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Language treasures
Posted By BlackBellow
Some months ago I wrote about language treasures which were collected by a Council of Europe initiative. Everyone was asked for his favourite word, which he thought was especially interesting, funny, worthy of protection.
Here you can see what people considered being worth collected: International language treasures
Some of my favourites are:
nebeprisikiskiakopusteliaudamas - Lithuanian for being not able to pick enough Brussels sprouts.The sender says in the description of the expression, that it is the longest Lithuanian word, and they like to use it for making foreigners familiar to Lithuanian
carabistouilles - Belgian French from the Walloon region, an expression which is a synonym for speaking with the air of importance, fanfaronde or blatancy; in an exaggerating way.
Hundslappadrífa - Icelandic word for big and soft snowflakes (”as big as a dog’s feet”)
Sommersprossen - German for freckles
Now, what’s your favourite word, on that list or in your own language? I am curious ;-)
Mar 13th, 2008
I like Carabistouilles the much. Because Im french from Lille, a town in the north of France, which is often said to be tha main-town in Flandres, and indeed it is, in some way, thought Vlaams not spoken there. Im just near belgian boarder, and I often hear vlaams, but Im closer to Walloonia, so I hear Wallon vacables even more often. And even if I don’t anymore, I used to use carabistouilles a lot (and I often said some…)