egypt the same gesture means ‘stop right there’.
A typical American sign for ‘okay’, made by touching the tip of the thumb to the tip of the forefinger, and used internationally by scuba divers, is an insult in Brazil. In some countries, making the V sign can be negative, in others, positive; in Italy, if you reverse the V sign to make it akin to the English ‘victory’ sign, it approximates to ‘to hell with you’. In some countries, flicking your thumb across the teeth tells the other person he’s a cheapskate. Just about everywhere, grabbing the crook of your elbow and raising your fist is rude; similarly, grabbing your crotch rarely intimates a positive sentiment. In the Arab world, the middle finger pointed downwards and moving up and down, with the palm horizontal, equates to a raised middle finger in England.
Probably best to keep your hands by your side and nod courteously.
English enjoys an interesting advantage over all other major European languages, having adopted natural in place of grammatical gender. In studying other European languages, students labour under the heavy burden of memorizing not just the meaning of each and every noun, but the gender, too.
In the Romance languages, for example, there are two genders, thus all nouns which would otherwise be neuter are either masculine or feminine. Some help in these languages is afforded by distinctive endings, which generally characterise the two classes. But even this aid is lacking in Germanic languages, where the distribution of these three genders appears to an English speaker to be mostly arbitrary.
Thus in German, Sonne (sun) is feminine, Mond (moon) is masculine, but Kind (child), Mädchen (maiden), and Weib (wife) are neuter. This distinction must be kept in mind constantly, since it affects not only the reference of pronouns, but also determines the rules of inflection and the agreement of adjectives.
In the English language, all of this was stripped away during the Middle English period.
Gender in modern English is determined by meaning. All nouns referring to living creatures are masculine or feminine according to the sex of the individual, and all other forms are seemingly neuter - though with indeclinable definite and indefinite articles and single-termination adjectives, our only clues are the pronouns.
Jorge Luis Borges in Other Inquisitions (1937-1952) refers to this ancient Chinese classification of animals:
Animals are divided into:
(a) those that belong to the Emperor,
(b) those that have been embalmed,
(c) those that are trained,
(d) suckling pigs,
(e) mermaids,
(f) fabulous ones,
(g) stray dogs,
(h) those that are included in this classification,
(i) those that tremble as if they were mad,
(j) innumerable ones,
(k) those drawn with a very fine camel’s hair brush,
(l) others,
(m) those that have just broken a flower vase, and
(n) those that resemble flies from a distance.
Most of us would tend to feel, whether consciously or unconsciously, that this seemingly random system of organization conflicts with our modern sorting standards. However, the most integral system that divides the world conceptually is the system of language.
Somehow, those of us who speak English feel that it makes perfect sense having a single word describing “a room where food is kept, prepared and cooked and where the dishes are washed” (kitchen); however, it wouldn’t possibly be worth having a single lingual unit for “a cool basement room where the hottest part of the day is passed during the hottest season of the year”. Nonetheless, the Anglo-Indian word tyconna depicts exactly this concept. How can we justify this fact? Is this linguistic nonentity a casualty of the Great British weather?
Bedouins have ten different words to describe sand, according to its colour or consistency. Perhaps this can be easily explained by the fact that sand is a more important part of these peoples’ lives.
Hopping from verbal overkill to deficiency, did you know that Spanish doesn’t have a single word for the English verb to borrow? Spanish requires a phrase to broadcast that same meaning: pedir prestado. Considering our Bedouin example, can we possibly argue that Spanish people have no concept of borrowing? Very unlikely, it seems.
How about the Pascuense verb tingo, which means ‘to borrow things from a friend’s house one by one until there’s nothing left’? Is this such a common activity among people from Easter Island that it deserves its own word, let alone such a concise one?
Like anything else, this concept can be dangerous when taken to extremes. An irate Arthur Schopenhauer tries to defend the stereotyping of the German character by mentioning that their tongue has more than fifty words to describe drunkenness. It seems that words in some languages are inherently affected by the frequency and relevance of the activity to the speakers, while some have very different etymologies.
Languages divide the world, and they all do it differently. Does anybody else have any examples of words or expressions from different languages that seem to have no English equivalent?
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