« Merry Christmas »
European Languages
(Map)
The following map shows how to say (or rather write)
the equivalent of “Merry Christmas” in European languages.
The coloring corresponds to etymological relations between the translations of the word Christmas (i.e. not to language families and not to relations between other parts of the phrase).
The coloring corresponds to etymological relations between the translations of the word Christmas (i.e. not to language families and not to relations between other parts of the phrase).
This leads to a few unexpected results. Even though Romanian and Hungarian are completely unrelated languages, the words karácsony and Crăciun come from a common root (either Proto-Slavic *korčiti or Latin creātiōnem).
The Irish, Welsh and Scottish Gaelic words are all borrowed from Romance languages and are related to French Noël. The same holds true for the Turkish expression, which is directly borrowed from French.
Something quite unusual happens in Czech and Slovak. The word Vánoce resp. Vianoce is derived from German Weihnachten by retaining the “Weih” part (which comes from an old Germanic expression meaning “holy”) and replacing nachten
(“nights”) by the Czech/Slovak translation, “noce”. However, the word
“noce” itself comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root as German
“Nachten” (and English “nights”), so the Czech/Slovak and German
expressions are essentially etymologically equivalent.
Here are the same phrases as above as a text so that you can copy-paste them:
| Albanian: Gëzuar Krishtlindjet | Latvian: Priecīgus Ziemassvētkus |
| Basque: Eguberri on | Lithuanian: Linksmų Kalėdų |
| Belarusian: з Калядамі or з Божым Нараджэннем | Luxembourgish: Schéine Chrëschtdag |
| Breton: Nedeleg laouen | Macedonian: Среќен Божиќ or Христос се роди |
| Bulgarian: Весела Коледа or Честито Рождество Христово | Maltese: il-Milied it-Tajjeb |
| Catalan: Bon Nadal | Norwegian: God jul |
| Croatian: Sretan Božić | Northern Sami: Buorre juovla |
| Czech: Veselé Vánoce | Romanian: Crăciun fericit |
| Danish God jul or Glædelig jul | Occitan: Bon Nadal |
| Dutch: Vrolijk Kerstfeest | Polish: Wesołych Świąt (Bożego Narodzenia) |
| English: Merry Christmas or Happy Christmas | Portuguese: Feliz Natal |
| Estonian: Häid jõule | Russian: с Рождеством (Христовым) |
| French: Joyeux Noël | Scottish Gaelic: Nollaig Chridheil |
| Finnish: Hyvää joulua | Serbian: Srećan Božić or Hristos se rodi |
| Galician: Bo Nadal | Sardinian: Bona Pasca de Nadale |
| German: Fröhliche Weihnachten or Frohe Weihnachten | Slovak: Veselé Vianoce |
| Greek: Καλά Χριστούγεννα | Slovene: Vesel božič |
| Hungarian: Boldog karácsonyt | Spanish: Feliz Navidad |
| Icelandic: Gleðileg jól | Swedish: God jul |
| Irish: Nollaig Shona + Dhuit (singular) or Daoibh (plural) | Ukrainian: з Різдвом (Христовим) |
| Italian: Buon Natale | Welsh: Nadolig Llawen |
You can use the image on another website for free, provided that you also link to the source article (see the URL in the address bar).
By the way, I have written several educational ebooks. If you get a copy, you can learn new things and support this website at the same time—why don’t you check them out?
No comments:
Post a Comment