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This phrase is used to indicate that something is totally incomprehensible to you. According to World Wide Words, it comes the Medieval Latin phrase Graecum est; non potest legi (It is Greek; it cannot be read). Medieval scribes, who weren't familiar with Greek, apparently wrote this phrase next to any text they came across in that language.
The equivalent of this phrase in quite a few languages compares incomprehensible things to an unknown language, particularly Chinese or Greek, while many of the Slavic languages associate Spanish villages with incomprehsion. The Chinese themselves compare such things to a 'heavenly script'. The Japanese use a string of nonsense syllables which imitate the sounds of unknown languages, especially Chinese.
| Language | Idiom |
|---|---|
| Arabic (Egyptian) | (hal ana batkallem hindi?)
هل أنا بتكلم هندي؟ Am I speaking Hindi? |
| Chinese (Mandarin) | 跟天書一樣 [跟天书一样] (gēn tiānshū yíyàng) It's like heavenly script |
| Croatian | Španska sela (Spanish village), kineski gradovi (Chinese cities) To mi je špansko selo (It's a Spanish village to me) |
| Czech | Je to pro mne španĕlská vesnice (It's a Spanish village to me) |
| Dutch | Dat is Chinees voor mij (That's Chinese for me) Dat is Latijn voor mij (That's Latin for me) |
| English | It's all Greek to me. It's all Chinese to me. It sounds like double Dutch to me. |
| Esperanto | Ĝi estas laŭ mi Volapukaĵo! (It's all Volapük to me) |
| Finnish | Täyttä hepreaa (It's all Hebrew to me) |
| French | C'est du chinois (It's Chinese) C'est de l'hébreu pour moi (It's Hebrew to me) Pour moi, c'est du javanais (For me, it's Javanese) |
| German | Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof (I understand only railway station) Spreche ich etwa chinesisch? (Am I speaking Chinese?) Böhmische Dörfer (Bohemian villages) Das ist Chinesisch für mich (That's all Chinese to me) |
| Greek | Εἶναι γιὰ μένα κινέζικα
(Íne gia ména kinézika) - it's Chinese to me Εἶναι ἀλαμπουρνέζικα (Íne alabournézika) - it's Arabic |
| Hebrew | It's Chinese to me - (Ze sinit bishvili)
זה סינית בשבילי |
| Hungarian | Ez nekem kínai (This is Chinese to me) |
| Italian | per me è arabo (it's Arabic to me) |
| Japanese | ちんぷんかんぷんだ (chinpunkanpun da) ちんぷんかんぷんでちっともわからない (chinpunkanpun de chittomo wakaranai) |
| Latvian | Tā ir ķīniešu ābece/alfabēts (It's the Chinese alphabet) |
| Lithuanian | Tai man kaip kinų kalba (It's all Chinese to me) |
| Macedonian | За мене тоа е шпанско село
(Za mene toa e shpansko selo) - That's a Spanish village to me |
| Norwegian | Det er (helt) gresk for meg (It's (totally) Greek for me) |
| Persian | Urchíz burím Greek us (Everything's Greek to me) |
| Polish | Równie dobrze mogłoby to być po chińsku
(It could be in Chinese with the same effect - I would understand the same if it was in Chinese ..a u mnie wszyscy zdrowi (casual) (..yeah, everybody's healthy in my home) - suggests that the thing said before is completely out of place and nonsense |
| Portuguese | É grego para mim (It's Greek to me) É chinês para mim (It's Chinese to me) |
| Russian | китайская грамота (It's Chinese writing) |
| Serbian | шпанска села (španska sela) - Spanish villages |
| Sinhala | meka mata andara demala (this is Andhra Tamil, i.e. Telugu, to me) |
| Slovenian | Zame je to španska vas (this is a Spanish village to me) Govorim kitajsko? (Am I speaking Chinese?) |
| Spanish | Esto me suena a chino, no me hables en chino (It sounds Chinese to me, I don't speak in Chinese) Me suena como griego (It sounds Greek to me), Para mí que es griego (It's Greek to me) Eso es griego para mí (That's Greek to me) Es chino básico (It's basic chinese) |
| Swedish | Det är rena grekiskan (It is pure Greek) |
| Turkish | olaya fransız kaldım (I am French to the conversation/chat) |
| Yiddish | (s'iz targum-loshn tsu mir)
ס'איז תּרגום־לשון צו מיר it's Aramaic (the language of the targum) to me = |
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Information about the Japanese version of this phrase (in Japanese)
http://gogen-allguide.com/ti/chinpunkanpun.html
Some of these translation come from:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/It's_all_Greek_to_me
http://forum.wordreference.com/archive/index.php?t-112977.html
It's all Greek to me | It's raining cats and dogs | As easy as falling off a log | A sandwich short of a picnic | When pigs fly | Other idioms in many languags
Useful foreign phrases | Tongue twisters | Language-related proverbs
Copyright 1998- Simon Ager