Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other langs

[Herr Dunkel]

As the title says.
I often jokingly refer to myself as a "Boar", from "Boarisch", from "Bayerisch" - and "boar" in English means something totally different from the term "Boar" in Boarisch.

Do you know of any?
Better yet, do you use any on yourself?

[Šm Mepuyoš ab Duhen]

In Croatian,word for citizen of Tirana is same as the word for tyrant.So,tyrants live in Tirana.

[Astraios]

In Hebrew, the root ʕ-R-B means "Arab", but also "interfere". So when you say "Don't interfere" in Hebrew, it looks/sounds like "Don't be an Arab". Not really the same, but it's funny.

[Skomakar'n]

'Slavic' in Swedish ('slavisk') might as well mean 'slave-ic', and 'Slav' ('slav') actually is the same as 'slave', but has a different plural.

'Lätt' is a common interjection meaning something like "oh, yeah", "hell yeah" (but without the swearing) or like a positive counterpart of "no way" (it literally means 'easily'). This has made 'lettiska' ('Latvian') a funny word for me and one of my friends.

'!Kung' or whatever it's called is funny, since 'kung' means 'king' in Swedish.

[Bob Johnson]

'Slavic' in Swedish ('slavisk') might as well mean 'slave-ic', and 'Slav' ('slav') actually is the same as 'slave', but has a different plural.

Yes, that's how <slave> was derived.

[Astraios]

"hell yeah" (but without the swearing)

Hell yeah isn't swearing.

[Mr. Z]

In Hebrew, the root ʕ-R-B means "Arab", but also "interfere". So when you say "Don't interfere" in Hebrew, it looks/sounds like "Don't be an Arab". Not really the same, but it's funny.

Well, I've never noticed that. However, there is a similar pun with ʕ-R-B. This is also the root for "evening"; so the adjective form of "evening" is written the same way as the word for "Arabic" or "Arab", and is sometimes pronounced the same as well. Whenever I do go to a synagogue, I think that תפילת ערבית (evening prayer) is an Arab prayer.
Boer is pronounced the same as the Hebrew word בור, "ignorant, uneducated".

[Soap]

Boor is also an old fashioned word for a stereotypically ignorant lower-class person, though according to some dictionaries it is simply a loanword of Boer and therefore not really a coincidence. (Others say it's native or a loan from a French word for farmer and thus cognate to bovine).

[Astraios]

Well, I've never noticed that.

Well, of course you haven't, because התערב doesn't actually mean "be an Arab" (though it technically could).

[----]

'!Kung' or whatever it's called is funny, since 'kung' means 'king' in Swedish.

That's not really a good example, because there's no audible k in that word, it's just orthographic convention.

[Soap]

It's the way 99% of people pronounce it though. Even in academic circles, veeeeeeeery few people actually pronounce it with a click, as far as Ive heard. The only non-native speakers Ive heard pronounce clicks in any context are ZBBer's and Russell Peters in a comedy sketch with a probably made-up name.

[Rui]

It's the way 99% of people pronounce it though. Even in academic circles, veeeeeeeery few people actually pronounce it with a click, as far as Ive heard. The only non-native speakers Ive heard pronounce clicks in any context are ZBBer's and Russell Peters in a comedy sketch with a probably made-up name.

Yeah, in South Africa, the majority of the non-click language speaking population (basically the Coloured and white people) pronounces "Xhosa" with an initial [k~kʰ]. Granted, the "x" click in Xhosa does have a [k] coarticulation, but I don't think anyone who doesn't speak the language would say "oh yeah, I definitely hear a [k] there with the click", it just happens to be the closest approximation.

[finlay]

It's the way 99% of people pronounce it though. Even in academic circles, veeeeeeeery few people actually pronounce it with a click, as far as Ive heard. The only non-native speakers Ive heard pronounce clicks in any context are ZBBer's and Russell Peters in a comedy sketch with a probably made-up name.

Yeah, in South Africa, the majority of the non-click language speaking population (basically the Coloured and white people) pronounces "Xhosa" with an initial [k~kʰ]. Granted, the "x" click in Xhosa does have a [k] coarticulation,

as do most clicks – the only exceptions being the ones with a [q] coarticulation uvular phonation.

[Turtlehead]

Between Maori and English
ate - liver; seat of affections
here - string; tie up; leash
kite - see; discover, find; recognise
mate - danger; dead; death; ill; sickness; in love; suffering
me - and; if; with; like; should
mine - to gather together
more - bare; plain, not decorated; toothless
nana - eye brow
nuke - crooked
one - beach; sand; mud
pane - head
pea - perhaps, maybe
pine - close together
poke - pollute
puke - hill
pure - ceemony to remove tapu
rite - agreed to; completed; like; equal; ready, prepared
take - beginning, cause, origin, reason; subject of discussion
toe - be left; remain
toke - worm

[linguoboy]

Cymraeg ("Welsh language") sounds almost exactly like English "cum rag".

If I had a Welsh drag name, it would be "Dusky Cumrag".

[Jipí]

Between Maori and English
[A LIST OF WORDS THAT ARE TOTALLY NOT ENDONYMS]

Please look up the dictionary definition of the term endonym. Thank you.

Obvious funnies in English: Turkey ~ turkey; Hungary ~ hungry.

[linguoboy]

Between Maori and English
[A LIST OF WORDS THAT ARE TOTALLY NOT ENDONYMS]

Please look up the dictionary definition of the term endonym. Thank you.

Obvious funnies in English: Turkey ~ turkey; Hungary ~ hungry.

But those are both exonyms. The endonym for "Turkey" is Türkiye, for "Hungary" Magyarország.

[Jipí]

OK, make a mark for me on the idiot tally list as well. No reason for you to be smug, Turtlehead, though.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

[zompist]

In Portuguese, a turkey is a peru. (I believe it's named for the country.)

[linguoboy]

In Portuguese, a turkey is a peru. (I believe it's named for the country.)

And in Turkish, it's a hindi.

[zompist]

Hmm, supposedly French coq d'inde ( dindon) refers to the West Indies. Could Turkish have calqued it on French?

[Skomakar'n]

It's the way 99% of people pronounce it though. Even in academic circles, veeeeeeeery few people actually pronounce it with a click, as far as Ive heard. The only non-native speakers Ive heard pronounce clicks in any context are ZBBer's and Russell Peters in a comedy sketch with a probably made-up name.

And why should you? It makes no sense to use a phoneme that isn't native to the language for one word. Words are usually adapted to the phonology of the language they're loaned into, and people on these fora should know that, if anyone. :S

In Portuguese, a turkey is a peru. (I believe it's named for the country.)

And in Turkish, it's a hindi.

Can't join in on the fun with Swedish. We say 'kalkon' which just reminds me of French 'quelqu'un', which doesn't have anything to do with the subject.

[Astraios]

Hmm, supposedly French coq d'inde ( dindon) refers to the West Indies. Could Turkish have calqued it on French?

More probably on the Arabic diik hindiy, which has the same meaning as the French (and is probably calqued on it, so yes, indirectly).

[Izambri]

In Portuguese, a turkey is a peru. (I believe it's named for the country.)

And in Turkish, it's a hindi.

And in Catalan is a gall dindi, also known as indiot, paó, pioc o titot.

In the first case, dindi is the fusion of d'indi "from India" (literally "of Indian"), that is, "from the Indies". No, not these Indies, but these ones.

[finlay]

Hmm, supposedly French coq d'inde ( dindon) refers to the West Indies. Could Turkish have calqued it on French?

Basically most places seem to have taken the name from whoever the merchants were who originally sold guineafowl to them, because turkeys were discovered in America and mistaken for guineafowl – for us it was the Turkish, and for most other places it was Indians (dinde, hindi), while for the Dutch and Scandinavians, it's apparently from the city of Calicut in India.

Some kind of weird historical mixup. So it seems likely that the French and the Turkish independently came up with the same etymology.