Speaking of Ognika EPs…

Posted by admin on August 17th, 2009 filed in language

While writing my last post, I unintentionally took off a big chunk of time to wander over to Wikipedia (as is usually the case when I’m trying to get something done) to look into palindromes.

Apparently, the Finnish language has some famously long palindromic words:

solutomaattimittaamotulos [25 letters] – “the measurement laboratory result for tomato cells”

[does anyone know what a tomato cell is?]

saippuakuppinippukauppias [25] – “soap cup batch trader”

saippuakalasalakauppias [23] – “soapfish smuggler”

[I'd hate to have a business card for these professions.]

But here are some of my other favorites (also taken from Wikipedia):

Bulgarian:

напипан – “found by touching”

лапал – “one who has gobbled

шириш – “you are living in a wide space”

Dutch:

nepparterrestaalplaatserretrappen (33 letters) – “fake stairways from the ground floor to the sun lounge, made of steel plate”

[what?!]

German: [try pronouncing these out loud ... then try memorizing them]

Nebelregennegerleben (20 letters) – “the life of a black man in rain and fog”

Lagertonnennotregal (19 letters) – “emergency storage rack for barrels”

Legovogel (9) – “a bird made of lego”

Hebrew:

ולכשתשכלו – “and when you will bereave” (the longest palindromic word in Hebrew with meaning)

[Perhaps it says something about the culture when there is a single word for the inclusion of the assumption that you will rob someone of something at sometime.  Or perhaps I have this wrong and it means you will be robbed of something by someone at sometime - still a situation I'd rather not know is in my future.]

Hungarian:

sörös – “beery”

[In which case my palindrome would be "Mmm, sörös. Mmm." or if it's really good beer: "Mmmmmmmmm, sörös. Mmmmmmmmm!"]

Norwegian:

Leseesel – “reading donkey”

[... Does anyone know what a reading donkey does?  Is that like a reading lamp or reading glasses? Basically a donkey who assists you in reading? Or is it a description of an action: "I often find myself reading donkey."]

Swedish:

ABBA – (stands for Agneta, Björn, Benny and Annefrid, the members of the Swedish popgroup called ABBA)

[Included cause I know you were wondering about that one.]

Turkish:

acıca – “almost spicy”

[I wish English had a word for this.  I would use it a lot.  I could also use a word meaning "almost correct" and one for "nearly died" and one for "somewhere between nerdy and cool, but just shy of both".]