Fun with Translation: Animals Edition
Here are some more insights into the oddity of the German Language. The last “Fun with Translation” was indeed so much fun that I decided to do some more. German is often quite descriptive in naming things. The idea of smushing words together to describe something quite exactly is a germanlanguagetrait.
This gives some interesting translations of animal names when you go directly into English. Here are a few basic ones that make some sense in English, but are still cool.
- Wash-bear /Waschbär – Raccoon. It is a small bear-like thing that washes itself.
- Spiked-pig / Stachelschwein – Porcupine. I’ve never really looked at the face of a porcupine, but I guess it could be somewhat porcine. Definitely is spiky.
- Stink-animal / Stinktier – Skunk. Simple and explanatory.
- Shielded-toad /Schildkrote – Turtle. Again a straight forward explanation in the word.
- Belted-animal /Gürteltier – Armadillo.
- River-horse /Flusspferd – Hippopotamus. This ends up being just a translation of the Greek meaning of hippopotamus.
- Nose-horn /Nashorn – Rhinoceros. Like the hippo is a translation from the Greek yet somehow more descriptive. According to the translation site I use to double check spelling, the “white” and “black” rhino species in English are called the pointed-mouth-nose-horn and wide-mouth-nose-horn in German.
Animal or Baked Good
Ok, let’s play a round of Animal or Baked Good… <applause & flashing lights>
The word for squirrel that I learned is Eichkätzchen which would translated to something like “little oaken cat”, but this is apparently only said in the far north. Around these parts they call it an Eichhörnchen, which would mean “little oaken horn”. I guess the shape of the tail reminded someone of a curved horn. That word though makes me think of something you get in a bakery. The pastry is a Nusshörnchen, a curved thing filled with nut paste and covered in almonds. So without too much misspeaking you could order 2 pastries and squirrel. I don’t think you would get the squirrel though, they don’t fit in the bags so well.
Ok, a snail is Schnecke. It just means snail as far as I know, but it gets used to describe a lot of things that are spirals. My favorite breakfast pastry is a Nussschnecke (nut snail) which looks a lot like a cinnamon roll. There are Mohnschnecke (poppy snail) as well. The pastries are spiral tastiness. As a final parting shot in Animal or Baked Good, a slug is a “naked snail” (Nacktschnecke).
A Few Rodents Among Friends
First off, rodents are called “nibbling animals” (Nagetier).
Guinea pig as an animal is a Meerschweinchen, which means “little ocean pig”. No clue on the why. It is certainly an interesting name, but not so descriptive. However a guinea pig as a test subject is a Versuchskaninchen or “testing bunny”. A Gerbil is a Wüstenrennmaus or a “desert running mouse”. Umm ok, maybe someone knows the why?
The Final Reversal
Most good stories have a reversal right at the end. Here is this one. A snake is called Schlange. So far so normal, but a line of people waiting for something is also a type of snake. It is a waiting snake, “Warteschlange.” So the German language not only uses descriptive words for the animals, uses the animal names to describe the world.
April 25, 2011 @ 4:45 pm
Lovely article, loved seeing all the interesting names for animals and hopefully will remember a few to add to my very limited vocabulary for animals in German (I really only know cat, dog and bear)
One of my favourite ones is Rotfeuerfisch for Lion fish as it seems like they couldn’t think of a name so just called it what it looked like. XD
April 26, 2011 @ 11:05 pm
Red-Fire fish. Well, I know that lion fish are redish and poisonish, so maybe they got it from that. Sometimes it seems like the real name of things is just what happens when someone doesn’t remember the word and just describes it vaguely.
March 28, 2011 @ 7:30 pm
Great post! German animal names always make me snicker. I especially love Flusspferd for hippo. Funny that the word Schlange actually sounds like what it is, too.
March 28, 2011 @ 7:49 pm
Thanks. The hippo is a funny name in English, it is even more so in German. I hadn’t thought about the relation between Schlange and the sound of a snake, but you are right.
March 26, 2011 @ 2:23 am
That’s awesome. So if you are good with German but don’t really know about animal names, you can just name them based on the character, who knows it’s correct!
March 26, 2011 @ 11:44 am
Yeah. I tend to do the Germanic thing of describing something as if it is the real word for it. I am usually about 50-50 being right.
March 22, 2011 @ 5:05 pm
Brilliant post! I love how straightforward the Germans are with their language.
March 26, 2011 @ 11:30 am
Thanks. Some things are so completely logical and others make no sense.
March 22, 2011 @ 8:00 am
I love how literal these are and yes it does seem very German and I also learned a few new animal names in German too, thanks!
March 22, 2011 @ 8:16 am
Thanks for the comment. Congrats on the wedding by the way.
March 22, 2011 @ 7:59 am
Thanks for the language lessons on animals. Definitely interesting how they come up with those. Some make sense and some just make you scratch your head.
March 22, 2011 @ 8:15 am
You’re welcome for the lesson. Maybe I’ll do an addendum at some point of the more boring names. 😉
March 22, 2011 @ 7:58 am
BOb and I try to visit with local animals in every city we visit- I love the red panda, he looks pretty cute to me!
March 22, 2011 @ 8:14 am
Thanks. That picture was in New York City of all places. I don’t seem to take many animal pictures. At least in the last years with my digital camera. I do have a desire to see Kiwi birds in NZ, and there will be pictures of that when I manage it.
March 22, 2011 @ 12:28 am
Hahah this is good to know, soo many weird and interesting animals! I cant believe people really do eat that stuff !! CRAZYY
March 22, 2011 @ 8:09 am
But that is the cool part, really none of these animals are weird. They just have weird translations of the names. 🙂 I do agree on the eating though, that IS crazy. Thanks for stopping by.
March 19, 2011 @ 5:18 pm
Fun post. Not surprisingly, we have the same type names in Norwegian – neshorn, stinkdyr, beltedyr, etc. I think in the Germanic languages (that aren’t English), we tend to create names that makes sense, translate rather than keeping a Latin name. Same for a number of things, incl. medical terms.
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March 19, 2011 @ 4:56 am
[…] of travel with my linguistics fascination this week in a hilarious post featuring great photos. Fun with Translation: Animals Edition Share […]
March 19, 2011 @ 1:24 am
Very entertaining post! I didn’t know any of these names before but it was fun trying to sound the words out 🙂
March 19, 2011 @ 11:29 am
If you want to hear them spoken, you can try http://dict.leo.org. Search for the German word and there are little speaker symbols that show a layer with a player.
March 19, 2011 @ 12:19 am
What an absolutely fun read my friend and a lesson in German to boot!! Way to go.
March 19, 2011 @ 11:28 am
Thanks. Although not sure how useful it is of a lesson, but definitely if you ever get accosted and asked to mention animals in German you are set.
March 18, 2011 @ 10:15 pm
haha. awesome! Yes, we Germans are funny, right? 🙂 And hey, I always say “Schnecke” or “Schnecksche” (little snail) to my girls…:)
I also like “Wühlmaus” – “rummage mouse” which reminds me of the “Wühltisch” the rummage table…:)
March 18, 2011 @ 10:34 pm
Oh, btw one of my “Schnecksche” just told me why we call the guinea pig “Meerschweinchen”: it’s because the sailors used to take them on the voyage for having fresh meat as they repoduce very fast… 🙂 and maybe it’s PIG because they taste like pork? 🙂
March 19, 2011 @ 5:20 pm
It’s true! Guinea pig tastes like pork. At least that what everybody on our group said when they tried it in Ecuador. I didn’t because I was too grossed out by the presentation: big stick through the whole thing and BBQ-ed. Could still see little face with teeth and tiny little paws 🙁 Yuck!!
March 22, 2011 @ 8:08 am
Hey, Sabrina, yeah I don’t think I could deal with eating guinea pig either. Ali wrote a post about it with pictures here. Eating Cuy : the night my dinner waived at me Seems like the paws and teeth thing is normal.
March 23, 2011 @ 3:45 am
I thought the guinea pig tasted like chicken, not pork. Either way, it was entirely too much effort for such little meat.
Wait, what was the topic again?
March 19, 2011 @ 11:27 am
Wühlmaus is a good one. Another one of the little rodents called a Vole in English. And that is a really cool story about the Meerschweinschen. Maybe they would have pigs on land and just use the word pig for “animal we eat”, so a guineapig becomes an animal we eat at sea.
March 18, 2011 @ 9:07 pm
Haha! I never even stopped to think that Schildkroete = shielded toad.
Regarding Schnecke… There was a time when boys used to call (hot) girls a “Schnecke” as in a boy approaches a girl as says “Hey Schnecke” 🙂 Don’t ask me why though!
March 19, 2011 @ 11:19 am
Yup, the Schildkröte was the first one I noticed when learning German years ago. I have heard some stories about the “Schnecke” for girls being dirty. Dunno.