Amusing Language Names

[bradrn]

Apparently there’s a language called Feʼfeʼ, otherwise known as Feʼefeʼe. This isn’t quite as impressive as e.g. Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw, but I found it pretty amusing nonetheless.

[Xwtek]

It's actually a boring reduplication of "fe'e".

On the other hand, it's quite amusing how anglophone calls a national language of Indonesia. Since the full name is "Bahasa Indonesia" (Indonesian language), they just shorten it to... "Bahasa", which just means language. Do you speak Language, anyway?

[bradrn]

It's actually a boring reduplication of "fe'e".

On the other hand, it's quite amusing how anglophone calls a national language of Indonesia. Since the full name is "Bahasa Indonesia" (Indonesian language), they just shorten it to... "Bahasa", which just means language. Do you speak Language, anyway?

I have never heard anyone refer to Bahasa Indonesia as ‘Bahasa’. In Australia, where I live, it is universally called ‘Indonesian’.

[Linguoboy]

I’ve definitely come across “Bahasa” before. In fact, it’s common enough in the USA (or was at one time) that I saw it in a book of errors to avoid once.

[Kuchigakatai]

I have never heard anyone refer to Bahasa Indonesia as ‘Bahasa’. In Australia, where I live, it is universally called ‘Indonesian’.

I once saw a clip of Barack Obama (who you'd expect to know better!) calling it just "Bahasa" like that.

[bradrn]

I’ve definitely come across “Bahasa” before. In fact, it’s common enough in the USA (or was at one time) that I saw it in a book of errors to avoid once.

I once saw a clip of Barack Obama (who you'd expect to know better!) calling it just "Bahasa" like that.

I’m always impressed by English speakers’ talent for mangling foreign words. This only proves to me that no matter how low I set my expectations, people will always find a way to do worse…

(As for the fact that I’ve never heard anyone say this in real life, this may be because I haven’t yet heard any spoken conversation which did need to refer to Bahasa Indonesia, and printed sources are usually careful enough to avoid this error.)

[abi]

I’m always impressed by English speakers’ talent for mangling foreign words.

How are English speakers particularly bad at this? Have you heard the insane things that come out of some Chinese people's mouths when speaking "english"?

[Moose-tache]

OK everyone, let's calm down about the whole Bahasa thing. First, using "Bahasa" as short hand for "Bahasa Indonesia" or "Bahasa Melayu" is not recent, and not limited to English. It's actually very common for expats living in Indonesia to call it simply Bahasa. That's not as confusing as it sounds, since language names in their native environment are often underspecified like that (i.e. "kokugo" in Japan and "kukeo" in Korea are semantically identical names for completely different languages but it's perfectly fine). You could say that foreigners visiting a country have no right to treat their neologisms as legitimate words, but no one would say that if the shoe were on the other foot. Latinos in the US have all kinds of names for Vicks Vaporub (because it's apparently a mouthful when you're L1 is Spanish), but no one is going to tell them they're idiots for not saying it the way God intended. Bahasa Indonesia > Bahasa is a fascinating cross-linguistic phenomenon, and this board of all places should be able to cast a descriptivist eye on it, rather than complain about The Rectification of Names.

[Kuchigakatai]

Latinos in the US have all kinds of names for Vicks Vaporub (because it's apparently a mouthful when you're L1 is Spanish), but no one is going to tell them they're idiots for not saying it the way God intended. Bahasa Indonesia > Bahasa is a fascinating cross-linguistic phenomenon, and this board of all places should be able to cast a descriptivist eye on it, rather than complain about The Rectification of Names.

I think that what happens is that Vicks Vaporub is well-known in Latin America, so it has a standard pronunciation in Spanish: "vic vaporú(b)" [ˈbiɣ βapoˈɾu(β)], a pronunciation that doesn't come from the original being a mouthful, but rather from simply reading the product's name as if it were Spanish. You do hear this on TV advertisements there. Then in the US, this pronunciation gets adapted to the standard English one to different extents. If the product didn't have a standard pronunciation in Spanish, I'm sure US latinos would generally say something very close to English.

[Xwtek]

since language names in their native environment are often underspecified like that

Except that it's not. Indonesia is an area where bilingualism is widespread. Indonesian is actually a minority for L1 speakers (Most Indonesian speakers are L2, though). Javanese has the most L1 speaker in Indonesia (although probably not the majority). And is speech, no, the name is mostly pronounced in full in Indonesian. It's not shortened. And probably the word "bahasa" may be dropped instead. Or instead, if it refers to a school course, it's shortened to BI.

[Ares Land]

Latinos in the US have all kinds of names for Vicks Vaporub (because it's apparently a mouthful when you're L1 is Spanish), but no one is going to tell them they're idiots for not saying it the way God intended. Bahasa Indonesia > Bahasa is a fascinating cross-linguistic phenomenon, and this board of all places should be able to cast a descriptivist eye on it, rather than complain about The Rectification of Names.

I think that what happens is that Vicks Vaporub is well-known in Latin America, so it has a standard pronunciation in Spanish: "vic vaporú(b)" [ˈbiɣ βapoˈɾu(β)], a pronunciation that doesn't come from the original being a mouthful, but rather from simply reading the product's name as if it were Spanish. You do hear this on TV advertisements there. Then in the US, this pronunciation gets adapted to the standard English one to different extents. If the product didn't have a standard pronunciation in Spanish, I'm sure US latinos would generally say something very close to English.

And it's France, it's [viks vapoʀyb]. (Or was. I think it's not used that much anymore) and as a kid, I used to think it was Vicks Vaporhume [viks vapoʀym] ("Vicks Vapocold").

[Kuchigakatai]

And it's France, it's [viks vapoʀyb]. (Or was. I think it's not used that much anymore) and as a kid, I used to think it was Vicks Vaporhume [viks vapoʀym] ("Vicks Vapocold").

It's not used much in North America anymore either, to the point I've even seen some (young) latinos on YouTube making fun of it as a weird thing that mostly just latinos who are middle-aged or older like in the US.

[Nortaneous]

Tableland Lamalama

[Xwtek]

I think the conlanger of this world is a smartass. Why do you have two language family with similar names? Austronesian vs Austroasiatic. Even worse that there is Palauan (an Austronesian language) and Palaungic languages (an Austroasiatic subfamily)

[bradrn]

I think the conlanger of this world is a smartass. Why do you have two language family with similar names? Austronesian vs Austroasiatic. Even worse that there is Palauan (an Austronesian language) and Palaungic languages (an Austroasiatic subfamily)

I agree: this is definitely very annoying. But now I’m thinking: can we do better? Austronesian sounds like a good candidate for replacement, given that it mixes Latin and Greek roots in a way that Austronesian doesn’t. It looks like Auster was the Roman god of the south wind, and his equivalent in Greek was Notus. So I suggest Notunesian as a replacement.

On the other hand, I think that ‘Austronesian’ sounds quite lovely as a name, but I quite dislike the sound of ‘Austroasiatic’. So why not find a replacement for that instead? I suggest either South Asiatic (a literal translation of austro-asiatic), or the geographically-motivated Munda-Vietic or Mekongic.

As for Palauan/Palaungic, I don’t think there’s any good solution for that, mainly because the main Palaungic language is called Palaung. So it won’t be possible to remove the confusion unless we’re allowed to rename languages — and I’m pretty sure we can’t do that. So Palauan and Palaungic they will have to remain — for now at least.

[Qwynegold]

Paha, which was posted about in the other thread. It means bad or evil in Finnish.

[Xwtek]

Paha, which was posted about in the other thread. It means bad or evil in Finnish.

It means hip in my own language (Indonesian).

[Qwynegold]

Paha, which was posted about in the other thread. It means bad or evil in Finnish.

It means hip in my own language (Indonesian).

Haha, that could be semantic drift (like with the word "wicked" in English).

[bradrn]

There are no less than four languages called ‘Tonga’, so you would be forgiven for assuming that at least one of them is spoken on the island of Tonga. Alas, this is not so: three of them are Bantu languages, and the fourth is spoken in Thailand. Out of those, the closest language to the island of Tonga is 10,000km away!

[Kuchigakatai]

I agree: this is definitely very annoying. But now I’m thinking: can we do better? Austronesian sounds like a good candidate for replacement, given that it mixes Latin and Greek roots in a way that Austronesian doesn’t. It looks like Auster was the Roman god of the south wind, and his equivalent in Greek was Notus. So I suggest Notunesian as a replacement.

It's νότος, so Notonesian. Edumacated people's Greek is clearly slipping!