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Hilarious loanwords | ||
Tags: Loanwords | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7379 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes  12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 10 26 July 2006 at 3:42am | IP Logged | ||
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At school we studied German (I'd love to say that we 'learned' it but can't), and some German words borrowed from French were the source of inextinguishable laughters.
Yesterday I bumped into one such word, on an official form it said that if you don't pick up a certain paper within a certain amount of days, it will be retourniert. On the phone in Switzerland companies sometimes say that all you need is to retourschicken. Why it's fun to us: retour is a very French-looking word for 'return', and it's used without further Germanization in German. A bit like if the Germans would use an English word 'it will be returniert'. All they do is graft some German ending at the end, to us it looks like a cow with a fish tail or something. There are many other such French words used in German in their original form with some flexion and it's always great fun for French speakers. Do you have similar experiences with other languages? Edited by administrator on 26 July 2006 at 3:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7321 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 10 26 July 2006 at 10:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Two French examples I can think of for now:
stopper - to stop...In the beginning, I could never figure out whether it was "stop" as a verb, or "stopper", as in English. My favourite was the French media "taikonaut". Take Chinese "taikong" (space - as in universe) plus -naut and you get the French-named homegrown Chinese astronauts. That one was especially funny to me. I wonder what they would name, say, Indian astronauts? There are a lot more; I'll try to add more when I think of them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TDC Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6924 days ago 261 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French Studies: Esperanto, Ukrainian, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Persian | Message 3 of 10 26 July 2006 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I like the Chinese for different soft drinks. Coke -> kekoukele - "able to make the mouth happy" literally: could mouth, could happy. Pepsi = Baishi "white or hundred thing(s)" [don't remember which bai it was] 7-up = Qi Xi = "Seven Happiness" Edited by TDC on 26 July 2006 at 2:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7321 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 10 26 July 2006 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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TDC: The "bai" is one hundred.
I really like how they can approximate the sounds as well as giving it meaning. Another example would be MasterCard, giving it the meaning of "ten thousand (meaning many) things acheived" (sort of like anything is possible). Edited by victor on 26 July 2006 at 3:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Skandinav Hexaglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 6890 days ago 139 posts - 145 votes Speaks: Danish*, English, German, Russian, Swedish, Norwegian | Message 5 of 10 04 August 2006 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I always picture things, and so the Russian word for hairdresser - parikhmakher - always makes me smile. The source and thus the reason of the word, however, is pretty logical, making it less funny. But still the term is hopelessly outdated since getting a regular haircut has been normal for almost a century now.
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| Alfonso Octoglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 6864 days ago 511 posts - 536 votes Speaks: Biblical Hebrew, Spanish*, French, English, Tzotzil, Italian, Portuguese, Ancient Greek Studies: Nahuatl, Tzeltal, German | Message 6 of 10 05 August 2006 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe this thread could be considered as "hilarious false friends" or "hilarious misunderstood phrases" in different languages.
If so, as a Mexican, I want to add in this thread the French expression "C'est la vie!" (that's life!) which in Spanish sounds like: "Se la vi" (it literally means: "I saw hers/his"), so it's often used as an "albur" with sexual connotations. Edited by Alfonso on 05 August 2006 at 10:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Eidolio Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 6864 days ago 159 posts - 164 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Dutch*, Flemish*, French, English, Latin, Ancient Greek, Italian, Greek | Message 7 of 10 06 August 2006 at 7:16am | IP Logged | ||
Flemish is quite known for this :-) In Flanders you hear words like "arrangeren", "expliqueren", "velo", "gazet", "kostuum", "kravat", "krevetten", "peche",... very often. They might look quite hilarious if you're francophone. The funniest loanword I know is "hangmat". This is the Dutch word for "hamac". The word "hamac" was introduced here by the Spanish or the French. The local people thougt that this word was etymologically derived from the Dutch words "hangen" (hang) and "mat" (door-mat). So they changed the quite unfamiliar word "hamac" to "hangmat" which sounds very Dutch and very logical. When I first saw the French word "hamac" I couldn't believe my eyes - this French word was derived from Dutch?!? Only 5 years later I learnt that it was the other way around - the Dutch word is actually derived from "hamac". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6771 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 8 of 10 06 August 2006 at 7:23am | IP Logged | ||
The English-language media also uses this term for Chinese space travellers, continuing in the trend that allowed Russians to be called cosmonauts. When (or if) the Indians get into space, they'll probably get their own word too. What's "space" in Hindi? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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