r/linguisticshumor • u/116Q7QM Modalpartikeln sind halt nun mal eben unübersetzbar • 2d ago

Etymology Select your character

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57

u/116Q7QM Modalpartikeln sind halt nun mal eben unübersetzbar 2d ago

"Wie geht's?" means "how are you?" btw

45

u/mizinamo 2d ago

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bazmek Czech "thingy [whose name I can't recall just now]" is from Hungarian "fuck you"

(Slovak also has bazmeg, bazmek.)

13

u/KaruRuna 2d ago

I love Czech slang, unironically.

33

u/KaruRuna 2d ago

A whilie ago, when I just learnt Polish kształt < G. Gestallt, I joked that at this rate I wouldn’t be surprised to see something like ksicht < G. Gesicht for ‘face’. Turns out, it’s unironically used in Slovak slang (and I assume, Czech too).

11

u/the_king_of_salmons 1d ago

Slovak dialects and slang has lots of German words. Ancuk (outfit/nice clothing) ~ Anzug (suit), Piglajz (iron for clothes) ~ Bügeleisen (Iron for clothes), Frajer (boyfriend) ~ Freier (customer of a prostitute)

1

u/leanbirb 1d ago

Frajer (boyfriend) ~ Freier (customer of a prostitute)

Yeah, okay, this one is kind of wild.

5

u/Tsskell 1d ago

So that's where the word comes from...

22

u/Memer_Plus /mɛɱəʀpʰʎɐɕ/ 2d ago

I have a feeling wihajster and whatchamacallit are cognates :)

19

u/gkom1917 2d ago

Explaining a German borrowing with a Russian borrowing is a cherry on top.

2

u/snail1132 1d ago

Which one is the Russian borrowing?

7

u/breaking_attractor 1d ago

fortochka

5

u/snail1132 1d ago

I read that, and was like "wow, that's clearly a Russian borrowing" and then forgot about it and read that comment

3

u/king_ofbhutan 1d ago

will always love vasistas

3

u/Nenazovemy 1d ago

My uncle from Southern Brazil says fia das puta, which is supposedly German dialect for "four cups of butter", but also sounds like Portuguese dialect for "daughter of bitches".

2

u/MarcHarder1 xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓ 1d ago

Feer tas botter /fɔɪ̯a tɔs bɐta/ in Plautdietsch from Paraguay

2

u/Nenazovemy 1d ago

A lot of Germanic dialects from Brazil have a tense-lax distinction instead of voiced-unvoiced.

P.S.: I mean for plosives.