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Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other langs

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 1:00 pm
by 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?

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 4:27 pm
by Šm Mepuyoš ab Duhen
In Croatian,word for citizen of Tirana is same as the word for tyrant.So,tyrants live in Tirana.

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 4:46 pm
by 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.

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 9:30 am
by 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.

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 9:32 am
by Bob Johnson
Skomakar'n wrote:'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.

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 9:33 am
by Astraios
Skomakar'n wrote:"hell yeah" (but without the swearing)
Hell yeah isn't swearing.

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 10:15 am
by Mr. Z
Astraios wrote: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".

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 10:29 am
by 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).

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 10:45 am
by Astraios
Mr. Z wrote: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).

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 6:16 pm
by ----
Skomakar'n wrote: '!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.

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 8:15 pm
by 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.

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 10:19 pm
by Rui
Soap wrote: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.

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 11:03 pm
by finlay
Chibi wrote:
Soap wrote: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.

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 2:36 am
by 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

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 12:42 pm
by linguoboy
Cymraeg ("Welsh language") sounds almost exactly like English "cum rag".

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

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 2:52 pm
by Jipí
Turtlehead wrote: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.

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:11 pm
by linguoboy
Guitarplayer wrote:
Turtlehead wrote: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.

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:21 pm
by Jipí
OK, make a mark for me on the idiot tally list as well. No reason for you to be smug, Turtlehead, though.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:26 pm
by zompist
In Portuguese, a turkey is a peru. (I believe it's named for the country.)

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:32 pm
by linguoboy
zompist wrote:In Portuguese, a turkey is a peru. (I believe it's named for the country.)
And in Turkish, it's a hindi.

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:38 pm
by zompist
Hmm, supposedly French coq d'inde ( :> dindon) refers to the West Indies. Could Turkish have calqued it on French?

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:40 pm
by Skomakar'n
Soap wrote: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
linguoboy wrote:
zompist wrote: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.

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:49 pm
by Astraios
zompist wrote: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).

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 5:13 pm
by Izambri
linguoboy wrote:
zompist wrote: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.

Re: Endonyms that have intersting connotations in other lang

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 9:24 pm
by finlay
zompist wrote: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.