Sneezing Around the World, Part Three

So I accidentally made a little series on sneezing. Excuse me.

In the first part, I noted how many languages’ words for sneeze actually sound like sneezing. And in the second, I listed as many worldwide onomatopoetic sneeze words as I could find. It would me sense to finish this little adventure into the realm of nasal explosions with a list of how different languages respond to sneezing, I felt, but it turns out that Wikipedia is already over that one — not only with every translation of bless you you could think of but also often with the polite response to the sneezer gives to the blesser.

Some highlights, however:

• According to Wikipedia, deaf people using American Sign Language typically don’t respond to sneezes. Is that true? Does that make sense? I feel like it doesn’t, especially how the noise of the sneeze is hardly the most intrusive aspect of the act.
• Japanese people also generally don’t respond to sneezes.
• The Belarusian and Chechen responses to sneezing varies according to the gender of the sneezer.
• Wikipedia translates the Cantonese sneeze response as “a great fortunate occurrence,” which is certainly an enthusiastic way to view sneezing.
• The Czech response translates as “Bless God,” which seems counterproductive if you live in a culture where God traditionally issues all the benedictions.
• An alternative Georgian sneeze response translates as “Million dollars” — “referencing the belief that one loses money while sneezing,” Wikipedia explains.
• Germans don’t have to use Gesundheit, “health,” and can instead wish for contentment, wealth or beauty.
• The Persian sneeze response translates as “May purity be bestowed upon you,” and although that’s nice, a tissue might be a more effective means of achieving that purity.
• One of the Portuguese responses to sneezing is santinho, “little saint.”
• In Vietnamese, if the sneezer is a small child, you can say something that translates as “rice and salt.”

Of course, in all this discussion of equivalents for bless you, I’d like to point back to my old post, “Fucking the Subjunctive,” in which I talk about how the subjunctive has not vanished from modern English. In fact, a form on the subjunctive mood is used in two common but antithetical English expressions: bless you and fuck you.

Finally, some people suffer from a rare disorder that causes them to sneeze uncontrollably after a large meal. No, really: It’s called snatiation, a portmanteau of sneeze and satiation.

Sneezing Around the World, Part Two

On Sunday, I posted the various worldwide translations for the word sneeze, and Carl commented that he’d be interested in learning the various words for the actual sound of sneezing — you know, the noise the English-speaking render as achoo.

Carl’s comment:

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.

Here’s a list of the various onomatopoeia I could find for sneezing. (Links at the bottom of the post.)

• Arabic: atchu
• Batak: atcim
• Bengali: hach-chu
• Bulgarian: apchix
• Catalan: atxum, atxís, atxim
• Chinese: hāt-chī (Cantonese), ā tì (Mandarin)
• Czech: hepčí, kychnut
• Cypriot: apshoo (which is purported to also be the name of a village in Cyprus, though I can’t find it here)
• Danish: atju, hatju
• Dutch: hatsjoe, hatsjie
• Estonian: atsihh, atsih aptsihh, aptsih
• Finnish: atshii, atshiu, atsiuh, atshii, atshiu, atsiuh
• French: atchoum
• German: hatschi, hatschu
• Greek: apsu, apsiu
• Hebrew: apchi, itush
• Hindi: achhee, aak-chheen, aak-chhoon
• Hungarian: hapci
• Icelandic: atsjú
• Indonesian: hacciihh, wa-hing
• Italian; etciú
• Japanese: hakushon, kushu
• Kazakh: apschoo
• Korean: etchi
• Latvian: apčī
• Lithuanian: apčiū, apči
• Macedonian: apchixa
• Norwegian: aatsjoo
• Persian: achu
• Polish: apsik
• Portuguese: atchim, atchô
• Romanian: hapciu
• Russian: apchkhi
• Serbian: apciha
• Sinhalese: hacis
• Slovak: hapčí
• Slovene: ačih, ačiha
• Spanish: achú, achísor, achís
• Swedish: atjoo, atjo
• Tagalog: hatsing
• Tamil: a-choo
• Thai: hud-chei
• Turkish: hapşu
• Vietnamese: hắt xì, ắt xì

Are some of these more widely accepted than others, in the way that achoo is what most English dictionaries seem say is the standard way of representing the sneeze noise? Probably, but it’s an interpretable sound, you have to admit. Even English has alternate renderings for achoo, among them hachoo, tchoo, achew, atishoo, kerchoo, kachoo and (apparently) ahem. And no, the similarity between atishoo and a tissue seem to be coincidental, according to Etymonline, though now that I think about it, doesn’t handkerchief sound weirdly like a sneeze noise as well?

In response to Carl’s comment, it does seem like haukushon would be in the minority: Most of the sneeze words end in a vowel. Maybe the Japanese and the other ending-in-a-vowel sneezers are just more polite by virtue of trying to close their mouths and limit the outflow of sneeze particles?

Also, do Japanese sneezers truly say haukushon when their nasal situation gets critical while English sneezers say achoo? How would a person raised in isolation sneeze? Or would they say anything?

Sources: the Wikipedia page for sneeze, the Wikipedia page for cross-linguistic onomatopoeias, a Meta Filter thread, this page on sneezing that seems to be a repurposing of an old version of the Wikipedia page, a Word Reference forum thread, and a list of Japanese onomatopoeia on Transparent Language.

And check out Part Three!