Language Trainers Blog

Krosa is Sanskrit for a cry, and thus has come to mean the distance over which a man’s call can be heard, roughly two miles. In the central forests of Sri Lanka calculations of distance are also made by sound: a dog’s bark indicates a quarter of a mile; a cock’s crow something more; and hoo is the space over which a man can be heard when shouting the word at the highest pitch of his voice. While in the Yakut language of Siberia, kiosses represents a specific distance calculated in terms of the time it takes to cook a piece of meat.

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Inuit calendars have very charming names. January is siqinnaarut, the month when the sun returns; February is qangattaarjuk, referring to the sun getting higher and higher in the sky; March is avunniit, when premature baby seals are born: some make it, some free to death; April is natsijjat; the proper month for seal pups to be born May is tirigluit, when bearded seals are born; June is manniit, when the birds are laying eggs; July is saggaruunt, the sound of rushing water as the rivers start to run; August us akulliruut, when the summer has come and the caribou hair is neither too thin nor too thick but just right for making into clothing; October is ukialliruut, when the caribou antlers lose their covers; November is tusaqtuut, when the ice forms and people can travel to see other people and get news; December is taujualuk, a very dark month.

In 2002 President Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan decided to rename both the months of the year and the days of the week. Some months were to take the names of heroes of Turkmenistan’s past, but January was to become Turmenbashi, after the president’s official name (‘Head of all the Turkmen’). In response to this suggestion that April should become known as ‘Mother’, one of his supporters suggested that instead it should be named after the president’s mother, Gurbansoltan-eje. The president heeded this advice.

The days of the week were also renamed: Monday became Major (main of first) Day; Tuesday, Young Day; Wednesday, Favourable Day; Thursday, Blessed Day; Friday remained as it was; but Saturday became spiritual Day; and Sunday, Rest Day.

Czechs describe people from outside their country in intriguing caricature. Originally all foreigners were called Nemec (from the adjective nemy meaning ‘mute’); now the suggestion that outsiders are deprived of speech applies specifically to Germans, whose country is known as Nemecko. Hungary in Czech used to be Uhersko, and a Hungarian Uher, literally, a pimple.

The Italians, meanwhile are called makaroni, for obvious reasons; while Australians are known as protinozcí, meaning ‘legs placed in an opposite direction’, as they would be on the other side of the globe. Other cheerfully frank generalizations include: opilý jako Dán, to be as drunk as a Dane; zmizet po anglicku, to disappear like an Englishman; and when the Czechs really don’t understand something, they say to pro mne spanelská vesnice, it’s all a Spanish village to me.

I have found this curious list of English names meanings when they are written in other languages:

Adam (Arabic) skin

Alan (Indonesian) comedian

Alf (Arabic) thousand, millennium

Anna (Arabic) moans and groans

Calista (Portuguese) chiropodist

Camilla (Spanish) stretcher

Cilla (Zarma, Nigeria) basket

Doris (Bajan, Barbados) police van

Eliza (Basque) church

Eve (Rapa Nui, Easter Island) buttocks

Fay (Zarma, Nigeria) divorce

Fred (Swedish, Danish and Norwegian) peace

Jim (Korean) baggage

Kim (Ainu, Japan) mountain

Kylie (Dharug, Australia) boomerang

Laura (Greek) groups of monks’ huts

Luke (Chinese) traveller

Marianna (Italian) accomplice who tells a gambler the cards held by other players

Sara (Hausa, Nigeria) snakebite

Sid (Arabic) plaster

Susan (Thai) cemetery

Vera (Italian) wedding ring

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.