| Serious translations |
"official", common and widely used words |
|---|
Country or Language
Land oder Sprache |
The word for "kite"
Das Wort für "Drachen" |
Remarks
Anmerkungen |
| Afrikaans |
vlieër |
Visitor Johan Jordaan wrote in Jan.2002: The plural is
vlieërs. The two dots on the e is a deelteken (litt. division sign)
which indicates that the word is divided into two sillables directly before
the letter with the deelteken on top. |
| American Sign Language |
If you are right handed, take your left hand
index finger and point (touching) to the center of your right wrist just
below your right palm, with your palm flat (fingers might be extended to
indicate a bigger kite). Your right thumb would normally be about 4-6"
away from your right cheek, initially. At the same time wiggle your right
hand (slight rotating wiggle, not a big wave unless your kite always flies
that way:-)) while raising it higher about 6-10". |
| Argentina |
barilete (barrilete) |
Thanks to Cemal Eroglu and Patricio Serra, visitors of
this site |
| Arabic |
tenin |
Thanks to Sunny, a visitor of this site |
| Belgium |
vlieger, plakwaaier, windvogel
Flemish: drake |
Koen Remans wrote: "In Belgium there are three official
languages: dutch, french and german. So the official translation would
be "vlieger", but there's also dialects. I don't know about the "plakwaaier",
but I think it's some kind of dialect, like "windvogel" (=windbird) also
is dialectic.
Yves van der Straete added: Flemish is a belgian dialect.
We at the belgian coast talk about a drake, the rest of the country about
vlieger, plakwaaier, windvogel or cerf-volant.
|
| Bengali |
Ghoori, Ghuddi |
Thanks to visitor Anika Ameer! |
| Brazil (Portuguese) |
Pipa, Papagaio, Quadrado, Barrilete, pandorga |
Thanks to Miguel Gonçalves and Laercio de Assis,
visitors of this site, for the additional entries. Also thanks to the
anonymous person behind the email address starting with "carleopo"
for the last entry.
|
| Cafifa, raia, piao, morcego |
In May 2001 visitor Antonio wrote:
... We have lots of names, according to Region (Northe, South, etc.),
or to State ( Amazonas, Rio de Janeiro, etc). ...in my District we can
also call "CAFIFA". We have other names regionally talking: raia, piao,
morcego, etc.
Thank you, Antonio!
|
| maranhao |
In March 2002 visitor James Piton wrote:
Very interesting! This "maranhao" is a variant for kite in Brazil,
in my region (Sao Paulo).
I invite you to see my small list for "tic-tac-toe" in many
languages.
|
| Bulgarian |
  (read:
chwirtschiljo) |
Thanks to my former colleague Alexander Nentchev
|
| Chile |
volantin |
Thanks to Patricio Serra, a visitor of this site |
| Chinese |
Pianzi |
Collected in rec.kites ages ago. Please read on below. |
| (Mandarin): feng zheng |
Visitor Stig Losnegaard wrote: This is the most common
name for kite in chinese (Mandarin). A chinese book on kites will refer
to kite as "feng zheng". |
| (cantonese): fung ts-ung |
Visitor Kelvin wrote: i'm pretty sure about this, but the
hyphen is only for pronounciation. It toke me something like 5 mins to pronounce
and also write these notes. |
Visitor Greg wrote in May 2001:
Hi from China...been living here and flying kites for
4 years. I have seen some translation errors and inventions for Feng Zheng
in other web sites. According to a modern chinese dictionary v- feng means
WIND...and zheng means struggle, strive, contend. I personally think a
translation of "wind struggle, or wind contend - captures the essence
of what we do when flying a kite.
....did a bit more research in a larger dictionary...and sure enough,
the word "zheng" was written differently. The root meaning is still strive,
or contend, but the kite version of zheng has additional lines in the
character - meaning bamboo. Hence the original meaning of the sound made
by early kites, when flown. Personally, i still like the "contend against
the wind" translation.
|
Editor's note:
Last time I asked, "To
me personally, Kelvin's entry looks like the way to speak out Stig's written
words. I'd appreciate the help of any native Chinese speakers in this
matter."
Derek Teoh answered,
"For
the entries in Mandarin and Cantonese, the characters are the same, but
the pronounciation is very different. I'll try my best....
Mandarin - Feng Zheng:
Feng - said with the same vowel sound as "fern"
Zheng - Said with the same vowel, but instead of plain old "z" sound,
its more like a cross between "z" and "j", basically a stronger "z".
Cantonese - Fung Tsung:
Fung - said with the vowel [as] in "phone"
Tsung - said like "soong", but with a slight "t" pronounciation at the
start. Can't write the characters though..."
Many thanks for your assistance, Derek!
Anybody out there who can write down the Chinese characters, put the sheet
on a scanner and e-mail the electronic
result to me? I'd love to add it to this site, just like the Bulgarian
word...
|
| Czech |
drak (steerable kite: Rogallo) |
Thanks to Fritz Umlauft |
| Danish |
Drage |
| Dutch |
Vlieger |
| English |
Kite |
| Esperanto |
kajto |
Thanks to visitor James Piton |
| Estonian |
Lohe |
| Farsi (Persia) |
Badbadak |
Thanks to Kai Griebenow, a visitor of this site |
| Finnish |
Leija |
Thanks to Simo Salanne, a visitor of this site |
| French |
Cerf volant |
| German |
Drachen |
| Greek |
(Hartaetos) |
Thanks to Visitor Derek who wrote, "Direct translation
is Paper Eagle." |
| Editor's note: Upon my earlier request
I received a few GIFs of written words in non-western letters from visitor
Philip Newton. Thank you! |
| Hebrew |
afifon, plural: afifonim |
Thanks to Peter Peters, who forwarded the word from a rec.kites
posting by Gal Sherbelis to me. Visitor Erez sent
this correction in Jan.2002: Afifon (afifonim is plural) |
| Hungarian |
Sárkány
(paper kite: PapÃrsárkány)
|
Thanks to Sean Ellwood and Tibor Gerecs.
|
| India |
Hindi/Hindisthani is spoken throughout northern
India. Our word is: Pathang
|
India is a huge country containing many cultures
using more or less different languages. Mainly there are "northern" and
"southern" languages, both derived from different past languages. So far,
it seems that at least throughout northern India the word "Pathang" is the
one of our interest, regardless of the local linguistic derivate. It may
be common across entire India, but this is not confirmed. Any response in
this matter would be welcome!
Special thanks to Joshi Amaresh for explanations about northern languages
and Antony for the first "southern" entry. |
| Marathi is a "North Indian" language
spoken mostly in the state of Maharashtra (the state that contains the city
of Mumbai/Bombay) Our word is: Pathang |
| Malayalam is a south Indian language
spoken in the state of Kerala. Our word is: Pattam |
| Telugu is spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
Our word is: Gaali patam |
Visitor Vijay Reddy wrote in May 2001:
Telugu is the language spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. It's
a 'South Indian' language. The word 'Gaali' means wind, and 'patam' means
kite.
Kannada is the language spoken in the state of Karnataka in India. It's
also a 'South Indian' language. An interesting linguistic fact is that many
languages in India are heavily influenced/derived from the ancient language
of Sanskrit. That's the reason you will see many variations of a very similar
sounding word. |
| Kannada is the language spoken in the state of Karnataka.
Our word is: Pata |
| Indonesia |
Layang-layang |
| Sundanese: Langlayangan |
Visistor Dian T. Nugraha wrote: "Sundanese is one
dialects (or even language) in Indonesia. You can see similarity to the
mother tongue. We fight with our kites. The loser is who has his kite's
chord broken/disjointed. Someone may have the lost kite if he gets it from
the air." |
| Italy |
Aquilone, Cervo Volante or Cometa |
Thanks to Massimo Mula for the last two entries.
|
| Jiddisch (traditional Jewish) |
furevigel |
Thanks to Salomon Heiterlein, a visitor of this site. |
| Japanese |
Tako |
Thanks to visitor Philip Newton for the GIF. |
| Korean |
Yeon |
Visitor Kwan sent me this correction in April 2001:
KITE IS YEON IN KOREAN. (NOT YOUN)
Thank you, Kwan! |
| Lojban |
volfalnu |
An unknown visitor wrote:
Lojban is a constructed language, more information is available about it
from: http://www.lojban.org/ |
| Melayu |
Layang-layang / Wau |
This entry came from an anonymous visitor. If anybody knows
where Melayu is spoken or if this is a hoax, please let
me know. Thanks! PS: That's why the form asks for an e-mail address.
As anyone can see, your privacy will not be violated. |
| Mexican (Spanish) |
Papalote |
| Norwegian |
Drage |
| Nicaragua (Spanish) |
PAPAGAYO, PAVANA
|
An anonymous vistor wrote in september 2001:
Some Latin American countries have different names for kite. The most common
is BARRILETE, but also PAPAGAYO is frequently used, and in Nicaragua, a
common name is PAVANA. Good website... congrats. |
| Polish |
Latawiec |
Thanks to the Lady who used to tidy up my former company's
rooms. I'm ashamed of never knowing her name. |
| Portugal |
Papagaio
|
Thanks to Edward Werninghaus, a visitor of this site. |
| Romanian |
zmeu |
Thanks to visitor Brendan Pawlowski |
| Russian |
vozdushniy zmei |
In March 2002 visitor Natalia wrote:
"Kite " - in English, in russian this means "Vozdushniy zmei"
or flying snake.
Many thanks for the correction, Natalia! |
| Serbo-Croat |
Zmâj |
Thanks to my former neighbour Marijan Sipic |
| Spanish |
Cometas |
| Sundanese |
see "Indonesia" |
| Surinamese |
Frigi |
Submitted by a visitor of this site, unfortunately anonymous.
Could somebody please confirm
this translation? |
| Swedish |
Drake |
| Tamil |
Kaathadi |
| Thai |
Wow / Wau |
| Turkish |
uçurtma |
Thanks to Michael Schmid, a visitor of this site. |
