I arrived back to a wet and overcast Brighton this evening after a long, long journey from Lampeter (just under 10 hours door to door with a long wait in Swansea). One of the first things I did after getting home was to switch on Radio Cymru to give me a dose of Welsh, which I’m missing already.
Y noswaith hon cyrraeddais i nôl i Frighton, lle mae hi’n gwlyb a chymylog, ar ôl taith hir iawn o Lambed (tipyn bach llai na 10 awr o ddrws i ddrws gyda aros hir yn Abertawe). Ar ôl i mi gyrraedd adre, un o’r pethau cynta a wnes i oedd gwrando ar Radio Cymru – dw i’n methu clywed y Gymraeg yn barod.
There’s no language quiz question today, but I do have a question from an Omniglot visitor: What do you call tongue twisters in your language?
Another question from me: Is the word for tongue twister a tongue twister in any of the languages you know?
Hungarian: nyelvtörő (~ tongue breaker)
Spanish: trabalenguas, trabar (tie?)+lengua (tongue) so something similar to tongue-tier?
Simon, I would like to know the right answer of the quiz from june 17 please?
Well, in my native English, it’s obviously “tongue twister.” 🙂
In German: der Zungenbrecher
Portuguese: travalínguas. I like the “tongue tier” translation the Spanish guy provided. Travar means to stick, as in “to detain” or “to clog.” Perhaps the most literal translation would be “tongue clog.”
Well, since “Zungenbrecher” was already mentioned, I can just add the direct translation of that word, which is “tongue breaker”. Sounds worse in English than it does in German. ;D
In Arabic I think they are called معاظلات
that is “mo-`ádhalát”
it comes from the word “Mo`dhilah” معظلة which means “problem” … hehe and I think the connection is obvious!
a longer term could be معاظلات لسانية [mo`ádhalát lisániyyah] … the second word is the adjective of the word “tongue,” thus the total meaning could be “tongue problems” or so!
The first word is in plural form.
renato – the answer to that quiz was Lower Sorbian, as David mentions in his comment.
Polish: “łamaniec językowy” (łamać – to break)
I don’t think there is a specific term for “tongue-twister” in French, but the most famous of them has to be “les chaussettes de l’archiduchesse sont sèches et archi-sèches”
Italian: scioglilingua, literally “tongue melter”. Pronunciation: /ʃɔʎʎi’liŋgwa/.
I Spanish, “trabalenguas”, more or less “tongue jammer”.