Whenever possible, I used the phonetic rendering of the word. Some languages such as Farsi, Arabic and Hebrew I left out because a phonetic spelling wasn’t offered on Google Translate. In many cases, I wasn’t sure if the word being translated was the noun or the verb — not all languages use the same word the way English does — but they’re all referring to the sudden rocketing of snot from the nasal passages.
Decide for yourself:
- Afrikaans: nies
- Albanian: teshtij
- Albanian: p’rrshtal
- Azerbaijani: asqırmaq
- Belarusian: čchać
- Bengali: hām̐ci
- Bulgarian: kikhane
- Chinese: dǎ pēntì
- Croatian: kihati
- Czech: kýchnout
- Danish: nyse
- Dutch: niezen
- Esperanto: terni
- Estonian: aevastama
- Filipino: pagbabahin
- Finish: aivastaa
- French: éternuer
- German: niesen
- Greek: ftárnisma (and yes, I notice that this isn’t ptairo, but that first syllable isn’t not far off)
- Gujarti: chīṅka
- Hatian Creole: etènye
- Hindi: chīṅka
- Hungarian: tüsszentés
- Indonesian: bersin
- Italian: starnutire
- Japanese: kushami
- Korean: jaechaegi
- Latin: sternuisse
- Latvian: šķaudīt
- Lithuanian: čiaudėti
- Macedonian: kivnete
- Maltese: tgħatas
- Norwegian: nyse
- Polish: kichać
- Portuguese: espirrar
- Romanian: strănut
- Russian: chikhatʹ
- Serbian: kijanje
- Slovak: kýchnuť
- Spanish: estornudar
- Swahili: kuchafya
- Swedish: nysa
- Tamil: tum'mu
- Thai: cām
- Turkish: hapşırmak
- Ukrainian: chkhaty
- Vietnamese: nhảy mui
- Welsh: tisian
- Yiddish: nysn
I have been more interested in the other language equivalents of "achoo." I remember when I worked in a Japanese school, I heard one the teachers say/sneeze "hakushon," and I thought to myself, "That's not what a sneeze sounds like! She's faking it!" But now I think about all the times I've said/sneezed achoo and if those were fake too.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good point. Let me see what I can do...
Delete"sneeze" is from Old English "*fnēosan", which lost the initial "f", then gained an initial "s". I assume that the German, Dutch, Yiddish, Afrikaans, and north Germanic words are related and lost the initial "f" as well.
ReplyDeletehttp://bradshawofthefuture.blogspot.ca/2008/10/sneeze-and-pneumatic.html
There is a PIE root for "sneeze": *skeu-, *kseu- (Pokorny page 953). This is possibly the source of the Hindi, Gujarati, and all the Baltic and Slavic words in your list.
ReplyDeleteGoofy, had I endless amounts of money, I'd hire you as a remote etymology butler, who'd just make historical sense of whatever words I encountered. Thanks, as always, for the input.
DeleteRemote Etymology Butler... that should be the name of my blog.
DeleteI'd be pretty darn interested in what, if anything, would be the proper saying after someone sneezes in all of these other languages; Gesundheit aside of course.
ReplyDeleteAnd perhaps I'll do something with this, as I did with Carl's suggestion...
DeleteWell, at least I can assure you that "nies" is the correct Afrikaans word. And that I am pretty sure I sneeze in English. Although it usually sounds more like "ker-splah" than "atchoo" ...
ReplyDeleteI'm kind of hoping that someone, somewhere uses "ker-splah" as the technical term for sneezing.
Delete