chopchop (Chamorro, Guam, USA) to suck
cizir cizir (Turkish) with a sizzling noise
karkara (Arabic) to rumble (of a stomach)
kekek-kekek (Malay) to giggle
kitikiti (Tulu, India) the ticking of a watch; or giggling, tittering
pes pes (Pashto, Afghanistan and Pakistan) whispering
pshurr (Albanian) to urinate, to wet one’s clothes
raxxax (Maltese) to drizzle
ringongo (Gilbertese, Kiribati) to snore
taptap (Maltese) to patter
yuyurungul (Yindiny, Australia) the noise of a snake sliding through the grass
xiaoxiao (Chinese) the whistling and pattering of rain or wind
zonk zonk (Turkish) to throb terribly
Making a splash
Local experience shapes local language. The Tulu people of India, for example, have a fine array of evocative, specific words to do with water: gulum describes a stone falling into a well; gulugulu is filling a pitcher with water; caracara is spurting water from a pump; budubudu is bubbling, gushing water; jalabala is bubbling or boiling water; salasala is pouring water; while calacala describes the action of children wading through water as they play.
Ding dong
The sound of an altogether noisier culture can be heard in Indonesian: kring is the sound of a bicycle bell; dentang, cans being hit repeatedly; reat-reot, the squeaking of a door; ning-nong, the ringing of a doorbell; jedar-jedor, a door banging repeatedly. But there are gentler moments, too: kecipak-kecipung is hands splashing water in a rhythm, while desus is a quiet and smooth sound as of someone farting but not very loudly.
Chirping cuckoos
The Basques of the Pyrenees also use highly expressive words. You might recognize such terms as kuku (a cuckoo), miau (miaou), mu(moo), durrunda (thunder), zurrumurru (a whisper) and urtzintz (to sneeze), but could you guess the meaning of these?
thu
to spit
milikatu
to lick
tchiuka
to chirp
chichtu
to whistle
uhurritu
to howl
chehatu
to chew
karruskatu
to gnaw
False friends
rang (Chinese) to yell, shout
boo (Latin) to cry out, resound
hum (Ainu, Japan) sound, feeling
rumore (Italian) noise
bum (Turkish) bang
Sounds Japanese
The Japanese can be equally imitative: shikushiku is to cry continuously while sniffling, and zeizei is the sound of air being forced through the windpipe when one has a cold or respiratory illness. We can hear perhaps a gathering of Japanese women in kusukusu, to giggle or titter, especially in a suppressed voice; and of men in geragera, a belly laugh. Moving from the literal to the more imaginative, the Japanese have sa, the sound of a machine with the switch on, idling quietly; sooay sooay, fish swimming; susu, the sound of air passing continuously through a small opening.
Gitaigo describes a more particular Japanese concept: words that try to imitate not just sounds, but states of feeling. So gatcha gatcha describes an annoying noise; harahara refers to one’s reaction to something one is directly involved in; and ichaicha is used of a couple engaging in a public display of affection viewed as unsavoury by passers-by. Mimicry of feelings extends to descriptions of the way we see: so jirojiro is to stare in fascination; tekateka is the shiny appearance of a smooth (often cheap-looking) surface; pichapicha is splashing water; and kirakira is a small light that blinks repeatedly.
Sounds familiar
Not all words about sound are imitative; or perhaps it’s just that things strike the ear differently in other parts of the world:
bagabaga (Tulu, India) the crackling of a fire
desir (Malay) the sound of sand driven by the wind
faamiti (Samoan) to make a squeaking sound by sucking air past the lips in order to gain the attention of a dog or children
riman (Arabic) the sound of a stone thrown at a boy
ghiqq (Persian) the sound made by a boiling kettle
kertek (Malay) the sound of dry leaves or twigs being trodden underfoot
lushindo (Bemba, Congo and Zambia) the sound of footsteps
nyangi (Yindiny, Australia) any annoying noise
yuyin (Chinese) the remnants of sound which remain in the ears of the hearer
On reflection
Top ten
In terms of numbers of speakers, the top ten world languages are as follows:
1 Mandarin 1,000+ million
2 English 508 million
3 Hindi 497 million
4 Spanish 342 million
5 Russian 277 million
6 Arabic 246 million
7 Bengali 211 million
8 Portuguese 191 million
9 Malay-Indonesian 159 million
10 French 129 million
Seeing Things
cattiva è quella lana che non si
puo tingere (Italian)
it is a bad cloth that will take no colour
Colourful language
We might well think that every language has a word for every colour, but this isn’t so. Nine languages distinguish only between black and white. In Dan, for example, which is spoken in New Guinea, people talk in terms of things being either mili (darkish) or mola (lightish).
Twenty-one languages have distinct words for black, red and white only; eight have those colours plus green; then the sequence in which additional colours are brought into languages is yellow, with a further eighteen languages, then blue (with six) and finally brown (with seven).
Across the spectrum
As with colours, so with the rainbow. The Bassa language of Liberia identifies only two colours: ziza (red/orange/yellow) and hui (green/ blue/purple) in their spectrum. The Shona of Zimbabwe describe four: cipsuka (red/orange), cicena (yellow and yellow-green), citema (green-blue) and cipsuka again (the word also represents the purple end of the spectrum). It is just Europeans and the Japanese who pick out seven colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
Welsh blues
The Welsh for blue is glas, as in the expression yng nglas y dydd, in the blue of the day (the early morning). But glas is a hard-working word. It’s also used in the expression gorau glas (blue best), to mean to do one’s best, and, changing tack rather dramatically, it appears as glas wen (blue smile), a smile that is insincere and mocking. In Welsh literature, glas is a colour that is somewhere between green, blue and grey; it also has poetic meanings of both youth and death.
False friends
blank (German) shiny
hell (German) clear, bright, light
cafe (Quechuan, Peru) brown
Thai dress code
Thais believe that if they dress in a certain colour each day it will bring them good luck. The code is: Monday, yellow (lueang); Tuesday, pink (chom poo); Wednesday, green (kiaw); Thursday, orange (som); Friday, blue (nam ngem); Saturday, purple (muang); Sunday, red (daeng). Black (dam) is not lucky for conservative people and is reserved for funerals; unless you are young, in which case it’s seen as edgy and sophisticated.
Colour-coded
We can be green with envy, see red, or feel a bit blue. Colours have a strong symbolic force, but not everyone agrees on what they stand for:
Red
makka na uso (Japanese) a deep red (outright) lie
aka no tannin (Japanese) a red (total) stranger
film a luci rosse (Italian) a red (blue) film
romanzo rosa (Italian) a pink (romantic) story
vyspat se do červena/ružova (Czech) to sleep oneself into the red (have had a good night’s sleep)
Yellow
jaune d’envie (French) yellow (green) with envy
gelb vor Eifersucht werden (German) to become yellow with jealousy
kiroi koi (Japanese) a yellow (particularly screechin
g) scream
gul och blå (Swedish) yellow and blue (black and blue)
Black
svartsjuk (Swedish) black ill (jealousy)
hara guroi (Japanese) black stomach (wicked)
être noir (French) to be black (drunk)
mustasukkainen (Finnish) wearing black socks (jealous)
White
andare in bianco (Italian) to go into the white (to have no success with someone romantically)
ak akce kara gun icindir (Turkish) white money for a black day (savings for a rainy day)
un mariage blanc (French) a white marriage (a marriage of convenience)
obléci bílý kabát (archaic Czech) to put on the white coat (to join the army)
Blue
aoiki toiki (Japanese) sighing with blue breath (suffering)
blau sein (German) to be blue (drunk)
en être bleu (French) to be in the blue (struck dumb)
aoku naru (Japanese) blue with fright
blått öga (Swedish) blue eye (black eye)
modré pondĕlí (Czech) blue Monday (a Monday taken as holiday after the weekend)
Green
al verde (Italian) in the green (short of cash)
vara pa gron kvist (Swedish) as rich as green (wealthy)
langue verte (French) green language (slang)
darse un verde (Spanish) to give oneself greens (to tuck into one’s food)
aotagai (Japanese) to buy green rice fields (to employ college students prematurely)
On reflection
Polyglossary
Two countries, Papua New Guinea with over 850 languages and Indonesia with around 670, are home to a quarter of the world’s languages. If we add the seven countries that each possess more than two hundred languages (Nigeria 410, India 380, Cameroon 270, Australia 250, Mexico 240, Zaire 210, Brazil 210), the total comes to almost 3,500; which is to say that more than half of the world’s spoken languages come from just nine countries.
If we look at it in terms of continents, North, Central and South America have around one thousand spoken languages, which is about 15 per cent; Africa has around 30 per cent; Asia a bit over 30 per cent; and the Pacific somewhat under 20 per cent. Europe is by far the least diverse, having only 3 per cent of the world’s languages.
Number Crunching
c’est la goutte
d’eau qui fait déborder le vase (French)
it’s the drop of water that makes the vase overflow
Countdown
You might expect words to get longer as numbers get bigger, so perhaps it’s a surprise to find that in some languages the words for single digits are a real mouthful. In the Ona-Shelknam language of the Andes, for example, eight is ningayuneng aRvinelegh. And in Athabaskan Koyukon (an Alaskan language) you need to get right through neelk’etoak’eek’eelek’eebedee’oane to register the number seven.
Vital statistics
The world’s vocabulary of numbers moves from the precise…
parab (Assyrian, Middle East) five-sixths
halvfemte (Danish) four and a half
lakh (Hindustani) one hundred thousand
… to the vague:
tobaiti (Machiguengan, Peru) any quantity above four
mpusho (Bemba, Congo and Zambia) any unit greater than the number ten
birkacinci (Turkish) umpteen
Counting in old China
From the very biggest to the very smallest, the Ancient Chinese were highly specific in their delineation of numbers, from:
tsai 100 trillion
cheng 10 trillion
chien a trillion
kou 100 billion
jang 10 billion
pu / tzu a billion
kai 100 million
ching 10 million
right down to:
ch’ien one tenth
fen one hundredth
li one thousandth
hao one ten-thousandth
ssu one hundred-thousandth
hu one millionth
wei one ten-millionth
hsien one hundred-millionth
sha one billionth
ch’en one ten-billionth
Double-digit growth
Counting in multiples of ten probably came from people totting up items on their outspread fingers and thumbs. Some cultures, however, have approached matters rather differently. The Ancient Greeks rounded things off to sixty (for their low numbers) and 360 (for their high numbers) and speakers of old Germanic used to say 120 to mean many. The Yuki of Northern California counted in multiples of eight (being the space between their two sets of fingers) and rounded off high numbers at sixty-four. Some Indian tribes in California based their multiples on five and ten; others liked four as it expressed North, South, East and West; others six because it added to those directions the worlds above and below ground.
Magic numbers
Different cultures give different significance to different numbers. Western traditions offer the five senses and the seven sins, among other groupings. Elsewhere we find very different combinations. The following list is drawn from the Tulu language of India unless otherwise stated:
Three
tribhuvara the three worlds: heaven, earth and hell
trivarga the three human objects: love, duty and wealth
Four
nalvarti the four seasons
Five
pancabhuta the five elements: earth, air, fire, water and ether
pancaloha the five chief metals: gold, silver, copper, iron and lead
pancavarna the five colours: white, black, red, yellow and
green
pancamahapataka the five greatest sins: murdering a Brahman, stealing gold, drinking alcohol, seducing the wife of one’s spiritual mentor, and associating with a person who has committed such sins
pancavadya the five principal musical instruments: lute, cymbals, drum, trumpet and oboe
Six
liuqin (Chinese) the six relations (father, mother, elder brothers, younger brothers, wife and children)
Seven
haft rang (Persian) the seven colours of the heavenly bodies: Saturn, black; Jupiter, brown; Mars, red; the Sun, yellow; Venus, white; Mercury, blue; and the Moon, green
Eight
ashtabhoga the eight sources of enjoyment: habitation, bed, clothing, jewels, wife, flower, perfumes and betel-leaf/areca nut
Nine
sembako (Indonesian) the nine basic commodities that people need for everyday living: rice, flour, eggs, sugar, salt, cooking oil, kerosene, dried fish and basic textiles
The Meaning of Tingo Page 11