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13 Wild, Little-Known Quirks In Languages From Around The World

In Thailand, they read 5555 as hahahaha.

July 09, 2021

Linguistics: a confusing-to-spell word that denotes an even more confusing-to-understand field of study. Across the globe, disparate communities of humans have developed wildly different ways to communicate with one another. Then, as they interact, they've tried to translate their specific mouth-sounds into the same specific mouth-sounds other communities of humans make. Is any of these type-face letter combos sense-making? Who knows! That's the beauty and mystery of language. We here at Cracked are no strangers to awesome translations and/or mistranslations. Plus, you know…let's just say the quiet part out loud…we're writers, so on top of being ComedyNerds, we are also Language Dorks.

That's why the endlessly mind-blowing ways languages interact is interesting. Dutch is so difficult that kids learn language slower than others. In Thai, “5” sounds just like “ha” … so their text laughing looks pretty unusual if you’re used to the English-language version. And that's not all! Here’s the full story, plus 12 others:

Huh? is the universal way to express I don't understand in every spoken language. It sounds pretty much the same, and has pretty much the same function, in all sorts of languages spoken in all kinds of human communities. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: PLOS One

Speaking Danish

Danish is SO hard, Danish kids learn their mother tongue slower than others. They know 30% fewer words by the time they're 15 months old than Norwegian kids, and learning the past tense takes them almost two years longer. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: The Conversation

Every language except Japanese represents the buzz of a bee with Z or S. Instead, in Japanese, a bee makes the sound boon boon. Of all the sounds I've collected, that surprises me the most, said a linguist who studied that. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: The Guardian

They speak Spanish in Chile, but they don't have a word for lime at all. Why? There are no limes in Chile. Recipes translated from English use the more-or-less literal translation lima, and people usually just replace it with lemons. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: PRI

In Scotland, there are over 400 expressions related in some way to snow. The official count is 421, and it includes words like flindrikin (a slight snow shower), unbrak (the beginning of a thaw) and skelf (a large snowflake). NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: BBC

Not a single ancient language, except Egyptian, had a word for the color blue. That includes ancient Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Icelandic, and so on. And, as it happens, Egypt was the only culture that could produce blue dye. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: Business Insider

One Nigerian community has two different languages for men and women. In Ubang, men and women understand each other, but don't speak each other's language. Boys grow up speaking the women's language, but switch. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: BBC

Icelandic doesn't borrow words from other languages, but makes up its own. It's official policy, and a language institute makes up new words. For example, the word for computer is tolva, which would translate to prophetess of numbers NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: Gizmodo

In Korean, you can only. use the word for friend for people around your own age. You'd call younger friends by their name, and older ones by one of several specific terms (choosing the right one depends on your gender and theirs). NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: Google Books

Hawaiian has over 200 words for rain, including one for rain that circles your home. The word you use depends not just on duration and intensity but also, say, the path it falls in, what times it arrives, and how it's linked to a certain place. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: Hawaii Magazine

In the Thai language, you laugh in text by typing the number 5 instead of using letters. 5 is pronounced ha, so laughing in a text message usually consists of typing 555555 rather than something like hahahahaha. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: The Atlantic

The Guugu Yimithirr language has no words for right, left, behind, or in front. It's an Australian aboriginal language, and it only has directions based on north, south, east, and west - so you could say, for example, move a bit to the east. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: NYTimes

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A WEEKLYNEWSLETTER OF JOKES + TRIVIA

A WEEKLY
NEWSLETTER OF
JOKES + TRIVIA